“I’m Goose,” the boy says, extending his hand. He smiles, flashing a mouth full of silver braces and saliva-coated rubber bands. He has little eyes and big glasses and a terrible buzz cut that looks as though he did it himself.
I take his hand and try to grip it hard. Goldie has always told me that I have a weak handshake. “I’m Princess,” I tell him.
“Princess,” he repeats. His voice falters, as though he’s unaccustomed to the depth of its pitch. He clears his throat. “Cool.”
I shrug. It’s just my name. It has been for twenty-three years, as long as I can remember. I was Sheila until I was nine months old, but then Papa’s sister Maddie tried to eat a toaster pastry while driving her truck and got in an accident that damaged one of the lobes in her brain and ruined her eyesight. She’s totally blind now, and the last word she ever got to read was “Princess,” which was the brand of toaster pastry that she was unwrapping. Papa thought it would be nice to honor Maddie’s eyesight, which he said had always been stellar when they were growing up, and he wasn’t such a big fan of “Sheila” anyway. Goldie didn’t mind because Princess sounded like a dog’s name, which was what she had wanted in the first place before Papa knocked her up in the garage. So they changed my name, officially.
I watch Goose and he watches me. He opens his mouth once or twice as if to speak, but then he just licks his lips and closes his mouth again. Ernie, my boss, yells, “stroke it like you mean it, sunshine!” at the guy in the batter’s box, and one or two of the players in the field actually turn this way to look at him. Goose giggles.
The batter makes contact and Ernie whoops loudly. “Touch ‘em all, baby. Touch ‘em all over and boogie on home.” He turns to me. “Good, huh, Toots?” he says. I stare at him blankly. “Eh, Toots?” He says. I nod. He grins again and looks back at the field, shouting, “Get her! Get her good!” Sometimes I’m not even sure he’s talking about baseball. The first time I showed up to work he looked me up and down, spit a sunflower seed onto the pavement, and said, “you’ve got breasts.” It sounds perverted, but I didn’t really mind. I mean, he was right.
“So,” Goose says. He pauses, and I wait. “So, what’s it like to work at a snack shack? Do you eat chips and stuff all the time?” It occurs to me that it might be a comment about my weight, but he asks it so earnestly that I can’t help smiling.
“I drink a lot of Gatorade,” I tell him. Goldie won’t allow Gatorade in the house. She says it’s an athlete’s drink, and we’re just not a family of athletes. She tells me that if I drop fifty pounds I can drink Gatorade, otherwise I’m just pretending to be something I’m not. So I drink it at work. Lots of it.
“Sunflower seeds!” Ernie chimes in. The inning just ended, and he’s torn his eyes away from the field for a few seconds to join our conversation. “No seeds for the kids now,” he whispers in my ear, and Goose leans in closer to try to hear him. Ernie glares at Goose. “The kids don’t got seeds, don’t want ‘em. More for me, sure, but hell. Hell almighty.” He spits out a seed onto his own shoe, growls with frustration, and spits another one. This time he hits the cash register and hollers, “that’s right! That’s the ticket! You like that, Toots?” Still mumbling, he turns his attention back to the ball field.
“Why does he call you Toots?” Goose wants to know.
I shrug. “He likes me,” I say. “It’s a term of endearment.”
“Are you guys, like, married or something?” Goose asks. My disgust must be evident, because he bites his lower lip and whispers, “sorry.”
“He’s like fifty,” I whisper back. “Probably older. That’s gross. And I’m not old enough to be married.”
“How old are you?” Goose looks at the ground when he asks this. I can tell that he’s trying to act like he doesn’t care, like he’s just making conversation.
“How old are you?” I counter.
“Old enough.”
“Old enough to what?”
“To drink beer.” I give him a skeptical look. “I mean, like, not legally, I guess, but, like, to enjoy it, you know,” he explains. “Like it’s an acquired taste, right. And I’ve acquired it.” He looks me right in the face to see if I’m impressed, and then returns his gaze to his Adidas sneakers.
I take a swig of Gatorade and wait for him to make his next move, but he’s watching the game too. After thirty or forty seconds of silence I get sick of waiting. “Are you a player?” I ask, nodding towards the infield.
“A player?” He echoes. His eyes widen and he bites down on his lower lip so that the silver braces glint in the sunlight. “You mean like, a ladies’ guy? Like, do I have lots of girlfriends?”
“Uhhh, no.” Is he serious? “I meant baseball. Do you play baseball?” This time I point to the infield with my index finger to drive home the point.
“Oh. Right. No. My brother. And my friends, some of them, they play. And I was bored, so, like…. You know….” He trails off. I sip my Gatorade and he rubs the bridge of his nose with his thumb and we watch each other. Finally he turns to go, then stops and wheels back around to face me. “Beer,” he says. “I’m, uhhhh, gonna drink a beer with my friends when the game is over. In the parking lot. ‘Cause I like the taste and like, why the hell not, right?”
I nod, waiting for the punch line.
“If you wanted to, like, share it. Or have a sip. Or have your own one, I guess, if there’s enough. Anyways, we’ll be in the parking lot.” He shifts his weight and knocks on his head with his fist three times.
I smile. “I’ll be working for a while. There’s another game after this,” I say brusquely. He meets my eyes for a few seconds, then looks away quickly and leaves without a word. “I’ll see if you’re around when I get off,” I yell after him, even though I don’t mean it. He doesn’t turn around, but I can tell from the way he straightens his posture and widens his stance as he walks that he’s heard me.
I haven’t had a beer since I quit my job at Lucky’s Bowling back in March, but as the second game wears on, Gatorade begins to satisfy my thirst less and less. In the bottom of the fifth inning I tell Ernie I need to make a phone call, and I wander towards the parking lot. I weave through the cars, looking for Goose, but the parking lot is empty. I briefly consider calling his name, but I think better of it. I kick the tire of an old Honda and head back to the Snack Shack to finish my shift.
***
Everybody is in the garage when I get home. Goldie and Maddie are sitting at their workbench, holding hands, while Goldie runs her other hand along a new James Madison stick.
“This is good,” Maddie murmurs. “The nose is right. Chin is too pointy, but not bad. That’s Jimmy Madison all right.”
Goldie and Maddie make Presidential Walking Sticks together, with faces of the presidents carved into the top of the stick. Goldie whittles but she has no memory for faces, so Maddie, who has all the presidents’ features memorized, describes them to Goldie. They mostly only sell the obvious ones: Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, FDR, Reagan, Clinton, but they make them all anyway just for the sake of integrity. There’s a market for anyone who’s on a dollar bill or has served in recent memory. There’s no market for Chester Arthur or Zachary Taylor but Maddie would never let Goldie get away with skipping a single one. For Goldie, it’s a business. For Maddie, it’s deeply personal. Maddie came to live with us after the accident left her blind. She slept in my room until I moved out of my crib, and then she moved into Goldie’s room. They’ve been roommates ever since.
Papa is lying on his beanbag, drying. He’s shirtless and wearing the blue athletic shorts. His arms are painted grey and his belly has a big red pelican on it. I’m glad to see that it’s a pelican. A pelican means a good day. Lately Papa’s been painting a lot of road kill and skeletons and natural disasters.
Papa used to be a real painter but now he only paints himself. He says that the human body is the best canvas. He would paint us if he could but we don’t let him, and it’s clear that he takes it personally. He’s stopped asking, but he’ll still make snide remarks into his beard about how a family, especially a family of artists, ought to support one another’s creative endeavors.
Goldie would flip if I let Papa paint me, so I try to find other ways to support him as best I can. After he paints himself and dries he usually has me photograph him, so at least he has a record of his work. Goldie thinks the whole business is disgusting. “Papa is the ugliest man I know,” Goldie always says. “Only a blind sister should have to see that.” To which Maddie always replies, “And thank God I’m not able!”
Only Papa looks up when I enter the garage. He gives me a tired smile and jabs at the pelican on his belly with his forefinger to indicate that it’s nearly dry.
“How was work?” Goldie asks without taking her eyes off of James Madison.
“Fine,” I respond. “Hot. And the second game went extra innings. Ernie was so excited. I wanted to gouge my brains out.”
Goldie has another question, her favorite. “Meet any eligible bachelors at the baseball field? Any hunky shortstop take a liking to you?” She laughs bitterly. Goldie has never been able to forgive me for looking just like her. I guess I don’t blame her.
“A handful,” I reply sarcastically. I usually don’t bother to give Goldie any lip, since it only makes her taunting worse, but some days I’m just not in the mood to put up with her. “There were a couple pitchers, and also one of the left fielders and also his father, too. You should have seen them all. I was going to bring them home to meet the family but I was worried we wouldn’t have room at the dinner table. If I’d known Papa was doing a belly pelican today I might have brought them all over.” Papa looks up at me and winks. I can tell from the way his beard twitches that he’s smiling.
It’s weird to think that I’ve never actually seen Papa smile, even though I know he does it all the time. He stopped shaving when Goldie got pregnant with me and he hasn’t shaved since. We all grew together for a while: Papa’s beard and Goldie’s belly and me inside of Goldie. By the time I was born, Papa’s beard was so big that you couldn’t see his mouth, and Goldie says that even back then it was hard to understand him when he talked. Goldie hates Papa’s beard. She’s always yelling that she can’t make out what he’s saying and threatening to shave it while he’s asleep. She says that it’s ugly. Papa usually just shrugs, or else he’ll mumble something into his beard so that Goldie can’t understand it. He’s had the beard for so long now that he’d feel naked without it. Besides, he always says, he hasn’t shaved in twenty-four years and he probably wouldn’t even remember how.
“I wouldn’t be so surprised if you did bring a shortstop home one of these days, Princess,” Maddie chimes. She still insists on applying her own makeup, and today lipstick lines her upper lip like a moustache. “You don’t realize what a catch you are. You’re college educated.”
“Not quite,” I correct her. “You have to get a degree to be college educated. Just taking classes doesn’t count.”
“I don’t see why not,” Maddie says angrily. She tries to spit for emphasis but mostly just drools on her blouse. “All the fuckers with degrees took classes, same as you.”
“They took more classes. They stayed four years,” I explain as if I’m talking to a child.
“Watch your language, Maddie,” Goldie interjects at the same time.
“Shove it, Goldie Anne,” Maddie replies. “I’m giving Princess a pep talk, and I’ll say what I want. Fucker. Fucker. Fucker.”
“How’s old Ernie doing?” Goldie inquires, changing the subject.
“Erect Ernie!”  Papa interjects. Maddie whistles. “Every time I used to see him in Albertson’s he would have the biggest hard-on. Erect Ernie. I don’t think he shops there anymore.” Papa scratches his belly and accidentally scrapes off a little bit of the pelican’s eye with his fingernail. He grumbles curse words into his beard.
“Well, I haven’t noticed that. He only ever seems interested in the game,” I say firmly, trying hard not to picture Ernie with an erection. I try to think of other things, better images, and my mind flashes on Goose. I’m vaguely aware of the fact that he seems taller in my imagination than he is in real life. I wonder whether he actually drank a beer in the parking lot. For some reason I hope he didn’t. I like the idea that he made it up just to impress me.
“We used to love baseball, didn’t we Papa?” Goldie demands.
“False,” Papa answers wearily. “That’s fabrication. We did not love baseball. I did not and you did not. We liked Crackerjacks, maybe, but not the sport. We’ve always gone for the snacks. Snacks got us all hot and bothered. But we did not love baseball. We didn’t do much loving of any kind even in those days. Some things don’t change after all.”
Papa and Goldie were married for seven years, and now they’ve been divorced for twenty-four. In all the years that they’ve lived together, both before and since the divorce, Goldie and Papa have only done it twice. Just twice. The first time was decent according to Goldie. It was good enough according to Papa. It was a consummation, a typical honeymoon hump but without the honeymoon. They got married the same day that Goldie’s daddy died and when they got home from the funeral, three days later, they realized they’d forgotten all about sex so they went and did it on the couch. Goldie wanted to do it on her daddy’s bed, but Papa said it was too soon. He said they should have some respect for the dead. He said next time, but Goldie didn’t want a next time. Maybe if it had been better the first time they would have reconsidered, but it was only good enough at best. We talk about these things.
It turns out there was a next time, but it wasn’t on Goldie’s daddy’s bed. Next time was seven years later in this garage, just after the divorce was made official. They were both so happy to be done with the damn thing, and Goldie figured that one more time wouldn’t do any harm. It took about six weeks for her to realize that she had been wrong, that I was growing inside her. So that’s me, the honest-to-God product of a broken marriage that never quite finished breaking. We still live here in this house, all together. I left once, for college, but that didn’t last long. Papa left once, right after he found out Goldie was pregnant, right at the same time he stopped shaving, but he came back three or four days later. They say they learned during those days what a real divorced lifestyle felt like, not living together and everything. Neither one liked it very much. Papa was lonely and Goldie was bored, and so when Papa got back they talked about it and decided he would just stick around. Besides, Papa told me, by then they knew that I was coming, and shared custody is a real bitch.
“Can we stop talking about erections, please?” I can tell that I sound whiny, but I don’t care. If I let this get going it’ll never stop. My family talks about sex instead of doing it. They probably talk about it more than normal people do it.
“Well, you’re no fun,” Maddie complains. “Pick another topic, then, Princess.”
“I drank Gatorade today. Lots of it,” I offer, looking right at Goldie, who shoots me a warning look. Seeing her angry and helpless only makes me feel feistier. “And then I almost drank a beer. Someone offered me one. A boy.”
Goldie ignores me. “Let’s do a McKinley or two after dinner, Maddie,” she says crisply.
“There we go!” Papa shouts over her. “Did you hear, Goldie? The girl’s gone wild! She’s drinking Gatorade and almost drinking beer!” He gives a deep, throaty laugh. “This is the teenage rebellion we’ve been waiting for. Here it is, a decade late. Not a decade. Eight years, maybe. Is that a decade?” He laughs again. “God damn shit monkey! I can’t even remember how many years are in a decade.”
“Ten years,” Maddie informs him, and then launches into a slow, mournful rendition of “America the Beautiful.”
“Well there you go,” Papa says again, ignoring Maddie’s song. “What should we do? Should we ground her? No sleepovers this weekend? How are we supposed to punish our twenty-three-year-old daughter?”
Goldie lifts her head and looks right at me. “Who’s the boy?” She asks.
I shrug. “Some kid.”
“A kid with beer?”
“Just some kid.” Goose grows another inch in my mind’s eye. I’ve always liked lanky men.
“I’m all dry, Princess.” Papa announces. “Grab the camera, will you?”
I take several photos of Papa. “Smile,” I say teasingly. “Say cheese.”
“Gouda,” he replies. “Parmesan. Cheddar. The one with the holes.”
I think he’s smiling behind his beard again, but it’s never easy to tell.
***
“You’re not fat,” Goose says softly. “Not that fat.” He leans over the snack shack counter and pokes his head so close to mine that I can see the pear shaped smudges on his glasses and the baby pimples forming along his sideburns. “Sneak me a bag of Doritos,” he whispers, his voice cracking on the word “bag.”
“You can’t do that,” I tease him, vaguely aware that my own voice is higher too.
“Do what? Ask you for some chips? I’m hungry, okay?”
“No, not that. Not the chips, you goofball. You Goose-ball.” I turn towards the fridge listening intently for any response to this new nickname, but he doesn’t flinch. He can only focus on the Doritos. I pull a Glacier Freeze Gatorade Frost out of the fridge and twist off the orange cap. “You can’t tell me I’m not fat just so I’ll give you Doritos.” I know I’ll give him the Doritos eventually, but I want to make it take as long as possible. This is flirting. It’s definitely flirting. I’m almost surprised that I even know how.
He leans a little farther over the counter and takes the cap from me wordlessly. His fingernails are filthy and too long, but so are mine.
“It was two thoughts,” he says, tossing the orange cap back and forth from one hand to the other. “Separate. I said you weren’t that fat and then I said I wanted Doritos. Two things. Two different things. Not related. Separate.”
Ernie yells something at the field about keeping your balls to the grindstone. Goose leans in even closer. I open my mouth to shush him.
“I can smell the Gatorade on your breath,” he whispers. “I never realized that’s what Gatorade smells like.” It’s a stupid thing to say. Of course he knows what Gatorade smells like. But I like it anyway. I like the way that he says it like it’s a secret.
“Maybe it’s not Gatorade,” I say. “Maybe it’s normal breath.”
“Nope,” he counters, “it’s Gatorade. I have a really intense sense of smell. Really cute.”
“Acute,” I correct him.
“Whatever,” he says.
***
Roast beef sandwiches for dinner, courtesy of the grocery store deli.
“You’re lazy,” Goldie tells Papa between bites. Papa’s the cook in the house, but these days it’s mostly take-out or microwavable buffalo chicken nuggets.
Papa shrugs and mumbles through his beard, “It’s good enough.”
“What?” Goldie demands, crumbling a slice of bread in her fist. “Speak clearly, Papa. Jesus.”
“He said it’s good enough,” I tell Goldie. She has so much more trouble understanding Papa than I ever have.
“Well it’s not.” Goldie snaps back.
“I wasn’t making excuses for the dinner, I was just telling you what Papa said,” I say, dramatically over-enunciating each syllable to communicate my exasperation. “I’m not picking sides.”
“I’m on your side, Princess,” Maddie shouts. “I think this roast beef is awful, but I’m just too polite to say so. You and me both, sister. Not sister. Niece.” Maddie laughs at herself, belches, and laughs some more.
“Jesus, Maddie,” Papa barks. He pushes against the table and his chair scoots back about a foot. “Where are your manners? You’re like a goddamn cavewoman. And this dinner is perfectly fine.”
“It is not,” Goldie retorts. Spit flies out of her mouth and lands on her half-eaten sandwich. “You can’t do anything right. Can’t even pick a decent dinner from the deli. Can’t speak clearly because of that disgusting shrubbery on your face. You don’t even have a job.”
“I’m a painter!” Papa protests. “For once in your life…”
“Give me a break, Papa,” Goldie interrupts. “Go paint a funeral on your ass.”
“Stop it!” I yell. I’m on my feet, squeezing my sandwich in my fist until I can feel the mayonnaise on my fingers. . I hate it all. The crappy food that Papa buys and the way that Maddie belches and the terrible things Goldie says and the way that none of us, not even me, ever have anything nice to say to Goldie. “Why are we always like this? Why do we have to swear all the time?” I think of Goose and wonder if people say these things to each other in his family. I wonder if people do this in anyone’s family but mine. “We are so ugly,” I say. I’m still shouting. “I hate how ugly we are.”
Goldie is out of her seat now, standing behind me.  She touches my hair like a mother, but there’s nothing soothing about her fingers.
***
Later, in the garage, Goldie apologizes as she shapes the balding pate of Gerald Ford. Her blade dances over his scalp again and again. “It’s because we’re artists,” she says. “And we’re not good artists, either. Bad artists are especially volatile.”
“Speak for yourself,” Papa interjects from his beanbag. He’s stripped down to his boxers and painted a dead mouse on his inner thigh.
“I was speaking for you, mostly,” Goldie tells him. She tucks Gerald Ford under her arm and brushes past me and back into the house.
Papa trembles. “She’s a tough one,” he says, not quite to me. “Takes a blind woman to love your mother.”
“You love her,” I protest. “At least you did. You have.”
“Maybe,” he says, dabbing his finger into the red paint and smearing it on his neck. “Sometimes I think I’m a blind woman myself.”
“I guess we do our best,” I offer, only half-believing myself.
“Sure,” he says softly, but he doesn’t sound convinced either. “We do good enough.” He rolls over and buries his face in the beanbag to indicate that our conversation is over. I linger for a minute, my chest pulsing to the rhythm of his muffled breathing. I want to go to the beanbag and wrap my arms around him, but he’s too huge and too tiny all at the same time.
***
“Is anyone home?” I shout, wiping my muddy shoes on the welcome mat. Goose does the same, although his technique is poor and hardly any of the mud actually comes off of his shoes.
Maddie calls back from the bedroom she shares with Goldie. “No one’s here,” she says. “Just me. And Papa’s in the garage.”
“What about Goldie?” I yell back. For once, I actually want her to be here. I want her to see what I’ve brought home with me. “I call my parents by their first names,” I explain to Goose. “Papa and Goldie.  Papa’s first name is Papa. Everyone calls him that. He’s actually my papa, but that’s just a coincidence.” Goose nods, but I can tell he thinks it’s strange. Oh well, he’s here now. There’s plenty of strange.
“Goldie’s out there too,” Maddie shouts from her room. “I guess we’re all here, come to think of it.”
I watch Goose examine the living room. He scans the mantle above the fireplace and then each of the walls. I wonder whether he’s looking for family photos. I think normal families always have those. “It’s kinda pretty,” he says sweetly. He pauses for a few seconds, and then he awkwardly grabs my wrist and fumbles with it until he’s holding the back of my hand. “Like you, I guess. You’re kinda pretty, too.”
I lead him out to the garage, where Papa and Goldie are going about their usual tasks in silence. I poke my head around the corner of the doorway first. “I’ve got a surprise,” I announce, and they both look up. I grab Goose’s hand and pull him into the garage.
“Goldie, this is Goose,” I say politely. He clings to my hand and swings both of our arms back and forth. “Papa, this is Goose. Goose is my…”
“Boyfriend!” He interjects. It’s not a word we’ve used before, but I don’t really mind. Papa’s eyes grow big and he runs his fingers through his beard. Goldie closes her eyes, takes three deep breaths, and then opens them and smiles at us.
“You’re a little old to have a babysitter, aren’t you?” She asks Goose in a sugary voice. He stares at her blankly. “You’re a nice tall child,” she continues. I feel my muscles tighten and my head begins to throb. I look to Papa for help but he’s staring at his belly and doesn’t notice me. “And skinny. You’ll have a happy life, I imagine. Puberty will be challenging, but then it is for everyone.” She resumes her whittling. It’s a new walking stick, and I can’t tell yet which president it’s supposed to be.
“Goldie, please,” I plead with her.
“Please what?” She says innocently. Goose’s hand slips out of mine and falls limply to his side. He’s standing half a step behind me and I don’t look back to see his face, but I can feel that he’s trembling.
“Please be nice,” Papa answers for me. He squeezes his belly with both hands and shakes it. The surge of gratitude I feel toward him is quickly overcome with a much stronger surge of humiliation.
“I am being nice,” Goldie insists. “I’m just giving Goose some motherly advice.” I can tell that Goose wishes she wouldn’t. My head starts to pound uncontrollably. I really hate her.
“I’ll give some advice,” Papa offers. “Listen up, Bruce.”
“Goose,” I correct him.
“Goose?” Papa repeats, astonished. “Really, Princess? Goose? Like the duck? Well listen up, Goose.” He clears his throat, and I ready myself for whatever is coming. “My daughter is the fruit of my loins,” he says, gesturing to his loins. “We’ve all got loins, and she’s the fruit of mine. Fruit. Fruit is an activity I condone.” Papa’s belly rumbles and he drums on it in response. “Go to an orchard, buy some berries from the stand on the side of the freeway, eat a juicy apple. But loins, loins are not a good activity for you two. Leave her loins alone, Bruce,” he commands, before realizing his mistake. “Goose. No exploring. Don’t go playing Lewis and Clark with her Louisiana Purchase.”
“You’re unbelievable, Papa!” I scold him, and I can feel the humiliation turning to fever just beneath my skin. “What is wrong with you? What are you trying to do to me?”
“I’m building a moat around my Princess,” he says matter-of-factly. Goldie releases a single note of laughter.
“Well, don’t. Please don’t,” I say curtly, turning my back to them both and, in the same motion, grabbing Goose’s arm. I whisk him out of the garage, back into the house, and towards the front door. We almost crash into Maddie, who stumbles around the corner and thrusts her hands straight onto Goose’s chest.
“Why it’s a young man!” She says gleefully. “It’s a young man for my Princess. I can’t see you, young man, so you’ll have to tell me whether you’re handsome or not.” She runs her hands up and down his torso and feels her way up to his neck and chin.
“Not now, Maddie,” I tell her. I need to get out of the house to breathe. I pull Goose into the driveway and stand there next to him. I let go of his arm and we stand there next to each other, not touching. He has no idea that I want him to hold me. “I’m never taking you back there,” I say furiously.
“Never?” He says. I don’t know why he seems surprised. He takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes. “I liked your house. It was kinda pretty,” he says sadly. “I’d like to go back sometime, maybe if your family was out. If they were gone or something. It’s a nice house.”
“Sure,” I say. “If they’re all out doing something.” So that’s what we do.
***
Papa and Goldie call it humping, but with Goose it’s something different. It’s uneven and fleeting, almost accidental, but it’s also the most human I’ve felt in a long time. Maybe ever.
After it’s over, I rest my head on his chest and trace my index finger along his bony little ribs. “You’re just a kid,” I say, releasing the words I’ve been afraid to acknowledge all along.
He exhales, lifting my head a few centimeters towards the rafters of the garage ceiling. “Not anymore,” he says in his best impression of sexy. “Now I’m a man.” It’s a terrible line, but there is real pride caught in the chasm between his unrelenting pulse and his slow, deliberate, asthmatic breaths. I don’t laugh. Can this man-child, this gangly, spectacled, pimply gentle soul really be this worked up on account of me? Does this body really fit so perfectly into mine?
“I’m the second one of my friends to actually do it,” he whispers hurriedly, divulging a secret that he can’t contain any longer. “Rusty did it, but Rusty’s done everything. Gabe’s dad bought him condoms but Gabe hasn’t used them yet. Eric almost…”
I lay my lips on his, stopping his words, filling him with my Gatorade breath.
***
It’s Papa’s birthday dinner, though you would never guess it from the menu: seven boxes of microwavable macaroni and cheese, a two-liter bottle of orange soda, and some baby carrots.
“What is this garbage?” Maddie wants to know.
Papa tells her that at least it’s aesthetically pleasing: all orange. It appeals to his painterly sensibilities.
“Well, I can’t see it,” Maddie retorts, “but my other four senses aren’t much impressed.”
Goldie coughs deliberately. “If this is what you call aesthetically pleasing, that explains a lot about the shit you’ve been painting lately.”
“I think we should talk about Princess and her boyfriend,” Maddie interjects, changing the subject.
“Princess doesn’t have boyfriends,” Goldie says. Her eyes are narrow and gleaming.
“Is he any good?” Maddie wants to know.
I shrug, embarrassed and confused.
“So you’re really all mixed up with that poor child?” Goldie wants to know.
“I’d rather not say,” I tell her. They’re all looking me intently, waiting. Why do we have to discuss these things? Why can’t they leave me alone?
“Oh god,” Goldie exclaims. “I might just vomit all over my orange dinner. Are you happy now that you’ve picked Pizza Face out of his sixth grade math class? Is this what you dropped out of college to do? Take advantage of infants that you find at the Little League Snack Shack?”
“You don’t know him!” I struggle against the tears that keep threatening to leap out of me. “You know nothing about him.”
“I met him,” she says decisively.
“You mocked him,” I correct her. “You didn’t meet him. You didn’t let him say a word.”
“Oh, does he talk?” she asks innocently. “Well, that’s nice. I’m relieved that you had enough sense to pick a child with basic language capabilities.”
“Goldie!” Papa drags his hands through his hair. “Don’t you dare, Goldie.”
“Is he any good?” Maddie asks again.
“Give it a rest, Maddie,” Goldie snaps.
“You give it a rest, Goldie Anne!” Maddie clenches her jaw when she gets defiant. “I’m trying to ask Princess a real question. I want to know how the sex is.”
It’s the last thing I want to talk about, but as I watch Goldie squirm in her seat, I feel like I’ll do anything in the world just to spite her. “I think it’s a fair question,” I say. Papa shoots me a pained look, but Maddie smiles. I don’t want to look at Goldie. “I’ll tell you all about it. Every little detail.” Maddie is practically clapping with delight. I close my eyes, trying to forget they’re there, and I launch in. “The first time was in the garage, as a matter of fact…”
“Shut up!” Goldie shouts.
“I want to hear about the sex!” Maddie shouts back, just as loudly.
Goldie hurls a frozen container of macaroni at Maddie, hitting her squarely on the nose. Maddie yelps, stunned. Blood begins to flow from her nostrils.
Papa is up, charging at Goldie, screaming unintelligibly as spit flies from his beard. He tackles her to the ground and rises again in one motion, swiping her plate off the table and bringing it crashing down onto her leg. She screams as the ceramic breaks into three perfectly equal pieces.
The next instant Papa is sitting beside her, his rage gone as quickly as it came, hugging his knees to his chest and whimpering.
“Goldie,” he says, but not really to her. “My Goldie. When did this happen?”
We all breathe together for a moment, the four of us. Thick, panting breaths that plow their way through blood and tears and snot and vanish from us into the fraught air.
“Goldie,” Papa says again, this time he’s leaning over her. He kisses her forehead. She turns her face into the carpet. “I’m a beast,” he whispers. “I don’t know how… I can’t… I’m so…. so… sorry.” He waits for a response. When none comes, he rises uncertainly to his feet and staggers down the hall, into the bathroom.
I stand over Goldie and watch her as she whimpers.
“Are you hurt?” I ask, trying to be gentle. She nods, then shakes her head no. I sit on the ground next to her and put her head in my lap. Her tears ooze into my jeans, turning the denim a deeper blue.
No one speaks for several minutes. Then Papa emerges from the bathroom and stumbles down the hall towards us. He has shaving cream in his ear and several specks of blood just under his jaw. His face glows a gentle red, like the color of undercooked meat, and he’s smiling at us sadly. I can see his chin and his mouth and his lips. I can see his whole face.
Goldie turns her head towards him, resting her cheek on my leg. “You shaved,” she says. Her voice sounds like a little girl’s.
Papa nods. “I figured it was about time someone around here did something for you, Goldie,” he says. He turns to me and smiles. “Hey, Princess,” he says. He has a double chin and pale, thin lips. “Here’s my face. What do you think?”
***
When the doorbell rings I know right away that it’s Goose. He’s been calling me for days. I haven’t picked up or called him back. I’m not mad or anything, though. I could never be mad at Goose. I just haven’t felt like seeing him.
I open the door slowly, and there he is. He nods at me confidently and scans me up and down, pausing self-consciously at my hips and again at my chest and brushing lightly over my face with feigned conviction. Then he catches himself and clears his throat and shuffles his feet, finally bringing his big green eyes to rest on some point just beyond my left shoulder. He removes his glasses, rubs his eyes, and puts them on again.
“So,” he says. “Hey.” A purple orchid with petals shaped like butterflies rests in the crook of his arm.
“Hi,” I answer, eying the orchid. “Is that… should I?”
“Oh!” He has forgotten about it. “Oh. Yeah. For… for you. Because of… I mean, you know. And you’re welcome. I mean, for the flower, I mean… sorry. Thanks. Sorry. Damn it.” He takes a deep breath. “What I mean is that this is for you, but it was my mom’s idea, but it ‘s because I told her you weren’t calling me back, and she was like, do something nice, and I didn’t know what, and so she bought this.” He stops and takes a deep breath. “But, like, it’s really from me.”
“You’re sweet,” I say calmly. I take the orchid from him and kiss him on the cheek. “And tell your mom thank you also.”
“Oh yeah,” he says bashfully. “I will. I mean, it was my idea though, mostly, but she had the cash and stuff. I’ll tell her.” He looks at me imploringly, sweat rising from his pores, and then squints past me into the house. I know that he wants me to let him inside.
“Thanks for the orchid,” I reiterate. My tone is gentle but firm. He doesn’t get to come in.
“Sure,” he says, shuffling again. “I’ll see you… I’ll see you…?”
“You’ll see me,” I reassure him. He nods and forces a smile, then turns and treads back down the steps and out into the driveway. He turns once, just before I close the door, and stifles a wave.
I enter the garage noiselessly. Papa and Goldie are sitting together on Papa’s beanbag, both of them asleep. Goldie snores quietly. Papa holds her and strokes her hair as he murmurs to himself, letting the strands tumble from his thick fingers with each of Goldie’s gasping breaths.
Maddie is on the workbench, three Taft walking sticks sprawled across her lap.
“Hiya Princess,” she whispers. I exhale in reply. “Smells like springtime,” she muses.
“It’s an orchid,” I tell her. “Just got dropped off.”
Maddie nods. “Lovely,” she says. “Like springtime.” She smacks her lips and hums three slow notes.
Goldie gasps and rattles in Papa’s arms. I inhale slowly, deliberately, trying to fill Goldie’s lungs too, and Papa’s lungs and Maddie’s lungs, all of us. I clutch the orchid to my stomach and try to include it, too, in my breath, to fill myself with its beauty. Sometimes there is so much inside of us that the world becomes so peripheral, so unnecessary.
I’ve had my little grey suitcase packed for days, but I still can’t bring myself to tell them that I’m leaving. I don’t want the questions. “Why?” and “where?” and “what’s wrong with us?” They won’t believe me when I say “just because,” and “I don’t know,” and “nothing.” They’ll tell me that I belong here.
Goldie’s snoring fades and her lips lie still, and Maddie wraps her little fist around Taft’s thick head and giggles at the momentary silence. “All quiet!” she muses. “How unusual.”
I’ll stay for one more day. There really is nowhere else to go.