Harder (Caroline and West) Read online

  “So slow, Caro. You’re gonna hate me for it.”

  I don’t, though.

  He tortures me, asks me every now and then, “You happy?”

  I keep saying yes even though he’s killing me.

  Yes, yes, West, God.

  He kills me and kills me.

  I’m so happy, I could die.

  PIONEER

  West

  Can I talk to you?

  That’s what I asked Caroline in her room, in her bed.

  Can I talk to you? I asked Frankie the next morning over pancakes.

  I called her counselor and set up another meeting. Can I talk to you?

  I left my boss at the window plant a message, asking him to call me back, giving notice that I’d be quitting as soon as I found work with daylight hours.

  I don’t think I’d ever talked so much in my life as I talked that November.

  You get your mind made up that you know how everything is and so there’s no point in talking. You know what you’ve got to do. You know what the future looks like.

  And then you hit some pivot point, some paradigm shift that shows you everything you thought you knew wasn’t right, so you start going around all the time saying, Can we talk? I have to ask you something. I’ve got things I need to tell you.

  I guess it’s because I’m stubborn – because I get set in my ways, pulling the cart through the same ruts day after day – but I always thought when I asked people to talk to me that I knew how the conversation would go. What I’d say. What they’d say back.

  It’s funny, because I was always wrong.

  Those weeks in November and on into December – they were full of surprises. Happy surprises, sad surprises, gutting surprises, frustrating surprises, amazing surprises.

  Caroline was sometimes the biggest surprise of all, because she kept coming around. Staying over. Sticking by me. And those were the weeks that everything finally changed.

  I stopped thinking I knew how my life was going to go.

  I started waking up in the morning thinking how interesting it would be to see what happened next.

  And somewhere along the way, I noticed I wasn’t asking, Can I talk to you? anymore. I was just talking.

  Listening.

  Getting surprised, and liking it.

  The morning after Krishna’s party, Frankie’s picking at her pancakes, and I’m trying not to care.

  She drenched them in syrup. I warned her it was too much, suggested she could put the syrup in a cup and dip the pieces so she’d have the right amount, but she just rolled her eyes like I was the stupidest person on the planet and kept squirting the syrup on.

  She ate four bites. Now she’s poking at what’s left. Lifting the edges up with her fork. Dropping them with a heavy, wet splat.

  Her hair’s a rat’s nest at the crown of her head, and she’s wearing a nightgown with Tinkerbell on it that pulls too tight across her chest. A kid’s nightgown on a teenager’s body.

  I need to get her new pajamas.

  I push my chair back and stand, thinking I’ll do the dishes. That way, I don’t have to get annoyed at her for wrecking the breakfast I made.

  “What are we doing today?” she asks.

  The plan is to sort through our shit. Have a heart-to-heart and work it all out.

  Frankie isn’t aware of the plan yet.

  I sit back down.

  She’s eased one elbow onto the glass top of the table and dropped her head so the pancakes are exactly at eye level. I watch as she lifts up the whole stack of pancakes and drops it down. Splat.

  “You’re gonna get syrup in your eyeballs doing that.”

  She glances over to check if I’m serious.

  “I thought we’d just hang out at home,” I say. “If it’s okay with you.”

  “All day?”

  “Sure, why not?”

  “You’re always making me do stuff on the weekends.”

  “I thought you liked doing stuff.”

  “Not all the time.”

  “We don’t do stuff all the time.”

  “Every weekend.”

  “You don’t want to do stuff with me?”

  She shrugs. Forks up her pancakes four or five inches. Splat.

  “Was it fun over with Rikki and Laurie?” I ask.

  “Yeah.”

  “What movies did you guys watch?”

  “I don’t know what they were called.”

  “What were they about?”

  “There was one with these boys whose dad took them to an island and they killed him by accident.”

  “For real?”

  “No, it was just a movie.”

  Her tone of voice says I could not possibly be more of a moron.

  “Was it R-rated?”

  “How should I know? It was from Russia. There were subtitles so you could understand what they were saying.”

  “What was the other movie?”

  “It was like… I don’t know how to describe it. Kind of old-timey, but it wasn’t old, and there were boats and stuff? I couldn’t figure out what was going on. Rikki said it was nonrepresentational, which means it wasn’t really about anything.”

  “What’s the point of a movie like that?”

  “It’s what they were watching.”

  “I mean, is it supposed to be pretty to look at it, or some kind of commentary on the human condition, or what?”

  She shrugs.

  I wait a beat, but that’s all I’m getting out of her. “Did you have bad dreams over there?”

  “No. Why would I?”

  “I don’t know. Why wouldn’t you?”

  “It was nice,” she says. “Their guest room has the softest blanket in the whole world, and one of those mattresses like on TV that’s made of foam. When you lay down on it you sink in like you’re going to sleep in an alien pod.”

  “I’ve never slept on one of those.”

  “It wasn’t very comfortable. But it was cool.”

  Having temporarily forgotten she’s supposed to be annoying me with the pancakes, she cuts off a sliver of a bite from the edge. Too sweet. I can tell by the way she chews slow and drinks a lot of water afterward.

  “You want me to do the pancakes over?”

  “Nah. I’m not that hungry.”

  “All right.”

  I get up to do the dishes. I place the stopper, squirt soap into the sink, watch steam rise off the stream of hot water coming from the tap. That was the longest conversation I’ve had with Frankie in ages, and I don’t want to wreck it.

  “West?” she says to my back.

  “Yeah?”

  “What did Mr. Gorham say?”

  A real question about a real thing, asked in a civil tone of voice.

  I could fucking cheer, it feels like such an accomplishment.

  “He said he’ll take care of things with this Clint kid. You won’t have to sit near him on the bus anymore, or in class.”

  Silence.

  “That’s good, right?”

  “Yeah,” she says. “Thanks.”

  I swallow over a lump in my throat. “I didn’t do much, but you’re welcome.”

  While the bubbles rise in the sink, I think about what else there is to talk about. About how to get from surviving to thriving. I haven’t got a clue, so I think about what Caroline might say.

  “He wants to get you doing more gifted and talented stuff.”

  “He always says that.”

  “It sounds like he thinks it’s pretty important.”

  “I don’t want to do it.”

  I turn to look at her, trying not to let on how much her statement worries me. My sister looks sallow under the kitchen lights. She’s sitting with her arms and legs crossed, a stubborn frown fixed on the far wall.

  “Sure you do,” I say.

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t, okay?”

  “No, look —”

  And then I stop
myself, because I can hear my volume rising, and no.

  Not going to be that man.

  I recognize the way she looks right now. I’ve felt that mask on my own face, that hard set to my jaw, that steel in my eyes. All I’m going to accomplish if I keep after her right now is to make her dig in further.

  I don’t know what her reasons are, but she’s got them. Me and her – we’re alike that way. So instead of giving her grief, I ask, “What do you want?”

  Her eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”

  “You didn’t want pancakes for breakfast, you didn’t want to move here, you don’t want gifted and talented – what do you want, Franks? You want to go back to Silt? You want to take art lessons after school? You want me to find this Clint kid and punch him in the face? What?”

  Her eyebrows are drawn in, her face sharp. “I want to go to my room,” she says.

  I close my eyes and breathe.

  This is what I’m getting from her right now, and it’s fine. It’s not what I want, but I can live with it.

  “I’m trying to do right by you,” I say. “You know that.”

  She nods, slowly.

  “So think about what I asked, and when you know the answer, tell me.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.” And then, as though it’s an afterthought – as though I haven’t been thinking about how to tell her all morning – I say, “Caroline’s coming over later.”

  “What for?”

  “To study. And she’ll probably stay for dinner.”

  “Good.”

  Frankie starts down the hall.

  “She might stay the night.”

  Frankie stops on her threshold. “Like, in your room?”

  I clear my throat. “Yeah.”

  “Gross.”

  Then she disappears, closes the door shut behind her, and I’m standing there like a jackass, unsure whether to count that conversation as a success or a failure.

  There’s snow flurries that afternoon. It’s too early for snow.

  I’m watching them fall in fuzzy, lazy swoops when I see Laurie come out of the house and go into his workshop.

  Frankie’s in her room. She came out a few minutes after our talk, asked me for a ruler and some paper from my art class sketchbook, and then returned to her cave. Later, she emerged again and said her pencils all sucked and she had to use the set I bought for my art class.

  I gave her one of them and the sharpener. She disappeared.

  Bored with my reading, I text Caroline.

  It’s snowing, FFS.

  She texts back, I noticed.

  When are you coming over?

  Little while. I’m writing.

  You think the roads are slippery?

  It’s melting, Oregon boy. Too warm for it to stick.

  Come over, then.

  What are you doing?

  Reading about Stalin.

  How’s Stalin?

  Megalomaniac. How are the Irish?

  Such a problem.

  Come over.

  I need to finish this draft.

  Come over.

  Yeesh.

  I grin.

  An hour?

  Two.

  Bah.

  You’ll survive, darling.

  Call me that later when I’m fucking you.

  In your dreams.

  I know, right?

  Quit texting me or I’ll never finish.

  See you in 1 hr. 58 min.

  GOD.

  Satisfied, I put the phone down. Frankie comes out with a paper in her hand.

  “What?” she says.

  “What what?”

  “Your face.” She points.

  I run my hand over my mouth and chin. I’m still smiling. “Caroline’s coming over,” I report.

  “You told me that already.”

  “Yeah.”

  She shifts from foot to foot. “So I guess she’ll be over a lot now, huh?”

  “She might.”

  “You know, she was my friend first.”

  “She was my girlfriend first.”

  “But that was a long time ago.”

  “It was last spring.”

  “And you fucked it up.”

  “Who told you I fucked it up?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Like anybody needed to tell me.”

  “Yeah, well, I fixed it, so now we’re gonna have to share her.”

  “Will she still pick me up from school?”

  “I think you better ask her that when she gets here.”

  “She’s coming now?”

  “In a couple hours.”

  Frankie waves the paper at me. “I want to run over and give this to Rikki.”

  “Can I see?”

  She flips the paper over and shows it to me. It’s a portrait of a woman – glamorous, all hair and lips like a fashion model. It’s shaded and intricate, with decent perspective. Fucking impressive. Way better than her other drawings.

  “You made that?”

  “Rikki showed me how. You just make a grid on the magazine and then you make a bigger grid on the picture, and you draw it one square at a time. It’s easy. It’s not really like drawing at all.”

  She hands it to me, and I can see the faint gridlines now and some details that aren’t quite right – a squinty eye, the jewelry cartoonish where Frankie drew what she thought it was supposed to look like instead of what it actually looks like. Still. “This is amazing.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “Franks —”

  “Can I take it over to Rikki’s?”

  “Yeah, if you get dressed first.” I give her the picture back. “Would you make me one next?”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. Just to have it.”

  “I guess so. Sure.”

  “Great.”

  She leaves the room, and I hear a dresser drawer open. When she comes out, she’s wearing jeans – normal jeans, not huge ones – and a giant sweatshirt. She opens the front door. “You should draw your own,” she says. “It’s really easy. I could show you how.”

  I follow her to the door. “After dinner. I’d like that.”

  She smiles up at me.

  “Careful on the steps,” I say. “It’s snowing.”

  “Okay, Grandpa.”

  I watch her make her way down, one hand gliding over the powder on the railing. Then she’s off, running across the yard without a coat, snow falling in her hair.

  Laurie’s moving around in the space outside his workshop. I wanted to talk to him, so I throw on a coat and head down the stairs myself.

  I find him buried to the elbows in a big gray metal box on stilts, peering through a small glass window while a compressor hums loud over a low hissing sound that stops and starts, stops and starts.

  I don’t come out here much, and when I do it’s usually because I’m grabbing Frankie for hanging around too long. I don’t blame her for wanting to hang around, though. Laurie’s workshop is sweet. It’s like a barn crossed with a carport. Inside, there’s a space like a hayloft full of rusted-out pieces of scrap metal and a row of stalls that makes me think the place was a stable once. Each stall holds a different kind of supplies – wood and metal, ceramics, rubber, glass.

  The open-air part under the carport roof is where he does welding. There’s a big compressor just inside the door, propane tanks, face shield, huge gloves, I don’t know what-all else.

  I’m still trying to figure out what the fuck the story is with the gray metal box when the compressor kicks off and he steps back.

  “Hey, West,” he says.

  “Hey, Professor Collins.”

  “Laurie.”

  I can’t call him Laurie to his face. It’s not only because he’s a professor – it’s also because he’s my landlord and he’s got a Wikipedia page that calls him an internationally acclaimed multimedia three-dimensional artist.

  “What is that thing?” I ask.

  “Sandblaster.”

/>   “What are you blasting?”

  “Glass.”

  He withdraws his arms, unscrews the wing nuts on either side of the window he was looking through, and extracts a beige shape.

  “That’s… what is that?”

  “It’s a hammer.”

  “A glass hammer.” It’s almost entirely wrapped in masking tape, like a hammer mummy with just the round surface you hit with and the bottom of the handle showing. “What for?”

  “It’s a series. Tools. This one’s just a study – I have a commission to do a big one. But the logistics are a pain in the ass.”

  He takes his mummy-hammer inside the barn. I hear water running. I edge closer to the sandblaster, curious what it looks like inside.

  There’s a brass-colored nozzle attached to a hose laying on top of an open plastic grid. The nozzle must shoot sand at the glass, and then the sand falls off and through the grid to come out the hole in the bottom.

  Neat.

  Laurie comes back out drying his glass hammer with a paper towel, a roll of masking tape dangling from his fingers. Unwrapped, the hammer is aqua blue, shining, and I want to touch it. I want to wrap my fingers around the handle and pound something with it – which is all wrong, because it would shatter if I did that, and I’d be fucking disappointed.

  It reminds me of Studio Art last week, how Rikki was debating with Raffe about what art is. Raffe said art has no purpose – that if something has a purpose, it’s not art. And Rikki said the opposite. That the purpose of art is to make you feel or think, and a lot of the time both.

  Art provokes a response, she told us. Be provocative.

  “You want to try the sandblaster?” Laurie asks.

  “Sure.”

  “Give me a minute to mask it again.” He wraps tape over the polished surface of the hammer, leaving one strip around the handle bare. “So what we’re doing is blasting off the polish to give it a frosty surface.” The hammer is heavy when he hands it over. I touch the strip, cool glass beneath my fingertip.

  “Put it inside there,” he says. “Careful with it, though – I had that thing in the kiln more than a week.”

  “Just to cast it?”

  “Yep. You have to bring the temperature up slowly, hold it there, bring it back down just as slow. Otherwise it’ll crack, explode, God only knows. Glass is fussy. Took me eleven tries to get that hammer.”