Slide - Kyle Beachy [41]
“Word around our house is it's good for your parents to have you home,” she said.
“They keep telling me that.”
She lit a cigarette in her mouth and passed it over. “Where'd you go?”
“A tiny school near Los Angeles I promise you've never heard of.”
“Loss Angle-less. Wow. I bet you've got a story about running into someone famous at a place you totally wouldn't expect, like the dentist. Because we always assume people like that either don't go to the dentist because their teeth are too famous for cavities or they have their own private dentist on the set. Which are both completely wrong, I'm finding out.”
“If it weren't for the burritos I'd say bomb the whole place.”
The girl laughed and put her thumbs in the belt loops of her jeans. I took a shallow drag and tried desperately not to cough.
“I've got plans to go west also. My dad says Stanford, and I say Berkeley, so I guess it'll come down to my SATs. They want me to take one of those classes, but there's something gross about paying for some number.”
“I agree completely.”
I wiped a palm on my thigh and tapped ash from the cigarette in a manner I hoped looked cool and practiced.
“I should go inside. I'm only out here because my parents banned cigarettes from the house last week. They're afraid all the smoke is cutting into our cat's life expectancy. Hey, come say hi next time you see me. Neighbors and all.”
“I'll do that.”
“Righteous.”
I smoked the rest of the cigarette and watched her walk back toward her house, kicking the ball as she went. Just before reaching the garage, she turned.
“How'd you do on the verbal?” she yelled.
“Not bad. I was an English major. So.”
“English majors get the chicks, right? Isn't that what they say?”
Inside my home, I opened the fridge, removed the plastic carton of chicken salad, doused its contents with pepper, found a fork, and stepped into the living room. My father was spread out on the couch, watching baseball highlights. I fell into the recliner.
“Your mom asked that if I was still up when you got home to please tell you good night. So good night.”
“Good old Mom.”
“Cubs won. Houston won. Cincinnati won.”
“What's that make us, six back?”
“Seven.” He sat up. “Noticed you talking to the little girl next door.”
I saw past my father through the curtains to where I'd been standing minutes earlier.
“I can never remember her name,” I said.
“Ophelia,” he said. “Or is it Lolita.”
I laughed, just a single shot of air from my mouth and nose, but it was wonderful. I remembered that he was a funny man sometimes, when he wasn't so engulfed in the struggle to keep this city alive. I suddenly felt guilty for where I'd been with Edsel, out cavorting in the farthest reaches of sprawl when I should have been supporting downtown.
“There's wine left if you want. In fact, why don't you bring me the bottle. I could use a little more.” My father stretched his hand straight out in front of him, looked at the watch that had slipped around to the underside of his wrist. “No. Never mind.”
The two of us sat in the glow of the TV My father was gathering steam to go to bed. Soon this man would stand and I'd hear the sequence of creaks and pops from his bones, wispy exhalation through big nostrils. I found myself wishing he would stay.
“Names. I ask and people tell and I listen, I'm sure I listen, but then it's never there.”
“I'm exactly the same way,” he said.
“You request info, you receive info, and yet for some reason you don't retain info?”
“Why ask for info if you don't want it?” he said. “Whose time are we wasting? Everyone's is whose. Everyone's time.”
“It's our fault,” I said.
“Certainly not theirs,” he said.
And yet still he stood up. Bones popped and he picked up his empty wineglass and he breathed heavily as he turned the corner around the couch.
“Hey,” I said. “We going to a game sometime soon?”
“I would love to go to a game,” he said. “Pick a game and check with your mother if I'm in town. Or check with Sherry. Sherry probably over Mom. My schedule changes.”
He stood over the