HE WAS pissed to find me at his house. There were moments where I could see that in his eyes. But he was calm and nice as ever. It didn’t seem that he could ever be anything but calm and nice.
“You sure you can’t stay?” he asked for the third time as Sylvia gathered her scarf and jacket and purse from his hall closet. He seemed almost desperate for her to stay and have dinner with him.
“You know I can’t.” Sylvia looped the scarf haphazardly around her neck, her every move a rush now. “It’s a long drive from here to Midtown, and I have a lot to do at the Playhouse before the eight o’clock curtain.”
Mr. D helped her into her jacket. “Well, thanks for making dinner. I need some comfort food right now. Sometimes I swear you read my mind.”
“We have that connection, babe.” Tucked in her jacket and scarf, Sylvia looped the strap of her purse over her shoulder and then leaned over to kiss Mr. Dakota on the cheek. “You have enough comfort to last you a couple of days. Stay away from the fast food until it’s all gone. Okay?”
“Okay, dear.”
“Excellent.” Sylvia shot me a smile. “It was great meeting you, Brodie.”
“It was great meeting you too.”
“Well, bye, boys.” Sylvia spun on her heels and rushed across the living room for the front door.
Mr. D looked around him as if he’d just noticed something was missing. “Hey, Syl, where’s Caulfield?”
“He’s on the patio.”
“You locked my cat out of the house?”
Sylvia looked back over her shoulder and shrugged. “He kept jumping up on the counter and sticking his nose in while I was chopping the beef. It was either lock him out on the patio or cook him.” She waved sweetly as she opened the door. “Bye!”
After Sylvia was gone from the house, hurrying to her little red convertible at the curb, Mr. D turned to me. “Okay, why’re you here, Brodie?”
I cleared my throat. The feel of his eyes, the weight of his complete attention, made me nervous again. “My mom told me today that she’s going to AA. She’s doing that because of you.”
“That’s not true. She’s doing it because it’s what she needs.”
“Yeah, but you talked to her. You convinced her to do it. This is gonna save her, Mr. D. And that’s why I’m here. You have literally saved my mom’s life. I wanted to thank you and let you know how much that means to me.”
He opened his mouth to protest, and I didn’t even realize what I was doing. I just dashed across the distance between us and hugged him like he was the only person left in my world.
He didn’t hug me back. Not at first. He sort of stood there with his arms out as if he had no clue what to do with them. His body felt solid and strong, and I didn’t know until that moment how much I needed the security of someone else’s strength. I didn’t know how much I needed to be held. I hugged him tighter, drawing on the comfort he seemed reluctant to offer.
“Okay, Brodie, okay.” Carefully, he patted me on the back with both hands. Then he took my shoulders and pushed until I let him go and backed away. “Seriously, you’re giving me far too much credit here. I’m glad I was able to help in some small way, but that’s exactly what it was… small.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I pointed out the truth, that her drinking is worrying you to the point that it’s taking over your life. She already knew that. And because she loves you so much, she decided it was time for her to get help.”
That got me emotional again; I didn’t know whether I wanted to cry or what, so I just smiled and said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Brodie. But you could have waited and done this at school tomorrow.”
“I didn’t want to wait. This is too important.”
His sigh sounded just a bit frustrated. “I understand how you feel, but you can’t just… you shouldn’t….”
I waited, dreading to hear whatever words he was struggling so hard to find because I was certain they were going to amount to some kind of dismissal. And in his kind and flustered expression, I could see it again, the loneliness in him, so easy for me to recognize because it was a mirror of what trembled inside me.
He gave up on whatever he was about to say before. He closed his eyes for a moment as if doing some kind of internal reset. Then he looked at me again, more relaxed than he’d been just moments ago. “Are you hungry, Brodie?”
“THIS STEW is the bomb, Mr. D.” I was surprised at how hungry I was. For the past two days, my appetite had been hit or miss, mostly miss.
“Sylvia’s a great cook,” Mr. D said, and I nodded in complete agreement. “I’ll be sure to pass along your compliment.”
Caulfield was yowling and pawing at the glass door that led to a screened patio. Apparently he hadn’t yet mastered doors that didn’t have knobs. Visible from the table where we sat eating, the stranded cat was giving me the evil eye, and I avoided looking at the little furry sucker.
“This might sound strange,” I remarked between bites, “but I’m starting to feel that Caulfield doesn’t like me.”
“Oh, it’s definite. He hates you.” Mr. D chuckled. “He knows you’re the reason he’s still stuck out there.”
“Hey, I don’t mind if you let him in.”
“No, it’s okay. I can tell you’re not a cat person. I’ll make it up to Caulfield once you’re gone.”
True, a cat would never make my top-ten pet list, but I really wouldn’t have minded if Mr. D had brought Caulfield inside with us. I was just glad to be there.
“Actually, Brodie,” Mr. D said, his voice measured and careful, “I’ve been meaning to talk with you. I’ve noticed that you get distracted in class quite a bit, and you seem somewhat isolated to me.”
“You think I’m lonely?”
“You don’t appear to have any friends. I could be wrong, of course. I haven’t known you all that long. But I’m worried as to how much of a toll the stress of your mother’s alcoholism has been having on you.”
“I’m dealing with it, Mr. D.”
“I don’t doubt at all that you’re a strong, resourceful person. But having an alcoholic parent can be pretty tough. Just as there’s help for alcoholics, there’s help for their families too. I really think you should contact Alateen. It’s an organization geared toward helping teens cope with a family member or friend with an addiction.”
“Okay,” I agreed right off. Didn’t even have to mull it over for a second. “If you think it will help, I’ll get in touch with Alateen.”
“Good. I have some brochures from the local Alateen group in my car. I’ll be sure to give those to you.” He glanced at the window above the sink. “It’ll be dark soon. When you finish eating, I’ll drive you home.”
A brief wave of panic hit me. I was almost done with my second helping of stew. There was so much I wanted to ask Mr. Dakota, and my window of opportunity for that today was rapidly closing. “Mr. D?”
“Yeah?”
“Do you like me?”
He got a weird expression on his face, as if the question made absolutely no sense. “Why do you ask?”
“I like you. I like talking to you. And I was just wondering if… we could be friends.”
Mr. Dakota was quiet for a minute, looking at me, his eyes twitching ever so slightly. You could almost see his brain working away. I figured he was trying to come up with a nice, painless way to tell me no. I started to turn away; it would have been far easier to face Caulfield’s cold feline animosity than Mr. Dakota’s rejection. And then Mr. D spoke up.
“You’re smart,” he said. “You stand by your mother even when that hurts you. Aside from Sylvia, you’re the only person outside of a classroom who talks books with me now. Yes, I like you, Brodie, and yes, we can be friends… as long as you understand that there are boundaries.”
“Boundaries? Like what?”
“Like you don’t just show up at my house, for one thing.”
“But why not? You’ve had the Drama Club kids come over. Sylvia told me.”
“That was different. Their visits were school related, and their parents signed permission slips allowing off-campus meetings here.”
I was hurt that it was okay for the Drama Club kids to come to his house but not me. But I just shrugged and nodded. His house, his rules.
I looked at the pictures on the fridge again. Enrique. Exactly who was this guy to Mr. Dakota? “I had a girlfriend, Mr. D. She dumped me.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“I don’t think I was good enough for her.”
“Well, I don’t believe that, and you shouldn’t either.”
“But it’s not like I did anything bad to her. I didn’t cheat or hit her or force her to do stuff she didn’t want to do. And the minute she dropped me, she started going with this guy who’s tall, athletic… all the stuff I’m not.”
“Brodie, if this girl is only interested in a guy’s physical attributes, she’s not good enough for you.”
I nodded even though I wasn’t sure I agreed with that. “Do you get lonely, Mr. D?”
“Occasionally, yes. I suppose everybody feels that way at one point or another.”
“Yeah. I get lonely too.” I was still staring at the pictures of Enrique. “So. Who’s this guy? A friend of yours?”
Mr. D’s jaw clenched. I heard the muffled pop of his jawbones when he did it. “Remember when I said there had to be boundaries if we’re going to be friends?”
“Yeah.”
“Well asking questions like that crosses one of those boundaries.”
Hell. “Oh.”
Mr. Dakota spooned the last of his stew into his mouth. Finished eating, he stood up. He collected his plate, glass, and silverware from the table and placed them on the counter next to the double sink. He turned back to the table. “Are you done?”
I placed my silverware and glass in my empty plate and handed the whole mess to him. Mr. D crossed back to the sink where he rinsed the dishes under hot water. Then he loaded them in the dishwasher. With that done, he went to the stove and began spooning the rest of the still-hot stew into a glass storage bowl.
I wanted to hug him again, to do something nice for him. “Can I help?” I asked.
“Thanks, but I’ve got it.” He didn’t seem angry or upset, just calm and nice.
He pressed the lid on the storage bowl and rinsed the pot out in the sink. Next, he loaded the pot in the dishwasher, added detergent, shut the door, and started the wash cycle.
The smile he gave me was kind and a little sad. “Come on, Brodie. It’s time to get you home.”