They May Not Mean To, But They Do - chapter 3
“You’ve barely touched your eggplant curry, Al. Is it alright?”
Al wanted to say it looked like baby food. Or worse, like baby poo. But instead he smiled and poked at the heart of the yellow gloop and shoveled a substantial forkful into his mouth, smiling at Mrs. Palace. Gina. He always had to remind himself that Lindsey’s parents were Gina and Rick. He swallowed, hoping he was successful in hiding his disgust, and took a sip of soy milk to make sure he didn’t have any bits of food stuck on his teeth before answering, “It’s great, Gina. I was just enjoying the salad so much, well, um, you know.”
He stole a glance over at Lindsey and saw her making gagging gestures. She clutched her throat and collapsed onto her plate.
“Not a winner, G. Looks like baby shit and doesn’t taste a whole lot better.” Lindsey’s lack of any social filter had come from her father. That and her Cupid’s Bow. He got up and scraped the eggplant into the dog’s bowl.
“You can’t give that to the dog. He’ll get sick.”
“But somehow it’s okay for us. I wonder about you sometimes. I’m not sure if you’re trying to kill us all off so you can follow Phish around or if you just need a new cookbook.” He smiled and winked at Al, making him feel like he was in on the joke. Lindsey’s parents were always good that way, and despite her mother’s cooking, he really liked spending time with them.
Rick leaned over to Gina like he was conspiring to lie to Congress and eyed at Al seriously. “So Al, we were wondering what you were doing over winter break.” Lindsey’s sister, Justine, poked her head up from her phone for the first time since she’d sat down.
Justine didn’t have a name like Al’s real one or Lindsey’s. When they first met, she made a point of telling him, “Fortunately, mom and dad didn’t go on any flights of fancy when they named me.” Which fit her decidedly fancy-free personality quite well, as she never aimed for any intellectual or spiritual heights. She was nice enough, but sort of just there. Which, thinking about it, Al realized also made her name pretty fitting.
“No plans. I was just going to hang out, maybe go bowling or to the arcade.”
“How about joining us on our trip to Sugarbush?”
Al’s aunt had taken him skiing a few times, but that was just screwing around on the close-by ice-and-gravel slopes. He’d never been anywhere with soft powder and groomed trails. He wasn’t very good, but he was able to make it down mostly without falling.
“Oh sure. I’m not allowed to bring Dan but Lindsey can bring her boyfriend. Real fair.” Al froze when he heard the B-word, and then realized not all of him was still. His mouth was opening and closing slowly, like a goldfish, but no sound was coming out. He saw Lindsey bat her eyes like a cartoon cat and felt the blood rush from his brain and straight to his cheeks. Lindsey locked eyes with Al and raised one brow. “What about it, lover?” Then she laughed. She couldn’t keep it up, even though she loved seeing Al squirm.
Gina smirked, less at Lindsey’s relentless teasing of Al and more at her lack of self-awareness.
“Al, we thought you and your aunt could come for Sunday dinner so we can all get to know each other. That is, if you’re interested in joining us on the ski trip.”
Al’s whole body felt like it had fallen asleep. Everything was tingling and a little warm, his face was still burning, and everything sounded a little muffled, like there was a thick fog in the room. He pushed back from the table and lurched awkwardly to his feet, mumbling, “She’s really my great aunt, but doesn’t like people thinking she’s old. I, um, I have to go now.” He bolted the room so fast, he was sure there must have been swirling dust devils in his tracks.
“At least my boyfriend’s not a freak.”
* * *
Al was nothing if not predictable; when he needed time to think he liked small, dark, secluded places. Lindsey, of course, knew all about Al and his tendency to act like an ostrich, so it didn’t take long until Al heard a tap-tap-tap on the aluminum door of the tool shed behind his house. He had folded himself under the bottom shelf, right behind the weed whacker and next to a box of old lawnmower parts. She knocked again, harder, and rattled the thin walls.
“C’mon out, Al. Quit hiding.”
“I’m thinking.”
“Richard Milhous Nixon Patterson! I mean it. Get out here right now.”
Al picked his way out from the shed and slid the door open. It moved in fits and starts, catching on the track where it was dirty or bent, and shuddering free. He climbed out into the cold December chill and saw a deep orange glow in the sky which meant snow was on its way. If they were lucky, maybe there’d be a snow day and he could just stay in bed all day.
Lindsey glared at him as she stood with her arms crossed trying to keep warm. She was wearing just the clothes she’d had on at dinner and Al realized she’d run out after him without even stopping to grab a jacket. He started to unzip his coat to offer her like guys in movies when she blurted out, “My sister was just being a jerk, you know. You’re not my boyfriend. I mean, you’re my boyfriend, but not, you know.”
He didn’t expect it, but that felt like a cold weight dropped into his stomach.
“It’s not that. It’s my aunt. I didn’t want your parents to meet her.”
“But why? She’s cool. They’ll love her.”
Al stared at his feet, two big boats pointed to 10 and three, and then he looked at Lindsey’s feet and noticed how narrow and small and perfectly straight they were. He turned in his legs and pointed his feet forward and it made him stand up straighter. He lifted his head and pulled back his shoulders and looked Lindsey in the eye. He’d never told anyone before, but he’d never had a friend like Lindsey before.
“It’s not my aunt. It’s my parents. I…it’s hard to…”
Lindsey reached out and touched the back of Al’s hand. “What is it?”
“My parents aren’t dead, you know. At least I don’t think they are.”
“But then why…”
“I don’t remember them, really, just flashes of things sometimes. But I remember the last day I ever saw them. They took me with them to the mall. This was when it had just opened and all the stores weren’t even in yet, but it had the carousel in the food court and they took me there to ride it. They put me on the white stallion with the gold and blue bridle and hand-tooled saddle and then…”
Al stood, perfectly still in the light breeze, his breath and Lindsey’s coming out in thick, white puffs. Lindsey waited, giving him time to compose himself.
“That was it. I guess I was on there for a long time, just going around and around. When the mall closed, they stopped the carousel and someone from security called the police to take me home. They’d left a note in my pocket - I didn’t know it was in there - with my name and my aunt’s address. They knew they were leaving me. I just don’t know why. Or why there.”
As Al finished, the first light flakes began swirling around them in the eerie mercury vapor glow.
