Tailspin (Better Than You) (6 page)

The sun is just beginning to rise above the ground when I walk into the house. It’s still dark and quiet, which is why I don’t see the pair of sneakers on the floor until I’ve tripped over them and face planted the ground. “Shit, shit shit.” I roll over and lie on the ground, right in the middle of the floor. Staring at the ceiling, I reply the night over and over in my head; the faces of the people that thought I was their friend, the whispers from the cops about the spoiled rich kids and what they deserve. Eventually the entire night blurs and folds into itself, making it so that no one’s the bad guy and no one’s the good guy. But still I stand in the middle of the crowd, not belonging here or there. I’m the friend and the cop. The brother and the parent. Both sides of one coin.

“Nathan?” I hear Emily whisper. Still lying on the ground, I tilt my head and see her standing at the base of the stairs, a baseball bat clenched tightly in her hands.

“Emily, what are you doing?”

She lets go of her iron grip on the bat and walks over to me, plopping down cross legged beside my prone body. “Are you drunk?” she asks.

“Not one bit.”

“Are you high?”

“I wish.”

She slaps my arm. Hard, actually. “Not funny.”

We sit in silence, me looking up at the ceiling and Emily inspecting her fingernails. “I’m teaching you how to use a gun,” I say, breaking the silence.

Even in the half dark house, I see her face scrunch up in confusion. “Why?”

“Because,” I say, “You need to learn how to use one and how to protect yourself.”

“I would never kill anybody,” she says angrily.

I sigh and sit up, face her and cross my legs. “It’s not about killing anybody. It’s about knowing what to do in case you have to defend yourself. Or Joshua.”

She stares into my eyes, unblinking. “You’re different.”

I nod. “So are you.”

“Touché.”

“Oh, and if I ever catch you doing drugs, I will lock you in a teeny tiny room with nothing but a bible to entertain you and you will never, ever be allowed to come out. Ever again.”

Instead of laughing or telling me off, she continues to stare at me, her eyes soft and concerned. “Nathan, what’s going on with you? Is this about your new police job?” Again, I nod. “Is it hard?” she asks.

“Very,” I say seriously.

“Why don’t you quit? We have the bar. We could move into a smaller house. I know this place has got to cost a fortune and we definitely don’t need all the room.”

“It’s our home, Em. This house and the bar are all that we have left of them.”

She shakes her head, her messy blonde hair flying out from behind her ears. “They’re buildings. They’re not Mom and Dad. We have our love for them and our memories and each other. It’s all we need.”

“I just don’t know if I’m doing the right thing.”

“The right thing isn’t ever the obvious thing or the easy thing. Sometimes you have to dig through all the shit to get to the good stuff.”

“Watch your mouth,” I say with a smile. “When did you get so smart anyways? Aren’t I the one that’s supposed to be giving the advice?”

She shrugs her shoulder, wipes the tears from her big blue eyes. “You don’t always have to be the parent. It wasn’t a role that was yours in the first place, and it won’t be a role you have to fill by yourself.” I can’t help but stare at her, at this girl who was the bane of my existence and is now my best friend. “Just a little hint,” she says, “It might be easier to find a girlfriend if you don’t act like a total dumbass when she says something wise.”

I place my hand on her forehead and push her back. “Hey!” she screams as she falls on the floor, her legs coming uncrossed beneath her.

“Let’s go wake J. I want pancakes.”

8

July 19, 2007

              Heather looks exactly the same as the day she walked out of my life, leaving me naked and alone in the middle of my dark, empty house. A part of me wants to walk over to her, pick up the iced caramel macchiato she’s sipping and wrap my lips around the straw while smiling at her suggestively, but the other part of me still resents the fact that she up and left when I needed her most. So instead, I ignore the people sitting around me and secretly watch her; the way she picks up her pen and sets it down several times before finally writing something down, her finger skimming across some unseen words in some thick book. Everything about her is exactly the same. I didn’t expect it to hurt so much.

              There hasn’t been time to think about Heather and what we had; whether it was real enough to miss or not. The sex was great, and maybe that’s what I miss, but I think it’s more than that. I think maybe it may have been all along and I was just too dense to see it or to allow myself to feel it. But in the months and now years since my parents’ death, feeling things has seemed to be the only thing I can do now. I’m different, and she’s not. I’ve changed, and she’s sitting there completely unaware of the better person I’ve become.

              “Jackson, are you listening?”

             
Jackson
. I snap my head back to the circle of people surrounding me, four pairs of eyes staring back at me patiently.
What were they saying? What were we talking about?
Clementine’s head starts to turn toward Heather, where I had been staring for god knows how long, and I know that I have to say something to bring her attention back to me,
Jackson,
and away from Heather, who knows
Nathan.

              I force a light chuckle and say, “Sorry guys. Zoned out for a sec. What were you saying?” I direct the question towards Casmir, who likes to be called Cas, and smile.

              “We were talking about the post-riot party we’re planning, for whoever can make it. Which, if everything goes according to plan, will be all of us.”

              I glance at Clementine, whose eyes are directed back towards the middle of our group, and breathe a small sigh of relief. Focusing on keeping my back turned toward Heather, I listen to the rest of the conversation; where the party is and what time and who will bring what. This’ll be the big party; the one where I’ll send a three letter text and watch, from a safe distance, as once again the people I’ve befriended are brought down. It didn’t take much convincing to get Chief to see why I shouldn’t be involved in the final show. If I’m simply not there to see it or to be blamed, maybe my newly acquired friends will think I just disappeared for my own good. I’ll never see them again regardless but at least this way my name is clean. Well,
Jackson
is at least.

              Clementine and Casmir are brother and sister and son and daughter to the owners of Northwestern Meat, Inc., one of Miami’s biggest meat distributors. They also happen to be hardcore vegans. In their spare time, they like to organize secretly run riots, pilfer money from their unsuspecting asshole father, and throw parties where everyone gets so high off of LSD that they can’t differentiate between morning and night. They’re my targets. Anyone else who gets brought down along with them is just extra credit.

For some reason, maybe because it isn’t my first time and I knew what to expect, this mission hasn’t been as hard. It’s been easier to slip into a pretend life and keep things straight. But that doesn’t mean I didn’t feel guilty when Clem slipped her hand into mine and looked up at me, her wild hair flying in the light breeze, and told me that she’s happy to have met me. “What are the odds?” she had said, a bright smile on her face and her insanely green eyes crinkled in happiness.

“Obviously pretty good,” I had told her and smiled back, all the while mentally punching myself. Chief wasn’t lying when he told me he was relying on my charm; it’s gotten me into the best possible positions on both of my missions.

It’s irrational and idiotic, but when Clem leans into me in the café, with Heather just feet away from us, I subtly move back, just in case Heather looks over and sees us sitting there. But she doesn’t ever glance over, despite the willing of my desperate eyes. When our meeting is done, Heather is still sitting there, her caramel macchiato now empty and the notebook page full.

I know I shouldn’t. It could ruin everything. But I have to. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her. “Hey Clem, I’ll be right out,” I tell her, and then wait as they walk out of the café. I turn towards Heather and take a step, and then another, and another, all the while thinking about her hair that I had always said was brown and she had always insisted was auburn.
Maybe she was right after all.
How many arguments could I have avoided if I’d just agreed?

I’m standing beside her now, waiting for her to look up and meet my eyes, but she’s so engrossed in whatever she’s reading that she doesn’t look my way. I have to say something to get her attention, but I can’t think of one fucking thing after all this time. A flash of light catches my eye and it’s only then that I see the ring on her left hand; a huge rock glittering in the late afternoon sun. The possibility of her having moved on didn’t even cross my mind, but of course she moved on. She’s the one who left.

Without thinking, I take a step back. The corner of a chair catches my arm and makes the smallest of noises, but it’s enough to pull Heather’s attention in my direction. When she sees me, her mouth drops open and her hands still. “Nathan?” she whispers, surprise in her voice.

I run a hand through my hair and rub the back of my neck. “Hey, Heather.”

She looks around the café, like this is some sort of joke and she’s expecting someone to pop out of the walls and yell
you just got punked
. “What are you doing here?”

“I was, uh, meeting with some friends. From work. Coworkers.”

“Oh. Right.” She smiles slightly. “Wanna sit down for a bit? I need a break.” As she stretches out her hand, I take the seat across from her, careful to keep my expression blank. But there’s a diamond ring on her finger. A fucking rock.

“Congratulations,” I blurt out.

She looks up at me, taken aback, and then glances at the ring on her finger. “Oh, thanks,” she says, looking like she’s just been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. “It just happened a few days ago.”

I nod, and I try to smile, but I think it just comes out as a grimace.
A few days ago
. She’s engaged. She’s getting married. “How have you been?” I ask, trying to keep things from getting more awkward than they already are.

“Really good, actually. I just started a nursing program at a school up in Tampa. It’s a lot of work,” she gestures at the books and notes surrounding her, “but I really love it. I’m just here visiting my parents.” She puts her hands in front of her and fidgets with her ring. “How about you?”

“I’m good. I’ve been good. Busy, you know, but we’re good.”
That was a lot of goods.

She doesn’t respond right away, but when she finally looks up at me, her eyes are glassy and red. “I’m sorry I didn’t- I’m sorry I wasn’t-” She stops and takes a deep breath. “You were so angry and so sad and I just didn’t know what to do or how to help. I ran, and I’m so sorry.”

It feels good to hear her apologize, like maybe we could make things right between us. But she’s engaged. She’s getting married. She sees me glancing at the ring and drops her hands underneath the table. “There were so many times when I would start to call you and hang up, or I would start to drive to your house and turn around. I wanted to talk to you so badly, but you never tried to contact me. You disappeared and I thought that meant you didn’t want-”

“My parents had just died, Heather. I didn’t
think
about anything other than getting Joshua to talk and getting Emily to stop hating me and running dad’s bar and trying desperately to make things work.”

Heather’s mouth opens and then closes, like a fish out of water, while her brows furrow in confusion. “Joshua stopped talking?”

I sigh and run my hands over my face. “Look, it doesn’t matter. I saw you sitting here and I thought- I don’t know what I thought. But it’s okay. It really is. You didn’t have to stick around, cause I’m sure it was fucking depressing as hell. I don’t blame you.” I shake my head and stand. “Anyway, it was good to see you. I’m glad you’re happy.”

“Nathan, wait.” She stops me with a hand on my arm. “I feel like there’s so much I want to talk about.”

I can’t help but glance at her ring again. It’s like a big warning sign to stay away. Like caution tape in the form of platinum and diamonds. A big
fuck you
from God, and I can take a hint. I open my mouth to respond at the exact moment a voice calls my name. Well, one of my names.

“Jackson?” Clem says from behind me. Holding my breath, I watch as Heather first looks behind her, and then at Clem, and then at me, her eyes filled with confusion. I shake my head ever so slightly, hoping she understands the gesture. She drops my arm quickly and then turns her attention to Clementine.

I turn my back on Heather and smile at Clem. “Hey, sorry. I was just saying hi to an old friend.”

“Are you ready to go?” she asks quickly.

“Yeah. We were just saying bye.” I turn back to Heather and swallow down the wave of anxiety pushing up. “It was good to see you.”

She cocks her head to the side, a snide smile on her face. “You too,
Jackson
.” She probably thinks I’m lying to her for the fun of it, or that I make up a different name with every girl. Either way, it’s better than the truth. We hold each other’s gazes for a few more seconds before I turn and place my arm around Clem’s shoulders. She falls into step beside me. I can feel Heather’s eyes on my back, judging and jumping to conclusions. It’s all I can do to keep walking instead of turning around and setting the record straight, but I know that I got lucky this time; I can’t afford to make another mistake.

~~

When I reach the gazebo that the Chief and I agreed was far enough away from the house, I send the text and lean against the salt-weathered wood railing. The party noises can still be heard, and if I stare long enough and hard enough, I can make out the faces of the people hanging out on the deck. Clem’s one of them, waiting there for me to return.