One Small Thing (27 page)

Avery put the car into drive and accelerated, just nipping into the parking spot before a Suburban made it’s eager, lumbering turn around the corner.

“Yes!” Avery said, smiling at Daniel through the mirror. “We did it! Good scouting!”

He smiled and took off his seatbelt, scooting to the edge of the seat. “Where’s the store? I can’t see it? Will there be skateboards in the window?”

She felt her smile slip and fall, and she sighed, ashamed by the little she had to do to make him happy.



After they came home from The Grind, the skate shop in Lafayette, and Freddie’s Pizza, Daniel took a shower. Dan still wasn’t home, and she thought to call up to Bill and Marian’s but decided not to. Hearing her husband’s voice always made her think of what he hadn’t said, of all the stories he’d neglected to tell her. Even when they were speaking of dinner or the sprinkler system or the headlines in the news, she heard the other story, the one about Randi Gold. So, she changed into her nightgown and washed her face, and then knocked on Daniel’s door.

“Yeah?”

“Can I come in?”

She could almost hear his shrug, and then he said, “Okay.”

He was sitting on the bed, his hair stuck up in uncombed spikes, his new skateboard on his lap. The young man at The Grind had walked Avery and Daniel through every step of the purchase. At first, she’d been barely able to follow him, caught up in his pierced tongue, eyebrow, nose, and ears. But then, as they walked the store, she learned about boards, grip tape, trucks, and wheels. After two hours of discussion and then assembly, Daniel had a Shorty’s skateboard with Spitfire wheels and Independent trucks.

“This is way cool, dude,” the young man had said to Daniel. “This is a Chad Muska board!”

Avery had no idea who Chad Muska was, and she suspected Daniel didn’t either, but he clutched his board and the copy of
Transworld
magazine the kid gave him, smiling the whole way through his pepperoni pizza at Freddie’s. And he was still smiling, rubbing the shiny bottom of the board that was decorated with a Japanese rising sun.

“This is what Chad Muska has on his board,” Daniel said to her as she walked toward him. “I read it in the magazine.”

“Remember the guy at the store said it would get scratched. So don’t be upset.”

“I know.” Daniel kept his eyes on the board.

“Are you ready for bed?”

“It’s only 8.30.”

“What time do you usually go to bed?” Avery realized she didn’t really know. When she was home early, she was mostly in her room, locked away from whatever Dan and Daniel were doing.

“Nine.”

“Oh.” She looked around and sighed. The whole afternoon and evening had gone much better than she could have ever planned, but now, standing in her nightgown in this boy’s room, she felt embarrassed and almost naked. “So . . .”

“I can read this magazine and then turn off the light myself,” Daniel said. “I can do that myself.”

He hunched over his magazine, his eyes hidden. It was as if the skateboard and the pizza never happened. She was indeed just a strange woman in a nightgown in the middle of his room.

“Okay. Goodnight.”

He nodded and lifted his hand, his eyes still on the glossy pictures. Avery turned and left the room, closing the door softly behind her. Leaning back on it, she wondered how many nights they would together need before both of them felt any way near normal. And would either of them want that? She closed her eyes and tipped her head onto the wood, and that’s when she heard it, little, ragged sobs. Opening her eyes, she jerked her head up and turned around, grabbing the doorknob, ready to rush in, knowing there were so many things upsetting him: his mother, today at school, Avery, even Dan. But before turning the cold brushed-nickel knob, she stopped, her breath in her throat, her heart pounding. How many nights had she cried in her room after her father died? It became what she had to do, the darkness peeling away all the ways she faked herself out during the day, school and friends and television keeping her from remembering. When it was quiet and still and there were no voices around her, she could see his emptiness in the room, sitting in the chair next to her bed, not saying a word or making a sound.

Her crying was the sound she made to stay connected, to bring his absence closer, to wrap it around her shoulders so she would never forget.

Avery placed her palms on the door and listened until Daniel stopped crying and clicked off his light. She waited for the heavy paper sound of the skateboard magazine falling to the floor.

At ten o’clock, Dan still wasn’t home. She turned the clock toward her. It was too late to call Bill and Marian now, their strict adherence to a 9.30 bedtime a legend, Jared once saying, “Fire. Flood. Gloom of night. Wouldn’t matter. They’d be in bed during a tornado.” But tonight was different, wasn’t it? An emergency on the roads? Their almost estranged son over for a visit? But then the phone rang, and she grabbed it so the ringing wouldn’t wake up Daniel.

“Dan?”

“No, it is not Dan,” Mischa said. “And where is your husband?”

“What’s up?” Avery flicked a piece of lint off the bedspread.

“He is not home?”

“No. He’s—he’s at his parents’. What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” he said. “I was thinking about St. Louis. I was thinking about caviar and you.”

This afternoon, Avery had wanted to push all the cutlery, dishes, and water glasses off the table at Andrés, throw Mischa down, and put her body on his. Their two bodies were like electrical mates, their combined current so strong. Now, she wished her would hang up and leave her alone, the air dead between them.

“Look, I’ll call you tomorrow from the office.”

“I don’t know if I can wait that long.”

Avery rolled her eyes. “You’re going to have to. I’ll talk to Brody first and we can figure out what’s next, okay? Got to go.” She clicked off the phone and stared at the numbers. He was calling her at home, at ten at night, while she was in bed. Her stomach churned with pizza and acid, lurching when the phone rang again.

“I told you I’d call you tomorrow,” she said into the receiver.

There was silence on the other end.

“Are you there? Mischa?”

“This isn’t Mish—whatever,” said a strange voice.

Avery bit her lip. Why had she said Mischa? What if it had been Dan? “Sorry. Who is this?”

“Who is this?”

“This is the Tacconi residence.”

“Good. That’s what I thought. Is Dan there?”

“May I ask who’s calling?”

“I think I want it to be a surprise. He hasn’t seen me for a while.”

Avery felt her stomach move again, nausea squeezing her esophagus. “Well, he’s busy right now. Can I tell him who called?”

“Sure. Tell him Galvin called. He’ll remember me. We have a few dozen things to talk about.”

“Galvin?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’s right. Your hearing is 100 percent. Gal-vin. Galvin Gold.”

TEN

According to KCBS, there had been a ten-car pile up in Cordelia involving a tractor-trailer carrying pesticides and then a string of lookie-loo accidents, causing all I-80 traffic from Sacramento to Pinole to slow and stop. Dan had tried to take city streets, merging onto the freeway at Antelope, but even with his tricky maneuvers, all four freeway lanes looked like a parking lot. Sun glinted metallic off car hoods, traffic and police helicopters whirled in the air, and drivers opened their doors, stood on the hot pavement, and talked to one another, hands on hips, sunglasses on.

Dan drove on the shoulder to the next exit and parked on the side of the street. He pulled out his phone, but he had service and then he didn’t, the lines on his phone rising and falling like a heart rate.

“Shit!” He threw his phone down on the passenger’s seat and thought about Daniel. If he didn’t get home by six, Flora wouldn’t be happy, telling Dan when he hired her, “Mr. Luis tell me about this job, and I want it. But I have to be home for my family at night. This is okay? Six. I take the six-ten bus. It all work out.” He should have never told Steve he’d come out here to make the service call at Weymouth Industrial. Steve wouldn’t have minded if Lacy or Bob had gone, but Dan had wanted to seem involved, concerned, interested, when he really hadn’t been for his weeks of paternity leave and then his couple weeks at work. Since he had returned to work, all he saw as he sat behind his desk flipping through company specs and pamphlets about new technology, he was Daniel. His big eyes. His small, pale hand. His hat pulled almost to his nose.

Dan looked at his watch. With this traffic, there was no way he’d get back to Monte Veda in time. A stream of cars flowed off the freeway, drivers looking at GND’s in their cars or unfolding maps, trying to find alternative routes home, side roads to San Francisco. In an hour or two, every road, maybe even the dirt ones, would be bumper-to-bumper. He picked up his cell and dialed home, grateful that the phone actually rang and surprised that Avery answered. He managed to tell her what had happened and that he was thinking of going to his folks, and then the line went dead. Looking across the street, he saw a pay phone, but he didn’t want to talk to her any more. Her voice sounded pinched and tight, paragraphs of complaints under her few words. But at least she was there, early, for some reason. She hadn’t said anything was wrong. She would just have to take care of Daniel. For once.

Leaning back in his seat, Dan closed his eyes. Right now in their house in Curtis Park, his mother was sitting in front of the television watching Rosie reruns or Oprah or the local station’s afternoon show. She had a glass of iced tea in her hand, even though the air conditioner was on full-blast. She wore a flowered dress and low, sensible pumps, her clean, white apron hanging on the kitchen door, ready for exactly four-thirty when she would tie it on and prepare macaroni and cheese or spaghetti with meatballs or chicken with some kind of sauce made with Cream of Mushroom soup. Or, if Bill had made the decision that it was “time for a night out” at either Espanol or Caballo Blanco—the restaurants his parents had taken them once a month for years—Marian was looking in the powder room mirror, applying a bow of orange lipstick, the same color she’d worn for as long as Dan could remember. Even now, he could see her lips like two orange slices kissing him on his way to school or before bed, and later, whispering in tight, pinched, citrus hisses.

Either way, his father was outside in his work clothes—a pair of khaki shorts with pockets for tools and clippers and measuring tape, white golfing hat, and well worn-in Wolverine boots—hedging or pruning or mowing. Since their father had retired last year, Jared said the yard looked better than a park with a full-time caretaker, the entire half-acre blooming and smooth and totally green. Not one weed or sucker on the apple trees. Perfect.

Dan hadn’t spoken to his parents since July 4
^th
. He’d taken Jared’s advice, letting Daniel’s existence and then homecoming stay a secret. Everyone—Isabel, Loren, Jared, even Mara—knew about his son, but not Bill and Marian. In November, Dan knew he’d have to figure something out because he and Avery were always invited for Thanksgiving dinner, even though it was always understood they would not spend the night.

“The room’s just a mess,” his mother always said. “I haven’t gotten around to redecorating. You and Avery shouldn’t have to sleep in those silly twin beds.”

Their first Thanksgiving together, Dan had shown Avery his old bedroom, and she turned to him, confused. “It’s fine. We can stay here, Dan. It’s only one night. She doesn’t need to go to any trouble for us.”

He let Avery believe it was Marian’s esthetics and house pride that kept them only day visitors, but the mess his mother was talking about was Dan. And she kept the room the way it had been when he was at home because she hadn’t believed anything had changed, especially him.

Bret Parish seemed to enjoy listening to stories about Dan’s parents, nodding and writing everything down. And then one session, he’d looked up from his pad and said, “They’ll never change. You’ll either have to accept that or not. But you can tell them who you are. You can show them your life as it is now. And they can choose what to do or say or think. You can’t control that. But you don’t have to react.”

“But what will they think?”

“What does it matter now, Dan?” Bret asked. “You are all grown up. You have a life of your own. You don’t need them to like it.”

“But . . .”

“You want them to?”

Dan nodded, ashamed. That’s what he’d wanted before and then after the drugs and stealing and lies. Before Randi.

“Of course. We all do. But some of us have to learn to live without their approval. Sometimes, we have to learn to live without them at all.”

Dan opened his eyes and sat up. Sweaty, red-face people drove by him, their windows open as they talked to each other and yelled the best advice they had. A highway patrol officer curved in and out of the traffic and merged onto the freeway shoulder. Dan looked at his watch again. There was time before dinner. There was time to tell them everything.