“Man, how do you live like this?”
“I just try to stay on his good side,” she says. “When we’re done talking, go straight to your car. Don’t say good-bye or engage him in any way or he’ll get you talking and if you make a mistake, the hammer comes down on me.”
Paulie closes his eyes and sighs.
“Stare at the notebook and take that look off your face,” she says. She turns the page. “We don’t have much time, so tell me why you came.”
“I need to know something.”
“What?”
“And if the answer’s yes, it’s okay with me. I ain’t judgin’ nobody for nothin’, thanks partly to you, so there’s no cost to this.”
“What?”
“Did you tell Hannah that you and I—”
“No!”
“Did you tell Arney?”
She tells a lie that isn’t exactly a lie. “No.”
“I’m serious, Mary. It would be okay—”
“No.”
“Okay, one more. I know you think you answered this before, but did you guys have something going?”
Mary stares at the porch floor. Almost inaudibly she says, “No.”
“I’ve heard several people say he’s the one guy in the world—or at least the one teenage guy—who isn’t scared of your dad.”
“Arney and I did some community service stuff together for our college resumes. He’s picked me up here a few times. As long as it’s daylight . . .”
The front door opens. Victor Wells fills the entranceway. “Are you two about finished?”
“Yes, Daddy. Just a couple more minutes.” She laughs lightly. “Paulie is about three months behind on a project we have to turn in in time to be graded for the semester.”
“Two minutes,” her father says and moves back inside. Mary stands and pulls the door closed.
“You have anything for him?”
“Arney?”
“Yeah.”
“Uh-huh. I hate his guts.”
“Care to elaborate?”
Mary looks at the ground. “No.”
Fuck. “Okay. For now. So listen, if I decide we can do this charade . . . hang out . . .” He nods toward the house. “How do I get past that?”
“Do everything from school.” She looks back at the door. “Go.”
“One sec.” Paulie stands and pushes open the door. “Thanks so much, Mr. Wells. You may have saved my life.” Then he is down the walk and in his car.
Two days later, Paulie and Justin pop jumpers in the gym after school. “Arney came askin’ about you.”
“Yeah?”
“Says you took him out on purpose the other night.”
“Came onto my ground,” Paulie says. “Just like you, he’s got no business driving on me. Had to teach him some respect.”
“Onto your ground in more ways than one,” Justin says.
“Yeah, well, I guess I didn’t know how pissed I was until I saw him struttin’ his shit with those varsity guys.”
“Man, you got to get off this passive-aggressive stuff and just get aggressive. Arney’s playing the victim because you said Hannah was fair game when you really meant better stay the fuck away.” Justin starts to drive, pulls up, and bangs a high one off the front rim. He snags the rebound, dribbles behind his back, and charges to hoop as if to dunk, going through the motion even though at the height of his leap he’s four inches below the rim.
“That was about a foot short of a Blake Griffin!” Paulie says. “Give you an eight for form, though.”
“Doc says I may be in for a late growth spurt.”
“Uh-huh. Listen, Jus, Hannah’s stuff aside, something is way whack with Arney.”
“Like I haven’t been telling you that? How do you mean?”
“The lies are stacking up, no pun intended. First he says he’s going to a midnight meeting with the Thumpers when I needed him to do me a favor, but Firth tells me he hasn’t talked to him outside of class or P-8 since the election last year. Then he goes out of his way to tell us all he’s got some inside track on Mary Wells, how she’s different than everyone thinks and how her old man ain’t so bad, and I find out that’s bullshit, too.”
Justin frowns. “How’d you find out that?”
“Never mind.”
“Naw, man, you confide some of this shit, you got to confide it all.”
Paulie feeds him as he breaks to the hoop again. Justin stops, whirls, and buries a short jumper.
“More like it,” Paulie says.
“Spill it.”
“Okay, man, but if I confide it, it’s exactly that: confidential.”
“I ever rat you out?”
“You’ve never had anything to rat.”
“Man, you are killing me.”
Paulie stops, holds the ball under his arm. “Nah, man, you know I’d trust you with anything.”
“Show me some proof.”
Paulie closes his eyes, shakes his head and lets out big air. “Mary is who I cheated on Hannah with. Bro, you can’t tell anyone.” He passes Justin the ball.
Justin spikes it with both hands and sits on it. “You did the Virgin Mary?”
Paulie sits down beside him, lays back on the floor, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sunlight pouring through a high window. “No, I didn’t do the Virgin Mary. I . . . it’s a long story.”
“Like to have that on my resume,” Justin says. “How’d you pull it off?”
“It wasn’t my idea.”
Justin smiles. “I thought there was more to that girl.”
“Whatever you thought, you didn’t get it right,” Paulie says. “Look, after it happened, she didn’t want anyone to know. You know I didn’t tell because you would have been the first. But Hannah comes up to me in The Rocket and says she knows who it was. And she gets it right. Far as I know, two people knew: Mary and me. I sure as hell didn’t tell Hannah and she says she didn’t hear it from a she. Who’s Hannah been hanging with? Stack. I take my life in my hands and go over to Mary’s place, almost lost a body part getting past her old man, but I gotta be sure. I mean, I believed Hannah ’cause, well, I believe Hannah, but I wanted two good sources. Mary says no way she told Hannah. But she says she didn’t tell Arney, either. Somehow, Arney knows. He couldn’t just have guessed. I mean, how many guesses would you make before you picked Mary Wells?”
“All of ’em,” Justin says. “This is some intrigue.” He stands, twirling the ball on his index finger. It spins off and lands on Paulie’s gut.
“No shit.” Paulie grunts, sitting up with the ball between his legs. “Arney’s involved in this some way I don’t get.”
“Involved in what? You have a conspiracy theory?”
“Maybe. Shit, I don’t know.”
“Man, you should finish out the year at the alternative school. Stay away from all this shit.”
“No kidding. And then there’s Mary’s dad. Man, he is a whole other thing. Either she stays five moves ahead of him or . . . I don’t know what. That girl is under siege. You ever do soft eyes, Jus?”
A rapid shake of the head. “What’s that?”
“You know, when you’re looking too hard at some problem—like even in calc—you just let everything go unfocused and things that are supposed to go together, do?”
Justin shakes his head again. “I go hard eyes in calc,” he says. “Best way to see Marley’s answers.”
Paulie knows he’s kidding. Justin Chenier would cheat at nothing, particularly in calc, where all eyes would be on his paper.
“When I go soft eyes on all this,” Paulie says, “Mary’s old man comes floating right to the center. But so does Stack.”
Justin squints. “So this Virgin Mary thing, you involved?”
Paulie looks away. “Not really, at least not in the way you’re talking about. I didn’t have sex with Mary Wells because I wanted to. . . .”
“You didn’t have sex with her because you didn’t want to.”
“It’s a long story, Jus, and way over your head.”
“Best you hit the water with the Log man tomorrow. This is the kind of shit you take to a pro.”
.12
“Hey, asshole, we need to talk.”
Paulie walks toward his car following last period. It’s Friday afternoon and he’s looking forward to a hard swim. He turns to face Arney. “So talk.”
“What was that bullshit on the court the other night?” Arney says.
“I told you before,” Paulie says back, “don’t bring that weak shit into the paint on me.”
“You could have just wrapped me up.”
“You got around me. I wasn’t going to give you a cheap one.”
“It’s rat ball, for chrissake,” Arney says. “And I’ll tell you what, buddy, it felt personal.”
Paulie leans against the Beetle. “You’re right, Arney. It was personal. It was about you and Hannah and all the bullshit you’ve been throwing . . . like since the third grade.”
“You said—”
“I know what I said, and it’s too late to un-say it. But I never would have done that to you. Wouldn’t have even asked. I wouldn’t have done it to Hannah, either. I’ve got too much chivalry to take her out on the court, so you got the lucky draw, okay? Besides, she’s tougher than you, so it was less risky.”
Arney looks down. “You’re right, man. I’m sorry. I’ll stop—”
“Fuck that,” Paulie says. “That genie doesn’t fit back into the bottle. She looks different to me than she did a week ago anyway. I’ll just stay away from you guys.”
“Listen . . .”
“Listen, my ass. I’ve figured you out, Stack. You try shit ’til something works. You asked me about you and Hannah and I said ‘go ahead’ when I meant ‘what the fuck’ because I figured I screwed Hannah over and I don’t deserve a break. But see, you know that about me, Arney. You knew what I’d say. You also knew what a kick in the gut it would be. So when I finally man up and say the truth, you act surprised. Fuckin’ Alfred E. Stack. What, me an asshole?”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Arney says. “Hannah was the one—”
“You’re doin’ it now, you dick. Hannah’s tough, but she’s not mean, and she knows she could crush me a lot of ways without going after one of my so-called friends. I know you’ve said some shit to her you wouldn’t say to me. She’s hanging out with you and there may be some good feeling of revenge to it, but she didn’t invent this. You’re lucky she and I aren’t talking because she’d figure you out pretty quick and this shit would be over.”
Arney’s hands go up. “Look, man, I’m just trying to find a way to preserve our friendship. We’ve known each other since we were kids. We can’t let some chick—”
“Hannah Murphy’s not ‘some chick.’”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do know what you mean. Tell you what, go home and write down all the shit you’ve told me in the last few weeks that I might know is a lie. I don’t know it all yet, but it’s getting clearer every day.”
Arney swells up, and his expression turns to stone. “Have it your way, buddy. Maybe this is the day we cut bait. You want to think twice before calling me a liar.”
That’s the Arney I was looking for. “I’m way past thinking twice.”
Arney takes a step forward. He’s not as tall as Paulie and certainly not in as good shape, but he spends hours in the weight room and he could make it interesting.
Paulie doesn’t budge. “You know the one comfort I’ve always had with our ‘friendship’?”
“Enlighten me.”
“That if it ever comes down to it, I’ll just kick your ass. Go for it.”
Arney holds his gaze a long moment and Paulie thinks, This is gonna feel good, but Arney deflates, then turns for his car. He stops and turns back. “Tell you something else, buddy. If I am lying, you want to be real careful of what I’m lying about. You could be bringing a real shit storm down on a lot of people.” He gets into his driver’s seat and slams the door.
“Hey, Logs,” Paulie says as he and Logs unload their gear. “Remember the other day in P-8 when you started to tell us how your whole perspective changed in the late sixties?”
“I remember.”
“Somebody interrupted you. You never finished.”
The sky is gray, the temperature chilly as they pull on their wetsuits.“December ’68,” Logs says. “First moonshot; the one before we actually landed. Apollo Eight, I think. Practice run to see if we could get them up and back.”
“Sixty-eight. Long time ago.”
“In a land far away,” Logs says. “We’d never seen Earth from a distance. We had drawings, maps, all that, but no one had actually seen us from out there. Those guys were watching Earth rise. Or set, I don’t know which. It was bigger than the imagination of the entire species.
“I remember thinking, that’s a God’s-eye view. God doesn’t see the shit that’s going on, He just sees this thing He gave us to live on, and it’s beautiful from that far out. He wouldn’t even know how badly we messed it up until it was too late; until it turned brown.”
It’s hard to imagine. Paulie has seen deep space pictures all his life.
“It was something. I mean, now we have the Hubble so we not only see great distances, but back in time. But that first look . . . why you asking?”
“Aw, you know, just like to see an old guy go back.”
“Don’t mess with me, grasshopper. They’ll find you at the bottom of the lake.”
“I like that perspective,” Paulie says. “You look at someone and you see the crust, just what the light hits. Kinda the same thing.”
“What’s driving this?”
“I went over to the Wellses place the other day.”
“Whoa.”
“No shit, whoa,” Paulie says. “Man, Mr. Logs, old man Wells has her vigilant as a prairie dog in a pack of coyotes. You look at him, you don’t see it. Watch her around him though, and there’s no doubt. She could be telling you who really killed President Kennedy and from two feet away look like she’s asking about the weather. Always gauging what might set him off. Mary Wells is not who we see.”
Logs is almost into his wetsuit. “Tell me that you are not exploring this romantically.”
Paulie pulls up his back zipper, reaches into the Beetle for his goggles. He stops. “Logs, is there any way for men and women, or boys and girls, to do anything that doesn’t turn sexual?”
“I suppose,” Logs says, “if a man and a woman drive into an intersection, both talking to their sweethearts on cell phones, paying no attention to where they’re going, and crash into each other, that possibly isn’t sexual. If either one gets out of their car, it’s sexual.”
“Got it.”
“So, about Mary.”
“I’m not getting out of the car.” Paulie smiles.
“Do you know the term rebound, as it’s not applied in the game of basketball?”
“Yessir, I do.”
“And do you remember saying that whole encounter with her was strange?”
“I have almost total recall, Sensei.”
Logs says, “Prove it.”
“Relax. It isn’t like that.”
“You do not want Victor Wells catching you with her,” Logs says.
“I know that, believe me.” Paulie stops a second. “You don’t think there’s something going on between him and her.”
“You mean something inappropriate.”
“Hell,” Paulie says, “what’s happened in the last three weeks that’s appropriate? I mean, like, sexual.”
“I do not think about things like that if I can help it,” Logs says. “It’s easy to get suspicious but real dangerous to project. I’ve learned to respond only to hard evidence, and there isn’t any, Paulie, unless you know something you’re not telling me.”
“I don’t, but I have cable. He treats her like property, man. Look, you’ve been teaching forty-plus years, so you
probably see all this from the moon, right? I mean, I get that you’d have to say to me or anyone else that you don’t think something, but your experience has to make you consider a lot of things.”
“Let me just say this. I have no idea what goes on in the Wells household. What I do know is if you’re going to accuse someone like Victor Wells of jaywalking, you’re already at a disadvantage. A guy with a house like his has at least three lawyers with houses just as big. So, if you want to hang out with Mary Wells, you do it like a recent graduate of etiquette school. You don’t honk when you pick her up, you act the perfect gentleman and you keep her out of trouble with him. If something happens that makes you suspicious, I’ll be here.”
“Thanks,” Paulie says. “You want to be real careful around her dad. At least I do. And I am not getting physical.”
Logs rolls his eyes. “I don’t know why you don’t stay far away, my friend. You’re going to do what you do, but just know, control freaks always make me nervous. I don’t think he’s dangerous, but as long as he has a grip on her, he can sure make her life miserable, and yours by association.” Logs walks to the end of the dock, then turns around. “You know, Paulie, every time you see somebody wounded or in some kind of trouble, you think you have to do something about it. I’ve always admired that about you. But sometimes there’s nothing you can do, and sometimes you can make it worse. Just a thought.” He pulls his goggles down. “Now let’s get wet.”
Paulie stands on the porch of the Wells mansion, hair still wet, once again face-to-face with Victor Wells. “Is Mary home?”
Wells takes a deep breath. “Is she expecting you?”
“I would guess not,” Paulie says.
“More of your project?” His tone tells Paulie he didn’t buy the story last time, or he’s discovered some hole in it. Or he has Mary chained down in the basement after burning the truth out of her with lighted cigarettes.
“No, sir,” Paulie says. “This is more . . . social.”
Wells stiffens. “That’s not something we’re doing these days.”
Paulie smiles. “I wasn’t thinking of going anywhere with you. Mary.”
Wells stares.
“That was a joke.”