What We Knew (23 page)

Something in me flared. I’d always known Lisa had a not-so-secret crush on my brother, but it never bothered me, until then. “I’m her best friend. Why’d she go to you?”

Scott straightened his legs. “If you wanted to run away, where would you go? A city of eight million people or two blocks from home?”

He was right.

“Is she mad at me for telling her mother?” I asked.

“It’s complicated,” he said. “She’s not angry. Actually, she is angry, but not with you. She’s pretty messed up right now.”

We sat there for a while—Scott and I—rocking sideways, knocking into each other, until my brother put me in a headlock and rubbed his knuckles against my skull. I punched him in the leg and then winced. My hand still hurt. I flexed my fingers.

“Do you remember a story about a creepy guy who lived in the woods by the park?” I asked.

“Albert.”

I made a face. “Albert? That’s dumber than Banana Man.”

He shrugged. “That’s what I called him. I don’t know his real name. That story’s been going around forever. He’s just some homeless guy. Built himself this weird tent-house out of tarps and stuff. It’s pretty impressive. Why?”

“You’ve seen it?” I asked. “His house? When?”

“Last summer, when I had community service at Hillhurst. Some of the guys on my crew kept talking about him—this freak that lived in the woods. They dragged me with them once during lunch. They were all like ‘fag’ this and ‘fag’ that, and one of them was ready to tag his house until I reminded him why he was sentenced to community service in the first place—for tagging shit.”

Scott rolled his eyes. He’d hated that summer. Not the community service part. He’d hated working with guys who, had they known he was gay, would’ve lumped him in the same category as Larry.

“You know me,” Scott said. “I went and bought some supplies—peanut butter, bread, toothpaste, stuff like that—and left it outside his door. I guess he was offended or thought it was poisoned or something because the next day, when I opened my locker, there it was—the bag. Freaky, huh?” Scott wiggled his fingers in my face. “How’d he know it was me? How’d he know my locker?”

I glanced at my trunk, my stupid fears surging again. Those eyes, his eyes.
He’s always watching.
But no. That was Katie. No one’s watching. During your darkest moments, eyes always look in the other direction.

“Maybe it was one of the guys messing with you,” I said.

Scott shrugged. “Who knows? Who cares? You ever notice how people project their worst fears onto anything different or strange? Maybe Albert lives like that for a reason. Maybe it’s a choice.”

Guilt gnawed my insides as I wondered where he’d gone. Another wooded area within the city? Another city altogether?

“C’mon,” Scott said, pulling me up by my wrists. “Before Dad steals your bacon.”

I followed my brother to the kitchen and picked at my soggy pancakes, but I wasn’t hungry.

“You can’t sit there staring at your phone all day,” my mother said, clearing the table.

Yes, I can,
I thought.
What else is there?

My dad proposed we go do something. My mother agreed. Scott suggested mini golf.

“It’s closed,” I said. “The place with the storybook characters. It’s pretty depressing.”

I hoped that was the end of it, but Scott did a search on his phone. “This one looks awesome,” he said, showing me the place I’d gone with Adam and Chris. There were pictures of the moated castle and the giant octopus and the ice cream stand. I’d wanted so badly to take Scott, but not now.

“There’s a dinosaur exhibit at the museum,” my father said tentatively. Scott and I just looked at each other, and then Scott clapped his hands on my shoulders, smiled winningly, and proposed, “Let’s go fly kites!”

“You’re joking,” I said. “That’s the lamest idea ever.” But my dad didn’t think so. Scott prodded me out of my chair and toward my bedroom to change. I assumed my mom was coming, too, but she begged off at the last minute. “You guys go,” she said, shooing us out the front door, and then to me, through the screen: “Try to have fun. Okay?”

Squashed together in my dad’s noisy old pickup, it felt like old times, but the part of me that was worried about Lisa kept chipping away at the part that was happy to be with Dad and Scott.

“There’s a toy store in that new plaza out past the traffic circle,” my dad said.

How would you know?
Had he taken the troll’s offspring? My mood sunk even lower. It was a long way to go for some stupid kites, but my dad insisted. I stared out the windshield at the kids making faces at us from the car ahead and asked if I was ever that obnoxious.

“More,” Scott said. “Remember how we used to try to get truckers to blow their horns?”

When did we stop? When did we grow up? When I was little, every Sunday night I’d lie awake afraid of just that—growing up. I’d wanted us to stay just the way we were forever. I don’t know why Sundays. Maybe because I’d had two whole days to be with my family and we were happy. All of us. Once. Braiding the frayed edges of my cutoffs, I cried quietly, Scott and Dad filling my sorrow with small talk until we pulled into a lot where a man in a bear costume was twisting balloons into animals.

“I’ll wait here,” I said, clutching my phone.

“Don’t you want to pick your kite?” Scott asked.

“You pick for me,” I said. “Don’t get anything stupid.”

Scott shrugged. My dad unrolled his window. I turned on the radio and waited for the sliding glass doors to close behind them before sending a text to Lisa. One word, no pressure. Just
hi.
The crackly speakers pumped out one oldie after another while I counted the number of parking lot seagulls and then rummaged in the glove box for mints. I hadn’t brushed my teeth or showered. I found what I was looking for—the familiar red-and-white tin—but dropped it on the floor like a spaz. Mints flew everywhere. I popped one in my mouth and quickly put the rest back, only to spill the tin again when Scott poked his head in the window and shouted, “I got you one with princesses!”

“I hate you,” I said, chucking a mint at his chest.

“Don’t be silly,” he said. “I didn’t get you princesses. That’s for me. I got you a big yellow smiley face to match that sunny disposition of yours.”

“Don’t even think about taking the alien head,” my dad said, climbing in. “That one’s mine.”

Scott tossed the bag in my lap and then tore open a package of strawberry licorice twists.

“Where are we going to fly them?” I asked.

My dad said he knew the perfect place, but he wouldn’t tell us where. We drove and drove, the city slowly shrinking in the rearview mirror, the strawberry licorice twists dwindling, until Scott turned to our dad and said, “You know I’ve got a bus to catch tonight, right?”

“Tonight?” I said. “You just got here!”

“I’ve got a job. Oh, right, you’ve never had one.” Scott poked me in the ribs. “Seriously, where are we going? You’re not kidnapping us, are you? We’re a little old for that.”

“We’re almost there,” my dad lied. It was another fifteen minutes before he turned onto a narrow road that turned to dirt, the trees edging closer and closer. It was dusk dark and cooler there. We bumped along slowly, the truck squeaking and squealing, the tires kicking up dust and rocks. Just when I thought we were lost, the trees parted and the sun broke through, shining on a gently rippling lake spread before us.

My dad parked on the shore and got out, shading his eyes. “Reservoir’s low,” he said.

“I remember this place,” Scott said quietly.

“Your mom and I used to bring you guys here for picnics when you were little,” my dad said.

I didn’t remember.

“Is this the place where we found that arrowhead?” Scott asked.

My dad nodded.

I still didn’t remember, but something about the place instantly calmed me. It was magical—spooky, almost—as if we were the last people on the planet. Or the first. Except for us, and my dad’s ancient pickup, there wasn’t a single sign of life. No houses. No docks. No power lines. No trash. You can’t go anywhere without finding wrappers or cigarette butts, but the shore was immaculate, untouched. I felt my mood lifting, even after Scott made me leave my phone in the truck. I kicked off my sneakers and waded up to my knees, watching the sun bronze across the water. We were less than forty miles from home but it felt like another country. Maybe the man from the woods would find a better place, a place like this.

“Hey!” Scott called. “You want your kite?”

They weren’t anything special, just cheap plastic and a spool of string. I flattened the yellow diamond on the grass and walked with my back to the wind, letting out the line as I went. Scott did the same, farther down the shore. His kite lifted instantly, but mine cartwheeled, skipping along until my father came jogging over. Grabbing the points, he told me to reel it in a little and then tossed the kite in the air. The wind caught. The line went taut. “Now let it out a little,” he said, helping me work the spool. The smiley face rose higher and higher. As I raced along the shore toward Scott, my dad cheered, “That’s it! You got it!”

“What made you think of this?” I called to my brother.

“Think of what?”

“This!”

Scott shrugged. “It seemed mindless. You needed mindless.”

My dad kicked off his work shoes and rolled up his uniform pants. After he got his green alien head launched, the three of us stood at the water’s edge, our kites staggered gracefully above. Wheeling, tumbling, mine took a nosedive until another current lifted it straight up toward the ragged strips of clouds parked over the reservoir. Sometimes it feels like the world is filled only with ugliness and pain, but there’s beauty, too, in the simple act of flying a piece of plastic tied to string, with cool mud squishing between your toes and the bright sun warming your face. I let out my line and my kite soared higher. I was soaring, too, up there with the clouds, looking down on myself, a girl with messy hair and dirty feet, wrestling her brother for the last strawberry licorice twist until their father broke them apart.

“Do you remember when I used to take you guys sledding?” he asked, tearing the candy rope in two.

I did. Back before he left, before Scott left. Back before Scott and I were old enough to choose our friends over our family. Back when doing stuff with my parents felt like a reward instead of a penalty. Swimming. Ice-skating. Saturday matinees. We tripped along the shore, pulling our strings, our dad pulling us back in time. “How about the ball games I used to take you to?”

“I just remember the nachos,” I said.

“I don’t remember nachos,” Scott said. He smiled up at the princesses dancing and twirling. “Oh right, that’s because I never got any. You’d have them all eaten before we got back to the bleachers.”

I sucked my finger and aimed for Scott’s ear, but my brother was fast. I chased him down the beach and around a log. Round and round we went, slipping, screeching, getting dizzier and dizzier, the world spinning. With my laughing and Scott’s howling, neither of us heard our father’s warnings. “Hey guys!” he shouted, pointing out over the water. “Stop!” I skidded to a halt and gazed up. Our kites spun, tangling together, falling. I tossed my spool to Scott, but it was too late. The pink and yellow diamonds dropped from the sky. Scott pulled them in and fished them out of the water and then stood there giving me the evil eye while our dad examined the snarl of wet string. Teasing them apart was impossible. One of the lines had to be cut. Our dad sacrificed the princesses.

“You suck,” Scott said, driving his knuckle into my arm. “You always ruin everything.”

I stuck out my tongue.

“Knock it off, you two,” our dad said, giving Scott his spool and kite. Chuckling to himself, he went to the truck and came back with a blanket and stretched out on the grass. He looked so happy with his fingers laced behind his head, soaking up the sun, offering his advice to Scott and me as we tried to get the alien and the smiley face airborne again.

“You think maybe next time we could get the kind with two strings?” I glanced back at my dad but his eyes were closed. He’d been up all night. “You must be tired, too,” I said to Scott.

“I slept on the bus.”

“What time did you get in?”

“Four something.” Scott pointed out a hawk cruising the tree line. It soared out over the reservoir and shadowed our kites. “Mom made coffee and we talked until Dad showed up.”

“Was it a good talk?” I asked. “Did she tell you she’s not angry about you being gay? She loves you, Scott. She was shocked, is all.”

“And disappointed.” Scott skipped a rock across the water. “You can’t tell me she wasn’t.”

Disappointed with herself maybe, for not knowing, but not with Scott. It was like our mom went Scott’s whole life assuming he had brown eyes, just like hers, until he pointed out that, no, his eyes were blue.

Scott shrugged. “Dad took it better. I think he knew.”

My eyes drifted from my kite to my brother. “You shouldn’t have left the way you did,” I said.

Scott collapsed to a squat. “Can I be honest?” he said. His spool between his knees, he cast off more line. “I needed to go, but leaving’s hard. It was easier to pretend Mom wanted me gone. You’re right, though, I should’ve found a better way. I couldn’t find my old duffel bag. I couldn’t find any bags. I looked ridiculous, with all my stuff tied up in a bedsheet.”

I laughed, and Scott laughed, too, the alien kite sailing away, shrinking into the blue. Racing to catch up, I let my spool spin. “How high do these things go?” I asked.

“Let’s find out,” he said. Dragging his kite back to earth, he severed the knot at the bridle and tied his string to mine, doubling the line. Up it went, higher and higher, the diamond tugging at the spool, greedy for more freedom, until it was just a yellow fleck against the neon clouds. It’s a strange sensation controlling something so far away. Powerful. I knew it was only an illusion—if the wind died suddenly, my kite would plummet—but that didn’t stop my heart from believing it was all me, radiating some invisible force that sent it climbing toward the sun.