Tilt - Alan Cumyn [49]
To be true to this girl.
The screen made it seem like one of them was in prison and this was visiting hours.
“And your dad went away?”
“He’s running again. That’s his pattern. I can see it now. When he left us the first time, it wasn’t about starting his new family. He was running away from something he’d started with us. Now he’s running from Kelly-Ann. He was going to take Feldon but I wouldn’t let him.”
It was starting to sound like bragging now so he stopped.
If the screen weren’t there he’d kiss her. Then they’d know for certain what was happening between them.
“Is your mother all right with that?” she asked. “Are you going to, like, adopt him?”
His fingers were cold anyway and he probably wouldn’t be able to work the fiddly little window clasps, even if they were on the outside.
But they were on her side.
“Nobody knows yet. Feldon doesn’t even know. He slept through most of it. You’re the only person who knows except for me and my dad. When I was about Lily’s age —” This was why he’d come, he saw it now, to tell Janine Igwash this story — “I remember sitting in the closet. The exact same closet where Lily sits sometimes now for a hiding spot.”
He was doing all the talking. But he couldn’t help himself.
“I was sitting in the closet when my dad flung open the door and looked in at me. He had a tennis racket in his hand and he was really mad. He said, ‘Where did you put my blue striped tie?’ I don’t know why he had a tennis racket in his hand to ask that. Years later when he left, he took his tennis racket and a couple of bags. Mom told me. I didn’t see him go, and Lily was pretty small. I remember thinking for some stupid reason, it was the tie. If only he’d found it. He couldn’t have been mad for years about a tie. But I thought maybe it was my fault. Maybe I did use the tie for something. I used to dress up my teddy bear.”
She was still at the window. Smiling now.
Maybe the dream was going to be over as soon as he stopped talking.
“But you think about stuff like that. You never forget it. I just figured out tonight that my father is a . . .”
The ladder shifted then, a sudden lurch to the right as if it was going to go over. Stan grabbed the side of the window with his right hand and his left . . .
His left went through the screen. Just pushed a hole right through.
“Stan!” Janine grabbed his hand. The ladder steadied.
It wasn’t a dream. He was going to have to get down soon.
“So why do you like girls?” he said.
“What’s not to like about girls?”
She was holding his hand like Feldon had been clinging to him not too long ago.
Nails in flesh, his father had said. Either you’re running at midnight chasing some scent, or you’re breaking their grip, trying to get your flesh free.
If the screen wasn’t there he’d just kiss her and then they’d know.
But the screen was there and he had to be careful not to cut his wrists and bleed out in a silly death that would maybe win some Internet award for stupidity.
Maybe he really was his father’s son.
Stan eased his hand back out the jagged hole in the screen.
“I think maybe it’s time —”
“The first time I kissed a girl it was a total accident,” Janine said. “It was eighth grade, right after cross-country. This girl, Idelle, she was from the Caribbean. She was really silly. We’d be running wind sprints up Criminal Hill — we had this hill behind our school and that’s what we called it. We’d be running up and if you got ahead of her she’d grab your shorts. If a boy had done it I’d have hit him but none of the boys could keep up with Idelle and me. She’d reach around and pinch your nipple just when you were standing there. Then she’d laugh. Huge white teeth, and her skin was chocolate, big brown eyes. You couldn’t be mad at Idelle. Anyway it was after a race, and I’d just about killed myself to get to the finish line ahead of her. I had no muscles left. And it was cold. Just before the snow. Like tonight — you must be freezing out there!”
Stan leaned toward the hole in the screen. He willed himself