Leaving Paradise (4 page)

five

Caleb

I’m keeping a permanent smile on my face at my mom’s welcome-home party for me, just like my dad ordered. It’s a fake smile, but my mom’s friends seem to be buying it.

I think.

My mom has been all over me, laughing and hugging me in public as I play the reformed son. I wonder how long I can keep up this farce before I can’t take it anymore. Forget me, how long can
she
keep it up? Dad doesn’t even seem to notice her Jekyll and Hyde transformation. Why do appearances matter so much to my parents?

“Caleb has become religious while he’s been away,” Mom tells Mrs. Gutterman as she grabs my elbow and makes me face the reverend’s wife. “Isn’t that right, Caleb?” she says.

“I prayed every day,” I say, not missing a beat, and knowing it’s not only Mrs. Gutterman who’s listening. The truth? I prayed every day that I’d survive the juvenile system, come back to Paradise, and make things right again. Mom’s declaration that I’ve become religious is hollow, because we’ve never discussed what I did while I was in jail. She’s never asked, and I’ve never told her.

Besides, she doesn’t want to know the truth. If pretending will heal this family, I’m okay with it. I think it’s bullshit, but I’m okay with it.

Mrs. Gutterman is whisked away by someone else, leaving my mom and me standing together.

She leans closer to me. “Button that shirt up more,” she whispers.

I look down at my shirt. I only have two buttons unbuttoned. I’m not willing to argue with my mom today. It’s not worth it. There’s so many things I need to fix, fighting about a damn button would be laughable.

As I’m buttoning up my shirt, I glance at the Goth Girl leaning against the side of the house. I pour a glass of root beer and walk over to my sister. I’ve tried holding a smile for as long as I can, but my face is starting to hurt from the effort. “Here,” I say, handing the drink to her, “your favorite.”

She shakes her jet-black hair. “Not anymore.”

So now I’m standing here with the drink nobody wants in my hand. I take a sip. Yuck. “Tastes like licorice. I don’t know why you ever liked the stuff in the first place.”

“Now I drink water. Plain, old water.”

This, coming from the girl who used to spike her lemonade with root beer and refused to eat chicken without smothering it with her own concoction of barbeque sauce, ketchup, mustard, and parmesan cheese. Plain water doesn’t fit Leah, whether my little sister wants to admit it or not.

I stand beside her and take in the setting. Paradise isn’t a large town, but the word “party” brings people out in droves. “Quite a crowd here tonight.”

“Yep. Mom went all out,” she says.

“Dad didn’t try to stop her.”

Leah shrugs, then says, “Why would he? She’d still do it her way in the end.” A few minutes pass before I hear Leah’s voice again. “Did they make you cut your hair like that?”

I run my hand over the prickly buzz cut. “No.”

“It makes you look tough.”

Should I tell her what her dyed black hair looks like? I briefly consider it, but quickly realize her blackness goes deeper than her hair. Broaching that subject at a party wouldn’t be the best course of action.

Leah shuffles her feet. “Brian is having a party tonight at his house.”

“Two parties in Paradise in one night? Boy, things sure have changed.”

“More than you realize, Caleb. You gonna make an appearance at Brian’s?”

“No way.” It’s shitty enough I have to be gawked at by a bunch of adults. “Why? You going?”

Leah raises her eyebrows and looks right at me. I get it. She’s not going either.

“You should probably keep an eye on Mom,” Leah says, biting on one of her black-painted nails.

“Why?”

“Because she just picked up a microphone.”

As if on cue, a loud, buzzing sound comes from the porch, then our mom’s voice bellows through the yard. “Thank you all for coming,” she announces with a flair that would make the Queen of England proud. “And for welcoming my son Caleb back with open arms.”

Open arms? My own mother won’t lay a hand on me unless it’s in a public forum. I can’t stomach another word. More than I dread that upcoming meeting with my transition counselor, I dread getting up and speaking into that microphone.

Because what I’m itching to say won’t be fake or phony.

I duck out the side gate. As I head down to Paradise Park, I untuck the geeky shirt from my too-tight trousers and unbutton each button until the entire shirt is open.

This is the first time I’ve felt any freedom since I’ve been home.

I can go where I want and unbutton my shirt as much as I want. I don’t have anybody watching me or looking at me or talking to me or gawking at me. How I wish I could rewind the past year and start over. Life doesn’t let you do that. You can’t erase the past, but I’m going to try and make other people forget it.

I reach the park and gaze at the familiar, old oak tree I climbed when I was a kid. Drew and I once had a contest who could climb the highest. I won, right before the branch I was on snapped and I fell to the ground. I had a cast on my arm for six weeks after that fall, but I didn’t care. I’d won.

I look up, trying to locate that broken branch. Is it still here, evidence of that day long ago? Or has the tree gone through enough seasons to erase the past?

An intake of breath takes me by surprise as I circle the tree. Right in front of me, sitting leaning against the trunk of the old oak, is Maggie Armstrong.

six

Maggie

Inotice movement beside me and realize I’m not alone.

I snap my head up. There’s a guy standing in front of me, one I recognize from my nightmares. He isn’t a figment of my imagination, either. It’s really him—Caleb Becker in the flesh, looking up as if searching for something important. A big gasping sound automatically escapes from my mouth.

He hears me and quickly focuses on me. He doesn’t move, not even when his icy blue eyes connect with mine.

He’s grown in the past year. He acted tough back then, but now Caleb has a menacing look about him. His hair is cut short, his shirt is unbuttoned, showing off his muscled chest. That, combined with the tight-fitting pants he’s wearing, screams
danger.

I can’t breathe. I’m paralyzed. With anger. With anxiety. With fear.

We’re at an impasse, neither of us speaking. Just staring. I don’t even think I’m able to blink. I’m frozen in time.

I’ve been face to face with him many times, but now everything has changed. He doesn’t even look like himself, except for his straight nose and confident stance that has been, and I suppose always will be, Caleb Becker.

“This is awkward,” he says, breaking the long silence. His voice is deeper and darker than I remember.

This is not just seeing him out of my bedroom window.

We’re alone.

And it’s dark.

And it’s oh, so different.

Needing to go back to the safety of my bedroom, I try to stand. A hot, shooting pain races down the side of my leg and I wince.

I watch in horror and shock as he steps forward and grabs my elbow.

Oh. My. God. I automatically jerk away from his grip. Memories of being stuck in a hospital bed unable to move crash through my mind as I straighten.

“Don’t touch me,” I say.

He holds his hands up as if I just said “Stick ’em up.” “You don’t have to be afraid of me, Maggie.”

“Yes . . . yes I do,” I say, panicking.

I hear him let out a breath, then he steps back. But he doesn’t leave, he just stares at me strangely. “We used to be friends.”

“That was a long time ago,” I say. “Before you hit me.”

“It was an accident. And I paid my debt to society for it.”

It’s a totally surreal moment, and one I don’t want to last longer than it has to. While my insides shake from nervousness, I say, “You may have paid your debt to society, but what about your debt to me?”

After the words leave my lips, I can’t believe I’ve said them. I turn away and limp back home without a backward glance. I don’t stop until I open the front door of my house.

When I reach my room, I sit inside my closet and close the door like I used to do when I wanted to block out my parents’ fights. All I had to do was close my eyes and put my hands over my ears . . . and hum.

I close my eyes. The image of Caleb, standing in front of me with those intense blue eyes of his, is branded in my brain. Even though he’s nowhere near, I can still hear his dark voice. The night of the accident, the pain I’ve suffered, my whole life changing, it all races back to haunt me.

I start to hum.

seven

Caleb

I’m being tested. Jail. Mom. Leah. Dad. And now Maggie. When I left Mom’s ridiculous party, the last thing I needed was to come face to face with Maggie. She looked at me as if I’d run over her again, given half a chance. I only talked to her because . . . because maybe I wanted to prove to her that I’m not the evil monster she obviously thinks I am.

I’m still standing in the park like an idiot. Wind makes the leaves of the trees rustle as if they’re talking to each other. I look up at the old oak. In a few months those talking leaves will fall to the ground and die, only to be replaced by new leaves and new gossip.

Right now I feel like an old leaf. I went away, and deep inside a part of me has died. I vowed I’d come back to Paradise and get that life back, that old life where everything was easy.

I lean against the oak, its trunk so thick nothing but a bulldozer could destroy it. If I could be like the tree instead of an insignificant leaf. I would talk to my mom, to Maggie, to Leah . . . I’d be strong enough to convince them to stop acting like the accident had to change everything.

It was an accident, for heaven’s sake.

The kid in jail who stabbed the girl . . . that was no accident. Julio dealing drugs for money . . . that was no accident. I’m not saying driving drunk isn’t a crime—it is. And when I pled guilty to the charges, I was ready to take whatever punishment the judge ordered—without regrets.

I was accused of the crime, I did the time. It’s over.

There’s one glitch: Maggie Armstrong doesn’t want to forgive me.

She said I haven’t paid my debt to her.

Is there any end to this punishment I’ve put upon myself?

I won’t let Maggie, or my family, make me unfocused. If being stuck in the DOC didn’t screw me up, the people in Paradise can’t. My sister is going to have to figure out why she thinks being a fuckin’ weirdo outcast is better than going back to the way things were before I left. And my mom is going to, somehow, get real and stop acting like she’s in a movie. My dad . . . my dad’s gonna have to grow some balls one of these days. And Maggie . . .

Maggie’s going to have to realize that the accident was just that . . . an accident.

No matter what happens, I’m not leaving Paradise. She might as well get used to me.

They all better get used to me.

eight

Maggie

“How was the party?” Mom asks as she irons her uniform for work the next morning.

“Great.”

“Is your leg okay?”

“It’s fine.” I haven’t even thought about my leg this morning; it’s the least of my worries. I’m obsessing about Spain. Last night, seeing Caleb reinforced my determination to leave this town. “Did we get the packet from the International Student Exchange Program yet?” The website said the packets would arrive a week ago.

Mom continues ironing. “I haven’t seen it. I hope it includes information about wheelchair accessibility. If your leg starts giving you problems, you’ll have to get one.”

“Mom, please. Do we always have to discuss the
what ifs?”
I head to the refrigerator walking as straight as I can.

“It doesn’t hurt to be prepared, Maggie. I won’t be there to push you along or help you once you’re there.”

“I’ll be fine, Mom. Stop worrying.”

It’s sad. One minute Mom is pushing me to go out and do things with my friends like before. In the next breath she’s being overprotective, overconcerned and smothering. She contradicts herself all the time. I think it’s because she’s trying to act as a take-charge father and protective mother all at once. She’s getting all confused in the process. She’s confusing me, too.

She puts the iron down and gives me a big hug. “I want you to go to Spain. You’ve been looking forward to it for so long. But I also need to know you’re taken care of. It’s only because I love you so much, you know that.”

“I know,” I squeak out. I don’t add that her love, like her hugs, can smother a person to death.

nine

Caleb

I’m playing a one-man game of pool in the basement while my transition coach is yakking to my parents upstairs in the living room. If the situation weren’t so invasive, I would find it frickin’ hilarious.

My transition coach is Damon Manning, a guy who went through the juvenile justice system just as I did. He’s assigned to check up on me and supervise my community service. Lucky me. I have a parole officer with a fancy title.

It’s bullshit, but Damon’s report will go directly to a judge assigned to my case and the review committee, so I have to play nice. It won’t be easy. I’ve been on edge since I’ve been home.

I met Damon right before I left the DOC. The guy is a big black man who doesn’t take shit from anyone.

My dad sticks his head into the basement as I accidentally sink the eight ball. “Caleb,” he calls out. “Mr. Manning is ready for you.”

I enter the living room and watch my mom.

“Can I get you anything?” she asks Damon nervously. She’s not used to big, black ex-cons in her house, but she’s still playing the consummate hostess.

“No, thanks. I’ll just be having a little chat with your son, then be on my way.”

I sit down in one of the silk-cushioned chairs, but Damon immediately stands.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Damon says. It’s not a suggestion.

I shrug. “Sure. Whatever.”

Damon holds onto a manila folder while we walk down Masey Avenue toward the park and end up sitting on a picnic bench.

“How’s it goin’?” Damon asks. The guy opens his folder and clicks his pen. Click. Click.

“Fine,” I lie.

“Be more specific.” Damon makes it sound like an order. Everything the guy says sounds like an order. It just winds my nerves that much tighter.

“About what?”

Click. Click. “Tell me about your family. Seems like you’ve got a pretty nice home life.”

Seems
being the operative word. “Listen, my mom is a robot, my dad’s a wimp, and my sister is a fuckin’ zombie. I’d say that pretty much sums it up.”

I watch Damon close his folder then look straight at me. “Nobody said it would be easy.”

“Yeah, well nobody said it was gonna be this fuckin’ hard, either.”

“Does it make you feel like a big guy to cuss in every sentence that comes out of your mouth?”

“Lay off, man.”

“It’s my job to stay on you, Caleb. But I can’t help if you won’t share with me.”

I look up at the sky and shake my head. “I don’t need your help. My parents and sister . . . they need help more than me. Why don’t you treat them like the guinea pig?”

“You’ve been away for almost a year. Give ’em a break. You act as though they should be apologizing to you instead of the other way around. What did they do wrong, huh? Maybe you should blame yourself once in a while, Caleb. The experience might be eye opening.”

“The
truth
would be eye opening,” I say back.

Click. Click. “What?”

I shake my head. “Nothing. Just forget it.”

Damon opens his folder again. That folder probably tells Damon everything about my life before, during, and after my arrest. I wonder if the time I tee-peed Joe Sanders’ house is in there. Or the time I beat up a guy from Fremont High for teasing my sister about her perm gone wrong. I used to be looked up to, the cool rebel. Now I’m a convict. Not cool.

He hands me a few sheets of paper. “You live in a small town, Caleb. Not much in choices for community service jobs, but on your questionnaire you said you had experience in construction and small home improvements.”

“I worked construction during summers for my uncle,” I tell him.

“Okay, then. You’ll be required to check in at The Trusty Nail hardware store on Monday after school at three forty-five sharp. Don’t be late. They’ll assign you a job site and drop off all supply materials needed. When you’re done with a job, get a completion sheet signed. Easy enough?”

“Sure.”

“I just have a few more questions. Then you don’t have to see my ugly mug for another week.” When Damon looks up at me he asks, “Any physical contact?”

“As in sex?”

Damon shrugs. “I don’t know, you tell me. Was the old girlfriend waiting on your front stoop when you got home yesterday?”

The urge to laugh gets caught in my throat. “Hardly. My sister hugged me, my dad shook my hand, and I got a few pats on the back from my mom’s random friends last night.”

“Did you initiate it?”

“No. You’re creeping me out, man.”

“Caleb, some guys have attachment problems when they get home. They have a hard time understanding what physical contact is appropriate and what—”

“I touched a girl,” I say, interrupting.

Click. “Tell me about it.”

I think back to last night, when Maggie tried to stand. The fierce pain she felt was emphasized by her clenched teeth, balled fists, and furrowed eyebrows. Since I’ve been home, Maggie has been the only person
I’ve
actually reached out to touch. It hadn’t gone well.

“A girl needed help getting up, so I tried to steady her. End of story.” Well, sort of.

“Did she thank you?”

I hesitate, then pick up a rock and chuck it all the way to the baseball field on the other side of the park. “She yanked herself out of my grasp. Isn’t that what you want to hear?”

“If it’s the truth.”

I turn and give him a look. He knows I’m not fuckin’ with him.

“Maybe you were too rough.”

“I was
not
too rough,” I say harshly.

“Who was she?”

I reach around and massage the persistent knot on the back of my neck. If I don’t answer, Damon’ll probably show up tomorrow and every day until I spill the beans. What’s the big deal anyway? I glance at the old oak, half expecting to spot Maggie sitting there, her expression wary and angry.

I look over to Damon who’s still waiting for an answer.

Then I finally say it. “I touched the girl who I went to jail for maiming.”

Click.