Pieces of Us (8 page)

Kyle

I
t’s night, and you want to be alone and head for the swings but your brother and his girl are already there. You’re wearing a dark sweatsuit and hope you blend with the darkness, but then they spot you and you have no choice but to wave back and continue forward.

“Hey, shithead,” says Alex.

“Hey dickwad,” you answer.

“Men,” Katie says, laughing, throwing her arms in the air.

It’s her arms, now covered in a turtleneck sweater, that you try to focus on because if you don’t you will just keep picturing her naked and you definitely don’t want that. So you just stare straight ahead and pump your legs and soon you’re tearing through the air, heading for the trees, leaving all of them behind.

Julie

I
don’t look behind me when I leave the lake house. I only follow the sound of the swings. Okay, I’m lying. I look behind once—just once—because I’m hoping to see Kyle. If I saw him, I’d slow my pace and try to play coy. We had that word on this year’s vocab final, and it sounds more sophisticated tha
n “
shy.”
K
yle seems like the type of boy who’d like the word coy. So, I’d play all
coy
,
and tilt my head to the side—Katie style—and say, “You into swinging?” Then I’d toss my hair and smile that smile—
the
smile he only saw on my sister.

But I don’t have the chance. Kyle is already on the swings with guess who beside him. And they’re both soaring through the air at the same time, legs at the same height like freaking synchronized swimmers.

I hang back a few feet and stare as Kyle takes the lead, but he’s not there for long. Alex is standing behind Katie and pushes her hard and fierce, like he needs her to reach Kyle. Like it’s a game and he’s losing. So typical of boys. I join them when Katie is finally caught up, and it’s then she yells at Alex to stop pushing.

“Hey,” she says, beside me now. She smiles and bumps me with her swing.

“Hey,” I say, smiling back.

Then I pull the swing back and push off. I keep pumping my legs faster and harder until Kyle and I are at the same level. Until Katie, Alex, and the dirt below me are nothing but dust.

Alex

F
ucking Julie kicks up a shitload of dust as she takes off, and now my eyes are watering. What is it with girls and swings anyway? Katya once said something about them being an escape. From what? If you have a problem, just deal.

Of course, it figures that my faggy brother is even higher than the girls. I get the speed part of it. Hell, I’d give them props if it was just about the speed. If it was just about how fuckin’ quick you could move your legs. But it’s more than that. It’s like they’re possessed, their faces blank like fuckin’ ghosts. Looking at them is scary as shit. That’s all I’m saying.

Now they’re done swinging, and Kyle is back to staring at nothing. I bet he’s trying to get Katya’s boobs out of his head. I feel bad for the kid. If she was some whore back home, I’d have let him cop a feel by now, put him out of his blue-ball misery. But Katya isn’t a ho. Simple as that.

Julie, on the other hand, would be good for Kyle. Not that she’s a hoochie either, but she’s one of those chicks who will do anything to be wanted. He wouldn’t have to work too hard; it might up his confidence. I’ll have to tell him to hit that later.

Right now, though, all the pussies are tired, and it’s my turn to soar. I grab an empty swing and pull it back. “Watch how it’s done!” I shout as I slice through the air. I’m faster than any of them were. I’m higher. The stars raise their palms and give me some skin. They are my bitches. That’s how fucking close I am.

Katie

Yulya and I used to be close

I’m the one who taught her to touch the stars

To pump her legs, quicker, stronger, faster

To force the swing higher and higher into the air

And then lean back, her hair flying behind her,

Her voice a delighted squeal

The world upside down and rushing past her

These days, she acts like the swings are torture

I drag her there at night, hoping

To talk, to figure her out, to understand what I did that broke us apart

To find that moment when I stopped being the girl she could fly with

And instead became the one she wanted to fly from

Tonight I gave up

I took Sasha instead

He, at least, didn’t put up a fight

But he didn’t sit beside me either

“I’ll push you,” he said, not waiting for me
to answer

Just pulled the swing back, back, back

And then let go

Not giving me a chance to look behind me

As I flew, flew, flew

Alone

Kyle

Y
ou knock on the screen door to Julie’s cottage like you always do, even though it’s wide open.

“Let’s go, Molasses,” you say. Your mother use to say this to you and Alex back when you were in pre-K, before the shit hit the fan. Funny that you remember it now.

“Sorry,” says Julie, out of breath as she runs to the door. She’s wearing a yellow towel over her bathing suit, so all you can see are green straps. “I’m wearing my new suit.” She rolls her eyes, and her voice is shy.

“And what? You couldn’t figure out how to get it on? Straps on top. You got it.”

“Ha ha.” She gives you a playful shove and then walks in silence.

What’s with the awkwardness? You can’t figure out why she’s acting weird. You and Julie are what’s easy. You never have to think when you talk to her—not like with girls.

“Uh, so, you want to see it?” she finally says.

You’re about to joke and say something like
As long as I don’t have to show you mine
, but she looks so nervous and unJulielike that you just say, “Sure.” You throw in a smile, hoping it will calm her down.

She blushes and takes off the towel and you don’t know what you’re supposed to say, but know she’s expecting something. You guess it’s nice—all green with a little pink bow at the top. The bow makes Julie look like a little girl.

She quickly rewraps herself in the towel, and you know you waited too long to speak.

“You don’t have to say it,” she says. “I know I look like an idiot.”

“No, it’s nice. Really.” It is. It’s a decent bathing suit, but this complimenting thing is more Alex’s gift than yours.

She shakes her head. “It’s stupid. My mom made me get it. It’s one of those suits—a Waist-Away or something—that’s supposed to make you look skinnier. Whatever. At least I talked her out of the one with the skirt attachment.”

Skinnier? You never thought of her as big. You never really noticed her body in
that
way at all. That was the best part of being with her. You got to just
be
. No pressure. You feel her eyes on you again, and the last thing you want to do is upset her. She’s the best friend you have here. “The bow is nice,” you manage.

She bursts out laughing, but it’s a real laugh, and you’re relieved.

“Don’t even,” she says, catching her breath. “I told my mom it was
not
‘feminine.’ Just makes me look five.”

“Nah. Seven easy.” You both laugh.

“Thanks a lot. You wait until I whoop your butt at the lake. We’ll see who’s seven.”

“Oh, then you’ll look nine, ten even!”

“Ass!” she shouts, giggling, trying to hit you, but you run to the lake.

You meet at the dock and you both stare at the water. She raises her arms above her head, readying herself to dive in. Her brows are furrowed in concentration. Her face looks so serious. What can she be thinking about? Can’t be about diving. That’s easy for both of you.

In thirty minutes, the grandparents will start streaming in with the little kids who will be all over the lake and not let you race. Alex and Katie will wander in and cuddle in their special corner, but you know Alex will be watching you, too. Julie puts down her arms and starts fiddling with her bow.

You want Julie to smile so everything can feel good, so you can breathe in the easiness you two have.

“Hey, check it,” you say, and do a cannonball into the lake. You know it’s one of your better ones. You surface and see puddles everywhere. It even wets the nearby chaises longues. Julie is grinning, and you’re glad.

“Oh yeah?” she shouts. “Check
this
!” Then she screams, “CANNONBALL!” and jumps in.

Julie

T
he water is cold and not in a good way. I stay underwater, open my eyes, and swim toward Kyle. It’s like that game Shark we used to play as kids, like a water tag. I’m the shark this time. I swim close to the bottom of the lake and grab his ankle.

When I surface, I expect him to say I’m being babyish, but he doesn’t. “You better run, girl,” he says instead. Then he dives underwater.

I swim away from him, laughing the whole time, which makes the swimming harder. I feel giddy and silly and the weirdness of him seeing me in my bathing suit is gone. It’s times like these—well, not only these times, but especially these times—that I’m glad my mom is not here. She’d freak seeing me play with Kyle like this, acting so young and dorky. I’d say, “I can’t help it. Must be the pink bow.”

I crack myself up and choke on the water and start gagging like the geek I am when Kyle grabs me at the waist. I swear his fingers are like magic because the gagging only becomes a small cough. He surfaces and sees my teary eyes. “You all right?” he asks.

I nod. “Choked.”

“It’s just a game,” he teases, and I can see him trying not to smile.

What is this to him
, I wonder. How did one school year change him so much? Why do I like him like
that
? And does he feel
anything
toward me? Anything at all? He’s Katie’s age, after all. Thank God she has Alex. I’m safe as long he doesn’t dump her, too.

I cough again and Kyle whacks me on the back. I feel like a moron. In the movies we’d be looking into each other’s eyes right now. Or dunking each other,
then
looking into each other’s eyes.

Then we’d kiss. I stare at him and lick my lips.

“Julie?” he says quietly.

“Yeah?” I move closer and lightly touch his arm, like I’ve seen Katie do with Alex.

He glances at my hand and tenses. Or maybe I’m imagining that. I put it back at my side just in case. I think he exhales.

We continue to stare at each other and I hear little kids by the shore. Suddenly, Kyle splashes me. “You’re it,” he says, and swims away.

Julie

~
The Chickens
~

T
here are benches in a semicircle at the far end of the lake houses beside the dumpsters. Some grandmas lined the grass with newspapers to catch falling chicken guts, and now they’re seated and waiting for the chicken man to begin. He gets out of his truck—white with a big yellow chicken painted on the side—and sets up the cages full of squawking chickens a few feet away. The grandmas get up from their spots to inspect and pick a favorite while Chicken Man sharpens his knives.

“Have fun,” Katie says, scurrying away to join Kyle on the swings, her favorite place and also the furthest from the slaughter.

They never watch, but Alex and I always do.

“It’s just sick,” Katie says each time she sees the truck coming down the gravel path toward the cottages.

“Please. You eat it after Babushka roasts it. What’s the difference?”

I’m sure in Katie’s head, it’s not the same. Just like she can have a school boyfriend and a summer boyfriend. She has this way of grouping things—“compartmentalizing” them, my English teacher calls it. Not seeing the killing somehow changes what happened, I guess. Maybe she decides the chicken my grandma cooks is not the man’s but from the store (although those had to be killed, too, so whatever).

I don’t think I’m sick for wanting to watch. It makes me feel better, like I can somehow give these dying chickens support before they’re sliced. Like a last request before the electric chair. And then there’s a part of me that just wants to watch because I know it bothers Katie.

Today, Chicken Man is wearing a nametag:
Wilbur
. The only thing I can think about is Wilbur from
Charlotte’s Web
, and that’s just wrong. If I were him, I’d opt out of the name tag.

“Wilbur,” laughs Alex, coming up behind me. “Talk about ironic.” He swings a leg over the bench and sits down beside me.

“Look who finally learned to read,” I say. I don’t know what surprises me more—that he knows the meaning of irony or that he’s read
Charlotte’s Web
.

He raises his eyebrows. “Watch it, little girl, or I’ll have to spank you.”

He looks like he might actually like to do it, and that grosses me out. I move away from him, and Wilbur picks up his first chicken. The knife slices and blood splatters all over Wilbur’s clothes, face, and hair. He curses and drops the chicken. It flies over the other chickens, leaving its blood on their feathers. The grandmas grimace.

I glance over at Alex. He looks fascinated. This chicken is a fighter, and he likes that. I don’t know if I do. What’s the point in fighting if you know, in the end, it won’t help. Just better to go quietly and not ruffle any feathers.

The chicken is not finished and more blood flows from it. Finally, it lands at Wilbur’s feet. Who would want that chicken now? It’s hot and I swear I can smell the blood. My stomach rumbles and I think I’m going to be sick.

“Shouldn’t stick around if you can’t hack it,” says Alex.

I want to punch him. I swallow down the vomit rising in my throat. “I can hack it.”

And the look he gives me is weird, like I fascinate him, like he’d like to see what I would do if I were the chicken.

“Huh,” he says. “Maybe you can teach your big sister to be tough.”

Me
teach
her
something? A strength I have that Katie doesn’t? I like that. I clench my fists and bare my teeth. “Maybe.” Wilbur pulls out another chicken and I face Alex. “Bring it,” I say.