Trying the Knot (5 page)

With his hands crammed in his pockets and his
collar upturned, he wondered how people became so important they
left only a gaping emptiness once dispersing into the ether.

And there he waited as if there were no such
thing as good byes.

When Thad entered the back door, his sister
rushed toward him in a huff. She was a few inches taller and a
couple pounds heavier than him. Their lack of physical resemblance
was due to their having different sets of parents. They were both
adopted.

“What the hell, gone for nearly three days?
What were you doing?”

“Getting laid, I suppose,” Thad replied,
kicking off his boots. He and Vange sat outside in the truck for
the past hour while Alexa rubbernecked from the house. Vange’s
shouts for him to get out of the cab still rang in his ears.

“Real mature.”

He wiped his runny nose and clenched shut his
watery eyes. She sighed shaking her head and asked, “What’re you
wearing? Good God, is that a chick’s shirt?”

Thad threw Vange’s soiled shirt at her and
walked away.

Alexa stalked after him through the galley
kitchen and scooped up his trail of discarded filthy clothes. She
wadded them in her largish hands, of which she was overly
self-conscious. Usually, she hid them under long sleeves. “Mom’s
spent the last couple nights sitting at the table all weird, just
like when Aunt Kaye died, remember? She’s at the end of her
rope.”

“No, she’s only fallen off the wagon yet
again.”

“Oh my god, you leave for three days, hole up
in a scum pit motel with that skank ho, our own cousin of all
people. Yuck,” Alexa berated him. She followed him into the
bathroom and tossed his dirty clothes into the hamper. “It doesn’t
help that mom has to hear about your incestuous sex-capades while
buying groceries.”

Standing in only his saggy briefs, he turned
on the shower and tested the water. Thad asked curiously, “How did
she hear about me at the store?”

“Who knows? Christ-on-a-stick, hurry up!”

“Everyone in this twisted little Peyton Place
know everyone else’s business,” Thad said.

“Just hurry! FYI, we were supposed to be at
grandma’s three hours ago,” Alexa said. She folded her arms causing
her thumbs to frame her breasts and her long fingers to dig in her
armpits. She reprimanded, “So, why did you hook up with that
floozy?”

She was six years his junior, but his adopted
sister acted as if she had been around since his conception. It was
as if his questionable behavior somehow reflected inadequate
parenting on her behalf.

“It’s a real drag having two mothers,” he
said. Knowing there was no getting rid of her, he hopped into the
tub and tossed his underwear out at her.

“Ugh, you suck so much,” she cried out. “Real
mature.”

His mind wandered freely despite a
distracting cloud of smoke drifting from the other side of the
shower curtain. She turned on the old clock radio he had brought in
the bathroom fifteen years ago when he first discovered the joys of
masturbation. She fiddled with the dials until she found a
testosterone-fueled song she liked.

“What is this noise? Turn it off.”

“Grunge, buttercup. Welcome to the Nineties,
the Eighties are dead already,” she said.

A minute of the Nirvana song was all he could
stand, and he shouted over the hiss of water, “If all you want is a
cigarette, Al, take one and get out.”

“Really, you shouldn’t smoke. It’s so bad for
you,” she said. For a passing moment he thought perhaps she had
left him in peace, but even in silence and separated by a curtain,
he felt her daunting presence.

“Grow up. It’s time to end this whole lost
little boy act,” Alexa snapped. She threw the cigarette into the
toilet and began scrubbing her hands. She silently fumed, preparing
for a grand exit. “Don’t you ever think of anyone but yourself?
Mom’s worried to death her oldest child will end up a deranged
mailman shacked up with a skank, living in a trailer park.”

The water ceased pulsing, and he reached out
from behind the curtain for a towel, which she picked up off the
floor and handed to him. Stepping out from the tub while dripping
wet, he wrapped the damp towel around him as he shook water all
over her.

“You can’t even dry off right. You’re too
skinny.”

He squeezed her clammy flawless cheeks
together and planted a kiss on her forehead. Alexa kicked him
gently in the shin and brushed the water droplets from her flannel
shirt. She ran her fingers through her longish tangled hair.
Because they were adopted, he liked to imagine that his sperm
source was a puny, effeminate librarian while hers was a hairy,
burly lumberjack.

“You’re impossible!”

“Am not. I’m most agreeable,” he said,
walking away. “You’re the one who’s difficult, always pointing out
our flaws, rattling off your pertinacious observations. And you
have the nerve to demand we work for your approval. Nope, there’s
nothing unconditional about you.”

Alexa followed him up the stairs and
attempted to enter his bedroom, but he blocked her at the door. She
rolled her eyes and said, “Hurry, we’re already late, you’re so
busy yacking –

“Hardly.”

“I’ll pull the car around. It’ll save
time.”

She had never bothered to get a driver’s
license, but he knew it was no use protesting. “Try and not kill
yourself.”

“Like you care,” she snorted and pinched his
left nipple. Alexa enjoyed annoying him that way especially in
public. He retaliated by smacking her, but she was too quick.

Dropping the towel from around his waist, he
thought about Evangelica. She had seemed so distant, and yet they
had been as close as any two people hoped to be. It was doubtful
she would attend Easter dinner at his grandmother’s. Like her
mother, Vange tended to avoid all dealings with any extended
family. It was as if she buried any notions of ever becoming a
member of a family with her dad. Her uterus, despite its occupied
state, must have felt as empty as the hole in the portion of her
father’s head that ended up splattered across the living room
ceiling.

Faint car honks sounded in his ears, and he
remembered how Vange had screamed at him, “I don’t care if you’re
crying, get out of my truck!” He shivered. A sixth sense told him
to expect the worst as far as Evangelica was concerned. The distant
honks grew more urgent, and he barely thought about Vange again
until he was awoken by Ben’s early morning phone call from the
hospital six months later.

chapter three

Nick emerged from the bathroom naked from the
waist up, and he rummaged the cluttered room for a clean shirt. His
painstakingly arduous search was justified considering the mess.
Seated, Ben bounced gently on the bed and reminisced fondly, “Hey,
Nick, remember your graduation party – how I had sex with your
sister? That was way wild. You always said she was hot for me, but
I never believed you until you dared me to find out.”

“And then you fucked her, right here in my
bed,” Nick said, with a hint of disgust.

“You know, I think she got off on the fact
that all your relatives were partying upstairs,” Ben said. “I
couldn’t believe how insatiable she was.”

Nick grabbed clean socks and said, “Isn’t
insatiable just a euphemism for in-orgasmic?” He had assembled an
outfit of tattered chinos, a V-neck maroon sweater and navy
T-shirt. For some reason, his clothes always seemed slightly too
small, as if he were perpetually on the verge of outgrowing them.
He would always be the epitome of an All-American boy scout. As he
left the bedroom, he climbed the stairs and discarded the socks
before stumbling into his penny loafers.

“Hey, man, what’re you waiting for?” Ben
asked of Thad’s backside. “Let’s get a move on, Nick’s ready.
Besides, Chelsea is probably having a conniption fit it’s taken
this long.”

Thad tossed the yearbook he’d been gazing at
aside. “Did you know she’s pregnant?”

Ben’s face flushed with remorse. Unable to
believe the words he just heard, he turned away and inhaled
solemnly. “Thad, Nick’s waiting. Kate is tripping out.”

“Is she still pregnant, even now?” Thad
asked. He failed to move from the window, where he had lost himself
in the yearbook.

“Just drop it.”

“No, tell me.”

“Later, man – I’ll fill you in later, but not
now,” Ben said. He looked helplessly at his open palms, and then
his hands disappeared up into the sleeves of his leather jacket.
Thad relented, and they silently declared an uneasy truce. Ben put
an arm around Thad’s shoulder and gave him a reassuring, yet firm
squeeze. Together, they made their way up the stairs and walked to
Thad’s rusted out Datsun where Nick patiently awaited delivery to
his damsel in distress.

Having resumed his cool, unaffected demeanor,
Ben grinned broadly as he settled into the backseat. “I hope your
sister comes home soon, Nick, a reunion might be nice.”

Ignoring Ben, Nick murmured to no one, “Poor
Kate. She planned the wedding for Labor Day weekend, so her family
would be happy, or at least busy, not sad and depressed.”

“It really doesn’t seem like a whole year
since Aunt Kaye died,” Thad observed. “This is the worst.”

“No, this car is the worst. Is that pavement
I see under my feet?” Ben asked lightly. “Man, why don’t you break
down and spring for a new set of wheels?”

“I can’t. I have too many student loans, and
I’m barely making six dollars an hour,” Thad whined.

“That’s sad,” Nick said.

“Besides, I’m saving up for a mountain bike
since everything in this town is within walking distance,” Thad
said. It took a few tries to start the ailing vehicle. While
backing out of the driveway, the car stalled and rolled onto the
road.

Thinking aloud, Nick said, “This is insane
what Vange has done.”

“Well, she has manic-depression,” Ben
offered.

Nick corrected, “Bipolar Disorder.”

“Which could explain the element of
insanity,” Thad said. A large Suburban whizzed around them at full
speed. The rear end of the immobilized automobile sat idled in the
street.

“What’re the chances of coming out of a
coma?” Ben asked.

Sounding rather textbook, Nick said,
“Whatever they are, they diminish as the duration of the comatose
state lengthens.”

“If she doesn’t wake up, who decides to pull
the plug?” Ben asked grimly.

“The next of kin would decide if and when to
cease pursuing artificial life sustaining measures.”

“In that case, I wouldn’t be surprised if her
mother is pulling the plug as we speak,” Thad said.

They grew more anxious as the ignition
refused to turnover, and Ben said grimly, “Maybe there’ll be a
wedding and a funeral all in the same weekend.”

“That’d certainly kill two birds with one
stone,” Thad said sarcastically, and he reached out to give Ben’s
long hair a forceful yank. “Insensitive clod.”

The engine roared to life and drowned out
Ben’s cry, “Ouch.”

They drove in silence as if one word, ouch,
summed up everything.

As soon as the Datsun pulled up to the main
entrance of the hospital, Nick shot from the clunker like a rat
jumping ship. Thad parked the car next to Ben’s motorcycle, and
they reluctantly made their way to the small medical facility,
which was sprawling by Portnorth’s quaint standards. Ben led the
way, but he was less than eager to enter the building, and with
each step he grew increasingly fidgety.

The early morning air was brisk with an early
autumn coolness. Thad flicked his cigarette into a shrub and wished
he had remembered his wool blazer. Ben had phoned him a couple
hours ago to tell him he had found Vange unconscious in bed. Thad
in turn called Chelsea, who roused Kate. Thad had stopped off at
work on his way to the hospital, and he left the newspaper building
in such a rush he forgot the navy J.Crew blazer he wore all year
round. It was not until Kate became an emotional minefield at the
hospital that Chelsea ordered Ben and Thad to leave the waiting
room in order to retrieve the missing bridegroom.

The metal door handle was cold to the touch,
and Ben held the door open for Thad. They entered the circular core
lobby, which was painted aquamarine accented with mauve. It looked
like an organ from a medical textbook, and hallways led to a
labyrinth of appendage-like wings.

Ben half-hoped to discover his boss, Ginny
Norris, there waiting for them. He longed for her soothing
presence. No one calmed his nerves like Ginny, especially when he
took into account their afternoon sessions of slow languid
lovemaking. Instead of Ginny, he found her polar opposite, which
took the form of her hostile, agitated daughter.

Chelsea Norris sat bored, flipping through a
magazine for hungry horny housewives. When she saw Thad and Ben,
she jumped to her feet and told them everything they already
knew.

“The priest left, and the police officer
wants you to stop by the station, Benjamin, since you’re the one
who found her,” Chelsea began. She tucked her straight, cropped-off
blond hair behind her ears. Short bangs framed sharp Nordic
features, which were more sun-kissed than usual. Her deep blue eyes
looked sleepy. “Nicholas is with Katherine.”

“How’s Vange?”

“She’s been stabilized, but there’s no
telling if or when she’ll regain consciousness.”

“So, there’s no change except Nick is here,”
Ben said, opting not to acknowledge Nick’s presence had a calming
effect on the previously chaotic atmosphere.

“Oh, Benjamin, my mom wants you to call her
as soon as possible,” Chelsea said, eyeing him suspiciously.

Thad nodded in the direction of a former
classmate, who by chance happened to be standing across the lobby.
He waved his upraised bandaged hand at them, and Thad remarked,
“Suddenly, it feels like a class reunion.”