Beetle Boy (8 page)

Charlie, I can tell that you're a very private person, and I want to respect your privacy, but lately I can't help feeling like I'm being shut out. I want … I need you to start telling me more about your life. Your family. What happened back then? I get that it was hard. But I need to know more. Maybe I can help you. Maybe things could get better. Now that you have…me.

Now that I have Clara. What does that even mean? Do I have Clara? If I do, am I under obligation to hand over everything—all the ugliness and confusion, all the secrets, all the lies? All the reasons I am so alone?

Where are your friends?
I hear Clara wondering.
Give me a reason to believe you're a normal person.

“Great pancakes,” I say. “Best batch ever.”

This makes her angry. She stands up and brings her face close to mine.

Did you hear even one word I said, Charlie Porter?

I am silent, scrambling for a way out of this conversation. A sudden leg spasm? A migraine? An attack of indigestion? To my surprise, Clara grabs my plate, sweeps it up, and steps away from me. She is withdrawing her pancakes. And she is on the verge of tears. I haven't seen her cry since she came to the hospital after my accident, and it unhinges me.

“Oh, God, OKAY! I heard you. I heard you. I know I've been kind of … a closed book. It's just … it's just … I've never been in a relationship like this before. Where the other person wants to know
everything
.”

I say the last word a little accusingly, and she surprised me again by exploding angrily.

Don't say it like that. I am not asking you to tell me everything. I'm asking you to tell me the
basics
. Believe me, Charlie, stuff about your parents and your only living brother—those are the
basics.
You could have a different ex-girlfriend on every street of this town, and I don't care about that. I don't care if you have a criminal record. I don't care if you traveled all over Europe and you forgot to mention it. I just want the BASICS!

I have never seen her angry like this. I want it to stop. “Okay, okay, you don't have to yell. I'll try harder. I promise I'll try harder. Can I have my pancakes back?”

I hear myself and think,
Am I nine? Is she going to send me to my room now?

She still has the plate in one hand, aloft. She is not backing down. She is wearing an unfamiliar, matronly frown. She wants one important revelation before pancakes.

I put my hands over my eyes and release a little groan of submission and then say, “When I was little, I did some really mean things to my brother. And he had nobody but me to help him. So now I can't face him. It hurts me to even say his name. Maybe that's why I have dreams about him sometimes. Okay?”

Clara's expression changes, becomes a combination of gratitude and dismay. She puts the plate back in front of me, and now her voice is quiet.

You can't always have been mean to him. That's not the Charlie I know. You must have been a good brother sometimes.

“I was a terrible brother,” I insist. I want her to believe it. I had never admitted it to anyone before, not even Mrs. M.

I don't know who Dad had to sleep with to get me the author gig at the state capitol, but somehow, in my second year of being the youngest published author in the history of mankind, I got invited to Lansing with four other authors to meet the governor. I kid you not—the governor of Michigan. I was eight years old, but I looked younger; I was unnaturally small, the smallest kid in my class, because I had started school so early. Clara has told me several times how little I was when I came to her school, like a bug. She says it makes her want to cry, remembering me. It makes me want to throw a chair against a wall.

But back to my trip to Lansing. My dad was crazed with excitement for two weeks; he kept calling it my big break and saying it would put us over the top—wrong on both counts—but he did warn me, dropping his enthusiasm for a moment, that unfortunately the old has-been was going to be one of the four other authors.

“Why did they even invite her if she's such a has-been?” I wondered, hiding that I was glad she would be there.

“Who knows? She wrote some hotshot book that won some hotshot award one hundred years ago, and she's still milking it. None of the women I've met at author stuff can stand her.”

I made a mental note to find out what the hotshot book was when I have my next moment alone with her, hopefully during my visit to the capitol as the youngest living published American author.

The Lansing gig was super easy—only a half day, no performance, no anxiety attacks, and no hassles. We didn't get paid anything, but Dad said it was fantastic free publicity. Mrs. M. and I were two of five authors invited; we were at opposite ends of the age spectrum, and the three other authors—one man and two ladies—were more like Dad's age, and one of them was pretty, so Dad went right to work on her, but he didn't wander too far because his big goal for the day was to get a photo of me with the governor of Michigan to put on my future website.

In those days, the governor of Michigan was really beautiful. She is now history, but back then, I remember that she made a big fuss over me and asked me where I get my ideas. I was too unglued to answer her, which Dad lambasted me about later. But we all got to be in a group shot photograph with her and a bunch of other state politicians and staffers. Then she gave a little speech about literacy and children being our top natural resources (“blah, blah, blah,” Mrs. M. said, loud enough for people besides me to hear, I swear). But then came the moment that Dad had been praying for, if you can call his manipulating and conning praying. The governor actually agreed to let him take one picture of just her and me—the leader of our state and the world's youngest and most miserable and neurotic published author.

I got the distinct impression that day that the other authors were seriously annoyed by both me and my dad. I overheard one of the two women authors saying, “Did you notice the dad moves his lips when the kid is talking? Like a puppeteer!”

I met Mrs. M.'s eyes; she had heard this too. “It's true, Charlie.”

“The governor liked him,” I reminded her.

“She knows a good photo op when she sees one,” Mrs. M. said. “It's called politics.”

“I was wondering about something, Mrs. M.,” I said. “I was wondering what your book was that won that big award.”

Her expression changed. She looked suspicious. “Why were you wondering that?” she asked.

“I was thinking I might buy one,” I said.

Sarcastic again. “Oh, that would help me out so much.”

I asked, frustrated, “Why do you even
come
to these deals? My dad
makes
me come. Nobody makes
you
come.”

“You have a good point there, Charlie.”

“It seems like you don't even like being an author. Do you have to do this because you're poor?”

This made her pause. She stroked her chin, thinking. “My husband's premature death was a bit of a financial complication,” she admitted. “But I am not poor.”

“He died? How did he die?”

“Poor lovely man. He fell out of a boat. Hit his head, knocked himself out, and drowned.”

“Was it a long time ago?”

“Ten years.”

“Didn't you have any kids?”

“No kids.”

“Didn't you want kids?”

This question actually made her smile. Was it the first smile I had seen on her pale, puffy-eyed face? Had I actually amused her? She said, “I hate kids, remember?”

“I never said that!”

“Oops. I confused you with a certain relative. No, I never had kids, and no, I don't regret it.”

I had no trouble believing this, even at eight. “But you do miss your husband sometimes.”

“All the time. Every single day. But I'm doing okay without him.”

“I'm doing okay without my mom,” I whispered.

“You are
not
, Charlie,” she scolded. “You need your mom. And she shouldn't have left you. Don't be so blind.”

I was astounded. I couldn't believe she would say something so mean. But she didn't look mean. She just looked sure. All the same, I was suddenly very angry. And what I said next was something straight out of Dan Porter's Book of Life. “You're the one who's blind!” I cried. “You don't have any sense at all! And you're prejudiced against boys!”

She snorted with amusement. “Go away, if I'm so prejudiced against boys.”

“I am never going to speak to you, ever AGAIN!”

“My heart is broken. Go write another book, why don't you? It should take you ten minutes.”

We stared at each other. I think we were both surprised by our own nastiness. I broke the silence and asked, more normally, “How long does it take you to write your books?”

“I don't know,” she said. “I'm basically in a coma when I write them.”

“What's a coma?”

“You'll know when you're in one. Go back over to your dad now. He's getting way too friendly with the folktale lady from Traverse City.” I looked over at him. It was true. He hadn't even noticed that I was talking to the forbidden Mrs. M.

“I didn't mean it when I said I wouldn't talk to you anymore.”

“My prayers are answered. See you at the next author strip show.”

“What?”

“Just GO.”

I skittered away.

I am back in the Green Grove Apartment, searching for a hidden stash of book money, something I can give Clara for letting me live with her. Underwear and clothes are strewn in every room, worst in the bedroom where I find my filthy unmade bed. Hanging by a nail above the bed is the plaque from the governor of Michigan, naming me as a top Michigan author. I realize that if I show the plaque to my mom she might forgive me for stealing her stories. It's not too late. I kneel on the bed and pull the plaque off the wall and see that behind it is a hole packed with bills—the book money! I reach up to start pulling the bills out but then quickly draw it back, aware of a sudden whirring noise, aware of the danger of poking my arm into a hole in that place, the apartment, that bedroom. It's a trap!

I sit up and say out loud, “It's a trap!”

Oops. It's the middle of the night, and Clara is watching me, standing in the doorway to her bedroom.

What's a trap, Charlie?

I don't answer. I fall backward onto the mattress and fake snore, pretending to be instantly back asleep
.

It's evening, and now Clara is standing just inside the front door, twisting her hands and stammering. She has been gone from the apartment for two hours on a weeknight, something that has not happened, ever. I am both relieved that she is back and also anxious because she is clearly searching for words to tell me something she thinks I won't want to hear.

Charlie, listen to me. Listen to me a minute. There's something … there's something I really need to tell you, and I don't want you to get mad at me. Are you listening? Do you promise not to get mad?