Ask the Passengers

Dad would have to sit there and nod every time she asked a rhetorical question. “Do you think we raised you to be rude?” Nod. “Are you ever going to grow up and think about other people?” Nod. “You know you’re never going to make any friends in college with this attitude, right?” Nod.

Ellis beats me to the shower. Mom turns up her stereo even louder with her horrible eighties music, and I give up on sleeping. I lie in bed and pick up Plato’s Republic and skim the Allegory of the Cave as I seethe.

I replace the words with my own words. Instead of it being a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon, I make it a conversation between Ellis and me. A fictional Ellis who talks to me—and not just when she needs something.

ME: This family is an illusion.

ELLIS: You think?

ME: All we can see is the wall Mom wants us to see. On it she’s drawn the people we know in shadow. For me, she’s drawn you and Dad and the residents of Unity Valley. For you, she’s drawn me and Dad and the residents of Unity Valley. Based on Mom’s shadows, I see a sister who will always be better than me. A sister who will always win because I am a loser. She has cast this same shadow for Dad. We are the losers in the Jones family illusion, and you and Mom are the winners.

ELLIS: (nods)

ME: Now imagine we were set free from this illusion. Our chains removed, our heads able to turn and look at each other. What would I look like to you? And what would you look like to me? And what would Dad look like to us? Would we still rely on the shadows, or would we see the real people?

ELLIS: You’re starting to worry me, Astrid.

ME: That’s because you’re still chained.

ELLIS: And you aren’t?

ME: Not after last night. Not after the last seventeen years of my life in this cave. What if I told you that I am not a loser? What if I told you that Dad is not a loser?

ELLIS: He’d have to get a better job before I’d believe that.

ME: That’s the shadows talking. What does Ellis think?

ELLIS: (stops and pouts) I love that he comes to my hockey games.

ME: And do losers go to their daughters’ hockey games?

ELLIS: I guess not.

ME: I guess not, too.

ELLIS: But if I change the way I think, Mom will stop loving me.

ME: How do you know?

ELLIS: I know because that’s what she did to you.

After two hours of half sleeping and half reading, I roll out of bed and shower. I hear Mom on the phone with someone, and I can’t find anyone else when I go downstairs, so I grab my keys off the quiet-room desk and decide to take myself out to breakfast.

Why the hell not? What are they going to do? Double ground me?

As I drive up Main Street, I look in my rearview mirror and see Frank S. in the backseat. He’s smiling again.

“Hi, Frank,” I say.

“Hello,” he says.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I love pancakes,” he says. “Why are you smiling?”

“Because today is the last day.” I say. “Before the word spreads. Before the people know. Before the people talk. Before they come for me with pitchforks and torches.”

He laughs.

“I also love pancakes,” I say.

I call Kristina’s cell, and when she doesn’t answer, I leave a message. “I’m going to the diner for a sick breakfast. Call me in the next ten if you want me to pick you up.”

I call Dee’s cell, but when she doesn’t answer, I don’t leave a message.

I drive to my favorite diner across town and order a huge plate of pancakes. Then, for dessert, I eat a sundae. As I’m digging at the bottom of my sundae dish with my long-handled spoon, my phone buzzes with a text.

It’s from Dee’s number. And it says: Stay away from my daughter.

All I can think of as I drive home is what it would take to say those words. Stay away from my daughter. Does she think I’m some bad influence? Doesn’t she know by now that I’m just a nerd who edits the school literary magazine? That I’m harmless? A lot more harmless than her daughter?

After all, it was Dee who told me I was gorgeous.

It was Dee who found me in the walk-in freezer.

It was Dee who kissed me.

It was Dee who invented the word abracadabra.

Not me.

It’s like an accusation, that sentence. Stay away from my daughter. It’s the kind of thing Dad would say to Jeff Garnet if he wasn’t always upstairs in the garage attic exhaling out the right window depending on the wind.

It’s the kind of thing Mom would say if she knew what really happened at work this summer. Stay away from my daughter.

And Dee has been out since she started high school. She’s dated a ton of girls. Why am I suddenly the bad guy?

I look to Frank, who is still in the backseat, picking blueberry pancake crumbs from his beard. “It’s about last night,” he says. “It’s about Atlantis.”

I nod.

Dee may have dated tons of girls, but none of them got her busted at a g*y club. Just me.

As I reach Unity Valley, I am distracted. I drive down Main Street, and it’s like driving through a fog of gossip. I put the window down just a little to check if I can hear it. It’s like that sound people make when they pretend they’re whispering. Pppsssswwwsssww. They have heard the news here. I can feel the fog feasting on my reputation as I drive. I feel my pulse in my palms as I grip the steering wheel.

When I step out of the car, the gossip fog is like ether. I am instantly four times more exhausted than I was when I left the diner parking lot.

I get in the door, kick off my shoes and go straight up the steps and into my room. I curl up on the sheepskin rug and drape two knit afghans over my body. I think about calling Dee to make sure everything’s all right, but then I don’t.

The last thing I think before I fall asleep is: Stay away from my daughter.

31

I WAS NOT IMAGINING THE GOSSIP FOG.

MONDAY MORNING.

They say: Holy shit! I can’t believe it!

They say: Did you even know we had a bar like that?

They say: Did you hear? Did you hear? Did you hear?

But no one actually talks to us.

They say: I knew something was wrong with the Kristina-and-Justin thing. No relationship is that perfect.

They say: We should kick them off the Homecoming Court. Liars.

Actually, that’s the Koch twins. They are talking right to my head and not to each other here in fourth-period study hall.

“Who’d have thought they were dykes? They don’t look like dykes.”

“I just can’t believe that Jeff kissed the same lips that were probably all over Kristina Houck’s privates.”

ould have to sit there and nod every time she asked a rhetorical question. “Do you think we raised you to be rude?” Nod. “Are you ever going to grow up and think about other people?” Nod. “You know you’re never going to make any friends in college with this attitude, right?” Nod.

Ellis beats me to the shower. Mom turns up her stereo even louder with her horrible eighties music, and I give up on sleeping. I lie in bed and pick up Plato’s Republic and skim the Allegory of the Cave as I seethe.

I replace the words with my own words. Instead of it being a conversation between Socrates and Glaucon, I make it a conversation between Ellis and me. A fictional Ellis who talks to me—and not just when she needs something.

ME: This family is an illusion.

ELLIS: You think?

ME: All we can see is the wall Mom wants us to see. On it she’s drawn the people we know in shadow. For me, she’s drawn you and Dad and the residents of Unity Valley. For you, she’s drawn me and Dad and the residents of Unity Valley. Based on Mom’s shadows, I see a sister who will always be better than me. A sister who will always win because I am a loser. She has cast this same shadow for Dad. We are the losers in the Jones family illusion, and you and Mom are the winners.

ELLIS: (nods)

ME: Now imagine we were set free from this illusion. Our chains removed, our heads able to turn and look at each other. What would I look like to you? And what would you look like to me? And what would Dad look like to us? Would we still rely on the shadows, or would we see the real people?

ELLIS: You’re starting to worry me, Astrid.

ME: That’s because you’re still chained.

ELLIS: And you aren’t?

ME: Not after last night. Not after the last seventeen years of my life in this cave. What if I told you that I am not a loser? What if I told you that Dad is not a loser?

ELLIS: He’d have to get a better job before I’d believe that.

ME: That’s the shadows talking. What does Ellis think?

ELLIS: (stops and pouts) I love that he comes to my hockey games.

ME: And do losers go to their daughters’ hockey games?

ELLIS: I guess not.

ME: I guess not, too.

ELLIS: But if I change the way I think, Mom will stop loving me.

ME: How do you know?

ELLIS: I know because that’s what she did to you.

After two hours of half sleeping and half reading, I roll out of bed and shower. I hear Mom on the phone with someone, and I can’t find anyone else when I go downstairs, so I grab my keys off the quiet-room desk and decide to take myself out to breakfast.

Why the hell not? What are they going to do? Double ground me?

As I drive up Main Street, I look in my rearview mirror and see Frank S. in the backseat. He’s smiling again.

“Hi, Frank,” I say.

“Hello,” he says.

“Why are you smiling?”

“I love pancakes,” he says. “Why are you smiling?”

“Because today is the last day.” I say. “Before the word spreads. Before the people know. Before the people talk. Before they come for me with pitchforks and torches.”

He laughs.

“I also love pancakes,” I say.

I call Kristina’s cell, and when she doesn’t answer, I leave a message. “I’m going to the diner for a sick breakfast. Call me in the next ten if you want me to pick you up.”

I call Dee’s cell, but when she doesn’t answer, I don’t leave a message.

I drive to my favorite diner across town and order a huge plate of pancakes. Then, for dessert, I eat a sundae. As I’m digging at the bottom of my sundae dish with my long-handled spoon, my phone buzzes with a text.

It’s from Dee’s number. And it says: Stay away from my daughter.

All I can think of as I drive home is what it would take to say those words. Stay away from my daughter. Does she think I’m some bad influence? Doesn’t she know by now that I’m just a nerd who edits the school literary magazine? That I’m harmless? A lot more harmless than her daughter?

After all, it was Dee who told me I was gorgeous.

It was Dee who found me in the walk-in freezer.

It was Dee who kissed me.

It was Dee who invented the word abracadabra.

Not me.

It’s like an accusation, that sentence. Stay away from my daughter. It’s the kind of thing Dad would say to Jeff Garnet if he wasn’t always upstairs in the garage attic exhaling out the right window depending on the wind.

It’s the kind of thing Mom would say if she knew what really happened at work this summer. Stay away from my daughter.

And Dee has been out since she started high school. She’s dated a ton of girls. Why am I suddenly the bad guy?

I look to Frank, who is still in the backseat, picking blueberry pancake crumbs from his beard. “It’s about last night,” he says. “It’s about Atlantis.”

I nod.

Dee may have dated tons of girls, but none of them got her busted at a g*y club. Just me.

As I reach Unity Valley, I am distracted. I drive down Main Street, and it’s like driving through a fog of gossip. I put the window down just a little to check if I can hear it. It’s like that sound people make when they pretend they’re whispering. Pppsssswwwsssww. They have heard the news here. I can feel the fog feasting on my reputation as I drive. I feel my pulse in my palms as I grip the steering wheel.

When I step out of the car, the gossip fog is like ether. I am instantly four times more exhausted than I was when I left the diner parking lot.

I get in the door, kick off my shoes and go straight up the steps and into my room. I curl up on the sheepskin rug and drape two knit afghans over my body. I think about calling Dee to make sure everything’s all right, but then I don’t.

The last thing I think before I fall asleep is: Stay away from my daughter.

31

I WAS NOT IMAGINING THE GOSSIP FOG.

MONDAY MORNING.

They say: Holy shit! I can’t believe it!

They say: Did you even know we had a bar like that?

They say: Did you hear? Did you hear? Did you hear?

But no one actually talks to us.

They say: I knew something was wrong with the Kristina-and-Justin thing. No relationship is that perfect.

They say: We should kick them off the Homecoming Court. Liars.

Actually, that’s the Koch twins. They are talking right to my head and not to each other here in fourth-period study hall.

“Who’d have thought they were dykes? They don’t look like dykes.”

“I just can’t believe that Jeff kissed the same lips that were probably all over Kristina Houck’s privates.”