Split (7 page)

“I’m sorry about Mirriam. About tonight. I shouldn’t have dragged you into our problems.”

Oh, I see. It’s guilt behavior.

“Mirriam did the dragging. Other than cooking, what do you see in her? Is it an older-woman thing?”

“Jace,” he says, with a quiet reprimand in his voice.

“What? So far, I’ve seen her pry and fight.”

“Fair enough. She has not been at her best, but that’s my fault. I put her in a situation where she felt like she had to pry, and she’s not good at that sort of thing.” He shrugs.

“So?”

“She is a fighter.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I say.

“Not like that. She just doesn’t put up with any nonsense. And you have to admit that she’s pretty smart.”

I grab the top sheet off the table and hand him the corners. “Hmmm,” I say, not convinced.

He continues, “So, where did you go? There’s a Satellite coffee half a mile away. Did you go there?”

We spread out the sheet. He leans over and starts brushing away the wrinkles. He brushes more and more until it’s smooth. And then he keeps on going. Brush, brush. I watch him, my head tilted, trying to figure out this sudden need for a lake-smooth surface on a bed I’m about to crawl into.

“Did you think I wasn’t coming back?”

He grabs the blanket from the table, and it spills open. I pick the ends up off the floor, and still he doesn’t say anything. His face is pale, and his jaw is tight. While we are putting the blanket, folded, on the foot end of the bed I’m thinking,
He was sleeping out here, waiting to see if I would come back, waiting to hear the buzzer. Maybe he was hoping I’d come back. Maybe he was hoping I wouldn’t
.

Finally he says, “We didn’t give you much incentive to stay.”

I’m too confused to answer. Does he want a brother, after all? I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll wake up in the middle of the night, knowing how to respond.

He sits down on the bed. “I had forgotten about painting the ceiling together.”

He looks at the wall, but it seems like he’s looking beyond it, looking back. Maybe he’s seeing us again. Me up on the ladder, him on the counters.

“In spite of Dad and everything, we had some good times,” I say, sitting down next to him.

He looks me over, and I sit still and tall. After he makes his assessment, he pats my leg in a you’re-a-good-kid gesture. He gets up and walks to his bedroom.

“Good night,” he calls over his shoulder.

I kick off my shoes, realize that we forgot to buy pj’s, and strip off my jeans and shirt. I crawl under the covers. Much better than a lumpy couch—a lumpy mattress.

When I’m lying there, I realize what I should have said to his “we didn’t give you much incentive to stay.”

“You’re the incentive.”

chapter 10

d
uring my lunch period,
I’m at a computer in the media center, trying to adjust my pictures in Photoshop, when I hear the door swing open. Mirriam is
click-clacking
over to me in her low, all-day-long teacher heels. She looks up and down the row of computers, as if she’s registering the total emptiness before she sits next to me. I glance at the seeds that fleck my sandwich.

“What are you doing?” she asks, twisting a blue coffee cup in her hand.

I recognize it from the morning tea ritual she and Christian have going: whoever has the blue cups makes the tea that morning and brings it over. Part of their whole so-together-in-our-separate-apartments thing.

“Just compositing an image.”

She smiles. “Do you eat here every day?”

I shrug. “Like you said, I haven’t got a lot of time, and no one disturbs me here.”

“Except me,” comes a voice.

We both turn. Caitlyn walks in from the other side and asks if she’s interrupting.

“No, no. I have to go, anyway,” Mirriam says, and goes
clickity-clacking
out. Before leaving the media center, she glances back, a little smile on her face, now that I’m less pathetic.

I, Mr. Chatty, can’t think of anything to say.

“You shoot pictures?” She opens a tub of hummus and unwraps a pita. She leans over to see what I’m working on. “Who’s that? Girlfriend?”

“Coworker,” I say.

“Good. Where do you work?” she asks, and then Mr. Chatty takes over.

Blather, blather, “bookstore.” Blather, blather, “Dakota.” I hardly care what I’m saying. I’m talking to another kid. Someone who is listening to me.

When the bell rings and the other kids file in, Eric spots us. He sets his jaw and drags Caitlyn off to work on some Bio thing they’re doing together. He keeps looking over at me the rest of the afternoon. At some point, I’m gonna get it.

There should have been a loudspeaker announcement at practice: Today the part of Coach Davis will be played by Eric Beise. Since the coach has a teachers’ meeting on Wednesdays, Eric runs warmup and drills.

We huddle up at Eric’s command, but Eric is looking beyond the circle, at the edge of the field behind me. I fol-low his gaze over to Caitlyn. Next to her stands her second, Heather, a girl who tries to mimic Caitlyn’s ponytail, but instead of bouncing up in a neat, organized curl, Heather’s hair rebels into frizz. Caitlyn is talking, and Heather is nodding.

When Caitlyn sees me watching her, she yells out, “I never knew soccer shorts could be so hot!”

I grin back.

When it’s time to run the fields, Tom, the right forward I just busted to the bench, falls in line in front of me. He has to be at least half a foot taller than I am, so I can’t see the line over him. The elephant on my chest has started to lose weight, but I’m still at the back of the line, waiting for the beast to sit down and cut off my oxygen.

“Last to first,” Eric screams from the front of the line. A collective groan floats up and then is peppered with complaints. “Ah, Eric. Come on, man.”

“Why do you want to start us off with that?”

I have no idea what they’re talking about, so I keep quiet, checking my steps.

“Last to first,” he shouts again. “Marshall. Move it.”

I step out of line a little to see around Tom the Giant so I can learn the drill from Marshall, whoever he is.

“Marshall, damn it.” No one reacts. “MARSHALL!”

Oh, right. That’s me
. “What?” I say finally.

“Last to first. Go.” Eric veers off the front of the line and waits for me to catch up. “Too good for drills?”

Tom says, “Eric, lay off, man. He doesn’t know the drill. Follow me, Jace.”

He peels off the line and sprints, his long legs chewing up the field. I swing my arms faster, and my legs automatically keep pace. (A trick Christian taught me way back when.) I don’t even notice that I’m getting out of breath or tired until we get to the front of the line and Tom veers in at the lead. He stretches his hand out and motions me to pass him. I want air. I inhale fast, exhale faster. I push harder against the ground and overtake him. In the lead, I get to watch the mountains commanding the earth, obliterating the horizon. But that lasts only about half a second before the whole team passes me, one by one, and I’m in the back again.

I get it now. Last to first.

Once more around the field, but when we’re huddled up, I see Eric cheating out to the side so that Caitlyn can see him. He stretches his arms up and peeks around them. I look over at the girls. When Heather pulls out a box of Virginia Slims, Caitlyn’s mouth turns down. Heather slides a cigarette out. Caitlyn slaps Heather’s hand, and the white rod falls on the grass. Caitlyn’s voice rises, and I can make out what they’re saying: “God, Heather. You know I’m, like, trying to quit.”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Heather says, and I see her sneak a smile as she replaces the lighter in her purse.

“Hey, Marshall,” says Eric. “Soccer now. Perverted gawking later. Try to keep up.”

The team laughs, and I go hot. His eyes flick back to Caitlyn. This has nothing to do with soccer and everything to do with Caitlyn’s attention. I remember how I thought they were dating when I first saw them in the convertible.

“Whatever you say, O Captain, my Captain.”

“You’ve got some mouth, you know? Want me to fix it for you?” He steps toward me.

Okay, so I get that you don’t disagree with coaches. Other players are a different story.

I laugh long and loud, sure to draw Caitlyn’s eye. I check. Both she and Heather have gone still, in eyewitness mode.

“Don’t make an ass of yourself. Not when she’s watching,” I say.

Tom grabs my arm. “Hey man, leave it alone, okay? You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

We both ignore him, staring at each other, and Eric says, “Somebody’s gotta put you in your place.”

I set my teeth against each other and grind them together. I yank my arm free. My place, if he must know, is on top of him, pinning him under my knees, wailing on him.

Tom grabs my arm again. I shake him off, turn, place both hands on Tom’s chest, and shove. He doesn’t move his feet for balance; he just begins to go down. His eyes widen and before I know it, I’ve reached out for his jersey and caught it.

God, what is wrong with me, going after bystanders?

Tom pushes my hand off. “You’re on your own,” he says.

“Sorry,” I start to say, but Eric pushes my back, and I whirl to face him.

I stare at Eric. He’s probably a good twenty pounds heavier than I am, but a little shorter. I’ve got the reach and, let’s face it, the experience. His eyes scan me, sizing me up.

“Eric!” a high-pitched voice calls out.

Caitlyn is walking onto the field. She passes by me without a glance, her ponytail bouncing. And I think,
See, there you go, just when you have a girl painted in black and white, she goes and does something unpredictable and, you know, decent
. She breaks up a fight by simply stepping on a field, undoes the rivalry she started by not looking at me as she passes by.

“Eric,” her voice changes, softer than I’ve heard it before, as if this conversation isn’t happening with a circle of guys around them listening to every cadence, as if her words are just for him. “Heather is … Well, she’s a bitch. Can you take me home after practice?”

“Um, sure.” He keeps his eyes on me, lifting his eyebrows, which makes me want to land one on him.

“Good.” She kisses her finger and puts it on his chest. Her red nail flashes. “You’re such a good friend.” She barely hits the f-word, glancing off it before picking her way to the sidelines.

I’m surprised she didn’t dig her nails into his chest and pry out his heart. But no, that would have been too direct. Just a little bit of flesh at a time. Makes the fun last longer.

When she passes by me, she winks. Worst part is, I wait until Eric can see me, and then I wink back. I’m not doing very well on my bastard-no-more pledge.

Truth is, I just miss Lauren.

chapter 11

a
fter working an extra shift
at the bookstore, where Dakota wasn’t, I pull into the parking lot at Christian’s and turn off the headlights. As I’m clicking them off, I realize that it’s eleven-thirty, and I didn’t call. Crap. My boss asked me to come in on my night off, and I said yes without thinking about Christian.

I clench the steering wheel. Gotta face the music.

I walk into the foyer and hit the buzzer, wishing I had a key and could slink in. The landlord is out of town for a week, and Christian couldn’t get an extra. Damn landlord. Doesn’t he appreciate the importance of his job? I mean, people rely on him.

Christian’s voice comes through, “Jace?”

He sounds out of breath. I. Am. Screwed.

I trudge up the stairs. For two flights, I wonder just how pissed he’s going to be, and my throat is tight with anticipation. On the third flight, I remember his damn ground rules. And by the time I’ve reached the fourth, I’m spoiling for the fight.

I push open Christian’s door. He is sitting at his computer, the chair turned to face the doorway as I enter. His legs are crossed, and his hands are crossed. Crap.

Fightology Lesson #4: Holding it in is the ammunition-building phase of a fight.

Now who resembles my dad?

Mirriam is standing behind him with her hand resting on his shoulder. Her fingers work at his muscles, the end of a back rub.

“Where have you been?” he asks, his voice quiet.

“Work.”

“You don’t work late on Monday nights,” Mirriam says, smirking; she thinks she’s caught me in a lie.

She puts a hand on her hip, and I glare at her.

Christian swivels toward her. “Thanks, hon,” he says. “I’ve got it from here.”

She lifts her eyebrows, her forehead erupting into waves. “Okay. But tell him what a problem this is. You know, because I wanted to call the police. He needs to—”

“Mirriam,” he says, without even a hint of the irritation I’m feeling. “Thanks for waiting with me.”

She sighs and kisses him on the cheek. She looks me over and shakes her head before she goes. I swallow down the bitter invective that threatens to leap through my teeth. When she leaves, she takes the heat out of the room, and I’m back to the cold, knotted-stomach phase. “I’m sorry, Christian; I didn’t mean to make you worry, but, I didn’t know the phone number here; I forgot it, which is funny considering how many times I wrote it down on all those forms, but I couldn’t remember it, and then—” I can’t believe I’m doing this. I sound like a regular kid. I’m not standing silently without an explanation, knowing anything I say can and will be used against me when his temper flares.

“Slow down, Jace. Where were you?”

“I was at the bookstore. I picked up another shift.”

“Really?” His voice goes distant. “Another shift.”

“Really.”

“And when you forgot the number, you didn’t think to look it up?” He still doesn’t believe me.

“Where do you think I was? Out scoring drugs? Does Mirriam think I’m at risk for that, too? Or are you worried I stole some TVs and got held up trying to hawk them?”

“Hey, don’t get pissy with me. You’re four hours late.”

“You didn’t mention a curfew in your ‘ground rules.’” I gesture the quotes with my fingers.

He jumps to his feet, and I don’t move back, but my breathing is fast. As he lifts his hands, I watch to see if they’re fisting. I relax my muscles so it won’t sting as much if he belts me. But he puts both hands in the air, palms facing me.

“You know what? You don’t want to call? Fine. Come and go as you please.” He walks to the bedroom. “Your key’s on the table,” he says, just before he shuts the door.

I listen to the door latch.

The silence settles.

I walk to the table and see a key next to a plate of cold food. He made dinner. Granted, it looks unappetizing—runners’ food, fish on top of broccoli and mushrooms. But it also looks like a lot of work compared to a Swanson frozen dinner.

I blew that all to hell. Stupid, stupid. I shove the chair away from the table and plop into it. But
he
was the one who said that we were going to be roommates, that I had to contribute with money and labor only. So what does he expect from me?

I choose to ignore how he has waited up for me. I poke at the cold fish. I couldn’t eat it now, anyway. Hunger has drained from my stomach.

I hear the click of the door to his bedroom and turn around in my seat.

He walks past me without a look, gets a thick textbook from his desk, and starts back to his room.

“Christian,” I say as he’s passing.

“What?” He stops but doesn’t face me, his gaze glued to the textbook.

“Thanks for the key.”

“You’re welcome.”

He takes a step, but I stop him with, “No, I mean it. And I’ll call you from now on if I’m going to be late.”

He sighs, tugs a chair out, and sits opposite me. “I’m not like Dad. You know that, right?”

I swallow and wonder if I flinched when he lifted his hands.

He continues, “You don’t have to mouth off to me to bring it on faster or to direct the anger toward you. There’s no Mom here to protect.”

“I know. Sorry.”

“It’s okay; I understand it, I do. But you’re out now, and you’ll be okay, I promise. Just try to relax, okay? It’ll take time to adjust, to stop shadowboxing.”

It’s weird when someone gets you, understands what you would never say, not even to yourself. It’s so weird that it makes my throat tighten up again. When I speak, my voice comes out small.

“How long did it take you? To stop shadowboxing?”

“There wasn’t a specific date. It was more incremental than that. When you pummeled the table the other day, I didn’t anticipate it. So we can assume it’s less than five years.”

I nod. “Christian? Thanks.”

He stands and grabs his book. “You might want to apologize to Mirriam, too.”

“Really?” I grimace.

He turns the book face up and examines the cover again. “I’d like it if you could try to get along with her.”

Great. To fit in his life, I’ve gotta make nice with Witchy Girlfriend? What’s next?

“I’ll try, but I’m not promising anything,” I say.

“Fair enough. Are you going to be working four nights a week, then?”

“No, someone was sick.”

“Good.” He pauses. “I mean, I didn’t mean that it’s good that someone was sick.”

“Yeah, I know what you meant.”

I pick up the house key and gesture to my backpack, which is propped against the couch. He leans over and tosses it to me. I get my keys, pry the ring open, and jolt the new key along between the two metal circles until it snaps into place. It will be easy to spot, the gold one.

“The landlord came back early?” I ask.

“Mirriam gave it to you. She wanted to apologize for the other night.”

I sigh, press my palms against the table, and stand up. As I head toward the door, Christian claps me on the back.

“Don’t take any shit, okay?” he says.

“Right.”

Two minutes later, I’m standing in Mirriam’s kitchen with my eyes stinging from the onions she is cutting. Her stove is crowded with a fat covered pot, a deep saucepan, and a shallow frying pan. The burners are turned on, and everything seems busy. I’m waiting for the hand-on-hips posture or the lecture-tone, but she just says, “Did you and Christian work that out?”

I nod and thank her for the key.

“Sure. It’s your house now. I owe you an apology for tonight, too. I’m just protective of Christian.”

She thinks he needs protection from me? She thinks I’m that bad? Hell, she’s probably right.

She continues, “He’s just so closed off about what happened that I know he was badly abused.”

I don’t say anything, but I wonder how he explained away the skin graft. Maybe it’s not noticeable now.

She puts the knife down and wipes her palms on her apron. She starts toward the fridge, and I swing the door open for her. She ducks in, grabs, and emerges with tomatoes and some kind of green herb in hand. I eye them suspiciously.

“I guess you don’t like tomatoes?”

“Depends. Not raw or anything, no.”

Holding the tomato in her hand, she begins cutting down toward her palm. She turns the tomato over a couple of times, still cutting. Finally, she throws the tomato cubes into a pan and they sizzle.

“What do you like?”

“To eat?”

She nods.

I still don’t answer. I’m wondering what I’m supposed to say. Do I admit that I have two speeds when it comes to food—gourmet and junk—that I’m a closet Twinkie fiend and that Ho Hos are my friends? Or do I stick with the beggars/choosers model?

She opens a cupboard, and I see a bag of chips. My stomach roars back to life.

“You can have some,” she says.

“Really?” I unclip it and dig in. “You’re making dinner
now
?” I ask, looking at the time.

She says she didn’t get anything earlier and doesn’t mention that I’m the reason for that. She just goes on, busying herself with pasta and pans. I can barely keep track of what she’s doing. One minute she’s at the stove, the next she’s preparing ingredients. I remember watching my mother cook. It was one of the few times I could get her to notice me. She would look at me even while she stirred and sliced. It’s only sixty-five days until she comes, and then maybe she’ll make us her shepherd’s pie.

“My mom likes to cook, too.”

“Is that why Christian can’t cook to save his life?” she asks.

I laugh. “He has no taste buds.”

“Here,” she says, handing me a knife. “Would you cut up the basil?”

“Okay,” I say and pull off a leaf.

I try to get a comfortable grip on the knife. Truth is, I’ve never really cooked anything. Mirriam comes over to me. “Let me show you this trick.”

She plucks a bunch of leaves and layers them one on top of the other, with the biggest leaf on bottom. Then she rolls it up tight. “Now try.”

When I cut through, I end up with long strips of green unfurling.

“There you go. You’re a natural,” she says, and I know that I’m not, but she’s a teacher, and that’s what they say.

“Listen, Jace. Don’t mess it up with Christian, okay? It might not seem like it, but he’s trying really hard.”

I probably shouldn’t say anything to her, but I finally have someone who knows him.

“I never know what he’s going to do. One second he’s distant, the next …”

“I don’t think he knows, either. Be patient with him. He’s trying to figure out family, and the only two modes he has is the protective big brother and the …” She looks like she’s trying to find the words.

“High-alert orange?”

She smiles. “I was going to say, protective of himself. He’ll probably flip between them a lot, you know. He hasn’t … I mean, neither of you have had such a good experience with family yet.”

“Yes, we have.”

“I know about your dad, that he hit you.”

“That doesn’t mean you know a thing about our family.”

She grips the cheese and concentrates on the grating. Then she stops. “Maybe you’re right. What’s your dad like?”

“He’s considered one of the best judges in Chicago. And he isn’t corrupt or anything.”

“Is that the standard?” she says.

“You ever been to Chicago?”

She smiles and shakes her head. “No, but I’ve heard stories about the corruption.”

“I remember this once, he went to bat for me against an algebra teacher, Mr. Phillips, that …”

“That what?”

“Nothing.” I stir the tomatoes. “If I tell you, it will only add to your ‘at-risk’ diagnosis of me.”

“I’m not that bad, am I?”

I listen to the tomatoes sizzle.

“Okay, I promise I won’t judge you.”

I’m skeptical, but I do notice that she hasn’t asked me where I was or lectured me or anything. And Christian
did
ask me to try to get along with her.

So I tell her about this teacher, Phillips, who claimed that I cheated on a test because I got an A and everyone else got around a D. My dad demanded that Phillips devise a new, commensurate test. I got another A.

“But here’s the thing: my dad never asked me if I cheated on the test; he knew I wouldn’t. A lot of fathers would assume the teacher was telling the truth.”

I want to tell her about the post–soccer game chats we’d have, but it’s not a story per se. It’s just a thing we would do. We would go into his study, and my mom would bring us lemonade—two glasses that she would chill in the freezer for a frosty look. She would lay a towel over the leather chair that seemed to sit there just for me and close the door on her way out. My dad and I would talk about scoring percentages, and he would tease me about how loud Lauren squealed when I scored. Or we would talk about Lauren being fickle. He knew she had cheated on me a couple of times. My mother never even knew we’d broken up. She thought we had been dating for eighteen months straight. She never really bothered to ask; she was too worried all the time about what made him happy, what made him mad.

“Is that done?” Mirriam asks.

“What?”

She goes through a quick chef-thing, measuring spices in her hand, pouring a little of this into the deep pan and some of that into the shallow pan and sniffing while asking me for the salt, the pepper—no, the red pepper. When she’s satisfied, she mixes everything in the pasta. She fills a pasta bowl and says, “Would you taste some for me?”

I get a fork and a soup spoon. I sit down, put the fork into the pasta, rest it against the spoon, and twirl. I shove it in my mouth and close my eyes for a second. Nutty pasta and, what do you know, I like these tomatoes. When I open my eyes, she’s staring at me with a little grin on her face.

“What?”

She gestures to the spoon, and I stop twirling the pasta.

“You’re just a little more sophisticated than a lot of the teenagers I know,” she says.

I put the bite in my mouth. “A big-city thing.”

“Sure, your parents must have made an effort to take advantage of it.”

“My dad did. My mom—not so much. He took me to fancy restaurants. And we would spend one Sunday a month at the Art Institute, looking at the new exhibits and the photography.” I sound like a victim. “I’m not defending what he’s done or anything. I just don’t want you to think of him like that.”