Something Rising (Light and Swift) Page 16

  “Butterfree.”

  “Mine is that—that ghost Pokémon, what’s he called?”

  “I don’t know,” Cassie said. “What is he called?”

  “You tell me.”

  “I don’t know,” Cassie said, “you tell me.”

  Puck whispered, “Do you think Brian would kick me out of the house if I licked their walls?”

  “Do you know what Butterfree evolves into?”

  “No.”

  “Don’t you like Squirtle?” Dylan put his left hand down into his underwear, took it out again. “Do you know what Squirtle evolves into?”

  Emmy yelled, “Dinner’s almost ready, Dylan, leave them alone.”

  In the kitchen Emmy hugged them both, apologized for her bad haircut, for her weight, for the clutter in her kitchen, for Dylan, who refused to wear clothes. Bart slunk through the room pulling a suitcase on wheels. He was the one Cassie didn’t like. At seven he already walked as if into a windstorm, his head down, a nervous scuttle. He was worried about everything, trusted nothing and no one. What was in the suitcase was A Secret, but Emmy looked all the time. It was nothing, she said, a broken microscope, a book about dinosaurs. A lot of rocks, a model airplane missing a wing. In Puck’s novel the suitcase was filled with nuclear waste.

  “Brian will be back in a minute, Cassie get yourself a beer, Puck I’m afraid if I offer you a beer I’ll be Enabling you.”

  “Oh,” Puck said, eyes wide, “I wouldn’t dream of allowing you that personal compromise.”

  On the counter next to the stove was a crock filled with light blue plastic utensils, but in Puck’s novel they were in all the colors of the rainbow. Bart came through the kitchen again, wearing a short-sleeved shirt buttoned all the way up to his throat and a pair of shorts hiked nearly to his chest. Cassie could see him plainly as an adult—if no one killed him in junior high—walking across a college campus, furtive, clutching his thesis to his chest. Dylan ran through with an action figure, then Bart, then Dylan again, there were only two of them, but they had the ability to swarm.

  “Kids!” Emmy shouted, a bit seriously, “land somewhere! Go watch television!”

  “Our TVs are on,” Bart said, still moving.

  “Then why aren’t you watching them?”

  “Because we want to be in here,” Dylan said.

  Brian walked in the door, smiled warmly at them all. “Hey, you guys! So nice to see you!” He was carrying a green bucket, which he placed under the sink. “Just taking out the compost.” Dylan ran over and punched his father in the thigh, and Brian swooped him up and tucked him under his arm. “Let me go get rid of this nuisance,” he said, and carried Dylan, who was kicking and laughing, into the living room. They fell on the floor in a pile and started wrestling, and Bart ran in and jumped on his father’s back, but tentatively.

  “Cassie, carry these salad bowls to the table, it’s just lettuce and shredded carrots, I couldn’t find a good tomato, and Puck take this dressing, we only have ranch.”

  They carried the bowls and the salad dressing. Puck whispered to Cassie that he was so happy. So Happy.

  Over the dinner of salad, homemade baked macaroni and cheese, and garlic bread, milk for the children and for Puck, they talked about Bart’s test scores, very high, and Pokémon. Gengar, the ghost Pokémon. Dylan remembered and went and fetched him from his room; he was indeed transparent. Cassie declared him her new favorite, and so Dylan had to change his own favorite to Rabbitmon. Bart said, with thick disdain, that his name was not Rabbitmon but would not go on to say what the real name was, and Dylan started to cry. They talked about Brian’s agency, he sold car insurance at cut-rate prices, he owned a franchise.

  “How’s your brother, Em?”

  “He’s fine, he’s at MIT studying … what is it, Brian?”

  Brian said, “I have no idea.”

  “Something with particles? Particle acceler—transmi—I don’t know.”

  Emmy said since Dylan was in kindergarten, she thought about getting a job. She had applied to the new bookstore in Jonah. “It was terrible, the interview.”

  “Why?” Puck asked, concerned. Cassie could see his wheels turning, in his mind he was writing a chapter heading, The Interview.

  “Well, for one thing, the manager asked me what was the last book I read, and I couldn’t think of a thing to say, because I haven’t finished a book since Bart was born. I’ve started a few. So I finally answered honestly and said it was The Cat in the Hat.”

  Puck roared with laughter, he leaned back and put his hands on his belly like Santa Claus.

  “The manager didn’t think it was so funny. He kept asking me very pointed questions about child care, like what would happen if I was scheduled to work and one of my kids got sick, what if their school called, would I be the one to go get them, who would take care of them after school if I was scheduled to blah blah blah.”

  “I told her,” Brian said, “that the workplace is the workplace and home is home.”

  “Wisdom,” Puck said, bowing his head slightly toward Brian, who ignored him.

  “And I realized he was right, the manager was right. I’m in a carpool and I have responsibilities, and I have to attend all those school functions and there are snow days, so I’m not getting a job.”

  Cassie ate. Dylan crawled under the table and lined Pokémon up all around her boots. She and Puck had ten bucks riding on whether Emmy would stay up and talk to them after dinner.

  After dinner Cassie and Puck loaded the dishwasher and washed the casserole dish, and it took an hour for Brian and Emmy to get the boys bathed and in bed, to read to them and say good night, to turn off their bedroom light and see it turned back on seconds later, to reprimand and get water, to kiss them and turn off the light, to see it come back on seconds later. Dylan said his toys were all looking at him. Emmy turned the toys around. Puck and Cassie sat on the new sofa in the living room, sat sort of on the edge of the cushions, which did not give, until Emmy and Brian finally joined them.

  “It was good seeing you guys,” Brian said, “but I’ve got to hit the hay. I’ve got an early golf game in the morning.”

  “I greatly appreciate your hospitality,” Puck said, standing and offering Brian his hand; Brian rolled his eyes but shook it.

  “Puck, when you get your license back, come in and see me about insurance. You’re going to be considered a high risk at any traditional agency. I’ll work with you.”

  Puck’s eyes narrowed. “How kind of you.”

  “Brian?” Emmy was splayed in an armchair in front of the fireplace. “Do you mind if I stay up and talk awhile?”

  “Of course not,” Brian said, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. “But I’ll miss you. You know I won’t really sleep until you’re in there with me.”

  “I won’t be long.”

  “And don’t forget that my parents are coming for breakfast in the morning.”

  “Right, right. I remember.”

  “And don’t stay up too late, you were cranky this morning.”

  He smiled again, went in to bed.

  Emmy rubbed the back of her own neck, closed her eyes a moment, enjoyed the silence of her house. She was terribly lucky; she always said to Cassie, You can’t imagine how it feels to be loved so much. “You guys, he’s right, I really should get to bed.”

  Cassie stood up, reached for her coat. Emmy stood, too, stretched, put her arms around Cassie. “I’m sorry about your mom,” she whispered. “But it was a nice service, the minister was nice.”

  Cassie gently pulled away. “He didn’t know her.”

  They thanked her for dinner, headed outside. Puck pulled ten dollars from his pocket, and Cassie took it. In the truck Puck said, “I need a drink.”

  “Hello, my name is Bobby Puck, and I’m an alcoholic.”

  Uncle Bud ignored the extended hand. “What do you want, Bobby?”

  “I’ll have a Rolling Rock, and another for my chiquita here.” Puck settled h
is weight on the bar stool, then glanced at the men playing at the tables around him. “Crackers on Parade,” he said, giving Cassie a wink. He bobbed his head and sang along with the song on the jukebox but changed the words to Sweet Home Indiana. Bud returned with the beers, and Puck asked him, “Mr. Uncle, would you rather have sex with a dead person or a live animal?”

  Bud crossed his arms, gave Puck his fiercest stare, then said, “How dead?”

  Puck roared with laughter, slapped the bar. “A fine answer! Cassandra, please do record that in your notebook. How dead, indeed.” Bud wandered off; Puck shook his head, drank his beer. “You know I’m an alcoholic, Cassie.”

  “Everybody knows.”

  “Kind of you to continue drinking with me.”

  “I’m not drinking with you.”

  “No?”

  “That’s your beer, this is mine.”

  “I’m a free man or whatnot.”

  “Yep.”

  “Not running hither-skither in my Events.”

  “Nope.”

  The jukebox changed to Merle Haggard. Puck drained his beer in a matter of minutes, signaled Bud for another. He was wearing a T-shirt under a thick flannel shirt with jeans, and every few seconds he tugged at the neck of the T-shirt as if it were choking him. “Dear old Emmy,” he said, “what a full, rich life. And that charming, handsome husband! I almost wish they had their own radio show. So that we might all wake up with them in the morning and hear their conversation over coffee and the morning paper. I’m sure you know what I mean.”

  Bud brought Puck’s second beer, gave Cassie a look.

  “Part of the joy of living here is, oh I know what you think I’m going to say, the flatness and the winters and whatnot, but beyond the obvious, the joy of living here is that we never need worry about achieving anything. Surviving the quotidian is frankly enough.” He took a long drink, tapped the bottle on the bar a few times, then turned to face Cassie. He grabbed her hands and kissed the knuckles, laughing all the while. Tears ran down his cheeks and onto Cassie’s fists. “You’ve got to get out of here,” he said, between kisses, “I love you so much, you’ve got to go, Cassie, please.”

  She leaned toward him, brushed his face with her fingers. She saw him climb the ladder to reach her twenty years before, that flash of pale skin. “Okay.”

  “Please,” he said.

  Cassie had made the grocery list; there was barely anything in the house to eat, no coffee, no soup or bread, they had one can of cat food left, and Belle had added to the list: celery, pimento cheese. The grocery store was busy, and people kept bumping into her or stopping in the middle of the aisles, and while she was shopping, she was reminding herself that Laura was dead. A stunning bit of news. The soup cans were almost too heavy to lift; taking money from her wallet and handing it to the cashier seemed unmanageable. But she managed. Cassie put the groceries in the back of her old Mazda truck and wondered if pimento cheese had a single vitamin in it, was it actually dairy, could it provide any nourishment to Belle, given that it was orange, like real food. She pulled out of the Kroger parking lot and on to Highway 12. First gear was sluggish, certainly, but it was second gear she would vote Least Likely To Succeed.

  She hovered in the turn lane a moment, waiting for an opening, then eased into the left lane, heading toward downtown Roseville. A dark green minivan was trying to pass an old Buick at exactly the same moment and ended up behind her truck. Cassie waved in her rearview mirror to apologize for her slowness; the minivan flashed its lights at her, which even in the broad sun glared in her rearview mirror. Shifting into third, Cassie could feel the truck begin to respond, and looked to see if she could move over into the right lane and allow the van to pass her. The old Buick pulled up alongside her on the right. The driver, who appeared to be in his eighties, was wearing a plaid golf cap with a ball on top and was signaling to turn left. Odds were, Cassie knew, that his signal had been on the past five hundred miles and would remain so until the man died.

  The minivan sped up behind her, nearly touching her bumper. The van’s windows were tinted; even lifting her sunglasses, Cassie couldn’t see the driver. They came to a stoplight. Taco Bell was on their left, Arby’s on their right, and beyond that McDonald’s, Hardee’s, Noble Roman’s pizza, with a periodic gas station or dollar store. The driver of the minivan stayed in the left lane behind Cassie, who couldn’t merge to the right or get out of the way. When the light turned green, Cassie accelerated as much as she dared in first, and the truck sort of puttered into the intersection before she pushed it into second; the van’s lights flashed again, and the driver began to honk. Cassie looked in her rearview mirror and said aloud, “What? Are you an ambulance, what?” By now there were five or six cars behind the old Buick, and more coming. Cassie would never be able to move over before the next light, where the drama would begin all over again.

  They went through the third light with more honking and flashing, and then the road opened up for over a mile, becoming residential. As the line of traffic reached the cemetery, a gently sloping twenty-five acres that from a distance looked like thousands of women in spring hats, the minivan passed Cassie in the turn lane. The driver cut too abruptly and too close and clipped the edge of Cassie’s bumper. Cassie felt the truck jerk forward and then pull to the side, and realized what had happened. The driver sped past as Cassie reached cruising speed.

  For a moment she was certain she had gone blind. Everything on her periphery, the cemetery and the chain-link fence around it, the other cars turned white. Her stomach muscles clenched and relaxed, her chest began to burn, she gripped the steering wheel and gearshift so hard her knuckles lost contact with her blood supply. The van cut back in front of Cassie and slowed down to forty-five, the speed limit. Cassie reached under the driver’s seat, veering in the process, and pulled out her tire iron, wishing she had brought her gun. If she had the gun, she’d simply shoot the tires out of the van that second, then wait until the driver either left the road voluntarily or crashed, at which point Cassie would pull him from the wreckage, sling him to the ground, and shoot him repeatedly.

  With Cassie out of the way, the van meandered up to the next light, where the driver turned left, passing a Burger King and a Pizza Hut, then a dentist’s office and the sprawling high school. Cassie stayed behind it. The van followed the curving lane around the school and turned right on to an old residential street, then right again. The lots got larger, and the houses got uglier; this swath of land had been a farm until sometime in the mid-1980s, when it was sold in half-acre parcels. The faux Victorians under their blankets of vinyl siding, already revealing their cheap materials and shoddy construction, combined with the rows of identical yards, made Cassie even angrier. Her breathing became shallow, her palms began to sweat. She would kill the driver, then burn down the house. Cassie turned left as the driver did, on to a cul-de-sac. The van pulled into the driveway of one of the three houses on the dead end. The house was the yellow of a crayon, with black shutters; the grass was so short it looked tortured. Cassie turned off the truck and was out the door before it stopped rolling. She’d blocked the van in. Holding the curved end of the tire iron in her hand, she took a practice swing, then shattered the van’s left rear taillight. It didn’t take much.

  “Get out of the van!” Cassie yelled, kicking the rear tire. If the driver was a man with a gun, she wanted to get the whole thing over with as soon as possible. No one inside the van moved. Cassie swung the tire iron at one of the side windows, but it didn’t break. Raising the iron over her head, she brought it down on the driver’s mirror, which bent all the way down to the door but held on. Cassie dropped her weapon and began pummeling the driver’s window with her open palms, kicking the door at the same time, shouting, “Get the fuck out! Get out here and face me!”

  The driver was an overweight woman in her thirties. Her short hair was curly and had been frosted, probably at home. She wore glasses, and her skin was a strange orange color; Belle used to re
fer to these women, Cassie suddenly remembered, as Riders on the Pilgrim Holiness Church Bus and Tanning Bed. The woman was wearing a yellow sweatshirt emblazoned with an image of Winnie the Pooh in the honey tree, a child’s sweatshirt made enormous by a sinister consortium. That was all Cassie could see, and she absorbed it in a glance. The woman sat facing forward; she was resolute in her refusal to make eye contact with Cassie.

  They had probably been at the grocery store together, if not today then on some other Wednesday. Cassie would have barely registered the woman’s existence but for the waves of scorn such women often radiated at her. What did they see? Cassie wondered, facing the hostile stares of suburban women out with their children. She kicked the van’s door, pounded on the window with her fists, shouted, “You were trying to fucking kill me because I wasn’t driving fast enough for you? Get The Fuck Out Of This Van.” The woman wouldn’t look at her, would not look at her, and just before Cassie picked up the tire iron and went to work on the windshield, she saw something in the backseat: a small pink tennis shoe, a white sock. Cassie shielded her eyes and looked in the side window. There was a car seat and a little girl, maybe two years old. Her eyes were the size of walnuts, and she was staring right back at Cassie, not crying, not moving.

  Cassie took a step backward as if she’d been slapped. She pressed her fingertips against her temples and said aloud Good God. A cold breeze she hadn’t noticed before snaked inside her jacket; the adrenaline that had been propelling her drained away so quickly she felt faint. She walked back up to the driver’s window, tapped on the glass, but the woman still wouldn’t turn her head. Perhaps she’d had some sort of stroke and was paralyzed. “Ma’am?” Cassie said. “You were driving like that with a child in your car, and this whole time I’ve been at you with a tire iron, you did nothing to protect her? You suck as a mother, your house is hideous, and you do not own the fucking road.”