Anatomy of a Misfit (15 page)

And I'm looking at him and it's like he's the hero, but a dark kind of hero, and I'm the ingenue and any second now he's gonna sweep me off my feet and the movie music is gonna swell and “THE END” is gonna get spelled out in cursive on the screen, before the credits roll.

He leans in and we are just about to kiss and there are just about to be fireworks and the orchestra is just about to play.

Except.

There's a noise outside, creaks on the dock, not the sound of the rowboats tethered. The sound of footsteps.

So now the movie music stops and the projector runs out and the screen goes white and the theater lights go up and the audience grumbles, cheated.

Those footsteps are heavy and getting closer.

“Hey! Who's that in there? Git outta there! Come on out.”

This is not a nice voice. And not a city voice either. This is the voice of someone who comes from a shack somewhere out in the sticks.

Logan motions me to be quiet, standing at the door.

“Can I help you?”

“Yes, you can help me. I'm the goddamn security and you can help the goddamn security by getting the hell outta there.”

“You got a deal, sir. Just leave me be and I'll go on home. I promise.”

“I said git and I meant it.”

“I mean it, too, sir. Just gimme two seconds—”

But the door's open and there he is.

This guy's got a red face, red hair, and freckles. He might as well be a representative for the color red. He's got a parka on, work boots, and I can smell him all the way from the table. Whiskey. I guess I don't blame him. What else is he supposed to do wandering around Holmes Lake each night with no one to talk to but the lampposts.

He's also representing Hair Growing in Weird Places. Like out of his ears. And his nose. I'm surprised he doesn't have hair growing out of his eyeballs, to be honest. The only place he's not growing mutant hairs is his mouth. That's because his mouth is representing spit, lots of it, coming out the corners. A ravished mouth on a red-faced troll in a parka.

I'd swear this guy is on the run from county but he's got the Holmes Lake logo on that parka, so he gets to boss us around.

Then he sees me and something changes. Now he looks around the room at the lanterns and the picnic and he whistles.

“Well, well. Looks like we got a bit of romance here . . .”

Logan steps in front of him, sheltering, trying to block my view.

“We'll be out of here now, don't worry.”

“Oh, I'm not worried. Not anymore.”

Logan's shoulders bristle from behind.

“I said we're leaving.”

“Okay. Have at it.”

He stands at the door, keeping guard as Logan and I scurry to get the fuck out of this hairy troll's boathouse. You would think we were actual spiders the way we've got all arms reaching and packing and bundling to get outta there before whatever this is in the air, mean and sinister, comes to pass.

We duck out the door past whiskey-breath and that's all easy-peasy except that whiskey-breath decides to try out some poetry on me.

“That's a sweet little snatch you got there.”

He says it and before it finishes or before it hits me or before I can get those words off me, Logan's got a wooden oar to his head. It lands him square in the face and he hits the dock with a thud.

I am running before he can get up and it's obvious to me that Logan is running right next to me, up the hill and back through the fence, except I hear that oar going
crack, crack, crack
and I look back and Logan isn't anywhere near me, not even close. No, Logan is back at the dock, right where he was, raising that oar up and down, up and down again with the force of a battle-ax. And that guy is representing the color red, alright, but now the color is a deep red, a brick red, that he's representing down his face, down his ears, down his neck, down into the cedar of the docks, down deep into the wooden planks and into the water below.

I mean, the guy can barely move. The guy can barely do anything besides loll in pain, swaying back and forth on his knees making a noise that sounds like begging.

And you would think that Logan would be satisfied with a half-dead troll rolling around at his feet like a flailing fish but he keeps going.

He keeps going.

“Stop it!! STOP IT! WHAT THE FUCK?! STOP!” It's my voice, but the words are just spilling out of me, out of my control.

It's my voice but it might as well be on mute 'cause Logan doesn't hear me. He doesn't hear me, and he doesn't stop until the man is lying there facedown on the dock, a fish gilled.

Logan looks at the man, losing steam, and throws the oar in the water.

He looks up at me.

Jesus.

The man is writhing on the dock, barely, a dull moan but thank God he's alive.

Logan starts up the hill toward me and I don't know what to do. What the fuck am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to run? Am I supposed to fall in his arms, kiss him, and say
my hero
? What the fuck am I supposed to do with whiskey-breath pummeled and he's pummeled for me?

I take off through the trees, trying to make the fence before Logan, trying to see if maybe there's a way home, maybe it'll be a longer walk but maybe that's what I deserve or something.

I hear Logan behind me, running up the hill now, trying to catch up.

“Anika!”

There are about a billion things I could say but I think the best way to say them is to just get lost and let that be that. I mean, seriously, what if that guy dies or something? And worse, it didn't even seem to register for Logan—what he was doing. How awful it was.

Like that quick backhand to the cheek in the basement.

Like his dad.

I mean, even the ogre, who has decided to make a career out of ignoring me and making me feel like a parasite on the belly of a barnacle, would never, ever, do something like that. It wouldn't even occur to him. Maybe more popcorn and more
Wheel of Fortune
but never a backhand slap that makes a welt right then and there.

And it would never occur to me.

But to Logan, it has occurred.

It not only has occurred, but it has manifested. It's manifested in an eviscerated whiskey fish lying prone on the dock, moaning.

And you gotta wonder. If it manifested in that . . . what else could it manifest in? What other things does this person, this person who I thought I knew, who I thought was gentle, who I thought was kind and erudite and sophisticated, this Logan who I almost just kissed in that movie moment and who I thought I was maybe kinda in love with . . . what else does he have up his sleeve?

The fence isn't coming fast enough and I'm running out of breath.

“Anika! Come on!”

He's caught up with me now and I can't even look at him.

“Anika. Stop it. Okay? I'm here. It's me, okay?”

We are both out of breath and our breath is coming out like smokestacks in the cold.

I turn to walk toward the fence. For once in my life I have no idea what to say or to think or to do.

“Anika, I'm sorry. I just . . . I was being protective, okay?”

“That was not protective. That was insane.”

“C'mon—”

“You almost killed him.”

“Anika, I didn't mean—”

“Look, I know that guy was a creep and, trust me, that was really gross but . . .
what the fuck just happened
?”

“Okay, I know. I know. You're right. What can I say? That guy, I mean, if he woulda laid a finger on you . . .”

“But he didn't. Okay. He didn't.”

“I know. I told you. I lost it, okay? I fucking lost it. Because he said that shit to you.”

We both just stand there, catching our breath, the stars not noticing us.

“I want you to take me home now. I just wanna go home, okay?”

“Okay.” He looks at me with the eyes of a puppy that's just been scolded for chewing the newspaper. And I want to hold him, to tell him that it's okay.

But okay is not exactly what it is.

We don't say anything the rest of the way through the trees, or through the fence, or through the streets of a place with no people for miles. We don't say anything when I hop off his moped and hand him his helmet and walk up to the tree below my window and don't look back.

thirty-four

I
f you show up at dinner at my house, that's already front-page news. That's a headline. And nobody thought there would be headlines tonight. It's just a dumb Thursday with Mexican casserole and some leftovers from earlier in the week. Tomorrow will be fish sticks. Monday night my mom is making steak, she said, which I think is totally disgusting but the ogre thinks is top-shelf. If you live in Nebraska, eating steak is the equivalent of eating oranges in Florida. Steak is everywhere. The whole state is steak. We might as well have a T-bone on our state flag.

I know, I know, everywhere else it's a delicacy or something. It means big times. Here . . . it means it's a Monday and nobody cares.

But tonight is kind of a low-level night, nothing doing. And, after last night, and the great boathouse caper, I'm grateful. Nope, tonight even my sisters are up to nothing. Robby's at football practice. The Knights play the Spartans this weekend. Big game. For high school. Everybody will go to that game, even if they don't watch it. It's just what you do on Friday nights in Lincoln. Like birds fly south for the winter. Jenny Schnittgrund will be there, newly tanned. Charlie Russell will be there, with a new rugby shirt. The pep squad girls will be there, freezing on the bleachers in their miniskirts, dreaming of their future glory as cheerleaders.
Oh, one day, one day, to be a real live cheerleader!
We all go, in droves, to the Friday night football game and walk around and giggle and freeze our jeans off and, afterward, everybody marches over to Valentino's Pizza Parlor. It's like a religion or something.

To stay home? To not go to the game? Whoa. That's like anarchy.

(If you want to know how authentic the food is at Valentino's, just remember that the waitresses pronounce it “EYE-talian.”)

But tonight at Chez My House, everyone is just clanking and clattering their silverware and shoveling Mexican casserole into their mouths. And then it happens.

Ding-dong.

We look up.

Ding-dong. Ding-dong-ding.

We freeze. It's like we're guilty or something. Maybe we are busted for being too boring.

My mom goes to the door.

“Hello, may I help you?”

“Yes. Yes, ma'am. Hi there. Sorry to bother you. I'm Jared. Jared Kline. Nice to meet you.”

The table might as well be an ice sculpture now. We are frozen. We are terrified. We are waiting.

My sisters, who both went to school with Jared and who both worship the ground Jared walks on, like every other girl in the city, look at each other. Me? Is he here for me? I mean, it might as well be Ed McMahon out there with balloons and a Publishers Clearing House sweepstakes check for a zillion dollars.

“Hello, Jared. Nice to meet you, too. As you can see, we're in the middle of dinner, so what can I do for you?”

“Yes, ma'am. Sorry, ma'am. I was just wondering if I could take your daughter out on a date, Saturday night. If I could have your permission?”

Lizzie and Neener are basically both having a heart attack at this point. I can see them planning their outfits, wondering which one he's gonna ask. They will slit each other's throats to go on this date.

Henry looks up, pondering. This is a social science experiment he finds intriguing.

“My daughter?”

“Yes, ma'am . . . your daughter . . .”

If the whole house could lean in, so as to get a closer listen, it would. What was that, sonny?

“Your daughter . . . Anika.”

Oh my God, you should see Lizzie's face. She is about to rush me with the butter knife.

Henry tilts his head to the side. This is a new development. An interesting one. The ogre pretends not to listen. Just leave him the rest of the Mexican casserole and he'll be fine.

“Anika. You would like to take
Anika
on a date.”

“Yes, ma'am. With your permission.”

My mom looks back at me, a question mark.

This is the part where I am supposed to blurt out, “No! No! I love Logan! I belong to Logan McDonough and he is mine and we'll be together forevermore!”

Except I don't do that.

In fact, I do the opposite of that.

I nod.

My head nodded. I didn't nod. But my head nodded.

My head has obviously been taken over by witches.

“And where do you propose to go on this date?”

“Well, ma'am. There's a Halloween festival thing downtown. Like with scary rides and a haunted house and stuff.”

“Huh. Is there a hayride by any chance . . . ?”

“No, ma'am. No hayride.”

“Because I'm not letting my daughter go on any hayrides with strange boys . . .”

“No, ma'am. I would never. I . . . I just thought the haunted house might be fun, and the scary rides . . . but if it's not we could do something else, go see a movie or—”

“Close that goddamn door!”

Thanks, ogre. You really have a way with words.

Jared peeks in and sees the ogre. He catches my eye. And keeps it. He gives me a wink.

My sisters fantasize about cutting me up and adding me to the Mexican casserole. No one knows what's in there anyway.

“Well, Jared. Looks like you have yourself a date. Good night.”

And with that my mom shuts the door on Jared Kline.

She comes back to the table. Puts her napkin on her lap. Somehow this whole event has made her smile like the cat that ate the canary. Who knows why? Moms. Sometimes they seem so silly and worrying and hilarious but sometimes you get the feeling they know everything.