“Duh,” Jo mocks. “The cans?”
Our voices muffle in our masks. Is this what she does? All those nights she’s supposed to be at AA? I lower the gun. “You promised,” I say accusingly.
Jo tilts her head. She looks like an alien, like Darth Vader. “I promised I’d quit drinking. I didn’t say how.” She lifts the barrel in front of my face. “Shoot.”
“You told Mom —”
“I told her I’d join AA. I did. Are you going to shoot or not?”
I lodge the CO2 tank against my armpit. She’s loaded yellow balls. I sight a can and squeeze the trigger, then realize I forgot to cock for the first shot. Jo doesn’t say what I’m thinking: Shit for brains.
Finally I get off a shot and miss. “We’re too far away,” I say.
Jo takes the marker. She fires. Splat. The top can on the log pyramid sails backward and bounces off a tree. Jo licks her finger and air marks a score. She hands me the gun.
“Did you ever go?” I ask. Because I’m curious. To what depths will Jo sink to deceive Mom? Or me.
“To an AA meeting? Yeah, I went. Once.” Jo pushes her goggle mask up onto her head. “It brought back memories. Bad ones.”
I raise the marker. “Like what?” I take aim.
“Like Alateen, which I did a few times when I was growing up. It didn’t take. I hate that group shit. The whole touchy-feely thing reminds me of church. Let’s hug and pray and ask forgiveness from Our Heavenly Father as we poor wretched souls cling to each other in this hour of need, this time of desperation.” Jo wiggles her hands in the air. “Hallelujah.”
I crack a smile. But I’m listening.
“Where was my Heavenly Father when my heavenly mother was puking up all over the bathroom floor? When I’d get up in the middle of the night and slip in that shit? I’d get it all over me and have to clean it up. Where was He — where was anyone — on the nights my folks even bothered to come home at all? Where was Alateen then?” Jo levels the barrel. “Are you going to shoot or what?”
I squeeze the trigger. Whoosh. The paintball zings into the trees. I wasn’t really aiming.
Jo yanks her goggles back down over her face. “Come on, sissy miss,” she muffles. “You can do it. If I can do it, you can do it.”
I squint and line up the label on the Budweiser can directly in the center of the gun barrel. Pop. Splat. A can pitches to the left. Yeah! I punch the air.
“We’re even,” Jo says in a fuzzy voice. She reaches for the marker, but I don’t relinquish it.
“What?”
I slide up my goggles. So does she. I ask her point-blank. “Are you still drinking?”
Jo holds my eyes. Her head starts to wobble and bob. “You know, Nick,” she goes. Broken neck. “I got my own twelve-step program. Steps number one through eleven” — her eyeballs bounce around — “do what you need to do to get it done. Step number twelve: Never drink alone.” She gets up and hurdles the side of the truck, crunching to a landing. From the cab, she retrieves the paper bag. She slings it over the side and, stepping on the rusted wheel hub, levers herself up and over. From the bag, she removes a plastic bottle and unscrews the lid. The contents hiss. She hands it to me and opens one for herself.
“Cheers queers.” She chucks her bottle on mine.
It’s Coke. We slug it back in unison. She hasn’t answered my question, but I don’t press. She promised, and I have to trust she’s as good as her word. This is Jo. I want to believe.
Here’s what I believe today: Until you’re old enough to see your parents for who they really are, you can’t trust a word they tell you. I don’t ask, and Jo doesn’t tell. If she’s not drinking again after everything that’s happened, I can’t imagine what would make her start.
Mom and Jo
We’ve lined up our chaises on the patio deck facing directly into the sun. It’s a hundred degrees, easy, but beach bums don’t care. Today is the last day of summer. Tomorrow I start seventh grade. I’m not obsessing about that — yet. I’m thinking about whether I should smear more sunscreen on my nose so it won’t peel again. We’ve slathered every other inch of exposed skin around our swimsuits and put on our matching shades. Now we’re just hanging out, catching some rays. Suckin’ up the shit-end of summer, as Jo says.
“Turn it up,” I call across to her. “What’s the score?”
Jo reaches down to amp up the volume on the radio she’s set between her and Mom. “Still goose eggs,” she answers. “Top of the sixth.” She retrieves the bottle of sunscreen and squeezes a blob onto Mom’s stomach.
Mom yelps and drops her paperback to the side of her chaise. Jo rubs in the lotion and I watch, behind my shades. I follow the slow circles over Mom’s stomach, around her belly button — the way Mom’s skin shimmers in the sun. I wonder what it’d feel like to rub suntan lotion on Sasha McLaren’s bare skin. The thought makes me hot, and not from the sun. I close my eyes and dream.
“Hey, Nick. Would you run in and get me a water?” Mom tickles my leg with her big toe.
“What am I, your slave?”
Mom and Jo answer in unison, “Yes.” Jo adds, “While you’re at it, bring me a cold wet one.”
I lower my shades to eye her. She sneers at me.
I hear them whispering behind my back as I fling open the screen door. They laugh. I don’t even care if they’re laughing about me. They’re laughing more, like they used to. It’s better since Jo quit drinking.
In the refrigerator I spy the watermelon I picked out at the farmer’s market this morning. Perfectly round, perfectly ripe. It makes me hungry. I slice it into wedges and stack them in a Tupperware bowl. I balance two Cokes and a bottle of water on top.
Sneaking up behind Mom, I roll her water bottle across her greasy stomach, and she squeals. Jo snorts and slaps my hand.
Mom tips her shades. “Ooh, watermelon.” She smiles up at me. “Good idea, Nick.” Scooting to sit up, she adds, “By the way, what are you making for dinner?”
I pop the top on my Coke. “I thought I’d barbecue burgers and brats. I made celery cream cheese with bacon bits, and strawberry shortcake for dessert.”
Jo says, “Will you listen to him? Celery cream cheese and strawberry sorbet.” She flaps a limp wrist at me. “How gay.”
I bristle, but let it pass. “Shortcake,” I repeat under my breath. I don’t know why the whole gay thing has started to bother me lately. Everyone says it to everyone. “You’re so gay. How gay.” They don’t mean anything.
But seventh grade . . . Two moms . . .
Mom kicks Jo. “Don’t knock it. Kerri says Nick’s a born chef.” Mom reaches over and trails her fingers through my long hair. Last month she talked me into taking this cooking class from Kerri. It was all right, even if I was the only guy. Someone’s got to cook around here. Mom adds, “We should’ve bought more of these from the slave traders. One to clean the house. One to mow the lawn. . . .”
“One to kiss my ass.” Jo whaps me.
For some reason, that triggers a question I’ve been meaning to ask for a long time. “Do you know who my father is?” I know I have to have one.
Mom and Jo exchange a look. A staggering silence closes in around us, and I think I’m sorry I brought it up. Jo clears her throat and says, “Uh, yeah. He’s a syringe full of sperm.”
Mom clicks her tongue. She takes a glug of water and says, not looking at me, “Have you been wondering about that?”
Jo says before I do, “Duh.” She widens her eyes at me like, Of course he’s been wondering about it. I also catch the vibe from her that we should discuss it later, in private.
The thing is, I want to talk about it now with both of them here. “Who is he?” I ask. “Do you know? Did you meet him?” And the real question: “Can I meet him?”
Mom snaps, “No.”
I snap back, “Why not?”
Jo says, “Okay, we weren’t going to tell you this, but we promised to always be truthful with you. Your father is a six-hundred
pound Buddhist monk with a hunchback and a harelip.”
Mom blows water out her nose. She coughs and splutters.
Jo adds, “And you look just like him.”
I pitch Mom’s book at Jo. I’m grinning, though; I can’t help it. “Really, can I find out who he is?” I ask Mom.
She daubs at her watery eyes. “I don’t think so, honey. The sperm donation centers have strict confidentiality rules.”
I knew about the sperm bank. Jo explained that part to me. But they have to have a record of who . . . deposited.
Jo says, “Think about it. Would you want to get up one morning and find a hundred kids at your door all holding out their arms crying, ‘Daddy, Daddy.’”
I just look at her.
“Well? Would you?”
I lie back in my chaise and let the image swirl around in my head. Okay, Jo has a point. Even if I did find out who he was, he’d be a total stranger. He wouldn’t be my father. He might be rich and famous, though. A celebrity or a sports figure. With me as a kid? Right. More likely, he’d be a geek. Or worse — a drug addict. I mean, what kind of guy sells his juice, anyway?
Something prickles my chest, and a black seed slides down into my lap. I blink up and catch another one smack in the eye.
“Bull’s-eye.” Jo laughs.
I chomp a bite of watermelon and load up on ammunition.
“Hold it.” Mom covers her head. She leans forward so Jo and I have unobstructed battle lines.
Jo’s fast, but her aim sucks. I’m good at this. It requires more luck and speed than skill or vision. I shoot all the seeds in one wedge of watermelon, then grab another. Meanwhile, Mom’s at the edge of her chaise spitting seeds out into the yard for Savage to pounce on. It’s pretty funny. Jo and I call a truce to watch. Eventually we join Mom.
Savage gets bombarded. After a while he tires of the abuse and wanders off to stalk a grasshopper. “Let’s have a seed-spitting contest,” Mom says.
“You’re on.” Jo spits a seed at Mom.
“Not at each other.” Mom flicks the seed off her arm. “We’ll go for distance.”
“Okay.” I spit-fire three seeds that all land on my foot.
Jo howls.
“Shut up.” Between my index finger and thumb, I pinch a seed. It strikes Jo in the chest and slides down her cleavage into her swimsuit. I giggle. “Booby prize.”
Jo says, “Yeah, you’re a real crack shot.” She digs out the seed and threatens me with it.
“Wait.” Mom holds up a hand. “We need to establish official rules.”
Jo and I groan in unison. “We never should have let her to go to law school,” Jo mutters.
“Really,” I agree.
Mom ignores us. “We each get three tries to shoot as far as possible. We’ll mark our farthest seed —”
“Hold on.” I push to my feet. “I have a better idea. Let’s shoot for accuracy.”
“We never should have let him out of reform school,” Jo mutters. She slides her shades up over her head.
I stack the watermelon wedges on the picnic table behind us and cart the empty Tupperware bowl out across the long grass. Halfway to the linden tree, I position the bowl on the ground. I eyeball whether it’s equidistant from each of us. Looks good.
Jo cocks her head. “Should we devise a point system, like yard darts?”
Returning, I say what Jo always does: “That’d be anal retentive.” She yanks on my leg hairs and I swat at her hand.
Mom says, “Okay, we can spit as many seeds as we can hold in our mouths. We’ll go in rounds. Whoever gets the most seeds in the bowl wins.”
“Wins what?” I ask, perching on the edge of my chaise.
We think on this. Jo decides, “A trip to the Bahamas, all expenses paid. In your case, Nick, a one-way ticket.”
I shove her head. She twists my wrist.
Mom adds, “Or you can choose the car/boat package, unless you’d rather have the cash.”
“We’ll take the cash,” Jo and I say together.
The three of us seal the deal with a unified knuckle knock.
Mom lifts a wedge of watermelon off the stack and hands it to Jo. Mom takes a wedge and I take one. Jo leans over and says directly in my ear, “May the bad seed win.”
“You wish.”
Mom removes her shades and sets them on the ground. Her eyes gleam. Her jaw sets. She doesn’t have to say it: This is war. I remember now why Jo and I refuse to play board games with her.
As if on cue we all start gobbling watermelon. I’m concentrating so hard on separating seeds and storing artillery in my cheek that I don’t notice what my opponents are doing. I toss the rind away. Glancing over, I see Mom and Jo poised and ready to shoot. We all have our game faces on.
At that moment Lucky 2 scrabbles out from under the picnic table. She lumbers around in front of us and swishes her tail. I catch it first — the stench that’d knock a skunk unconscious. I can’t help it; I cough and lose my seeds. The trail of noxious fumes reaches Mom and Jo at the same time and they both choke. Seeds and watermelon juice dribble from our mouths and drip down our fronts and we look at one another and crack up. We laugh so hard we double over. Hysterical, we collapse our chaises. Then Jo attacks Mom. She gathers up a handful of seeds off the grass and starts chasing her, sticking them down her bikini bottoms and wrestling her to the grass. When I get in on the action, Mom screams.
As we’re pinching seeds into each other’s hair and sticking them down our swimsuits, I’m thinking, This is it. My Defining Moment. That’s what Jo calls it. The one memory that stays freshest in your mind and marks a turning point. The moment in time that characterizes what your life will be about.
Stupid. A seed-spitting contest? It was a small, insignificant moment. Except . . . it wasn’t. Later that night, I remember, I got up, went outside, and crawled around on my hands and knees to comb through the grass for a seed. One seed for my scrapbook. Talk about crazy.
Talk about premonition.
I mean, how could I know? How could I know then that a watermelon seed would symbolize the last summer we’d ever have together?
Jo
I’m stoked. Sasha McLaren asked me out today. At least, I think she did. The invitation to this dance at her church was relayed through her friend Alexis to my friend Zeke to me while a bunch of us guys played Horse at the hoops after lunch. It went: “If Sasha asked you” — dribble, dribble — “to this dance at her church” — aim, layup — “would you, like, go?” Shoot, score an H. My answer: “Well . . . yeah.” Rebound, dribble. “If she asked.” Shoot. Miss.
I figure that’s as close to a personal invitation from a girl as I’m ever going to get.
The dance is this Saturday night. Two days away. I think, If she doesn’t call me tonight, I’ll call her. I’ve known Sasha’s phone number since we worked on Odyssey of the Mind together. Sometimes I punch in the numbers, wait for the phone to ring, and hang up. To practice, just in case.
In case I work up an odyssey of courage.
I’m flying high when I hit the front door at home. On the way, I decided I won’t wait until tonight. I’ll call her now. Confirm. Ask her what time; where’s it at; should I pick her up. Details. Start planning. Ask Jo what I should wear. How to act. She’ll razz me, but that’s the price for being a stud. The door is already open, which is weird. Usually I’m the first one home.
Then I see her. Jo. She’s hunched over on the edge of the sofa, elbows on her knees, chin pressed between her palms. “Nicky,” she says, lifting her head. “Hey.”
She never calls me Nicky. The look on her face, her . . . voice. It’s bad. “Is it . . . ?” My throat constricts. I let the question dangle because I don’t want to know the answer.
Jo frowns. She understands instantly and shakes her head. “No. No, it isn’t Lucky. She’s fine.”
I exhale relief. Lucky 2 had had a hard time breathing over the weekend. We rushed her to the vet, and he diagnosed heart disease. He said ther
e wasn’t much he could do and gave us some pills. “It’s only a matter of time,” he told us. Which could mean a day, a month, a year. I prayed for a year.
As if on cue, Lucky 2 straggles in from the kitchen and chuffs at me. The way she does to welcome me home. I crouch down to give her a hug. I’m not ashamed to admit I love this dog. I love Savage and my fish too, but there’s something about losing Lucky 2 that makes me afraid, makes me panic, like I’ll be losing something bigger when she’s gone.
But she’s fine. She’s here. Breathing better. I feel totally relieved until Jo says, “Sit down, Nick. We need to talk.”
“Just a sec,” I tell her. “I’m dying of thirst.” I’m not really, but Jo’s tone of voice makes my heart race. I fling open the fridge and study the contents. There’s the chicken I pulled from the freezer this morning to thaw. I’ll need to get it dressed and in the oven pretty soon. I’m making Stove Top stuffing. Or I could boil the chicken; make a stew. Mom loves my fricasseed chicken and dumplings.
“Nick? What the hell are you doing?”
Stalling. We’re out of soda, so I snag a Sunny D for me and one for Jo. On the way back to the living room, I notice it. The silence. No music. Jo hasn’t even turned on the TV for background noise. Now I’m really afraid.
“Thanks,” she says, taking the bottle of juice from me. She doesn’t open it. She sets it on the end table and stares at it, as if she’s never seen a Sunny D before.
“You won’t believe what happened today,” I say, flopping into the armchair across from her. “You remember Sasha McLaren? From OM? She asked me out.” After Jo hassles me, she’ll tell Mom. Mom’ll be like, “Where does she live? Do we know her parents?” Jo’ll go, “What are your intentions, young man?” Like I’m going to marry her or something. Jo’ll say, “Do we need to pay a visit to the birds and the bees?” This is where it’ll get embarrassing, when it’ll meander into condom territory.
“I don’t want to talk about that right now,” Jo says. “Listen — your mom has cancer.” She meets my eyes and holds them.