Flash Burnout (11 page)

Garrett's glance skips over to me. We hate that phrase. We are
allergic
to that phrase. We have vowed to each other
never
to use it on our own kids.

"Mom. I'm sorry. But please punish me later. I'm supposed to go observe at the ME's office this morning."

"Maybe you should have thought of that last night."

Uh. Right. In the middle of "driving Willow home," Garrett is going to say to himself, "Golly, I'd better not be late or Mom will refuse to let me go look at dead bodies." I stifle a snort.

Mom glances at me, and I turn to stone. Remain. Perfectly. Still. Maybe she will forget I'm here. "Did you want to comment, Blake Daniel?"

"No! Nonono. Sorry." Making Mom laugh when she's pissed earns me triple points, but it's a verrrry tricky stunt. I am not about to risk it just for
Garrett.

She turns back to him. "I realize you had plans today. I'm sorry you will have to miss them."

Now she moves past him to the kitchen sink.

Garrett clenches his fists. I can see sweat breaking out on his shaved jock head. "What am I supposed to tell the ME on duty? I can't come because my
mommy
won't let me go outside to play?"

"If you like." Mom rinses her coffee cup and puts it in the dishwasher.

"Mo-om! It's a job! I mean, not a paying job, but I'm supposed to show up when they tell me to."

"That's not strictly true, honey," she answers. "You're still observing. You're not training. And if you're too embarrassed to call, your dad can do it."

Garrett slams out of the kitchen; I jump out of his way just in time. I'm thinking that now is not the time to ask him what happened with Cappie.

The Hewson boys are not having a good weekend.

***

"Hello?"

"Oh, good," I say. "You didn't choke on your own vomit last night."

Pause. Then Marissa says, "Or anyone else's." We crack up.

"Dude," I say after a minute. "Are you, like, turning into a drunk?"

"No! God, Blake!"

"Well?"

"What are you, the party police?"

"No, ma'am, I'm not." I put on a cop voice. "I'm merely a concerned citizen. Just the facts, ma'am, if you don't mind."

Marissa sighs. "Partying with my friends on the weekends doesn't make me a drunk. And it's not like it's every weekend, anyway."

"You sure about that, ma'am?"

"Yes, I'm sure. Shut up! I can't believe you. Besides."

"Besides what?"

"I like catching a little buzz. Things seem easier."

Before I can answer, she says loudly, "I'm not like my mom!"

"What?"

"Having a couple of drinks or a few hits doesn't mean I have a problem."

"No." I can't agree fast enough. She's sounding mad, and I've never made Marissa mad before. I'm still trying to figure out what to do when I get
Shannon
mad. Do all girls get mad in the same way, or are there endless varieties and levels of girl anger? "Mariss," I say. "Come on. I didn't mean anything. I was just joking around."

"Okay. Good."

"Good."

"So," she says. "How are you?"

"Good."

"Good."

We giggle again. We keep talking, and the next thing I know, I'm telling Marissa about the fight I had with Shannon. I manage to leave out the fact that the fight started over Marissa.

"You should call her," she says when I finish.

I shake my head, as if she can see me. "Uh-uh."

"She was probably just having a bad day."

"Maybe."

We keep chatting. She's so easy to talk to. Somehow we end up on the subject of my parents. "How wild is it that your mom and dad have been married all this time?" she says, like it's a
Guinness Book of World Records
event. "I hardly know anyone whose parents are still together."

There's a question I'm dying to ask her, but it's so nosy. But she's my friend, and I finally decide it's okay to ask.

"Marissa? Um ... where's your dad?"

Silence.

"I mean, I know about your mom. But I was wondering what the deal is with your dad. Why you live with your grandma."

I breathe, waiting.

She says so low I almost can't hear her, "He's in jail."

Camera:
Latin for "room."

Shannon's parents are sitting in the living room when I arrive, interfering with my plans for a make-up make-out session.

My girl called
me
today. She said she was sorry! I didn't even have to grovel. She said she didn't know why she was so emotional last night.

So I begged Garrett to drive me over to Shannon's ASAP, but he flat-out refused. Dickwad. I can't wait till he needs a favor, so I can shut him down.

My dad took pity on me but made me wait till he was done with whatever unimportant thing he was in the middle of. Grrr. I'm craving my driver's license.

Now I'm rotting in Shannon's living room while her parents pretend they don't hate me.

They always put on a show of niceness, but I know they want me to go away so they won't have to worry about their daughter having sex.

We're not.

But we might, you know. If things were different. Okay, a lot different. We both know people our age who are having sex. I think parents like to believe that that's
not
happening, but sorry, olds, it is. I'm not clear who it helps if parents are in denial, but whatever.

Shannon's mom watches me like a hawk. When I catch her staring at me, she gives this pained smile, like she's got bad gas.

Mr. DeWinter is really old. Like fifty, I think. He's out of touch with life in general, but he does like football. In fact, when we first met, he thought I was Garrett. "So you're the halfback, eh?" When I had to admit that he was thinking of my brother, his expression soured and has never changed since.

"Have fun, honey," says Shannon's mom. "Take a sweater. You're going to freeze in that shirt."

No, she won't,
I think.
I'm going to have my hands all over her.

Shannon grabs a jean jacket. "Bye," she says to her parents, breezing out the door.

I try to smile reassuringly at Mrs. DeWinter, but I have a feeling my smile looks as pained as hers.

My dad is waiting in the car outside. He drops us off at the Meriwether Mall, where we walk around for a while, holding hands; then we go to a movie, pushing up the armrest between us so we can squish closer together.

I couldn't even tell you what the movie was about. I was in a state of Shan-toxication through the whole thing. My nads must've been the color of blueberries.

We go back to my house for some dessert before Shannon has to be home.

"Mom, we're going to have these cookies in my room," I say, heading for the stairs.

My parents are cool enough to allow us to be in my room alone, but they make a point of clomping past my door every so often. We can tell when my mom is going to make an appearance: the piano playing stops. With my dad, it's loud humming.

"Why don't you take that thing down?" asks Shannon, glaring at my poster of Rose Tyler, the girl from
Doctor Who.

"What? Why?"

"She's not that pretty."

On what planet?
I feel like asking. There's no way I'm taking my Rose off the wall. She's my good-luck charm. I fondle that poster every morning before I leave the room.

"She just wears a lot of makeup," says Shannon, wandering over to my desk. She picks up my model of Doctor Who's TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space), holding it carelessly.

"I never noticed," I say. I take the TARDIS out of her hands and put it back on my desk. I spent hours assembling and painting the Doctor's time machine; I wouldn't want anything to happen to it.

Shannon doesn't wear much makeup. She's not flashy and sparkly and turning heads every time she enters a room, but she has a deep well of hotness.

"Why do you need a picture of some other girl in here?"
Shannon straightens her school photo, which sits framed on my desk.

I feel like saying,
Come onnnn! You must be joking! It's a poster.
Instead I reach over and take Shannon's hand, pulling her down next to me on the bed. "Don't be jealous," I say.

"Blake," she says. "Your parents."

"They just made their rounds. We should be good for a few minutes."

She looks at me from under her lashes and leans closer. "Listen," she whispers.

I listen. I don't hear anything except the sound of the piano.

"That song," she says, moving her lips to my neck. "Isn't it pretty? I've played it. It's called 'My Heart at Thy Sweet Voice.'"

Then, well, we do what we can with our limited privacy. I hope my mom goes on playing that song forever. After a while I forget where I am, and Shannon reminds me by taking my hand in an iron grip and removing it from its softandgorgeous destination. She sits up and moves away from me.

I groan and bury my face in the pillow. "Give me a minute," I mumble. When I finally sit up and look over at Shannon, she looks kind of glowing and breathless, and I suddenly comprehend that primal urge to grab and
take.
Roughly.

But I would never grab and take from Shannon. Or any girl. God! What kind of animal would do that?

Still. This urge, this
drive,
feels like the most powerful thing in the universe. So the meaning of life is ... sex?

That can't be right. All of this heavy thinking is helping me decompress, anyway. My heart rate and other functions are returning to normal. Whew. I'm less likely to do something macho now.

"Maybe I should go," says Shannon.

"I guess so," I say. I don't hear the piano anymore.

She stands up and adjusts her shirt. "Don't you have a mirror in here?"

I look around my room. I never thought about it before. "No," I say. I make a mental note to add a mirror, just for occasions like this. "You look perfect," I say.

She curves into my arms again, but then we hear someone coming down the hall, and she jumps back.

My mom treads heavily past the room, carrying a stack of towels.

"Hi, Mom," I say.

She turns and gives an innocent smile, like,
Oh hello ... didn't realize your room was right there ... just on my way to the linen closet, la la la...

"Could you give us a ride to Shannon's house?"

Sure. Just let me put these towels in the hall closet," she says. "Right," I say.

As Shannon and I exit the room, she gives Rose Tyler a playful slap and growls, "Watch out. He's mine!"

***

"Blake, can you help me with something in the garage?"

My dad is standing in the doorway to my room, wearing his grease monkey coveralls. His wild hair flies free, somehow looking even more electrocuted than usual.

Uhn? My dad never asks me to help him in the garage. He gave that up when I was about twelve years old. And sure enough, I hear Garrett call from his room, "What do you need, Dad? I'll help."

"No thanks, bud. I need Blake at the moment."

"Are you sure?" Garrett appears in the doorway to his room, cell phone in hand. "Hang on a minute," he mutters into the phone, then looks at Dad. "What are you doing?"

My dad shifts from one foot to the other. "It's, uh"—he gives a weak smile—"I just need Blake. Come on." He turns and heads downstairs.

Garrett watches him go, a look of disbelief on his face. "Must need a midget for comic relief," he says, and goes back into his room, shutting the door.

Crap on toast.
What the hell?

I go to the garage, where my dad is standing near his huge rolling toolbox.

"What do you need help with?" I ask.

"Oh, um," he says, and turns to rifle through the toolbox. He hands me a screwdriver. "Here."

"Thanks." I examine it as I would a fossil.

My dad grabs a wrench and sits down on his stool, peering at ... a motor? a rotor?...on his workbench. This seems to mellow him out. "So, Blake."

"Yeah?" I wait for him to point at whatever I'm supposed to screw.

"Your mom tells me it's time for the Talk."

"Wha—"

"She says you and Shannon are getting very close."

Uh..."

My dad reaches forward and twists something with his wrench. He breathes deeply, going to his Zen place. "So I wanted to touch base with you about safe sex."

Ohhhhh.......

....... Noooooo!

"Your mother and I gave you the birds-and-bees talk a few years ago."

Something which scarred me for life, yes.

"But we didn't address the birth control issue, because, well, it wasn't appropriate at that point."

I stare down at the screwdriver, wishing it were a key to unlock a door to a parallel universe where I could go to escape this conversation.

"Dad, Shannon and I aren't—"

"Let me finish," he says.

But he doesn't. He takes a big breath and says nothing. Poor
guy. He would be perfectly comfortable describing a severed spine or something.

"No means no!" he bursts out. "You understand that, right? Your mom wanted to make sure we talked about that. Never force a girl to do anything. Okay?" Now he's staring hard at me, and I nod.

"Don't even try to
persuade,
okay, Blake? No gray areas! Got me?" He looks like he's about to pop a vein, and I nod in alarm. "Okay," he continues. "Sorry, but that needs to be crystal clear. And you'll know when it's right. Shannon, or whoever ...
someday
... will know, too."

I open my mouth to protest, but I close it again. Maybe if I stay quiet, this will be over faster.

"Sexuality is a powerful force. Maybe the most powerful urge we have as humans." He keeps looking at me, and I want to curl up into a ball of embarrassment. But also? I'm fascinated. He's saying stuff that I was thinking
just last night.
"The thing about being human, though," my dad goes on, "is we have the ability to reason. We can choose to do the right thing, even when we don't want to."

Uhn? Does he mean that having sex with Shannon is wrong? Or
forcing
Shannon to have sex would be wrong? Which ...
duh!