One Lonely Degree (18 page)

“What about the counseling?” I ask bluntly. “You guys were going every week. I thought things were getting better.”

Dad sighs. “It’s not as simple as that, Finn.”

“Okay, fine,” I say, like talking about it’s boring me. Dad looks discouraged, and I’m glad. He can’t tear our family apart and expect everything else to stay the same.
It’s not as simple as that
. “Can we do the schedule thing over the phone? I have to go.”

Dad doesn’t answer. His cheeks sink into his face as he takes his hands off the table.

I blink down at him as I stand. “I’ll call you, okay?”

It takes all my strength to pretend that I couldn’t care less how he feels. If he knows me at all, the way I’m acting should make it clear how wrong he was to leave.

“Will you?” he asks quietly.

It’s the saddest thing I’ve ever heard. It breaks my heart, but I’m going just the same.

“I’ll call,” I tell him. “I said I would.”

I run most of the way to Jersy’s house. My chest’s pounding and my throat hurts like I just had my tonsils scraped out with a jagged piece of glass. I can’t catch my breath, but it doesn’t matter. Jersy won’t be home, but that doesn’t matter either. Nothing matters much. Except getting away.

I slow down about a block from Jersy’s house and smooth my hair into place. I don’t want the Mikulskis asking me what’s the matter. I wish I could sneak into their house unnoticed, like the Invisible Woman, and just be somewhere calm and normal for a change. I could sit on the edge of Jersy’s bed and stare at him and he’d never know.

The thought jumps up and down inside my head, making me shudder. I shouldn’t think things like that. He’s Audrey’s.
Don’t be crazy
, I lecture.
You’re just sad. You’re reaching out in any direction. It didn’t mean anything
. The shock lasts for about ten seconds, and then I’m back to being miserable.

Christina sees it in my face when she answers the door. “He’s out on his dirt bike,” she says apologetically, her eyes squinting with concern. “Why don’t you come in and wait awhile?”

“No thanks.” I push my lips into a rigid smile. “Just tell him I stopped by.” It was a bad idea to start with. I should’ve called Jasper or Maggie. Nishani might’ve wanted to hang out with us too.

“’Kay,” she says. “I’ll let him know.”

I walk purposefully down the driveway, in case she’s watching, but my shoulders slump at the end of his street. It’s too soon to go
home, but where do I go? I’m kicking myself for not getting Nishani’s number and simultaneously trying to choose a first runner-up (Jasper or Maggie) when I spy a guy pushing a dirt bike up the road in the distance.

It has to be him. My hand shoots up to wave, and he hesitates a second before waving back. I keep walking and meet him halfway, sadness coiled so tightly into my lungs that it aches to breathe.

“Hey, Finn,” he says, coming to a stop in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Hi,” I say back. “I didn’t think you’d be home.”

“Not much point in coming to visit me then, is there?” He smiles and starts walking again. His strides are longer than mine, despite the fact that his legs are shorter, and I practically have to jog to keep up.

It’s obvious that he’s not going to ask me what happened. He can’t read my mind like Audrey. He probably doesn’t even know something’s wrong.

“Did you bring your swimsuit this time?” he asks. “You didn’t, did you?”

“No.” I shake my head. “I didn’t really think you’d be here. I was having a crisis moment.” Suddenly I can’t stop talking. “And I just ran over here, thinking you’d be out. Not actually thinking, if you know what I mean. Just running. And then your sister answered the door and—”

“What happened?” Jersy cuts in. His eyes are pure blue in the evening light.

“My dad came over and I didn’t want to talk to him. Seeing him just makes everything feel worse.” The coil squeezes as I continue. “I don’t want to worry about my parents or us as a family anymore. It’s too hard. I wish I could’ve gone away for the summer
instead of Audrey. I wouldn’t even care about being bored. At least I’d be gone, you know? I’d be out of it.”

“Yeah, but you can’t really be out of it, can you?” Jersy says. “They’re your family.”

“I know. That’s the problem.”

“Yeah,” Jersy repeats. We stop at the end of the street, and he adds, “I dropped by your work a couple days ago to see how things were going, but you weren’t around.”

“I heard.”

“So.” Jersy cocks his head. “You coming in with me? I have something to do later, but I have a couple hours.”

I want him to ask me a second time. To make sure he really means it. “Does your mom know what’s going on?” I ask.

“Yeah, she talked to your mother earlier today.” I’m glad to hear Mom called Anna back. She hasn’t been returning most of her friends’ calls these days, but she needs someone to talk to.

We start walking again as though I’ve agreed to go with him. Jersy puts his dirt bike in the garage, next to a snowboard, and charges through the front door with me in tow. The smell of tomato sauce wafts forward to greet us. “Fifteen minutes, Jersy,” Anna shouts from the kitchen.

He glances over his shoulder at me. “You hungry?”

“Not really.” I’m starving. I just don’t want to sit around the dinner table making polite conversation with the Mikulskis.

“I’ll get something later,” he yells back. “Finn’s here. We’re gonna hang out for a while.”

Anna emerges from the kitchen looking homey and together. My mom looked together earlier too, but it was a lie. “I spoke to Gloria this afternoon,” Anna says gently. “I was sorry to hear about the trouble with your parents. Are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine.” I fix my eyes on the tile floor.

“If you ever need anything, just give me a call, will you?” I look up at her and see that she means it. That chokes me up and I nod, unable to get the words out.

“Upstairs or downstairs?” Jersy asks, tugging at my sleeve.

“Upstairs, I guess.”

We leave Anna behind and go up to Jersy’s room. I surprise myself by closing the door automatically behind me. It feels all right, and I sit down in front of his computer while he flicks on his docked iPod. “I know what you’ll want to hear,” he says, scrolling through the menu.

“American Idiot” blasts through the speakers. I know the words by heart, and I bob my head along, singing in silence. Jersy smiles as he stretches out on his bed.

“You’re not gonna fall asleep on me, are you?” I ask.

“I’m not that kind of tired,” he tells me. “My body’s tired, but my brain’s completely alert.” He props his head up with his hands. His hair looks soft, like it’s never been subjected to a styling product. “I’d ask you to come to this thing tonight, but it’s not your scene.”

“What thing?”

“My birthday thing. A few of us are driving over to Joel’s brother’s place in Windsor. He says there’s always a party going on somewhere.”

“I didn’t know it was your birthday,” I chirp. “Happy birthday.”

“It’s tomorrow.”

“Well, ‘Happy birthday’ for tomorrow then.” That makes him a Cancer: intuitive but changeable. I seriously have to cut down on the bullshit astrology sites.

“Thanks.” A grin carves into his cheeks. “When’s yours?”

“Not until October.” Libra. Supposedly that makes me sociable and well balanced with amazing taste but a tendency to be lazy. It’s
about half right, which is enough to keep someone with a lot of time on their hands checking their horoscope.

We both tune into “American Idiot,” absorbing the lyrics. I don’t understand how somebody can appreciate Green Day and listen to crap like 50 Cent. It blows my mind.

Jersy blows my mind, and I’m trying to fit the pieces together, watching his head move to the beat of the song, when someone raps loudly at the door. Mr. Mikulski swings Jersy’s door open and stares over at me. He switches his gaze to Jersy and motions for him to turn down the music. I reach over and turn it down myself. It’s really not all that loud. We could understand each other just fine.

“The door was closed,” Mr. Mikulski says sternly.

That’s my fault, but Jersy’s eyes bug out at his dad. “It’s Finn.” Jersy points at me like his father’s being ridiculous.

“That doesn’t make any difference. You know the rules.” The crisscross lines on Mr. Mikulski’s forehead make him look like Frankenstein. “We want this to be a safe place.” Mr. Mikulski’s heavy stare makes Jersy blink.

Twenty seconds ago I was comfortable in my own skin. Now the dread’s back. What does Mr. Mikulski mean about wanting this to be a safe place?

“Okay,” Jersy says quietly. “Sorry. Leave it open.”

His dad stands in the doorway for a few seconds before turning and walking away. I get up from my chair, check to make sure he’s gone downstairs, and then sit penitently down again. “I’m sorry,” I tell him. “That was me. I didn’t think.”

“It’s okay. You don’t know the house rules.” Jersy smiles as he continues. “I guess Audrey didn’t tell you everything.”

“Yeah.” I slide my ass to the edge of the chair, ready to fly. “I should get going anyway. You need to rest up for later.” My palms
are moist and my jeans are sticking to the backs of my knees. I’m amazed my voice sounds normal.

Jersy rolls off the bed and turns up the volume again. “Don’t let him throw you. He’s like that with everyone. It’s a family policy.” The bed creaks as Jersy leaps back onto it like a skydiver. “No members of the opposite sex allowed behind closed doors.”

My parents don’t have house rules like that; I never needed them.

I check out Gizmo and find his beady eyes staring back at me.
“He can see you,”
Jersy teases, quoting me from that first time at his house.

I roll my eyes at him and then sweep my gaze around his room. It doesn’t look any more finished than it did four months ago. Actually, it looks more like a walk-in closet than a bedroom. Jersy’s cell phone’s on the hardwood floor next to a jumble of mismatched running shoes, socks, and a deodorant spray. He’s taken the pictures off his mirror, leaving it blank, and I wonder if the Chinese girl’s smiling secretly away in his desk drawer.

“Your photos are gone.” I point at Jersy’s reflection. “Do you still keep in touch with your friends in Kingston?”

“We IM,” he says. “And I’m going up there for a week at the end of August.”

“That’s good.” The nerves haven’t gone, and neither have I. There’s nowhere better to go, and Jersy’s pretty easy to deal with, for a guy. I slide down in my chair and concentrate on Green Day. If you listen closely enough, you lose the separation between yourself and the music. I won’t get there now, with Jersy in the room, but I can feel it in my pulse and that’s good enough.

Jersy’s head is down on the bedspread, his arms at his sides. I watch the calm rhythm of his breath and barely even mind that he lied about staying awake.

I DID
n
’T LI
e
about phoning my dad; I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I’m not in any hurry to listen to his hurt voice over a long-distance line, asking why I’m mad at him. Why do I have to explain myself? He should already know that things were difficult enough when he was around. With him and Audrey gone, there’s nothing left holding me in place. Mom’s lost in her own sadness, and she never understood in the first place. She’s always blamed things like bad posture, vitamin deficiency, and my aversion to cosmetics. She thinks I could be normal if I tried harder.

You’d think I’d be relieved now that normal has lost its currency, and in some ways I am, but I can’t stand to see her so deflated. Mom was a talented third-year drama student when I came along. She was meant to be a career actress, not just some random girl in a tampon commercial, but my parents, acting more responsible than their years, decided to get married. Mom never
finished university, and Dad, who’d been aiming for grad school, swerved into an education degree instead.

They told Daniel and me the truth about their history and never sounded like they regretted it; they had each other, and they had us. I guess it seemed like enough, but now Mom doesn’t care about anything. The day after Dad’s visit she went back to lying on the couch like someone with a permanent case of the flu.

If Dad came back, she’d be better. They could try harder and make it work. I know they could. But Dad doesn’t want to give it a chance.

So why should I buckle and give in the second he seems unhappy? Besides, I’m busy, busy, busy. I have things to do. E-mails to send. A Web site to update. Long hours to put in at Play Country with that stupid logo busting across my chest.

Somehow Mom managed to shrink one of my uniform shirts in the dryer. I got ketchup down the other one on break yesterday, which leaves me no choice but to put on the former large and current medium. It’s a typical Monday-morning thing, along with Mom making us ten minutes late for the start of my shift. She screams at Daniel in the car because he forgot to tell her he was supposed to show up early for a bus trip to African Lion Safari.

Lucky for him the bus waits. A harried camp counselor ushers Daniel onto the bus, pausing to frown critically at my mother.