Cut Both Ways (4 page)

It's like a thing that happened to somebody else. Like it wasn't me doing that. Like it was just Angus, not me.

Then he's nudging me, because I've fallen asleep on the sofa.

“Will,” he says. “Come on.”

I sit up. Look at him. My eyes water. My mouth is dry.

“I have to go home.”

“You can stay here if you want. My mom won't care.”

“I gotta go,” I say. I stand up, make a point to appear competent. I'm very slow, but I can walk. I can. I can do this.

I walk down his driveway. I know he's behind me, watching me, but I won't turn around. I won't. For a minute, I'm kind of wobbling. I think I won't make it. I wish I was still on the garage couch. But somehow, the wide black sky above me, the stars brighter than before, I get home. My mom's house is silent. The dishwasher is humming, the light above the stove is on.

My bedroom at my mom's is across from Jay's office. There's a bathroom right there, too; it's kind of my bathroom, though Jay
leaves his magazines and stuff in there. I'm the only one who uses the shower. The medicine chest is full of my stuff. I turn on the light and I pee. I pee for a long time. I pee for a thousand years, swaying while I stand. Listening for signs that my mom's still awake. The sound of the television. The sound of her own toilet flushing or sink running. But nothing: just the dishwasher hum.

In my bedroom, I strip off my clothes in a damp heap. Clunk down on the bed, which has a new comforter on it. Maroon with gray trim. My mom just bought it a few months ago, for no reason I could see. She just decides something needs to be replaced and does it.

I take off my glasses and set them on the dresser next to the bed. The bed is soft. The futon at my dad's is horrible. Here at my mom's, the bed's a pillowtop. Plush. Comfortable. Luxurious.

The room spins for a minute and I shut my eyes until everything's still. I think I might yack, but I breathe deep for a while and then it goes away and I feel okay.

“Okay,” I say to myself. The word in the stillness hovers over my head.

Then I reach down my boxers. I'm half hard. Have I been half hard—a quarter hard?—this whole time? How long has it been hard? Since Angus kissed me? Since he woke me up?

Doesn't matter. It's all the way hard now, so I take care of it, like I normally do. The normal way, the normal things I want to think about. About girls I'd liked. Porn I'd seen. Tits in my face. Pussy. Being pussy stupid.

But I'm the one who's stupid. Stupid for doing that with
Angus. Angus and his bandanna. Angus and his mouth. His hand on my chest. All the things I don't want to think about, but am thinking about, anyway, until I come, things I'm thinking about afterward, too, all through wiping myself down, because I'm not gay but what choice do I have, to spend the night of my first kiss just exactly like that.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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THE NEXT MORNING,
my mom is all up in my business, wanting to gab at me. My brains are sizzling inside my head, and she's asking do I want French toast. Kinney and Taylor are buzzing around the table where I'm sitting trying to act normal even though I feel like I want to die. My mom has on the radio, some talk program. My mom always gets this way when Jay's out of town; she's saying, as Kinney and Taylor dance in and out of the room, that Jay's been gone over a week and she's going a little nuts having the girls on her own.

“Right,” I say, trying to smile as she pours orange juice. She's in her yoga outfit, all purple and high-tech spandex, wearing her fitness watch, her ears plugged up with earbuds though I can't imagine she's listening to anything anymore. Not with the radio blasting like it is. My hair's dripping over the collar of my shirt like cold-water torture. I'd made myself sit through a long shower,
which I only took because it was the best way to get Kinney and Taylor the hell away from me.

Kinney's listening to her iPod (of course, all seven-year-olds require their own iPods) and singing along with music no one can hear, which could have been funny because of her terrible singing, but it's so
loud
. Taylor's on her iPad, drawing things with a little stylus, asking me what she should draw next. Taylor's always asking that kind of thing: What should her video-game avatar be? What should she name her little cat guy in her comic strip? Should she draw a moon or a planet? I don't get it. If she wants to be creative so bad, why the hell does she ask someone else to tell her what to do? I can't think of anything that I could have less interest in. I can't think, period.

But I eat the French toast, slowly, so I won't upset my already burning stomach, and I nod and let my mom ask me all her questions: Do I need some new shorts? Do I have the scratch-damage plan on my new glasses? Do I have a case for the glasses? Do I want to go camping with Jay?

Answers given: No. No. Yes. Maybe. (But really? No.)

“You feeling all right?” she asks.

“Yeah, I'm just sore from the remodel stuff.”

She fluffs my hair. Pushes it out of my eyes a little, which gives me a shiver. Like Angus's hand on my scalp last night. I stand up and take my plate to the sink.

“You want some Advil, maybe?” she asks.

YES
, I think. Why I'd waited to take anything like that, I don't
know. More proof that my brain is broken when I'm hungover. My mom's quick with the remedies, that's for sure. Whether you stain something on the floor mat of your car or have some weird allergy or need more vitamin D, she's got just the thing for you. She's kind of a whirlwind of products, my mom.

I gulp the pills with the rest of my juice as she crosses her arms over her chest, stands there, looking at me.

“Your dad doing okay?”

Fuck. Not that again.

“Yeah.”

“Not drinking again? You'd tell me if he was, I know, but I can't help asking . . .”

“No,” I say. Thinking of the beers he's had every night after we finish working. Which isn't the same, isn't the thing she's talking about. Because he's handling it now. It's not like before. Plus, we talked about it and he admitted he had been out of line. He knew he was fucking up; he knew I knew, too, so he fixed it.

“He's doing just fine.”

She looks at me like she wants to believe me but doesn't. Like she feels sorry for me. I stare at her collarbones, the knobs under her neck sticking up through her purple yoga shirt. She wears a gold necklace with birds and gemstones on it, one for Taylor, one for Kinney. Jay gave it to her for Mother's Day. I gave her a card. Because I never have any money. It wasn't like I was going to ask her for money to buy her a Mother's Day gift.

“I gotta get going,” I say. And then I duck back to my room to collect my stuff. And then I wait until they're all in the backyard,
filling up the above-ground pool thing and yelling and Kinney screaming that her iPod can't get wet and I slip out the front door to my car and drive back to Minneapolis.

When I get back to my dad's, he's at home. Which is weird; lately he's always running around, tracking down something on Craigslist. A bay window, a screen door, a set of kitchen cabinets. He's always got something he's chasing after and it's never anywhere convenient. It's always off in Victoria or Elk River or halfway to Rochester. So I'm surprised to see him sitting in the kitchen, eating waffles with Roy and Garrett.

Roy's the college kid my dad hired to help with remodeling. And Garrett is one of my dad's oldest friends; they've been friends since before my parents even met. Roy's usually here at any time of day—my dad keeps strange hours and Roy can roll with that—but Garrett doesn't come around often. Garrett lives out in the middle of nowhere, between Oak Prairie and Minneapolis, on a hobby farm with his girlfriend. Plus, he runs a twenty-four-hour diner in Shoreview. He's a nice guy, and up for fun, but he's always pretty busy between the farm and the diner.

But what's weird is that Roy and Garrett are both smoking. Inside. I mean, Garrett smokes; so does Roy. That's not new. But my dad has never let anyone smoke inside before. Even after my mom left.

Except this house isn't exactly the same place anymore. It's not exactly “inside,” either, with all the ripped-out insulation and removed walls and windows, too.

“William,” Roy says, nodding. He calls me that: William. I have no idea why. I've never corrected him.

“Hey, kid,” Garrett says. Slaps me on the stomach. I clench up, not because it hurts, because Garrett isn't that kind of guy, but it reminds me of Angus.

Angus over me, Angus's hand on my stomach, Angus's hair flopping over his face.

“We working today?” I ask. I look around. There's a few rubbery-looking waffles on a plate; Garrett and my dad are drinking cups of coffee out of the coffeepot we used for camping; Roy's brought his own travel mug because he's snobby about coffee. Behind my dad, the sink's full of dishes and there's a grocery sack of recycling, mostly beer cans. The house smells strange, too. Not just like smoke. Like raw wood and sour beer. Like something burned. Like someone else's house, really.

“Already finished,” Garrett says. My dad smiles at him, like there's a joke I don't get.

“Finished what?”

Garrett taps his cigarette on the edge of a plate.

“Planning, mostly,” my dad says. “Lots of planning. Garrett's got good ideas. This whole thing being his area of expertise.” He waves his hand around at what used to be our house.

“I thought running restaurants was your thing,” I say to Garrett.

Garrett shakes his head, puts out the cigarette on the plate, then stands up to open the window over the kitchen sink. I'm shy, then; can he tell I think it smells bad in here?

“I used to do carpentry and such with my old man,” Garrett
says. “That was another lifetime ago. Your dad just needed someone to bounce ideas off.”

“Ah, don't be all humble,” my dad says to him. “You and Kristin put up that barn on your own!” My dad grabs a waffle and starts chewing, not bothering with syrup or a fork. It's kind of gross, because his mouth is open, and his fingernails are dirty, but I've had my dad's waffles. They're good, hot or cold, plain or covered in syrup and jam.

“So, are we working or what,” I mumble. I know it's the right thing to do, to be up for work, but I'm hoping I can just go back to bed, honestly.

My dad wipes his hands on his pants. “Not yet,” he says. “Gotta see about some windows, then hit Harbor Freight for some supplies. Who's up for it?”

I shake my head. Garrett's looking at his phone and doesn't answer. Roy shrugs, says why not. I don't envy Roy, but maybe Roy can talk my dad down on things in a way I can't. Roy's got this long blond hair and kind of surfer-dude demeanor, but he's actually pretty no-nonsense when it comes to work. When my dad needs him, Roy's here morning till dark. Drinking his special coffee and smoking his American Spirits and sweating his balls off getting shit done. And even after all of that, some new hot girl will come pick him up in his car, which is this vintage Jeep thing that's not exactly a Jeep. I don't know what it is. But he lets all these different girls drive it while he's at work and then he hops in the car with her after a long day and then they probably go somewhere and have sex for six hours. It's kind of sickening, Roy's excellent life.

“Sure you don't want to come, Will?” my dad asks. “I'll buy you lunch.”

I smile, feeling weak. “Nah,” I say. “I'm not that hungry anyway. Mom made French toast.”

He nods, but he looks mad about that. Like he's the only one allowed to make breakfast or something. Even though I feel shitty for turning him down, I know I've dodged a bullet. I've been on a million of these Craigslist runs with him and they always take longer than he says they will. He has to barter and haggle over the price. Or the guy selling whatever it is also has some other damn thing that he thinks my dad might want and the next thing I know, we're in his shitty basement looking at old cans of paint or whatever the hell. My dad goes to take a piss and Roy steps outside. The second we're alone, Garrett looks up from his phone.

“You looking for a real job, Will?”

“Sure.”

“Might have something for you.”

“What're the hours like?” I ask. “Because I'm helping out my dad this summer.”

“I know,” he says. “But I talked to your dad, and he's fine with it. Plus, we're open twenty-four-seven, so there'll be ways to work you in.”

Garrett's restaurant is called Time to Eat and it's a 24/7 place. It's breakfast and burgers and crap. It's in what used to be an old Embers. They make way better hash browns than Embers, though.

“Hit me with your cell number,” he says, getting up and handing me his phone.

My name's in there already, so I punch in my number. I can't believe this is that easy.

“What's the job? I've never been a waiter.”

“I was thinking you'd make a good cook.”

“Okay,” I say. I mean, I can grill. And chop stuff. But that's about it. I kind of want to tell him this but also kind of don't.

“You'd start out in the back, learning how things on all the stations work, first. Then I'll have Carl show you the ropes.” He slaps my stomach again and smiles and says he'll be in touch soon.

Cooking for Garrett? It's not completely out of range. My dad likes to cook. I mean, it's one of his things. Waffles, grilling, homemade sauce. He doesn't look like he'd be all fancy like that but he likes to eat, that's for sure. My mom never has me cook, mainly because she's always having to make two different things for Kinney and Taylor, and Jay has some weird thing about garlic and onions, so she's pretty preoccupied serving up three different dinners as it is. But my dad always has made me chop onions or wash vegetables or watch the grill when I'm at his house. I never really thought about it, I guess.

I head upstairs. My room in my dad's house used to be in the basement. A little room with a big closet and a ton of privacy. And it opened up to the back walkout, so I could sit outside on the picnic table in the backyard at night if I couldn't sleep or I was waiting for my dad to come home from somewhere. But now my dad's filled the basement with construction supplies, the flooring and the new stove and the power saw and the table saw and the mountains of duct work and wire and Sheetrock he's
accumulated for the remodel. And he had a lot of other shit in there to start with—folded-up Ping-Pong table, vats for the beer making he used to do, fuckloads of tools. Since the bedrooms on the main floor are now gone from the demo, he's been sleeping on an inflatable mattress in the living room, but I got the attic, where my mom used to have her sewing and craft room a million years ago. A room she never used, because the attic was either too cold in the winter or too hot in the summer. She always complained about this, too. Which was basically their argument: she wanted more and he had enough. She wanted to expand and not just do his accounting, while he was fine with the car wash and the Laundromat. The way things were. There was a reason I was an only child, as far as I could see, because they'd been arguing about that shit since I could remember.

I guess she's still arguing about it, actually. In that same quiet way she's always been arguing about it. What she doesn't get—and what my dad has never pointed out to her, either—was that giving me Jay's old Audi was a pain in the ass. And the clothes she buys me are way too stuck-up for the school I go to. And the house she lives in? Most of my friends can't make it out to Oak Prairie, anyway. They don't drive and the bus doesn't go out there. She's still fighting with my dad, thinking she's doing shit that matters, buying me clothes at fucking Macy's when half my school gets free lunch in the cafeteria. And of course my dad won't say anything but you can tell by the way he looks at everything she sends back with me that it annoys him. That's the thing about
divorce. It doesn't necessarily end after the papers are signed and the people involved move apart.

The attic's really hot now. Sticky and close. And emptied out so there's nothing of my mom in it. A bare window and a futon and a milk crate for a nightstand and a desk. A chair underneath the window that my dad found in an alley on spring-cleaning trash day. The chair is blue with little tiny pink dots on it. Dots that are flowers, if you get up close. It's supposed to make the room seem more comfortable. Make up for the fact that the pine floorboards have been stripped of the funky mildewy carpet and that the futon once belonged to Garrett's girlfriend's daughter.