In Real Life Read online

  I lay the contents out on the table. A letter signed “Coach Yeong” which I set aside. A folder with a bunch of clippings on Team Anaconda, as if I hadn’t heard of them before. And an airline envelope. Inside are e-tickets from Kansas City to Chicago. Behind the letter is a hotel reservation confirmation for a night at a Hyatt Hotel on Wacker Drive. I read the street name twice and shake my head, thinking, nice name. Then I grab everything and take it up to the computer. When I Google the Hyatt I see that it’s a huge hotel right on Lake Michigan. It looks great.

  I write it all up in an email and send it to Garrett and Dad, asking Dad if he could use his airline miles to get Garrett a ticket. I’m pretty sure he will, because he’ll do anything for Garrett.

  Then I sit back and read the letter and the rest of the stuff in the package. It’s all there in writing. Team Anaconda is looking to add the best American talent to their team. It doesn’t make it clear how many people are trying out, but you can tell it’s not just me. Even though it’s weeks away I’m getting the kind of nerves you get just before a big match. Heart racing, face flushing.

  I send a note to DT telling him that he was right. That it’s the real deal.

  Then I check the message boards to see if there’s any buzz from anyone else getting the invite. I find a bunch of stuff about Team Anaconda’s promo tour—they’re going to be in Los Angeles and Seattle before going to Chicago. Then New York and Atlanta and Las Vegas. But no one is talking about tryouts. I understand, because I’m not tempted to post anything. Why encourage more competition?

  I’m still sitting there in my night shirt and the first pair of old shorts I could find when the doorbell rings. I look at the computer clock and swear when I see it’s a little after one.

  I run into my room, grab a fresh T-shirt throw it on and run down the stairs and open the door. Hannah. Smiling through the screen door. Hair glowing in the sunshine. Giant round sunglasses.

  “You going to invite me in?” she finally says. “I’m going to melt in about thirty more seconds.”

  “Yeah, of course,” I stammer and open the screen door and hold it as she brushes past me, smelling of something sweet and flowery.

  “Hey,” she says. “You forgot to put away your breakfast dishes.”

  From yesterday, I think. I actually haven’t eaten anything yet today.

  “Oh yeah. Behind schedule. I was just about to jump into the shower.” And then I blush. Because this is not an image that I really want to project. “We got time? Only take me five minutes.”

  Hannah gives me a serious look. “Must be nice to have short hair,” she says. “I’ve been giving it serious thought.”

  I could imagine two girls spinning this into an hour conversation, but all I can think of is that Hannah would look great, hair short, long whatever.

  “So did you hear anything more about your thing?” Hannah asks.

  “Oh yeah. Got a package. Tickets to Chicago. It’s all upstairs by the computer. You can look it over while I…”

  Hannah seems puzzled by this pause but then she seems to get it and grins and shakes her head.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “I’m not going to try to sneak in and satisfy any of your sick fantasies.”

  My first instinct is to defend them as not sick at all, but I’m a little tongue-tied so I just wave her to follow me upstairs. I leave her with the computer, grab some fresh clothes out of my room and duck into the bathroom. Cold water, I’m thinking. I’ve heard that works.

  34.

  We head south in Hannah’s van, the heat drying my hair faster than a blow dryer. I play with the vents, trying to get a thin stream of cool air to keep me from sweating out my clean T-shirt. We head down Metcalf away from town and turn right onto a road that I don’t recognize and then a mile down, turn left onto an even smaller road. The street sign says Sherman Court. One jog to the left and we’re onto a small cul-de-sac.

  “The big white one is ours,” Hannah says. “It used to be a farmhouse. The developer left it here and put in all these other lots around it. I love it—it makes all these new houses look tacky.” The other homes are all three-car garages with a house stuck on the side. Hannah’s has to be the one at the end of the street with the longer driveway that curves around to what looks like a separate garage off behind the house. It has an old-fashioned porch across the front and appears much thinner and taller than the neighbors. We pull into the driveway, next to an older two-seater Mercedes.

  “That’s my dad’s pride and joy,” Hannah says. “I’m pretty sure he’d trade my brother or me for it if it came down to it.”

  As we climb the broad steps to the porch I can hear the deep barking of a large dog and then the skittering of dog nails on the door. Then I hear a voice yelling “shut up, Barkley.” And the door swings open. A boy, about twelve, is holding a panting golden retriever by the collar with his right hand, staring at me with puzzlement. I can see in his face the resemblance to Hannah, especially in and around the eyes.

  He turns to the dog and yells, “Quiet! It’s just Hannah and another boy.”

  Hannah brushes past me and bends over and begins rubbing the dog’s face vigorously. He sits and then rolls over, letting Hannah rub his stomach.

  “Hannah!” says the boy, using the same voice he used when he was trying to quiet the dog. “You know you’re not supposed to bring boys over when Mom and Dad are gone. I don’t know who he is. He could be an ax murderer or a serial rapist.”

  “Jeez, Zeb, what kind of way is that to talk? You got to stop watching all those damn crime shows. It’s Seth and he’s a friend of mine.” She tells me to come in, holding onto to Barkley by the collar. The dog is desperately trying to get his nose onto me, his back half rotating in unison with his tail like a fish’s fin against a stiff current. We shut the door against the heat and I glance around. A wide staircase with a fancy banister. Flanked by glass cases filled with some sort of little porcelains and decorated plates.

  “Barkley a sweetheart,” Hannah says. “You like dogs, don’t you?”

  I watch her caressing the dog with obvious affection. We never had pets and I’m a little leery around dogs.

  “He’ll just try to lick you to death.”

  Then she turns to her brother and says, “Zeb, say hello to Seth.”

  “You’re not supposed to have boys over when Mom and Dad are out,” he says again, looking defiantly at Hannah, ignoring me.

  “And you and your friends aren’t supposed to be throwing a football around the house. You could break one of Mom’s favorite antique vases.”

  “Hey,” Zeb says. “You promised.”

  “Right. Now why don’t you get back to your stupid Wii.”

  As he slinks away, pulling the dog along, Hannah smiles at me and whispers. “We pinned that one on Barkley.”

  As we walk through the hallway I can see that this is not a house built for indoor football. I step closer to one of the glass-fronted cabinets to get a better view of the elaborately decorated plates and pottery.

  Hannah sees me staring and says, “That’s my mom’s thing. She travels all over going to shops and auctions. God knows where we’re going to stow the next pile of crap she brings home.”

  “Your Mom and Dad?” I ask, hoping that I’m not sounding either too defensive or too hopeful.

  “They went shopping. You know the antique mall on the way to Lawrence?”

  I shake my head.

  “It’s like a secret society of these hoarders. They’ve collected all the trashiest leftovers between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians, gathered it all together and piled it onto tables in this big barn-like building.”

  “Yeah? Pretty sure I missed that one.”

  “Did I mention you can buy hot dogs that have been boiling in pots for days?”

  “O
K, now I really want to go.”

  She leads me up the stairs and I feel my face flushing.

  At the top of the stairs she points down the hall. “The last door,” she says, smiling slyly. “That’s my bedroom.”

  Then she turns and looks at me, flushed and wide-eyed. I feel perspiration beading on my forehead. Then she starts laughing.

  “For God’s sake, Seth. That’s not where we’re headed. Is that what you thought?”

  But when I look into her eyes I can see that she’s just goofing with me. “Come on,” she says, and dances around the corner where there’s another set of stairs, narrow, wooden and worn.

  On either side of the stairwell are a half-dozen of her color photos, matted and framed. More flower pictures like she has on Facebook, so closely focused that they could have been something else entirely. A hot air balloon inflating or colorful flags in a stiff wind or some anatomical blow-up, fleshy and alive.

  At the top of the stairs there’s a plain, unfinished wooden door. Hannah takes out a large, black, old-fashioned key.

  “To keep the brother at bay,” she explains.

  With the key in the door she turns and says, “Now this is my favorite part of this house.”

  She stops before the door is entirely open. “You know, when I started taking a different kind of photo, I thought I had someone who would understand. But then I put some of my earlier stuff on Facebook and when I asked him what he thought…”

  She seems stuck with that thought and I don’t know what to say.

  “But that was another world,” she finally says and we step into a dark room. I can feel her close to me and want to reach out and touch her, but resist. She locks the door behind her by feel and talks to me while we stand there in the dark. She must be able to hear my heart, which is echoing in my ears.

  “But when you looked at my photos. You just seemed to get it. And then the way you’re into those games. Even when some people don’t understand, or think it’s a waste. It’s like when Mom and Dad try to get me to think about studying something practical in college and not just do art. And I’m like trying to tell them that it’s not just fun and games. It’s who I am. That’s probably why I did that self-portrait. You know, the takeoff of Frida Kahlo. She has this famous quote, “I was born a bitch. I was born a painter.”

  Then she flicks a switch. Three bare bulbs hanging from the center beam light up the long, thin windowless room. The sides of the room go up straight for about four feet and then slant into the peak beam. At the far end of the room I see a large white backdrop and three large white umbrellas on stands, and a bunch of lights and a large camera on tripods.

  “My studio,” Hannah says, extending her arm and opening her hand as if welcoming royalty at a ball.

  “Wow. That’s a lot of equipment.”

  “Now you know why I have to work so many damn hours. I started with film, but that was just killing my budget. Now I’m mostly digital. Still, the printing can get expensive.”

  Halfway down the loft there’s an old patterned couch.

  “Sit down,” Hannah commands. “I’ll get my portfolio.”

  At the studio end of the room she reaches behind the backdrop and pulls out a large black case.

  Drags it over to the couch and plops down, so close our legs are touching. Lays the folder across our knees and zips it halfway open before stopping.

  “Now, I want you to promise something.”

  “Sure.”

  “You haven’t heard what yet.”

  “True. But I’m sure…”

  “Promise you won’t laugh at me.”

  “Why would I laugh?”

  “I don’t know. Because I’m stupid. Or awful. Or crazy.”

  “Those aren’t laughing matters,” I say.

  She pokes me with an elbow and unzips the portfolio the rest of the way and then pauses. “Just so you know,” she says. “Some of this work. Well, it might have caused some problems if people saw it. Back in Princeton, the darkroom was in this sort of side building and when we were on deadline, well, we had keys. So I worked on this stuff at weird hours. On weekends, at night.”

  She flips over the first page. It’s a large black-and-white photo of a blond angel surrounded by flowers and framed on either side by some sort of Greek-looking columns. At first it just looks like some sort of sappy old postcard photo but then my eyes are drawn to the angel’s body, which is wrapped in sheer white fabric. You can see right through it. The dark auras of her breasts and a dark triangle in her lap.

  “Holy shit,” I say, as I look deeper at the angel’s face and see behind the round rouged cheeks and long blond wig that it’s Hannah.

  “Just tell me what you’re thinking. Now, honestly.”

  I stutter something.

  “Just how it makes you feel.”

  “I don’t know, Hannah. It’s weird. First you see an angel, and then you look again, and, I don’t know. It’s like these two things are together when they’re not supposed to be. It’s, it’s disturbing.” I wanted to say more.

  “Exactly, I knew you’d get it.” She closed the portfolio and looked directly into eyes. “It’s just what society expects of us. We should be some weird kind of erotic angels. Like when you listen to these pop divas, they sound like breathy little girls, like Shirley Temple, and then you watch their videos and they’re doing some sort of pole dance in lingerie. It obviously sells, but where does that leave the rest of us? So you said it was disturbing. But does it kind of turn you on, too?”

  I stutter again but manage a nod.

  “Exactly,” she says. “I’ve got a whole series like that one. Amazing what you can find in a school’s drama closet. Thirty years of school plays produce one weird-ass collection of costumes and props. Here, let me show you something a little different.”

  She stands up and thumbs through the portfolio and drops it back in my lap. It’s a color picture this time. In the fall, long grass the color of hay leading up a hill to a farmhouse, but that’s not where my eyes go at first. There’s a naked girl, lying sideways on the grass, propped up by her arms, looking towards the house. I’m thinking Hannah, but then I look closer and it’s a mannequin, carefully coiffed with a head of long, black hair with a glimpse of a matching patch down below. I know I’ve seen that picture before, or something like it.

  “Not going to make the yearbook,” I declare.

  Hannah laughs and takes the portfolio away and lays it gently on the floor. Then she sits down next to me and holds my face with both hands and we’re kissing. First sitting up and then sliding slowly down on the couch. And in a flash I think of Garrett and his Kimberly but then all I can do is sigh and sink back into that old couch like it’s a pillow pile, like the softest moment of consciousness before you fall into a deep sleep, like the billowing clouds that support a beautiful, naughty angel.

  35.

  The next morning I hear Dad in the kitchen. Must have gotten back late last night. I wander into the kitchen, just staring into nothingness, thinking of Hannah. I can close my eyes and picture her exactly, giving me that sly smile when she’s said something particularly insulting.

  I’m such an idiot about girls. I mean, I sort of know stuff, but last night—it was all kind of confusing and now I’m wondering if I just bungled it. It seemed like Hannah liked what I was doing, but maybe she was just being polite.

  I’m sitting at the kitchen table when Dad comes in.

  “Hey young man,” he says. “How are things?”

  “OK,” I say.

  “Just OK?”

  “Maybe better than OK. If someone got me some breakfast.”

  Dad opens a cabinet and pulls out a bowl.

  “You know, it would work out a lot better if you loaded the dishwasher after you ate. I had to spend a ha
lf-hour last night digging out the sink.”

  “Oh yeah, I meant to get to that…”

  “Too busy?”

  “Well, I do work late some nights.”

  “Corn flakes OK?”

  “Sure.”

  Dad pours some milk into the bowl and sets it front of me.

  “Thanks,” I say as I lift the first spoonful.

  “And it had nothing to do with the girl you had over the other day?”

  Half the cereal in my spoon splashes onto the table.

  “What?”

  “Oh, I ran into our snoopy neighbor when I was getting the paper this morning. The old lady who lives two units down. She said she saw a very cute young girl come to our door day before yesterday.”

  “Oh that. That was nothing.”

  “No? Actually I would put that it the category of something quite a bit more than nothing. Like astonishing?”

  “It’s just this girl I work with. She gives me a lift sometimes. I guess she feels sorry for me. Not having my license yet.”

  “Look, Seth,” Dad says, sitting down next to me. “I had this talk with your brother years ago and I would have had it with you before, but I just wasn’t sure you were ready.”

  I’m thinking, anything but this. I stare into my cereal, carefully spooning the floating flakes.

  “I know you kids today, you have access to all kinds of stuff we couldn’t have dreamed of when I was a kid. So I don’t have to tell you the old facts of life or anything. I just wanted you to know that in my dresser, in the bottom drawer, in the back…”

  I’m nodding like I knew exactly what was there. Because I had scoped out his bulk supply of Trojans years ago.

  “Well, that’s it,” Dad says. “I’ve got a couple of local calls to make today so I’ll see you tonight, OK?”