Dreamland
Chapter 7
I never told anyone what happened at Rogerson's. But from then on, we were together. We didn't talk about it: It was just understood. In that one moment I'd seen some part of him that he kept hidden from the rest of the worldbehind his cool face, his bored manner, his hair. I'd edged in past it all, and now I found my own place there. The next Monday, after cheerleading practice, I walked outside to find Rogerson parked in front of the gym. He was leaning against his car, smoking a cigarette, waiting for me. I hadn't asked him to pick me up. But there he was.
“Oh, my God,” Kelly Brandt said as we came to the main doors. She and Chad had made up and exchanged “friendship rings.” She kept flashing hers around, wanting everyone to ask about it. “What is be doing here?“ ”I told you Caitlin had a big weekend,“ Rina said slyly, poking me in the side. I'd told only her about our date, and as much as she might have wanted us to both date football players, she loved the idea of me with Rogerson. It was just forbidden and wild enough to appeal to her. ”That was him you were talking about?“ Kelly said incredulously. Outside, Rogerson flicked his cigarette and turned around, leaning his head back to look up at the gray November sky. ”I mean, Caitlin, he's ...“ ”He's what?“ Rina said, as a pack of soccer players crossed between us and Rogerson, jogging. They were all blond or dark-?haired, tall and athletic, moving in perfect synchronicity. When Rogerson came back into view he was watching them pass, his hair blowing in the wind, an expression I couldn't make out on his face. ”Tell us what he is, Kelly.“ ”Well,“ Kelly said, lowering her voice and brushing her hair back with her friendship ring hand, ”I've just heard some stories, that's all. He's been in trouble, you know. Like with the police. I mean, I have this friend at Perkins Day, and she said ...“ But I wasn't even listening, already pushing through the doors into the cold air. Rogerson stood up from where he was leaning when he saw me. He had told me himself about his ”long stories,” and I didn't care. I myself had no stories of my own yet, but I was ready. More than ready. That first week, whenever I thought about him, I remembered brushing my finger over his eyebrow, tracing the hurt, trying to give back what his father had taken away. Now I'd take that bit of Roger-?son and hold it close to me. That fall, as I struggled to leave Cass's shadow behind once and for all, he was just what I needed. From that day on, Rogerson was suddenly just there. He drove me home every day. He came over from Perkins at lunch to take me out and called me every nightusually more than once and then again before I went to bed. On Fridays he came to my games, home or away, and stood off to the side of the bleachers, watching me cartwheel and cheer while he leaned against the fence, smoking cigarettes and waiting for me. We never really went on “dates,” exactly: With Rogerson, it was all about being in motion. Going from party to party, place to place. Sometimes I stayed in the car, but more often now I came in and was introduced. To the college guys in the dorm room with the huge Bob Slarley poster and the couch that smelled like rancid beer. To the woman who lived in that trailer and her little boy, Bennett, who sat quietly on the floor, playing with a plastic phone as she weighed bags of pot on a digital scale. And to so many others, whose faces and names I would never remember. They blurred together, weekend after weekend, as Rogerson made his rounds. Sometimes I missed the whole movie-?restaurant-?mini-?golf-?basketball-?game kind of dating lifestyle. But this was just how it was with Rogerson. He had a lot of nervous energy, business to attend to, and frankly I couldn't really picture him standing in front of a windmill at Jungle Golf, lining up his shot. That was more of a Mike Evans thing, and I'd made my choice there. So I was happy to be with Rogerson, in transit, always with a bit of a buzz and his hand on my knee. It was just fine. “So what do you guys do, anyway?” Rina always asked me. Her quarterback was a date kind of guythey were always going out to dinner, or to the movies, or double-?dating with other couples. I couldn't see Rogerson doing that, either. “I don't know,” I told her. “We just hang out.” That was the only way I could describe it. Most of the time spent with Rogerson was in the car, him driving and me in the passenger seat, his fingers, spread across my knee. He'd take me to McDonald's and buy me chocolate shakes, which he already knew were my favorite,
or drive us out to Topper Lake, where we'd take the car onto the flats and listen to the radio. The only time we ever argued was about music. Rogerson liked classic rock. Pink Floyd, his favorite, depressed the hell out of me. So whenever he left me alone in the car, engine running, I'd change the station to G103, cranking it up to fill the air around me with bouncy pop tunes, the kind that get stuck in your head all day and all night long, like a soundtrack in your dreams. Rogerson would come out of the Quik Zip, or down the stairs of someone's apartment, and head for the car. I'd watch his expression change as he got closer, hearing the strains of one of my baby-?baby-?oh-?please-?baby songs. “Oh, my God,” he said to me once as he flopped into the driver's seat, pulling the door shut behind him. “What is this shit?” “Number one in the country,” I told him smugly, even as he reached forward, hitting one of the preset buttons. Suddenly we were surrounded by the sound of funereal gonging, interwoven with some woman moaning. “See,” he said, pointing to the radio, “now that's music.” “No,” i told him, hitting another presetthe one I'd changed a few days earlier, when he'd been busy pumping gas“this is.” But it wasn't. Instead, it was some woman singing about dandruff control. “Nice,” he said, snapping his fingers as if it was just so catchy. “Better than most of the stuff you listen to.” “Shut up,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I don't even know why you like that,” he said, cranking the engine. “I don't even know why I like you,” I replied, as the dandruff song finally ended. “Yes, you do,” he said, turning his head to back us out of the parking lot. “I do?” “Yeah.” He smiled at me. “It's the hair.” And then he changed the station again. My mother tut-?tutted, worrying about me being out too much, until my father reminded her that Cass,
too, had dated and managed to juggle her various responsibilities. Still, whenever the phone rang past nine, I'd watch a ripple pass over my mother's face, or hear her sigh just loudly enough so we could all hear it. Within a week I'd stopped riding home with the team and squad, leaving instead in the BMW with him. We'd pull up beside the bus at a stoplight and I'd see everyone grouped in the back, laughing and talking, and know that Rina was probably on someone's lap, that Kelly and Chad were making out, and that Coach Harrock was halfheartedly telling everyone to quiet down, please, and reflect on the game. Rina would always look out and wave, smiling, but the rest of the girls and the team just looked down at us, lips moving and brows instantly furrowing as they discussed me. “God, they're all staring,” I said to Rogerson the first time it happened. “I don't even want to know what they're saying.” “Why do you care?” he said, switching gears with a squealhe drove like a crazy personas we moved up the smooth orange of the bus. “They're a bunch of idiots. I don't know why you'd want to hang out with them anyway.” That was Rogerson, or so I was learning. He divided the world coolly into black or white, no grays or middle ground. People were either cool or assholes, situations good or bad. My friends, and my life at school, consistently fell into each of the latter. His friends were older, more interesting, and, most importantly, not jocks or cheerleaders. When we did go to parties where I'd see Rina or Kelly Brandt or anyone else from the squad, it was always awkward. They'd want me to stay, pulling up a chair, handing over the quarter so I could take a bounce. But Rogerson was always impatient, finishing whatever business he had and heading straight to the door, making it clear he was ready to go. Now, as we passed them, I looked up at the bus windows, seeing the faces I'd spent the last few months with: Kelly, Mike Evans, Melinda, the offensive line. And they all looked right back at me, still staring, as if we were some strange culture to be studied and discussed. Whenever Rogerson trashed them I didn't know what to say. I wasn't even sure why I'd hung out with them. It had just sort of happened, like everything else in my life. Now, with him, I felt finally like I was making my own choices, living wide awake after being in a dreamworld so long. I kept my eyes on the faces in the windows of the bus, staring back hard as Rogerson hit the gas, shifting gears again, and we were gone, leaving them to be just a bright orange speck in the sideview mirror, falling farther and farther behind me. I got home after practice one unseasonably warm afternoon in mid-?November to find our back glass patio door open and my mother and Boo sitting outside in lawn chairs. The garden plot in the side yard had been turned over, and a few packages of flower bulbs lay nearby, some open, a trowel abandoned at the foot of my mother's chair. From the kitchen I could see the TV was on in the living room, low volume: Lamont Whipper came on at six sharp. The warm air was blowing through the back door, stirring the stale air of our house with the smell of a misplaced spring. Outside, however, it was already starting to get dark, the sky streaked with deep pinks and grays. “Oh, Boo, you're awful,” my mother was saying, her voice drifting into the kitchen. The chairs were arranged so their backs were to me, just the top of their headsmy mother's, carefully coiffed and in a bun, Boo's, wild red with a couple of chopsticks poking out at strange angles peeking over and visible from where I was standing by the counter. “You mastered pottery,” Boo said. “I think coed massage is the next logical step.” “Boo, really,” my mother said. “What would Jack say?” Boo considered this, then chuckled. “Okay, so massage is out. For now. How about... introduction to aromatherapy?” “What's that?”
“Using scents to calm and ease,” Boo explained, flipping the page. “But it can get kind of smelly and boring. How about cake decorating?” “Too fattening,” my mother said, and Boo clucked her tongue, agreeing.
“Well, are you specifically interested in anything?” Boo asked her. “I don't know,” my mother said. “Cassandra and I had always talked about taking a photography class. She said my family pictures were so bad, since I always cut off people's heads. We were going to do it over the summer, but then she went to the beach, and was so busy there, and then ...” Then her voice just dropped off, suddenly, and i could hear Boo turning pages, smoothly, one right after another. Neither one of them said anything as I crossed the kitchen to the fridge, opened it, then shut it again. “I've written her five times now,” my mother said suddenly, and as I turned to look out at them again I saw it was getting dark more quickly now, harder to make out their shapes against the sunset. “I never know what to say. It's so hard to put it into words.” “She'll write when she's ready,” Boo said, turning another page. I was sure she couldn't even see the words in front of her, now. “I still can't believe she could have been unhappy. I mean, when we went to buy those pillow shams for Yale, she was so excited. Just as excited as me. I know she was.” There was something so lonely in her voice, something that made me look back out at her suddenly. But it was so dark I couldn't even make her out, and this made me sadder still. “I don't think it was about you,” Boo said softly, and I could tell by her tone that she'd said it before, often, in just the same way. “Then what could it have been, that she couldn't tell me? What?” “I don't know, Margaret,” Boo said. “I just don't know.” And there it was. Even with the dolls, and the crooked pottery vases, even with my cheerleading and bake sales and fretting over my relationship with Rogerson, my mother still couldn't fill the space left behind by my older, more dynamic, more everything, sister. We might have felt like things were going on,
seasons changing, months passing. But we would have been wrong. The door slammed downstairs, announcing my father's arrival. “Hello,” he called out, as he always did, and I heard him stop to flip through the mail on the sideboard as he hung up his coat. “Oh, that's Jack,” my mother said, and suddenly she was walking through the patio door, squinting in the sudden light, one hand reaching back to smooth her hair. She seemed startled when she saw me. “Oh! Caitlin, honey, how long have you been home?” “I just got here,” I said. Boo walked up and stood in the doorway, tucking her catalog under one arm. When she smiled at me, her eyes crinkled in the corners, freckles folding in on each other. “Hey, beautiful,” she said. “Want to take a photography class with us?” My mother was crossing the room from the fridge now, opening the oven to slide in a casserole. I could hear my father coming up the stairs, his footsteps heavy. “Sure,” I said. “Caitlin, I don't know,” my mother said, shutting the oven. “You're so busy with practice and school, I'm not sure it would be best.” “I'm not that busy,” I said. I'd only been trying to help. “But, whatever. If you don't want” “No, I'm just saying,” my mother said quickly, setting the oven timer with a few jabs of her finger. “I just thought that maybe” “Then it's settled,” Boo said over both of us, reaching up to adjust one of her chopsticks, jabbing it on the other side of her head. “Photography it is. Just us girls.” “Well,” my mother said, crossing the kitchen to pull a bag of rolls out of the fridge. “I guess if it's on the weekends ...” “No arguments,” Boo said. “Classes begin in two weeks. Saturdays at noon. Okay?” My mother glanced at the clockit was almost sixand then into the living room, where the talk show before Lamont Whipper was rolling credits up the screen. “Well, okay,” she said. “I really should”
“Go,” Boo told her. “I'll come by tomorrow.” “See you then,” my mother said, waving over her shoulder as she walked out of the kitchen to the TV, as the Lamont Whipper theme music came on. Boo looked at me and smiled again, cocking her head to the side as if she'd known I'd been standing there, listening to them all along. “You holding up okay?” she said suddenly, and the last of the sunset was so pink behind her. I remembered how I'd wished all those nights in my room that she was my mother as I watched Stewart glide down the slope of their lawn, bike chains rattling, under the moonlight. Sometimes it seemed like she was the only one who even noticed I was alive. “Sure,” I said, unable to stop myself from turning to see my own real mother pull a chair closer to the television, leaning in for the slightest glimpse of the one face she would recognize, the only one she wanted to see. “I'm fine.” It was about a week later that I was stuck in practice for an extra twenty minutes while Chelsea Robbins drilled us, again and again, on a new dance routine she'd come up with during a bout of inspiration at a Baptist Youth retreat. It involved a lot of backflips, a pyramid, and a complicated formation that was supposed to result in us all lying down in various positions to form a tiger (our mascot) but instead ended up looking like some variation of a sloth without a head. “This is ridiculous,” Rinawho was making up part of the mouthsaid after our fifth try. “All anyone is going to be doing is trying to look up our skirts anyway. It's humiliating.” “Ladies!” Chelsea yelled at Melinda Trudale and me. We were supposed to be forming the tiger's chest but our legs were too short. Above us, we could hear rain pounding on the roof: It was pouring. “Extend! You have to extend!” “Screw extending,” Melinda said under her breath. “It's six-?friggin'-o'clock. I'm going home.”
“One more run-?through,” Chelsea said, reaching over to rewind the musicour school fight song, set to a disco beatagain. But, led by Melinda, everyone was now getting up, grumbling and shaking the floor dust out of their sweatpants and T-?shirts, and heading for their backpacks and the parking lot. “Fine, fine,” Chelsea said in a clipped tone, grabbing the tape player and yanking the cord out of the wall. We'll start fresh tomorrow. And think formation, please. Think teamwork!“ ”Think therapy,“ Rina said, nudging me with her elbow as she passed, on her way to meet Bill Skeritt, who was standing by the doorway waiting for her. ”See you later, okay?“ she said as he looped his arm around her waist, leaning to kiss her neck. She laughed, push-?Jig him off, while her fingers looped around his wrist, at the same rime pulling him closer. ”See you,“ I said. Everyone was filing out of the gym, talking and complaining about Chelsea, while I bent down to grab my books and jacket. The rain was still coming down, beating hard overhead. When I stood up, Mike Evans was right behind me. ”Hey, Caitlin,“ he said. He was wearing his letter jacket and his hair was damp, curling slightly over his collar. ”Hi.“ I slung my backpack over my shoulder, glancing at the doors that led to the outer building. I was hoping for Rina, or Melinda Trudale, or even Chelsea Robbins and her boom box, anyone to stop this inevitable discussion I was about to have with saltine-?esque Mike Evans, whom I hadn't been really face-?to-?face with since the night I rejected both him and his letter jacket and ran off with Rogerson, never looking back. But the hallway, and the gym, were empty. It was just us. ”So,“ he said, sticking his hands in his pockets, ”how've you been?“ ”Um, good,“ I said, taking a step closer to the door and glancing hint, hintat my watch. ”I really should“ ”So what happened that night, at the party?" he asked me suddenly, and I felt so uncomfortable I just looked at my shoes, the shiny wooden gym floor beneath them. “I mean, I thought you liked me. Rina said you did.” “Mike,” I said.
“And then you leave with that guy.” The way he said it Rogerson could have been some infectious disease involving pus, boils, and graphic bodily functions. “I mean, what was that all about?”
Before, I might have tried to squirm out of it. But my obligation to Mike Evans had been small at best. “It's not really your business,” I said, affecting my best Cass coolness. “And it's late. I really have to go“ ”You should know what people are saying about you,“ he blurted out quickly as I turned away from him. ”I mean, someone should tell you.“ ”What who is saying about me?“ I said. The rain was letting up some, but I could still hear it, plinking overhead. ”Everyone,“ he said. ”The team, the rest of the cheerleaders.“ Like these were important people, the most important people, and their opinions should be of utmost importance to me. And for one split second, standing under that roof with the rain banging overhead, I knew why Cass had left, could almost have been her, in that instant. Maybe she got tired of her strings being pulled, too. ”I don't care what people are saying,“ I said slowly, turning my face up to look Mike square in the eye. ”This Rogerson,“ he said, and it was strange to hear him say his name. ”He's been in a lot of trouble, Caitlin. I've heard stories. I mean, he's not your type.“ ”You don't even know him,“ I said, suddenly defensive of Roger-?son, seeing him holding his face the night of his parents' party, how dark his eyes were. ”You don't even know me.“ ”Oh, come on,“ he said, smiling. ”Of course I do.” But he didn't. He knew Cass, and Rina. But Mike Evans had never said more than ten words to me before that night we were supposed to suddenly become a couple. He was just a stupid jock who wanted a cheerleadernot me. Not even close. “I'm leaving,” I said, brushing past him. “Wait,” he said, reaching out and grabbing me by the arm. I looked down at his fingers, spread over the fabric of my shirt, and then up at his face. “Listen to me. I'm just trying” “Let go,” I said, trying to pull away. “Just hold on.” He gripped me harder, his fingers pulling at the fabric. “Listen.” The rain was hitting hard now, so loud I almost didn't hear the door banging open in front of me. Rogerson was standing there. His hair was wet, dripping down onto the shiny wooden floor, and his jeans and jacket were both damp and dark, as dark as his eyes. Mike dropped his hand, quickly. “Caitlin,” Rogerson said. I could barely hear him above the rain. But even as he spoke, he wasn't looking at me; his eyes were on Mike. “What's going on?” “Hey, man,” Mike Evans said, too loudly, as he put another arm's length between us, “we're just talking here. That's all.” Rogerson looked at me, to confirm this, and I wondered, suddenly, just what would happen if I didn't agree. I felt strangely flattered, protected, as I walked over to stand beside my boyfriend, who kept his eyes solid on Mike Evans, even as I wrapped my fingers around his. “Come on,” I said. “I'm late already.” Rogerson looked like he wasn't quite sure about this, even as I smoothed my hand over his damp shoulder, his wet hair brushing against my skin. “It's nothing.” He left with me, then. And Mike Evans was brave enough to wait until we were out of sight before he called out, Think about what I said, Caitlin. Okay?“ his voice bouncing down the empty school corridors. Rogerson and I were standing at the front doors. I could barely see the car through the rain, falling thick and fast, in sheets. ”What did he say?" Rogerson asked me, taking one last glance back as if still contemplating finishing what Mike had started.
“Nothing important,” I said. Then he pushed the door open and I pulled my jacket over my head, the rain already whistling in my ears, as we started to make a run for it together.
Cass's first real boyfriend, Jason Packerthe boy who had broken her heartwas part of our family for the two years they dated. He came for Thanksgiving dinner, exchanged Christmas gifts with my family, and helped my father install the track lighting in our upstairs hallway. He was accepted to the point that we gave up maintaining what my mother called “company behavior.” It was like we were all dating Jason Packer, and when he dumped Cass, each of us took it a little personally. I didn't expect things to be this way with Rogerson. We'd been together about three weeks when I finally had to bring him inside for a Formal Introduction.
After her initial hesitationand once I'd proven I wasn't blowing off everything else to be with him my mother surprised me by asking about Rogerson occasionally, the way she did about cheerleading or school, although more out of duty than of real interest. My father was doing his part from the comfort of his chair: he'd reach over and flip on the front porch light when Rogerson and I had been parked for more than twenty minutes, reminding me that I was due inside. This was strange to me. I had expected my parents to be even more vigilant about my relationship with Rogerson because of Cass running away. After all, they'd already lost one daughter to a boy they didn't know. Maybe it was because they knew what his father did, who his brother was, had seen his mother's face on For Sale signs staked into a million lawns, and this made him safer, somehow. The other option that somehow, losing me would be less of a loss, never as hard as the one already sufferedwas something I pushed out of my head each time it rose up, nagging. It was a Friday night, during my parents' and Boo and Stewart's weekly Trivial Pursuit war. I was standing in the bathroom, putting on lipstick, when my mother called out, “Caitlin, honey, when Rogerson comes, ask him to say hello, won't you?” I blinked at my reflection, then cut off the light and stepped out into the hallway. My parents, Boo, and Stewart were in their customary Friday night places, sitting around the dining room table, with the Trivial Pursuit board spread out in the middle. My father was studying a card in his hand, his eyes narrowed; Stewart sat beside him, chewing, a bag of dried figs on the table next to him. My mother and Boo were at the other end of the table, stirring their tea with their heads bowed, discussing strategy. “Why?” I said, and my mother looked up at me, eyebrows raised. “Well, you've certainly been spending a lot of time together,” she replied. “We should at least meet the boy face-?to-?face. Don't you think, Jack?” My father glanced over at me, smiling mildly. “Sure,” he said. “Bring him in.” Introducing Rogerson was one thing. Doing it during the Friday Night war was another altogether. It had been going on for at least five years, ever since Boo had given my father a Trivial Pursuit game for a birthday present. The first game had begun innocently enough, played over coffee and cookies my mother and Boo versus Stewart and my father. But over time and many games, things were said. Assumptions made. Challenges extended. It was as if they were drunk on trivia, and every Friday was a bender. “I don't know,” I said to my mother as Rogerson's car slid into sight by our mailbox. “We kind of have plans....” “It will only take a second,” she said cheerfully, letting her spoon clink against the edge of her mug. “Come on, Caitlin.” Outside, Rogerson was waiting. I could see him illuminated in the green dashboard lights, leaning forward, looking in at me. I glanced back at the table. So far, the game had been pretty docile, save for a short disagreement over the capital of Indonesia.
“Bring him in,” my father said, pushing the dice over to my mother, who handed them to Boothe lucky roller. “We should know who you're spending all your time with.” “It won't be that bad,” Boo said, the dice clinking off her rings as she shook them up in her hand. “We'll be on our best behavior, we promise.“ I shut the door behind me and headed down the walk to Rogerson's car. He sat there, waiting for me to get in, and when I didn't, he rolled the window down and leaned over, looking up at me. ”What's the problem?“ he said. ”They want to meet you.“ He blinked. ”They?“ I gestured back toward the house. ”It'll only take a second.“ He sat there, considering this, then cut off the engine. ”All right,“ he said, opening his door and getting out. He was wearing jeans and Doc Martens, a bowling shirt with the name Tony written in script over the pocket, and a leather jacket, his hair loose and wilder than usual. ”Wait,“ he said as we started up the walk. He stopped, reaching into his pocket with one hand while collecting his dreads at his neck, then snapping the rubber band he'd fished out around them. ”Good plan,“ I said. ”We'll wait until next time to spring the hair on them.“ ”Usually a good idea,“ he said. The first thing I heard when we stepped inside was my mother's voice, loud and argumentative. ”It's Tokyo, it has to be Tokyo,“ she was snapping at Boo as we came up the stairs. ”Need to give us an answer,“ my father said in a level voice, his eyes on the tiny hourglassstolen from our Pictionary game, in an effort to make Boo and my mother respond within a set time limitas the sand slipped through. ”Don't rush me!“ my mother shrieked. ”You always do that. You know it makes me crazy, and you do it anyway. It's like some kind of psychological warfare.“ ”Margaret,“ my father said, ”either you know the answer or you don't.“ ”Mom?“ I said. ”Just a second,“ she said. ”First city in the world to have population of one million ... first city ...”
“New York,” Boo said. “I have this strong aural feeling it's New York.” “No, no,” my mother replied, frustrated. “It's ... it's ...” “And time is ... up,” my father said, holding up the hourglass for proof. “Stewart, roll the dice.” “Mother of pearl!” my mother said angrily, and Stewart laughed. She never actually cussed, but her variations were just as good. “Take it easy,” Boo said. “We'll get them next time.” “It had to be New York,” my mother protested. “Why didn't we just say New York?” “I have no idea,” Boo said darkly, and they both fell silent, not talking to each other, while Stewart rolled the dice. I decided to just bite the bullet while the frenzy had died down. “Mom? Dad? This is Rogerson Biscoe.” Now they were all looking at us, or more specifically, at Rogerson. I watched as they took in his dark, olive skin, his deep green eyes, the bowling shirt. And, of course, the hair. Boo, as always, was the first to speak. “Hello, Rogerson,” Boo said. “I'm Boo Connell.” “Stewart,” Stewart chimed in, waving. “Hi,” Rogerson said. My mother gave him a polite smile as she extended her hand. “Hello, Rogerson,” she said, as he shook it. “Do you, by chance, happen to know the first city to have a population of one million?” “Margaret, honestly,” my father said. “Your turn is over.” “Only because you flustered me!” she shot back, reaching to stir her coffee. “Um,” Rogerson said. “It's London. Right?” My mother studied his face, then looked at my father, who flipped the card over and glanced at it. “He's right,” he said. “My goodness! London!” she said, slapping her hand on the table and making all the glasses jump. “Of course. London!” “Pull up a chair for the boy!” Boo said, yanking one over beside her. “I am claiming him for our cause. Have a seat, Rogerson.” “No, no,” my father protested, already reaching for the top of the box, where the rules were. He lived for the rules, knew them by heart, and referred to them constantly during the game. “It specifically says that no team shall have more than” “We need to go,” I said loudly over them. “Really.”
“Roll the dice, roll the dice!” my mother said to my father. Boo had already pulled Rogerson down in the chair beside her and handed him some dried figs, which he was holding, politely, but not eating. He looked up at me, half-?smiling, and I just wanted to die of embarrassment. “Okay,” Boo said, patting Rogerson on the arm as she drew out a card. “Stewart and Jack. This was thought in ancient times to be solidified sunshine or petrified tears of the gods. Go!” And my mother turned the hourglass and slammed it on the table. My father, brow furrowed, and Stewart, chewing thoughtfully on a fig, considered this. “Need to give us an answer,” my mother said, needling my father. “Hurry now.” “I don't know,” my father said, shooting her a look. “Solidified sunshine or tears of the gods ... so it has to be some kind of natural resource....” “Running out of time,” my mother said, and my father looked at Stewart, who just shook his head, spitting out a bit of fig into a napkin. When the hourglass was empty, my mother clucked her tongue, sliding the dice back to her side of the board. “Okay, then, Rogerson,” Boo said, hiding the card in her hand. “What do you think?” Rogerson looked at me, and I rolled my eyes. “Amber,” he said. “Fossilized resin. Right?” Boo nodded, and my mother's eyes widened, looking up at me, impressed, as if I'd created him myself from scrap. “My goodness, Rogerson,” she said. “You are brilliant,” Boo said, squeezing his arm. “A boy genius! How do you know so much?” “We really have to go,” I said again. “I don't know,” Rogerson said. “Just watch a lot of Jeopardy, I guess.” “Roll the dice, Margaret,” my father said, standing up. “Roger-?son, it was good to meet you.” “You too, sir,” Rogerson said, shaking his hand. Next he offered it to Stewart, who instead stood up and hugged him while my father looked embarrassed.
“You kids have fun,” Boo said, squeezing my arm as we finally began to head to the door. “Don't stay out too late,” my mother added. Outside, Rogerson pulled the rubber band out as we walked to the car, shaking his head to let his hair get loose. “I'm sorry,” I blurted out as soon as the door swung shut behind us. “They just... they get crazy when they play that game. It's like a drug or something.” “It's all right,” he said, and from the house, behind us, I heard someone yelling, then a chorus of boos. We got into the car and he started the engine, flicking on the lights as he put the car in gear. The radio blasted on as wellLed Zeppelin. I reached forward and changed the station and he rolled his eyes at me. “So,” I said. “How do you know all that stuff?” “You heard them,” he said, flicking down his visor to let a pack of cigarettes fall into his lap. “I'm brilliant.” “No kidding,” I said, sliding closer to him. “What else don't I know about you?” He shook his head, punching in the car lighter with one hand. “You'll find out soon enough,” he said. “I got a million of 'em.” “Oh, that's right,” I said. “You're a complex man of mystery.” He shrugged. “It comes with the hair. You know.” “Yeah,” I said, reaching over to smooth my hand over his face my new mysterious, brilliant boyfriend. “I know.” When Rogerson and I weren't in the car we were at his pool house, shoes off, making out on his perfectly made bed. Maybe because I was forging my own, new, non-?Cass way, things had been moving fast with us from the start. Up until then, my experience with guys had been limited to a couple of boyfriends. One, Anthony Wayan, I'd met at camp. We'd been hot and heavy for three weeks, but once he went back home to Maine things just died out, typical summer romance. Then, sophomore year, I'd dated a junior named Emmet Peck who I sat next to in Ecology class. We were together a full four months, and he'd wanted me to sleep with him. But as much as I liked him, something always stopped mehe was a nice guy, yet ultimately forgettable. And I wanted my first time to be with someone I would always remember. I already felt that way about Rogerson. But I still wanted to take my time, not have it happen in some mad rush or on a random Tuesday afternoon. He seemed to understand this, and when I told him to stopand even for me, it was always hardhe complied, the only protest a little bit of grumbling into my neck as his hands moved back up into the safe zone. But each time it got harder, and I knew I couldn't wait too long. I was beginning to understand that small smile Rina gave me whenever I asked her what she saw in Bill Skerrit. Rogerson seemed to almost like the fact that I was inexperienced, not just about sex, but most things. He enjoyed carting me around in my cheerleading outfit while he took bong hits or talked business with people who eyed me strangely, as if I was a cartoon, not quite real. This was the same reason, I was sure, that he'd been interested in me the first night we'd met. It was a fair trade. With Rogerson, I was someone else. Not Cass. Not even me. I took his wildness from him and tried to fold it into myself, filling up the empty spaces all those second-?place finishes had left behind. There were so many things I already loved about him. The smell of his skin, always slightly musky and sweet. His hair, wild and dread-?locked, thick under my hands as I combed my fingers through it. The way he pressed his hand into the small of my back whenever I walked into any place ahead of him. He was so attentive, with one eye on me regardless of what else he was doing. Even with his back turned, he always seemed to know exactly where I was. Of course, there were the drugs. Rogerson operated a brisk business selling pot and other various illegals to the kids at Perkins Day and Jackson. Because of this and other distractions, added to the fact that he never seemed to mention school, I was surprised at the pool house one day, when he was on the phone, to find poking out of his backpack not only a calculus midterm (on which he scored a 98) but an English paper entitled “Storms and Sacrifice: Weather and Emotion in King Lear” for which he'd gotten an A-. Obviously Trivial Pursuit was not his only strength. Rogerson was what his guidance counselor called “driven but misdirected” (from a letter home I found under my seat in the car, crumpled and bent). He was a perfectionist, whether it came to measuring out a perfect quarter-?ounce or knowing the complete French conditional tense. I, however, was struggling to keep my grades up, since I was suddenly spending so many weeknights (when my parents assumed I was doing cheerleading squad activities) with him. My mother, now distracted with Cass's Lamont Whipper sightings, had eased off on her own involvement in my cheerleading: something that almost would have bothered me, had I really taken the time to think about it. It was so easy, again, for Cass to take center stage. But it made lying that much easier. It became a given that I rode around with him for all his errands almost every night. It was like he just needed me there, even if I was sitting in the car chewing my pencil and working trigonometry proofs while he talked business and divided up bags inside various houses. If I did want to go home early or spend an evening at home, he'd always drive by my house at least once, slowing down and just idling, engine rumbling, until I went outside to talk to him. “Just come here for a second,” he'd say, rolling down his window and cutting off the engine as I came down the walk. “I'll even let you listen to that stupid music you like so much.” “Rogerson,” I'd tell him, “I told you I have got to study. You don't understand.”
“I do, too,” he'd say, opening the car door and holding out his hand. Even if it was dark I could tell when his eyes were sleepy, half-?stoned, which always made him mushier than normal. “One second. I just want to talk.“ ”Yeah, right,“ I'd say. ”I'm serious.“ And then he'd smile at me, strict honest face. ”You trust me, right?” This was his line. It was what always led to me giving in, regardless of the issue, and coming two or three steps closer to give him my hand. Which would, of course, lead to him pulling me inside the car and kissing me, which always made me somehow forget about studying the dates for the Italian Renaissance, or the periodic table, or Macbeth, entirely. There were some nights, though, when something was wrong. He wouldn't talk and just wanted to lean into me, putting his head on my chest while I ran my fingers through his hair until he fell asleep. I always wondered if his dad had hurt him again. But like most things with Rogerson, I was usually given half the puzzle or just one clue, never enough to piece together the full story. This is what I did know. That he was quiet and never spoke without thinking. That he drove like a maniac. That the only time I saw the small simmering of temper behind his cool demeanor was when someone was late or not where they said they'd be. That he liked his brother, tolerated his mother, and never mentioned his father at all. And that whenever I pressed him for details about any of these things, he would sidestep me so gracefully that I could never find a polite way to ask again. Still, there was something so strange and tender about those nights when I just sat with him in the car, my arms around him, wondering what had happened at home that brought him here, needing me so much. It reminded me of how I'd felt when Cass and I shared our room, the peace of mind that comes from knowing someone is so close while you sleep that the worst of the monsters and nightmares can't get to you.
Rogerson and I would stay that way until my father flicked on the outside light, bright and yellow and startling in my eyes. Then I'd wake him up, kiss him good night, and he'd drive off, drowsy, while I went back to my own bed feeling warm and content. I'd close my eyes, alone in my room, remembering him breathing and wonder who he saw, or found, in dreamland.
Rogerson's depth of knowledge continually surprised me. It seemed like there was literally nothing he didn't know. One day, he was changing the oil in his car and I was sitting on a lawn chair in his garage, doing my homework. The Biscoe garage was jam-?packed with stuff. His mother was apparently addicted to shopping, and there were boxes upon boxes, unopened, of laundry detergent, Tupperware, canned goods. In the back, where Mr. Biscoe kept his fishing supplies, was a graveyard of barely used exercise equipment, including a treadmill, a bike, and some strange contraption that looked like skis attached to a trampoline. Whenever Rogerson worked on his car I could spend hours just walking around, poking behind boxes, excavating things. But today I was trying to cram American history, as well as complaining out loud about my teacher, Mr. Alores, who gave trivia quizzes each Friday for extra credit. He didn't teach the material on them; you either knew it or you didn't, and lately I'd been falling into the latter category. “I mean, it's so ridiculous,” I said to Rogerson, or rather to Rogerson's legs, which was all I could see of him poking out from under the car. “How am I supposed to know this crap?” “It can't be that hard,” he said. “Yeah, right. Okay.” I pulled out my last quizI'd gotten a zero and unfolded it. “Here. Number 4. The Victoria was the name of the first ship to what?” “Hand me that wrench by your foot,” he said, and I kicked it under the car to him. "Thanks.
Circumnavigate the globe.“ ”Do what?“ I said. ”The Victoria. It was the first ship to circumnavigate the globe. Magellan. Returned 1522. Right?“ I glanced down at my sheet, where Mr. Alores had written the correct answer in his clear, block-?style printing. ”Yeah. That's right.“ Something clanked, hard, under the car. ”Shit,“ he said. ”Damn screw's practically rusted on.“ I glanced back down at my quiz. ”Rogerson.“ ”Yeah.“ ”Who was the first person to climb Mount Everest?“ ”Sir Edmund Hillary. 1953.“ He pushed out from under the car and stood up, walking over to his toolbox. ”The Ojibwa Indians are better known as what?“ He picked up a screwdriver, examined it, and dropped it back in the box. ”Chippewa,“ he said. I could not believe this. ”The cluster of stars called Pleiades can be found in which constellation?“ He crouched down, sliding back under the car. ”The Seven Sisters,“ he said. I looked down at my sheet. ”Taurus,“ he added, his voice muffled. ”Also known as.“ Right again. I put the sheet down. ”Rogerson. How in the world do you know all this stuff?“ I walked over and knelt down on the floor, peering under the car while he drained the oil into a pan resting on his stomach. ”It's, like, amazing.“ ”I don't know,“ he said. ”Come on. Nobody just knows stuff like the thyroid is located behind the breastbone. It's insane.“ ”Thymus,“ he said. ”What?“ ”The thymus is behind the breastbone,“ he explained, shifting the oil pan. ”Not the thyroid.“ ”Whatever,“ I said. ”You're like a genius or something.“ He smiled at this. ”Nah. I was just really into history and science as a kid. And my grandfather was a trivia addict. He bought me books for practically every birthday and then tested me.“ He shrugged. ”It's no big deal.“ But it was. There were momentswhen Jeopardy came on, in the car during radio trivia challenges, or for practically any question I couldn't answer in any subjectthat Rogerson simply amazed me. I started to seek out facts, just to stump him, but it never worked. He was that sharp. “In physics,” I sprung on him as we sat in the Taco Bell drive-?through, ”what does the capital letter W stand for?“ ”Energy,“ he said, handing me my burrito. Sitting in front of my parents' house as he kissed me good night: ”Which two planets are almost identical in size?“ ”Duh,“ he said, smoothing my hair back, ”Venus and Earth.“ ”Rogerson,“ I asked him sweetly as we sat watching a video in the pool house, ”where would I find the pelagic zone?“ ”In the open sea,“ he said. ”Now shut up and eat your Junior Mints." Rogerson, for the most part, didn't like any of my cheerleading friends. Rina was the only one he could tolerate, and her just barely. He said she was too loud, but he liked her spunk nonetheless. Since she was still hot and heavy with her quarterback, not to mention a developing situation with a college-?boy shoe salesman she'd met at the mall, I didn't see much of her other than at practice. When I wasn't there, I was with Rogerson and his friends. We'd been together about a month when he took me one Sunday afternoon to an old farmhouse out in the country. It was yellow, and kind of ramshackle charming, with a big yard and a dopey looking yellow Lab, curled up in the late winter sunshine, that yawned, uninterested, as we walked up the steps. There were two carsa yellow VW bug and a pickup truckparked in the driveway, and when Roger-?son knocked on the heavy wooden door I could hear the TV on inside.
“Come in,” a voice called out, and as I stepped in behind Rogerson I saw it belonged to a girl with long, straight blond hair who was sitting on a big couch in front of the TV, her feet tucked up under her. The room was small, with bright white walls, sunshine slanting in through a window with a bunch of plants crowded on the sill. The coffee table was an old trunk, covered with magazines and packs of cigarettes,
some bracelets and a flurry of envelopes. There was a fish-?bowl on top of the TV with one bright orange goldfish in it, circling. The girl on the couch was smoking a cigarette and watching the Home Shopping Network, which I recognized instantly from my mother's newfound doll addiction. The jewelry segment was on, with some woman talking up a cubic zirconia bracelet she had draped over her fingers, modeling it this way and that.
“Hey,” Rogerson said to the girl, who looked up and smiled at him. She had a pretty face and cat-?shaped eyes. “Hey yourself,” she said, reaching over to lift a stack of magazines off the couch beside her. “Have a seat. Dave's in the kitchen making lunch.“ ”Is that Rogerson?“ a guy's voice yelled from the next room. ”Yeah,“ Rogerson said. ”Get in here, man. I need to talk to you.“ Rogerson stood up, squeezing my shoulder, and walked to a swinging door, leaning into it to push it open. I caught a glimpse of a guy in his early twenties, in cutoffs and a long flannel shirt, barefoot, standing over a frying pan. On the wall behind him there was a huge velvet Elvis, hanging by a row of cabinets. When the guy saw me he lifted his spatula, smiling, and waved at me before the door swung shut again. ”That's Dave,“ the girl beside me said. ”He's making Hamburger Helper. I'm Corinna.“ ”Caitlin,“ I said, and she nodded, smiling at me. ”Rogerson has problems with introductions.”
“No big deal. We're definitely not formal here,” she said, flicking her wrist absently, clattering the thin silver bangles she wore there. Then she reached forward to stub out her cigarette in an ashtray shaped like Texas, picking up the remote with her other hand to flip channels. She cruised by MTV, a political news show, and two old movies before finally landing on an infomercial about acne medicine, where they were interviewing a kid with horrible skin, all red and splotchy and riddled with bumps like the surface of the moon. “Oh, man,” she said, reaching over the arm of the couch, feeling around for something, and coming up with a blue ceramic bowl and a bag of pot. “That poor kid. Look at that. Like high school isn't bad enough, you know?” She opened the bag and quickly packed the bowl, pressing down on it with her index finger. “I had acne in high school, but it wasn't that bad, thank God. And I still couldn't get a date. But you probably don't have that problem, right?” She fumbled around on the coffee table, moving a TV Guide and two emery boards to unearth a lighter. “I mean, you have great skin.” “Oh, well,” I said, watching as she lit the bowl, drew in a deep breath, and held it a second before slowly letting out a long stream of smoke. “Not really.” “Oh, you do, though. It's all genes. Does your mom have good skin?” It was strange to think of my mother, here, but her face popped into my head instantly, smiling, lipstick perfect. “Yeah, she does.” “See?” She tapped the bowl with the lighter. “Genes.” And then she handed it to me. Up until that point, I'd only smoked a few times: with Rina, experimenting; at one or two parties with the more rebellious of the jocks; and the night I'd seen Rogerson's dad hit him. I'd never cared one way or the other for it, but being in that little farmhouse, on a sunny afternoon, sitting in the corner of that big comfortable couch talking to Corinna, it just seemed right, or as right as anything technically wrong could be.
“Thanks,” I said, taking it, lighting the lighter and drawing in a big hit of smoke, which immediately set me to coughing like crazy. The next one went down easier. And by the third, I felt like an old pro.
Afterward, Corinna lit a cigarette and offered me one, too, which I took, lighting it and smoking like I'd been doing it all my life. We sat there together, smoking and watching the acne doctors work their magic.
By now they'd moved onto a cheerleader with bug eyes and skin so bad it seemed like she was wearing a big red mask. “I admire her so much,” Corinna said, picking up the ashtray and moving it onto the couch between us. “I mean, being a cheerleader and getting up in front of people with that face. She must really have some self-?esteem, you know?“ ”I know,” I agreed, tapping my ash and pulling my legs up underneath me, like Corinna. “Plus cheerleading is so awful anyway.” She looked at me, tucking a few blond strands behind her ear, her bracelets tinkling against each other, like music. “You think so? I always wanted to be a cheerleader. And a prom queen. And I was, like, neither. Not even close.” “I'm a cheerleader,” I said, taking another drag off my cigarette. “And I hate it.” And there it was, the truth, popping out when I least expected it: I did hate cheerleading, always had. And this girl, this stranger, was the only one I'd ever told. “Wow,” she said, laughing, “that was, like, so direct. I love that.” I laughed, too: It seemed funny to me now, almost hysterical in fact. My head felt fuzzy and relaxed and the fish on top of the TV just kept swimming, around and around, and Corinna flipped her long blond hair, smiling that cat-?smile. Something smelled good from the kitchen and it was a lazy Sunday and everything was okay, suddenly as okay as things had been since Cass left and the summer ended even if just for an instant.
We sat there, watching the infomercial and talking, for what seemed like a long time. Corinna told me she worked at Applebee's, waiting tables, producing her ask me about soup 'n' skillets! button from under a couch cushion. She and Dave had been together since high schoolthey'd gone to Jackson, too, graduating five years earlierand sometime soon, they were planning to move to California. “Palm trees, movie stars,” Corinna said with a smile. She was so nice, I felt like I knew her already. She reminded me of Cass that way, the kind of person you felt friendly with at first sight. “I can't wait to get the hell out of this place.” A few minutes later, as they were showing the After pictures of both acne victims, the kitchen door swung open and Dave and Roger-?son came in. I'd forgotten, temporarily, that they were even in the house. Dave was carrying the frying pan, Rogerson a stack of plates. “Dinner is served,” Dave said, kissing Corinna on the top of the head as he sat down beside her. “It's lunchtime,” she told him. “Lunch then. Whatever. Anytime is a good time for Hamburger Helper ?la Dave ,” he said, passing his hand over the frying pan with an exaggerated flourish. “Which means,” Corinna explained to me, “that we didn't have money for hamburger this week so it's just noodles.” “Better for you anyway,” I said. “A diet heavy in meat causes heart disease and high blood pressure.” Dave raised his eyebrows at me and smiled. He had short brown hair and bright blue eyes and looked, strangely, a little bit like Mike Evans. “I like this girl,” he said to Rogerson, handing me a plate and a fork. “That's Caitlin,” Corinna said, digging into the pile of noodles on her plate. “She's a rebel cheerleader.” “Ah,” Dave said. “My favorite kind.” “Mine, too,” Rogerson said, sliding his arm around my waist and forgoing the food as I leaned back against him, eating my Hamburger Helperwhich was, quite honestly, one of the best meals I'd ever eaten. “Oh, Jesus, Corinna,” Dave said as he looked at the TV, where they were showing the Before picture of the cheerleader again. “Why do you always have to watch this crap?” “Hush,” Corinna said. “Eat your food.” “She's obsessed,” Dave told us. “This acne commercial, it's on every single time I come home. I don't get it.” Corinna smiled at him, reaching to smooth one hand over his face. Her bracelets fell down her arm, one by one. “Just one more time,” she said, putting her now empty plate on the coffee table. “I just love to see a happy ending.” So we all sat there, silent, our eyes fixed on the pock-?faced cheerleader, watching the Before and After as the acne medicine worked miracles, smoothing over bumps, wiping away scars, changing her face, her future, her life.