Damage - A. M. Jenkins [27]
“Nothing much,” Becky tells Aaron, but you see her smiling to herself. She heads down the hall slowly, cradling the phone. “Uh-huh. I know.” She glances back right before she disappears into her room, but Curtis isn’t looking at her anymore.
“So,” he’s saying to you. “Dobie and I haven’t seen much of you around lately. Been busy with Heather?”
Don’t be so cynical, baby…da da da da-a-a da. “Yeah. She’s all right,” you add, just to let Curtis know how things stand.
Curtis doesn’t say anything, doesn’t nod. After a moment he takes another long drink from his Dr Pepper.
“Listen, if you got to know her, you’d see she’s not as bad as you think.”
Curtis doesn’t look at you, just examines the silver rim of his can.
“It wouldn’t kill you to open up your mind a little.”
“It’s open,” he says abruptly. “Open enough to see that she’s using you for her senior-year escort.”
“She is not.”
Curtis shrugs. “Okay. She’s not.”
That’s Curtis. He thinks he’s right, so he’s not going to argue about it. You ought to keep trying, though. Explain how Heather’s not always the same as she is at school. And that even if she is, it’s not her fault. She’s always been the center of attention—so how could she know what it’s like to be treated as if you don’t matter? How’s she supposed to learn to think about other people if everybody’s always thinking about her?
Curtis frowns down at his Dr Pepper. “You know, Austy, it doesn’t really matter what my opinion is. You’re the one going out with her, not me. And whatever happens, I’m not going anywhere. I’ll still be around.”
He means, if you and Heather split up.
Finally that stupid song gets driven out of your head. Curtis is being ridiculous. Things are just getting started. Things are going great. No way you’d split.
Sometimes you wish Curtis would just keep his mouth shut. Keep his thoughts to himself—Curtis’s thoughts are like dark fingers, trying to wrap themselves around your ankles and drag you down.
The truth is, Heather fills all the little bitty gaps you didn’t even know you had. Nowadays you’re completely different from when—well, you’re not even going to think about that. There’s nothing to think about. How you used to feel—well, you just don’t feel that way anymore, that’s all.
You remind yourself how, when Curtis was immersed in Kat, you and Dobie used to tell him to his face that Kat had him pussy whipped. Curtis never got mad, never once got upset about it. Curtis just let the comments rain down around him, brushed them all aside, and went about his business.
That’s what you need to do right now. Just brush all his talk about Heather aside. And go on about your business.
One of Becky’s calves bawls somewhere in the field behind the barn. The old screen on the kitchen door vibrates in the grip of an unseen breeze. It’s a bright, sunny day outside. A beautiful day. You can smell the fresh-cut grass.
“Hey, guess what?” Curtis says out of the blue. “I actually spoke to the old man on the phone.”
“What’d he want?” you ask. You don’t have to ask who “the old man” is. Even though Mr. Hightower eventually married Tiffani-with-an-i, Curtis still hasn’t gotten around to forgiving him for being unable to keep his pants zipped in the first place.
“Get this. He asked me if I wanted to go skiing over Christmas with him and What’sherface.”
“What’d you say?” you ask, although you already know. Curtis has never gone to visit his dad in Nevada. Won’t get on the plane, won’t get in the car to go to the airport. He’ll barely even talk to his dad on the phone.
“I told him, ‘Sorry, I got things to do.’”
“Gave up a free ski trip?”
Curtis shrugs, takes another sip of Dr Pepper.
“Might not be so bad,” you point out. “The skiing part might make up for the rest of it.”
Curtis just shakes his head. He’s never understood what an opportunity he’s dismissing with his dad. He just doesn’t get that he has a chance some people will never have.
“When he was here he never came to a single one of my games.