The Little Brother (24 page)

“Now close your eyes,” she instructed, and then I danced, the music invading me: free and wild and no one but Tove watching.

“Didn't your family know,” Sara asked, “that you were friends?”

“They never asked where I went, and I didn't say.”

I told her about the forts in the backyard that we built with blankets and cardboard, and how we pretended to be inside submarines.

We created a recipe for alligator eggs: balled Wonder Bread, green food dye, microwaved for thirty seconds, sprinkled with egg whites, and dotted with brown sugar.

She dared me to eat one, and I did, salting it first.

“She wouldn't wear pants for the longest time,” I said. “Refused. Only wore dresses and skirts.”

“Why?”

“She said pants were ‘too restrictive.' But that changed in middle school. She wanted to be like the other girls.”

“Did she lie a lot?” Sara asked. “I'm just curious. I read an article that said she's a compulsive liar.”

“She told these really great stories about gypsies and pirates and stuff. But she didn't really lie. She just told these crazy stories.”

I couldn't really explain to Sara how everything that Tove said and did seemed to come straight from her heart. This had frightened me a little. Tove had seemed unafraid, and the only time her voltage lessened was when her father was nearby.

“My dad's a jerk,” she'd once told me. “He wishes I were a boy, and not me. He likes you more.”

A great affection for Tove welled within me and, just as quickly, a giant sorrow. “I don't understand what happened,” I said. “I mean, what happened to her? How'd she get so messed up?”

Sara said, “Even, she's rebellious, that's all. Girls go a little nuts sometimes. Especially when they're smart. It just happens like that. Who knows why. She was experimenting, trying to find out who she is, what she likes, what she wants. Sixteen years old, you know? Too smart. And she went a little nuts. Maybe she slept with them the night before they raped her, and if she did, so what? Maybe they were trying to get back at her, since she'd cheated on that one guy she thought was her boyfriend. I don't know. I know they're going to attack her for that in court, but my god, she's just
a girl, and she went a little nuts, but now she'll never be okay, after what they did to her.”

“I wish I could talk to her,” I said.

“What would you say?”

“I don't know,” I said. “I'd tell her I'm sorry.”

We were quiet for a moment. Then Sara said, “Whatever happened to my pink towel? You know, the one you hid beneath in the police video footage. What'd you do with it? I hope you burned it.”

Her question surprised me. I had a vague memory of putting it in my laundry basket.

“It's at my dad's,” I said, and as I spoke, I knew that I'd blown it.

“Even,” she said, “we have to find it. That towel's from when I was a kid and went to camp.”

“So?”

“My name,” she said, “is written on the tag. The camp made us write our names on everything we owned. They'll know it's mine, and when they find out, they're going to come after me.”

26.

W
E DROVE TO
Dad's and sat silent and motionless, for a few moments parked at the curb. Sunlight filtered through the tree we'd parked beneath, creating lozenge-shaped spots of hazy gold. Birds twittered.

“Gabe's not here,” I said. “No truck. But Dad's home. I see lights on inside, and he's a fanatic about saving electricity.”

Sara flipped open the visor mirror and gave me a nervous glance. “I'm going with you,” she said. “There's no way I'm waiting.”

“Do you think that's a good idea?”

She didn't answer, instead opening her door and getting out.

The front door was unlocked. We entered and I called out hello, and Dad said, “In here,” so we walked to the living room and found him in his recliner, watching golf and smoking a cigarette.

At the sight of us, his expression became gentle and inquiring, and I knew he was happy to see me. Since I'd moved into the room at Mike's house, Dad appreciated my visits, trying to talk me into staying longer.

He lifted his recliner to a more upright position, muted the TV, and said, “Even! What a surprise!”

My gut wrenched with guilt, disgust, and affection, and I said, “Hey, Dad, this is my friend Sara. We just thought we'd come by and say hello and see how you're doing.”

Alongside a cocktail glass filled with melting ice, a plate on the table next to him had a fly circling it. I knew it was the remnants of creamed chipped beef on toast—half-eaten and an abstract, arty-looking mess—and that Dad had made it from a Stouffer's frozen packet.

“Hello, honey,” he said to Sara, lifting himself from his recliner and setting his cigarette in his ashtray. His loose khakis had bunched around his waist—he'd also lost weight—and were fitted by a belt. “It's so nice to meet you,” he said, and then, to Sara's bewilderment, he stepped forward and embraced her.

Dad, with the emotional lubricant of a few cocktails, could be quite affectionate; I hadn't warned Sara, so she appeared stunned.

She looked at me over his shoulder, aghast. Her eyes widened, as if to say, What the fuck?

When he released her, she said very formally, “Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Hyde.”

“Please,” he said, “call me Dan.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, pausing before adding, quite awkwardly, “Dan.”

Dad rested in his recliner, with us across from him on the couch. He usually smoked with a grim, tight-lipped resolution, as if to get it done with, so that he could spark up another (by this time, his one-pack-a-day habit had skyrocketed to three packs). But this afternoon, all his mannerisms seemed slow.

“I don't know if you're aware, Even,” he said, “but your mother got in some trouble with the police over there in Cucamonga, for putting up fliers around the neighborhood.”

A silence, during which I struggled between wanting to know more and not wanting to know more.

“What kind of fliers?” I asked finally, the latter desire losing out to my initial curiosity.

A sigh, and then he said, “Asking for information about Tove Kagan, I mean Jane Doe, whatever, any so-called information that might help our case. Digging up stuff from the neighborhood. Gina denied they're her fliers”—a grave chuckle—“but it's obvious since her phone number's on them.”

I glanced at Sara—her face was ashen.

“Anyway,” Dad continued, “Gina took them down. All of them. She's trying to help—God bless her—but these kinds of things make it worse. ‘Just follow what the lawyers tell us,' I keep telling her. ‘The PIs will get all the information we need.' It's just hard for her to sit and watch events unfold. She wants so badly to help Gabe. But the Kagans can go after us for intimidation, get more money, those greedy bastards, if Gina doesn't calm down and stop with these tactics.”

“Okay, Dad,” I said.

“The Kagans,” he said, “have hired a PI. They think they can fight us.”

“Okay, Dad,” I said. “Let's talk about something else. How's your golf game?”

“Gabe's on home study,” he said to Sara.

She nodded.

“Couldn't finish out his senior year,” he said. “Such a shame. Too many people know. All the media coverage. Gina's going to make him walk for his diploma, hold his head high, and cross that stage with the rest of them.”

He ground out his cigarette and lit another, saying, “This
48 Hours
thing should help. They're going to air it before the trial. They've been over here filming and interviewing us, and they're going to help us.”

“Dad,” I said, “let's talk about something else.”

“Even,” he said to Sara, “doesn't want to be interviewed,” and then to me, “It's your choice.”

“How much have you had to drink?” I asked, hoping to draw his attention to his inebriation, so that he'd stop talking so openly in front of Sara.

“When Gabe calls,” he said, ignoring me, “the first thing he tells me, and the last before we hang up, ‘I love you,' he says, and I tell him, ‘I love you, too, Son, it's going to be okay, Son, I love you, too.'”

His eyes welled and he wiped each one with the palm of his hand.

“Why,” he asked Sara, “am I talking about this horrible business? Please. Excuse me, honey, for being inconsiderate. This trial is making me a crazy old man. I apologize, honey, I really do.”

I
FOUND
S
ARA'S
towel folded in the cabinet of my dad's bathroom, the lone pink one in a sea of blue, and there on the tag was her name written in permanent marker with a child's scrawl, just as she'd said it would be. I grabbed it, along with a few Demerol
and some sleeping pills from his medicine cabinet, which I put in my pocket. All the while Dad and Sara gabbed in the living room. Their voices came to me in a pleasant murmur. I tried to be quick, worried that Dad would say some more inappropriate shit. To be safe, I placed the towel in a paper bag so that my dad wouldn't see it, along with some apples, cheese slices, Wheat Thins, cans of 7-Up, and a pilfered pint of vodka from the freezer, telling Dad that we planned on picnicking at the beach.

“You two have a good time,” Dad said, standing on the porch walkway and fishing in the pocket of his khakis for his crumpled pack of Newports. “It was really good to meet you, Sara.”

“Nice to meet you, too,” Sara said, giving him a little hug, “Dan,” she added.

“If you wait another ten minutes,” he said, “Gabe will be here. He's on his way.”

“That's okay, Dad,” I said. “We'll see him another time.”

“Sure, sure,” Dad said.

When Sara couldn't see him, Dad gave me a wink, his head bowed as he lit his cigarette from his Bic's feeble flame. Sending me a private signal, letting me know that he approved—I could almost hear him saying, Now that's one good-looking broad—and my face went hot.

Whereas before I might have relished his approval, I didn't want him to look at Sara, much less comment on her appearance.

Something of the mess that Gabe had created seemed linked to how Dad worried about our reflecting on his masculinity. Not so much about our welfare, but about this idea of being Men with a capital
M
. It pissed me off.

I knew that Dad's eyes stayed on us as we walked down the cement walkway. In the sun-warmed cocoon of my car, after our doors whacked shut, for a minute we both watched him watching us as he stood on the porch and smoked. His hand went out in a wide wave and I waved back, though inside I was thinking, You asshole.

“God,” Sara said, as I started the car. “That was weird.”

I didn't say anything, driving slowly down our street.

“I never, ever,” she continued, “ever, ever, would've thought that I'd kind of like him.”

I heard myself sigh.

She looked at me and said, “Now I feel like I understand better why you might've wanted to be like him. Why you said that you sort of worshipped him.”

“Not anymore,” I said, “no way.”

I thought we'd finished, but she was still thinking about him, her eyes and face full of reflection, and she said in a tone of wonderment, “I never thought he'd be so, like, well, vulnerable and sensitive or something. He just seems so lonely and sad, and sort of, well, kind of sweet.”

“Oh, he's delightful,” I said.

She watched me for a moment of silent judgment, and then she changed the subject, asking, “Where're we going?”

I didn't answer, pulling the car to the curb near the beach. The sun marked the horizon with a small orange dot, and spectators on the bluff waited for the sunset. We looked at each other for a moment, and then she opened her car door and stepped out.

I followed her, carrying the bag down the sloping walkway, until we found a spot near a vacated bonfire that was still smoking.

I found a piece of driftwood and stoked the leftover charcoal and wood in the fire pit, so that the fire rose back, flames leaping and sparking.

We settled in the sand, cross-legged, and I kept an eye on the bonfire, occasionally stirring it with my stick.

Sara rummaged through the paper bag, pulling out the Wheat Thins and opening the box. The air felt misted with ocean and it smelled of seaweed. “Here,” she said, handing me a cheese slice cradled between two Wheat Thins.

We ate and drank our 7-Ups and watched the sky darkening, speaking little, listening to the
boom
of the waves, and I cracked open the seal on the pint of vodka. We passed it between us, taking sips, and it helped keep us warm.

At one point, with a courage born of alcohol, loneliness, and selfishness, and the intimacy of the evening, and, in all honesty, probably as a foolish reaction to my dad, I leaned toward her and tried for a kiss.