How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets (17 page)

“You know, ” Evan says, “Tracy was the first girl I ever slept with.”

“Really? I didn’t know that, ” Charlie says. “I thought you were still a virgin.”

“Ha, ha.”

“Were you
her
first?”

Evan stops, surprised by the question.

“Yeah, ” he answers.“Why do you ask?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“That means it’s something, doesn’t it, Chuck?”

“No—I shouldn’t have said anything. She’s dead. You shouldn’t gossip about someone who’s dead.”

“Go ahead, Chuck. Tell me what you were going to say.”

“Well. I heard she slept around, that’s all.”

Evan bristles, but he forces himself to laugh. He’d like a little more information before he makes Charlie swallow his fist.

“You never heard things in high school, Chuck, you know that. You were too much of a nerd. How could a guy like you have heard anything?”

“I heard enough things, ” Charlie says.

“You’re talking out of your ass, Chuck. She didn’t sleep around. She was either with me or she was studying. She was a hell of a lot smarter than you, you know. What did you get on your SATs?”

“What does that have to do with it?”

“She’s my old girlfriend and she’s dead and you’re dissing her, that’s what it’s got to do with it. So shut up.”

“Sorry, Evan. Let’s drop it.”

Evan considers dropping it for about half a second.

“If you’re so sure, then tell me who she was fucking.”

“Ev, just drop it, man. Forget it.”

“
How
do you know, Chuck?” Evan demands.“You’re a lawyer, present your evidence.
How
do you know? Give me names. Dates.”

Evan feels Charlie stiffen against this comment.

“Look, Evan, Tracy was a nice girl. I’m very sad that she died. Let’s leave it at that, okay?”

“Fuck you, Chuck. You’re a prick to throw out some bullshit comment like that and then not have the balls to stand behind it. You’re a pussy.”

“All right, fine, then. I’ll tell you. I don’t care. She had a baby right after she graduated high school, less than nine months after you two broke up. Okay?”

A lump shoots up into Evan’s throat, making it impossible for him to speak. Charlie knows about the baby.

“Okay?”

“What about it?” Evan asks.

“Well, if you’re
not
the father, then I guess she slept around. If you
are
the father, then . . .”

“Then?”

“Then I guess you’re an asshole, ” Charlie says, “because I heard that the father abandoned Tracy and the kid.”Then, after a pause, he asks:“Are you the father?”

Evan goes numb. He doesn’t know why. He’s already told his parents, which means that Charlie is less than twelve hours away from knowing. So why does he feel sick? It’s already in motion, the steel balls have been released, randomness is being formed.

“Are you the father?” Charlie repeats.

Evan can’t answer because Charlie is picking at fourteen years of scab, and it hurts.

“I didn’t think so, ” Charlie says. “Look, I’ve got a breakfast appointment tomorrow with clients. Call me tomorrow, okay?”

“Fuck you, Chuck, ” Evan says, releasing everything. “I’m his father, and his name is Dean, and Tracy didn’t sleep around, and if you say another bad word about her I’ll come over there and beat the crap out of you in front of Eric.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’m his father. I have a fourteen-year-old kid. Didn’t see that one coming, did you?”

“Holy shit! Do Mom and Dad know?”

“They know.”

“What did they say?”

“They said they thought it was really great. They were very happy for me.”

“You’re joking.”

“Yeah, I’m joking.”

“Oh, man, ” Charlie says, “I can’t—”

“Believe it?”

“I mean, I . . . Look, I really have to go to sleep. I have a big meeting . . . Oh, shit. Can we talk about this later? Tomorrow isn’t good. Maybe the next day? Lunch or something. Shit, I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything, Chuck. We don’t have to talk. I just wanted to tell you firsthand rather than have you hear it from Mom and Dad.”

“Wow. Yeah, thanks. We’ll get together and you’ll tell me the whole story from the beginning, right?”

“Sure, Chuck.”

Evan wonders what time frame Charlie has in mind for this get together—next month? Next year?

“All right, then. Goodnight, Ev.”

“Goodnight, Chuck.”

Goodnight, goodnight.

E
VAN WORKS HARD for the next few days. Not hard at his job, hard at Dean. He tries to entertain Dean as thoroughly as possible. Nary a moment passes without some scheduled activity. They hang out at Fremont Guitar together, then they go for dinner, then to a movie or to see a band somewhere or to hang out with friends. Or he drags Dean to Lars’s house, wherein the band hangs out in the basement and listens to the demo over and over, talking about what might become of it, while Dean spends the evening upstairs in the den playing Gran Turismo. With so much to do, Dean seems bored.

A full week passes like this. Evan doesn’t call his parents and they don’t call him: the “go fuck myself ” comment probably was too much for them. He doesn’t call his brother and his brother doesn’t call him: Charlie has always been famous for being able to block out the little nuisances in his life (his brother, his son, his wife . . .) in order to better concentrate on his work. He talks to Mica briefly a couple of times, but she’s on the go, go, go.

And then a funny thing happens. Evan takes Dean down to the indoor skating park near Safeco Field, where Evan is forced to act fatherly for maybe the first time when he tells Dean that, no, he won’t buy him a two-hundred-dollar pair of new blades, and, yes, Dean
will
have to use the junky rental skates; and, while Evan is watching Dean grinding any rail he can find and landing some precision airs, being smooth on his transfers and even adding a three-sixty to the tail of his frontside gap (like Evan knows what
that
means; but the kid sitting next to him in the bleachers with the cast from his wrist to his shoulder is busy doing a competent play-by-play:“One day I’ll work for ESPN and cover the X-games, ” he says), his cell phone rings. Caller ID: an area code he doesn’t recognize. Jamaica?

“I found you.”

For a moment he thinks it’s Mica, and that thought makes him practically cry: she found him. A statement that resonates so deeply. No one has ever said that to him before. No one has ever found him before.

“I’ve been waiting, ” he says. It sounds kind of romantic.

“I can’t do it.”

What? It’s not Mica. It’s someone else.

“Who’s this?” Evan asks.

“It’s Ellen. I can’t do it. I can’t do what you ask.”

Oh, shit. Ellen. Ellen. Evan gets so focused on certain things that other things go on and he doesn’t even think about them.

“What do you mean?”

“I believe you, ” she says.“I agree. I loved Tracy and I love Dean. I would love to take care of Dean, to raise him. But I have to agree with you that it would not be good to raise Dean near Frank. And I know that Tracy would never have it that way. Never. She would prefer Dean be with you.”

Evan watches Dean, suddenly detached from what he’s hearing. Dean’s like a little mongoose with wheels on his feet. He’s so damn quick, and he shoots up those ramps, it’s positively dangerous, but Evan signed the waiver and Dean insisted that he knew what he was doing.

“Check it out!” Cast Kid shouts, punching Evan’s arm, “alley-oop topside soul! You know that kid?”

“What are you saying?”

“Frank has his problems, Evan, I know. I know. But I love him all the same. And as much as I would love to have Dean with us—”

She’s stopped by her own sobs. She’s crying.

“As much as I would love that, it wouldn’t be right, because I loved Tracy, and I would never, ever,
ever
do
anything
that would betray her.”

“Mrs. Smith?”

“If Frank doesn’t have me, he has no one, Evan. If Dean doesn’t have me, he still has you. You see that, don’t you?”

“Oh shit! He’s down! He went for a five-forty and he’s down!”

Evan leaps to his feet. Cast Boy flies down the bleacher steps and hops the railing into the pit. Dean tried something too hard. A five-forty. It was too much. He was showing off. He’s down. He’s in pain.

“I won’t contest anything. I’ll have our lawyer deal with Tracy’s estate. We’ll sell the house, put everything into a trust fund for Dean. You will be the trustee. I just want you to know we won’t fight you, you have our support.”

Evan makes his way down to the railing.

“Mrs. Smith—”

“Take care of him, Evan. He’s just a child. He’s fragile. Please take care of him like Tracy would.”

The line goes dead; Evan looks over the railing at his son who is pooled on the floor of a concrete basin with three strangers attending to him. He climbs over the railing, throws himself down into the pit, and, thank God, as he approaches, Cast Boy looks up and gives the thumbs up. Dean isn’t hurt. Thank God, he isn’t hurt.

I
CE AND HEAT. Ice and heat. That’s the proper way to deal with contusions and deep muscle bruises, both of which Dean has. Thankfully, he was wearing pointy-parts body armor—elbows, knees, wrists, and head were all protected—which only left his ribs and his left thigh open for injury, and both areas got injured pretty good.

Dean spends the next day nursing his wounds. Evan spends it on the phone with the Seattle School District. He makes the calls from his bedroom with the door shut; he still hasn’t told Dean.

“I’ll mail you out an enrollment form and an immunization and medical records form. When was his last physical exam?”

“I don’t know.”

“He’ll need a new physical, probably, unless his old doctor examined him recently. Do you know who his old doctor is?”

“No.”

“You should find out. He’ll have the immunization records. Do you claim a religious or philosophical exemption?”

“I don’t know.”

“I see. And, of course, we’ll need all school records from his old school district. Can you get those sent directly to us? They will only process the request if it’s made by a parent.”

“Yes.”

“I’ll mail this out today, although it will be faster if you come to the office and pick it up. Do you know where we are?”

“What school will he go to?” Evan asks.

“Well, we’ll have to see where we can place him.”

“I pay taxes.”

“I’m sure, but—”

“There’s a school right up the street on Queen Anne.”

“Yes, Mr. Smith, I’m sure there is—”

“Wallace.”

“Yes,
Wallace
, I’m sure there is, but—”

“No,
Mr.
Wallace. I mean,
Evan
. I mean,
his
name is Smith. He took his mother’s name. Dean Smith. Her name was Tracy. My name is Wallace. Evan Wallace.”

“Mister . . . Wallace? . . . I’m sure there’s a school quite close to you.”

“He’s going into the ninth grade. It’s a high school. I see the kids all the time.”

“I’m sure you do. But, Mr. Wallace, we do our enrollment in April. The classes have already been filled. Now, since you do pay your taxes, we will find a place for your son, but at this late date, I cannot guarantee
where
we will find this place. It might very well be at the high school up the street. It might be in another cluster or another reference area. All I can say, Mr. Wallace, is that we
will
find a place for your son, and we
will
provide transportation for him as needed.”

“Transportation?”

“Either yellow bus or a Metro bus pass.”

Evan sighs.

“Do you think any private schools nearby would take him?”

“I’m sure they’ve all filled their classes, too, Mr. Wallace. It’s a little late in the season.”

“A bad time of year for someone’s mother to die.”

She waits a respectful amount of time.

“I’m sure any time of the year is a bad time for someone’s mother to die, ” she says.

“But this is the worst season.”

“Yes, ” she reluctantly agrees, “in terms of school placement and moving to a new city, I suppose I have to agree with you, Mr. Wallace,
this
is the worst season.”

His next call is to a real estate broker, and her response is much more encouraging.

“I can sell it in a heartbeat, sight unseen, ” she boasts. Her voice sounds as if it might reach through the phone and smack him in the face.

“It’s not very big, ” he says.

“Location, location, location, Evan. Feel your heartbeat. Do you feel it?”

“Yes.”

“That’s how fast I can sell your apartment for you.”

“Don’t you need to see it?”

“Of course I need to see it. And I need to have a deep-cleaning crew work it over. And I need to take all your unnecessary furniture and put it in storage. But I know I can sell your apartment in two weeks, a month, tops. I work at six percent, exclusive only. I’ll drop the paperwork by this afternoon and pick up a key and we’ll move this property, Evan, I promise you. We’ll move this property and get you into something better suited for you and your newfound life with your son.”

He staggers from his bedroom, finally feeling the true impact of Ellen’s phone call. It’s one thing to play dad for a week, but to
be
dad . . . that’s a little shocking. Meanwhile, Dean is somewhere in the icing cycle.

“You need heat?” Evan asks.

“I just started ice.”

“Stay with ice.”

He sits down next to Dean and they watch a bass-fishing derby on OLN.

“Do you fish?” Evan asks.

“No.”

“Do you
like
fish?”

“You mean, to eat?”

“I don’t know. I’m wondering why you’re watching a bass derby.”

“I find it restorative, ” Dean says.

Evan nods as if he understands completely, yet he’s really wondering where in the hell Dean came up with that one.
Restorative?
Must have been on a standardized test or something.

“I was thinking maybe you wanted to head back to Yakima for a few days, ” Evan says after some famous fisherman bags a bass and stuffs it into a special lifesaving box where it will be kept alive until the end of the tournament, at which time it will be weighed and released back into the wild, now a deranged and psychotic victim of post-traumatic-bass-stress-disorder. “You could get your good skates and stuff.”

Dean measures up Evan good and long.

“Okay, ” he says cautiously.

“Clothes. Personal items. You must miss it—”

Shit, he shouldn’t have said that. He must miss it. He must miss his mother, since she’s
DEAD!

“Yeah?”

“Let me be straight with you, kid, ” Evan says, sucking it up. “I was kind of thinking that you would stay with your grandmother most of the time. You know? You’d go to school out there and I’d come and spend weekends with you, and maybe you’d even spend most of the summer with me or something. But that’s not the way it’s going to work out, apparently.”

Dean waits for Evan to explain the way it will work out.

“Apparently, your grandmother can’t leave your grandfather— or, she doesn’t want to. And, frankly, I’m glad about that. But even if I gave you the choice, and you said you wanted to go live with them, I wouldn’t send you back there with Frank around, because . . . because I just couldn’t do it. I
wouldn’t
do it. Because I know he did some things. But, more importantly, because I know Tracy—your mother—didn’t want you there for some reason, and I don’t need more than that to know what to do. Do you understand? You’re going to stay with me for a while. Even if you don’t want to. You’re going to stay with me.”

Dean watches Evan for a long moment. He has an innocent, almost angelic look on his face. Because he’s crossing the line. He’s still a boy, not yet a man.

“Are we going to live in Yakima?” he asks.

“I—”

Evan feels a surge of panic, followed by guilt. Why would he assume that Dean would assume that they would live in Seattle? Where is it written that a son has to move to the father and not vice versa? Shouldn’t he continue to grow up with his own friends, in his own house, with his own memories around him all the time?

“I don’t know. I—we can discuss it. We can think about it. But I’m not sure how I can live in Yakima and still make a living. I’m not sure it’s practical.”

A dark, perplexed look falls over Dean’s face. He turns back to the TV. He works his lips, chews the inside of his cheek; he’s trying not to cry.

“Dean?”

“I miss my mom, ” he says, and he looks at Evan and tears are in his eyes, and Evan doesn’t know how to handle it, what to do. He reaches out awkwardly, puts his hand behind Dean’s neck, and that’s the right thing to do, apparently, because Dean responds to it by leaning forward, tipping himself, folding himself into Evan’s shoulder and becoming a limp little kid crying on his dad. Evan embraces him and feels Dean’s tears, warm and wet, as they soak lightly into his T-shirt, and Evan can’t really do anything but sit there and hold him and think, poor kid. He misses his mom. Poor kid.