When the World Tips Over, page 6
Normally, he would’ve taken off to the other side of the known universe as quickly as possible, but for some reason when Wynton said, “For once in your life, surprise me. Get in, man,” Miles did. For whatever the hell reason, he squeezed himself into the cab of the truck.
The girl with spiky pink hair smelled like coconut lotion and had a silver dolphin nose ring. Miles knew both these things because she was half on his lap. “You looked sad sitting there,” she said to him. He tried not to recoil from her alcoholic breath. “Didn’t he look sad, Bettina?” She squeezed Miles’s arm, didn’t let go of it. Girls often invaded his space like this, assuming he was straight, like they had a right to touch him. “But we got you now,” she exclaimed, then whooped about nothing as far as Miles could tell, before swigging from a bottle. She turned toward him and before Miles knew what was happening, her lips were on his and the liquid in her mouth was dribbling into his. Um? Gross. He pulled away and spit the liquid out in a spray, then started apologizing and trying to wipe it off her shoulder and the dashboard.
“Perfect Miles doesn’t drink,” Wynton said. “Perfect Miles is no fun.”
It was true. Perfect Miles didn’t drink and was no fun. He hated Perfect Miles. Fuck it, Miles thought, and took the bottle of tequila from the girl and chugged. “Wait,” the girl said. “Not like that!” He felt his face pruning and puckering in rebellion, but he got the alcohol down. She took the bottle from him, said, “You want to sip tequila, like tea.” She demonstrated, pinkie out, then handed it back to him. “I’m Madison.”
“Bettina,” the other girl said.
“I’m Perfect Miles,” Miles said, and they all laughed. Even Wynton. Miles couldn’t believe he’d made Wynton laugh. He peered around Bettina to make sure Wynton wasn’t ridiculing him, picking Miles off the sole of his shoe like usual. But no. Miles had legit made his brother laugh. This was a first and it lifted him. The tequila was warming him too, uncoiling him, making him feel better, livelier. Miles and Madison passed the bottle back and forth.
“Now one of these,” Madison said, popping something into Miles’s mouth. At first, he thought it was a breath mint because he was that dumb. He bit into it, expecting peppermint, but bitterness filled his mouth, aspirin maybe, he thought stupidly. He should’ve spit it out, but not thinking and wanting the bitterness gone, he took a swig off the bottle and swallowed it.
These were the last things Miles remembered clearly, well, fairly clearly, from that night:
1) Busting through the door of a party with Wynton’s arm around him like they were best friends. Wynton introducing him to everyone, saying, “This is my little brother Miles! This is my little brother Miles!” His little brother Miles. Wynton had never called him that before. Not once. He remembered feeling effervescent, mighty, elated, all new to him. (Maybe this was the drug.)
2) Trying not to gag as beer funneled down his throat through a beer bong.
3) Jumping up and down in what felt like slow motion on a crowded sweaty dance floor with Wynton, Madison, and Bettina, all of them – including him! – shouting to each other, “I love you guys so much!”
4) Sitting on a bed as Madison undid his jeans, then Madison on top of him, swarming him like an octopus, then Madison actually turning into an octopus.
Then nothing nothing nothing nothing.
Until he woke covered in vomit and slime in the rank, rat-infested Dumpster in an alley in the center of town with his jeans half-buttoned, his shirt on inside out.
So.
Yeah.
He’d blacked out and Wynton had thrown him away. Literally. And Miles probably had sex with a girl for the first time (but couldn’t remember any of it) before he’d ever even had sex with a boy.
The next morning, Miles found words in his own handwriting in his pocket pad that he didn’t remember writing: The wind has blown my face off
And: Hurricane is an emotion
And: Easier to choose what to wear when all your clothes aren’t on fire
That afternoon Miles took the baton at the track meet and ran out of the race, out of his head, out of his perfect life.
“Jesus. Why does he have it out for you like this?” the girl asked Miles, snapping him back to the truck.
“I don’t know,” Miles said. He tried to unclench his fists, his jaw. God, he wished he could remember what happened in the blackout; it gnawed at him not knowing. And how did Wynton even get him in the Dumpster? Miles was so much bigger than his brother. Did the girls help? Ugh. Did they hold his feet? All three of them laughing at him while they did it? The humiliation was unbearable. “He hates me. Always has.” His voice cracked. God, why did he care so much? “I worshiped him when I was younger. Despite everything he did to me.” Miles sighed, shame creeping up his spine. “He’s this amazing violinist. Like however amazing you’re thinking, he’s more amazing. I used to sit outside his room and listen to him practice for hours. And he’s cool, in this human grenade kind of way. You want him to have your back. You want him – when I was little, I just wanted—”
Miles clammed up. Why couldn’t he stop talking? When had he ever talked this much?
“What did you want?” she asked gently.
He exhaled. Something about her voice, so curious, so caring, and them roaring down Hidden Highway at this scandalous speed, and before he knew it, he was saying, “I just wanted him to love me. Like. So. Fucking. Bad. But he didn’t. He doesn’t. Obviously.” He cringed at himself. Then because it was already all out, he added, “No dad or anything. So, he was it. He was everything.” Miles felt himself flushing. He knew he sounded like a kid. He felt like one, the same sad kid who spied on Wynton and Dizzy from the stairs while they baked or watched movies, knowing if he joined them, they’d go silent, or worse, Wynton would turn mean as acid.
The same sad kid who imagined his father in the doorway of his room saying good night, who wrote emails to him (never sent, no address) begging for him to come back and rescue him. And he still wrote emails to his dad, even though he could hardly remember the man, keeping the drafts, the pleas, in a folder on his computer called HELP ME!
He searched for his father too, mostly late at night, on his computer. He had this idea that he’d be able to find him by reading wine reviews. He looked for wine notes that were similar to ones written about his dad’s famous pinot: deep garnet color, hints of cherries, roses, has you talking to the moon and the moon talking right back, pairs well with heartbreak, makes you feel so in love you might ask strangers to marry. Or this one: With his new Pinot Noir, Theo Fall has done the impossible – he has concocted true love out of grapes. With hints of black cherry, forest floor, and pure zingy bliss, you can pair this juicy wine with game birds, fatty fish, and the one who got away because this wine is sure to bring them back. It is a dance you didn’t know you knew until the music came on. From actual reviews of his father’s wine! A few times he did find wacko enough wine notes for a pinot that he was certain the wine had to have been made by his dad under a pseudonym, but when he googled the winemaker, it was never the man in old family photos.
Sandro was curled up contentedly on the floor, that swoony expression still on his face except when he’d turn his head and give Miles the stink-eye, still peeved about the suicidal comment.
Sorry! Miles told him, but the dog rebuffed his apology with a head roll and a yawn.
She, on the other hand, kept catching Miles staring at her, and he her, and when they did, they’d both turn and smile foolishly out the window until it’d happen again. And again.
“You have a nice smile,” she said one of these times.
“Me? You’ve got to be kidding. If the grid goes out…” He pointed to her grin.
Sandro lifted his head, made eye contact with Miles. Miles, that was embarrassing. I thought you had better game than that.
Why would you think that? I have no game whatsoever. And it’s true. Look at her. Look how she catches the light. I think I see an aura.
I don’t believe in New Age things like auras. Maybe it’s a halo, though? I certainly believe in halos.
Miles took a deep breath of the flower-filled air, wondering if maybe he was dreaming. Something didn’t feel real. He’d get a similar feeling sometimes when reading became more like breathing and he knew he’d left real life and his soul had transferred from his body into the story. But he’d never felt this way with another person – because of another person.
She looked at him and said, “I’m just driving nowhere.” He took out his pad to write that down and she laughed and pulled a similar pad out of her own back pocket, smiled, and said, “Write it in there too.”
WTAF?
Had they blown away on a gale into another world?
After a while, the road narrowed and turned to dirt and the trees got even taller. She turned off the air-con and opened her window; Miles did the same. The air was a little cooler here. The smell of eucalyptus filled the cab, mingling with the flower garden. Neither of them mentioned the fact that they should be in school. Unless she was already out, he thought, or she could be in college. He was about to ask when she spoke.
“Any other siblings?” she asked.
“There’s Dizzy,” he said. “My little sister.”
“You guys close?”
He shook his head. “Not at all.” Miles stuck his arm out the window, felt the air whip against his open hand. “I don’t matter to either of them. I’m like this unperson around the house.” He couldn’t believe he’d said this aloud, just like that. Neither could Sandro, who hopped up on the seat and put his head in Miles’s lap, finally forgiving him out of pity. Miles pet the dog, stared out the window.
Even though Dizzy had chosen Wynton from the get-go, he loved his little wingnut sister. How herself she was at all costs. And there were costs he never suspected. He’d walked her home from a dance recently (always Wynton’s job until he got kicked out) and Miles couldn’t believe the wisp of a girl standing all alone – hair in her face, shoulders hunched, clothes from the wrong column – was Dizzy. Precocious, chatterbox Dizzy who at home filled up every room at once. He’d watched her for a while, wondering where her friends were, where she was. How could it be that someone like her was standing there all alone and someone like him, ridiculously closed off and fake, was always surrounded by “friends” at school. When she saw Miles, she rushed across the room like a gangly bird unaccustomed to walking. He wanted to pick her up and put her on his shoulders and make her fifteen feet tall. On the walk home, she turned back into her at-home self, prattling on about who knows what, but he’d seen it, her secret daily torment, and it had made his heart sink.
They were almost at the turnoff for Jeremiah Falls, one of his favorite spots. Uncle Clive had shown it to him, said he used to go swimming there with Miles’s dad and mom when they were all in high school. Miles gave the girl directions.
“Why’d you change your mind?” he asked her as the road grew even darker, the air cooler in the shade of the giant redwoods, and the river roared because they were so close to the falls. “Before. Why’d you stop the truck?”
“Had to.” She pressed her lips together. “I saw you in my rearview mirror and you looked – I don’t know. It’s like I had no choice—”
Without thinking, he reached across the seat and touched her cheek. She raised her shoulder to catch his fingers. Again, that same tugging in his chest. He had the strongest urge to write something down but didn’t have the words. He was being crushed by tenderness. He couldn’t believe he was feeling this way about a girl.
Sandro’s eyes were on him, two question marks.
I know, he told him. Don’t know what’s going on.
“There’s this German word,” she said to him. “I have a tattoo of it on my shoulder. Sehnsucht. They say it doesn’t translate well to English but the closest we get is: inconsolable longing.” Their eyes met. Miles swallowed. “That’s what I saw in your face.” She gazed upward at her own reflection in the rearview mirror. “Me too.”
Sandro? Are we dreaming?
I don’t dream in human language. In my dreams, you bark.
Really? You’ve never told me that before.
You never asked.
When they pulled into the turnout to park for the falls, he realized he was better. No, that was an understatement. He felt transformed, like light was seeping into him instead of out of him. This must be happy, he thought.
After they parked, she started filling a backpack with books. Like a dozen of them. “Who knows what we’ll feel like reading,” she said, continuing to sort through the books, adding one or two more to the pack, tossing others aside, making it very clear why there were so many books in this cab. “At the risk of sounding weird, I’m pretty sure my spirit or soul or whatever is a pile of words. Sometimes I don’t even read in order, just read some from one book, some from another, whatever, all night long. Like all – and I mean all of everything – is just one really long story.”
He wanted to yell out, Me too!
All around them the forest leaves glinted like tiny mirrors in the sun.
Their eyes held. For centuries this time. Something that had been long balled up, left for dead even, his spirit, began to rise inside him. His body was vibrating. What was going on? How could it suddenly feel so easy to be human? Why had he confessed so much to her? Was he falling in love? Was she real? Just an hour ago he’d stood in misery and spite with Wynton’s broken bow dangling in his hand. A perpetual resident of The Gloom Room. Mourning a months-old kiss with a stranger. Now he was his own horizon. “What’s happening?” he asked her.
Her smile was slow, beautiful. “We are.”
He was for sure dreaming – only possibility. “Who was together?” he asked, pointing to the tattoo on her forearm: We were together, I forget the rest.
“Everyone!” she said joyfully. “That’s life!”
Yes. He felt it too in this moment, part of, not apart from. But why? How? What was going on?
Minutes later they’d walked the short path through the old oaks and arrived at Jeremiah Falls. Water cascaded down the mountainside. “Gorgeous!” she said, and raised her arms in the air.
Miles was thinking the same thing looking at her.
Oh brother, said Sandro.
C’mon. You can’t take your eyes off her either.
I know. I almost feel like I’m betraying my long-lost Beauty.
She kicked off her sandals, pointed to a word on her ankle. “Nemophilist,” she said to Miles. “One who loves forests, trees in number. A haunter of woods. From the ancient Greek. Kickass word, right?”
“Right,” Miles said, thinking he might die of happiness from learning this word.
She bent down and picked up a large black-and-orange caterpillar. “Soon to be a crescent butterfly.” She glanced at Miles. “You like bugs?”
“Indifferent,” he said, not wanting to admit he hated all manner of creepy-crawlies. He did not see their souls, nor did he ever want to. Spotting a spider made his head swim and stomach turn liquid. Seeing two required immediate evacuation.
She put the caterpillar back down on the rock where she found it. “I’m going in.” Without any self-consciousness, she slipped her T-shirt over her head, then half hopped to pull off her daisy jeans, until she was in a blue lace bra and tight green underwear. She was amazing head to toe. He watched her walk to the edge of the massive blue pool, thinking she looked like Venus in the Botticelli print on the wall in the bathroom at The Blue Spoonful, thinking also that he wasn’t feeling it, not in that way, not at all, nothing, rien du tout, rien de rien. And if he ever was going to feel it for a girl, it would be now, here, with her.
Sandro was at Miles’s feet, wagging his tail. Case closed then, the dog said after a moment.
Miles nodded. Yeah, I like her so much, just not like that, I guess.
Then, right inside his head, he heard her unmistakable husky voice, heard it loud and clear: You know I can hear you numbskulls talking, right?
Sandro and Miles stared at each other speechless with WTAF, then looked at her in shock. She smiled at them, winked, then pivoted around and dove into the water.
Miles
Minutes after Miles and Sandro were dropped off, the morning with the girl began slipping away, just like dreams do the moment feet touch the floor.
You heard when she called us numbskulls, right? Miles again asked Sandro.
Sure did.
Miles hadn’t questioned her about it. What would he have said? “So, this dog here and I communicate telepathically, and we could’ve sworn you just jumped onto our channel – did you?” Ah, no. And it was only that once. The rest of the time, they’d swum in the pool, floated on their backs, and read her books in the shade. He’d read about the California gold rush, how San Francisco was ninety-five percent men back then, which sounded to him like paradise.
Sandro was circling Miles, wagging and panting and raving: I feel so much better! I have a new lease on life. I’m going to rid myself of old patterns. I’m going to join a support group. No, no support group. I’m going to become a bon vivant! I’m going to try new things: Camembert cheese and rock climbing and polyamory and … I’ll set out to find Beauty!
Miles zoned Sandro out. It was only after he closed the truck door behind them that he realized he’d asked her nothing. Not one thing. Not her name. Or age. Or where she lived. Or what she was doing in Paradise Springs. He’d told her everything, more than he’d ever shared with anyone in his life, and she hadn’t revealed a thing. The opposite of every previous encounter in his life. Maybe she’d hypnotized him? Or put a spell on him?
Miles studied Sandro, suicidal just hours ago, now frolicking at Miles’s feet, blathering gleefully about Camembert cheese and finding the love of his life, Beauty. And what was up with the flower scent? And that voice that didn’t seem to belong to her? And all those books? And who on this earth was so radiant?
