The Cybil War (8 page)

And when he got home at last and sank down on the front steps, he even thought he heard, once again, the silken sigh of crushed daddy longlegs.

The fact that he had now, without even trying, written an absolutely perfect sad sentence—I have a date with Harriet Haywood—was no comfort at all.

S
imon stood by his bed looking out the window. It was dark, but he had not turned on the light.

On this, the evening before his date with Harriet Haywood, darkness seemed appropriate. All day, as he had sat in school with his head down—never looking up once to see if Tony was looking at Cybil or Cybil looking at Tony or, worse, if Harriet Haywood was looking at
him
—he had wished for darkness.

Now that the miracle had happened, he could not enjoy it. There had been a letter from his father that afternoon. He was in Arizona in a deserted mining town. He and some friends were working the mine, digging out turquoise. When they earned enough money, his father said, they were going to build a raft and sail to South America.

“He's obsessed,” his mother said when she finished the letter. She let it drop to the table as if it were heavy. “He's digging for turquoise when every single person in the world has as much turquoise as they can possibly wear.” She shook her head. “And what will he do in South America? Can you tell me that?”

He shook his head. The letters upset them both, only they reacted differently. His mother asked question after question, one after another, questions that had no answers. Even a week later she would interrupt his studying to say, “And why on earth would he ...” Simon had asked the questions at first too, only now he had stopped.

The image he had of his father was getting blurred, altered by all the pictures he'd seen of hermits and wild men, miners now, and men who let the ocean sweep them away on rafts. He could not remember his father's face at all.

Once he had believed he would be like his father when he grew up. It was more than a matter of genes. He wanted to be like him.

He would wear old woolen jackets and patched pants and let his hair grow and protest nuclear power. He would no longer fear wasps and poison ivy and would genuinely care about the natural habitat of the snail fish. He would eat mostly beans and rice.

But this afternoon, sitting at the table, looking at the letter that lay between him and his mother, he no longer believed it.

It wasn't that he could not imagine himself digging for turquoise in a mine hundreds of feet below ground or living in a forest. It was that he was still trying to go forward somehow, fighting through the confusion and complications, against all biological odds, and his father had gone so far backward that he wanted to go to South America on a raft.

He sighed, watched the street below, where a dog was checking the garbage cans. The dog found a piece of meat paper and went away.

And in his date with Harriet Haywood, Simon thought, the first terrible social obligation of his life, an event so complicated and awful it made him feel sick, in this was the final proof of his difference. It had never once occurred to him to run.

It was odd. The original reason for accepting the date was so that he could be there to keep an eye on Cybil and Tony. But this was no longer true. He didn't want to see what they did. And yet here he was, going on the date as bravely as Daniel went into the lion's den.

But then maybe his father had done this too, he thought—gone on dates he didn't want to go on, done things he didn't want to do, until one day ...

He turned abruptly and walked into the living room. T-Bone was lying on the hearth.

Simon lay down beside the dog with his cheek against the cool slate. “T-Bone, I've got some unfortunate news. I have a date with Harriet Haywood.”

He was pleased that his voice was calm, normal, nothing in his tone to alarm the dog.

T-Bone opened his eyes but did not lift his head. He thumped his tail once on the hearth.

“She's as big as a woman, T-Bone.”

Thump.

“A grown woman.” He paused. “Make that an
over
grown woman.”

As he said that, a picture of Harriet Haywood came to his mind, bigger even than life and with the kind of stern authority of an adult. He remembered her, hands on her hips, saying, “You two better not cause any trouble,” at the pet show. It was like having a date with Miss McFawn, he decided, and shuddered.

At almost the same moment, he thought of Cybil. He remembered her running out of her house once with Clara's diary. It was during second grade, the peak—he thought then—of his love.

And Clara had come after her, and Cybil had scooted up in the mimosa tree and, legs dangling in the sunlight, pretended to read from the diary.

“Mom! Cybil's got my diary.”

“Cybil!”

“Mom, you ought to read this yourself, especially Saturday, September ninth!”

“Cybillllll!”

“Oh, here's your old diary,” Cybil said, dropping it. “Anyway, if it makes you feel any better, I can't read cursive writing yet.”

Then she had seen Simon standing at the edge of the street. “Simon, come on up!”

He had climbed up, feeling better and stronger with each limb, as if the air itself were getting cleaner, rarer, less polluted. When he got there at last, she said, “I don't like Miss Ellis, do you?”

“No.”

“You know what my sister calls her?”

“No.”

“Deviled Egg.”

That alone—the perfect assessment of Miss Ellis—would have made the climb worthwhile.

“Your sisters,” he said, paying them his highest compliment, “remind me of you.”

“Yes, we all look alike, and you know what? My mom is beautiful. Have you ever seen her?” He shook his head. “Well, she's
beautiful
, only she has very weak genes. We got my father's eyes, my father's skin, my father's hair, my father's legs, everything. Guess what we got from my mother?” He shook his head again. “Skimpy earlobes. Look!” She lifted her hair. “None of us can ever wear earrings.”

He had been so charmed that he almost fell out of the tree like a drunken bird.

Simon glanced over at T-Bone, who was asleep again. He said, “I had a nightmare about my date with Harriet, T-Bone. I was on a TV show called ‘Take Your Pick,' and I had to decide whether I would go on a date with Harriet or with a gorilla and I couldn't decide and the clock was ticking and they were in glass booths—Harriet and the gorilla—and I was running back and forth, from one booth to the other, and by accident the gorilla's door opened and Harriet thought I'd picked the gorilla and she came out and hit me over the head with an umbrella.

“Well, my mom came in then and woke me up and said, ‘Simon, you were having a nightmare.' And I said, ‘Yes.' Then I said, ‘Oh, by the way, I have a date this Saturday,' in a normal voice as if I had been dating all my life. She said, ‘Oh, with that nice little girl who was over here last week—Cybil Somebody.' And I said, ‘No, with the tub of blubber.' End of conversation between me and my mom.”

Suddenly Simon put his arm around T-Bone and buried his face in the fur of T-Bone's neck. He hadn't done this in a long time, but the dog smelled exactly the same, felt exactly the same. He himself felt compelled to act as he used to.

“Oh, T-Bone, I don't want to go,” he said, feeling the childish words coming in a comfortable rush. “I don't want to go on a date with Harriet Haywood. I don't want to have dates. T-Bone, help me, bite me, do something, anything. Give me a dog disease. T-Bone, do something!”

Lick.

Simon sat up and looked at the dog, “T-Bone, I must say that you have been a real help and consolation in my hour of misfortune. Thank you.”

Thump.

T
he day of Simon's date was beautiful and mild, and Simon made his way to the mall under a cloudless sky.

He began walking more slowly when he got to the mall parking lot. His determination, which he now estimated to have the size and permanence of an ice cube, began to grow even smaller as he crossed the pavement. He stopped beside a van.

This would be, he thought suddenly, the absolutely perfect moment for his father to kidnap him. His father could leap from the van, beard flying, snatch him up, toss him inside, and roar off to ancient forests and turquoise mines or wherever real day-to-day living didn't exist. Only Harriet Haywood, cheated out of her date, would mind. Hands on hips, eyes narrowed, she would say, “I
knew
he wouldn't behave!” He shuddered slightly as he left the shelter of the van.

Suddenly Tony Angotti burst through the mall doors. He ran across the parking lot, dodging cars as if he were on the football field.

“Disaster,” he gasped when he got to Simon. The force of his movement caused them to swing around like children on the playground.

“What happened?” Simon asked. His voice rose with sudden hope. “Harriet didn't come?”

“Worse! They're waiting
outside
the theater.” He grabbed Simon's shoulders and shook him to get the meaning to go down. “I told them
inside
, you know so we wouldn't have to
pay
!”

“Well—”

“And now they're
outside
!” His eyes shifted to Simon's pocket. “How much money you got?”

“Three dollars.”

“Well, it's two dollars to get in, and that's what I've got—two dollars! And even for that I have to stoop down and pretend I'm a child!”

“That won't work for Harriet. She's big, Tony. I was thinking about that last night. She's—”

“Shut up and think!”

“Maybe we should just go home,” Simon said while Tony wrung his hands. “Forget it.”

“We are not going to forget it,” Tony said firmly. He began pulling Simon toward the mall by the front of his shirt.

“Well, if we haven't got the money ...”

“We'll tell them to go on inside,” Tony said with sudden inspiration. “How does this sound? We'll tell them you have to buy something in Penney's for your mother. We'll tell them to save us some seats. All right now, let's go in and try it.”

Cybil and Harriet were waiting—Tony was right—outside the theater. They were both wearing skirts and blouses. This alarmed Simon. He thought the only time girls wore skirts and blouses was to church and on special occasions. He did not want anyone to think of this as a special occasion. He began to walk more slowly.

“Now back me up,” Tony said. He approached the girls and stood by Cybil. “Look, Simon's got a little problem. Me and him got to go in Penney's for a minute and get something for his mom. You go on inside and we'll be right with you.”

“We'll wait for you out here,” Harriet said firmly. She looked so big in her skirt and blouse that she seemed to block the whole front of the theater.

“Inside,
inside
.” Tony pushed them toward the ticket seller. “You'll have to save the seats.”

“But we're the first people here,” Harriet said. She turned and faced them. Her hands were on her hips. “The whole theater is empty.”

“Yeah, but me and Simon like to sit in the front row, don't we, pal?”

This time Tony spun Harriet around with such force and skill that she found herself directly in front of the ticket booth. “How many?” the woman asked in a bored voice.

“One—child,” Harriet said through tight lips. She glanced back with fury at Tony and Simon as she bent her knees.

“One,” said Cybil.

Tony pulled Simon toward Penney's. “Don't look back,” he said. “It might be a trick.” He shook his head. “If they don't buy those tickets—well, we'll just have to keep on going.”

They went into Penney's and hid in the shoe department. Tony peered around the display of high heels. “They've either gone in or they've gone home,” he reported.

“They've gone in,” Simon said pessimistically.

“Let's go then.”

They walked back to the theater, and Tony said, “Did two girls buy tickets and go inside a minute ago? One's redheaded and one's fat.”

“Yeah, they're inside.”

“Did they buy popcorn and candy?”

“No.”

“Bad news,” Tony said as he bent his knees. “One—child.”

Simon bought popcorn and they made their way into the theater. They did not have any trouble spotting Harriet and Cybil because they were the only two people there. They were sitting in the front row, talking to each other over two empty seats.

Harriet looked back and said, “Here they come, and look! They didn't buy anything at Penney's. I told you they just didn't want to pay our way.”

“Penney's was all out of unmentionables in his mom's size,” Tony explained quickly, slipping into the seat beside Cybil.

Simon sat by Harriet. “Popcorn?” he asked.

“Thanks.”

She took the box and began to eat. Simon watched as the top pieces, yellow with butter, disappeared into her mouth, then the dry middle pieces. When she got to the bottom where the crumbs were, she offered the box back to Simon.

He shook his head.

“You're sure you don't want any?”

He nodded.

“Well, if you're sure.” She turned up the container and drank the crumbs. Then she said, “I'm thirsty, aren't you?”

Simon got up dutifully. He made his way to the back of the theater and bought a small Coke with the rest of his money.