The Music of What Happens(85)

“Max,” my dad says. I can’t even describe what he sounds like. A little boy, hurt, maybe? Not anything like the guy who spun me around and wouldn’t come to me when I smacked my head on the armoire. Who said that “pain doesn’t mean that much.”

“Yeah,” I say. “So that happened.”

“I just,” he says. “Jesus. I’m not cut out for this. I don’t know how to do this, kid.”

My insides twist like a tornado. “Daddy,” I say.

“I just … I can’t —”

“I can’t,” I repeat. And I take the phone off my ear, look at the word “Dad” across the screen, and hit the red button to hang up.

Not sure what to do or what to think about my dad saying “I can’t” to me, I warrior up big-time. I sit on my bed and think about Super Max.

In a world in which some fathers are assholes, Super Max stands tall. He doesn’t need — I stop myself. Fuck that. I’ve been doing that shit all my life. And you know what? This hurts. It hurts bad.

The phone rings. It’s Dad. I can’t. Like he said. I just … can’t.

So I hide under the covers for a bit and think about my dad, and kind of give him a funeral in my brain. I think about the good times when he lived with us in central Phoenix. Going out to this awesome seafood restaurant that had an actual mariachi band even though the space was about the size of my room. And how we just laughed so hard, the three of us, because our ears were ringing and we couldn’t hardly breathe it was so loud. Or when Dad took me to the batting cages, and how he was so proud of me for hitting the ball so hard. There were good times. But also bad ones, obviously.

I’m just about to start crying when there’s a knock on the door. I dry my eyes and sit up tall. “What’s up?” I yell.

“Just me,” Jordan says.

“Come in.”

He does, and when he sees my face, he sits down right next to me. “What’s wrong?”

I shake my head. I’m about to say, “Nothing.” And then I think about how that’s exactly what my dad would tell me to do. And that’s stupid. I have a chipped red toenail and I don’t give a shit if Dad would think it made me less of a man. I don’t care anymore.

I say, “My dad.”

“What happened?”

I tell him, and the damn tears start up, and he holds me as I tell him about what it felt like to hear him say, “I can’t.”

“I’m sorry,” Jordan says.

“It’s not your fault.”

“God, I hate when people say that. I’m not sorry because it’s my fault. I’m sorry that happened to you, okay?”

I smile a little. “Okay.”

“My mom can’t either, if that helps. And I know it sucks royal testicle meat when your mom or dad can’t.”

I nod a bit. “Yeah.”

“Anything I can do to make you feel better?”

An idea pops into my head. It’s so different from my usual answer. Which would be, of course, “No, I’m good.” Warrior up.

Instead I say, “Can I draw you?”

He freezes for a second, and then he moves his body into a side pose, his light green eyes all bedroom-y.

I crack up. “Easy there, Ryan Gosling,” I say. “I want you to sit in a chair. I want to draw your face.”

He’s cool with that, and I grab my supplies, sit at the desk, and go and grab a second chair from the dining room. I sit him in it so that a little bit of sunlight bleeds into the room and lights up his face. I sit and stare.

“Make sure you get all the zits,” he says.

I shoot him a dirty look.

“I used to be a child model. A before model, actually.”

“Would you shut up?”

“What kind of way is that to talk to your model?”

That cracks me up, and I give him a serious look that he seems to understand, because he does, finally, shut up and stop putting himself down. We sit in silence, and I use a black pencil to trace a face. I notice as I draw him just how narrow his face is, which is one of the things I like about him. And yet, you know what’s funny? That’s what drew me to him, but now what matters is that he’s Jordan. I realize that even if his face were rounder, like mine, I’d still be hooked. That’s saying something.

I use a light green for his eyes. It’s the first color I put on his face, and as soon as I do, the page lights up, just like the room does when Jordan enters it. I smile to myself.

“Tell me,” he says.

I shake my head no. There’s a level of cheesy I can’t get to. That thought is something I think I’ll keep to myself.

I use white pencil to pop his eyes a bit more, and then give his face some contour by smudging some white under his cheeks.

I look at him. I look at the drawing, which he can’t see yet. He won’t either. Not for a while, I don’t think. It’s too personal. What I think of him is too personal.

“What?” he asks again.

I can’t tell him all that. But I can tell him something. So I put the drawing facedown on the desk and go over to him and put my hands on his face.

“You are so freakin’ beautiful,” I say. It’s something I never, ever would have said a few months back. No chance. But now I can.