Before My Eyes (2 page)

“What e-mails?” I ask.

“Don't worry. It's nothing,” he says to me. “Anyway, we should have a cop here.”

“Where is he?” she asks. “Or she?” Because my mother never misses a chance to pound home that a woman can do anything a man can, as if I didn't learn that from her.

At the back of the tent, two oversized fans throb waves of hot air. We should roll the flaps up, but my father doesn't want to do that until ten o'clock, the official start time.

King whines and flops out on the floor in front of a bowl of lukewarm water. When my parents aren't looking, I'll refill it with cold bottled water. King cocks his head toward me, and even though he can't see me—his blind eyes are watery, weary—I know he knows I'm here. I won't go far. But maybe my mother was right. I should have left him home. I slide my hand down his back one more time, whispering to him, “This will be over before you know it, and then we'll go for a run. I promise.” He sinks. My father wanted to put placards on him, reelection signs on his sides. I said no, it was too pathetic, a blind dog begging for votes.

I give King a hug, let him smell me and know that I'm near. He has a bright red bandana around his neck. His leash is tied to the largest table. Little kids love to pet him, and he is gentle with them. Maybe my father will even capture a few “aw, you own a blind dog” votes.

“He's good,” I say.

“Better be,” says my mother. “Your father is going to pull this election out. Something is in the air. I can feel it.”

“Ozone,” I say to my father. He fakes a laugh.

“Don't even think that it's going to rain this morning,” says my mother, her eyes on the tent flap, her smile fixed. Nothing is wrong. Not in Debbi Cooper's world.

“It's not going to rain, nothing is going to happen from those e-mails or texts, the police will be here, we'll have a great event, and I'll get reelected, how does that all sound?”

“I'm still worried.”

“Don't be.”

“So what are you doing down there with that dog?” says my mother, turning her attention to me. “Let's get going.”

I double-check that King has some leeway on his leash. He is a good dog. He hunches down in his designated space. He sniffs my hand, licks it. I rub his silky ears. He knows how to behave around a crowd.

“I just sometimes think you like the dog better than me or your father,” says my mother.

I do.

“Are we going to get to work or what?” says my father to me. “Every other state senator in New York is almost guaranteed reelection. Why not me for a second term? Maybe that should be my campaign slogan, why not me?” He studies the campaign poster. The headshot is a few years old. He looks like an old actor, envious of his younger self. He always said he got into politics because he thought he could make a difference. Even when he ran for the local town board, he said he wanted to take government back from the control of big business and return it to the people. When I asked, what people—the American Indians?—he said I should save it for school, where I was, of course, barely passing American history.

“Look at her. Your mother is one determined woman.” He says this to me in a conspiratorial voice as she passes us, concentrating straight ahead, on the tent flap, the exit, the murmuring, curious voices beyond. She hurries outside again, leaving my father and me to finish setting up the tent. We have other volunteers, making sure last-minute signs are in place, handing out leaflets at the local diners. He bends his head, almost knocking into mine, surprised as I am at my summer growth spurt. I pick up more posters to hang somewhere. I could even disappear and say I'm putting up posters, miss this all entirely.

“Most people are probably trying to squeeze one more beach day in even though it looks like it's finally going to rain. We should all be hoping for rain. But don't say that to your mother.”

He snaps his face and name out of my hands. “Don't worry about more posters. We have enough of me in this tent.”

I agree. I'm hoping he doesn't want me to help my mother. I don't want to shake anybody's hand. I don't want to smile. I don't want to do anything but maybe take King for a walk. Maybe find my way to Claire's end of town. She liked King a lot. I could tell her—what? That I'm sorry. That she owes me nothing. That I'm an idiot. That I didn't mean what I said, or didn't say, or what I wanted to say didn't come out right. But then, maybe she will show up here, and I should stay.

“What did you do all summer, Max?” my father asks, a short-fused, rhetorical question. He knows what I did.

“I learned how to make an ice cream cone.” I flatten my voice into its robot-like frequency. “Vanilla, chocolate, or swirl?”

Glenn Cooper made a point of telling everyone he could: his son was working a “regular” summer job. “Max isn't an intern. He's not a volunteer for my campaign, though I love my volunteers. Max is working regular hours at a regular summer job.” Glenn Cooper was going to get New York back to work, and it would start with me, at the Snack Shack on the town beach.

I pick up the pencils, neat in their box, and spread them out on a table like an offering to the summer's end, hundreds of pencils, sharpened to tight points, all with my father's name on them, yellow trees in a great, wild forest.

“What are you doing? Are you even thinking? Do you ever think, Max?” my father says as I daydream. “Help me out here, Max. Pay attention to what you are doing. And smile. People like to vote for politicians who smile.”

“I'm not running for office.”

“We're all running.”

He straightens the pencils, destroys the forest. My father is especially proud of the pencil idea—not any pencil, as he pointed out, but the test pencil. The number two. In fact, for the last week he's been obsessed with these stupid pencils, ordering more, insisting that they be sharpened. I don't know what he stands for except for sharpened pencils. “Do you think you can handle that job, organizing pencils in neat rows?”

Reelect Glenn Cooper! Meet him here today! Free number-two pencils for school!
My father's face and name surround me. I think I'm going a little insane in this tent. Can you go a little insane? Is that even possible? Can I be sane outside this tent? I wonder if she is going to be here today—could I be sane with someone like Claire? Does it matter? Two days, and I'm back in school, back to my old life, except for Claire. Good thing she's at Lakeshore South, and not with me, not at Lakeshore North. I have to think of what I'm going to do. Of course, I could do nothing. She's not my type. Not at all. I hold up a pencil between my thumb and forefinger as if studying it: the tool of my academic failures.

“You going to be okay today, Max?”

I squint at him. I don't know him anymore, this politician father, and he doesn't know me. But I've got to admit—though I don't, not to him—that isn't about him: I didn't take a pill today. I vowed to myself I wouldn't. Not that I have to keep my promise to myself, but somehow it matters that I do. A lot has changed these past few days, and I need to sort it all out.

“We have a deal,” says my dad, breaking into my thoughts. “We are all going to look like a happy family. No worries?”

I force on a smile. “Good?”

“Good.” He matches the tops and ends of the pencils into a neat line. “You know something? I want you to just focus on having a great senior year. Getting into a decent college. Being happy.”

“Happy?”

“We are a happy family,” he says with a hopefulness that stings me. He pats my back. It stiffens.

“I love you, Max, you know that?” He grabs the top of my head and kisses it as if he's bestowing something more on me. He likes to kiss babies, too.

I shrug him off. He chuckles at me. He's often embarrassed at his actions. Maybe that's his saving grace—he knows that we are all acting here, that none of this is exactly what it seems, that we all make promises we don't think we'll keep. I just hope he doesn't make me take the extras to school. I'll definitely fail a test if I have my father's name in view.

“I want today to be a good day. No worries.” He distractedly kisses me on the head again. Then, he jogs to the front of the tent, ten or twelve feet, folds open the flap, and acts surprised that there is a crowd of people waiting for him.

One of the people waiting is Jackson's dad. He looks like an older version of Jackson—muscles gone soft, pale hair swept back to cover his bald spot, glancing around like he should be the one who's the center of attention. He's dressed to play tennis. He hugs my mother too tight. Jackson's father knows my parents from soccer and the PTA and from the way everyone around here casually knows everyone else, but doesn't really know them at all. He was the coach of my fourth- and fifth-grade soccer travel team. My father always wanted me to play football—not soccer—like him.

He waves to my father and shouts, “How's my star player?” Every kid was his “star” player.

“Good. Real good,” my father rings back for me.

“Way to go,” says Jackson's dad to nobody in particular. He spots me in the back near the coolers, and calls out, “Been practicing those penalty kicks, Max?”

I study the pencils like I'm figuring out a puzzle. So I missed the penalty kick. I lost our soccer team—the varsity team—the game. I lost us a perfect season. I don't look up. I hand some little girl in a sparkling pink top a pencil when she asks for one, and then another when she asks for one for her grandmother, and a third one when she asks for one for her grandfather. She clutches them like a bouquet. I have to smile at her when she thanks me as if I saved her from a life devoid of number-two pencils.

My father reaches over to Jackson's dad. The two men lock hands. I hope Jackson won't show up, even though he's always the friendly team captain when his dad's around. Jackson is probably at the beach with Samantha. I can't help myself. I wonder what color bikini she'll be wearing today. I catch a few more phrases from the two of them about “senior year,” “the team,” and “college.” The crowd surges forward. Jackson's father says something about planning to play some tennis before it gets too hot. He steps to the side, sipping his iced coffee, as if the coach once more, following the action from the sidelines.

My mother claims my father and draws him into the crowd. She greets what seems like every single person with a hug. My father prefers the double handshake, one hand over another, which says, “You're important,” without him having to say it.

In the back of the crowd are Trish and Peter. Both of them look confused that they are in a tent and not at the Snack Shack, where we spent all summer together—the fat girl, the sped, and me. But I don't want to think of them like that anymore, even if Trish is over three hundred pounds and Peter is in special ed classes. Claire didn't think of them that way, at least last night she didn't. I wave them over. Trish must have made sure that the shoelaces on Peter's work boots were tied. In fact, both of them look like they could be going to church—Trish in a long, flowing sundress and Peter in a short-sleeved, button-down white shirt and pressed black pants. She's holding his hand, leading him toward me.

I swipe the sweat off my upper lip. I should have shaved this morning. But I wanted to save my weekly shave for Wednesday, the first day of school. I feel rough and grungy in this pink polo. Feel like this is a mistake, me coming here at all. I tell King, “Sit.” Yet as I rise, he does, too, dragging the folding table with him one or two feet, screeching it along the floor, throwing off pencils and balloons and pamphlets with my father's face on them, a mini-disaster. King stops, knowing he's made a mistake. He flattens into the dried-up grass.

I scramble to reorganize. My father breaks away from my mother and hurries over. Instead of berating King, or me, he helps me fix the table. You see, my father is just an ordinary guy—I'm sure that's what everyone is thinking—a working guy, with a kid in high school and a blind dog. He even taps King on the top of his head. A breeze eases through the humidity. My father whispers to me, “Don't worry about this. It's showtime. Smile.”

I don't smile, not yet. I know I have to get myself into the “game” today: smile, shake hands, be the good son. I rub my back almost as a habit. No matter what, I am playing on the varsity soccer team this fall. Nothing is keeping me off the team.

I scan the crowd, thinking of Claire again, thinking of last night. She could kick the ball. In the moonlight, in my backyard, her running reminded me of her swimming, strong and swift, those long, long legs—and what am I thinking? What would the guys—what would Jackson say if I start bringing someone like Claire to the parties? I mean, she's pretty enough in her own way. Old-fashioned. Too tall. Probably reads a lot and likes school and doesn't have a lot of fun, in the way the guys on the team define fun, though right now the word sounds like it's full of lead and sour milk. Better not to get involved with Claire. She wouldn't fit in. There will be plenty of girls in my own school to hang out with senior year. Better to make this decision now. I look around the tent for something else to organize. I now want everything in straight, even lines.

The last person I expected to be here is here: Barkley. His shaved head is slick with sweat. Why didn't he show up last night, especially after he made such a big deal about being invited? And why is he here now? All summer at the Snack Shack, Barkley called teachers and politicians like my dad “con artists.” I busy myself with the pencils. I don't want him to talk to me and say something stupid about the pills I bought from him.

I make like I'm busy. Even with the flaps now open, and the fans whirring, I feel like I'm running uphill or swimming against another riptide. I'd actually like to go for a swim, one last swim in the sea before school starts. I want to see how far out I can go—past the breakers, off the continental shelf, out to where the ocean is wide and clear. Glancing up, no sign of Claire. Better if she doesn't come. I don't want her to think that Barkley and I are friends.