Hush (9 page)

He waited impatiently while the line behind
her grew until it reached the door.

Finally she said, "I'll have a plain bagel
with cream cheese."

That's how it was with the people who
couldn't decide. They always ended up ordering the most boring
thing on the menu.

"Light or regular cream cheese?"

"Huh?"

"Light or regular cream cheese?" He shouldn't
have asked, but customers like her were also the ones who would
return the bagel to demand a different cream cheese. He got off in
a couple hours, but he wasn't looking forward to it. His dad was
picking him up and they were going to a movie. Didn't Max get it?
Couldn't he see Ethan didn't want to hang around with him? The
phoniness of it all—he couldn't take it anymore. That Max was going
out of his way for these father- and-son outings enraged him. When
Ethan was little and would see something on TV that scared him, he
would chant to himself, This isn't real. This isn't real. That's
what he did now with Max.

The indecisive woman moved down the counter,
where she would probably spend another hour trying to decide if she
wanted a latte or an espresso, raspberry or chocolate-almond
flavoring.

"Can I help you?" he asked the next
customer.

He and his dad had always been close—that's
what made the truth sit in his gut like a bunch of mold- covered
rocks. One day not long ago, Ethan had a fight with a neighbor. In
retaliation, the kid tauntingly told him that the reason Max
adopted Ethan was because his dying mother had begged him to take
him in and be his father.

Which made Ethan a charity case.

It was hard enough finding out you were
adopted, but you could always tell yourself that your dad wanted
you, wanted a kid, otherwise he wouldn't have done it. Now he
couldn't even believe that. ...

At first Ethan had tried to deny the charity
thing, but in the end he couldn't put it from his mind, and he was
eventually forced to recognize it as truth. It made perfect sense.
He felt stupid for not seeing it before. He knew Max hadn't known
his mother long, so why else would he have adopted him? Max was the
kind of person who always wanted to do the right thing.
"Duty-bound" was the phrase Ethan had come up with to describe
him.

But it was hard and depressing knowing his
entire childhood had been a sham. That his past was a rug that had
been pulled out from under him. That all the times they'd spent
together had been done out of duty.

Max was always telling Ethan that people had
to look out for the less fortunate. Ever since he could remember,
Max had sent money to a girl and boy in Bolivia. Those kids were
adults now, and they still sent Christmas cards and letters, and
Max now had two new children he supported. Ethan had always thought
it was cool of Max until he found out he was just like those kids.
At least they knew they were charity cases. At least with them
there had been no pretending.

He wanted to talk to somebody about it, but
his buddies didn't talk about that kind of stuff. They would feel
weird and embarrassed, and they wouldn't have any answers anyway.
That's what you realized when you got older. When you were little,
you thought you were just too young to understand the answers and
that when you got older things would come into focus. Then you had
to finally face the truth: There were no answers.

Ethan swung around just as a coworker spit on
the plain bagel with light cream cheese.

"What the hell are you doing?" he
whispered.

"What's it look like? I'm givin' her my House
Special. I hate it when them bitches hold up the line like that.
Like they're the only people wanting to eat."

Jarod had been working at Bagels, Bagels only
three days, and was a total pain in the ass, one of those rich kids
whose parents made them get a summer job so they wouldn't stay in
bed all day watching MTV and playing video games. He was sour and
rude, and the only time he enjoyed himself was when he was fucking
something up—which was about every two minutes.

Ethan grabbed the bagel and threw it in the
trash. "Fix another one, and do it right."

"You talkin' to me? You tellin' me what to
do?" He was also one of those white kids who liked to talk
black.

"Yeah, I am."

Jarod dropped his arms to his sides, his
hands clenched, his face red. Everything about him was
confrontational.

"Come on, man." Ethan gestured toward the
bagel container. "Just make another one." He couldn't believe they
were fighting over a fucking bagel. "It's no big deal."

Jarod pulled off his green bagel cap and
tossed it on the floor. "Fuck you. Fuck you, man." He stomped
out.

Wearily, Ethan prepared a new bagel and took
it to the cash register where the woman was waiting to pay.

She pushed it back at him. "I don't want it,"
she said, her chin raised in indignation. There was no way she
could have heard or seen what Jarod had done with the original
bagel, but she couldn't have missed his tantrum. "I have no desire
to eat in such a hostile environment. What's your manager's name? I
want to report this." She had a pen out, and now Ethan could see
she'd already noted his badge and written his name on a napkin.

He stared at her and wondered if he should
have kept his mouth shut about the spit bagel.

Two hours later, Ethan was putting away the
last of the cream cheese when he heard a commotion at the door. Why
the hell did people come at closing time? He looked up to see a
bunch of his friends piling in, laughing and shoving one another
all the way to the order area. Ryan Harrison, a neighbor, hockey
teammate, and longtime friend, sprawled partway over the
counter.

"You have to buy something," Ethan said. "The
manager's in the back office."

The last time his friends had shown up, the
manager had kicked them out because they'd overtaken and dirtied
two tables, helped themselves to self-serve ice water, straws, and
napkins, and left a soggy mess for Ethan to clean up while not
purchasing a single item.

"Give me a pizza bagel and medium soda," Ryan
said while Heather Green tugged at his arm, pleading with him to
buy her a bagel too. He rolled his eyes and ordered a second one.
Heather smiled broadly and winked at Ethan. Heather was always
laughing and happy. Even though she lived down the street from him
and he'd known her forever, Ethan felt a little clumsy around her
because he'd heard she was sexually active while he was still a
virgin.

"Did you hear about the record show at Navy
Pier?" she asked.

"No," Ethan said. She was also one of the
only girls—or guys, for that matter—who knew anything about music.
Not a lot, but more than his buddies.

"Next month. Tickets are ten bucks for three
days."

"You going?" he asked.

"Can't. Family vacation. We're going camping
in Colorado."

"Cool." He gave them their bagels and
self-serve drink cup, then totaled their order. "What about you?"
he asked Ryan.

"The record show? I don't know." He shrugged.
"Maybe. Will your dad let you go?"

"If he doesn't, I'll sneak out." There was no
way he would allow his dad to keep him from going to something so
important.

"You're so intense at those things," Ryan
said. "It's kind of a drag."

"Thanks." Nobody got it. Nobody got Ethan's
infatuation with music. Not the radio crap, but music. Good
music.

He hung out in a few select chat rooms—it was
great "talking" to people who loved and revered the same things he
did—but why didn't he actually know anybody like that?

How could you respect somebody who didn't
understand good music? What if he met a girl and fell in love . . .
but she listened to crap? Could he marry her? Could he spend the
rest of his life with her?

"Right now we're going to an all-ages show at
the Quest," one of his other buddies, Brent, said. "Wanna
come?"

"Who's playing?"

"I don't know. We just thought it would be
something to do. We're going to try to hook up with Pasqual or
Donnie Issak to get us some vodka. We have enough money for three
fifths."

"I can't."

"Come on, man. Don't you get off work pretty
soon? We stopped to get you."

"Yeah, but my dad's picking me up."

Brent laughed. "Oh, yeah, that's right You're
grounded. I forgot. Bummer."

"If it's such a bummer, why are you
laughing?"

"I was just thinking about how drunk you were
the other night. You were funny as hell. I almost wet my pants. I
didn't know you could be so fucking funny."

Ethan had a fuzzy memory of climbing on top
of somebody's car. He'd removed his pants and tied the legs around
his neck like a cape and was shouting things like, "I'm the king of
the world!" Thinking about it made his face hot. The cape thing was
bad enough; he hoped he hadn't done anything more embarrassing than
that.

Headlights suddenly illuminated the interior
of the small shop. When the lights were cut, Ethan could make out
the car. "Cool it," he told Brent. "My dad's here."

"Hey everybody," Brent announced. "Ethan's
daddy's here to pick him up."

It used to be that thirteen was his lucky
number. But lately the number twenty-two had been showing up with
unwavering regularity. Anytime he looked at the clock, it was
something twenty-two. 2:22, 5:22, 7:22. Like that. The other day,
he bought a sandwich and a Coke and it cost him $6.22. Then he
picked up a newspaper and there was a picture of a wrecked bus on
the front. The bus's number? Twenty-two. Then it occurred to him
that his address was 7852. If you added those, you got twenty-two.
. . .

A thud above his head made him jump.

She was awake.

Soon she would begin bellowing at him, making
demands.

He could smell her through the floorboards.
Her stink permeated the whole house. Did she take a shower at all
anymore? He didn't think so. In some ways he liked that, because it
meant he was the only person using the shower. He didn't like
knowing someone else had been there, that those were her body hairs
stuck to the soap and the fiberglass shower floor. He couldn't
stand knowing that she'd left invisible sloughed-off skin behind,
along with her stench. It was much better that it was just him.

Why had she always hated him?

Dirty boy. Dirty, dirty boy.

He remembered the first time he realized she
was different from other mothers . . . and that he was different
from other children.

Kindergarten.

That single word made him break out in a cold
sweat.

She'd taken him to the huge brick
schoolhouse, her sweaty hand swallowing his as she pulled him
along, his short legs trying to keep up, his fear creating an acid
taste in the back of his mouth.

His legs were almost too short to make it up
the steps, but she didn't slow down. "Come on. Let's get this over
with," she said, tugging at him, pulling his arm straight up from
the socket. As soon as they stepped inside he felt alien. And that
alien feeling never went away.

Women—other mothers—looked at them, then
quickly looked away. Some put hands to their faces, covering their
nose and mouth. Some moved back to let them pass, as if afraid he
or his mother might brush up against them.

He wore little red shorts and a
red-and-white- striped T-shirt that didn't cover his belly. His
shorts were stained from "shit," as his mother called it, and his
feet, in the faded, cracked flip-flops, were crusted with dirt.

His mother was dressed the way she always
dressed when she wore clothes, in tight terry-cloth shorts and a
tank top with black, coarse hair sticking out from under her
armpits. She had always seemed huge to him—she was his mother—but
now he saw that she was three times as big as the other women
standing in the hallway trying not to look at them.

"Come on," she said, jerking his hand,
dragging him into a room where a beautiful woman sat at a desk. She
had black hair and red lips, and a warm smile that made everything
seem okay.

Other women were sitting at desks, filling
out papers. Some children were in the corner, playing with
toys.

His mother dropped his hand. The woman behind
the desk said hello to him and asked him if he'd like to play with
the others.

He looked up at his mother. Would she let
him?

"Go on," she said, using her angry face, her
angry voice.

So he walked slowly over to where the other
children were playing. One boy had a plastic car he rolled along
green carpet that had a drawing of streets on it. A girl with blond
hair was playing with colored blocks, stacking them higher and
higher. He thought she was pretty.

The girl looked at him and said, "You
stink."

The boy looked up, then pointed. "You
pee-peed." That wasn't enough, he had to announce it to everyone in
the room. "He pee-peed," he said in a singsong voice, still
pointing. "Teacher, he pee-peed."

He could feel something hot and wet trickling
down his leg, his foot, puddling on the carpet. The smell of urine
stung his nostrils. Confused, he wondered what he'd done wrong.

The beautiful woman behind the desk stood up.
She wasn't smiling anymore. Her red mouth was a straight line, her
dark brows drawn together, creating deep creases between her eyes.
"Isn't he toilet trained?" Her voice held disbelief combined with
shock.

"Thought you could take care of that," his
mother said. She waddled across the room, grabbed his hand, and
pulled him after her, his wet feet squishing in his flip-flops.

But now she wore the opal necklace he'd given
her. And she had something from every mother he'd ever killed.
Seeing her wear his gifts made him feel wonderful because they were
the truest symbols of his deep and profound feelings for her.