Strays. Part 14

"What the f.u.c.k is my stuff doing all over the floor?"

"I'm working out. I was going to put everything away at the same time."

"I told you not to mess around with my stuff."

"You said to ask. And I asked you a long time ago. And you said okay."

"Put this s.h.i.t away now and keep your G.o.dd.a.m.n hands off of it, okay?"

"Sure, fine. If you'd give me the sixty dollars you owe me, I could buy some weights of my own."

For some reason Astin zips up his jacket. I don't know why, but it makes me feel cold all over. I put on my pants and tuck my cell phone in one pocket while he asks, "What f.u.c.king sixty dollars?"

I can't back down now. "The sixty I loaned you that day we went over to Megan's."

He digs in his jeans, fumbles with a wad of bills, counts some out, and shoves them at me. "Here, now shut up."

I look at them. "This is thirty-five."

He gets hold of my T-shirt and pulls me right into him. "Will you stop busting my b.a.l.l.s?"

I try to get a finger or two between my shirt and my neck, but I can't. "Cut it out. That hurts."

All he does is say it back all high and whiny: "'Cut it out. That hurts.' You little weenie."

"Don't call me names. I hate it when people call me names."

"Oh, yeah? What are you gonna do about it?"

That's when I hit him. And it's a pretty good shot, because I hear him grunt, but the next thing I know, I'm looking at my hand, which I've just had to my nose, and there's blood all over. It takes a few seconds for my face to start to hurt.

"Now get out of here," he says.

"Go to h.e.l.l. It's my room, too."

He grabs me by the scruff of the neck, walks me to the door, and shoves. A few seconds later the door opens again and my sneaks fly out.

When I get up, I look at myself in the bathroom mirror. My nose and my lip are bleeding, but some cold water and a lot of toilet paper stop that.

Downstairs, Bob is watching TV. He doesn't even look up when I tell him I'm going out, he just grunts. Barbara and C.W. are still on the back porch with Tupac, the dog. I slip out the front door and start walking. All the people I know on the street are in bed or getting ready for bed. There's a light on every so often where maybe somebody is reading or taking an Alka-Seltzer. Not everybody is young or still has a partner. Mrs. Morgan is by herself, and so is Mr. Finch.

The closer I get to Wanda's, the fewer people I know or even know about. It feels chillier. I'm the only one out, so I'm glad when I see Wanda's light on.

I knock but I say, "Wanda! It's me." So she won't get scared.

When she opens the door, she's got a book in one hand and a pencil between her teeth.

"Teddy? What's wrong?"

"I got into it with Astin." I point to my face.

She opens the door wider, and I step inside. She says, "I just got off the phone with Megan. They broke up."

"So that's it."

"Yeah, get used to it. They like to break up. Then they get back together and say, 'Oh, baby, I'm so sorry. It was all my fault.' 'No, no, sweetheart, it was my fault.' And I think you know what happens after that." She points to the couch. "Sit down. I'm either going to finish Leaves of Gra.s.s or get the lawn mower and run over it."

The couch has flat cushions with corners and spindly legs with bra.s.s tips. Her TV is on, and a black woman is crying while a white woman in a spangly dress tells her everything will be all right.

"What are you watching?"

Wanda yells from the kitchen, "That's Imitation of Life, the original. Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers. Louise Beavers's daughter, Peola, wants to pa.s.s for white and Claudette Colbert's daughter wants her mom's boyfriend."

"Jeez. And I thought I had problems."

"What's cool is in the middle of all that, Claudette Colbert changes clothes about every ten minutes. The costumes are great. I'm almost done here. Get some ice out of the fridge and hold it against your lip. It'll keep the swelling down."

I do what she says, then wander back to the nearest bathroom and look at myself. I could even have a black eye. How cool would that be?

I've been at Wanda's before, but not for long. Usually she picks me up and we do something like go to the movies, where all she looks at is the sets. Walking out, she always wants to know who shot who and what were all those zombies doing in the mall?

I pick up the remote. "Can I change the channel?"

"Absolutely. It's not like I don't know how it turns out."

Oh, man. There's 7th Heaven, the show my media teacher made us watch, the show he called Just Ask Dad. Then Friends, a kind of super-deluxe foster care without the Rafters. And on AMC an old Tarzan movie. I remember being six years old and wanting to go to the zoo so I could see Simba and Tantor. I didn't want a little brother, either. I wanted Cheetah.

"You all better?" Wanda asks when I go back in the kitchen.

"Yeah. I like knowing it's not me Astin's really mad at, but I'm not sorry I hit him."

She closes her book with a thump. "Last poem I'll ever read in my life, slugger. Let's make popcorn."

She wants nothing to do with hot-air poppers, so there's oil to measure out and a big, clumsy thing to shake over the stove. I start to think about only talking to Wanda on the phone when she's in New York.

Once we settle on the couch, I leave the movie on but hit MUTE. "I saw those boxes with that East Coast zip code."

"Yeah. Tomorrow they go to an address I've never been to where a girl I've never seen will store them in my half of the bedroom. Oh, man, this could be such a big mistake."

I put one arm around her, and all her curly hair makes me have to close my eyes. "It'll be fine."

"G.o.d, I hope so. It's just so much like starting over."

"I did that. Sort of. You sure can. You've got a job and everything."

She sighs. "I know." She grabs the cold washcloth and dabs at my lip.

I sit up so I can see her. "Do you know what's weird? These guys in my old high school used to pick on me, but I never hit them back. So then I meet Astin, who turns out to be a pretty good guy, and I end up punching him."

"Guys are always punching each other." She points to the screen. "Look at this. You can always tell the bad natives because they've got bones in their noses, and the good natives always hide the baby elephant."

While I watch the inevitable stampede, I can't help but think about all those animals I used to talk to. Did that really happen?

Wanda turns off the TV, stands up, and yawns. "Do you want to stay here tonight? Sleep in my parents' room? Astin will be on the phone with Megan, anyway."

"Sure, okay."

"Do you want pajamas or anything? My dad wore pajamas, or at least he got them for Christmas every year."

"No, I just . . . you know. Take off my pants."

"Yeah, me too."

We walk down the hall together. Wanda's room is first. I can see her poster of Barbarella on the west wall.

"I like it," she says, "that you're not all over me. I like how uncomplicated this is."

"I didn't plan it or anything."

"That's another thing I like." She gives me a sisterly kiss and closes the door.

I wander around her parents' room. There's some kind of grit on the floor, maybe sand. Most of the dresser drawers are standing open; there are two or three hangers on the floor of the closet and a pair of those rubber flip-flops with the rubber daisies.

The bed smells funny. Not bad, exactly, but like somebody else. When I lie down, I slide toward the center.

I touch my lip, which is really starting to throb, find my phone, and dial.

Wanda sounds a little groggy when she answers.

I ask, "How fast did your parents get out of here, anyway?"

"Ted?"

I can hear her tussle with the sheet, and I wonder if she's sitting up.

"They floated a loan," she says, "the day after they knew they won, and that was that."

"There's like a trough in this mattress."

"You're on my dad's side. Switch around."

"I am switched around, but I slide down anyway."

"Why are we talking on the phone, Teddy?"

"We talk on the phone all the time."

"But that's when you're at the Rafters' and I'm here."

I look around the room again. There are two or three dark rectangles on the wallpaper. Where do you hang pictures in a motor home?

"Do you ever come in here?" I ask.

"G.o.d, no. It's probably haunted."

"This place makes me think about packing stuff. Did you have to help your parents?"

"A little."

"I had to pack everything. Is there anything worse than your mother's underwear? I mean even Goodwill didn't want it, and there it just was."

She says, "After my folks disappeared into the sunset, I trashed things. I was so mad that sometimes I'd just go find something I thought they might like or that they'd want when they came back, and I'd throw it away. But I promised myself that the minute I got to New York, I'd stop being p.i.s.sed off."

I switch the phone to my other ear. "I don't know what I am anymore."

"Do you think about your folks every day?"

"Yeah."

"Me too. Do you dream about them?"

"Sometimes."

"It's always me hitchhiking and they just blow right by in that Winnebago or they throw things at me."

"In mine their car's on fire, and my legs weigh about a ton."

We don't say anything for a while, but we know each other is there. A car goes by outside, and those long bars of light slide across the wall and bend when they hit the ceiling.

"Teddy, if I let you come in here, it's just to sleep, okay?"

I get right to my feet. "Sure."

"I'll just never get any rest thinking of you trying to crawl out of that dent in the bed my fat-a.s.sed father made."

"I'll sleep on top of the covers. You won't even know I'm there."

"We can't do anything because I'm going away, right?"

"I know."

"But you should want to. You should want to a lot. I should be almost irresistible."

I tell her, "You're totally irresistible."

"And the only reason you don't just ravish me is because you're sweet and considerate."

This kind of reminds me of doing the dozens with C.W. except that it's more true, and it's an easy way to talk about something that's hard to talk about.