7

How was school?” asks Mom.

“Fine,” I say, which is what I say most days. I figure that instead of reliving each excruciating detail, I may as well just take the average. Fine seems like a reasonable middle ground between the euphoria of quartet practice and the abject humiliation of the Rituals meeting.

“What do you mean by ‘fine’?” Mom says, not buying into my rationale.

“You know, everything’s normal … everything’s fine.”

“Care to elaborate?”

I think about it. “Not really, no.”

Mom sighs emphatically as she pops a gargantuan dish of lasagna into the oven—she seems to have trouble grasping that there are only two of us now. On the floor beside her, Matt the Mutt scurries back and forth doing his finest impression of a robotic vacuum cleaner. When she turns back to me, Mom’s wearing her Serious Face.

“Kevin, I feel like we’re not communicating well.”

“Oh.”

She wrings her hands demonstratively. “See? That’s just my point. I tell you that I don’t think we’re communicating well, and you just say ‘Oh.’ I mean, when the best I can do is elicit a monosyllabic response from my only child, well … ”

I wait for her to continue, even though I know she’s finished. This is one of her rhetorical techniques—stop mid-sentence and allow me to fill in the gap. Apparently it works really well with her students. But I’m just not comfortable relaying today’s developments; some things are best left unsaid. Besides, I can guess what has brought on this sudden need for vast quantities of food and a heart-to-heart conversation: she’s received an e-mail from Dad, and it has upset her.

And I can imagine why. He’s probably pulling his old trick of telling her how much better his life is since he ran off with Kimberly, a fellow realtor who’s twelve years younger than Mom. (Apparently he wasn’t willing to settle for a Harley like all the other middle-aged guys in town.) And even though I’ve passed the point of caring, I know it just kills Mom to hear him say it.

“What did he say this time, Mom?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on. I thought you wanted us to communicate better.”

Mom draws in her breath a couple of times, as if she’s summoning the will to tell me, but then she puts her hand over her mouth and hurries out of the kitchen.

I don’t think she’s completely over him yet.

As I traipse upstairs to my bedroom, I notice there’s a different photo of Dad at the top of the stairs. It must have been taken years ago, because the colors are kind of washed out and he has a full head of hair. He was good-looking back then: rugged, tan, grungy, like he’d just completed a round-the-world hike. Even in the moments I hate him, I can still see what drew Mom to him.

Dad’s decision to move out at the beginning of my senior year was strategic, calculated to catch both Mom and me off guard. It worked, too. We were both so caught up in the new academic year that we couldn’t summon the energy to instigate any fights or even proffer a few choice—and wholly justified—profanities. The only sign he’d gone at all was the sudden feeling of emptiness and quietness. And a note that said he’d left for good and we could keep everything—he wouldn’t be needing it. It wasn’t meant to be kind; it meant that wherever he was going, and whoever the woman was, things were looking up for him.

I immediately took down all the pictures of Dad, but Mom put them all back up again. I told her not to e-mail him or leave messages on his cell phone, but she did both anyway. Everyone remotely close to her told her to let go, to not appear desperate. But she was desperate. Improbably, after all he’d done, she still loved him. And it’s pretty clear she still does.

I notice that Mom has also changed the photo beside Dad’s. In place of the fixed-smile, arms-locked husband-and-wife portrait taken three Christmases ago, she’s put up that old black-and-white photo of herself that was taken in grad school: the bohemian scholar in a hand-knitted poncho, tousled black hair tucked haphazardly behind multiply pierced ears. It was the photo above her bio when she published her first book on the origins of the suffragette movement, although it was totally out-of-date by then. Even now, I think that’s the woman she would like to see staring back at her whenever she looks in the mirror.

Seeing the photos side by side reminds me that there was a time when my parents were a reasonably attractive couple—stylish even, in a knowingly subversive way. They were an energetic pair back then too: “free spirits joined in an intoxicating quest for love and excitement” is how Mom puts it. I guess that’s the idea of their marriage she has decided to memorialize every time she walks up the stairs and passes this spot. It’s sad, but I can understand it. The young couple in the photos seems capable of a romance that their modern-day counterparts weren’t able to sustain.

Maybe one day I’ll understand how someone like Dad gets everything, and someone like Mom is left with nothing. Maybe there’s some divine justice at the end of the road, but if there is, I don’t see any signs of it yet. All I can see is that nice guys really do finish last, and that’s an area where I have much more in common with Mom than with Dad. I don’t want to finish last. I want to experience the kind of passion that my parents once enjoyed. Only I won’t mess it up when I find it.

Two hours later, I remove the lasagna because the smoke seeping out of the oven has set off the alarm. It’s no longer recognizable—it’s a lasagna only in spirit.

I call Matt the Mutt over and tip the entire dish into his bowl, even the charred bits stuck to the side; it’s not like he won’t eat them, after all. He gives me a wonderfully gratifying look that says, you’re the best, Kev, which feels good because most of the time he pretty much hates me. Then he takes a mouthful and starts howling the place down. He dunks his snout into the water bowl and leaves it there until his tongue stops burning. Then he gives me a horribly disconcerting look that says, you’re a butthole, Kev, and don’t be surprised if I accidentally soil on your new Abercrombie & Fitch sweatshirt.

I’m about to go and pick my sweatshirt off the floor when Mom runs into the kitchen.

“What did you do to the dog?”

“Nothing. I just gave him the lasagna.”

“Oh, that.” Mom had clearly forgotten about it too. “It comes out pretty hot, you know.”

“Yeah. I didn’t think he’d eat it right away.”

Matt circles my ankles like he’s biding his time before exacting—or, more likely, excreting—revenge.

“Look, Mom, I’m sorry I asked you about Dad.”

“It’s okay. You must miss him.”

“Yeah,” I say reflexively, then remember that it’s not entirely true. “Well, no. Not really.”

Mom steps forward and hugs me. “It’s okay to miss him, you know.”

I can’t decide whether her remark is directed toward me or if she’s really giving herself permission to mourn his absence. Maybe we really do need to work on being more open with each other, more communicative.

I want to ask her about the photos upstairs. I want to show her that I notice these things, that I care, but I don’t know how to broach difficult topics subtly anymore. All I can do is resort to small gestures like putting down the toilet seat to show that I’m different from Dad. She was quite proud of me when I started doing that.

Then again, maybe now isn’t the best time to usher in a new era of openness. Mom would certainly be a lot less proud of me if she found out about the Graduation Rituals, which are not exactly in line with her belief system. Telling her that the senior girls don’t object wouldn’t help either. And if she discovers that I’m compiling the Book of Busts, I may as well emigrate. My body stiffens just thinking about it.

Mom pulls away. “Kevin, I think it’s only fair to tell you that I got a call from Ms. Kowalski today . . .”

All righty, so she already knows about the Rituals. I guess I should start packing.

“I don’t want to talk about this, Mom.”

“But I think it’s important that we talk about it. Get everything out in the open before things become complicated.”

I want to point out that things wouldn’t be complicated if Ms. Kowalski hadn’t called. I can’t believe she ratted me out to my own mother.

“Look, Mom. I just want to have some space at school … do what I want to do, you know?”

“Okay. I can understand that.”

“You can?”

“Sure. Now can we please discuss Ms. Kowalski’s call?”

“No.”

“I thought you said you wanted to communicate.”

“So did you,” I mutter defensively. “But you still haven’t told me what Dad’s e-mail said.”

It’s a cheap shot, and I regret it immediately. Mom looks deflated as she backs away toward the door. She mumbles good night without looking at me, and it’s not until she’s gone that I notice it’s still only eight o’clock.

This business of not talking seems to require saying some really mean things.

Abby calls me an hour later, and I’m glad. She has a unique ability to make me feel like a halfway-decent human being, even when all signs point to the contrary.

“What’re you up to?” she asks.

“Just sitting here, finishing some reading for tomorrow.”

“Not, like, a book?”

“Yeah. Most of our reading comes in the form of books, Abby. I thought you knew that.”

“Ha ha. You know what I mean. Is it a novel?”

“Yeah, it’s a novel.”

Abby sighs like this is a Big Deal, which it kind of is to her. English is not her finest class, and she claims that novels bore her. She prefers mathematical equations and the periodic table because they’re shorter. I think she has a fear of commitment to anything longer than a page.

“Do you need any help with math?”

“No, that’s okay. I got it,” I lie.

“You’re just saying that ’cause you don’t want me to come over.”

“That’s not true. Although it does seem kind of dumb to be talking on the phone. I mean, I can see you from my window.”

“No you can’t,” she laughs. “I’m on the far side of my bedroom. And anyway, my blind is closed.”

I peek out my window at the upstairs bedroom of the house next door. Sure enough, her blind is closed. But then it opens, and she’s standing there in a revealing slip that shines in the amber glow from a table lamp. She’s less than twenty feet away. I draw my breath in suddenly, then remember that she can hear me.

“Can you see me now?” she says provocatively, eyeing me the whole time.

“Yeah.”

“Hmmm. And how do I look?”

She looks good. Actually, she looks beautiful, but I don’t dare say that and I’m afraid she can see my cheeks are burning, so I step back from the window.

“You know,” I say, stalling, “I think we call each other so we can pretend we’re not going to end up talking for an hour, even though we always do.”

She laughs politely, but I can tell it’s not what she wanted to hear. By the time I look up again she’s closed her blind.

“What was wrong this afternoon, Kev? You seemed weird after practice.”

“Nothing was wrong.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I just … I’m just afraid people at the prom won’t think our music’s cool.”

She groans. “You’ve got to stop worrying about what other people think is cool. If you enjoy it, why do you care what they think?”

“You’re right, I know, but it worries me, that’s all. I can’t help it.”

“Listen. For what it’s worth, I think you’re so much cooler than them.”

“Who?”

“The people you’re afraid won’t find the music cool. You know, Brandon and his gang. Really, you’re cooler and smarter and funnier than they’ll ever be. And I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you’re not like them.”

Our calls always seem to end like this, with Abby complimenting me. Only this time it’s not so reassuring. Because as I close my cell phone, it occurs to me that I am one of them.