Dive (2 page)

“Good morning, men. As you know, the Slice is a classic dart model. It is excellent for distance and preciseness. Please pay attention and I will now inform you of my secret method of construction. First. Smooth your paper so it does not include any creases, this is for navigational reasons. Then. Fold in half. Then. Go like this, making into two triangles on each side, like a mirror. Flip over and fold up the opposite way for your rudder. Open in half and crease the wingtips. Recrease the rudder. Make sure wings join nose in as sharp a Y shape as you can get. Done. Perfect. Class dismissed.”

My Slice comes out not bad. It’s slick-shiny gold-and-red combat colors, but it feels too light and I wish I had a paper clip to weight the nose. I want to send it on a test flight across the lounge, and I check on Lyle to see if he’s watching me. He’s not. He is looking bull’s-eye at the space ahead, and I know before I turn in her direction that it’s Mallory.

“Bennett called,” she says in an apologyish voice once she gets into talking distance. Lyle already has hopped to his feet. They curl their arms tight around each other. “I’m on standby, but they said it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“What about the station? It’s a bad idea for you to miss work.” Lyle takes a step back from Mallory. He usually goes a little screwy when people want to help him, but it comes off rude. Lyle has more practice with being the helper and the other way around is not true to his nature.

“Work can wait,” Mallory says, flicking her hands. Her nail polish is a between color you’d get if you melted up tinsel with raspberry jam, and her mouth’s a perfect sparkle-berry matchup. She wears her famous-lady sunglasses so I can’t see if she’s got glimmery eyes, but I bet yes because everything else on her—dark pants, skinny sweater, gold necklace, gold earrings, clicky shoes—has been perfectly put together. If Mallory was an airplane model, she’d be tough to assemble, like an Ages 12 & Up.

“I had a fairly uninformative conversation with Gina,” says Lyle, and I think he does an eye crossover to me, meaning
more about that in private
, because all Mallory says is “Ahhh,” and then she asks Lyle if he’ll come to check-in with her and see about other ways to get her on the plane. Lyle tells me to stay put and guard the carry-ons.

From the back, you’d say they look weird together. Lyle’s clothes make a map of wrinkles and Mallory is head-to-toe perfect. Lyle’s straight brown hair needs cutting, it bends inside his jacket collar, but Mallory’s fuzzy brown hair is short enough that you can see exactly how her skull is shaped. She is like our across-the-street neighbor Mr. Englander’s garden, so spruced that you feel like a stray dog cringing for the kick if you get too near. Me personally, I wouldn’t want to spend the time on myself, but then I’m not on TV.

I watch them all the way up to the counter, and I see how when Lyle talks, Mallory keeps her chin moving up and down to show she’s listening, and when Mallory talks, Lyle cups his outside ear to block off the airport noises.

Fruitcake or not, I bet you would have admitted she was the perfect one to call, if you’d spared it the thought.

Y
OU CONSIDERED ALL OF
Lyle’s clients fruitcakes anyway, but the way I saw it some were more fruity than others. There are the people who go to Lyle because they’re nervous to talk in public and they need some pointers. To them, Lyle’s a kind of coach who stands on the sidelines and calls out stuff about projection and pitch. Then there are people who go to Lyle because they’re scared of everything, and talking in public is just one more item to check off a long list of fears. To them, Lyle’s like one of those playground dads, following behind his kid with one hand fanned close not quite touching the back of a neck or belt loop, braced to catch their fall.

Aquaman probably stood somewhere between those two categories, but for a long time he was your favorite fruitcake. You showed me how, wedged inside the second-floor-bathroom sheets-and-towels cupboard, you could hear right through the wall into Lyle’s office. We sat with our knees buckled against the closed door and sucked quiet fingerfuls of peanut butter from a jar that we passed back and forth as we listened.

Lyle started all his clients on relaxation breathing, which was too hard to hear, followed by consonant and vowel warm-ups. Aquaman’s were the best. We liked to listen to him go,
Charge, cheetah, charge!
or
Pi-pi-pi-pi-pickle! Ki-ki-ki-ki-kitty!
Maybe since he looked too solid for the robin chirp of his voice. Maybe since we’d sneaked a look at his index-card fear (he’d got voted head of the PTA, and now every couple of weeks he had to make speeches to a bunch of parents and teachers). All I know for certain was that Aquaman got you loopy. I’d have to put my head between my knees so as not to catch your wild, glow-in-the-dark smile. One look and I knew I’d upchuck every laugh and mouthful of peanut butter trapped inside me.

Dad’s clients are smackpuppies, you’d groan after Aquaman, moist in the face and fumbling for Lyle’s check, had been shown downstairs and out the front door. A guy that big actually thinks he’ll pee his pants because he has to stand up and talk to a bunch of teachers? That is sad, man. That is so sad.

Sad, man, I repeated as I shook my head in agreement, following you into the family room, where we put on Super Nintendo. We didn’t look at Lyle when he came in some minutes later and asked if we’d been eavesdropping on him and Aquaman.

This is my business, boys. Mr. Aquient relies on my discretion. It is an implicit, confidential agreement that the two of you are violating.

Lyle’s lecture voice could give you a feeling kind of like a stomach wedgie, but I’d learned to copy you, keeping my attention on the TV screen no matter how much I wanted to say sorry. Show it some respect, okay guys? Ben, Dustin, are you listening to me?

Uh-huh, you answered for both of us. And we kept calm as clocks until Lyle was all the way downstairs before you said, for both of us, Shheeez.

“I’
M ALL SET.” MALLORY
is standing over me, fanning her plane ticket in my face. “Wake up, Bennett. You’re in a daze. They found me a seat. We’re boarding.”

“Why do you always call me Bennett?” I ask. “When it’s just Ben.”

“Because I prefer Bennett,” she says. Her full answer.

I check my Swiss Army watch that Mom sent me this past birthday when I turned eleven. I’d buckled it on before we left home, changing it from the special designed left-handed watch that Lyle gave me the birthday before. The left-handed watch is better, since the windup stem is on the left side and the strap buckles on the right, so technically it’s easier for me to work. But I figure Mom will like to see her gift in use.

“Do we get another breakfast?” I ask Lyle as we join the line of people shuffling onto the plane. Lyle keeps a lobster-claw hand on my shoulder like he thinks I’ll break loose.

“Should,” he answers. We squeeze up to wave at Mallory, already settled in her good seat in the front of the plane.

“Hey, no fair,” I say.

“These malinky legs need stretching space,” she answers. The guy sitting next to her laughs, a sound that wants everybody to know how terrific it is to be in the expensive seats, and his smiled-up cheeks squeeze into two shiny pink eggs.

“Lyle’s legs are longer’n yours.”

“Turn around and heave ho, sport-model,” says Lyle. “This isn’t a cruise. We’ll be off in four hours.”

“I’ll come visit later,” says Mallory. She slips off her sunglasses and closes her eyes, the gold on her eyelids glimmers like fish skin. Eggcheeks gives her the once-over, then stares ahead and darts her sideways eyes. He’s recognized her as the lady from Channel Five. Sometimes it’s cool, she told me once, but mostly it gets you stuck in small-talk quicksand. Best to keep your sunglasses on or your eyes shut.

Lyle lobster-claws me all the way to seats 37E and 37F deep in the back of the plane. “If this explodes, we’re all of us done for,” I say. “Did you know the back and front are statistical crispers? Heads and tails, the most dangerous parts of a plane.”

But Lyle mutters something about how the plane won’t explode because it would be too much bad luck in one week. His answer makes me feel quiet, and I keep my tongue still until he asks why I phoned Mallory.

“Are you mad?”

“Don’t answer a question with a question.”

“It was up to her to come. Besides.”

“Besides what?”

Besides, you need someone for when you see Mom, I almost said, but I didn’t want to get into it with Lyle. So instead I say, “Besides, Mallory’s nice,” which works a little smile into the middle of Lyle’s stiff-edges face.

“She’s nice to be here with us,” he agrees. “She’s missing work, but she says they can spare her for the next couple of days.” I know Lyle’s talking out loud to persuade himself.

“If Mallory says it, she means it,” I remind him.

The pilot’s voice comes on. He introduces himself and talks about the plane ride, then he says I guess the same stuff in Spanish, a long strip of words like
burra-burra-caracha-day
, and I wish I knew Spanish.

After he’s done, the TV screens show an instructions movie about what to do if we sink or catch fire. I’d already seen it last year, when Lyle took me to Dolphin World. So this time I yawn and budge around to show the other people how I’d been on a plane before and I already know about the secret gizmos above and under my seat. A plane is boring, like sitting in a too-crowded movie theater except for you’re strapped in seat belts and there’s no popcorn. First time Lyle took me on one was a big disappointment.

“Don’t kick,” says Lyle, clapping a hand on my knee. “Store the energy until after we land.”

“Okay.”

“We have to save our strength for helping Dustin, right? He needs us now.”

“Right.” Which isn’t true, because I never knew someone who had less need for people than you. Lyle’s got to have that one figured out by now, but I guess he has a hard time seeing himself any other way than as the guy somebody else might need.

W
HEN LYLE STARTED DATING
Mom, you told me you’d thought she was a client, scared of the peep of her own voice and hunting down Lyle for bravery lessons. Showed how little you knew about her. By the time she met Lyle, Mom was already employed as a telemarketer for an insurance company, selling accidental-death-and-dismemberment policies. This much for a leg, a little less for an arm, and a stash of cash to your next of kin if you packed up and died. Any person selling D & D insurance over the phone can’t afford to be shy, or there goes your commission. Mom never had trouble with talking, no need for Lyle’s help or his book,
Speaking to Save Yourself
. The fact of it was she met Lyle by pure chance on Valentine’s Day in the Stop & Shop, both of them looking for oven cleaner.

We’d moved into town after Mom left Dad, which turned out to be for the last time, only I didn’t know it then. There’d been a week of driving far, far away from him, then another week in a Budget Lodge motel, until she found us a one-bedroom sublet in the King Plaza Complex.

It’s not much, but it does the job, Mom said. And we’ve seen worse, right? Now that I’ve got a steady paycheck, I think it’s time to plant some roots.

I said I thought so, too, although I was betting we’d hook up with Dad soon enough. He always found us, especially after Mom broke down and called him to tell him where we were. Meantime, I liked the apartment. The lamps, stereo, and TV were all programmed to one handheld remote control. The sofa was a pullout for me, with cushions made from bogus tiger and leopard skin. There was even a stack of naked-lady coasters in the coffee table drawer. Mom said typical slime-dog bachelor pad. She acted to all our apartment neighbors like she’d lived better Before, that the King Plaza was a step down.

It seemed to be only a small while after we’d settled in that I started hearing Lyle’s name. First Mom was talking on the phone to Grammie about the nice man from the Stop & Shop, then next thing I knew I was being baby-sat by pickle-breath Mrs. Roberts from across the hall while Mom met Lyle for dinner and a movie. Then a twelve-red-roses delivery, then me writing
Lial called
on the message pad while Mom was in the basement doing laundry. He talked low and rumbly, different from the soft static of Dad’s voice.

I still can picture the first time we pulled up in your driveway. I had my fingers on the door handle, ready to jump because Mom had smelled up the car with her hairspray. You and Lyle were standing on the front lawn, tossing a baseball. Snow was heaped up on the sidewalk, but the day was warm, good catching weather. When I got out of the car, the first thing Lyle said to me was that my glove was next to the lamppost. I looked and there it was, a Wilson original, camouflaged on the brown winter grass and smelling like spring.

All yours, Lyle said.

I barely thanked him and had it tried on before you pitched the ball at me, aiming straight for my face, and when I blocked for the catch, the force snapped my wrist back quick and painful.

Whoa, nice play, Lyle called to me, with a smile to water down what you did. But then his eyes strayed to you, unhappy. Lyle doesn’t push it but he wants things to go down easy. That’s why he’s good at his job. He can’t stand thinking about people getting mucked up in the complication of themselves.

Mom was wearing her pink dress and there was no right place for her to sit and watch us, so Lyle had to quit playing to keep her company.

You boys practice with each other, he said, while we fix lunch. But as soon as Lyle took Mom’s arm, you squirmed your hand out of your mitt and tagged along behind them into the house. So then I had to go, too, although I’d rather have stayed outside in the good air. There was no yard at the King Plaza, and the desk guy yelled if you ran in the lobby.

This is my living room, that’s a picture of my mom, over there’s my dining room. Upstairs is my bedroom and my work space. In back’s my kitchen. My mom hand-painted those flowers on the kitchen table. That’s my mom’s scarf on the peg by the back door.

You were pointing to everything at once and talking squeaky out-of-breath like a girl.