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  I ran upstairs while my mother was distracted with cleaning the dishes, and tossed a gray sweater over my shirt, then laced up my combat boots. When I finally made it downstairs, Karen was wiping the kitchen table with a wet washcloth.

  “Where are you going?” she called.

  “On a walk.”

  “It’s getting late.”

  “It’ll clear my head, help me get ideas for the paper.”

  “Fine. You can walk, but be back inside before it gets dark. I read this story about a girl who—”

  I was in the minivan before she finished the sentence.

  Chapter Nine

  THE ELIOTS HAD THE STRANGEST WELCOME mat. It had dog bones bordering the word Welcome, which implied that the family living inside the house had a dog. Except that Snake didn’t have a dog. So clearly, he wasn’t the only member of his family who did things for the heck of it and made decisions that required absolutely no thought or common sense whatsoever. Jeez. His family had to be a real class act (see: band of tasteless jerks).

  I rang the doorbell. One of those fancy doorbells that echoed for ten seconds so that the people outside would think that the people inside needed that long a warning in order to set aside their important lives. Footsteps neared, but they weren’t loud and clunky and awkward. I knew they couldn’t belong to Snake.

  The woman who opened the door was one of Snake’s moms, presumably. She was Latina and petite and gorgeous, the natural gorgeous, not the face-painted-on kind. She’d been working out, so her purple exercise shirt was stained with sweat, and even her sweat was flawless. She smiled a Colgate commercial smile when she saw me.

  “Are you Reggie?” she asked.

  That wasn’t good. She knew me. That meant Snake talked about me. That also meant she knew Snake was a cheating scumbag. Which would have implied that I was the lover of her son the cheating scumbag. Which would lead her to the conclusion that I, myself, was a skanky cheating scumbag. I blamed Snake.

  “Hi,” I said in a really girly way that was super unlike me.

  “Come in,” she replied.

  I stepped into their sterile living room with the therapy couches and swanky magazine tables.

  “Would you like a drink?” she asked.

  “No, thank you. Is Snake here?”

  I knew Snake was there. The Namaste Prius was parked in the driveway. Asking was my attempt at polite. Unlike depression, it wasn’t my best look.

  “He’s upstairs in his room.” She smiled. Perfectly, of course. “He’s told us a lot about you.”

  “All good things, I hope.”

  “Great things. He’s lucky to have you.”

  That infuriated me beyond reason. I rolled my eyes. So much for polite. “He doesn’t have me. He has a girlfriend.”

  “Carla. Yes, we know.”

  She fiddled with the string on her pants and didn’t say much else. I could tell she was a talker, just by the brightness of her smile and her warm welcome. But saying Carla’s name made her visibly uncomfortable. It didn’t make sense, considering parents usually loved Carla, even the pregnant version.

  “You know, Snake called me a hundred times last night. You should really monitor his cell phone usage.”

  She smiled. “We’re sorry if Snake has caused you any trouble. He’s a very sweet kid, and he means well. It’s just that his efforts have a tendency to be a tad misguided sometimes.”

  “Ha,” I huffed. “No kidding.” I knew I shouldn’t have been so abrasive. It wasn’t making the best impression. But if Carla couldn’t get her approval, I didn’t stand a chance. “Permission to speak boldly?”

  She let out a soft laugh. “I think you will no matter what I say. So yes.”

  “I know men aren’t really your specialty, but I think the concept of douchelord isn’t completely foreign to you. And no offense, but your son is acting like the douchiest of douchelords in the kingdom of Doucheshire, and I just need someone besides me and a pregnant girl I’m not even friends with to understand that.”

  Her Colgate smile was back. She was amused. Oh no, not another self-deprecating egomaniac. What was it with this family and their fondness for self-directed abuses?

  “Permission to speak boldly?” she asked. I nodded. “Snake’s never been the best at relationships of any kind. He never tries to get to know people, and he never pursues anyone. Ever. Which tells me that whatever he has or doesn’t have with you matters a lot to him. If he’s bothering you, then let him go. But I would suggest getting to know him better. He’s not just the douchelord of Doucheshire, I promise.”

  In all fairness, she had to say that. It was coded in her DNA to think highly of her own kid. By the same token, though, Snake really wasn’t all that bad in the moments I wasn’t dwelling on his stupidity. It wasn’t like I was a sunny stroll through the unicorn fields myself. It was a tough decision: hate him for his bad qualities or like him for his good ones. Either way, it didn’t look like letting him go would be an option.

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” I said. “Thanks for listening . . .”

  “Jeanine.” She pointed to the staircase. “Snake’s door is the first on the right.”

  I followed the direction of her finger up a wooden staircase. Across the hallway at the top of the steps was a square picture frame nailed to the wall. It was the stereotypical, all-American family pose in white shirts and khakis on the beach. Jeanine sat next to a blond woman with curly hair, both of their hands resting on a prepubescent Snake’s shoulders. I wouldn’t have recognized him if it wasn’t for his dull blue eyes that caught my attention. They weren’t hidden behind shaggy brown hair for once. Instead, he had a spiked cut and no deformed diamond tattoo on his neck. He looked like the biggest dork I’d ever seen. I needed a photocopy immediately.

  “Reggie?” a familiar, raspy voice asked from behind.

  When I turned around, Snake was leaning in his doorway, wearing black sweatpants and a white T-shirt that was ripped on the shoulder.

  “Don’t get all dressed up on my account.”

  “Pardon me.” He grinned his signature, half-bitter, half-unconcerned Snake grin. “If I had known you would respond to one of my texts, I would have tossed on a suit and hired a violinist.”

  I walked toward him. “You gonna invite me in, or do I have to stand out here and think of ways to get my hands on your best attempt at sexy?” I pointed to the picture.

  “I was twelve. I bet when you were twelve you were even more unkempt than you are now.”

  “My inner confidence radiates. I don’t need the add-ons. Not all of us are as insecure as Carla.”

  He fidgeted awkwardly, looking down at his bare feet. “Yeah, about the other night . . .”

  “Don’t worry about it. Pregnant girlfriends can be a real buzzkill. Don’t stress yourself out, babe.” I smiled with victory.

  He made an exaggerated frown. “I lament that expression, but it keeps Carla happy. A happy Carla makes for a less miserable me.”

  “And it’s all about you.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  It was incredibly fair, and the insinuation that it wasn’t made my eyes roll. “You told your moms about me?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck and looked down. “I kind of felt like I needed to explain why I’ve been hanging out with a girl who isn’t Carla.”

  “Stalking,” I corrected. “Stalking a girl who isn’t Carla.”

  He laughed. “Again, not fair.”

  I bumped past him into the bedroom. It was precisely what I’d expected. Clothes scattered on a carpeted floor. A double bed littered with candy wrappers and popcorn kernels. A computer desk with his expensive video camera hooked up to the monitor by wires. A thousand-dollar television mounted on the wall. A poster of some indie movie no one had ever seen on the opposite wall. It was one of those alternative rich-boy rooms that try so hard to be grunge they border on narcissistic. It was so Snake it was unbelievable.

  “This room is a joke.”


  “Thanks. I wrecked it myself.” He moved to the computer desk to grab something and quickly hid it behind his back. “You must be wondering why I was so urgent in my text. Guess why.”

  “Because you’re full of shit.”

  “That. And . . .” He thrust his arm out, revealing an unmarked DVD case. “Sneak peek at The Snake Project, director’s cut.”

  “That’s your grand gesture? Asking me to watch an unfinished movie that you unlawfully inserted me into?”

  “Still waiting on my court papers.” He walked to the TV and pressed the button on the DVD player. He stuck the disc inside and plopped down on his bed, because he was such an irredeemable narcissist that he once again made the assumption I wanted to watch his crappy movie. The truth was, I did. But his assuming nature almost made me walk right back into the hallway, take a picture of his ugly picture, and bail.

  “Well?” he grinned. It was a smug grin this time. Smug. A lot like sexy. The S’s were not his best. He patted the space beside him on the bed. “Are you ready to bask in the creative interpretation of our tragic state?”

  “Talk dirty to me,” I muttered.

  Notes from a piano piece blared loudly through the speakers on the TV, playing a really depressing song that was the music version of what my brain did during a Zoloft-induced blackout in Stage 3. Snake reached over to his computer desk and turned off the lamp, so that the only remaining light in the room came from the colorful film pixelating on the screen. I sat down next to him on the bed, but made sure to keep a very healthy and considerable distance. If any part of his body touched any part of mine, he was going to lose that limb.

  He didn’t try anything.

  The film opened to faded sunlight filtering through the trees from the vantage point of a car speeding down the highway. The WELCOME TO FLASHBURN sign popped into the frame, then faded to black.

  It was an ideal segue into the next shot. A waiting room at a doctor’s office. The scene was melancholy, evidenced in the sad, forlorn, and pitiful faces of the patients. From elderly to moms to children, sick and dying, and everything in between. After that was a hodgepodge of random scenes involving pill bottles and prescriptions and a thunderstorm that didn’t seem to have much of a purpose. Then, Carla. Lots and lots of Carla. Smiling, radiant Carla. A shot of Snake and Carla kissing down at the pond. Carla, grinning somewhat unhappily, holding up her first ultrasound picture. The sad music played on, a woman’s voice muffled in the noise.

  There’s a wretched brilliance in tightropes, Maks. If one walks it with her eyes closed, she can pretend that it never ends. But if one chooses to tread with caution, to study her moves before she makes them, she’s brutally aware that the rope doesn’t last forever. Just imagine how miserable a fate it is to be to be a woman unable to close her eyes.

  The screen went abruptly black. I thought it was over until a slow pan downward revealed the derelict houses from our anti-date. The beautiful, almost transcendent way in which Snake captured the dripping orange sunset behind them. My own side profile, messy and disheveled, shadowed in the frame. Snake’s declaration of being “but a pebble in the sand,” with a girl who hated him (see: me) almost as much as she hated herself. Another scene of my dark blue eyes glaring into the lens at Oinky’s, expressing my hatred for being on camera. Followed by a slowed-down version of my annoyed frown with another voice-over. This time, a man.

  You know, Margaret? I don’t think even God himself knows why we all ended up in the same circus, feeding the same horses, walking the same goddamn tightrope every goddamn night. But I’ll tell you one thing. I’d consider all of our misfortune worth it if from time to time, you’d glance my way and smile that smile you don’t need to force with Vaseline, and wink like I’m the only one who knows the mysteries of our reality. Like I’m the only one who knows that our tightropes are meant to be right next to each other.

  The screen went black for good.

  Snake sat motionless and silent, two behaviors I hadn’t realized he was capable of. I could feel him watching me from the corner of his eye, anxious for my approval or condemnation. Honestly, my response could have gone either way.

  Some of the shots were stunning, like the opening sunlight and anti-date, while others had a fuzzy, home video quality that a judge in basically any contest would subtract points for. But I knew Snake wasn’t making this film for a contest. He was making this film to stay alive.

  I elbowed him. “You need a better title than The Snake Project.”

  It was all I could say without giving him too much credit.

  He smirked. “I was thinking The Sheer Uselessness of Our Condition.”

  “You said Margaret inspired the outlook? The way you see the world?” I asked. He nodded. “Well, any good director allows a Q&A after the first screening, so I guess my question is, where does sheer uselessness fit into your life?”

  It was a solid question. Even if I did sound like Dr. Rachelle.

  My putting him on the spot had him all stressed out, seeing as how he needed to shove two Twizzlers between his lips to concentrate. “I make idiotic mistakes,” he replied, his gaze fixed on the screen. “I do idiotic things and try to fix them by doing more idiotic things. And, I don’t know, sometimes I feel more or less human than most people. I feel less human because I can’t be what everyone expects, and I feel more human because I don’t want to be. It’s uselessness, though . . . being human. Maybe that doesn’t make any sense.”

  “It’s actually kind of genius,” I admitted. “Please tell me those are your own thoughts and not something you read or watched, because I’m honestly super impressed.”

  He grabbed the remote and shut off the movie. “My own thoughts. Swear.”

  “Let me ask you something,” I said. He turned to me completely. I could see my reflection inside his eyes. “Do you think Carla was a mistake?”

  If there was one thing I couldn’t do, it was surprise him. He had a Reggie radar, homed in on directness. He was bold all of a sudden, staring at me in the nonpimple way. “It’s hard to say. I wanted to feel, and she helped with that. But now I want to feel long-term. Preferably without Prozac. If I had done things right, it would never have been with her.”

  Blue eyes. Dull, boring, cheating blue eyes that lied and hurt and took. That’s what Snake was. He was what was in his eyes. But for the first time, they were honest. And genuine. And raw. They were the tangible equivalent of how The Snake Project made me feel.

  He wanted the world to stop, I think. If only for him, if only for the split second he touched my face with his sticky fingertip. When he let his hand fall to the bed, his earth spun again—​wildly, brashly, beyond what he could handle. At least, I wanted to believe that it did. I didn’t want to be the only one whose world wouldn’t stand still, the only one who took pills to slow it down.

  “Why was she crying the other day?” I asked.

  “Her aunt Henrietta died. They were pretty close.”

  “I remember. She came to all of Carla’s birthday parties when we were kids.”

  “Her wake was tonight. I wasn’t invited, no shocker there.”

  “I’m sure her family members aren’t big fans of the loser who knocked up their precious debutante.”

  “I’m sick of everyone blaming me,” he said, raking his hand through his messy hair. “Her dad despises me on unnatural levels. She won’t stand up to him. I get caught in the middle. It’s a whole lot of drama that I never signed up for.”

  “Slow your roll, Mr. Ego.” I pulled a Twizzler from the plastic bag. “Mr. Banks has always been a jerk. Seriously, kids at school used to warn each other about Sir Jerkwad whenever he came for career day. You’re not the only one he has it in for. Trust me. And Carla has always been his little princess, sweet pea, sugarplum. Standing up to him isn’t even a concept in her world.”

  The DVD screensaver logo bumped from corner to corner of the screen. “I don’t want to live in her world,” he whispered.

  “
It’s too late for that.”

  “I know, but—” He leaned forward. I could tell he wanted to make some grand confession of harbored feelings that I really couldn’t hear, because I wasn’t sure how much I hated him. And if I didn’t hate him enough, I would let myself listen. He watched me with eyes that were slowly becoming more and more . . . interesting. “If I wasn’t in this situation with Carla, and all you knew of me was that I listened to the Renegade Dystopia and liked anti-dates and filmmaking, would you maybe hate me in the good way?”

  It wasn’t a confession, but it provoked one. That time, it was me who was on the spot. “There may have been a microscopic possibility that you would have gotten a second anti-date.”

  He chewed the end of his Twizzler, watching me like he knew he couldn’t wish for more. “I guess we’ll never know, will we?”

  “I guess not.”

  After it got dark, I went downstairs. Snake promised he would show me the end of the movie when it was ready, but I doubted I would come back again. Something felt off about being near him. Maybe because I knew he wanted too much, and I wanted too much, and we were too damn stubborn to admit it to ourselves, much less each other.

  He stopped at the doorway and stared like he wanted to ask me to stay. I knew he wouldn’t.

  “I’m glad you came over.” He stepped closer, breathing his strawberry Twizzler breath all over my face. The space between us was cloudy and thick and frightening. “Sorry I’m not original or remarkable enough to earn your respect.”

  “Eh, you managed to impress me once. You’ll get there.”

  I clenched my sweaty hands down at my sides, and felt the need to peek at my driver’s license or dig out my birth certificate or look in a mirror to make sure I was still me, because whatever Snake was doing to me had never happened before. It honestly was remarkable.

  “I’m going to kiss you,” he announced, his eyes gauging my reaction.

  “No, you’re not.”