At sixteen, I was exactly half the age of Brian.
My best friend, Laura, said, “He’s a whole lot cuter than any of the guys at school, Shelby.”
“That’s my dad!”
Other friends made similar comments, but none of them ever did anything about it—not like Laura. On our visits to his messy-as-a-dorm-room efficiency apartment, she managed to sit close to him on his tattered, tan sofa bed, and accidentally rub up to his arm, and ask him questions like, “What did you do when you were a kid?”
The prettier she got, the more he talked to her.
Laura and I became friends in seventh grade—the two smallest girls in our class. Being late bloomers, neither of us got much attention from the boys. Brian (he’d told me to call him that) didn’t pay attention to her in those days. Mostly he kept his eyes on a car magazine or video game or sitcom when we were around. If he did hear our quiet voices, he usually said something like, “Put a sock in it. I’m concentrating.”
Everything changed the summer after our sophomore year. I still looked the same—skinny and five feet, no inches with mud-brown hair that went every which way. Laura had grown six inches, and while still thin, filled out in all the right places. She got a job at Dairy Queen and used her first paycheck for blond streaks in her own boring brown mop at Hair Flair.
“You should sunbathe,” she’d tell me. Her gorgeous tan, unlike my rashy skin, gave her a glow. “Maybe it would help you get rid of the hives.”
Like I had any control over when they popped out.
I saw Brian at his shabby efficiency apartment in a run-down part of Minneapolis at least once a week. He’d lived there alone since the split-up when I was seven.
After that, Mom earned her GED, took a real estate course at the community college, and became a successful broker. She often told me, “We’re doing just fine on our own.” She’d stretch the “just” way out.
I’d say something like, “Yeah, it’d be great if you didn’t make me go to church.”
She’d give me one of her disgusted looks.
We lived in a suburb on the outskirts of Minneapolis. Lucky for Mom, a developer came along and subdivided a one-hundred-acre farm, bringing on a housing boom about the time she received her license. Before we knew it, she’d made enough in commissions to buy the house we lived in—not a palace, but we each had a bedroom suite with a soaking tub and walk-in closet— sure better than the two-bedroom rental we’d lived in with Brian, and then by ourselves for the first few years.
I was too young and self-absorbed to consider how her new life affected Brian. Thinking about it now, over twenty years later, this must have been as bitter as the taste of skunky beer for him. They’d started out the same—two sixteen-year-old kids stuck with me. He stayed stuck while she became a real estate queen.
Right after Mom and Dad got married, he found a job at Ralph’s Auto Repair and that’s where he worked this whole time. He’d say stuff like, “Don’t need a diploma. The customers only care if I keep their engines humming.”
At seven, it was great to have Saturday overnights at his place, so I went by myself. He took me to Mythic Park in the summer, where we rode the roller coaster and the scrambler and the Ferris wheel, and ate caramel corn and cotton candy and hot dogs for dinner, and spent hours in the fun house, laughing at how we looked in the wiggly mirrors.
At fifteen, Brian had worked a summer in the park running a Knock-Over-the-Milk-Bottles game. He gave prizes of Coke or 7UP or Orange Crush to the few winners. The next year, he went steady with Mom, and by the following summer, they were married and had me and lived in that dumpy little house.
He never lost track of guys who still worked at the park. One old fellow named Mac ran the Ferris wheel. He’d say, “Glad to see you, Brian, and Little Miss,” and his sun-scorched, rumpled face squished up into a wink. He let us ride for free.
In the winter, we went to action movies, some of them over and over again, and ate burgers and fries and shakes at The Point. These were places Mom never would have taken me for dinner. She believed in three nutritious meals a day, but must have decided that once a week junk food wouldn’t kill me. On Sunday morning, she’d pick me up for services at First Baptist, no matter how much I grumbled. Later at home, we’d eat eggs and toast and plenty of fresh fruit.
For a while after they split up, I hoped they’d get back together. By the time I was thirteen and had become friends with Laura, and Mom was well on her way with the real estate business, I had forgotten about such a silly wish. She wore tailored suits and high heels and met clients at Chez Claude. Brian had thick lines of grease under his fingernails and preferred drinking beer with his buddies at Romeo’s Pizza to going to any expensive restaurant.
By the time I entered middle school and met Laura I didn’t find Brian’s ideas for fun appealing anymore, and I didn’t know what to talk about with him. If I mentioned something about school activities, he’d say, “I don’t like all that crap.”
So I started bringing Laura along. She was chattier than me, even if she did speak softly. Later I realized, soft and sexy.
Like Mom, Brian had never remarried. She never even dated.
He said things like, “The playboy life’s for me.
She said things like, “Once married is enough for me.”
He stuck photo-booth shots of girls taken at the park on a bulletin board. Every so often I’d see a new set of four, and notice that this girl looked even younger than the last one.
At least I didn’t have to contend with Laura’s kind of situation. After her father died when she was five, her mother brought a new boyfriend home every six months or so. “I start to like one, and they break up. Then she finds another guy,” Laura told me. This was the only time she looked as if tears might fall. She took a deep breath, sat up taller, and went on with, “I love this new eyeliner. You want to try it?”
After she got to be beautiful, Brian started to talk more to her. That’s when she asked, “What did you do when you were a kid?”
“What do you mean? I’m still a kid.” He grinned.
“You know.” Her voice turned syrupy thick. “When you were sixteen.”
“Me and my friends did all the usual stuff—bowling, pinball machines, drove around town in our beaters looking for chicks.” He paused, as if searching for what to say next. Then, “Once we did something real weird.”
“What was it?” I’d been leafing through the current issue of Seventeen magazine and wondering if I’d ever be as pretty as the girls pictured. Laura already was better looking than most of them.
“Another party heard from.” Brian turned to me, and I could see exactly what Laura meant. If he wasn’t my dad, I’d have found his dark eyes and wavy, dark hair awfully cute too.
“What did you do that was so weird?” I pressed.
“Yeah. What did you do?” Laura’s voice got a little bolder and less seductive.
“A few of us took a drive one Saturday night over to Grayson’s Lake.”
This town was about fifty miles from Minneapolis.
“Why’d you go?” I’d never been there, but recalled Mom saying, “That place is such a non-event—no upscale properties.”
“A guy who worked at the park came from there…told me about some rad things to see.”
“Is he still around?”
“Nah, he moved to Chicago. Works at a bank.” Brian’s eyes clouded over as he stared into space.
“What about the weird stuff?” Laura said.
“Tell you what, I’ll show you. We’ll take off as soon as I finish this beer.”
While he was in the bathroom, I whispered to Laura, “Let’s go to my house. I’ll use Dad’s phone to call my mother.” Mom had said she’d pick me up any time I didn’t feel comfortable at Brian’s. What I wanted more than anything was to be with her watching a movie like The Bodyguard and eating s’mores.
“Do you want him to feel bad?” Laura whispered back.
I considered this for a minute. “Okay, I guess.”
Brian’s car, a refurbished Ford from about 1970, smelled like cigarettes and beer and a pine tree hanging from the mirror. Bottles clanked around on the floor, rolling into crumpled potato chip bags and other trash. I crawled in the back and buckled my seatbelt. Brian and Laura didn’t bother with theirs. Laura began in the front over on her own side, but inched closer to him as we drove along. So, there we were, on the highway, heading to Grayson’s Lake that stifling hot, summer Saturday night.
Brian turned on the radio real loud and opened another bottle. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” kept repeating. He offered some beer to us. I refused. Laura took a couple of sips, distaste wrinkling her perfect features. She gave him the bottle to finish.
When we left Brian’s apartment about ten in the evening, all the familiar buildings like 7-Eleven and the high school and Bernard’s Mortuary were still visible. By the time we got to Grayson’s Lake, the houses were dark and the few street lights in town barely revealed shadowy buildings.
“Where are we going?” I shivered despite the heat.
“Yeah. This place looks awful dead.” It didn’t seem to bother Laura. By this time, she was snuggled under Brian’s arm, balancing his open bottle on her knee.
“We’re going out to Gray’s Pond.”
“Gray’s Pond!” She snickered. “Who calls it that?”
“The kids around here.”
“What’s there?” I said.
“Oh…a few things.”
“Anything open?” Why hadn’t I gone home?
“We’ll see.”
“How far is…”
“Cool it, Shelby. Brian knows what he’s doing.” Laura had never used that put-down tone with me.
After that, I tried to keep my mouth shut.
Several miles from town at a deserted turnout, we left the car and walked to the edge of the lake. Brian scanned its shoreline with a flashlight, and I noticed a cluster of tumbledown shacks. Mosquitoes attacked my bare arms and scrunchy noises in the high grass that scratched my legs made me shudder. I imagined snakes crawling over my sandaled feet.
Our Father…Our Father…Our Father…, I thought—that’s all I could get out. “Please let’s get back in the car.”
“Don’t be such a wimp. Brian’ll protect us.”
I decided when this stupid trip came to an end, we were done being friends.
“The road doesn’t go all around the lake. There’s only this way in and out.” Brian held the flashlight under his chin.
“Stop that!” Did I sound disgusted instead of terrified?
He directed the beam toward the ground, and continued, “It dead-ends with three driveways.”
“What’s down them?” Laura played along.
“You’ll see.”
We got back in the Ford and drove maybe a mile. Brian parked and we got out again. He carried another bottle.
“Hmmm. See if my memory is right…want to save the best for last.” He led the way to the first driveway.
I followed the two of them, staying close to the flashlight’s beam.
At the end of this driveway, figures surrounded a house. I held my breath, waiting for them to move forward, but they stayed put as if studying us.
Brian kept the flashlight still for a moment, shining on what looked like a family of human-sized gnomes.
“The guy who lives here is a wood carver. Been busy. There weren’t this many last time.”
I wondered when that was. Brian seemed familiar with this place considering he hadn’t been in over sixteen years.
“Awesome,” Laura said.
Had he brought some of those photographed girls here?
There were life-size rabbits and dogs and cats. Closer to the house, the animals got bigger—bears and tigers, and on either side of the front door two lions stood guard.
Laura remained glued to his side, and I hunkered close by.
Up the middle driveway, we faced an odd-looking structure. Brian shone the light on it. Our reflections in the glass made me realize it was a greenhouse.
“This is a nursery,” I said.
“How’d you guess?” Brian threw his empty bottle into the weeds, and pushed open a creaky door. Steamy air hit my cheeks. Inside, thick, jungle-like foliage brushed against my body. The smell was thicker and sweeter than the perfume Laura wore.
Once outside again, I bumped into a rickety table, almost tipping it over. Brian and Laura, with the fading light, had moved ahead. I pushed a flat of plants into place and ran after them, stubbing my toe on a fallen branch that grabbed for me.
At the third driveway, Brian held out both arms as if announcing the highlight. “What do you suppose this is?”
“No idea,” Laura said.
“A stable?” I hoped it was something as harmless as a bunch of sleeping horses.
“Wrong! It’s…ta-da…a pioneer cemetery. Hasn’t been used for at least fifty years.”
Oh God! Snakes, spooky carvings, scary trees…and graves. Picturing bodies rotting underground, my stomach flip-flopped.
Brian ignored the No Trespassing signs, walking around and pointing the flashlight at one crooked marker after another.
Trying not to step on any of the plots, I kept thinking, There’s no one here to hurt you.
“Scary!” At last, Laura became aware of something besides Brian.
“I want to show you one last thing, then we’ll go.”
He ambled up a hill with a huge monument on top. Stone steps led to a flat, stage-like area surrounded by columns. It looked as if it had been built for performances. In the center stood a tomb that looked like it belonged to a king or a queen.
“Who’s in that?” Laura’s voice trembled.
“This is so cool…It’s a teenage girl.” He lit up her name—Emily Grayson. “Her father started the town. When she drowned in the lake, he built this for her.” Brian slowly lit a cigarette. “Legend is she never even had a boyfriend.”
“Sad…,” Laura said.
“Part of the mystery. The Graysons owned the lake and a bunch of cottages. People came out here…before…the happenings.”
“What kind of happenings?” I blurted out. Why did he have to be like this?
“People saw a teenage girl in lots of places, even standing up there, hands crossed over her heart, weeping.” His voice hushed, then changed back to normal. “Surprised there aren’t any kids hanging out on a Saturday night. Partying. Lots of girls have lost it in memory of Emily.”
“Romantic.”
Was Laura going to come back another time…without me?
We walked up the steps and stood quietly by Emily’s tomb for several minutes. In spite of the possibility of seeing her, I forgot about the night’s distresses, feeling sympathy for this poor, shortened life.
Brian broke the silence. “We need to go. Your mom’ll be there early to pick you up for church.”
I didn’t make a smart remark. It was already after two in the morning.
The Ford crunched through gravel, sounding like bones breaking as he backed up. He turned in the right direction, and took off down the paved road, veering left and right, following the lake’s curves.
I wanted to holler, Slow down! but was so glad to be going back to Minneapolis that I kept my mouth shut. Watching the dizzying road, I was the first to see a lone raccoon run in front of the headlights. “Watch out!” I yelled.
Brian swerved to miss it. I’m sure none of us felt anything but a soaring sensation, like a daredevil ride at Mythic Park, as the car aimed for a utility pole.
When I regained consciousness, I saw Laura smashed into the windshield with splatters of blood making a halo in the glass around her head. Brian was pinned by the steering wheel, his mouth agape. Neither of them moved.
I had no idea where the flashlight had gone, and cringed at the thought of searching for it. Eventually, I learned it hit Brian’s temple before landing in the corner next to empty bottles. My door worked, and even though broken ribs painfully cried out with each of my sobs, I crept from the Ford. In the darkness, thick as tar, I huddled on the ground by the trunk. Earlier sights—the spooky carvings, the heavily scented greenhouse, and the isolated graveyard—held not a candle to the horror I experienced, going over and over what had happened. And, every time Brian moaned, my heart clamped together like a pliers held it.
I began, “Our Father…” and said all of it, many times.
When neighbors’ power failed, at last, the police came searching for the problem.
Her funeral, held at Bernard’s Mortuary, was attended by most of the kids from school. She was cremated so there wasn’t a grave to go to. Friends told me that her mother put up the biggest, fanciest, whitest cross, attached to the utility pole, right where Brian’s car had hit. Curly letters spelled out Laura. I didn’t want to go back there, but after church one Sunday, Mom convinced me to visit. We left a bouquet of yellow roses, and brought an identical bouquet to put on Emily Grayson’s tomb.
I still have dinner once a week with my mother and her husband, Jerry, the real estate developer. She finally did remarry. And, I go to the nursing home once a week, all alone, to sit with my father. He’s in a wheelchair, paralyzed from his chest down.
Mom and I always have lots to talk about. She’s real excited about my high school counseling position, and says, “I’m sure you help those kids trying to find their way.”
Brian and I don’t talk much. He usually asks me to turn on the television. He’s into old sitcoms like Happy Days. Before I leave, he will sometimes say, “Remember the game at the park where suckers threw balls to knock over pyramids of milk bottles? They were weighted down, you know.” He’ll cross his arms over his chest and finish with, “I’m stuck here, like those bottles.”
I rap my clenched fists against the sides of my chair, thinking, How were you before? But I never say it.
THE END
