Kick by CD Reiss Page B

touched. I wasn’t afraid of being cut off from my siblings, because we were strung together with strong twine.
    I was afraid of Dad.
    Dad had a way of making things happen. He had a way of using his relationships and his money to create chaos or order, as he saw fit.
    But Mom was in distress, and how much worse could it all get? I was already up a creek; what would be the difference if I threw my paddle in the rushing billows of shit?
    “You should talk to Carrie,” I said, instantly regretting it, yet feeling the release of something I hadn’t realized I was holding so close.
    “It was Carrie?” she squeaked.
    “Talk to her.”
    She wiped her eyes, but her tears barely abated. “God damn that big house.” She folded and refolded the tissue. “God damn the corners. You can’t see what’s happening. You can’t hear. We avoid each other. Did you see how that happened? How we went to the far corners?”
    “There were eight kids, Mom. You needed a big house. What were you supposed to do?”
    “Pay attention. I was supposed to pay attention!”
    Mom looked up and behind me. I followed her gaze.
    Margie stood in the doorway. “What’s going on?”
    “Nothing,” I said. “Mom thinks I’m a disappointment and a failure.” I may have been ready to break pledge, but I wasn’t ready to get busted for it. “Let’s get this done. You’re buying me dinner at Roberto’s. I’m hungry, and I need a drink.”
    “You’re too young to need a drink,” Margie said, getting out of the way of the exit.
    “Well, I need something.”
    “How about a job?” she replied, putting her arm around Mom.
    I stuck my tongue out at her.

sixteen.
    W e waited.
    On the hard, squared-off modern couch in the common room, we waited. I imagined Elliot typing, his middle finger rubbing his upper lip. I waited for Mom to come back from the parking lot and throttle me into saying what I knew, which was nothing. I swear, I knew nothing except that Carrie had talked to Deirdre and Sheila about something in pledge. That was it. Nothing I could build a case on.
    I shook a little. I was getting out. The press was out to skewer me and possibly my brother. My little coterie of fuckbuddies and hangers-on were going to steer clear of me and the media attention I dragged behind me. My relationship with Deacon was in a sick holding pattern. Amanda was still dead. I’d broken, or at least fractured, a lifelong bond of trust between me and my sisters and brother.
    A little community service would go a long way to distracting me.
    Bored, yet jumpy and upset, I went into the cafeteria. Dinner was starting. The staff placed trays of deluxe meals into the steam trays. I’d never see them again, those chattering people in hair nets, and I hadn’t even gotten to know their names. I said good-bye in my mind to the cafeteria, the patio, the holes in the camera matrix. I said so long to the grey painted over everything, the flat lighting, the sterile corners. Karen came in, all unkind angles and protruding bones. I excused myself from Margie, who waved me off, and stood next to Karen as she plopped her journal on the tray.
    “Hey,” I said. “I’m getting my recommendation in, like, twenty minutes, then I’m outtie.”
    “It was good to see you again,” she said flatly.
    “You should call me when you get home. I mean it.”
    “I don’t think I can do an Ojai again.” She poked through a basket of perfect yellow bananas as if unable to choose one, though they all looked the same to me.
    “Yeah, me neither.” I said it, but did I mean it?
    Deacon had kept me away from the life for months, but I didn’t know where he and I stood. He might be out of my world forever, and if that was the case, then what did I have left but more of what had gone before? I found I wasn’t looking forward to anything. I was terrified of speaking to Deacon, of being in my big empty condo. I didn’t care to see Earl or Charlie. Didn’t want to delve into what had