Surface Tension (15 page)

I don't care. It's terrible. It's such shit. There's not even anything to do around here. It's just swimming and waiting for time to pass. I don't know what I ever saw in this place. I really don't. It's just a fucking crapper.

Mom is listening to NPR and humming along with the theme song from the show. I wonder why you get so boring when you get old. Look at her. She's a mom and she's a wife, but she doesn't have a passion for anything. She doesn't have any real reason to live.

What is she doing in the world that's making it better? She's driving her son to the emergency room. Whoop-de-fucking-do.

“Mom,” I say, “what did you want to be when you were a little girl? When you grew up, I mean.”

She glances over at me and gives me one of those looks like she's expecting me to attack her. Do I attack her? Was I going to attack her? I don't know. Maybe I was going to, but now I sort of feel sorry for her. “Why do you ask?”

“Just curious.” I try and make my voice sound a little less threatening than it did the first time.

“You really want to know?”

“Yeah. Why, is it like a big secret or something?”

“No. It's just you never asked me anything like that before.”

“So, I'm asking now.”

She looks at me sideways. She's still a little tentative. “When I was a little girl, I actually really wanted to be a doctor.”

“Really?”

“Yup, I wanted to study medicine. I had this big old anatomy book I took from my parents' bookshelf that was filled with these amazing color drawings of the human body. And I used to sit up in my room and go through the whole book, page by page. I used to pick an artery in one of the pictures and follow it all the way through the body.”

“Wow.” That's weird. I've never imagined my mom being a little girl before. I mean, I've seen pictures of her, but I've never actually imagined what she was like when she was little. Now, in my head, I've got this picture of her dreaming of being a doctor. “So why didn't you become a doctor? Not smart enough?”

She smiles. I think she knows that was a joke. “No, I met Dad, and we decided to get married. And then I put my career on hold for a while, while he got his business started, and then we had you.”

“Oh, so do you like hate me or something because I ruined your dreams of becoming a doctor?”

“You're joking, right?”

“No. Not really.”

“No. I don't hate you. I love being your mom, and I wouldn't give that up for anything in the world.”

“That's corny.” She doesn't say anything after that. Whoops, maybe I was just an asshole, but she was being corny. It was like an after-school special in here all of a sudden.

The emergency room is filled with people. I thought it would be empty except for us on Sunday morning. I thought everyone would be in bed or in church.

There are at least three people here with bloody hands wrapped up in dish towels. I whisper, “Mom, why do you
think there are so many people here with cuts? Do you think there was like a knife fight or something?”

She looks around like it's the first time she's noticed anyone else is even here. “I'm not sure. It might be bagels.”

“Bagels?”

“Accidents with cutting bagels. I think there are a lot of those on Sunday mornings.”

“Hmm.” I didn't know that.

One of the women behind a counter calls my name, and they wheel me back into a room.

I hope my ankle isn't broken or something. That would suck for soccer. The doctor comes in and asks a bunch of questions, touches my ankle, which really hurts, and then sends me back out to get an X-ray.

They push me back into the room and I lie down on the butcher paper. I'm so tired. Even with these bright white lights staring down at me, I feel like I could go to sleep.

Finally, the doctor comes back in and tells me that it's not broken, it's just a really bad sprain. I've got to keep the weight off of it for three weeks, so I get crutches and a brace to keep my ankle from moving.

Shit.

We're driving home with my foot in the boot. We picked up a prescription for pain medicine at the drugstore, and I took some. At least now the throbbing in my ankle has gone away, but the inside of my head feels like it's been lined with cotton balls and I can't really hear. Actually, I can hear everything they're saying on NPR, but I can't figure out what they're talking about anymore.

I still hear the words, but it's like they have to get translated back from English into English for me to understand them. I don't have the energy to do that right now.

I look out the window at the landscape rushing by. I like looking at one spot in the distance, like that tree in the middle of that field, and then watching how the rest of the landscape moves in relation to it. The things up close move so much faster than the things in the distance. Now I'm feeling carsick. I close my eyes.

Mom turns down our driveway and I open my eyes. It's still pretty early. I wonder if anyone is up yet. We park under the old pine and Mom helps me out of the car. I crutch over to the picnic table and sit down. My foot is throbbing, so I put it up on the bench.

No one seems to be up yet, except the Richardsons' car is gone, so they're probably at church. Mom went inside to do some stuff. I'm happy to just sit here and look at the lake. I'm glad everyone is still sleeping. I'm sick of everybody.

Steve and I are playing cards at the picnic table and watching Mr. Richardson mow his lawn just like he does every Sunday. God, I feel like I've watched him do this a million times. I guess I used to feel like it was funny to watch him walking up and down his lawn in these precise lines, with his shirt off and his enormous, hairy man boobs jiggling and swinging like pendulums along the way. I used to think it was kind of interesting to compare his back hair to his chest hair. I thought it was amazing how much he looks like one of those silverback gorillas. I never noticed how he wants everything in his life to be perfect and how he spends all his
time mowing his lawn and weeding his yard and working but never seems to enjoy any of it.

He hasn't seen the cross yet, but I can see it from here. It came out pretty well. The grass all died overnight and turned this nasty brown color. It looks like a cross, except the top is a little sloppy where Steve rushed it. I can't believe Mr. Richardson hasn't seen it yet. He will in about thirty-seven seconds.

He sees it. He turns off the lawn mower and walks over to the patch of dead grass shaped like a cross in his lawn. On the TV show, the guy started screaming and yelling, and it was hilarious because he was on TV, but that's not what Mr. Richardson is doing.

Mr. Richardson is standing, looking at the cross. His body is still. The only thing that's moving is the hair on his back.

He just stands there for a long time and then he turns around, walks to his garage, and comes back with a shovel. He wedges the shovel into the grass and starts digging it up.

Wow, no screaming or yelling. No emotion at all. I guess either he's not mad or he's holding it all inside. That's disappointing. I wanted to see him freak out.

Steve and I look at each other. I raise my eyebrows and he shrugs.

I get up from the picnic table. I say, “I'm going to take a shower.” The soccer ball is in my way, so I hit it with my crutch in the direction of the Richardsons' cottage. I watch it roll right to the property line, where the beautiful, perfect lawn meets the crappy lawn, and crutch all the way back into the cottage.

Steve follows me in and we sit down on the green
vinyl couch and look out the window. Mr. Richardson has stopped digging up the grass cross and walked over to the soccer ball. He gives it a little kick, just to get it off of his lawn.

Steve and I were going to go up to the waterfall, but I can't make it with my ankle how it is. So we're just sitting at the picnic table shooting the shit and hoping that Sophie walks by in her bikini.

Kay and Roger and Claire pull up in their Volvo. I guess they wanted to hang out one last time before we have to go back home. The adults all go down to the water and Claire sits down at the picnic table with us. She's wearing a wide-brimmed hat like an old lady.

She says, “How's your ankle?”

“It's feeling better.” Why does she even bother asking? She knows we hate each other.

Steve says, “Hi, I'm Steve.”

“I'm Claire.”

“Hey, it's really nice to meet you, Claire.” He reaches out and shakes her hand. What's up with that? Did I forget to tell him that Claire and I hate each other?

Steve has a way of acting all sweet and nice around girls, but somehow they still know that he wants to hook up with them. Whenever I act nice around girls, they always think I want to be their brother or their best friend.

Steve says, “So how long have you known this joker?” pointing at me.

“Way too long.” Claire laughs and Steve laughs too. They're doing that thing where the only thing they have in
common is they both know me, so the only thing they can do is make fun of me.

Steve says, “So tell me something about our mutual friend here.” He points to me again. Stop pointing at me, Steve.

“You want to hear a story about Luke?”

“Yes I do.”

I'm not going to just sit here and let them embarrass me. I say, “Claire, tell about the time you told on me for crossing the street in front of your house. Or the time you told on me for saying ‘Shut up' in your yard. Tell about that.”

Claire shrugs it off. “Well, one time, I had to spend the afternoon over at Luke's house because my parents were doing I don't know what, taking our dog to the vet or something. Luke and I lived only a few houses away from each other, but I hated going over to his house because, well, you know.”

Steve says, “It kind of smells weird, right?”

“You noticed that too!”

I say, “That's not my fault. That's the curry chicken my mom always makes.”

“So anyway, I went over to his house, and he was in his bedroom, and you have to remember we were like six at the time …”

“Yeah, go on.” Is he really into this story or is he just flirting with her?

“He had taken everything in his room—like everything, the toys, all the clothes out of the drawers, books—and he'd thrown it all on the floor. I came in and he was standing on top of his bed, with this really crazy look on his face
and just a pair of underwear on, and he yelled, ‘Careful! It's a flood!'”

Steve is laughing, but I don't understand. What's so funny about that? A lot of kids make their rooms into disaster areas.

“And he made me stand on the bed with him and pretend we were in a flood. And when his mom found us in there, she got mad at me for not telling her what was going on.”

Steve punches me in the shoulder and says, “Dude, you were such a little asshole.”

“Yeah.” I punch him back. I don't know why I thought it would be fun having him here.

We're going home tomorrow and I'm glad. I've never felt like this before, but I'm just kind of sick of the whole scene this year. I'm sick of my parents and their friends and Steve and the Richardsons and the minister and the Vizquels. They're all so stupid. I don't even know if I want to come back next year.

I sit down in the chair next to the old brown phone and put my foot up on one of the kitchen chairs. I don't know how I'm going to get in shape for soccer practice with my ankle like this. Hopefully, the brace will help and I'll be able to get my feet under me again. Soccer practice starts in about a week. I hope I can at least get on the JV team, and maybe even varsity if I'm lucky.

Steve and I are sitting in the car waiting for Mom and Dad to say good-bye to the lake. I wish they would hurry up so we
can get on the road. I can't wait to get back home and watch some TV and play some video games.

Steve is sitting in the front seat for now, playing with the radio. My leg is up, but it still hurts. I want to get out of here. I say, “Honk the horn.”

Steve looks back at me to see if I'm joking. I'm not, so he does, and Mom and Dad both turn around and give us the evil eye. I guess that ruined their little romantic moment by the lake. I don't care. I want to get the fuck out of here.

They're walking back to the car, but they both look pissed. Steve gets out and gets in the back with me. No one says anything as they get in the car, but it's the kind of not saying something that means we're not talking.

Dad forces out, “Good-bye, lake,” as he throws the car into reverse and pulls fast out of the parking area. The car bumps a little. We must have run over something. Dad gets out and pulls the flattened soccer ball from under the tire.

“Goddamnit, Luke.”

Ever since I got my learner's permit, I've been realizing what a bad driver Dad is. Mom's sitting in the back because her legs are so much shorter than mine now, and I've got my headphones on, listening to Rage Against the Machine, to take my mind off it, but it's not working. The way Dad is driving is really pissing me off. The way he puts his foot on the gas and pumps it a little, just to get his speed up to fifty-five, and then takes his foot off the gas as soon as he gets there. Then when the car drops down to like forty-eight, he gives it just enough gas to make the needle kiss fifty-five again. If he really wants to be stuck at fifty-five, why doesn't he just put on the fucking cruise control? I mean seriously, I'm getting carsick.

We take the turn down toward the lake, and I get that feeling in my stomach I used to get when I was little, or maybe I'm just hungover. The lake is still here.

We drive past all the old landmarks. They tore down that old barn that was sinking into the earth, and it looks like they're building a house where it used to be. They repainted
the Wirth mansion, but they used this really ugly light green paint on the trim. It looks terrible. The house shaped like a tepee used to have a nice yard, but now it's overgrown and disgusting. The dairy farm that got turned into a winery is looking all fancy and new. They turned the old tractor barn into a little restaurant.

Everything changes, I guess. That's not really a surprise, but I still don't like it. We pull into the driveway, and the old, dying pine scrapes the roof of the car. The Vizquels are still here. The minister's red-cross van is parked in front of his cottage, and Mr. Richardson is out working on his lawn.