Before My Eyes Page 2

  “You going to be okay today, Max?”

  I squint at him. I don’t know him anymore, this politician father, and he doesn’t know me. But I’ve got to admit—though I don’t, not to him—that isn’t about him: I didn’t take a pill today. I vowed to myself I wouldn’t. Not that I have to keep my promise to myself, but somehow it matters that I do. A lot has changed these past few days, and I need to sort it all out.

  “We have a deal,” says my dad, breaking into my thoughts. “We are all going to look like a happy family. No worries?”

  I force on a smile. “Good?”

  “Good.” He matches the tops and ends of the pencils into a neat line. “You know something? I want you to just focus on having a great senior year. Getting into a decent college. Being happy.”

  “Happy?”

  “We are a happy family,” he says with a hopefulness that stings me. He pats my back. It stiffens.

  “I love you, Max, you know that?” He grabs the top of my head and kisses it as if he’s bestowing something more on me. He likes to kiss babies, too.

  I shrug him off. He chuckles at me. He’s often embarrassed at his actions. Maybe that’s his saving grace—he knows that we are all acting here, that none of this is exactly what it seems, that we all make promises we don’t think we’ll keep. I just hope he doesn’t make me take the extras to school. I’ll definitely fail a test if I have my father’s name in view.

  “I want today to be a good day. No worries.” He distractedly kisses me on the head again. Then, he jogs to the front of the tent, ten or twelve feet, folds open the flap, and acts surprised that there is a crowd of people waiting for him.

  One of the people waiting is Jackson’s dad. He looks like an older version of Jackson—muscles gone soft, pale hair swept back to cover his bald spot, glancing around like he should be the one who’s the center of attention. He’s dressed to play tennis. He hugs my mother too tight. Jackson’s father knows my parents from soccer and the PTA and from the way everyone around here casually knows everyone else, but doesn’t really know them at all. He was the coach of my fourth- and fifth-grade soccer travel team. My father always wanted me to play football—not soccer—like him.

  He waves to my father and shouts, “How’s my star player?” Every kid was his “star” player.

  “Good. Real good,” my father rings back for me.

  “Way to go,” says Jackson’s dad to nobody in particular. He spots me in the back near the coolers, and calls out, “Been practicing those penalty kicks, Max?”

  I study the pencils like I’m figuring out a puzzle. So I missed the penalty kick. I lost our soccer team—the varsity team—the game. I lost us a perfect season. I don’t look up. I hand some little girl in a sparkling pink top a pencil when she asks for one, and then another when she asks for one for her grandmother, and a third one when she asks for one for her grandfather. She clutches them like a bouquet. I have to smile at her when she thanks me as if I saved her from a life devoid of number-two pencils.

  My father reaches over to Jackson’s dad. The two men lock hands. I hope Jackson won’t show up, even though he’s always the friendly team captain when his dad’s around. Jackson is probably at the beach with Samantha. I can’t help myself. I wonder what color bikini she’ll be wearing today. I catch a few more phrases from the two of them about “senior year,” “the team,” and “college.” The crowd surges forward. Jackson’s father says something about planning to play some tennis before it gets too hot. He steps to the side, sipping his iced coffee, as if the coach once more, following the action from the sidelines.

  My mother claims my father and draws him into the crowd. She greets what seems like every single person with a hug. My father prefers the double handshake, one hand over another, which says, “You’re important,” without him having to say it.

  In the back of the crowd are Trish and Peter. Both of them look confused that they are in a tent and not at the Snack Shack, where we spent all summer together—the fat girl, the sped, and me. But I don’t want to think of them like that anymore, even if Trish is over three hundred pounds and Peter is in special ed classes. Claire didn’t think of them that way, at least last night she didn’t. I wave them over. Trish must have made sure that the shoelaces on Peter’s work boots were tied. In fact, both of them look like they could be going to church—Trish in a long, flowing sundress and Peter in a short-sleeved, button-down white shirt and pressed black pants. She’s holding his hand, leading him toward me.

  I swipe the sweat off my upper lip. I should have shaved this morning. But I wanted to save my weekly shave for Wednesday, the first day of school. I feel rough and grungy in this pink polo. Feel like this is a mistake, me coming here at all. I tell King, “Sit.” Yet as I rise, he does, too, dragging the folding table with him one or two feet, screeching it along the floor, throwing off pencils and balloons and pamphlets with my father’s face on them, a mini-disaster. King stops, knowing he’s made a mistake. He flattens into the dried-up grass.

  I scramble to reorganize. My father breaks away from my mother and hurries over. Instead of berating King, or me, he helps me fix the table. You see, my father is just an ordinary guy—I’m sure that’s what everyone is thinking—a working guy, with a kid in high school and a blind dog. He even taps King on the top of his head. A breeze eases through the humidity. My father whispers to me, “Don’t worry about this. It’s showtime. Smile.”

  I don’t smile, not yet. I know I have to get myself into the “game” today: smile, shake hands, be the good son. I rub my back almost as a habit. No matter what, I am playing on the varsity soccer team this fall. Nothing is keeping me off the team.

  I scan the crowd, thinking of Claire again, thinking of last night. She could kick the ball. In the moonlight, in my backyard, her running reminded me of her swimming, strong and swift, those long, long legs—and what am I thinking? What would the guys—what would Jackson say if I start bringing someone like Claire to the parties? I mean, she’s pretty enough in her own way. Old-fashioned. Too tall. Probably reads a lot and likes school and doesn’t have a lot of fun, in the way the guys on the team define fun, though right now the word sounds like it’s full of lead and sour milk. Better not to get involved with Claire. She wouldn’t fit in. There will be plenty of girls in my own school to hang out with senior year. Better to make this decision now. I look around the tent for something else to organize. I now want everything in straight, even lines.

  The last person I expected to be here is here: Barkley. His shaved head is slick with sweat. Why didn’t he show up last night, especially after he made such a big deal about being invited? And why is he here now? All summer at the Snack Shack, Barkley called teachers and politicians like my dad “con artists.” I busy myself with the pencils. I don’t want him to talk to me and say something stupid about the pills I bought from him.

  I make like I’m busy. Even with the flaps now open, and the fans whirring, I feel like I’m running uphill or swimming against another riptide. I’d actually like to go for a swim, one last swim in the sea before school starts. I want to see how far out I can go—past the breakers, off the continental shelf, out to where the ocean is wide and clear. Glancing up, no sign of Claire. Better if she doesn’t come. I don’t want her to think that Barkley and I are friends.

  He’s in the gray sweatpants that he has worn almost every day to the Snack Shack: stained, stiff, stinking. If he pulled his hands out of that sweatshirt for all to see, I’m sure they’d be rough, his fingernails thick with dirt, as if we spent the summer working fields and not serving up ice cream, hot dogs, and bottled water. He’s not moving from the center of the tent. Usually, he doesn’t smile much. But this morning, his grin is wide enough to make me think that something is wrong. He removes his sunglasses, wipes the sweat off the reflective glass with the sleeve of his sweatshirt, and his gaze deadens on me.

  Barkley

  Monday, Labor Day, 10:03 A.M.

  People move in sl
ow motion.

  “Does anyone need a cold water?” Debbi Cooper asks the crowd in the tent. “My son has bottled waters in the back, if you’d like one. Like a cold bottle of water?”

  My fists clench. The smile stays fixed. My mouth is dry. My tongue, heavy. I am ignored. Jackson’s father, the soccer coach who left me on the bench in fourth and fifth grades, ignores me now. He weaves over to greet Debbi Cooper with a kiss—big, fake. In his possession is an extra-large iced coffee in a clear, plastic container.

  I wade through.

  ZOOM IN: Max, a lanky, athletic, seventeen-year-old boy with shocks of dark hair and blue eyes. He waves from the far reaches of the tent. I make sure he is not signaling her—Claire. But she has not arrived. I must tell her about today if she does not witness it for herself. She must not hear from Max. Nevertheless, I hope he is feeling good. Even weak men should not feel pain. I hope he popped one of those pills that I sold him the other day. I hope that I helped him.

  CLOSE-UP: Two women speak without listening to each other. They are talking about the state senator. How they never vote but are voting for him again. How they never “do” these things, but he’s Glenn Cooper. Our neighbor. And isn’t he good-looking? And such a nice family. They rub their spindly fingers down their tanned arms as if for some reason these thoughts chill them. CUT.

  When I do today what I must, forces greater than State Senator Glenn Cooper will recognize me. Crowds on red carpets will greet me. Claire on my arm. I understand that the personal is political. Yet I am more than personal. I am more than political. I believe in the end of plastic water bottles to save our seas, in grammar as the basis for a well-ordered society, and in speaking truth to power. I am more.

  Inside the sweatshirt pocket, fingers curl tight around the metal.

  Walk perfectly, the voice reassures.

  CLOSE-UP: Max raises his chin—a dare, no, a beckoning.

  Search for what he sees through the crowd. At the raised tent flap entrance, a flash of strong bare legs. She is dressed in a white T-shirt, tight cutoff jeans, and flip-flops. No makeup. Clean skin. A question in her eyes.

  You must be heard. You will be seen. Action, the voice incites. The heart is on fire.

  State Senator Glenn Cooper is having his picture taken with neighbors. “Smile for the camera,” he says.

  I smile hard. The Glock is out. A scream arcs. “A gun,” someone shouts.

  My throat is raw. A plastic water bottle spins toward me. The world falls away.

  I am the lens, the pen, the gun. The voice directs.

  BEFORE

  Claire

  Friday, 6:30 A.M.

  Water, bluish-gray, splattered with sun, and me, swimming with long, strong strokes, the only one out here. I duck my head into the water and swim harder. The tides are pulling me out, away from the beach, which is scattered with families on blankets and under striped blue-and-orange umbrellas, rented for the day. I swim on, imagining I’ll soon be at the other shore, the one I can’t see but I know is just ahead, across the Atlantic Ocean. Greater forces—the tug of gravity, the moon in its orbit—guide the tide. I steer through the sea, but the unseen controls the tide. Water buoys me. I float. I dive through the waves, hold my breath, and shoot up for air, but the break between sea and air shifts, and there is more water. My lungs tighten. I swim toward the light. Breathless. Airless. The light shifts on the surface. My eyes blur. I swim harder and, finally, break through the sea and gasp for air. I know I should turn around, go back to the familiar shore, find my little sister, Izzy. The waves pitch higher, the tide more insistent, and the light dips from clear blue to purple-black. Lightning cracks overhead. I swim faster. My arms and legs fail. I’m weak. I don’t know how I found myself so far out to sea. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know why I thought this was a good idea. Wasn’t I supposed to be the responsible one? Wasn’t I supposed to be the one taking care of Izzy? I scream. She signals me back as if this is a game. She runs off. Help! But no one is there. The blankets and umbrellas have been packed up, and everyone on the town beach has fled for safety. A wave smacks me, knocks me underwater. I can’t see or breathe. Help—the sea sears my skin, my eyes. My mouth tastes seawater, broken shells, silver fish. I can’t scream. I gasp for air. Help. Waves pound over my head. I am as alone as I have ever been. I don’t deserve to have my summer end like this. I did nothing to deserve this. I should have done something wild, something unexpected, something that made somebody notice me. A wave, as broad as a football field, smacks me down. I’m grasping for light. My arms are ripping from their sockets. The waters churn black and dark and cold.

  I feel an urgency to save that girl, and perhaps even a greater desire to let her drown.

  It’s a dream. And I know I’m dreaming.

  I’m in the Atlantic Ocean, and somewhere else in my mind, I’m in my bed. I can see myself as if through a lens, and I am letting myself drown. I am there and not there. I am in the sea. At the same time, I’m in my bed, under the woolly muck of my inky purple blanket, crocheted by my mother for my sixteenth birthday. I feel someone pulling me up and out, and in fact, I hear my name—Claire Wallace—from afar and then near.

  I swim out of the dream.

  I jolt up ramrod straight. My room, its disorder of dirty clothes and lilac walls and writing notebooks, surrounds me. It’s morning. I’m drenched in sweat and tears. In a daze, I wipe my hand across my cheeks, across my dry lips. I’m tangled in the wool, breathing in short, hard intakes as if I’m in water, as if I’m still drowning.

  I shake the dream from me, literally, flapping my T-shirt from my body, wanting to change into something clean and fresh, but no one, meaning me, has done the laundry yet this week. My hair is frizzy and heavy around my waist. The birds are going wild, tripping through the trees. If I opened the window any wider they’d fly in, or I could fly out. I am not dreaming. Lying in bed, with my eyes open, I can’t be dreaming. Yet a woman’s voice rings in my head. Or rather, it’s the memory of her voice. My mother was always impatient, always saying: Let’s go, let’s move it, no dawdling, when I say it’s time to go, angel, it’s time to go. Not angry. Just hurried. Just wanting to get on to the next thing. There was always somewhere to go. I can remember the voice—never soft, never quiet, oversized like her. She was, or is, tall like I am, had chestnut brown hair like I have. She never did any more with her hair than run a brush through it. Twenty-five hard strokes with her walnut-handled brush, a square, sturdy brush, and she was done, and it was like a mane—thick, loose, wondrous.

  I wrap my blanket around me. I imagine lavender, but the scent is faint.

  I can do this. I can get out of bed—in control, in charge.

  A voice calls to me. This one I know for sure isn’t part of the dream. “Come on, Claire, what do I have to do? It’s time to get up. It’s time to go.”

  Please. One day. All I want is one full day at the beach, one day without wheelchairs, without the reek of bleach and urine and boiled vegetables and bodies struggling to walk a few painful steps, to raise a hand, to smile.

  “Your mother counts the hours until she sees us.”

  Three months ago, the beginning of the summer, my beautiful mother had a stroke, an aneurysm, a brain vessel burst. I turn that word over in my head all the time, “vessel,” an old word for a container, but this vessel carried blood, and it broke apart as if in a storm, causing damage—brain trauma and paralysis of her left leg and arm.

  I’m not opening my bedroom door for my father. I’m not going out and visiting my mother at that rehabilitation center today. I want her home, back to normal.

  My father, once a strong man, gives the door a weak push. The locked door, hollow, cracked, streaked with fingerprints on the inside and the outside, holds.

  In the mornings, my father goes to work as an accountant. In the afternoons, he visits my mother. This has been the routine all summer. After three hours at the rehab center yesterday afternoon, I couldn’t stay there any longer.
I couldn’t bear to kiss my mother good-bye on that parchment-white skin. I said we had to go—I lied and said I had to meet friends. My father wanted to stay. I demanded that he drive Izzy and me home. He did, then returned to her.

  “Claire?”

  I don’t know when he came home and went to bed, or if he did. I’m pushing him too far. I know it.

  “The insurance has run out,” he says on the other side of door, heaving one last time against it.

  Why should a sentence so bland sound bad, or scary? The insurance has run out. What does that even mean?

  My father is not someone given to long explanations or speeches. He likes numbers and columns. He likes things to add up. “I’m scrambling to see if we can borrow more, borrow more against the house. I’m trying to make the numbers work. But nothing’s working—”

  “Borrow?”

  “The insurance has run out,” he repeats, louder, through the door, as if this should make sense to me. He never asked me to do anything around the house, but I’ve tried to keep up with it all, even though sometimes it feels like a race I can’t win: grocery shopping; making sure we have breakfast, Izzy and I, and dinner; and vacuuming and dusting. “The insurance has run out and I can’t make the numbers work, not now, not this week. It’s the end of the month and next month’s payment is due. But you don’t need to worry about this. You have enough to worry about, but the insurance has run out and I don’t know what to do.” Something hits the door—his fist? His head? He’s pounding his head against my bedroom door.