Tangled (7 page)

When my mom pulled into the driveway the next morning, she honked twice. My dad was still sleeping. He didn’t work last night, but he keeps the same hours seven days a week. I grabbed my bag, checked to make sure I’d remembered my iPod, and then headed outside. My mom was in the driver’s seat, her blazer neatly pressed, her brown hair pulled in a low ponytail.

She popped the trunk. I threw in my stuff. As I was buckling my seat belt, she pointed her manicured finger in my direction and said, “I am
not
happy with you right now.”

“It’s great to see you, too,” I said as she reversed onto Meadowview Drive.

I wasn’t exactly in the best mood. The guys on the team kept texting last night, giving me hell for fucking
up baseball season. And then, when I called Wegmans to tell my manager I’d be away for the week, he said he couldn’t guarantee my shifts when I returned.

For the first half hour of the drive, my mom didn’t say a word to me. Her phone kept ringing. By the third call, she clipped on her earpiece and answered it. It sounded like some woman she exercises with because my mom apologized for missing her at the gym. “A small problem came up,” my mom said. “I’ll be there next Saturday.”

So that’s what I was to her. A small problem.

After she hung up, my mom hit a button on her phone. “Hey, Owen,” she said. “I just wanted to make sure you found that cinnamon roll I left on the counter.”

She checks to see if my brother eats breakfast?
He’s fifteen, for God’s sake.

My mom proceeded to tell Owen there was grapefruit juice in the fridge and cash on the table. I was just wondering whether she was going to instruct him to shake his dick after he pissed when she said, “And don’t stay in front of that computer all day. It’s a beautiful spring morning. Take a bike ride or something.”

She tells him to take a bike ride?

As soon as my mom hung up, I said, “You need to let
up on Owen. You baby him too much. You need to let him take care of himself more, become a man.”

“Thanks,” my mom said, “but I’ll pass on your parenting advice.”

“As long as you’re okay having a wuss for a son.”

“Leave Owen alone,” my mom snapped, turning on the radio. “He’s doing fine.”

Leave Owen alone.
That was a phrase I’d heard my entire life. Owen was only two and a half years younger than me, but my mom was so protective of him you’d think he was an infant. He’d always been on the scrawny side, not particularly athletic. My dad used to get mad at him for never wanting to play ball with us. That was back when we all lived together. Sometimes, when Owen and I argued, I’d knock him around a little. But as soon as my mom showed up she’d scramble to my brother’s defense, grounding me without even hearing both sides of the story.

A few minutes later, as we were cruising along the thruway, my mom turned to me. “Do you want to tell me what happened yesterday?”

“Would it help?” I asked.

“Help what?”

“It sounds like you’ve already cast your judgment.”

“Tackling Natalie’s brother, Dakota? Getting sus
pended? Drinking and trespassing? Do I have much of a choice?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” I muttered.

My mom cracked a Diet Pepsi. I put on my iPod and stared out the window. After a while, we exited the thruway. We passed gas stations and cornfields and rusty trailer homes. Finally, I could see the tip of Cayuga Lake. It’s forty miles long and narrow, like a river. My grandparents spend every summer in their cabin halfway up the lake, but we rarely visit them here. Usually my mom brings Owen and me to their Florida condo in the winter, or they come into Rochester and meet us for brunch in the summer.

As we turned onto the dirt road that leads to their house, my mom gestured for me to remove my iPod. I popped out one ear.

“You didn’t call Pauline for her birthday yesterday,” my mom said. “She wasn’t happy about that.”

“I had other things on my mind,” I said.

“The world doesn’t revolve around you, Dakota.”

“Is that
your
parental advice for the day?”

“You know what?” my mom said. “Screw you.”

“Your mothering techniques are getting better and better,” I said.

Neither of us spoke for the rest of the drive.

It took Pauline thirty seconds to insult my mom. We’d just walked into the main room of the cabin. I was carrying my bag. My mom had a stack of presents for her mother. Bill was at the counter, slicing peaches. Pauline was at the dining-room table, thumbing through the newspaper. She looked up, brushed back a wisp of silver hair, and said, “You’ve gotten fat, Melinda.”

“I’m the same as always,” my mom protested.

“So you’re saying you’ve always been fat?” Pauline looked back down at the newspaper. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, happy birthday, Mom.” My mom set the gifts on a chair. “Hi, Dad.”

Bill pecked my mom on the cheek. As he was shaking my hand, Pauline glanced up again. “Hi, Dakota,” she said to me. And then, to my mom, she added, “So he’s gotten himself into trouble?”

“Can we talk about this privately?” my mom asked.

“Bill,” Pauline said to my grandfather, “bring him upstairs. And remind him to take off those sneakers.”

I kicked my sneakers onto the doormat. It was weird the way she was talking about me like I wasn’t here. As Bill shuffled up the stairs, I tried to catch his eye, have a male-bonding moment at the sake of the ladies. But no luck. Bill had this flat expression on his face as he
stared past me. I think he’s still in his sixties, but he’s bald and his shoulders are stooped, probably from a lifetime of being henpecked by Pauline.

We entered the small bedroom at the end of the hall. It’s the same room Owen and I stayed in when we came here three or four years ago. Bill handed me a towel, showed me how to work the thermostat, and quickly left. I tossed my bag in a corner, dropped onto the bed, and pumped up my iPod.

A few minutes later, my mom came upstairs.

“You okay?” she asked, hovering in the doorway.

I took my music out of one ear. “What do you think?”

My mom sighed. “I’ll see you next Saturday.”

“You’re seriously leaving me here?”

“I’ll call you.”

“Don’t trouble yourself,” I said, shoving my earphone back in.

My mom closed the door and went to her car.

At dinner that night, Pauline stabbed a leaf of lettuce. “You’re looking more and more like your father,” she said, angling her fork into her mouth.

That’s all we were eating, by the way. Lettuce with steamed broccoli and tofu. No wonder Bill was such
a wuss. I should take him out for a burger while I’m here.

“I hear you’re going to Fredonia,” Pauline said after a minute.

“Yeah,” I said.

“Good school,” Bill said.

“But not the best,” Pauline added.

“Of course not. If you’re going for the best state,” Bill said, “it’s got to be Cornell’s ag school.”

After dinner, Bill served us leftover birthday cake. As Pauline licked her final dab of frosting, she said, “You didn’t call me yesterday.”

“I had other things going on,” I said. And then, for some reason, I added, “It was my girlfriend’s birthday.”

Pauline set down her fork. “You have a new girlfriend already? I thought your girlfriend died.”

“No,” I said quietly. “It was the dead one’s birthday.”

Pauline and Bill looked at each other and then, without another word, cleared their plates, piled them into the sink, and retreated to the TV room.

Talk about exile. Knolls Landing was so far off the grid I didn’t even get cell phone reception. Not that I wanted to spill my soul to anyone, but it might have been nice to text a few guys, see if we won against Spencerport. I had my computer with me, but I couldn’t look up the game because they didn’t have Internet access here. Fucking Dark Ages.

I actually
needed
to get online because I was supposed to email my homework assignments to a few teachers who don’t understand that the sole perk of suspension is the break from school. I barely cared about grades at this point, but the last thing I wanted was for an F to wreck my chances of going to Fredonia. I told my grandparents about the homework and suggested maybe I could borrow their car and drive
into town, find someplace that has wireless.

“No way,” Pauline said. “Not after the trouble you got into back home.”

That’s when Bill dug this ancient fax machine out of a downstairs closet. “Fax it in,” he said in his typical monotone.

“Do you have a printer here?” I asked.

Bill shook his head.

“But I’d have to print out my homework to fax it in,” I said.

“Guess you’ll be handwriting your assignments,” Pauline said, clucking her tongue.

I made a face.

“Your generation,” Pauline said as she retrieved two yellow slickers from the hall closet, “is way too dependent on technology. It’s frightening, really.”

I wanted to tell her that
she
was the frightening one here, but before I could respond she was already out the door.

This was Wednesday. It had been raining since Saturday night. A cold, driving rain with no end in sight. At first, it hadn’t mattered that the weather was shitty because my knee was still wrecked from the fight with Timon and my biceps were still pulled from lifting too much. After a few days, though, I felt much better. But
the rain was coming down so hard I could barely step outside without getting soaked.

My grandparents, however, couldn’t be stopped. Every morning at nine fifteen, Pauline and Bill donned identical raincoats, boots, and waterproof hats and embarked on a power walk. Their whole joined-at-the-hip thing was freaky. They spooned up their bran cereal together, read the newspaper, went on their walk, ate their lunch, took their nap, watched their shows—and never once invited me to join them. The only thing we all did was dinner, and even then they mainly talked to each other. It’s not like I’m the guest of honor at my dad’s house, but it was strange to feel so unwelcome. My mom was their only child, growing up in nearby Syracuse. I had to wonder if she felt this way too.

The days were long in Knolls Landing. I watched whatever I could find on their four staticky channels. I wrote out my homework until my fingers were indented, and then faxed it into school. For the rest of the time, I lay on the bed listening to music. That’s when my stomach burned the worst.

Mostly, as I lay there, I wondered about Natalie and Jake, about that poem Timon had begun reciting when I slugged him. I could only remember one part,
something about “feeling the flowers,” whatever
that
means. Part of me wanted to know the rest. I wanted to know what Natalie could say to Jake that she couldn’t say to me. I knew it would fuck me up even more, but not knowing was worse.

If I had wireless, I could find it in a second. Natalie’s friends have this tribute blog for her, all these pictures and even some videos of her at cheering competitions. Gina Robinson told me they were going to post coverage of the ceremony. I’m sure they’ve added…what did Timon call the poem? “For Jake.” I’m sure they’ve added “For Jake” by now.

So now the whole world can read Natalie’s poem and see how she was in love with Jake Kulowski while she was going out with me. Everyone’s probably laughing their asses off at me right now. And here I am, unable to defend myself, banished to the rainy fucking Dark Ages from hell.

On Wednesday night, as Bill did the dishes, Pauline pulled out an old photo album. I was sitting across from her at the dining-room table, spearing the last of my green beans and bemoaning to myself how this is worse than weight-dropping during wrestling season. For a second, as I looked at the leather-bound album,
I thought,
Oh, wow, a grandmother moment.

“Here he is,” Pauline pronounced as she landed on the last page of the album.

“Who?” All I could see were a bunch of upside-down faces.

“The man your mom should have married.”

I looked over at Bill but he was turned toward the sink.

“Henry Ruderman.” Pauline rotated the album around so I could see the photos. “Melinda went out with him for two years at Colgate. We really thought he was the one.”

I glanced at the pictures. Nothing special. Just a younger version of my mom posing next to some guy with fluffy blond hair.

“He became a corporate lawyer in Albany,” Pauline added.

By that, she basically meant:
Not a cop like your dad.

“You know,” Pauline said, “the whole thing with your father was a mistake from start to finish.”

“Except some mistakes,” Bill said as he turned off the faucet, “you simply can’t reverse.”

“Exactly,” Pauline said, closing the album.

I stared at both of them. Natalie used to tell me I
was an asshole. I probably
was
sometimes, but maybe I couldn’t help it. My parents have asshole tendencies. My grandparents are
definite
assholes. Maybe there was just no escaping my genes.

Late Wednesday night, the rain finally stopped. On Thursday morning, Pauline and Bill took a power walk and then loaded canvas bags into their trunk. Thursday, they informed me, they drive into town. First a trip to the library, then the co-op for vitamins, then the grocery store.

After they left, I settled at the kitchen table. I had to finish an assignment for politics in government. My handwriting sucks, so I kept making mistakes, crumpling up the paper, and starting again. Finally, I rammed my fist against the table and went in search of Wite-Out.

I was rifling through a desk drawer when the phone rang. I glanced down. No caller ID here in the Dark Ages. I hesitated for a second before picking up.

“Hello?”

“Dakota?” my brother’s voice asked.

“
Owen?
Why are you calling here?”

“I have a free period at school. I just wanted to see how you’re doing. I tried your cell and it’s off.”

“You called to see how I’m doing?” I asked. Owen and I never talk on the phone. And in person, it’s nothing more than pass the ketchup, where’s the remote, it’s my turn to take a shower. He isn’t the most social person in the world. And I’m not exactly gunning for one of those tight, brotherly friendships.

“I just thought it might be sucking there,” Owen said.

“It’s definitely sucking.”

“They shouldn’t have sent you to Pauline and Bill’s. You got suspended and climbed the locks. It’s not like you murdered anyone.”

“Yeah,” I said, feeling shittier by the second. “I can’t believe my life has come to this.”

“That reminds me of this quote I recently heard. Hold on…let me look…” Owen paused and I could hear him clicking at his laptop. “Here it is. ‘Whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.’ By some guy named Max Ehrmann. I think it’s supposed to mean that even though things suck right now, it’s all going to be okay in the end.”

“You sound like a chick when you recite quotes,” I said. I couldn’t help it. I was in a lousy mood and my brother stepped smack into the middle of it. Also, he was being too pushy with the life advice, like he was
suddenly going wise on me.

“I sort of liked it,” Owen said. “I heard it from a friend.”

“A real friend or someone online?”

“I was just trying to be nice.”

“Don’t.”

Neither of us said anything. After a moment, Owen said, “I’ve got a class in a few minutes. I better go.”

“Me too.”

We quickly said good-bye and both hung up.