The Vast Fields of Ordinary (10 page)

She took me to the Cedarville Mall. We wandered from store to store in silence, me with my hands in my pockets and a look of boredom on my face, and her straight-backed and smiling sleepily at every salesgirl. We moved sluggishly from one store to the next until she’d bought me five pairs of jeans, two pairs of shoes, eight shirts, and all the socks and underwear in the world. In the end I wound up with this plus a toaster, a small refrigerator, a TV/DVD player, an electric toothbrush, a mini tape recorder for recording my lectures, an iron, a blow dryer, a coffeemaker, a coffee grinder, a microwave, a rice cooker, a set of silverware and plates, and a set of beer mugs.

“I think we did pretty well today,” my mother said on the drive home. The back of her SUV was loaded with stuff. It was impossible to see anything out the back window. “Of course, if there’s anything we forgot, we can go back and get it, but I think we got everything.”

She flashed me a smile that I couldn’t bear to respond to. I turned away and looked out the passenger window at the new Benny’s Burger Barn that had popped up overnight on the corner of First Avenue and Collins Road. The parking lot was full of SUVs and luxury sedans. Even from a distance I could spot the tiny Hamilton Luxury Motors decal on the trunks of a few of them. I thought of my father and the fact that all we really knew of his whereabouts was that they most likely involved another woman, a woman who was not my mother.

Screw him
, I thought.

When we got home I put the stuff in a pile in the corner of my room. It occurred to me that these things made of plastic, glass, and metal would become the foundation for my new life. I thought of our house in Cedarview Estates and how at one point in time it was supposed to be the foundation for my parents and their new life. I wondered what it meant that people were so intent on building something better out of things, if I’d be able to make it work in a way that they hadn’t, or if all this new stuff would give way and become worthless under the weight of all that spread before me.

I reached under my bed and pulled out the pile of literature from Fairmont College. The catalogs and brochure featured pictures of smiling kids of various races. There was one picture of a bunch of kids sitting on the steps of some old distinguished-looking building. One of the kids in the photo had spiky blond hair and a show-choir grin. The token fag. He was sitting between an Asian girl and a black dude. They were all cutouts, walking smiles. For the first time I felt like I wasn’t ready for Fairmont. I thought of Alex and my time with him the previous night. Any wish to transport myself to the end of August was also a wish to leap over the unfolding story of us.

I shoved all the stuff back under my bed and changed into my swimming trunks and went down to the pool. My mother was working in the small vegetable garden in the backyard. She was wearing her yellow gardening gloves, a wide-brimmed hat, and ignoring me behind her large red-framed sunglasses. I took off my T-shirt and lay on one of the chaise longues and watched as she pulled weeds, hummed to herself, plucked cherry tomatoes from their vines and put them in her mouth. She dug holes with a miniature shovel and poured pouches of seeds into the earth.

I thought of Alex, of my hand on his back as we walked up the stairs, the world of skin under his shirt, and his words as we headed into the cornfield.

I’ll take care of you
.

My mother was humming in the corner of the yard. I faded in and out of sleep in the warmth of the sun. The day glowed bright red on the other side of my eyelids, and I pictured my heartbeat as a fantastic throbbing lightbulb in my chest.

“Dade.”

I woke up to my mother standing over me. The sun was radiating over her shoulder. She was still wearing her sunglasses, and a light breeze tossed her hair gently about her head.

“Dade, wake up,” she said.

“What is it?” I mumbled, sitting up.

“We’re going to a barbeque at the Savages’. I just talked to your father and he’s coming with us. So you need to get up and shower. And if you could take out the trash, that’d be peachy.”

She turned and went inside. A cloud slid across the sky and blocked the sun. My body felt heavy with sleep, my chest and arms warm with sun. It felt like I’d only been asleep for a few minutes, but when I checked my watch I saw I’d been out for almost an hour.

My mother chose my outfit for the Savages’ barbeque by vetoing everything I came downstairs in. Everything was too casual, too dressy. Was that a stain? When did those jeans get so many holes? Didn’t I have something less
edgy
? We finally settled on a preppyish pair of blue and red striped shorts and a crisp white T-shirt, both purchases from that day. Either she didn’t notice my canvas slip-ons with the skulls and crossbones on them, or she didn’t care.

I waited on the living room sofa for my father to arrive home. I sat there with a pen and a notebook with the intention of writing a poem, but I couldn’t get a single line down. I just gazed out the picture window onto the neighborhood. I wondered if something similar had happened to our father when he tried writing in the book Vicki had given him. Maybe he got so stuck staring at his life that he forgot to write anything down.

Families from down the block were making their way to the Savages’. The parents held containers of food, their children’s hands. One father guided his young son by the shoulder around a small dead bird that had been flattened into a morbid pancake in the middle of the road. My mother hummed in the kitchen as she prepared the salad she was bringing over to the Savages’. A newscaster on the refrigerator television was going on about Jenny Moore, about abductions in America, about the kids who were found and the kids who were lost forever.

My father pulled into our driveway at around six, the Audi gleaming from a recent washing. He took his time pulling things from his car. His briefcase, a sweatshirt, a coffee mug I could tell was empty by the casual way he held the handle with his pinky. He moved slowly up the path to our door with these things. He raised his hand in greeting at some unseen person down the block, someone who probably thought his slow, plodding steps up the porch were due to a long day at work instead of a quiet dread of having to interact with the people inside.

When he walked in, our eyes met and there was a moment where it was like he was considering turning around and leaving, getting back in the car. Instead he walked over to me and squeezed my shoulder. His mouth was set in a sort of grimace of approval, like it was okay with him that I was here waiting for him. It was condescending and bumped my annoyance with him up another level.

“New clothes?” he asked.

I nodded.

“I heard,” he said. “The credit card company called me at work to make sure my card wasn’t stolen. You guys must have done some damage, as they say.”

My mother came into the room with a salad in a big plastic Tupperware bowl. She gave my father a look that acknowledged his presence but also warned him not to say a thing to her.

“Ready to go?” she said to me.

At the Savage residence, two lines of kids were playing a game of red rover in the front yard. The air was tainted with the smoky smell of the barbeque. We followed the sound of the Top 40 music into the backyard, where about eighty people were congregated. There were a few kids around my age there, but they were all a grade or two behind me. I didn’t know their names, and I was guessing that if they knew mine it was only because of some incident or rumor I’d rather not be known for.

Dana Savage peeled herself away from a crowd of women drinking pink wine out of clear plastic cups. She was wearing turquoise stretch pants and a flowery tank top. The skin sagging from her upper arm reminded me of pizza dough. She painted her nails terrible shades of orange, and my father once said she considered a foreign film anything that starred Hugh Grant. My mother told him that wasn’t funny, but she had to turn away to hide her laughter when she said it.

“Ned, Peggy,” she chirped as she came over. “How are you? So glad you could come.”

My mother offered up the salad. “This is for everyone.”

“Hello, Dana,” my father said. He said it in the overly cheery tone he reserved for people he didn’t like. “Great party.”

“Hank is over by the grill with the other hubbies. Feel free to grab a Bud Light and join in. They’re staring at the coals. Real man work, if you know what I mean.” My father walked off and Dana turned to me. “And how are you, young man? You high school graduate, you. Did you have a graduation party? Because if you did, I didn’t get an invite and there’s a rule somewhere that says it’s not a party unless I’m there.”

“I didn’t have a graduation party,” I said.

“That’s right,” Dana said. “Like I said, how could it be a party if I wasn’t there?”

My mother laughed good-naturedly. “No, he really didn’t. Dade wanted to keep it low-key. We had a nice dinner at the country club and that was it.”

“Oooo, the country club,” Dana said. “I have naughty dreams about their seared tuna. I have similar dreams about the new chef, the one from Miami, but don’t tell Hank that.
Muy caliente
, if you catch my drift.”

I didn’t like Dana, but whenever I thought about how much I disliked her, I remembered that their daughter had died in a car accident. It was a long time ago, before we knew the Savages, before our neighborhood even existed. Her picture still decorated their house, photographs that they took off the wall of one home and hung in another long after the blond girl in them was dead. I thought of Jenny Moore and her parents and how grief seemed like a club we’d all join eventually whether we liked it or not.

“How’s your summer so far?” my mother asked.

“Well, my niece is staying with us for a while,” Dana said. “She’s from Los Angeles. Was having a bit of trouble and her parents thought some time away might be good, so they sent her to Aunt Dana.”

“What kind of trouble?” my mother asked.

“Drugs,” said Dana, drawing out the word as if lengthening the sounds could reveal greater wrongs. “Mostly marijuana. But other things too, I’m sure. Marijuana alone doesn’t make girls do the things she was doing. She’s a good kid, though. A little lost, but not too far gone. She’s sweet at the core. You can’t say that about everyone.”

Dana Savage nodded over to the back of the yard. There was a tire hanging from a tree, and three little boys were climbing all over it like monkeys, pushing it back and forth, falling harmlessly into the patch of dust that had formed under the tire and then climbing back onto it again. There was a girl standing against the tree. She was calmly watching the boys and sipping something from a red plastic cup. Her hair was a dirty blond with a subtle rust-colored tint and styled in a pixie cut. She wore a white skirt and a gauzy white top, cloud remnants clinging to her skinny body.

“I’m sure she’d like some friends,” Dana said. “She doesn’t know anyone.”

“Go say hi, Dade,” my mother said with a gentle push on my shoulder. “Introduce yourself. She’s pretty.”

I hated that my mother sometimes tried to push me toward girls, but I also knew it was nobody’s fault but my own, so I walked off without a word. The girl didn’t notice me until I was two feet away. The kids on the tire gave me a wary glance before going back to their rambunctious game. For some reason the first thing I thought to say was, “What are you drinking?”

“Did my aunt send you over here to ask me that? Because if she did the answer is Diet Coke.”

“She sent me over, but not to see what was in your cup.”

“Are you a tattletale?” she asked.

“God no.”

“Good. It’s a rum and Diet Coke with three limes. My signature drink.”

“I don’t know what my signature drink is,” I said. “My name’s Dade. I live a couple of doors down.”

“I’m Lucy.” She smiled and put out her hand. It was small and soft.

“You really should get a signature drink,” she said.

“Can I have a sip?”

“Sure.” She held out her cup. “Knock yourself out.”

I took a swig. A liquory burn blossomed in my chest. It was strong. I took another swig and handed it back to her.

“Can you get me one?” I asked.

“Come with me. The liquor cabinet’s inside. All they have out here is beer and shitty wine. My aunt is drinking white zin. Talk about a gagfest.”

I followed Lucy up to the house. She walked with a burdened gait. I guessed that Lucy was the kind of kid who often rolled her eyes at adults and sometimes just flat-out ignored their attempts to strike up an innocent conversation. Dana and my mother noticed us heading inside and waved. I waved back, but Lucy went on, pretending like she didn’t see.

Hank Savage had basically converted the basement into a sports bar. Flags bearing the logos of multiple football teams hung everywhere. A glass case of ceramic sport figurines took up an entire wall. An insanely large flat-screen television dominated the corner of the room. A small bar area took up one side of the room, and under the counter was a tiny beer refrigerator. The glass cabinets above were stocked with shitty liquors, cheap vodkas and rums with names I’d never heard before. There was a football-shaped cookie jar. Lucy got plastic cups from the cupboard and ice from a small compartment in the fridge.