Bad Apple

  I go outside and call for Pib. It’s a cold day, colder than normal for this time of year, and I have to shove my hands in the pockets of my jeans to keep them warm. The brown leaves from Pib’s favorite tree crackle under my feet. The trees shake their naked arms at me. Sometimes Pib doesn’t show right away; sometimes he has other things to do. I shout his name and stamp my feet to keep the blood flowing. My father would have joked that Pib, named after Puss in Boots, was off fetching rabbits on behalf of his real master, the Marquis de Carabas. I would have said that Pib was always his own master. He’s definitely his own master today, because he won’t come even after I’ve spent ten minutes shouting his name.

  I give up and go inside for snacks. I eat a grilled cheese, four cookies, and a couple of pickles. Then I take a stack of crackers and slather each one with a thick layer of butter. I arrange the crackers on a plate—presentation is important—and am about to bring it to my room when the doorbell rings. I freeze where I stand. The calls from reporters are down to a trickle since my mom changed the numbers. And only a few have been dumb or assholic enough to come to the door. I leave the crackers in the kitchen and yell down the stairs.

  “Madge! Get the door!”

  “No!” she says.

  “But I’m not allowed to answer it!”

  “So don’t!”

  “But shouldn’t we find out who it is?”

  “Who cares?”

  I tiptoe to the door, which is stupid, because whoever it is probably heard the shrieking. I put my eye to the peephole, but all I can see is a white blur. A plaintive meow pierces my ears. I yank open the door.

  “Pib?” I say.

  Pib’s climbed the iron lattice on the outside of the screen door and is splayed eye-level. He yowls again.

  A voice behind him says, “I think he’s stuck.”

  Carefully, I open the screen door just enough to slip outside. Seven Chillman stands there, fattened by a puffy blue coat. “I didn’t want to touch him,” he says. “I was afraid I’d hurt him if I tried to pull him off.”

  I don’t answer. I pluck Pib from the lattice. He meows but lets me hold him. He’s soaking wet.

  “Where did you find him?” I say.

  “In my yard. I live a few blocks up the hill that way.” He points in the direction of the backyard. “Your cat was fishing for koi.”

  “For what?”

  “Big goldfish. We have a pond.”

  It was then that I noticed Seven was soaking wet, too, his coat drip-drip-dripping on the concrete.

  “You’re all wet.”

  “Yeah. Well. Your cat really didn’t want to be caught.”

  Pib growls in agreement.

  “How did you know where I live?”

  “I’m psychic.”

  “What?”

  “He’s wearing a tag,” Seven says. “Where’d you get the name Pib from?”

  “Puss in Boots,” I say.

  “I remember that story. There’s a princess.”

  “There’s always a princess.”

  “And a prince.”

  “There’s always a prince. There are more princes than princesses.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mr. Rosentople raking leaves in his front yard, close to our driveway. I’m glad it’s getting dark. You don’t want to spend precious minutes trying not to stare at the thick fringe of curls that spring out of the collar of his sweater.

  Also, who rakes leaves in the dark?

  “Hi, Tola!” Mr. Rosentople says cheerfully. “Keeping an eye on that cat, I see.”

  “Just like I said.”

  “My wife thanks you. My flower beds thank you.” Mr. Rosentople eyes Seven curiously. Seven salutes.

  “How’s your mom?” Mr. Rosentople says.

  “Fine,” I say.

  “Tell her I said hello.”

  “We’ve got to get inside now, Mr. Rosentople. My friend is freezing.”

  “Oh, okay.”

  I pull Seven inside the house and slam the door shut.

  “I guess we don’t like that guy,” Seven says.

  I don’t answer. Pib leaps from my arms to the floor. He shakes each of his paws delicately, like a woman drying her nail polish.

  “That’s funny,” Seven says. “That’s what my mom does when she’s trying to dry her nail polish.”

  I stare at him. I feel a completely crazy urge to touch him. His hair. His cheek. His hand. Of course, I’ve felt this way before. Nothing good ever comes of it.

  “What’s going on?” Madge says, padding into the hallway. “Why is there a wet guy in our house?”

  “Hello,” says Seven.

  Madge squints. “I know you. You’re Chilly’s little brother, aren’t you? From Willow Park High School?”

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “Your brother’s kind of an ass.”

  He laughs. “Sometimes.”

  “Are you an ass?”

  “Sometimes, I guess. But I try not to be.”

  She nods. “I suppose that’s something. You should give Tola your clothes.”

  We both gape at her.

  “To put in the dryer, pervs. Get him some of Dad’s old stuff to wear. It’s in the back of Mom’s closet.”

  “Right,” I say.

  “Pervs,” she says.

  “That’s okay,” Seven says. “I can wash my clothes at home.”

  “At least give her the coat. She can dry that. We don’t need you getting pneumonia and suing us. We have enough problems as it is, in case you haven’t heard.”

  “I’ve heard. There was a reporter parked across the street. He asked me if I knew you.”

  “What did you say?”

  “I said, Ego operor non narro English.”

  “What language is that?”

  “Latin. My mom made me take it.”

  “Useful,” says Madge.

  Seven shrugs out of the coat. “She said it would help me with my SATs.”

  “Did it?”

  “No. I failed Latin. And I’m not taking the SATs.” He hands the coat to me. Turns out it’s only half wet. One arm of the coat and part of the front.

  “I had to lie down at the edge of the pond to reach in,” he explains to Madge. “The cat went after one of my fish. Then the fish went after the cat.”

  “It’s a fish-eat-cat world, that’s what I always say,” chirps Madge. To me, she says, “Mom gets home soon. If she catches your friend here, you’ll both be at the bottom of the pond.” She turns back to Seven. “Nice meeting you.” She snatches the coat from my hands. A few seconds later, I hear the whir of the dryer.

  “Well,” Seven says. “She’s…”

  “Psychotic?”

  “I was going to say interesting.”

  “You have an interesting definition of interesting.”

  “I do, actually.”

  From the other room, Madge bellows, “Pervs!”

  “Are you thirsty? I could get you something to drink.”

  “Okay,” he says.

  Seven follows me to the kitchen. Pib follows Seven. Before I do anything else, I grab a dish towel and dry Pib off. He retreats under the table to groom in private.

  “What do you want? Coke? Water? Milk?”

  “Do you have any coffee?”

  “Uh…”

  “I see a coffeepot on the counter.”

  Great. I don’t know how to make coffee.

  “It’s okay. I know how to make it,” he says.

  It’s my mom’s coffeepot. She doesn’t like anyone using it. “Sure,” I say. I get the coffee from the cabinet and slide it over to him.

  “Do you have filters?”

  “Yeah. I think.” I dig around in the cabinets until I find a filter, and I hand it over. I watch as he fills the pot with water and then measures out the grounds. Soon, the kitchen smells like the color brown. I don’t like coffee, but I love the color brown. It is warm and chocolaty and…

>   “So,” he says.

  “So.”

  “It smells like brown in here, doesn’t it?”

  I can barely speak. “Yes.”

  He points to his own face, at his brown skin. “Makes sense.”

  “I guess it does,” I say.

  “But then again, you’re brown, too, in the blood, anyway.”

  “I am?”

  “If you go back far enough, everyone is African.”

  “They are?”

  “Yes. The skeletons of the first humans were discovered in Africa. We’re all descendants.”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “I saw it on one of those nature programs.”

  I laugh. “You sound like my grandpa.”

  “He’s African American?”

  “Well, yeah, if you go back far enough,” I say, smiling. “But I meant to say that he likes ‘nature programs.’”

  The coffeepot stops percolating. I pour the coffee into a mug and put it on the table with milk and sugar. As I set the mug in front of him, I smell something underneath the coffee. Something thick and sweet.

  “Why do you smell like vanilla?”

  “I like to rub Twinkies under my arms.”

  “Isn’t that sticky?”

  “A little. I’m going to try fudge next.”

  “That could work.”

  “Are you going to tell me about Mr. Mymer?”

  My stomach squeezes in on itself. “Are you asking for that reporter out there? Did he pay you? Are you trying to be famous or something? Start your own blog?”

  “No.”

  “So then why are you asking?”

  “I want to know.”

  “Why?”

  “Because.”

  “Because why?”

  He wraps his hands around the mug. “I want to put you in my pocket.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Pib slinks out from under the table and winds himself around Seven’s legs. I feel dizzy. My heart has little wings on it, and they’re flap-flap-flapping away.

  He clears his throat. “Do you want to go to a movie or something?”

  The wings stop flapping. “I can’t. I’m sort of under house arrest.”

  “Till when?”

  “Till pigs fly and hell freezes over.”

  “Soon, then.”

  “Any minute.”

  He drinks about a quarter of the coffee, and then fills the mug to the brim with milk. One spoonful of sugar. “I don’t believe any of the stuff they’re saying about you. I never did.”

  “Never? How long is never?”

  “A long time.”

  I want to say, So why are you here now? Why not yesterday, why not months or years ago, when you could have really done some good, when you could have stopped me?

  But Pib takes the opportunity to flop onto his back and show Seven his belly, which Seven dutifully scratches. “Ferocious,” says Seven. He closes one eye and peers up at me with the other. In the dim light, his eye looks as silvery and otherworldly as Pib’s. I wonder if I should paint him with a cat’s diamond-shaped pupil.

  “I won’t mind if you painted me. I think it would be cool.”

  “I…” I trail off, suddenly sapped of the energy to speak. How does he see inside my head? How did he know I want to paint him? But it’s true. The tips of my fingers twitch. They want brushes. They want paint. They want the scratch of bristle on canvas.

  The cat’s blinking, first at me and then at Seven, probably wondering why people just don’t go into heat and get it over with.

  “Tola?”

  It’s my mom. In my trance, I must have missed the sound of the garage door.

  “I heard voices. Is someone here?” Her voice has the shrill edge it gets when something is happening that she does not want to be happening.

  I sigh. “Yeah, Mom. A friend.”

  She appears at the top of the steps, still wearing her coat and carrying her briefcase. “Hello. I’m Tola’s mom.” She does not sound friendly. She is not rolling out the welcome mat.

  “Seven Chillman,” he says. He stands and holds out his hand.

  She can do nothing but shake. “Seven? As in the number Seven?”

  “Right.”

  “That’s…intriguing. Does it stand for something?”

  “Yes,” says Seven, who then smiles politely. My mom frowns.

  “Pib fell in a pond and Seven found him,” I say. “He brought him back here for us.”

  “You’re kidding,” my mom says. “A pond?”

  “In my yard. We have koi.”

  “That cat is crazy.” Mom looks at the coffeepot, at the mug on the table.

  Seven holds up the mug. “Tola made me coffee. There’s some left, if you want it. Unless coffee keeps you up at night.”

  My mom makes several strangled noises, all of which indicate she’s trying to figure out what to say to this.

  “My mom’s always tired when she comes home from work,” Seven says. “Sometimes I make her coffee. I used to, anyway. She can’t drink it anymore. She says she won’t sleep.”

  I recognize this tactic from cop movies and thrillers. People who talk about their families can sometimes convince the bad guys not to kill them.

  Mom unwinds her scarf, takes off her coat. She’s torn. Yes, I am in Protective Custody, I am the Girl Locked in the Tower, but then here’s a guy who’s my age, and clean, and polite, and maybe I’ll end up being normal after all, and I’ll stop having clandestine affairs with people old enough to be my dad. What’s a mom to do?

  She knows what to do: “I appreciate you bringing back our cat, Seven, but now is not the best time for Tola to have company. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Yes. Right,” says Seven. “I should get going, anyway. Do you want the mug in the sink or the dishwasher?”

  My mom looks at him strangely. “The sink is fine.”

  I get his coat out of the dryer and walk him to the door.

  “I’d really like to go to the movies or the art gallery or wherever you arty types go when, you know, hell freezes over,” he says, pulling on the coat.

  “That could be a while.”

  “I can wait.”

  He calls up the stairs: “Nice meeting you, Ms. Riley!”

  There’s a pause because my mother doesn’t like to be caught eavesdropping. Her voice wafts down the stairs. “You, too.”

  I open the door. He turns. As if we really are a prince and princess in a fairy tale, he takes my hand and brings it to his lips. The kiss is warm and soft and longer than it needs to be. He keeps his spectacular eyes on me the whole time he does it. My breath catches in my throat and is trapped there, a solid thing. It’s almost as if he can sense it, that moist knot of breath, because I can feel his smile on my fingers.

  After he’s gone, my mother appears at the top of the stairs again. She’s been working on her entrances and exits. They get more and more seamless, more and more dreamlike. Poof! Instant mom.

  “He seemed like a nice young man,” she says, with an emphasis on the word young.

  My hand tingles where Seven’s lips touched it; I don’t want to talk. I want to lie in my bed and replay that kiss in my head over and over and over again until I stop time.

  She must know this. As she’s always telling us, she was once a teenager, too, even if we can’t imagine it. “I’m making that chicken you like for dinner,” she says, a truce. “The one with the apricot sauce and rice.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Broccoli, too?”

  “Of course.”

  “Good.”

  This is more code, more nontalking talking. The rules: She won’t mention that she believes I’ve had an affair with a teacher. She won’t mention she’s trying to ruin his life forever. I won’t mention that I hate her for it.

  Later, during dinner, a fight breaks out between Madge and
Mom over Madge’s therapist, a fight in which Madge wants to know why I’m not seeing a therapist, too, if Mom’s so convinced I’m a victim of abuse. Madge wants to know if Mom still intends to “out” me at the school-board meeting, and how that would be abuse on top of abuse. Mom says that everyone knows who I am. And that it’s more important that she, Mom, fights for her daughter and everyone else’s daughters. Anyway, Mom says, the fight isn’t “about Tola.” My sister says that every fight is “about Tola.” Mr. Doctor asks if there’s any more apricot sauce for the chicken. Tola, who’s sick of being the subject of so many ongoing/online conversations that seem to have no relationship to what’s actually happened to her, to what’s actually happening, retires to her room with her crazy cat.

  Besides Seven, only three guys have kissed me, and a fourth did something that resembled kissing but shouldn’t even count. The first guy, Raul, I met in day camp when I was twelve. I was almost normal then, way before I pierced my nose and dyed my hair and generally made everyone crazy. Every morning for a week, I stole two cigarettes from my mom, who was trying to quit at the time, and shared them with Raul at the end of the day, after most of the other kids had been picked up. His tongue was weird and gluey, and he tasted like burned toast, so I told him that the cigarettes had made me sick and I had to go to the bathroom to throw up, which I did, twice.

  The second was a guy I met on the boardwalk one night when we were on vacation at the Jersey shore; he never told me his name. I went for a walk on the beach with him, and he picked me up and carried me around as if we were being filmed for a deodorant commercial and then ended up making out on the beach. He reached under my shirt and tried to get into my bra, but I stopped him; now, I’m not sure why. It’s not like I had anything in there, anyway. We made out some more and then went home. The next day, I went to talk to him at the boardwalk game where he worked, the one where you put the little rubber frogs on a stand and pound a lever with a hammer and try to get the frogs to land on lily pads. He looked up and, with not one iota of recognition in his voice, said, “Three frogs for a dollar.”

  The third guy, Billy, was this senior in my high school. I saw him playing football in the street with a couple of his friends and made sure that I intercepted one of the passes. What I mean is that I walked into the middle of the game because I was lost in a daydream and got hit in the head with the ball. We went out for two months, which was an eternity considering that the only reason we were attracted to each other was because he thought it was cool to go out with someone freaky, and I thought it was cool to go out with someone semipopular. It wasn’t long before he started complaining about my hair and my clothes, and I didn’t want to go to parties filled with the young and the witless. We got bored talking to each other on the phone, and he started telling me these involved, incredibly detailed stories about his favorite pastime, hunting. I mean, who hunts in New Jersey? I broke up with him after he gave me a forty-five-minute lecture on the proper way to gut a deer.