In the Break (19 page)

And this: even though I wasn’t to leave the house, one day I got my bike from the garage and rode over to Jamie’s. It was
sort of far, and would take too long to walk before my father awoke. I wanted to confront Claire. Why wouldn’t she talk with
me, or see me? She never even asked anything about why we left, or what had happened to Jamie. I wanted to ask her, Why did
Amber have to be in Oklahoma, married? Of course I wasn’t to have contact with any of the Watkins family, but she could have
at least called or something. But she hadn’t.

A strong onshore breeze blew all the eucalyptus trees that lined the mesa’s northern edge. When I looked back I could see
the ocean all dark and stormy, whitecaps luffing along the sea’s edge. I crossed Golden Sunset Street, entering Jamie’s housing
tract, pedaling on autopilot the different streets to his house. Jamie should be there; what if he were there? I think I just
wanted to see Claire, who was a Watkins, after all.

On the ride over I remembered when Robert Bonham had entered the scene. He was a Sheila magnet, a very good surfer, popular
in school, so I was told. Or overheard when Amber was squealing into her phone to one of her friends. Robert had asked her
out, she said over and over. Robert would hold no water with the slutty girls.

Around that time Jamie never wanted to do anything other than sleep or hang in his room. I made him at least throw grounders
in the backyard. And Amber’s bedroom window was always open so I could hear her phone conversations. I could hear her excitement,
which made me happy for her. Once for me the Watkins house was the house of mirth; then it was the palace of denial. Jamie
would just go through the motions like he was sleepwalking or something, many of the balls just dribbling under his legs and
he didn’t give a shit. I’d have to go get the ball and throw it to him again.

“Yeah, can you believe it?” Amber yelled in the phone. “Friday! My mom said yes! I don’t know! Yeah! Yeah!”

And so it went. I figured it was a big deal for a bunch of reasons. Robert Bonham was a stud, a player, a guy with a car who
could have his pick of girls. He was in the eleventh grade, Amber in the ninth at that time. He was an older guy. But he could
see Amber’s
qualities even though she was young. A lot of guys talked to her and talked about her but not many asked her out. And of the
few who did, she mostly refused them. The timing must have been right, something for everyone to look forward to instead of
the gloom that had overtaken all aspects of life at casa Watkins. I don’t know if Mrs. Watkins would have let her go out with
an eleventh-grader under normal circumstances, but circumstances would never again be normal at Jamie’s house. Mr. Watkins
would never have let her go out.

Amber did go out with Robert Bonham, and he brought her home pretty close to when she was supposed to be back, and he was
nice to Jamie, even okay to me, so they settled into the boyfriend-girlfriend thing rather than simply hooking up the way
most kids did.

I’d known Amber for so long, but when I saw all the different clothes she tried on or how excited she was it sort of made
me not want to be around her. It was like a different person. She’d turned into a chick, giggly and stupid and moody, depending
upon what was up with Robert.

After they had been together for about six months, Amber baked him a cake for his birthday. The problem was she had just finished
putting the icing on it when Jamie and I returned from surfing. We rode bikes that day, had surfed close, at Playa Chica,
had surfed about five hours, and had ridden to and from the beach. We were hungry!

I saw Amber in her cutoff Levi’s and pigeon-toed bare feet rush out of the kitchen as we entered. She was on her cell, I thought,
and didn’t want us to hear her conversation.

“Thank you, dear Lord,” Jamie said, grabbing some plates and forks and a big knife from a drawer.

I was comfortable around Jamie’s house but not enough to cut open a freshly baked cake. I could get glasses and milk, though,
which I did. And I could eat it. I put: the half gallon of milk right on the table with us.

“Oh, yeah,” Jamie said. “This is fresh.” Jamie’s voice was usually low, though it could be high when he laughed. But when
he was happy or excited his voice got higher, elevating everyone’s mood.

He cut two huge pieces and we finished them in a second, washing them down with milk. As I watched him cut two more, I thought
of what my father called Jamie: the skinny hog. Jamie could eat anything in sight but wouldn’t gain weight. We finished the
next two pieces as well, savoring the cake’s warm, rich white texture contrasted with the chocolate icing.

“I’m hungry!” Jamie said. While smiling he cut what was left of the cake in half, placing one piece on my plate, the other
on his. The skinny hog and his loyal sidekick.

I poured more milk. It wasn’t up to me to monitor cake eating in the Watkins house.

We left the kitchen for his room after having finished the cake. We were just kicking it, relaxing and listening to music,
when we heard Amber cussing. Soon Mrs. Watkins came charging into Jamie’s room, blowing open the door like we’d killed the
neighbor’s dog or something.

“What’s the matter with you two?” she shouted at us.

“Calm down,” Jamie said, smirking.

Why is that with some people the madder they get, the funnier it becomes? Maybe because it’s so out of place. Claire Watkins
wasn’t going to harm us. She was probably having trouble yelling at us. And that’s what made it funny. That, and Amber’s banging
around the kitchen.

“What’s the tragedy?” Jamie said in his high voice.

“You ate the cake Amber baked for Robert. The whole damn thing!” She was going to play tennis or something because she had
on a tennis outfit but hadn’t yet put up her hair or put on her shoes. She stood there in her ankle socks, her cheeks flushed
and her blond hair swinging back and forth as she moved her head for emphasis.

“We didn’t know it was for Robert,” Jamie said, now struggling to withhold his laughter. Then he chuckled, and that opened
the floodgates. His laugh was staccato and his shoulders jumped up and down slightly and his whole face scrunched up so that
his eyes were slits.

I didn’t know why the fact that Amber had made the cake for Robert made it funnier, but it did. And then when Amber showed
up at the doorway glaring at us, we got an even bigger case of the giggles.

“You dork, Juan!” she shouted at me. “Asshole,” she sneered at Jamie.

That made Jamie roll off his bed onto the floor, overtaken with laughter.

“Watch your language, Amber,” Mrs. Watkins said. “It’s not funny, Jamie, Juan,” she said, trying to add some dignity to the
scene.

But we couldn’t stop laughing, which was just getting us in deeper shit. Until Amber came in with a glass of water and threw
it in Jamie’s face, which didn’t stop the laughter but got him off the floor as he chased her out of the room. Down the hall,
I heard Amber shouting, “You’re both assholes! Assholes!”

When I stood up I was pretty close to Mrs. Watkins. I could smell her coconut body lotion and could see that her blouse wasn’t
yet buttoned all the way, could just see some freckles on her chest by her throat. I was taller than she was, only recently
having overtaken her. Jamie was almost a head taller than his mother.

She had looked in my eyes, and hers had clouded up, and I thought she was going to cry. But she didn’t; a smile broke out
instead, and she mouthed the word
thanks
without uttering a sound, and turned on her heel and walked out. I didn’t know what she meant but I was glad that she didn’t
cry, because I wouldn’t have known what to do.

I chuckled thinking of that cake and that time. But I also wondered if Mrs. Watkins would thank me now. I knew the answer
to that question.

Riding up to his house, I saw the freestanding basketball hoop Mr. Watkins had bought a thousand years ago lying on its side,
blocking the driveway, probably knocked over by neighborhood kids. All the roses were dead and withered, the flower beds filled
with weeds, the hedges overgrown and unkempt, the lawn dead with patches of dirt and mud everywhere.

I rode right up to the front door, where I rang the doorbell. It didn’t work so I knocked. First softly with my knuckles,
then using the side of my fist. I banged harder and harder, willing a Watkins to
appear. I kept banging until my right fist hurt; then I used my left one.

“They don’t live there anymore!” the across-the-street neighbor shouted. An older guy watering his flowers. “Nobody lives
there.”

I saw that guy over a period of years, saw him go from what I thought was an old guy to a very old guy. He didn’t know me
from shit, it seemed. “Okay,” I whispered. I knew everything was over.

Riding back over the dead lawn past the downed backboard, I knew Jamie was gone.

As the days became longer, I became resigned to the fact that he was gone. It was gradual, first a vague sensation, then a
creeping realization. I knew Amber was not around geographically, and though that hurt, I could accept it. But Jamie. I was
responsible for him. I wasn’t a hero, though in the heat of the moment I thought my actions were appropriate. It turned out
they weren’t, and they culminated in the drowning of my friend. And Amber. How had my actions affected her? If we hadn’t run?
If I hadn’t stolen my mother’s car?

My lawyer told my parents that F was getting better with therapy. Sort of. I mean, he wasn’t a slobbering vegetable or anything.
He did use a walker; I had seen that much, though I’d heard that he no longer had to use it.

At some point the police had talked with him about the fight with Jamie. Or the D.A. had, my lawyer said. Everything weird
that
happened was good for me, my lawyer said. All the complexities of the case, and of the Watkins family, were good for me, my
lawyer said.

I think F cruised by my house once, but I’m not sure. It was when I was getting the mail from the box out on the road that
I saw a car off in the distance. It was going real slow, idling forward, it seemed. And then it stopped. I looked at the car,
but there was a glare off the windshield and I couldn’t see who was driving. It was a car like F’s, I think, and it gave me
the creeps.

I wonder if that means Claire Watkins won’t ever take him back? She was in Oklahoma to be with Amber; she’d told my mother
she was leaving California, and F.

The D.A. hadn’t committed to anything one way or the other regarding Jamie and F’s fight. And the Mexican Consulate finally
produced an official letter stating that they couldn’t find anything out of the way about Jamie. In the letter there was some
speculation about a drowning, no speculation about foul play, but nothing conclusive. All these things were great for me,
my lawyer said, and subsequently he was able to negotiate a plea bargain, which placed me on two years’ probation. If I didn’t
do anything to break my probation, the judgment would be expunged from my record when I was eighteen.

And that was that. Sort of. Yet there was no final resolution, no official statement or anything about Jamie. There was no
funeral service or memorial service, nothing. He simply disappeared into bureaucratic indifference. He no longer existed because
of government agencies that were too low on funds to pursue the matter.

I could get on with my life, the court commissioner assigned to my case told me. Since Nestor still had me grounded and since
I couldn’t surf even if I wanted to, which I didn’t, my life could not go on. I would have to go back to school now, unless
I wanted to remain in independent study forever, which I didn’t.

The psychiatrist the court ordered me to see as part of my probation told me to make up different scenarios about what happened.
Unlike Ms. Catrone, I could talk with this guy. One scenario I made up was a dual family vacation, in which Amber and I got
to do all the stuff we did, and Jamie got to do everything he did, but we all came home and resumed our lives in a fashion
similar to how we once lived. We returned, and Amber was my girlfriend. Jamie was the big stud surfer who’d ridden the biggest
wave ever.