Mirage(13)

“Nowhere . . . everywhere . . .”

I pinch his arm. “No hablo mysteriously vague.”

“We’re gonna do LSD.”

“LSD? As in peace, love, and sixties? LSD as in dancing like a chicken in a blender with your top off in the rain? That stuff’s still around?”

“I know! It’s old-school cool. Mauricio’s done it a few times, says it’s the ultimate mind trip, totally expanding. He said he never experienced anything like it.” Dom lifts his camera and snaps a shot of the frog-legged underside of a giant June bug on the windshield. “We’re having a small, private party tomorrow night in the motor home. It won’t leave the hangar. We figured it’ll be a safe, isolated place. Contained?—?in case anyone wigs out.”

“Wigs out?”

His face lights up like an explorer. “I’ve always wanted to try it, to see for myself how mind-expanding it is. It could be great for my art. Feel like doing it with me? It’d be another first for us.”

My insides warm. Dom and I have had many firsts.

The porch light flicks on, and my father’s silhouette fills the doorway. He points at the ground directly in front of him. I guess I’m supposed to run right over there and stand at attention like a good little soldier. Or his dog.

I clench my jaw, lean over to kiss Dom’s cheek, and whisper, “What the hell. I’m in. You only live once.”

My dad starts up before I’ve even reached him.

“Where have you been?” His eyebrows are so pinched I bet I could store a quarter in the grooves above his nose.

“You grounded me from jumping. I didn’t realize you grounded me from life.”

“I want to talk?—”

I shove past him through the front door. “Oh, now you want to talk to me? That’s novel. You took jumping away from me, the one thing I love to do more than anything. Punishment has been meted out. Go back to your regularly scheduled programming and leave me alone.”

“Don’t give me your smart mouth, Ryan. Jumping isn’t the only thing I can take away from you.”

“In less than one month I’ll be eighteen, and you won’t have a say in what I do!”

He steps forward, gets all up in my face. “That’s right. In one month you can move out, support yourself, screw up your own life, and be responsible for the fallout. But for now, your ass belongs to me, and you will obey me. Got it?”

“My ass belongs to no one!” I rage back. “You’re so shortsighted, Dad. Take away skydiving?—?go ahead. I’ll get my kicks some other way. It’s my life!”

He jabs a finger toward my nose. “Don’t threaten me, kid. I’ve dealt with worse punks than my own surly, stubborn daughter.”

“Enough!” Mom yells. It’s so rare to hear her raise her voice that it shocks both of us out of our trenches. Her face is a black storm, threatening rain. “What is it about the two of you that rattles each other so? You’re like a couple of spitting roosters, dancing around with your chests puffed out. I don’t like this fighting, this disharmony in my home. Stop it, now!”

“Hose ’em off like you do the house,” Gran chimes in.

Dad throws up his hands and stalks away, leaving a vapor of anger behind him, but Mom is there to pick up where he left off. “You have a grand sense of timing, don’t you? Can’t you see that he’s under tremendous pressure?” Her voice descends to a whisper. “I told you earlier, someone in his condition shouldn’t be under such stress. Why are you adding to it?”

“By standing up for myself?”

“Uh, child of mine! At least call it what it is!”

“A tantrum!” Gran blurts. I wish she could see me roll my eyes at her.

Mom blows out an exasperated breath. “Lay low for a few days. I’ve got my hands full enough with your daddy and the business.”

“But Mom, he?—”

She turns her back and walks away, mumbling something about how she doesn’t need to attend every fight she’s invited to.

Gran shuffles across the room and straight to me like a homing beacon. “I used to have to rub your mama’s legs when she was a girl, growing pains were so bad.”

“Yeah?” I answer noncommittally. Who knows where Gran’s going with this. It’ll either be gibberish or a frying pan of hot truth upside the head.

“I suspect your growing pains will be the kind I can’t rub out.”

“Maybe,” I answer. I know I sound obstinate. I’m so freaking exhausted all of a sudden.

Gran’s broken eyes somehow bore into mine. It’s unnerving. “When you gonna realize that every threat you make to your parents is really a threat against yourself?”

“I’m tired. Can I just go to bed and have a do-over tomorrow, Gran?”

“Wish it worked that way, sugar. My advice is, don’t go doing things you wish you could undo.”





Eight


I THOUGHT SLEEP WOULD quiet me, but I’m too restless. It’s not a physical restlessness; sex and skydiving smoothed that edge. It’s a mental itch. My head is my problem. It wants to replay everything that scared me today, everything that stripped the protective coating off my wires. It wants to open doors labeled fear, vulnerability, and self-doubt.