Schizo (11 page)

IT'S AROUND TEN THIRTY
when Jackie finally leaves. She stayed and ate dinner with us and watched a couple episodes of
Arrested Development
on Netflix. My mom, of course, took a pill and went to bed. But me and Jackie and Jane and my dad all sat together laughing and eating ice cream. We would've kept on watching probably all night if we could've, but tomorrow's a school day and my dad made us turn it off.

So Jackie gets in her mom's car and drives off, and I say good night to my family and go quickly to my computer. I try to look up the California State Lottery, but, for whatever reason, the page is taking forever to load. There must be something wrong with our Internet.

Anyway, I'm sure the lottery won't be big enough for Simon Tolliver to buy another ticket yet. That guy at the liquor store said it was just at twenty million. Not that I'm 100 percent sure how the whole thing works. I'll have to look it up tomorrow.

I turn the computer off and go to lie down on the bed. But then I hear my phone vibrating again on the table next to me.

It's Preston. His name comes up on the caller ID.

I roll my eyes. I mean, Jesus Christ. Like I'm some couples therapist.

I answer the phone and start pacing around my small room.

“Yo. What's up?”

His voice comes through strained. “Did you talk to Jackie?”

“Yeah, she just left here.”

“Oh.” There's a pause, then, “Is she okay?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Another pause. “Can I come over for a second, you think? Smoke a cigarette?”

“You don't smo—”

“Come on,” he cuts in. “Please. I don't have anyone else to talk to about this stuff.”

I nod my head, though obviously he can't see that. “Sure, yeah, no problem,” I say.

He thanks me over and over.

We hang up.

It's funny, I guess.

And I'm happy, too, that I'm able to be here for him—for both of them. As they've always been there for me, no matter what. So I put on my big jacket and a hat and a scarf and these fingerless gloves, 'cause it really is cold outside. I have old-fashioned-looking plush slippers that used to be my dad's, so I put those on, too, and grab my pack of cigarettes.

Out in the kitchen, my dad is up still, boiling water on the stove. He's wearing a bathrobe over flannel pajamas and drinking a glass of straight whiskey.

“What's up, Tiger? Can't sleep?” I say to him, and he laughs.

“That's right, old man. What about you?” he says.

“Preston called. He's coming over.”

“You're the marriage counselor tonight, huh?”

“That's just what I was thinking.”

“You want some hot chocolate?” he asks.

I smile at him. His beard has grown in thick and long, so he almost looks like some hipster guy from the Mission.

“Is that what you're having?”

He nods.

The kettle starts to whistle on the stove, and my dad turns the flame off.

“You're a good friend,” he tells me.

And then my mom yells from their room, “Sam! What are you doing?”

I guess maybe the kettle woke her up.

“You better go on out,” my dad whispers.

I do as he says.

The night is very black and very cold—none of the streetlights are working, and the wind is still blowing in strong from across the bay. I smoke my cigarette and wait for Preston's little Fiat to pull up in front.

He arrives about a minute later.

“My man,” he says as we hug briefly. He smells, as always, like pot and incense. His ski jacket is zipped all the way up to his chin, and he has a wool hat pulled down low over his eyes. “It's fucking freezing.”

I nod. “Sorry, my mom's up,” I tell him. “You mind if we sit out here?”

“Of course, yeah. That was the plan.”

He leans against the railing, and I crouch down on the balls of my feet.

“Jackie said she came over here.”

I scratch at the back of my neck. “Oh, so you talked to her?”

He scratches at his broad chin with long, thick fingers, the nails wide and flat. Above him a large crow flies down from the branches of a scraggly-looking beech tree. I blink my eyes to try to make it disappear, but it's still there, hovering in midair.

“We texted,” he says. “What, you guys had dinner or something?”

“Yeah. We watched
Arrested Development.
She was upset.”

I blink again and watch as the crow swoops down lower. I tell myself it must be in my head. It has to be. It's the middle of the night.

But then the crow flies up again. It flies up, and a giant glob of white crow shit goes splattering all over the shoulder of Preston's jacket.

“Jesus! What the hell?”

“That bird took a shit on you,” I say.

“Jesus Christ.”

“I mean, what are the fucking chances?”

He laughs and I laugh and we laugh together.

“Look, man,” I say after a minute. “I get you coming over here. But Jackie loves you. Seriously, you don't have to worry.”

Preston crouches down next to me. “Really? She's okay?”

I nod. “Of course. She loves you.”

He smiles and plays with the zipper of his jacket. “It's that simple, huh?”

“It seems like it, yeah—though obviously I don't know anything about relationships.”

“What? Yeah, you do.”

“I know about fucking them up.”

He spits over the railing. “What does that mean?”

“You know what it means.”

“Eliza? That wasn't your fault.”

My eyes close. “No, that's not it.”

“Then what, man?”

“Nothing,” I tell him. “It's nothing.”

He puts his hand on my shoulder. “Well, anyway, I appreciate you lettin' me come over like this.”

“Of course.”

He smiles. “I should probably hang out with Jackie tomorrow night. But maybe Saturday we can all go to a movie. Are you gonna try to see Eliza?”

I smile back. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

He nods. “Well, be careful, okay? You're probably sick of me saying it—but be careful.”

“Thank you. I will.”

“You better.”

We hug and say good-bye, and he starts down the stairs.

“Sorry about that crow shit,” I call after him.

He gets in the car.

And drives away.

ELIZA'S FAMILY HAS MOVED
into a new house since I knew her last—and, from what I can tell from here at least, it's a lot smaller than I would've imagined.

She points it out to me—a two-story town house at the top of the park at Alamo Square, a tiered park with a view of the entire downtown skyline and the Bay Bridge and the East Bay in the distance.

We hike up the concrete steps that cut through the center of the park, passing the playground we used to play in together when we were kids. There's something so familiar being here with Eliza, and in a way, it's like no time has passed at all.

The sky is clear and cold and the wind blows in strong off the ocean. As we walk through the park together, I look out and can see the reflection of the sun on the windows of the houses along the East Bay like fire spreading.

Eliza says nothing, but takes my hand in hers, and I feel her warmth against the wind and the cold. She has the hood of her sweatshirt up covering her hair and is wearing a heavy jacket over her sweatshirt and those same torn jeans tucked into big lace-up boots. Her eyes are very blue against the black of her hair and the fading light.

She leans forward then, and I realize she's trying to kiss me and so I drop the backpacks and I kiss her and she kisses me, and the feel of her against me makes me dizzy and light-headed.

“This is me taking it slow,” she says, her nose pressed against mine.

I don't have it in me to fight her. Not when I've spent what feels like my whole life chasing after her.

We kiss, our mouths and tongues together, and we breathe into each other, and it's like everything in my life has been leading up to this exact moment. It is all perfect, part of some greater plan for me and for her and for the whole universe. We are kissing and it is all beautiful and miraculous and exactly as it's supposed to be—like there really is some divine will looking out for me, looking out for us both.

I put my hand on her tiny waist, beneath her jacket and sweatshirt and T-shirt, and feel her warm skin, and she shivers against me. I put my other hand on the small of her back and she seems to fall into me, and I kiss her and she kisses me and I'm flushed and shaking—and then she pulls away, saying, “Come on, let's go inside.”

I kiss her again.

“Come on, let me show you around inside.”

I pick up the two backpacks—mine and hers.

She takes my hand.

And now we walk together.

CHRISTINA, ELIZA'S MOM, IS
a pretty good chef, just like Eliza's dad—though she's not a professional or anything.

She makes us these amazing-looking grilled cheese sandwiches and a salad with roasted corn cut off the cob and cherry tomatoes.

She has black hair and green-blue eyes like Eliza's, though her features are much more narrow and petite. She wears a long shapeless dress and a necklace with a jagged crystal hanging from the end.

She's an old-school hippie. She always has been. She's into the whole organic, local food movement and everything.

But, like I said, her food is awesome.

She puts the sandwiches down in front of us, and Eliza asks if I want a beer.

“You drink beer now?” Christina asks me, and I hesitate before saying, “Uh, yeah.”

Mother and daughter exchange glances, and then they both smile.

“Well, what the hell?” Christina says. “I'll have one, too.”

She gets out three bottles of this apricot-flavored Pyramid ale, and I feel very adult suddenly. We're all sitting together in their giant kitchen with brand-new appliances and high ceilings, and it almost feels like me and Eliza are this grown-up couple in an apartment we live in together.

The table is made up of mosaicked tile, and the colors are vibrant. I realize I'm kind of staring when Christina says, “It's good to see you, Miles. It's just like old times, no? Cheers.”

She holds out the beer and we all “cheers” together, and I look over at Eliza and she's smiling back at me.

“By the way,” Christina continues, “we're going to Carmel for Christmas. I've rented a suite for the week. You really should come.”

Arrow, their one-year-old bloodhound, is currently positioned under my chair, trying to get whatever scraps of food I might be able to give him. He obviously assumes, since I'm the new guy, that I won't know the rules about no scraps from the table. And I guess he's right, 'cause I sneak him a corner of my sandwich and he slobbers all over my hand eating it.

“Remember when we'd go up to Tahoe when you were kids?” Christina asks me. “That was such fun.”

“Of course.” I look over to Eliza to get her approval. “Are you sure that would be all right if I come?”

“Totally,” she says cheerfully.

“Then it's settled. It'll be our treat.”

Christina drinks down more of her beer, and so I do, too.

“Liesy's so happy to be back,” she says. “She's thrilled to see you again.”

I drop my head, blushing a little.

“It broke my heart to see you two leave on such bad terms. And I am so sorry to hear about all the trouble you've had.”

I nod my head slowly, breathing out. “Yeah.”

“It's not fair. This kind of thing always happens to the sweetest people. But you're in good company. Madness and genius are very closely related, you know?”

“Yeah, right. I'm the last thing from a genius.”

“Well, you are a sensitive soul. The world needs more people like you. Lord, compared to that Neanderthal Liesy was with in New Orleans—”

“Mom!”

I see Eliza's face go flushed even more, and she has her eyes open wide like she's trying to communicate with her mom through facial expressions.

“I'm just saying. You are a major improvement.”

Eliza keeps on staring her mom down. “Mom! Please.” Then she turns to me. “She is right, though. You are an improvement.”

I fidget some. “Gee, thanks . . . I guess.”

Eliza smiles now and looks at me very sweetly.

We look at each other for a few moments just not saying anything. I have this intense urge inside of me to tell her I love her. I mean, I know that's crazy since we haven't even really spent any time together in over two years. But, then again, this whole thing is crazy. It all feels so . . . so meant to be . . . so natural. Like some guiding force brought us back together.

“Oh, aren't you guys cute!” Christina says, clasping her hands together.

Eliza and I both blush and look down.

“It's perfect,” she continues. “Oh, Miles, by the way, I want you to write down your birthday and, most importantly, your birth time for me before you go. I want to do your charts, okay?”

“You mean, like, astrology?” I ask.

“Yeah,” Eliza says, rolling her eyes. “Mom's super into that these days. It is kinda cool, though. You'd be surprised how right on the readings are.”

Christina smiles. “Well, of course they are. The planets control the tides, don't they? Human beings are seventy-five percent water; it makes perfect sense the planets would control us, too.”

I nod politely. “Wow, yeah, I never thought of it that way.”

“It'll be fun to see what it says about us,” Eliza tells me.

Christina leans forward on her elbows. She's wearing a cardigan sweater over her dress, and there's a strange brooch, like some kind of amulet, pinned over her breast.

“My guess is you two have been doing this for many lifetimes together, over and over. Otherwise how could you have possibly found each other so young?”

“Mom, please.”

“I'm sorry, dear. You're right. It's not good to talk too much about these things. I do have a tendency to overanalyze everything. Are you spending the night, Miles?”

The question startles me a little, and I choke, coughing. I mean, God, how I want to. And, God, how I don't want to tell them the truth, that my mom would probably freak the fuck out if I asked her. She thinks me seeing Eliza again is going to mean me going batshit crazy again—maybe hurting Jane this time like I hurt Teddy last time.

But I do want to stay. I want to stay so badly. Everything here is just . . . just exactly the way it should be. I think about that Washington Phillips record. It seems so strangely coincidental that I would be listening to all this gospel music and suddenly it's as if there really is a power like God in my life.

There is that cool breeze blowing through my mind, and I feel as if there might actually be a power coming to take away all my pain and suffering and the suffering of my family. I'm not sure how that's going to happen. But it
is
going to happen. I will be with Eliza and I will find Teddy.

My mom will be upset at first. But soon she'll come to see. She'll come to understand.

I swallow and look up at Eliza.

“I'd really like to,” I say.

“Good,” Christina says. “Because you're welcome any time. It feels good having a man around the house again, doesn't it, sweetie?”

Eliza smiles and blushes some more and shakes her head. “Yeah, Mom, Jesus. That's enough, all right? Come on, Miles, you want to go outside?”

“Yeah, sure.”

I take my plate over to the sink, and then Eliza and I head out to the front porch to smoke.

That breeze is there, cool and gentle and calming.

I open the door.

We both step outside.