The Belief in Angels (25 page)

I called, after dinner last night, to let my brothers know I’d been invited to sleep over again. They need to know to make their own dinners and feed the cat. Someone I don’t know picked up the phone, and when he set the phone down to search for my brothers I heard the party still going on.

Moses came to the phone and told me that David had gone out with his friends, but he’d be okay. Moses said he’d managed to talk one of Wendy’s friends into taking him to Burger King for lunch. He’d gotten a ride there on a motorcycle.

“Geesh, Moses. Did Mom know? Did you wear a helmet?” I gripped the phone cord.

“Yeah, she let me go. I wore a helmet,” he said hesitatingly.

“She’s high. What a stupid idea. Please don’t do it again.”

“Don’t be mad, Jules. I won’t do it again.”

“Good. Remember what happened to Mom?”

“I won’t do it again,” Moses said, almost whispering.

“What have you been doing besides riding around on motorcycles today?” I asked.

“Hanging out, playing. I set up my car racetrack in my room and now I’m organizing my Hot Wheels. Hey, Dad’s coming to pick us up tomorrow. He called and talked to David yesterday and said he’s coming back to live at Aunt Doreen’s. We should wait for him in the morning.”

“He probably won’t show up, Moses.”

“Why?” he asked.

“Why what? Why do I think that, or why won’t he show up?”

“Never mind,” Moses said dejectedly.

Moses, the only one of us who still looks forward to seeing Howard, is too young to remember the horrible way our father treated everyone when he was around. Moses still thinks good things about him and doesn’t like for David and me to say anything bad.

“Hey, if he doesn’t show up, let’s go fishing tomorrow. Deal?”

“Yeah,” Moses shouted back. “Yeah. That would be fun.”

I hung up dreading the next morning and the possibility of seeing Howard and spending a boring Sunday reading the newspaper while he watched the football game. I hoped he wouldn’t show up and I would get to spend time out fishing with Moses.

I lie on my side, my back to Leigh, her knee pushed against the back of my calf and her elbow pushed into my ribcage. I’m afraid to move because I know it will wake her. I lie still and listen to the sound of her breathing. Leigh sometimes skips a breath or two and gives a bit of a snort on her sudden inhalations. It sounds funny.

I think about the day ahead. I should head back after pancakes to see Howard. Sadness starts to creep in and ruin my brief happiness.

I realize that if I don’t go back he might not hang around and wait for me. It might be risky because Howard’s temper doesn’t have a predictable pattern. If he’s angry, and I’m not there waiting, I’ll be punished. Then again, he might not care if I don’t show up.

Leigh stretches and rolls over, bumping against me as she turns.

“Morning,” she mumbles.

“Aloha.”

“You’re so weird.” Leigh calls me weird a lot, which I don’t mind, at least not when
she
says it.

“Greetings earthling,” I add.

“Come on. Let’s go downstairs and watch TV until my mom wakes up for breakfast.”

I follow her down the stairs and into the family room, which smells like Pine-Sol, where we watch
Bugs Bunny, Scooby Doo,
and
Harlem Globetrotters.

I’m thinking how much I love hanging out at Leigh’s as I hear her mom walk downstairs and start cooking in the kitchen.

“You’re lucky,” I say to Leigh.

“Why?” Leigh asks, not taking her eyes off the TV.

“Because …” I pause, still staring at the TV—I want to be nonchalant, but don’t have the words to describe the things she takes for granted.

“Because your mom makes breakfast.”

Leigh’s older sister, Annie, stomps downstairs and across the room in front of the TV without saying anything to anyone. She slams the front door on her way out. Annie is six years older than us and a sophomore in high school.

“She hates everybody. All she wants to do is skip school and smoke weed with her friends,” Leigh says.

Wendy acts a lot like Leigh’s sister. I realize I have a teenage sister too.

“You’re lucky,” Leigh says.

She’s staring at me.

“Why?”

“Because you can do anything you want and nobody bugs you. You never have a curfew. Your mom has groovy clothes to wear and you eat pizza and Burger King all the time. My mom never buys Burger King. She says it has poison in the meat and sugar in the French fries.”

“It’s not as fun as it seems,” I say.

I wanted to tell Leigh that along with the fast food came stomach upsets. Most nights Wendy forgot to pick something up, and there was only cereal in the cupboard. And those nights were actually better than the rare nights
she
tried to cook something.

Once she tried to bake an Angel Food cake. David couldn’t even manage to make a saw cut through the thing.

But the worst times were when absolutely nothing remained in the refrigerator or the cupboards. And this was happening more and more frequently. On those nights David and I sometimes found a way to get invited to our friends’ houses for dinner. We both tried to bring back leftovers for Moses.

I definitely couldn’t tell Leigh about the sex parties Wendy had been having lately after she thought we were asleep.

Several nights that summer my brothers and I had been awakened by naked, sweaty people piling on one another and doing all sorts of gross things in Wendy’s bedroom or right in the living room. After seeing that, I was sure I would never have sex as long as I lived.

All this information I needed to keep to myself. Once I started talking, I wasn’t sure I would be able to stop. But mostly, I didn’t want Leigh to have to keep those secrets too.

We sit in her kitchen and I gobble down my three plate-sized pancakes when I realize it’s close to ten o’clock. I jump up to call my house, but no one answers. I don’t know if it means that David and Moses are already with Howard, or that he isn’t coming and they’ve already gone off to play somewhere.

I hope Moses didn’t take off with David. I’m still hoping we can go fishing together. But, I figure I can track him down somewhere in the neighborhood if he did.

I wish I could stay here in the avocado green kitchen with buttery pancake smells. My body is present here. My skin absorbs oxygen. The pebbles in my stomach evaporate. It’s only now that they have disappeared that I realize they have been inside me all along. I realize this is what it feels like to be safe. But I know I’m only borrowing the feeling.

I say thank you to Ms. Westerfield and Leigh walks me to the door. She remembers the leather vests we stole from Wendy for the dance the other night and runs upstairs to find them while I wait.

“I’ll see you at school on Monday,” she says when she comes back, handing me the vests.

“Splendid,” I say. “Oh, I might call you tonight about the science homework if I’m stuck.” Leigh loves science and understands the assignments. For me, science is like a different language.

It’s about ten thirty when I round the corner to our road, and it seems unusually quiet. All the neighbors are at church, which usually provides a good opportunity for Wendy to play her music really, really loud. I see all the cars and motorcycles are gone from our yard, as well.

When I walk in, there isn’t anyone around.

In the kitchen, stacks of empty pizza cartons and Burger King trash sit piled up on the garbage can. Tons of glasses and dishes cover the counters and fill the sink. I decide I’m not going to clean up Wendy’s party dishes anymore. I am “on strike.” When I check Moses and David’s rooms, they aren’t there. Next, I check Wendy’s room to make sure no one’s in there sleeping or something. No one. I drag the leather vests Leigh and I borrowed out of my overnight bag and throw them in the back of Wendy’s closet. I’m disappointed Moses left and we can’t go fishing, but I don’t want to go find him in the neighborhood.

It feels wonderful—rare to have every corner to myself. I decide to spend time doing what I love most. Drawing.

In the den, I find my favorite record,
Tea for the Tillerman.
With no one there I can listen to the music I love all day. I go to work, drawing. I’m concentrating on a series of drawings of our cat Felix. Felix, a black-and-white long-haired tuxedo cat, seems to enjoy posing for me although her occasional position changes make things challenging.

It turns into an unusually hot morning for September. Later, it rains and the dim thought of fishing occurs to me. Fishing is better in the rain.

As the day wears on I lose myself in the process of drawing and fall into a trance-like state that I understand as precious and necessary. Time, in the physics sense, turns to energy, changes, evolves, and then disappears. I let myself become lost and found in it.

At about five o’clock, still sitting there with a floor full of Felix on white paper, I hear sounds from the kitchen. Cabinets slam as someone searches for food; a plate and utensil are pulled out of a cupboard and drawer.

Stretching, I hear the distant sound of the TV from the den. Must be David. He usually heads straight to the den for TV. It’s basically his den, except when Wendy’s making candles. I wait to hear Moses’s footsteps on the landing upstairs or the sound of his door opening and closing, but I don’t. I figure he must be watching TV with David. Moses never gets a vote about what to watch with David around, but he doesn’t seem to mind. I think David gets lost in his own version of time-suspension world when he’s watching his shows.

I gather the drawings scattered on the floor, balling and ripping the ones I don’t care for. It’s like I’m assessing someone else’s work, like I’m removed from the process that created them. The selection goes quickly. I put the ones I like in a large binder I keep stored in my closet, shoot a last glance around, and satisfied with the tidiness of my room, make my way downstairs to pour myself a bowl of Raisin Bran.

I’m starving. I haven’t eaten since the pancakes at Leigh’s. I never know if Wendy will bring back take-out or if we’re on our own for dinner, so, as I’m removing the cereal from the cabinet, I make a note of what is currently in there that might suffice for dinner.