After Dakota (5 page)

Fifth Period Office Aide: Cameron. He fulfills his promise, made junior year, to Ms. Langdon, who gets her hair done at the same salon as his mom. She sits at the main desk, the command post in the counseling office, where typewriters click and phones ring. The whole scene is cast in white light. Cameron will be in charge of delivering the mint green call slips, summoning the unlucky to this place. When he doesn’t have call slips he can work on his homework, answer the phone, or eat the M&M’s out of the glass bowl on Ms. Langdon’s desk. A perfect senior year credit.

Fifth Period Biology: Claire. The teacher, who looks just like the hanging skeleton in the corner but with a thin coating of rubber skin, tells the class to “Please refer to me as Doctor, not Mister, Baca.” Claire studies the laminated poster to her right; if you covered the words FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM, most people would probably guess it’s a drawing of some captured alien species. She pretends that’s not what she looks like on the inside.

Seventh Period English: Bryce. On his way to first period that morning, Bryce saw a man unloading a guitar case from the trunk of a car. He’d assumed this was a new music teacher, that grumpy Mr. Klein had finally snapped and killed somebody.

Now that man, Mr. Buckland, pulls out his guitar in front of the class and announces that he used to play in a band, and that the two loves of his life are literature and music. He plays the riff from “Smoke on the Water” and in those three minutes has totally won the class over.

Seventh Period Photo: Claire. Mr. Duran – black hair, white mustache, like he’s been guzzling milk – gives everyone in class a lightweight camera and a roll of film, with instructions to start taking pictures. Claire snaps a shot of her shoes.

“Just so you know, I’m not driving you home every day,” Bryce tells Claire as he does exactly that. “I might have something to do or you know.”

She checks her reflection in the side mirror, the makeup wiped off in the bathroom after sixth period. During a parental lecture on the topic, Claire once pointed out that her mom wore makeup.

Yes, but that’s to social events
.
And my mother would have never allowed me to put it on when I was in high school
.

It hasn’t been banned it outright, but best to avoid that possibility.

Claire breathes on her window, plays Tic-Tac-Toe in the condensation.

Once they’re back, Bryce goes inside the house and Claire walks down the street. Two cul-de-sacs to the left is an alley covered in Spanish graffiti, weeds, and empty beer bottles (which she stops to take a photo of today). Follow that, cross another street, and end up at the arroyo.

Claire and Meredith have walked home together every year until this one. Meredith rides the bus now, so they agreed to meet here after school and walk home like the old days, even though it’s now out of their way to do so. Claire arrives first, sits on the old tree stump in the shade. She and Meredith used to come down here as kids to wander through the thick underbrush looking for fairies or a jackalope (a jackrabbit with antlers, which Bryce swore didn’t exist). Then someone started a story about Stinky the Rapist lurking where the trees are thickest, and the area was off limits just like that. Stinky was never caught or even seen, as far as Claire knows.

Meredith arrives with her hair in pigtails and her backpack over both shoulders, like she’s come from middle school. They sit together on the stump, their respective five fingernails in matching pink, and debrief the first day.

Meredith’s news:

Oscar Arranaga had a growth spurt over the summer. “He literally looks like a six foot troll doll.”

Rhonda Cordova discovered acne after years of being a perfect princess.

The familiar names keep hitting Claire like slaps. Didn’t anyone else from middle school get sent somewhere else? Everything is so unfair.

When it’s Claire’s turn she says, “My school is awesome,” then goes on to list the features and the freedom, focusing on details that will appeal to Meredith. Unfortunately, Sandia has most of the same things – even a campus where you can leave at lunchtime if you want.

A breeze swirls around them, bending the tall weeds left, then right. They stand in synch and start walking. Claire stays on her heels, trying to keep the black shoes from getting dirty. Meredith doesn’t notice or doesn’t ask, so Claire volunteers, “These used to be Dakota’s,” holding a foot up as a visual aid.

“You’re wearing a dead person’s shoes?”

“So what? All that stuff you got at those garage sales might’ve been owned by a dead person.” The summer between seventh and eighth grade seemed to be nothing but a series of garage sale visits, the two girls pedaling their bikes from one treasure hunt to the next.

“I guess.”

“I also got her Tarot cards.”

“Cool, can we play them? You can tell my future, how I’ll be rich and famous and marry Scott Baio.”

They say their goodbyes until their regular phone call later that night.

Before that phone call, before doing homework, before even hiding the shoes, Claire sits on her bed and cries into Baloo’s fur until her allergy makes her eyes puffy and her nose run. She’ll compose herself in a while and be ready for dinner, where each family member is expected to share one piece of good news from the day, where Claire will put on a convincing performance about the great beginning of high school.

After dinner, she’ll stand in the shower, her box of steam where she can’t be seen or heard or bothered. Where if she wishes hard enough, she might dissolve into vapor and be gone.

Cameron has the row to himself aboard the plane. On his tray, a bag of honey roasted peanuts and his Economics textbook.

Up ahead, Bryce’s dad sits in the cockpit in his pilot uniform. His voice comes out above Cameron’s head. “Welcome aboard our plane crash where we’re all going to die, folks.”

Cameron wakes up. Dark room, quiet house. 1:11 a.m. beams at him in red digital numbers. “Holy shit,” he says to the dark.

A week into the school year, Bryce knocks on Claire’s bedroom door. It’s open house night, which means no parents for at least two hours, which in turn means caffeine and loud music. Cameron is at work and there are times that a job sounds good to Bryce; instead he gets an allowance of ten bucks a week in lieu of working, so that he can “better focus on school.” When he’s tried the argument that Cameron works and has better grades than he does, the response is always the same:
There are a lot of things allowed at that house that won’t be happening here.

“Come in!” Claire shouts over Rick Springfield. She’s cross-legged on her bed, apparently playing a game of solitaire with Tarot cards.

“You know Mom doesn’t want stuff like that in the house,” Bryce says. “She’ll have a stroke if she sees them.”

“She’s not gonna see them.” Claire flips a card, some picture of a castle getting hit by lightning. “What’s up?”

“What’s up with you? You, like, live in here these days.” He stands with his back to the doll case. Too many eyes on him, too many movies where dolls come to life and kill.

Flip goes another card: a group of people battling with long sticks. “Maybe I don’t feel like being social. You should be happy.”

“Can you tell my fortune?” Bryce asks.

“I don’t know how they work.”

Groping for something to say, he goes with, “Would you rather be the teacher with Mom or Dad in class tonight?” Their parents are dividing up the two schedules; their dad will sit in the rooms and not saying anything, while their mom will ask a hundred questions and take notes.

“Duh, that’s easy,” Claire answers. Flip: Adam & Eve with some kind of angel between them. “By the way, our school sucks.”

“It’s only been a week. Freshman year was shitty for me too.”

“‘Once a Thunderbird, always a Thunderbird.’”

“Made any friends yet?” he asks.

“I’ve made an enemy – this girl Isabel Arnold.”

“That’s Hannah Arnold’s little sister. Hannah thinks she’s queen of everything. Probably be homecoming queen, to make it official.”

Hannah is also one of the Pretty People, who should have their own campus so they don’t have to lower themselves to interact with ordinary mortals or park their new cars among the junk heaps that litter the lot.

Claire turns over the final card: people admiring a rainbow of goblets. Her bed is a mosaic.

“Where’d you get those, anyway?” Bryce asks.

“Did you come up here to bother me because you’re filling in for Mom and Dad?”

“I came to… I don’t know. See if everything’s ok.”

She puts on her cheesiest smile, the one he knows better than to question.

“Cool. I’ll leave you alone then.”

“What d’you think you’ll be doing next year?” she asks before he can take a step.

He shrugs. The opening chords of “Jessie’s Girl” start up.

“The cards tell me you’ll be going to UNM and still living here.” She waves her hand over them like a wizard.

“Chyeah, right. No way.”

“Then you’ll inherit the house when Mom and Dad die, and raise your own family here. Your son can live in the basement.”

“Good grief, how did I get
you
for a sister?” In the process of looking anywhere but at the doll case, he sees the newspaper clipping on Claire’s desk. “Why did you cut out Dakota’s obituary?” The black and white photo smiles out at him, the same one from the yearbook and the funeral, the version of her frozen in people’s memories.

“Cuz I wanted to. Weren’t you leaving?”

He’s halfway out the door when she says, almost drowned out by the music, “These were her cards.”

“Wait, really?”

“Mr. Vanzant gave ‘em to me. And her old shoes, too. Don’t tell, ok?”

He nods, closes the door behind him. Across the hall, his old Marvel Comics stickers stand guard on the door to the new guest/sewing/general crap room.

Later, after his homework is done and the open house debrief finished (his dad sat in on most of Bryce’s classes, thankfully), Bryce lies in bed and listens to the chirping night outside his little window. He thinks about Dakota, wonders what she’d be doing at the moment if she hadn’t gotten on that plane. Probably partying at college, maybe drunk, with guys hanging all over her. Will college really be just one big bash? And if so, why isn’t he excited about going?

The world might not even be here then if the Russians push the nuclear button. All those practice drills they’ve had at school can’t have been for no reason.

He floats in the netherworld between sleep and wakefulness when she comes to him. In his old bedroom, the smell of Juicy Fruit gum and model paint. She leans in and –

No! It’s not right anymore. “Sorry,” he says to the ceiling, to God, and to her, if she can hear him.

Cameron and his mom sit in a dim booth of the Mexican cantina, lit by a candle in a decorative red jar. The place has the feel of eating in a cave. This isn’t a special occasion; most of their dinners are frozen, or takeout, or at a restaurant. Cameron’s dad always said, “I didn’t marry her for her cooking.” One year he got her a new microwave oven for Christmas, along with six weeks of microwave cooking classes. To her credit, she tried, before giving up when he moved out. The oven is primarily used now as a fancy water boiler.

What enthusiasm Molly lacks for cooking, she makes up for in cleaning. If Cameron sets a glass down anywhere in the house, it’s gone in a blink. Her compulsiveness means that she never finishes one job before starting another; wads of paper towels lie scattered around the house like landmines. 409 is the permanent odor in certain rooms.

The waiter with his string tie appears. “Hola, Molly.”

“Hola, Ruben. I’d like two blended margaritas,” she says with a wink. “Pronto.” When the drinks arrive – yellow frozen hills in green goblets – she slides one to Cameron. He stares at her. “Oh please, eighteen, twenty-one, what’s the difference?” she says.

“I’m seventeen.”

“When I was your age, people could drink at sixteen. I just have to warn you, the margaritas here are strict.” She checks her makeup in a small mirror, dabs her cheek with her napkin. Always cleaning.

The food arrives, platters coated in melted cheese. Cameron digs in, lightheaded already, everything a little crooked. Their typical conversation gets underway.

Molly: “How’s your science class?”

Cameron: “It’s ok.”

Molly: “Do any of your teachers require you to write in pen?”

Cameron: “Just Mrs. Gordon.”

Molly: “What do they serve in the cafeteria these days?”

Cameron: Shrug.

And on it goes, covering his other classes, has he gotten any grades yet, asking teachers for college recommendation letters, and whether more kids drive to school or bike. Every time Cameron rolls his eyes she says, “Because you never tell me anything if I don’t ask.” She orders another drink for herself but cuts him off at one.

This is what he could tell her, if he felt like talking: He’s clearly Mrs. Gordon’s favorite in English, a fact obvious to everyone in the room, even after only two weeks together. She always asks for his comments on the works they read, looks directly at him after explaining (sometimes even clearly) the author’s use of symbolism.

He could also tell her about the reincarnation of their former neighbor, sitting one desk away. Cameron wants to talk to Rosemary more, but she’s packed and out the door as soon as the bell rings, leaving him only with a “Ciao.” He sits at his desk and watches her black-stocking’d legs stride away. He never knew that term came from England.

Molly sucks down part of her new drink. “The reason we’re here is because I’ve decided I’m going to start dating and I want to make sure it’s ok with you.”

“Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Your father and me…”

“Father and
I
.”

She sticks her yellow tongue at him. “Your father and I haven’t been apart that long.”

“Mom, it’s been over two years. You know he’s had girlfriends.”

“Okay, fine. I guess I wasn’t ready before and ek cetera.”

“Now you are?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about a lot of things lately.” She stirs her drink with the straw, sucks some more. “You’ll be gone soon and maybe I don’t want to be all alone.”

Cameron pictures her on a date with a lawyer. He’s been to her work a few times – a law office where she answers the phone and files papers – and every man there looks and smells the same. Suits and ties, cologne and breath mints.

When Ruben asks if she wants a third drink, Molly exclaims, “Only if you don’t mind me being face down on the floor!” then lets loose with a laugh that makes Cameron sink down in the booth. Ruben only grins, his gold front tooth glinting in the candlelight.

“You’re so embarrassing,” Cameron hisses.

“Oh, lighten up. None of your friends will see you here. Your precious reputation is safe.” She swats him with her napkin. “You may have to drive us home, though.”

As he pulls out of the parking lot after dinner, Molly says, “Your grandma’s birthday is coming up. Don’t forget to get her a card or you’ll never hear the end of it.” She pulls a pack of Virginia Slims from her purse. “D’you mind?”

“It’s your car.”

“The only time I smoke anymore is after I’ve had a drink.”

“Or three.”

She lights it after two tries, cracks the window, blows the smoke out. The radio announcer tells them what’s going on in the world. “Find us some music, please. Life is too short for all this bad news.” Cameron twists the knob until an easy listening song comes on. She hums along with the words about fantasy worlds and Disney girls, her eyes closed, and is asleep before they get home.