Barging out through the doors, I looked around frantically. Everything gray. Wasn't his car gray even? Or blue? Or something in between? I had no idea where he lived I realized. No idea where he usually parked, in which direction to search. Catching my breath I rested my hands on my knees for a couple of seconds, tried to think logically. If he lived real close to me, he would've said something, right?
I started jogging down the north side of the parking lot, and turned the corner to the east side. More rows of parking space, some of them still occupied, but not many. All non-descript colors. And no read hair around. Great. Just fucking great. I slowed down, deciding to walk around the school to get back to the west side, even though I knew it was hopeless. I'd messed up as usual. Matthew O'Neill. Messing up and disappointing people since 1988.
A movement to my left caught my eye. No red hair, but a navy hood ducking down behind a shiny car roof a couple of rows away. Maybe it wasn't hopeless. Maybe for once I hadn't messed up. Or yeah, I totally had, but I maybe I would get a second chance to fix it. I walked cautiously towards where I'd seen the person disappearing. And I got my second chance, because it was indeed Allen standing there, by his frustratingly non-descript car. He was supporting his bag on his knee muttering to himself, no doubt searching for his keys. What the look on his face as saw me meant I wasn't sure. And I really didn't have time to analyze it.
Desperate times, desperate measures. So I smiled at him. My widest, most luminous smile. The kind you have to laugh a little it's so big. My mom could keep her ideas of my stubborn jaw and all that, I knew it really was my smile that made me get what I wanted. That made people cave in. And Allen, like 97% of all the people I had met, didn't appear to be immune to it, instantaneously smiling like an idiot himself. Or maybe it was him having finally found his keys.
"Ok, so you're right. I'm a mess. But it's not like you didn't know that," I started off defensively, but Allen wouldn't have it.
"I didn't say that," he heatedly interjected. "And I don't know that, I don't know you. I would like to though."
The way he said it so frankly, looked at me so sincerely. It felt so totally out of place. Like something from that faraway time in your life when you actually asked people if they wanted to be your friend and told them they had the coolest bike and that your favourite ice cream was strawberry. Like so junior high. But it was also something strangely endearing about it. And I felt that wide smile on my face again, found myself being the one caving in. There weren't many people that wanted to get to know me nowadays. There honestly hadn't been that many in junior high either.
"Yeah, ok," I answered, somewhat bewildered. Wasn't I supposed to apologize?
"Are you doing anything right now?" Allen asked back to his usual soft way of speaking, like there had never been a problem to begin with. "Because I thought maybe it would be good if we were halfway done you know, since it's one week left..."
"Uhm..." I glanced at the brick building behind me. Now when I left I didn't really feel much like going back inside.
"Yeah, I know." Allen nodded like he could read my mind. "We could go to my house, but I've still got a lot to unpack, just been so buzy you know. Maybe tomorrow-"
"We could go to my place," I surprised myself by saying. "Like for an hour," I added hastily, trying to put a time limit to the whole thing. Maybe it was this that made everything with Allen so weird. This push-and-pull all the fucking time. I didn't want to talk to him, I called after him. I wanted to get rid of him, I ended up working with him. I hated him, then I invited him to my place. Whatever I did, however I acted, it just left me feeling all conflicted. Like there was something about him I just couldn't handle. But for Allen as usual, nothing was ever weird.
"Ok, perfect!" He just said and smiled easily.
And so for the second time in two days I was in the car with Allen again. I decided to make myself at home, and opened the glove compartment, flipping through the CD's I found. He told me to choose anything I wanted but fuck, did he listen to strange music or what? Not much that rang a bell. Maybe it was all Christian. There was Radiohead though, thankfully.
I had feared the silence would descend upon us after everything but no worries on that account. Allen had stopped babbling like he had been doing those first times, but he still was somewhat of a talker. Not in a bad way though, I had to admit.
"I met your friend again today, Trisha," he said, glancing at me as I tried to figure out where to inject the CD, where to press play. "She invited me to some photo club. Do you know it? Is it nice?" Ha. I knew it. I knew she would.
"Don't know. There are some people from her art class, some from the paper. They talk a lot about noise, but I never understood what they mean by that, I mean first they say that a picture is full of stillness, then there's a problem with the noise..." I drifted off and Allen laughed a little.
"Noise can be like when the picture is grainy, you know, like if you have to use a more sensitive film because it's darker outside, you get the picture, but it doesn't come out as sharp."
"Uhm, ok," I nodded, finally finding the right button. I had still no clue what he was talking about.
"You think I should join?" he asked. All these questions that just kept on coming. It really was like he wanted to know my opinion on everything.
"Sure. I mean, you obviously know what they're talking about so," I replied almost encouragingly, just to remember that I had wanted to keep him away from Trish. Well, whatever. It was apparently way too late for that anyways.
There was no one else at home still when I unlocked the front door and let Allen in. Our small white house had been my paternal grandparents to begin with. I had lived my first years in a flat in the center of Oakland. Though I had spent time up in the valley with my grandparents already as a baby, my mom working late shifts as a waitress, my dad working late shifts in his own way.
When Julie had been born my grandparents traded. The house for the flat. Nicest thing they ever did, but then my dad was on only child and we were their only grandkids. But I didn't see much of them nowadays, even though they only lived a couple of minutes from my school. But Julie still had dinner with them from time to time, having spent a lot of time there during my parents' break-up.
It wasn't very big or fancy or anything. A hallway, leading to a small kitchen and a living space. My mom's bedroom and a guest room downstairs, mine and Julie's room upstairs, and two bathrooms we all more or less grudgingly shared. Enough space for three. And Timothy on a semi-regular basis.
I removed my jacket watching Allen in the corner of my eye as he did the same. He also somewhat oddly kicked off his shoes, before surveying the things that decorated the hallway walls. Museum posters, tiny tiny paintings, dream catchers, family and friend portraits and postcards from when my mom and dad backpacked through Europe the summer before they had me. They had even gone to St. Petersburg, but that my mom hadn't told my granddad that until they had gotten home of course. He would have feared her not being able to get back much like he once almost hadn't gotten out in the first place.
"Are your parents artists, or?" Allen asked, studying one of the miniature landscapes.
."Uhm, not really." I shrugged, waiting awkwardly behind him. "Are you done yet?"
"Yeah, sorry, there was just so much to look at. And I love old photographs, you know. These are cool. Is that your mom?" he pointed to the two of the portraits.
"Yeah, my mom and her sister," I confirmed, leaning forward and tapping the glass. My mum and aunt Ellie as teens in the early 80's, with all the hairspray that came with the decade. Actually, aunt Ellie's hair still looked like that.
We finally made our way up the narrow stairs, passed the upstairs hallway with the ancient computer sitting on its desk. 'Don't touch my stuff' I begged inwardly, as we reached my room, but this time Allen didn't read my mind. The moment he got inside he instantly picked up the paperback lying on the tiny table by my bed.
"Murakami, Norwegian wood," he read slowly, "Is it any good?" I quickly snatched it from him and put it back.
"Yes it's good," I said lightly, to take the edge of it, but Allen still looked a bit startled and turned away to look at my stacked bookcase. "I wish I read more, not just what handed to you in class, you know? But it's like if I know I don't have to finish it, I lose focus so easily. You read a lot?"
"Yeah, to like clear the head..." I said absent-mindedly, trying to figure the seating arrangement. Allen nodded thoughtfully, looking back at the books, turning his head to read the titles, and I went to get one of the foldable chairs leaned against the wall in the hallway.
We ended up sitting close to each other by my small desk. So close I was like distracted by the freckles on his cheekbones, his eyelashes transparently light and dark at once. And he was so loud. Not loud as in noisy, but there was so much going on, not even counting the writing and paging through books and talking. He smiled and gestured and smiled again and tossed his hair out of his forehead and there was that dimple. All the while looking at me so intently, listening so attentively at the few things I had to say. In a way I felt exhausted. But exhausted was a lot better than awkward. And way better than annoyed.
"Is that ok with you then?" he asked, and to my surprise I actually knew what he was talking about.
"Yeah, sure," I nodded, agreeing to put together some data sheets or whatever, and write the beginning of the presentation. Ugh. I hated talking in front of people about stuff I didn't really know shit about. I bit down hard on the piercing in my lip only thinking about it. Amazing I hadn't cracked a tooth on it yet. Allen looked at me curiously. "How many do you have?"
How many what? Books? CD's? I must have looked like an a live and breathing question mark and Allen awkwardly gestured to my ear. Ah.
"One, two, ten," I answered, self-consciously pointing to my lip and my ears in turn, tucking my hair behind my left ear to reveal all the tiny silver rings.
"Doesn't it hurt very bad though?" He asked, looking more than a little fascinated at my piercings.
I made a noncommittal sound. I wouldn't admit that to just anyone. Allen smiled. "It does, right?"
"Yeah, it hurt like crazy," I admitted, not much persuasion needed, apparently. "The first ones," I pointed to the two lowest in the left, "I had done about a week after Adam had his done. It hurt so bad I remember when she did the first one I thought I'd die, and when she did the other, well..." I shook my head making a face at the memory, "Then I wanted to die." It had been a friend of Adam's sister conducting the procedure.
"Was it really that bad?" Allen laughed.
"No. It was actually much worse. I just got out on the street and then I fainted. I was lucky Adam caught me so I didn't get a concussion on top of it." What I did get was hell (and aspirin) from my mom.
Allen grinned. "It's not funny," I said darkly, failing to keep a straight face myself.
"No, no, of course not." he said, unable to stop himself from smiling. "So, but that didn't stop you from getting like eight more?"
I shrugged. We both had the same number, me and Adam, except he had his eyebrow pierced, instead of the lip. We'd flipped a coin for that one. And the truth was I had sort of liked the pain. It had kept my mind of other things, other pains. But I wasn't up to telling Allen that.
"No. I've learned to sleep on my right side," I stated nonchalantly instead, trying to regain some of my dignity. Not sure it was working. Allen still grinning didn't seem too convinced, but whatever.
"Sam...um, Samuel, my brother, tried to pierce his ear once, with an ordinary needle, you know?"
I nodded. "He screamed blue murder and it was blood everywhere. Mom wasn't too happy about it."
"My mom wasn't too happy about this either." I reached up and fidgeted with the top ring trough the cartilage which had taken almost until now to heal.
"So, you have a brother?" I inquired. I had barely heard him mention his parents, and I hadn't heard anything about any siblings. Up until now.
"Yes. Two actually, but they're a lot older than me, so," he shrugged dismissingly. "You have a sister, right?"
"Yeah, Julie. She's a lot younger than me."
"Must be nice to have a little sister," Allen replied, probably with some ideal wide-eyed and chirpy dress-and-ribbon-in-hair wearing ten year old in mind, and I just nodded with my hair falling over my face, not wanting to spoil his idea of siblinghood. Allen looked at me for a second with his eyes of infinite blueness before looking down at his watch.
"Well, I should get going, my parents are actually home tonight," he said promptly, and got up from the foldable chair. Putting his bag there instead, he started to pack his papers. There was something with how he said 'actually' that made me ask.
"They're away a lot?"
"Yeah," he said lightly, but for a second there was a shadow of sadness falling over his usually sunbright face. A shadow I could guess the reason for, but really couldn't relate to. Our house always seemed to be swarming with people, the giggling friends of my sister's, my mom's colleagues, the occasional stray high school dropout working on some project with her or Tim, my friends. I could be alone if I wanted to and kinda often I did want to, but I was never lonely.
"What is it that they do exactly? Your parents?" Maybe I could get some clarity if I asked him instead of relying on Lisa. On Kat's retold rumors. Somehow I had a feeling they might both be biased.
"Um...my mom works with fundraising, you know, kind of like charity, and my dad's a software engineer, but now he's a manager so he's like mostly in meetings." Allen shrugged, looking generally bored with the question, and why shouldn't he have been? He'd probably answered it a million times already.
"Oh, yeah I almost forgot, I brought this for you," he pulled out a couple of CD's from his bag, and handed them to me. 'Takk' and 'Music for 18 musicians' the covers read. "It's the band you listened to," he explained. "And another I thought maybe you'd like, it's kind of classical music, but experimental or minimal, I don't know what you call it, anyways it's nice though, it's like what I listen to if I want to clear the head." He was smiling easily now, no trace of the shadow from before.
"Thanks," I nodded, turning to the CD's in my hand, flipping them over, pretending to inspect the song listing. He had thought of me. I imagined him in his unpacked room, picking up some CD's from one of the boxes surrounding him, thinking of what I might like. I smiled at him, feeling so strangely endeared again. "Really thanks."
"No problem," Allen shrugged bemused, and packed the last book into his bag. Bemused like it was a too big of a reaction for such a small thing. But it wasn't such a small thing to me.
I heard my mom clattering in the kitchen as we walked downstairs. It was always tricky. I had a good relationship with my mom, probably better than most from what I heard. That's what happens when you go to hell and back with each other. But still. You're one person with your friends and another with your family. To some extent at least.
My mom of course quickly appeared in the kitchen doorway, wearing her usual creased linen shirt and worn out jeans. Her long hair in a huge bun on top of her head, her lips quirked into a smile.
"Who's your new friend?"
"This is Allen." I tossed my head lazily in his direction, but Allen had apparently been more attentive when his parents raised him. He smiled and stretched out his hand. "Allen Thomas, very nice to meet you Mrs O'Neill."
She looked a bit perplexed, but took his hand, amused. "Well, very nice to meet you Allen Thomas. Mischa's father and I were never married, and I have a surname no one can pronounce, so you should just call me Katya, like everybody else."
Now it was Allen's turn to look perplexed, even if he did his best to hide it. "Of course."
Mum looked from me to Allen to me again, still with that glint of amusement in her eye. "Where did you find this one?" It was a joke we shared, what I used to say about the random people that sometimes showed up at our dinner table. But Allen didn't know that so, totally embarrassing.
"We're doing a government project together."
"Sounds boring," she said airily. "I told you to take modern history instead. So, Allen Thomas, you know what I think about when I hear your name?" He shook his head. "The beat generation. You like poetry?"
I tried not to roll my eyes. This was so typical of my mom. She never asked people normal questions like, where they lived or what their parents did. No, she had to ask people things like their view on current issues like national healthcare or whether they preferred summer or winter or if that necklace meant they believed in crystal healing.
Allen continued to do a great job of not visibly perplexing, even though my mom had just associated him with a bunch of like constantly high poetry slamming hipsters. "Yeah, sure," he said tentatively, "But maybe I don't know, Whitman or Keats..."
"I thought you said you don't read?" I slyly remarked.
"Books, no, poetry, yes. It's like short enough for my attention span," Allen swiftly retorted. My mom laughed at that, and repeated a 'Nice to meet you' before heading back into kitchen. Allen smiled relieved, like he'd passed a test or something.
I silently watched him putting on his jacket and his shoes. He started going on about something that had to deal with the data sheets, blah blah, but I didn't care to listen, too concerned with doubts and what if's. Maybe I had done a little too much talking earlier. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything about the whole piercing my ears business. No I really shouldn't have. "Hey, Allen?"
He looked up from his shoe-lace tying. "Yeah?"
I fidgeted a little, all self-conscious again. "I usually don't tell people I fainted, you know?"
Allen smiled wryly. "I won't tell anyone," he said, and actually fucking winked at me, because he was just that old school.
"He looked familiar," my mom said later, as we were making dinner. Chili sin carne with rice. I'd been given the task of chopping tomatoes. Not my forte.
"Allen? Well, he's new so dunno," I answered, as the knife slipped yet another time. She nodded, pouring beans into the pot.
"Maybe it's nothing. Are you done with those tomatoes yet?"
I attacked the last slimy slice. "Just a second."
For once, it was just the two of us sitting down at our rustic dinner table that was slightly too big for our small kitchen. Julie was having dinner at her best friend Stacie/Casie/Macie or whatever her name was, and Tim was probably out saving youths from the gutter like Glenville's very own bearded Mother Teresa. I loaded food onto my plate knowing what to expect since it was Monday. My mom finding school projects boring and reading beat poetry didn't make her any less of a mom, didn't make her incapable of the stern mom look. And sure thing.
"So will this week be the week when I don't have to receive one of those automatic messages telling me you've been missing?"
"There's always hope," I responded carefully, while carefully not looking at her.
"Mischa," my mom sighed, looking seriously at with me from across the table. "Receiving those messages makes me feel very inadequate." Great. She had to go make it about her of course, making me feel all guilty.
"I'll try harder," I mumbled, pushing some beans around the plate. "But sometimes I just need to get out, you know that."
"I know hon, but don't use it as an excuse," she said gently and I nodded numbly still looking down on my plate, waiting for her to start talking about some more pleasant subject after scolding me. An equally sure thing.
"How's it going with this girl your dating then?" She asked in a more cheery tone. "Why don't you invite her over so I can meet her properly?"
"We're fine. And I will," I said shortly.
I rarely talked about relations and love and stuff with my mom. We were close, but there was a limit. I hadn't even told her that me and Lisa were officially an item now. If we still were after this morning. A pang of guilt. With everything going on with Allen, I had kinda forgotten I had a girlfriend that was in need of some apologies as well. My mom nodded and looked like she was about to prod a bit more, but the all of a sudden her face lit up and she basically flew to the woven basket where we kept the newspapers. "What did I miss?"
She just waved dismissively and noisily paged trough the latest issue of the local newspaper (we subscribed to three different newspapers, poor forests) I waited impatiently. She suddenly stopped and folded the newspaper assertively.
"Allen's mother's name isn't Dorothea Thomas by any chance?" She sat down by the table again, studying the folded paper in her hands.
"Don't know. Could be, his last name's Thomas anyway." But then Thomas was surely a more usual surname than my own.
"They have to be related." My mom tossed me the paper. 'MRL Statewide Convention passes new resolution' the headline read. Underneath a picture of a light-haired woman and three older men I didn't bother with paying attention to.
Her hair was neatly pinned back and as straight as Allen's was curly, and I couldn't tell the color of her eyes. But they had the same narrow nose, and even though her mouth was fuller and more determined than Allen's it was the same shape, and I was pretty sure that she too got that fucking dimple when she smiled. If she ever did, she didn't look the type.
I skimmed through the short article, about how some pro-life organisations were passing resolutions and gaining momentum or whatever, blah blah, not interesting. Allen's presumptive mom only mentioned as a spokeswoman for 'The Light Within' and a speaker at the convention in the caption.
"Can I get a verdict?" My mother asked, so damned pleased with herself, her eyes shining with satisfaction. "It's his mother right?"
"Think so." Also the name of the organisation rang a bell. Hadn't Lisa mentioned it?
"I knew it!" my mom exclaimed. "As soon as I saw him I thought to myself 'I've seen that face before.'"
"They're not that alike, seriously"
"Even better of me then. And it wasn't just the face, it was the whole..." she waved her hands, trying to come up with a fitting word. "Apparition, impression, everything. And he was so polite," she gave me another stern mom look and I pretended not notice, glancing back at the newspaper. "He said his mother worked with charity."
My mom snorted. "If you call it charity when you support people as long as they preach your gospel. I call it bribing, but what do I know?" Her fork and knife clattered loudly against the plate, and she rose and started to clear the table. I chose not to answer and folded the newspaper carefully (front page first) before throwing it back into the basket.
"Shame on the kid though," she said, casually balancing three plates and a bowl between fingertips and elbow on the way to the counter. The waitress skills had never really abandoned her. "He seemed alright." Her voice almost drenched by the sound of running water as she turned on the tap.
"He is," I said, raising my voice, and the moment I said it I knew it was true. "Maybe he's not as into saving all the little lights within as his mom."
My mom snorted. "Let's hope not. There are enough teenagers with opinions from the 19th century out there."
I thought about Dorothea Thomas' determined face, so different to Allen's wide open one. The boarding school mentioned, him laughing with Will and Ethan at the Bradford table. The flash of sadness on his face earlier, him sitting alone in the library. I've hardly been alone for a second. I pondered on it all for a while, but it didn't really add up to anything. And I had another more pressing matter to deal with.
I spent the rest of the night lying on my bed, trying to conjure up an answer/apology for Lisa.
'Sorry that you thought' I typed and erased.
'Sorry that I didn't' I typed and erased again.
'I'm really really sorry I didn't' I typed and paused, flinging my arm over my face, ready to throw my fucking phone out of the window. But no. I could do this. I would do this. I was not going to be a lousy boyfriend. Or risk not even being a boyfriend at all.