carefully everywhere descending (6 page)

“Don't you tell me—”

“Mitchell.” The other man is staggering to his feet. “Please. Let's go outside. We're disturbing people. Let these nice kids get back to their date.”

“Oh, we're not—” I start but snap my mouth shut. Because seriously, Audrey. Not the time.

Mitchell spins around and storms outside. His bloody… not-friend goes after him. They stand outside the glass door, and Mitchell starts screaming again while everyone in the gelato bar stares in open fascination.

“Good God,” says the mother with the toddler, who now has a fist shoved in his mouth and is watching the duo outside with huge eyes.

Scarlett's shoulders release some of their tension. She looks over her shoulder and says, “Let's get out of here.”

We skirt the employees picking up the fallen table and dump our trash in the waste bin. Scarlett goes first out the door, and we pass the still-irate Mitchell. The guy seems like he could do anything in his erratic state.

“…thought I could trust you! I thought I could trust you both!” Mitchell spots us scurrying past and yells after us, “I hope you enjoyed the freak show!”

It's not until we're back at Scarlett's silver car that I realize she has her hand wrapped firmly around my wrist.

“Well, I wasn't expecting
that
in my day,” she says, releasing me and fishing her keys out of her pocket. They tremble in her hand. “Geez.”

“I know,” I say, opening the passenger door. I feel as unsettled as Scarlett looks, though you think I'd be used to loud conflicts, overhearing as many as I do in my neighborhood. It was the proximity that was so alarming.

We dissect the altercation minutely as we drive, until the shock fades and our overwhelming emotion, we both agree, is the allure that comes with watching a car crash. Horrible, but irresistible to look away from. We don't get tired of recounting the scene beat-by-beat and our reactions to each moment, even though they never change with each retelling (“And I couldn't believe it was happening! Right next to us!” “I know, me neither!”).

For me, another emotion takes over the farther we get away from downtown and toward the residential west side of Reedsburg where I live. It has just dawned on me that, by virtue of dropping me off, Scarlett will see where I live. I battle with a tide of embarrassment as I direct her down my street.

I love my family, but our house is… unkempt. Neglected. Weedy. The closer we get, the more out of place Scarlett's new car becomes.

I clear my throat. “You can just let me off here. I can walk the rest of the way.”

“Are you crazy? What's the point of getting a ride home if you have to walk part of the way?”

I jiggle my leg and then settle, resigned. Why do I care so much what Scarlett thinks, anyway? I wasn't this concerned when I invited Amber over for the first time, for Pete's sake, and I value her opinion much more than I do Scarlett West's.

“Turn right and then go down the street almost to the end,” I instruct. “Slow up. I'm there, on the right.” I point. “The gray house.”

Scarlett nods but doesn't say anything. She pulls carefully up to the curb and idles as I grab my bag and unbuckle.

“Thank you again for the ice cream,” I say. “And the ride.”

“Forget about it,” she says. “Or else we'll be stuck in this perpetual cycle of thanking each other.”

I smile and reach for the door, pulling the handle and opening it a sliver. “See you Monday.”

“Sure…. Can we meet at the same time and place for the next drafts?”

I sink back in my seat and look at her skeptically. “Sure. If you think you'll be ready by then.”

She shrugs, index fingers tapping out a syncopated beat on the steering wheel. “I have to be. Mr. Welsh's deadline is next Wednesday.”

“Then, yes. Absolutely.”

“Great. Awesome. I can't believe you're being this nice.”

It takes a second, but then my goodwill toward her starts to evaporate. “What do you mean?”

“Well, you know. You were there. You were just so cold last time I asked,” she says, oblivious to my mounting anger. “I was sure when I asked you yesterday, you would bite my head off again.”

I close the door with a deliberate and firm click. “First of all, there is a huge difference between sitting down with you and talking through your paper and actually
doing
your homework. How can you not see that? It would have been cheating, Scarlett!”

“I know! All right? I'm not saying I wasn't wrong,” she says, cheeks reddening slightly. “But you just shut me down and insulted me for good measure.”

“I didn't—”

“‘You can't expect people to just give you everything, Scarlett,'” she quotes, her voice high-pitched in a cruel parody of mine.

“Well, what were you doing if not that?” I demand, wondering when I ended up on the defensive, and when this conversation had spun out of control.

“I was asking for
help
! I told you I was desperate! And do you know what happened to me? Summer school.”

“Oh, the horror!”

“You're just— Can you just climb on down from your high horse for a few minutes to stop acting so…?”

“So what? Go on.”

“God!” She slams her palms against the steering wheel and looks out her window. “I don't know why you go out of your way to infuriate me, or why I keep letting it happen.”

“I could say the same,” I reply, gathering up my bag with hands that I'm surprised to see are shaking a little. Not out of fear, but out of all the other emotions coursing through me, too many to identify or name. I stare for a moment at my feet against her spotless car floor. There's a blue pen that's fallen, cap missing. “I don't know why you asked for my help again after what I said last time,” I say, surprising myself. “But I told you I would do what I could, and I meant it. If you're still on for Monday, I am too.”

She looks over at me, jaw still tight.

“I'm in,” she says.

I nod and reach for the door again but don't open it.

“I'm sorry,” I say, “for last time. I-I didn't mean to insult you.”

Her rigid posture deflates a little. Her hands relax around the wheel and drop to loosely grasp the bottom of it. “I'm sorry too.”

Her eyes flicker past me and catch on something for a long second. Then she looks at me again. Her normally bright blue gaze is dimmed, and not just from the lateness of the afternoon. If I had just left instead of saying something….

I get out and trudge toward our peeling front door, which is piebald from exposure to the weather over time. One shutter, broken off from the window to the left of the door, is on the ground, braced against the wall. It's been there for three years.

I hear Scarlett's car turning around, and soon the sound of her engine is fading away. I look up halfway to my door and that's when I see him, the bulky, imposing figure of my father, framed in the right window.

I groan and drop my chin to my chest. Scarlett must have observed him looming there like a bad omen. I open the door and decide to pretend like nothing's unusual.

“Hi, Daddy,” I say, dropping my bag and kissing him on the cheek.

And immediately I've blown it: I rarely call him Daddy instead of Dad. Affecting a careless air, I shuck my coat and head toward the closet to hang it up.

“Why are you home so early?” I ask cheerfully. “I thought you had to work late tonight.”

My dad isn't buying my act.

“I traded days with O'Connor so he could go to his kid's school play. Who was that?” he asks, turning his back to the window and crossing his arms across his huge chest.

“Hm? Who was who? Oh, you must mean Scarlett,” I say, hearing how falsely bright my voice sounds and cringing.

“Yeah,
Scarlett
. You both looked pretty intense in there. What's going on with her? How do you know her, and why was she giving you a ride?”

I close the closet door. Sam is poking his head out from the kitchen and watching, adding to my desire to have the earth eat me up so this conversation ends. My dad's naturally suspicious of anything out of character: instincts built up by security detail. Me being dropped off by a stranger in a fancy car would definitely qualify.

“It's nothing, Daddy”—
Why do I keep saying that?
—“I'm tutoring her in English, and she offered a ride when I missed the bus.”

My dad scowls, tugging down the cap bearing the logo of the company where he works. He's well built for his job: broad shouldered, with a beer belly and hands that can span halfway around a basketball. He's a big guy. He's not terribly tall, but his overall appearance still gives off an aura of power that has few people daring to argue with him.

“You ‘missed the bus'?” he repeats suspiciously. “Is that what they're calling it these days?”

“Calling what?” I don't have to fake the confusion in my voice for that question.

“If you're fooling around with her—”

“
Dad
!” I shriek, scandalized.

He eyes me and then says, “I think it's time we had a father-to-daughter talk.”

“No,” I say loudly. “It is not the time for that. It is
never
the time for that. Please, Dad, I'm not lying! She's flunking English, and she begged me for help! I didn't want to, but Amber encouraged me to give her some advice.” I feel a twinge of guilt for throwing Amber under the bus like this, but desperate times…. “I'm not fooling around with anyone.”

He looks dubious. “It's almost six. You spent the whole time studying?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, cursing the existence of gelato. “Almost. We studied at school, in the library until almost 4:30. We have witnesses!” I say on a burst of inspiration. “Seriously, you can check. Then she offered to buy me ice cream to thank me, and then we came straight here. I swear.”

“She gay or whatever too?”

“Yeeeaahh?” This fact had been included in a long, rambling speech on the UN she'd given freshmen year that had been as useless at conveying helpful information as it had been hysterical.

“And ice cream, huh? Sounds a little romantic for a study buddy.”

“People eat ice cream all the time, Dad.”

“Who suggested it?”

“She did.”

“Ha,” he snorted. “People don't offer ice cream to girls they don't like.”

“Well, this one did,” I say shortly, thoroughly done with the conversation. I pick my bag back up, intending to go to my room. “I can basically guarantee you won't see her around after next Wednesday.”

“What happens next Wednesday?” he asks sharply. “Is it some sordid prom thing?”

“Prom thing?” I repeat, nonplussed. “Why prom?”

“I know it's coming up, and don't think I haven't noticed you have yet to say who you're going with,” he says.

“Oh, that's right. It's next week, isn't it?” I had completely forgotten. Prom isn't on my radar in the slightest. I tell him so and say, “You know that. I'm not going.”

“Sure, sure,” he says. “So what happens next Wednesday, then?”

“Scarlett's papers are due to her teacher. She won't need me anymore. Seriously, Dad, why are you being so weird? This isn't like you.”

“This isn't like
you
, you mean,” he counters. “Hanging out with new girls. Going out for ice cream? Ice cream, for God's sake!”

“It was just ice cream!” I shout, storming off to my room and slamming the door. I don't dare tell him it was actually gelato. I toss my bag on the floor and fall face-first onto my bed, barely clearing the wall with my head. My room is so small, I can brace my feet against the wall and lie with my hips just off the edge of my bed, which I roll over, shuffle down, and do. It's been one of my favorite positions to think in since I was tall enough to accomplish it.

I puzzle through the bizarre day. Studying with Scarlett, laughing with Scarlett, then fighting with Scarlett…. My father's bizarre vigilance kicking in…. And that whole fight at the gelato store. I still don't know what to make of that.

Mom comes out of her room for dinner, and Dad doesn't bring up anything about girls, perhaps for fear of upsetting her. Sam keeps looking between me and Dad but doesn't say anything either.

Saturday I go for a long, brisk jog to clear my head and work my muscles. When I get back, I sit down with Sam, and we go over his homework like we do at least twice a week. I'm thinking about bumping our sessions up to three times a week because he's been acting out at school. He's skipped a few times, and Mom's been forced to come get him. Then I watch TV for a while before I go to babysit Jeremy and Astell McCullum, a referral from the Uzuns. They're cute and fairly well behaved. We play outside a lot because it's a beautiful spring day, inching toward warmer, summery weather. I make up an impromptu scavenger hunt that I'm pretty proud of.

I think of Scarlett a surprising amount. I end up with three draft e-mails to her, trying to vocalize an apology, a defense, and a general “how are you?”—none of which ever get sent.

Sunday morning I sleep late. When I stagger into the kitchen for brunch in my pajamas, Sam is sitting at the table with his head on the pillow of his arms, not moving.

“You okay, bean?” I ask, frowning. I comb my fingers through his hair and grow worried at how hot he is.

“I don't feel good,” he says in a tiny voice, solidifying my diagnosis.

“Yeah, it feels like you've got a fever, sweetie,” I say, resting the back of my hand against his forehead. “Let's get you back to bed.”

He stirs when I try to guide him from his chair. “I can't! I promised Mr. and Mrs. Pirinen I would mow their lawn today, remember?”