Struck by Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal (15 page)

Okay, you know how you know you’re out of your mind with exhaustion? When you metaphorically refer to yourself as a
baby turtle
! God, I need a vacation after all of this!

Once I get Claire’s submission typed into my computer, the literary magazine will officially be complete, and I will be the proud creator of what must be the Eighth Wonder of the World!

What a couple of weeks it’s been! Had I known when I started this project I was going to be so immersed in everyone’s problems, I might have had stronger reservations. Seriously, when did I become all these people’s therapist? I’m blackmailing these assholes, not
raising
them.

They can still go fuck themselves with the sharpest stick in the woods for all I care…but that’s the thing:
Am I starting to care? Am I starting to see the shit-wads as human beings and not vicious life-sucking crustaceans now? Has blackmailing people turned me into a better-rounded person?

God, I hope not.

11/2

Malerie and I were hanging out in the journalism classroom today after school (I swear I am one pillow and blanket away from making it my official residence). We were going through piles and piles of “her writing” that could be submitted for the magazine. I’m still helping her out with this whole “satire” thing.

My cell phone started ringing, which is an odd thing since it’s rung twice since I got it. (Usually it’s just Mom asking me if I can pick her up some Midol and a box of Good & Plenty on the way home from Grandma’s.)

“I just turn my phone off while I’m at school so I don’t hear it not ringing,” Malerie said.

Even more shocking was who was calling me. Honestly, it was the last person in the world I ever expected to hear from.

“Who is it?” Malerie asked.

“My dad,” I said. I was so flabbergasted I almost forgot how to answer the phone. “Hello?” I said tentatively.

“Hey, Carson,” he said. “I didn’t mean to call you after school; I’m sure you’re busy with your homework and so forth.”

It was so weird to hear his voice. It felt a little like he was a deceased family member communicating to me from the beyond.

“Anyway,” he went on, never pausing for air, “I have some really exciting news to tell you. I’m getting married! Her name is April and we’re expecting a baby! You’re going to have a baby brother!”

I almost
shat
my pants. Literally, the floor was almost covered in my
shat
. “You’ve got to be shitting me,” was all I could say, hence the choice of words.

“Yes, we’re very happy, thank you,” Dad said. “Anyway, she wants to meet you, so is there any way you could make it over for dinner sometime soon? Say, eight o’clock tonight?”

I’m not crazy for thinking that this is a totally fucked-up situation, right?

“I’d have to think about it,” I said. My head was spinning so fast I’m not sure if I even knew my own name.

“Please do—in fact I’d really appreciate it,” Dad said. “Hope to see you soon!”

“Okay,” I said, and got off the phone.

“What happened?” Malerie asked me.

I wasn’t sure myself, so all I could do was relay the bullet points of what my brain was still trying to process. “Apparently my dad is getting married.”

“Congratulations!” Malerie said, and raised her hand to give a high five. I didn’t respond.

“I guess,” I said. “He wants me to have dinner tonight with his fiancée and, well,
baby mama
.”

“Are you going to go?” she asked me.

I didn’t know. I hadn’t even thought about whether I was going to attend this…
event
. “I’m not sure,” I said. “Things are complicated between me and my dad because there is absolutely nothing between the two of us. Does that make sense?”

“Totally,” Malerie said. “Things are awkward between me and my dad too. He doesn’t really have a relationship with me, because he doesn’t know I exist.”

“Oh,” I said. “Sorry to hear that.”

She totally just
one-upped
me on the deadbeat-dad situation. Now I
really
feel like I have to go. Oh well,
I guess it couldn’t be that bad. It’d be nice to have a meal that wasn’t microwaved for a change, assuming this woman was cooking.

No wonder Dad came over to have Mom sign the divorce papers—that sneaky bastard! And I didn’t think about Mom. How in hell am I going to break the news to her?

11/2 again

It’s just before midnight and I’m back from what has to have been one of the most uncomfortable and awkward dinners in the history of mankind. I’m telling you, the Last Supper has nothing on this.

It started with me rehearsing in the bathroom mirror for almost an hour what I was going to say to Mom. The best way I could think of breaking it to her started with me saying, “Mom, you know that episode of
Dr. Phil
you saved?” So I figured the best thing for me to do was to just sneak out of the house.

I walked past the living room to the door as quickly and as quietly as I possibly could. Of course, the one time she’s conscious at seven-thirty in the evening had to be tonight. To make matters worse, she was in the middle of watching one of those Lifetime movies about a woman suffering from domestic violence, so I knew she was already not in a good state of mind to hear this.

“Where are you going?” she asked from the couch.

“I…” It took me a while just to say that. “I’m going
to dinner with Dad.” It still surprised the hell out of both of us.

“Why?” Mom asked.

“Um…” I said. This was the moment I’d been dreading. “Apparently, he’s getting married.”

It took a few seconds for Mom to process the information.

“Oh, really?” she said. “I didn’t know that. Good for him.” Her eyes immediately went toward the television, but I knew she wasn’t watching it. Her eyes became watery as she held in whatever was building up inside her.

My own heart felt like it had fallen out of my body just telling her; I couldn’t imagine what
she
must have felt like. Mom and I have had our issues, but no child should ever have to see their parent look like that.

“He wants me to go meet his fiancée, so that’s where I’m headed,” I said.

“Have fun,” Mom said. “Get home at a decent hour … and all that parenting shit.”

“Okay,” I said. “’Bye, Mom.
Love you
.”

I didn’t want to leave her, but I was almost glad I wasn’t going to be there for the rest of the night. I didn’t
want to witness how Mom was going to handle it. I knew it wouldn’t be pretty.

I got into my car, did my series of tricks to get it started, and drove off hating the night before it had even started.

Dad texted me April’s address, where they apparently had been living together for the last seven months. Way to drop a line,
Dad
.

Her house was in a really nice part of town. It was painted yellow with white trim and had a picket fence around the front yard. There was even a
welcome mat
. It completely threw me off. I had no idea what to expect.

I still don’t know why this woman would have moved to Clover. Dad must have convinced April the suburbs were a good place to raise a child. Is there a gene in women that makes them all secretly want to be June Cleaver? Clearly, there was one in April.

I rang the doorbell, which was positioned on the stomach of a kitty-cat doorbell cover. It was weirdly sweet. It made the house seem like the kind of place you’d eat freshly baked cookies or get murdered in. You know what I mean?

“I’ll get it, I’ll get it,” I heard my dad say. He opened the door. “Hey, Carson, come on in.”

It was a little jarring seeing my dad for the first time in so long. His hair was much grayer now and we were the same height. We awkwardly shook hands, each afraid to grip the other’s.

“Good to see you, buddy, thanks for coming over,” he said, and showed me into the kitchen. Everything in the house was so clean and put together, it made Mom’s house look like an episode of
Hoarders
.

“And this is April,” Dad said. He referred to the woman standing in the kitchen. I had to do a double take; I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She was beautiful, with bright red hair and fair skin. Her eyes were big and bright, but in a really pleasant way, not in a substance-abuse way.

“Hi, Carson!” she said happily. “It’s so nice to meet you.”

“You too,” I said, and shook her hand. “Are you by chance a trademark of the Walt Disney Company?”

“Huh?” she asked.

“He’s joking. He’s very sarcastic,” Dad said.

“Oh, I get it,” she said. “That’s very sweet, thank
you.” She put her hands on her pregnant belly and from then on I had a hard time taking my eyes off it all night. It was so weird to think there was a baby cooking inside there that shared DNA with me.

“Let’s eat, shall we?” Dad said.

Dinner was mostly quiet, with short-lived small-talk topics. I couldn’t stop eating—the food was amazing. I kept waiting for April to start talking to herself or see an imaginary animal walking around the house or something crazy; there had to be something wrong with her. Otherwise, why was she engaged to Dad?

“Your dad tells me you’re quite popular at school?” April asked me.

I snorted. “No, I’m active but not popular.”

“He’s part of the Newspaper Club,” Dad said.

“Actually, I’m president of the Writers’ Club, editor of the school newspaper, and just started a school literary magazine,” I corrected him.

“Well, check you out!” April said warmly. I hated how easy it was to like this woman. “You must get really good grades!”

“He does okay,” Dad said.

“I have a four point two,” I said, annoyed with him
now. He didn’t know me well enough to know what my grades were. “I would have a four point five, but I tend to argue with the teachers about their lesson plans, so …”

“Do you play any sports?” April asked. I didn’t even have the urge to throw up on her after she asked that question, that’s how sweet she was.

Dad started laughing. “God knows I tried,” he said. “We’d always go down to the park and throw a ball around, but he never showed any interest.”

“Did we?” I said with a mouth full of food.

“I quickly realized I wasn’t going to get the major-leaguer I was hoping for,” Dad said. “He kind of threw like a girl.”

And then I got it—Dad was pretending to be something other than the selfish asshole he had been my entire life. April might have loved hearing this bullshit, but I had had enough of it.

“Dad, we never did that.”

“Sure we did—you just don’t remember,” Dad quickly shot back at me.

“No, I would have remembered something like that.”

“He’s just exaggerating,” Dad said, looking straight at April, as if I wasn’t in the room anymore. “He has this creative imagination. I think it’s what makes him such a good writer.”

“Dad, who are you pretending to be?” I borderline shouted at him. “You left how many years ago and I’ve seen you maybe
twice
since then?”

“Carson, you’re young, maybe you don’t understand.” Dad said.

“You’re right, I don’t understand!” I said. “I don’t understand how you could abandon your old family and act like everything is okay in front of the new one!”

April’s eyes fell to her plate.

“Your mom was unstable,” Dad said.

“Yeah, I know,” I said. “And you left me with her. What kind of father does that?”

“Carson, I can only say ‘sorry’ so many times,” Dad said. The funny thing was he had never said it once. I must have inherited that from him.

“Thank you for dinner, April. It was lovely,” I said, and got up from the table. “But I have to go now.”

I walked right past my dad, not even able to look him in the eye, and walked out the front door. It suddenly
became very clear to me what that dinner had been; it was Dad’s way of authenticating something with April. He had tried using me, and it didn’t work.

Adults can really suck more than teenagers sometimes.

I was so mad it felt like I got home in a matter of seconds. I cautiously entered the house, not knowing what state I was going to find Mom in. She was passed out on the couch. Balled-up clumps of tissue were everywhere. She had obviously cried herself to sleep. She was also clutching a framed portrait of her, Dad, and me taken years ago.

I turned off the television and covered Mom with a blanket. It’s amazing how many lives one person can ruin.

I just hope Mom is going to be all right once I’m gone. There’s only so much you can do over the phone.

11/3

Well, the
Clover High Literary Magazine
is officially done! It really turned out pretty great if I do say so myself. It deserves a celebration, but the truth is, I’m not going to feel like celebrating until I get an acceptance letter with my name on it.

The copies going on sale at the school are being printed first thing Monday morning, but I printed a copy at home and put it in a special snazzy portfolio and sent it off this afternoon to the Northwestern admissions office with a brand-new application. It miraculously has plenty of time to get there, which leaves me feeling very impressed with myself; hopefully it’ll be a mutual feeling.

I feel like I just put all my hopes and dreams into an envelope and sent it to a total stranger. I made another copy to keep in this journal, so I’ll always remember November 3 is the day I completed the impossible!

I think I’ll take tomorrow off, though. Even God rested on the seventh day.

THE 2012 CLOVER HIGH
LITERARY MAGAZINE