Swim Back to Me Page 8

  I turned toward Sasha. “It’s OK, they’re gone.”

  She didn’t move, and I leaned down, my head near hers. I put a hand on her back, and immediately she pushed my hand away.

  “Don’t. Stop it. I never should’ve invited you.”

  “Sasha.”

  She raised her head enough to look me in the eye, her face wet with tears. “I can’t stand you. Get away from me.”

  I straightened up and looked at the men, but Cal and Jeremy had disappeared. The door to the RV was open, and I wondered what they were doing in there. Cal was buying drugs from Jeremy, but what kind? I didn’t want to drive home in a car full of drugs. Highway patrolmen would be out tonight, looking for kids with illegal firecrackers; they might pull Cal over just because his car looked crappy.

  Cal came out of the RV empty-handed. He saw me looking and gestured at me with his chin, then he shook hands with the bald guy and gave the blond one a thumbs-up. Getting back in the car, he said, “You guys missed out. They had blueberry pie in there.” Then he laughed and started the engine, and because there wasn’t room to turn the car around he backed all the way up to the road, and the men and the dogs slid away.

  We bumped down through the tunnel of shrubs, turned onto the paved road, and drove past the house with the rocking chair and the clothesline. Sasha was sitting up again, her face streaked and dirty. “What’s the matter, little one?” Cal said, but she didn’t respond.

  We came to the main road. “No, go right,” she said, and Cal shrugged and turned toward home.

  He said, “Don’t you want to watch the fireworks?”

  “No.” She slumped down, putting her shins against the back of his seat. I saw him adjust the mirror to look at her, and it was just like Dan on the morning of the Walk for Mankind, checking in on Sasha, trying to understand Sasha. Spoiled brat, I thought. I looked out my window. It had been a mistake, kissing her. I’d really been kissing Hillary, anyway.

  Back on campus, I got out of the car. Sasha got out, too, then circled it and got in again next to Cal. I unlocked my bike, sat on the seat, and toed myself over to her window. It wasn’t fully dark yet.

  She stared at me. “What are you waiting for?” she said in a nasty voice. “Go home.”

  I avoided her for several days. I spent a weekend in Oakland, and when I got back I called Malcolm and Bob, for the first time all summer. Bob was away, but I got Malcolm to meet me at Lake Lagunita, where I initiated him into the mysteries of smoking weed, thanks to a small supply of pot Sasha had given me. There were Stanford students hanging around the lake, too, and a couple of girls came and sat with us, told us we were cute, and mooched several hits each from my pipe.

  We did it all over again the next day, and then I was out. Money to buy more wasn’t a problem—my father handed me cash whenever I asked for it, and sometimes when I didn’t—but I had no source.

  And so I biked to Cal’s, aware Sasha might be there but feeling I had no choice, nowhere else to go, and I needed some pot. If I saw her, I saw her. It had to happen sometime.

  It was day two of a heat wave, 101 degrees according to the bank I passed, and I pedaled along the streets with a mouth so dry I might as well have been stoned out of my mind. To fortify myself, I bought a Coke at the Old Barrel and drank it inside the cool, dark building. Back outside, I shielded my eyes from the sun, felt the heat lay across my face again, felt it drape over my arms and legs. I left my bicycle where I’d locked it and walked the rest of the way.

  The street was quiet, cars gone from the driveways of the little houses, most of the apartment carports empty, too. I saw Cal’s car down at the third building, its scabby fender half in shade. I headed that way, pausing before taking the stairs up to the second story. There was a row of doors on one side of a concrete walkway, a spindly iron railing on the other. Most of the doors were closed, but I made my way past them to the last one, which was open, with just a screen door blocking access. I pressed my face to the screen so I could see in: matching sofa and chair with gold stitching on the cushions, a china lamp on a little table. Not Cal’s, in other words. I turned and headed back. The first door I came to had a “Welcome” sign on it, and at the next, several pairs of little kids’ sandals lay near a mat. This left the door at the end of the row, a solid white door with a tarnished brass knob. I knocked, hoping Sasha wouldn’t answer.

  I heard steps, and then there was Cal, in cut-offs and nothing else, a bleary look on his face. He saw me and said, “Little Richard.”

  I stood there, unsure how to begin.

  “If you’re looking for Sasha,” he said, “I don’t know where she is.”

  “I’m not. I want to buy from you.”

  He seemed amused, but he said, “How much money do you have?”

  “Forty.”

  He looked over his shoulder, looked at me again. “Well, come on,” he said, and he stepped back to make room for me to enter.

  I’d had such pictures of this place—bare mattress, piles of clothing, a general and all-encompassing mess—that for a moment I couldn’t quite take in what I saw: a tidy striped couch, a pair of bamboo chairs at a small round dining table almost exactly like the one at my mother’s. The kitchen was in the same room, on the other side of a Formica counter, and there were some Chinese food containers and a couple of plates near the sink, but otherwise it was spic-and-span.

  “Have a seat,” he said, gesturing at the couch as he went into the kitchen and opened a cabinet. He brought out a large stew pot, set it on the counter, and pulled out a plastic Baggie containing about a half an inch of pot.

  He brought the bag over and tossed it on the coffee table. Turning one of the bamboo chairs around, he reached into his pocket for his rolling papers.

  “I don’t care,” I said.

  “About …”

  “If it’s good or not. I’ll just buy it.”

  He raised his eyebrows, crossed his arms over his chest, and looked at me hard. “Little Richard,” he said. “Oh, my.”

  “Is Jeremy the grower?” I said, nodding at the bag.

  Cal chuckled. “Guess you thought that was a drug deal going down the other night, huh?”

  “No.”

  “A little innocent blueberry pie, and Cal’s a criminal.”

  You’re a criminal anyway, I wanted to say. I thought of Jeremy’s bare chest and wine breath, of his harsh voice when he yelled at the dogs. And of the dogs themselves, of Boris’s growl. I felt a wave of dread—intense fear of what might have happened that night, even though the night was long over.

  Cal gestured at the pot. “It’s on the house. Take it.”

  I reached for the bag, then stopped myself. Was he playing a trick on me?

  “Go on, take it. And tell your friend to call me.”

  I grabbed the bag and dashed out of there. Stuffing it in my pocket, I ran down the stairs and out into the bright, stinging sunlight. I ran up the street, kept running until I’d reached the Old Barrel and my bike. My fingers shook as I dialed my combination. I was looking at the lock, but in my mind I saw myself pounding the seat with my fist, over and over again.

  Once I was on my bike I headed in the direction I’d taken after my first trip to that neighborhood, toward and then across the railroad tracks, and then along the busy road parallel to them. In about five minutes I’d reached the underpass to the Stanford side of the tracks, but I kept going. I was in the older part of Palo Alto now, and the mature trees offered shade, but I was too hot for it to make much difference. Sweat stung my eyes, made my shirt stick to my back. Abruptly, I turned onto a residential street and stopped. I patted my pocket, making sure the bag was still there. I could be home in ten minutes, in time for Gladys to make me a milkshake before she left for the day, but when I set off again I headed deeper into Palo Alto, aiming, I was starting to realize, for the street where the Mile Ten check-in station had been. Where the tall guy lived.

  I found the street, then wasn’t sure which of two little
white houses was his, one with a fence around the yard or one without. The house with the fence had a station wagon in the driveway, while the other had a two-door sedan, a Chevelle the blue-green color of the ocean. I got off my bike in front of that one. The yard was familiar, the steps up to the porch, the faded black of the front door. Standing there, I thought for some reason of the charred log I’d noticed in the fireplace, and I wondered if it was still there. My father’s area of interest was between-the-wars America, Prohibition, the stock market crash, the Depression; he’d told me that in the early thirties fuel was so scarce people would burn a log halfway and then smother the flames so they could get a fire going again the next night without having to use more wood. I imagined that the tall guy would do that, not to be frugal but because he was alone.

  The Chevelle’s windows were open, as if he’d used the car recently and planned to go out again soon. I left my bike on the sidewalk, went up to the porch, and knocked.

  Footsteps, and then the door was opened, but not by the tall guy: it was a woman with mousy brown hair in a ragged cut and, oddly, braces on her teeth, which she revealed in a broad smile that disappeared as she took in the sight of me.

  “Sorry, I was expecting someone else. Can I help you?”

  I looked past her: it was the guy’s house, with the guy’s saggy couch.

  She cocked her head, waiting.

  I said, “Is anyone else home?”

  “You mean Karl? Are you looking for Karl? Karl,” she called over her shoulder, “there’s a boy here for you.”

  She was a little ugly: “plain,” they would say in a book. She was flat-chested, and her eyebrows were so pale it was almost as if she didn’t have any. I hoped she wasn’t his girlfriend. I preferred the idea of him alone to the idea of him with her.

  The tall guy appeared in the doorway, and I could tell he had no idea who I was. He was just the same, though: the lean, lanky frame; the light blue eyes.

  “Yes?” he said.

  Suddenly worried my bike might be gone, I swiveled around, but there it was, leaning against the tree where I’d left it. I faced them again, the woman with her hand on the doorframe, Karl towering over her.

  “Can I help you?” he said. The way he spoke was soft, easy—very different from how he’d talked on the day of the Walk. “Are you selling something?”

  “Gorp,” I said, and then I began to laugh. I backed down the steps, then turned and made for my bike.

  “Hang on,” he said, coming after me. “You’re that kid, aren’t you?”

  I kept going.

  “You’re that kid who wanted to sterilize a needle. You were with that crazy girl.”

  Now I turned around.

  “You gave me some gorp.”

  “You ate the raisins.”

  “I probably did.” He lowered his chin, gave me a closer look. “What are you doing here?”

  “I just—” I tried to think. “I just wanted to thank you,” I said, and I reached into my pocket and pulled out the bag of pot. “For helping us. Sorry it took me a while.”

  His eyes widened. “What is that, marijuana? You can’t do that, put that away. Here, come inside.” Glancing around, he reached for my shoulder, and I let him pull me toward the house. The woman was still in the doorway, and he beckoned her inside and then closed the door behind us.

  “What’s going on?” he said. “What is this?”

  I looked around. It was dark after the bright afternoon, but I could tell it was different from the other time—definitely tidier, but also cleaner. The air seemed fresh, and the fireplace was empty.

  “What’s your name?” he said.

  “Richard.” I glanced at the woman; she was leaning against a wall, watching me. I knew I should talk. “My friend was Sasha. That day. We were doing the Walk for Mankind, the twenty-mile walk. There was a check-in station right across the street.”

  “That’s right,” he said.

  The woman cleared her throat, and he glanced over at her and then looked at me again. He said, “Richard, you shouldn’t give marijuana to a stranger. Not as a thank-you and not for any other reason. You shouldn’t do that.”

  I stayed still, the Baggie slippery in my hand.

  “I mean, what if I was a cop,” he went on. “Did you think of that? I could be an off-duty police officer.” He hesitated. “Are you in trouble? Do you need help?”

  “No.” I started for the door, shoving the pot into my pocket as I went.

  “Wait.”

  This was the woman. I turned, and she’d moved away from the wall and crossed her arms over her chest. Now I was scared. I got the feeling he didn’t care, but she wanted to do something bad—call the police or worse. They were looking back and forth at each other, trying to talk with their eyes. Dan and Joanie sometimes did this, except Dan usually ended up blurting out whatever he was thinking.

  “It’s hot out there, Richard,” she said at last. “Don’t you want to have a drink of water before you go? We don’t want to hurt you or get you in trouble. Really. Come have some ice water.”

  My eyes got hot, and I held them wide to keep myself from getting teary.

  “Yeah,” Karl said. “Good idea. Come on.”

  He headed for the kitchen and I followed after him. He filled a glass with ice water and gestured for me to sit at the table—in the same chair where Sasha had popped her blister. He sat opposite me and held his hand across the table. “I’m Karl—did I already say that? It’s nice to meet you, Richard.” We shook, and he said, “Oh, and that’s Mary Ann.”

  The woman had come after us but stood in the doorway. She said, “Mary Ann who’s going to wait outside, OK?”

  He shrugged.

  “I mean, should I stay?”

  They exchanged another look, and then she headed for the front door.

  I picked up the glass and drank.

  “Look, Richard,” he began.

  “Thanks for the water,” I said, and I set the glass down and pushed my chair back.

  “Hang on, hang on.” He got up and brought a jar of peanuts to the table. “Have some of these before you go, the salt’ll do you good.”

  I took the jar and shook a few nuts into my palm.

  “So how old are you?” he said.

  “Almost fourteen.”

  “Once you are fourteen you’ll be half my age. So, guess what, I’m twenty-eight.”

  “OK.” I wanted to leave, but I didn’t want to have to pass Mary Ann.

  He said, “I’m twenty-eight, I grew up in Sunnyvale, I’m a manager at the PayLess in Mountain View.”

  I was surprised by the third statement; I’d been sure he was an academic. A scientist—that was what I was expecting. I’d been all ready to tell him I was a faculty brat.

  “You want me to keep going?” he said. “You know what managers do, right? I’m the guy they call when there’s a problem. ‘Karl, Karl to register three, please.’ That’s me.”

  “Do you wear a red vest?”

  “White shirt and tie,” he said with a smile. “My red vest days are behind me.”

  Right after my mother left, my father thought we should stock up on household stuff, and we went to the PayLess in Menlo Park and filled two shopping carts with toilet paper and Ajax and family-size boxes of breakfast cereal. Since then we hadn’t ventured farther than JJ&F.

  His eyes were still on me, and I looked away. I imagined him as a teenager—a tall, skinny high school kid in a red vest. I wondered if he’d even gone to college.

  There was a stack of photos on the table. The top one was a green blur, with some dark spots on one edge. Karl saw me looking and slid the photos to the middle of the table. He held up the top one so I could see it. “Guess what this is.”

  I shrugged. “Something green.”

  “Yeah, but what? Guess.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re no fun. It’s a frog. Part of a frog. Didn’t come out too good, did it?” He tossed the picture as
ide and swiveled the stack so I could see the next one right side up. It was the same idea—blurry green—but I got it this time: the dark spots were bumps on the frog’s skin, and there was a grayish white thing that might’ve been part of its eye.

  He tossed that one aside, too. “Here we go,” he said, and he held up a picture of the frog as a small green blob on the muddy edge of some water. “He wasn’t a close-up kind of frog,” he said. He turned the photos around again and slid one after another from the top of the pile. “Now we’re talking,” he said and tossed a photo at me.

  It was a picture of snow-capped mountains, like something you’d see on a postcard. He tossed another, and a third, and they were all like that—mountains with forest, mountains with the sky pink behind them.

  “Here’s us,” he said.

  He and Mary Ann were standing together on a narrow trail, each wearing hiking boots and a huge backpack. She had on sunglasses, so her eyes didn’t have that naked look, and I had to admit she had pretty good legs. They were both smiling like crazy.

  “And here’s me,” Karl said, and he passed me a picture of him sitting against a boulder, sticking out his tongue and crossing his eyes.

  “Where is this?” I said.

  “Cascades. It takes forever to get there, but it’s worth it, it’s beautiful. Does your family backpack?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, maybe when you’re grown then. We spent ten days—it was pretty great.”

  I put the picture down and slid the whole mess back to him. Like I was going to start backpacking when I was grown. I was pretty sure that when I was grown I’d be like my father, doing something that involved desks and table lamps. I hadn’t even gone to Muir Woods when I had the chance.

  “So what’s going on, Richard?” Karl said.

  “You mean with Sasha?”

  “I mean with you. Is something going on with Sasha?”

  I thought of how he was with her, the day of the Walk. Kind of mean. “She’s my best friend,” I said.

  “But something happened. She’s in trouble. Or she got you in trouble?”