Friction Read online

  Tim and I end up on the same team, and it feels good to kick and pass with him. It feels good to forget about stuff like decimals and new girls and dead fathers and schools where everybody’s a punk. It feels good to have nothing but sweaty bodies and voices calling back and forth, like chimes in the wind.

  4

  TIM SHOWS UP at my house just before my parents do. I was going to make hamburgers, but Tim wants pasta.

  “How’d it go?” I ask. Tim’s oral report on rappelling is coming up in a few days, and Simon’s been helping him practice lowering himself off the school roof with special ropes and tools and things so that when it’s time, Tim can demonstrate his topic besides just lecturing about it.

  “Good.” He pulls out a package of spaghetti from one of our kitchen cabinets. “We practiced knots and the right way to fall.”

  “I bet the new girl will want to try it on the camping trip. She’s not going to be scared at all.”

  “Maybe.” He brushes past me to the hanging rack of pots and pans, grabs a pot, and fills it with water. He’s eaten dinner with us so many times, he knows the whole routine.

  “I like her,” I say, watching him slap a cover on the pot. “Don’t you?”

  He shrugs, and we hear my parents’ car breathe into the garage and then burp to a stop.

  “Hi, Tim,” my dad goes, banging into the kitchen. “Your parents got the night shift again?”

  “Yeah,” Tim says. He sleeps over a lot when his parents have to work nights, which is kind of different since most kids our age don’t have sleepovers with friends of the opposite sex. But Tim and I used to take baths together when we were babies and stuff. We’re like a brother and a sister. So it’s no big deal.

  “No problem,” my dad goes, nodding his head and making his orange hair flop around. “Alex’s extra bed is still made up from last time.”

  “Hi, guys,” my mother goes, walking into the kitchen and opening her mail at the same time. She’s a general practitioner with a subspecialty in oncology, which means she treats a lot of people with cancer. When people meet my mom for the first time, they stare, especially men. I think that’s because she’s so pretty, with silver hair and a young face, and the two aren’t supposed to go together, but on my mother they do.

  “We got a new girl today,” I tell her.

  “Really?” My mom looks up from her mail. “How is she?”

  “We like her,” I go. “Right, Tim?”

  “She knows kids who smoke,” Tim says.

  My mom passes off the mail to my father. “Lovely,” she goes.

  * * *

  While my dad and Tim clear the dishes after dinner, I pull out Simon’s permission slips. My mother fills out the soccer one first, and then she scans the green camping page.

  “One parent chaperone,” she says to my dad. “Do you think that’s enough adults to supervise the rappelling?”

  “Not to mention supervising everything else,” my dad goes.

  “It’s plenty,” I say. “Simon’s really careful, and Teddy’s father went with us last year, so he knows all the safety stuff.”

  “Simon wouldn’t be able to do this at any other school,” my mother says. “Not these days. Maggie’s really something to be going along with it.” Maggie’s our principal.

  “What do you mean?” Tim goes.

  “You can’t teach kids any which way anymore,” my mom says. “Teachers and schools are a lot more accountable for things than they used to be. Simon’s teaching the way people did thirty years ago, and I’m not sure his style is workable anymore.”

  “Huh?” Tim goes.

  “Ann’s talking about liability,” my dad explains, as if Tim and I are supposed to understand what he’s saying.

  “And I’m talking about judgment,” my mother says.

  “Simon has good judgment,” I go.

  My mother glances at her watch and then at my dad. “Jack, we’re going to be late.” He picks up her arm and looks at her watch too. They have some board meeting tonight.

  “Okay,” he tells her. Then he turns to Tim and me. “Don’t worry about the rest of the dishes, guys,” he tells us. “We’ll see you two in the morning.”

  They kiss the tops of our heads before they go.

  * * *

  Tim and I watch HBO until the garage comes alive again a few hours later, and then we jump into my twin beds, pretending to be asleep. We breathe deep and heavy and kind of loud. To be safe, Tim whispers ten Mississippis after my parents tiptoe away from my bedroom door, and then we throw off our covers. He drags the rocking chair from near my window, and I lift my desk stool, and we plunk them next to our beds. Then we drape our comforters to make a tent. Tim crawls in with the blankets and pillows, and I follow with a flashlight. Once we’re all set up, we throw shadow shapes on the flimsy ceiling with our hands and the beam of light.

  * * *

  The next morning we jog from my back door down through the sloped woods toward Maple Avenue below. Our feet whomp down the trail, knapsacks swinging across our backs, branches flicking at our cheeks.

  “Hole,” Tim warns, which means there’s a new sunken spot on the ground. Those spots trip us up a lot in the last days of March, right between winter and spring. He hops over it, and I hop too. Then I take the lead. Something tickles my face, and I duck.

  “Spiderweb,” I go, wiping at the air, and I hear Tim duck behind me.

  As we get near the bottom of the woods, our soles slapping against the path, Tim says, “Last night, after dinner, were your parents trying to say that Simon isn’t responsible or something?”

  “Yeah,” I go. “Isn’t that dumb?”

  “Your parents are nuts,” Tim goes.

  “Totally.”

  5

  HIS BIKE IS already hanging from the ceiling, like some outer-space bug, and Simon’s standing over a small flame. His coffee mug steams next to today’s paper while the laptop is booting up next to that.

  “What’s the candle for?” I ask, unbuttoning my blue sweater as Tim and I walk into the silent study room. Simon snaps closed a lighter and stares at a white candle in a baked clay holder.

  “It’s for my brother,” Simon says. I push aside some papers and make a seat for myself on the edge of his desk. Tim leans over to touch the clay holder.

  “I didn’t know you had a brother,” I say.

  “He died.” Simon passes his pinky through the flame.

  “When?” Tim asks.

  “Five years ago today.”

  Tim crosses his arms, and I cup my hand over the mouth of Simon’s coffee mug, feeling the steam wet my palm.

  “Was he a teacher too?” I say.

  “Most people wouldn’t know it,” he tells us after a minute, “but he was a teacher. In a way.” We stay quiet, but Simon keeps going. “Andrew was older than me.”

  “Than I,” Tim mumbles automatically.

  “And he was a rebel. Got us both into all kinds of trouble.”

  “You used to get into trouble?” I say. I can’t imagine Simon being a bad kid.

  “I’ll just say,” he adds, “we made our growing-up mistakes. The way all kids are bound to do. The way the two of you will. The way adults can’t stand.” He stops quickly right there. Then he goes on again. “This,” he says, nodding at the flame, “is something I got from a Jewish friend. He told me about lighting candles on the anniversary of a death. As a way to remember someone who’s died. To show you honor him.”

  “But you’re not Jewish,” Tim says.

  “I’m not of any faith,” Simon says. He passes his pinky through the fire another time. “Really, this isn’t the right kind of candle. Jewish people use a special one.”

  “Are you even allowed to do that?” Tim asks. “Change the way it’s supposed to be?”

  “As long as I’m respectful,” Simon tells us.

  “It’s nice,” I say. The flame looks like a little life to me. Like a small body, dodging and dancing.

  �
��How was your brother a teacher?” Tim asks. Simon leans back in his chair, laces his fingers behind his head, and thunks his feet up on the desk.

  “I was about your age,” he begins. “Twelve. Maybe thirteen. Andrew must have been eighteen or nineteen.” He shakes his head. “Took me out with him on a day trip. Way out into the country. Told me he was going to teach me something I’d never forget. I had no idea what it would be, but I followed him up this mountain, hoping for all kinds of things. Stupid things, really: dead bodies, gold bricks, a hidden cave. Stuff like that.” Simon stops to take a long sip of coffee. “Walked up that mountain for a few hours. So tired, I thought my heart was going to bust right through my skin and out my chest. Andrew wouldn’t say a word—wouldn’t answer my questions, wouldn’t tell me anything. Only sound he’d make was this buzz thing he used to do. A sort of whistle and a hum at the same time.”

  Tim and I smile. “That’s what you do,” Tim tells Simon. “You make that exact sound!”

  “Huh,” Simon says. It’s funny to me that he didn’t know that about himself. “Anyway,” he goes, “that’s the only noise Andrew was making. I was nearly nuts by the time we got to the top. He started pulling things out of his pack, and I was thinking whatever it was he had to show me must be in there. Maybe it was a gun. A voodoo doll or a cut-off finger. Who knows what. But all he pulled out was our lunch and a pocketknife to help us eat it. Told me to stop firing questions at him and to be patient. So I shut up and caught my breath. Thought I’d go crazy from the suspense.”

  “So what was it?” I ask.

  Simon drags his feet off the desk and leans forward in his chair, bringing his face up close to me and Tim. “After we ate, Andrew stood up, threw his pack on his back, asked if I was ready. Then he just took off running down that mountain. I didn’t understand what was going on. Sure didn’t want to be left behind, so I took off after him. Guess I expected him to stop or at least slow down for me, but he kept going fast. I knew if I lost sight of him, I’d be in deep trouble. No trail, and I didn’t know my way around mountains yet. So I raced down after my brother. No time to think, no time to be scared, no time for anything. All I knew was to keep breathing. Keep putting one foot in front of the other and don’t lose sight of him for half a second. Not for branches in my face or the ground flying up at me. Once you start running down a mountain like that, there’s no controlling it. You can’t just stop. You can’t even slow down, really. All you can do is let the earth hold you up and hope for the best. So that’s what I did. Ran and ran and ran. Must have been ten or fifteen minutes later before I hit bottom, where the ground leveled out and helped me slow down to a stop. I think I was a little hysterical, laughing like a madman.”

  Simon leans back again in his chair, staring at that candle. Then he reaches his hand out to pull the candle toward him, touching the soft wax dripping from under the flame. “Exhilaration,” he says, sort of quiet. “That was my brother. Teaching me exhilaration.”

  “How did he die?” Tim asks.

  Simon looks up from the candle at Tim and me. “Motorcycle accident,” Simon says, and suddenly I’m surprised that I’ve never wondered more about him. Never really thought of him as anything but my teacher. Never imagined that he might be somebody’s brother.

  “He sounds cool,” Tim tells Simon, and Simon sort of nods.

  “He was.”

  As Tim heads out of the silent study room, I dangle my arm around Simon’s shoulders while Stacy swings through the double doors on the opposite side of the glass wall. “It doesn’t seem right when people die before they’re old,” I say. Stacy’s headed straight toward us. “Before they’re supposed to.” I lean against him, wishing his brother could come back somehow. Wishing I could tell him about Stacy’s father. Simon loops his arm around my waist and squeezes. Stacy shoots in, stops short halfway to the desk, and sets her hands on her hips. Her hair is in a top-of-the-head ponytail today, splashing around her face like a waterfall.

  “School is not supposed to be a lovefest, you know!”

  I pull away from Simon and head for the front room. “Come on.” I tug her out with me. “Let’s go sit with Tim.”

  * * *

  At recess Danny tells us we’re going to scrimmage St. John’s a few weeks after the camping trip. As sort of a pre–fall season practice.

  “They’re the best team in the league,” I say, juggling the ball. “How did Simon get them to agree to play us? They don’t even know who we are yet.” Danny tries a steal, but I fake him out, and he ends up on his butt. Our dirt field has gotten softer in the past few weeks, slowing us down by just the littlest bit.

  “I heard Simon talking to Maggie before lunch,” Danny goes, brushing off his jeans. “They only said okay to a scrimmage because they know we have a girl on our team and they think they’re going to cream us.” I kick the ball backward over my head to Tim, who’s behind me. He traps it. “They think that we’ll be a waste of time next fall and that if they beat us now, we won’t want to play in September.”

  “Well, St. John’s is in for a surprise,” Tim goes, and I feel a little hop of excitement at the idea of actually getting to play another team. A real team.

  Later, right before messing up a corner kick, I see Stacy standing near the field, alone, watching us. I don’t have a chance to wave or call out to her right then, and when I look up again, she’s not there.

  * * *

  I think I imagined her until the afternoon, when I’m working on a book–movie comparison of Little Women, sitting next to Marie in the back room. Stacy glides in with two mythology books and plops herself next to me. I’m about to ask her if I can tell Tim about her dad, as long as I swear him to secrecy, but she beats me to talking.

  “You’re good,” she says. I think she means at soccer.

  “I thought I saw you watching,” I go. She nods. “I figured you’d be at the ladder,” I tell her.

  “I was.” She tips her chair back. “But I wanted to see what you were up to.”

  “What do you mean, up to?” I ask. “You make it sound like we’re not really playing soccer or something.”

  She clumps her chair down and leans in, making her tongue ring click against her teeth. “Well, you’re not.”

  “Huh?”

  “Stacy thinks you ought to bring the boys down to the stream sometimes,” Marie explains, trying to squash a clay Sphinx’s nose so it looks broken off, like the real one in Egypt.

  “What for?”

  “We’ve got to have a chance at them too,” Stacy says. Then she lowers her voice. “You have to share.” She’s leaning so close now that her high ponytail is bobbing above my forehead.

  “Yeah,” Marie goes. “You can’t have the boys all to yourself anymore.”

  “You’re crazy,” I say to Stacy. Anybody can play soccer or be at the stream anytime. People go where they want. I don’t have anything to do with it.

  “Well, you can’t,” Stacy says. Then she looks at Marie. “Except for Tim and Simon. Tim belongs to Alex, and Alex belongs to Simon.”

  “What are you talking about?” I say. She’s making me and Tim sound all wrong. Like we’re boyfriend and girlfriend or something. And she’s making Simon and me sound like . . . I don’t know. Like something completely weird and gross. It’s making my face all hot.

  “Simon’s a teacher,” Sophie goes, loud from the kitchen hallway, where she’s collecting bacteria for Science Unit Seven. She’s Maggie’s daughter, and usually she stays pretty quiet. Maybe because if you’re the principal’s daughter, it’s just better not to call a lot of attention to yourself.

  “Come on,” Stacy moans, like we’re all dense or something. “It’s natural for guys and girls to like each other.”

  “Are you serious?” I go.

  “If you’re not getting any work done,” Simon calls, surprising us by poking his head out of the silent study room, “there’s an empty table right here.” I want to get out of here and take that table, but
now I can’t. Not after what Stacy’s just said. So I sit still, watching Simon’s candle flame flicker through the glass wall, feeling like a jerk.

  “We’re done,” Stacy tells him, like we’ve settled some big question. “We’ll be quiet now.” She opens one of her books. I stare at my book–movie comparison while Simon stands at the door, watching us. By the time I hear him go back to his desk a few seconds later, my stomach is clamped tight.

  * * *

  I try to talk to my mom about it after dinner. She’s lying on her side of the bed, thumbing through stacks of magazines.

  I lie on my father’s side of the bed, looking all of them over. They’re mostly serious, with covers of politicians on trial for different crimes or war pictures from Africa or the Middle East. But there’s a Mad magazine thrown in too, with Alfred E. Neuman grinning his wide, stupid grin. My father must have put that one there. I leave it alone, hoping it will make my mom smile, which will make my dad smile, which will balance out how upset they get over the other covers.

  “That new girl is sort of confusing,” I finally say, after there’s no more magazines to stall over. “I mean, I like her, but she can be really obnoxious.” My dad walks out of the bathroom in his pajamas and with a wet head. He snaps his towel to scoot me to the foot of their bed.

  “Don’t bounce,” my mom says. She’s staring at a magazine, but she’s not reading it. You can tell because her eyes aren’t even moving.

  “Mom, did you hear me?” I say.

  “You okay?” my father asks her, rubbing the towel over his orange hair.

  She smiles her spacey smile at us. “Fine,” she goes.