Unnatural (2 page)

How many freckles were on his slender nose? Six, eight … before Michael could finish counting, R.J. brushed his cheek against his arm, wiping away any telltale signs of perspiration that had remained, and looked up directly into Michael’s eyes. His mouth formed a smile and then words, “Hot today, ain’t it?”

Keep looking bored,
Michael thought,
uninterested, so no one will suspect.
“Yeah,” Michael said, nodding his head.

“Gonna be a scorcher today,” Michael’s grandpa said, “but ya can’t trust those weathermen to know nothin’.”

R.J.’s face retained its expression, no change whatsoever. Was R.J. suppressing what he really felt too, or did he agree with Michael’s grandpa? “Can’t really trust anybody,” R.J. said. “Can ya, Mike?”

That sounded odd to Michael’s ears; nobody called him Mike. He wasn’t a Mike, it didn’t fit, but maybe it could be the name that only R.J. used. That would be okay. Michael cleared his throat and then replied, “Guess not.”

“Here.” Michael’s grandpa thrust some bills in front of Michael, and R.J. reached out to grab them. A beat later, Michael reached forward to grab the money and pass it along to R.J., but he was too late. Or maybe he was right on time? His fingers brushed against R.J.’s forearm and he discovered that R.J.’s skin was just as smooth as his, but much hotter and firmer than his own. Michael mumbled “sorry,” but he was drowned out by his grandpa’s command, “That’s twenty-eight there, Rudolph; credit me fifty cents next time.”

Rudolph.
Michael’s grandpa was the only one who called him by his real name. Sounded more inappropriate than calling Michael
Mike.
But Mike and Rudolph? That had an exciting sound to it. Michael didn’t see R.J.’s patronizing smile; he kept his gaze down at the fingers that had recently touched his skin, but he did hear him. “Will do, sir.” He didn’t look back up until he heard the motor running and heard his grandpa shift the car into drive. He turned to catch one more glimpse of R.J.’s face, but he had stood up and all Michael could see was his hand stuffing the cash into the frayed pocket of his jeans. And then there was a breeze.

R.J.’s T-shirt lifted and for a moment his hip flank, sharply defined and smooth, was exposed. Michael thought it looked like a small hill on an otherwise flat
plain where he could rest his head, maybe dream a little. As the truck pulled away, Michael looked through the rearview mirror, but the breeze had died and R.J.’s T-shirt covered that interesting piece of flesh. Later that night, Michael would remember it, though, because no matter how hard he tried, he just knew it was something he wouldn’t be able to forget.

After Michael helped his grandpa bring the cans and bottles to the recycling center, there were other errands to run. Had to pick up a new fog light at Sears that he would later be forced to watch his grandpa install in his mother’s car because she turned a corner too sharply and busted hers; then they had to drive over to the Home Depot to get a new toilet chain that Grandpa would watch Michael install in the downstairs bathroom; and of course it wouldn’t be Saturday if his grandpa didn’t play the Nebraska Lottery.

“Up to a hundred seventy million this week,” the redheaded cashier informed them.

“If I win, you and me’ll bust outta here,” Grandpa said.

“My bags are already packed!” the redheaded cashier chortled. Even though the cashier was roughly forty years younger than his grandpa and still what locals would call fine-lookin’, Michael had no doubt that if his grandpa came back next week waving a winning lottery ticket, she would hop in the Ranger to drive off with him to parts unknown. Weeping Water was not the kind of town that instilled loyalty in its residents, unless they had nowhere else to go.

But Michael did have some place he could go. He had started his life somewhere else, he was born someplace far, far from this town, where he could be living right now. But his mother had put an end to all of that. Why?! Why had she ruined everything? No. No sense blaming her now; the damage had already been done. He would just spend the rest of the day imagining how far from here he would travel if he were lucky enough to win the lottery.

   When all the dinner dishes were washed and put away and his grandparents were sitting in their own separate chairs in front of the television, he finishing an after-dinner beer, she finishing yet another knitting project, Michael sat on his bed rereading
A Separate Peace,
one of his favorite novels, some music that he vaguely recognized filling the space of his room. Before he finished chapter one, his mother knocked on his door to ask the same question she’d been asking all summer long.

“Heya, honey, aren’t ya going out tonight?”

Grace Howard had once been a beautiful woman. So beautiful that she won a series of beauty pageants culminating in Miss Nebraska, which meant that she could fly to Atlantic City to participate in the Miss America contest. Pretty big stuff for any town desperate for some notoriety, incredibly huge stuff for a town like Weeping Water. She didn’t crack the top ten, but she did catch the eye of a young college student on vacation from England. Against the vehement protests of her parents, Grace
nixed a return to Nebraska and instead flew to England with Vaughan. She had never done anything so spontaneous or rebellious in her entire life. Three months after the contest, she and Vaughan Howard got married on his family’s estate in Canterbury, roughly an hour southeast of London. Vaughan was her winning lottery ticket. Until she decided to rip it up into little pieces and return home, dragging her crying toddler with her.

“No, I need to finish this before school on Monday,” Michael lied with just a glance in his mother’s direction.

“But it’s the last weekend before school starts back up.”

Don’t remind me,
Michael thought. “I know, that’s why I have to finish.”

His mother was in his room now, which meant that either she wanted to discuss something or she was incredibly bored and had exhausted all conversation with her parents. “Can’t believe you’re a sophomore already; my little guy’s gettin’ to be a man.” She was standing in front of the oak bookshelf, looking at the spines of all the books Michael had read and would most likely read again. They were his escape. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out. “I hated to read when I was your age; still can’t concentrate long enough to get through a magazine article.”

From behind, Michael’s mother still looked youthful. Her brown hair was full and fell an inch or two below her shoulders, her arms were taut and hadn’t yet gotten flabby, and her hips still held their curve. It’s when she
turned to face Michael that he saw age had crept into her face prematurely. Michael knew that a thirty-seven-year-old woman shouldn’t look like that.

“You know Darlene’s daughter?”

“Who?”

“Darlene Garrison. Michael, sometimes …” Now she was fiddling with something on his desk. “Sometimes I don’t think you pay attention to anything except these books of yours. Darlene owns the beauty parlor A Cut Above; she does my hair. Her daughter, Jeralyn, is in your grade.”

Michael had no idea who Jeralyn Garrison was, so he lied again. “Oh yeah, I think so.”

“Where’d you get this?” His mother held up a Union Jack bumper sticker.

“I found it at the Sears auto store when I was there with Grandpa. He told me I couldn’t put the British flag on his Ranger. I told him I had no intention of doing that; I bought it ’cause I liked it.”

Michael saw the familiar glaze come over his mother’s eyes. He remained silent because he knew that if he kept on talking, if he asked her a direct question even, she wouldn’t hear him. She was in the room, but her mind wasn’t. Her heart might not be in the room either, but his mother rarely talked about what lay in her heart, so it was hard to tell about that. When she placed the bumper sticker gently back on his desk and turned to face him, he was compelled to speak despite knowing it might be futile.

“Do you ever miss London?”

Grace looked at her son. He doesn’t look a thing like me, does he? I don’t have blond hair, my skin isn’t so pale, my eyes aren’t green. If I hadn’t been there when the doctor pulled him out from inside of me, I would never believe this person was my flesh and blood. But he was, he is, she thought. In some ways, he’s all I’ll ever be able to truly call my own.

“No,” she lied. “I told you before, it’s a crowded, loud city. Dirty, no space to breathe, no clean air. I can’t believe you remember it; you were only three when we left.”

“I don’t really have memories, but impressions. I don’t know, I just get the feeling that I would like it.”

He doesn’t even sound like me, Grace thought. He never does. He says things that just don’t make sense, that make me question why I ever became a parent, why I ever wasted my life raising him. “You mean you just get the feeling that you’d like it better than here.”

And the change had begun. Michael saw his mother’s lips press against each other to form a smile that meant to convey anything but joy, her head tilt to the right, and her eyes fill with disbelief. Their roles had reversed. She was the emotionally reactive teenager and he was the insightful parent. Experience had taught him this conversation would not be any different from any other conversation he’d ever had with his mother about London or what their life was like before she brought him to this place, the place where she grew up, or what their
life could be like if they moved back. Nothing important would be disclosed, nothing important would be shared between mother and son. And so he just went back to reading.

His mother paced the width of the room, once, twice. She hated when Michael asked about London. For her it was another lifetime ago, a mistake. No, not a mistake entirely.
What should I call it?
she thought. She couldn’t come up with a word. As always, the mention of London and her past made her fidgety, confused. The only thing she was certain of was that it was part of her past and that’s where it should remain. Yes, it should remain buried and silent. Because when she thought of London, all she thought of was him, Michael’s father. The man she ran away with and the man she eventually ran from. The man she once loved and would always love. The man she never wanted to see again. “Do me one favor,” Grace said before leaving her son alone. “When you get married, be a better husband than your father was.”

A cold sensation of fear trickled down Michael’s neck and found its resting place on his heart. It squeezed, it constricted, until Michael could hardly breathe and had to consciously put down his book and gasp, gasp for a breath that should have come easily. But his mother saw to it that it didn’t. She had to mention marriage and becoming a husband, didn’t she? If Michael didn’t know better, he’d think his mother was punishing him for bringing up London. And maybe she was. Lately she had been
acting so erratically he had no idea what she was thinking. All he knew was that whenever his mother, or anyone for that matter, insinuated that he should get married and become a husband, he panicked. It just felt wrong. The only thing that made him feel worse was that, to everyone else, it felt perfectly right.

Just as his breathing returned to normal, he heard the medicine cabinet open, which could mean only one thing: His mother needed some comfort. Maybe it was the white pill; perhaps tonight it would be the blue pill. It didn’t matter. Michael didn’t have to see into the bathroom to know that his mother was taking a pill to calm her nerves. A pill before bedtime was the only thing that seemed to help her these days. That and a nice glass of white wine.

What happened to the mother who used to help me with my homework after dinner? Explain to me how to figure out percentages and the differences among the three branches of government. When did she stop wanting to help me and start wanting to create me in her image?
Now Michael was pacing his room, back and forth, trying to figure out why his mother was no longer on his side, pacing, pacing, pacing, until he forced himself to stop moving. He gripped the windowsill and looked out into the night. The moonlight allowed him to see only a few yards of the dirt road; the rest was hidden in darkness, out of his reach once again.
Why do I hate it here so much?!
Maybe, just maybe, it had to do with what was taking place downstairs.

“Again with the wine,” Michael’s grandfather snickered.

“Should I drink whiskey?” Grace asked. “Would that make you happy? Oh, that’s right, there’s nothing that would make you happy.”

“Don’t you talk to me like that!”

“And don’t you dare tell me what to do!”

That was different. Michael’s mother didn’t usually talk back to her father. Guess the pills and the wine weren’t working as quickly to calm her as they usually did.

“Maybe if you weren’t drinking all the time, you’d be able to straighten out that son of yours.”

“You leave him out of this,” Grace said, much quieter.
Ah, now the pills are kicking in.
“He’s a good boy.”

“He ain’t no boy!” his grandfather shouted. “He’s like that fairy husband of yours!”

“He’s nothing like Vaughan!”

“Is too! A sissy boy and he ain’t gonnna ’mount to nothin’! Mark my words!”

“You shut your mouth, Daddy! Shut it! Michael is not … like
that.
He’s perfectly normal!”

But Michael knew his mother was wrong. He wasn’t normal. His grandfather didn’t have to come right out and say it; Michael knew what he was. He stared at his reflection in the window and he could see it in his own eyes. What he saw made him disgusted, scared, but yes, just a little excited even though he knew what he was seeing wasn’t right. Tomorrow at church he would pray that it would all go away,
that he would be able to change who he was, but tonight … tonight he would lock his bedroom door, block out the sounds coming from downstairs, and think about R.J. And he would convince himself that it was the most natural thing in the world.

Not a word was spoken during the half-hour drive to church. It would be optimistic to think that Michael, his mother, and his grandparents were all engaged in private meditation, but the truth is, they had nothing to say to one another. At least nothing that would be appropriate to say en route to God’s house.