After Dakota (3 page)

Bryce asked his parents about moving into the basement after eighth, ninth, and tenth grade. He’d formulated good arguments (like that his grandparents wouldn’t have to climb the basement stairs when they stayed over). The answer was always:
We’ll see
.

Last weekend, when the family sat in the orange vinyl booth at Furr’s cafeteria for their Sunday night dinner out, he asked about it more out of habit than anything. His dad took a glistening bite of liver and onion, then said, “I think that can be arranged.”

Now, Saturday morning – the day they’ll all hear the news about Dakota – Bryce, his dad, and Cam move Bryce’s bed and dresser down the narrow staircase. Bryce stares at the curly hair crawling out over his dad’s shirt collar, like a werewolf in mid-transformation; he also sports an unfortunately unavoidable (i.e., right in Bryce’s sightline) butt crack above his pants.

Bryce’s dad stops a few times to put his hands on his knees and cough. Thick B.O. clogs the narrow staircase.

After the move, when the one adult is safely away, Bryce and Cam hang the poster décor: the black light ones, the dragon from the Asia album cover, and of course Heather Locklear. After many, many Heather Locklear (from
T.J. Hooker
) vs. Heather Thomas (from
The Fall Guy
) debates, Cam and Bryce realized they would never out-argue the other’s sexiest woman of all time choice and called a truce.

Bryce neatly places his art supplies, pencils, pens, artgum erasers, a stack of filled sketchbooks half as tall as he is. They stack the long white boxes that hold his comic book collection neatly in one corner. The ColecoVision video game system gets hooked up to Bryce’s small TV.

The water heater lurks in the corner, like a deactivated robot or weapon of war.

Down here, Bryce can play his music loud without anyone complaining. He can play video games without his mom coming in to feel how hot the big black plug has gotten and pronouncing he should take a break. And best of all, he won’t have to be right across the hall from Claire. This will do nicely.

The boys sit in beanbag chairs atop the rough grey carpet, playing Miner 2049er and listening to Def Leppard at volcano volume. They make plans to see
Return of the Jedi
a third time. They drink RC colas and burp out updates on their classmates: Sheryl Cardy working at Orange Julius; Todd Cooper crashing his dad’s car.

Through the ceiling, the kitchen phone rings. Footsteps, Bryce’s mom’s voice answering, then what sounds like a choked scream.

* * *

Two days later, Bryce returns from Michael’s art supplies with a new sketchbook. He spent a long time in there, then just drove around in his yellow Dodge Dart. This may be Monday. Or Tuesday. On summer vacation they all ooze together, late nights and late mornings.

There’s been a lot of crying in his house, his dad smoking out on the porch more than usual (whether to escape the tears or because he suddenly likes cigarettes more is unknown). Claire in her room. Bryce walking around in a daze. He and Cam went to see
Risky Business
and Bryce can barely remember any of it – except for the lead actress, whom he recalls quite clearly.

He takes a pencil from his glove compartment and starts on the first page of the new sketchbook. Slashes become lines become Dakota’s face.

On the radio, Sister Christian’s time has come.

Bryce can’t picture Dakota at the end, as the plane went down. She was always so sure of herself, one of those people who’re never scared of anything, who could wear pajama bottoms to school and not care what anyone says.

Dakota intersected three aspects of Bryce’s existence: church, neighbor, babysitter. Dakota had been only the cute two-years-older girl next door, one of the youth group leaders at church, until that warm night when she, Bryce, and Claire went swimming in his pool. Dakota wore a white bikini with blue polka dots.

This occurred right around the arrival of puberty for Bryce (which happened with all the grace of a runaway train crashing into a station) and, while his mom would call it sacrilegious, Bryce saw God that night. She had blond hair and a platinum necklace with her name in cursive; it floated in front of her face when they were underwater, shouting, trying to guess the other person’s sentence.

Do you like mayonnaise?

Beethoven was a famous composer.

He suggested swimming every time Dakota came over after that, even though he often had to remain in the water long after the girls got out because of his erections.

The sketch isn’t right. He scribbles out her face and tries again on the next page.

On those nights when Dakota babysat, Claire always stayed up way past her bedtime, which cramped Bryce’s style and kept him from really turning on the charm. He remained content merely to be in Dakota’s orbit, trying not to be too obvious when he stared at her, memorizing details for later use in those early fantasies.

He tries a third sketch, but something about her remains just out of reach. The faces look like a generic teenage girl; Dakota was anything but.

He has another memory, a memory kept just for himself, of a time she almost stepped out of his fantasies and into his reality. A precious jewel tucked safely away in his mind. Wouldn’t Claire be shocked to learn about Dakota in Bryce’s bedroom. Wouldn’t she be shocked to learn that she didn’t know everything about their neighbor. For years, Bryce has taken out this jewel in the safety of his bed, turned it over and over in his mind as he’s fallen asleep at night.

But now he doesn’t feel right remembering Dakota that way.

“You kids think you’re immortal,” his mom had once said after Bryce and Cam climbed up on the roof of the house to rescue a stranded kite.

Not anymore. If you had to choose, would you rather know it’s coming, or be ambushed like Dakota was?

He turns off the radio and gets out. The smell of a freshly smoked cigarette lingers when he gets to the front door.

Cameron hasn’t been to church since those long ago Sunday school classes, until the one day his family just stopped going (right around the time his mom and dad stopped kissing in front of him too). He attends the occasional youth group events with Bryce here at First Church of Christ, but those don’t count because they’re fun. Dakota’s service is not.

He and his mom sit in the back pew. The room is way too hot for an Oxford cloth button up shirt and nice pants; drips go from his armpits down the sides of his ribcage. Molly keeps blowing her nose, her purse like a magician’s hat with an endless supply of Kleenex.

Up at the front of all the pews are a kaleidoscope of flowers and a big photo of Dakota on an easel. It’s her senior picture from high school; Cameron knows this because he and Bryce went through and highlighted all the foxy girls in the yearbook that year.

According to the damp program rolled in Cameron’s hand, Dakota entered this life in 1963, entered eternal life in 1983. There’s no coffin; he wonders what became of her body, whether it’s buried already, or cremated, or if there were any remains at all.

The stained glass window paints a blue road across his mom’s lap.

The two of them were late today because she seemed to be doing her getting-ready routine – hair, makeup, matching shoes and dress, changing her mind – in slow motion, and then couldn’t find a place to park. The whole drive she kept saying, “I can’t believe this is happening. I’ve known Dakota her whole life.”

Mr. Vanzant, looking like a different person since he shaved his beard, steps up to the podium and reads a poem by e.e. cummings. His voice breaks only once, when he says, “My daughter was the best teacher I ever had.”

Mrs. Vanzant’s face is hidden from view, protected by curtains of curly hair.

Then the minister asks that everyone repeat a prayer after him. Cameron sees a contingent from school: Principal Rodriguez and Mr. Baca, with their identical bald spots; Mr. Hagen with his ponytail. Across the aisle from them, the cul-de-sac sits, reunited in black. Even old Mr. Cohen, sitting off by himself in his baggy suit, his hair like the fuzz on a baby bird.

Cameron’s thought about Dakota a lot this past week. How she was unbeatable at Kick-the-Can unless she let someone else win. The time she had an M-80 at Fourth of July. And of course the New Year’s Eve he almost lost his virginity, the night she saved him, the
Star Wars
night.

When Cameron looks over again, Mr. Cohen is gone.

After the service everyone’s in a big room with food – triangle sandwiches, crackers topped with cubes of cheese – and a punch bowl. Cameron and Bryce chug punch and chomp the ice cubes while watching people go up to the Vanzants for hugs and handshakes. The giant Mrs. Vanzant (a former college basketball player) keeps pulling on her earlobe, like she’s giving someone a signal. Cameron glances into the window and sees that his suit pants have shrunk to highwaters since he last wore them. At least his hair is good.

Mrs. Kramer, their science teacher last year, waves to them from her wheelchair across the room.

Girls they don’t know mingle about, college girls from the looks of them, their mascara all smeared like members of a punk rock band. “I wish this many chicks came here every week,” Bryce whispers.

One walks by and Bryce holds up eight fingers – five, close hand, then three – against his leg. Cameron puts up seven.

This rating system has been finely tuned since the boys adopted it during middle school. One means Medusa, ten means Aphrodite. Tens are rarely handed out. Factors taken into consideration when rating: face, boobs, butt. Bryce and Cameron have held many late night, sleeping bag philosophy discussions about whether a cute face outweighs a so-so body, or vice versa.

Hopefully, no girls have invented a system like this for rating boys.

Bryce and Cameron both agree the next girl at the punch bowl is a nine, mainly because of her little black dress that shows off both B’s. After her, the boys look at each other and remember where they are.

At home later, Cameron changes into a T-shirt and shorts, then goes through his cassette collection in the wooden storage box until he finds the one he has to play today, in Dakota’s honor: the
Star Wars
soundtrack. He cranks the volume, closes his eyes and pictures the yellow letters crawling out into the infinite. Pictures her.

Outside his window, past the blazing orange berries of the pyracantha bushes, the sun goes down on this rapidly fading summer.

Bryce and Claire used to sit at the breakfast table and fight over who got to read the back of which cereal box while they ate Cinnamon Life or Fruity Pebbles. Or their dad would drive to Winchells early every Sunday morning, knowing there are few things like the joy of waking up to a box of fresh donuts. Or their mom would make pancakes with food-coloring smiley faces on them.

Today, the first day of school, the whole family sits together for scrambled eggs and toast. “You’ll look out for your sister, show her where all her classes are?” their mom asks Bryce.

“Mom, I’m not a first grader,” Claire says.

“Honey, it’s a big campus. Much bigger than your last school.”

Unspoken here is the understanding that, other than her brother, Claire will be friendless on this big campus.

At the front door, mother hugs daughter and whispers, “I know a lot has happened. You’re going to do fine.”

Claire and Bryce ride to school in Bryce’s pee-colored car. Cameron drives right behind them, in that big vehicle of his that makes Bryce’s look like a Hot Wheels toy. Bryce babbles for most of the drive: snack bar… cafeteria… campus patrol… cholos… top locker…

At a stoplight he asks, “Wooden nickel for your thoughts?”

“What d’you think it was like when the plane crashed?” she says. “I heard if you fall from really high up that you like pass out before you hit the ground.”

“I dunno. Look, this isn’t really what I want to be thinking about on the first day of school, okay?”

“I’m just trying to understand why that happened to her.”

“Sometimes only God knows,” Bryce replies. “Next time I ask what you’re thinking, make something up, ok?”

The singer on the radio keeps repeating
Abracadabra
.

Cameron pulls up next to them at a red light. He says through the open window, “Paaaahdon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?” and both boys laugh. Sometimes Claire feels like the older one when these two are together.

They circle the campus parking lot, looking for a space. Out the window, other cars, skateboards, bikes, swerve around each other. Like looking at an aquarium full of exotic new creatures. Legwarmers. Mohawks. A boy carries a blasting radio on his shoulder. Most girls’ hair is twice the size of their heads, in contrast to Claire’s, which always lies flat despite her best efforts.

They park, but Cameron skips the spot next to them and keeps driving. “He’s paranoid about someone denting his car,” Bryce says. “He has to get as far away from everyone else as he can.”

Claire gets out, puts her backpack on like normal – until she sees everyone else wearing theirs only on one shoulder and immediately switches. “You don’t have to hold my hand and walk me around,” she tells Bryce. “I can figure it out.”

The closest bathroom is empty. Claire locks herself in the stall, unzips her backpack, and takes out Dakota’s shoes. She’d taken them with her on her last night as the petsitter. The shoes were too good for the Salvation Army, and it’s not like Mrs. Vanzant would start wearing them. Claire told herself she would just try them on, to see if they fit which they didn’t, exactly, but what’s an inch or two? When she walked out the Vanzants’ door she had the Tarot cards too.

Claire ties the shoes and puts her old ones in her backpack. After someone else comes in the bathroom, pees, and leaves, Claire does a quick makeup job in the mirror: swishes of blue across her eyelids, her lips a smear of red. She walks out, ready as she’ll ever be.