Chapter 16
D iana and I sit in comfortable silence listening to Genesis and reading until she sets her magazine down, pops the cassette tape out from the player, grabs a purse from her chair and says, “Well we’d better get going.” She holds the Genesis tape extended in her hand. “Take this back will ya?”
I’m to place the tape back where I found it. Her connotation reads you know the drill—same place, so he never suspects .
I make a left for Ben’s room with the tape in hand. When I approach the basketball trophies on his shelf, I look for the inch of emptiness below where I first pulled the cassette from.
The Kansas City basketball keychain, that initially sparked a few answers to my suspicions, raises another question. I stare at its bold colors—bright and shining against the plain white shelf—deep in thought. Why did he quit basketball a few weeks ago, mid-season and around the same time as the concert? If he quit because he doesn’t enjoy it anymore, why did he pick up a Kansas City basketball keychain?
I hesitate with the tape in hand, closing my fingers tightly around the casing as I get an idea that may speed up my plan.
I shove the tape into the waistband of my stretchy pants, deciding to take the risk and hold onto Genesis just a little bit longer.
“Atta!”
The male voice behind me gives me the greatest spook of my life. When I turn to face him, I can see the heat emanating from his shoulders. His voice, low and stern, speaks for itself. Irritability seeps through with just the call of my name. I can’t look him in the face. I feel my body trying to sink inside itself. Ben is giving me the look my father used to give me when he was disappointed in me. I haven’t experienced it since I was five, the same year he passed, but it was chilling enough for me to remember. I’d rather summon a black pit to fall into at this moment than have the conversation Ben and I are about to have.
I’ve been caught red-handed—literally. The cover of Genesis’ Invisible Touch cassette case is a literal red-orange hand in front of a green box and its square shape is creating a lump in the elastic band at my waist.
I lift my head. He’s farther away than I thought, standing in the open doorway. Whether he knows I’ve taken his tape or not, I’m still in the doghouse for loitering in his room. I do a humble walk of shame and meet him at the door.
“It’s not…” I begin, then quickly change my tone. “It’s not what you think or maybe it is,” I say with a nervous laugh. I’m trying my best to fake the upbeat tone I’ve had to use with Ben since landing in this eighties universe, in hopes that he’ll reconsider his beef with me. His eyes burst into embers, like dancing ashes of irritation.
“You stole one of my tapes, didn’t you? It’s there. Let me see that,” he says pointing at my waist.
“See this?” I point to the bulge, hoping he’ll give up if I question his request.
“What else? It’s my tape, isn’t it? Why else would you be in my room?”
I have nothing to say to that, so I pull out the tape and place it in his open hand.
“Genesis? You grabbed Genesis, huh?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer before saying “You’re taking this too far, Atta!”
“Diana simply asked me to get Genesis out of your room,” I say. It’s partially the truth—“feel free to get it” was her way of saying she wouldn’t mind listening to it too.
“Why do you insist on making my personal life your business? What do you plan on doing with that tape, when you know perfectly well I don’t want you to bring up Genesis? It’s not like you’re interested in Genesis. We both know you’re doing this to get back at me for some reason.”
He stands looking more vulnerable than I’ve ever seen him. The crease in his brow folds as if it’s given up on expressing peace, joy, and happiness for good.
“Why’d you do it?” I say calmly. “Why’d you sneak off to a concert with Corky and not tell your girlfriend?” I lock my eyes on his. “Bennette. Your girlfriend. Why would you go to a concert with her best friend without her knowing?” I’m shooting from the hip here, hoping my accusations are correct. There’s always the chance I’m off, but all the evidence has led me to this.
“Listen, I’ll say it again, just like I did the night you hopped on the line while we were on the phone. Corky and I are just friends. We just went to a concert together. That’s all.” He tries to keep his tone calm this time.
“Then why keep it a secret? Why has it been such a big deal that I don’t mention anything around you? You’ve been mad at me all week and why? Because you innocently went to a concert, not because there’s something you’re trying to hide?”
He wipes the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his black Motley Crew tee. The worried expression on his face softens my view of him. It brings me back to our younger selves, the Non-80s-Land ones, when he approached me with worried eyes. Like the time my dog had decimated two of my chickens, leaving me absolutely devastated. I’d become friends with Lady and Bessy and the incident was traumatizing for my eight-year-old self, so when Ben Brown walked out of his house to find me at my mailbox with tears streaming down my cheeks, to my delight he looked back at me with worried eyes, walked me to my front porch, and wrapped me in a hug while I cried on his shoulder.
He did the same thing when I came home from college and learned that my mother had accidentally thrown out my late father’s Tió de Nadal, the Christmas log our parents used to place small candies and toys under while we warmed our sticks in the kitchen Christmas morning. Once they were warm we would beat the Tió with sticks and pull a gift out from the blanket and sing “Caga Tió” to honor my father’s Spanish heritage and fantastic humor. She had thrown it out while doing some spring cleaning and was just as devastated as I was.
When I broke my wrist while on assignment a few years ago, he’d shown the same worried expression. I almost enjoyed it as he held me trying to keep my bones in position—his long arms supporting me as we navigated the twists and turns of the road on the way to the hospital.
He’s wearing the same worried face.
But this time he isn’t worried about me, he’s worried about getting caught having to respond truthfully to my questions.
Diana appears in the hallway. “What are you doing at home, Ben? I thought you were at Tyler’s,” she says, biting her lip as if concealing a portion of it will conceal the fact that I’ve wrongfully trespassed into Ben’s space and been caught. “I had Atta grab the Genesis tape from your room,” she says trying to save me and snatches the tape from his fingers.
“Sure, Diana.” Ben walks past her rolling his eyes in the process.
“Let’s get out of here. You ready, Atta?” Diana waves the tape like a snack in front of me.
When we walk out to the driveway, we find Ben looking defeated leaning against Diana’s Honda Civic with a very eighties triangular roof, but a forced smile hits his face when we appear.
“Di, give me a ride.” Ben looks over at his dirt bike in the garage. “My bike won’t start and I don’t have time to fix it.”
Diana arches an eyebrow as if to say Why’s that my problem?
“C’mon, Di,” Ben says. “Tyler’s been alone for less than twenty minutes. I can only imagine what he’s been able to scheme up for my payback in that amount of time.”
“Backseat,” Diana commands. “Atta, you’re in shotgun.”
Ben and I keep our silence the majority of the drive, that is until Diana starts questioning Ben.
“How’s Bennette? I haven’t seen her in a while,” Diana says. She’s either genuinely curious about Bennette or trying to agitate him after she caught us arguing in his doorway and wants to start round two.
“She’s good, Diana,” Ben says with a short tone.
I turn around in my seat to gauge just how irritated he is. His hands are tucked into his leather jacket pockets and his brown eyes, dusted with caramel-colored flakes, are peeled upwards in my direction. His chin is tilted into his chest and it’s as if he’s giving me a glare of death.
“Are you going with me and Robyn on Tuesday? She wants us to go to the concert at the mall,” Diana asks Ben.
“Yeah, Greg’s coming with me,” he responds.
“Did you invite Bennette or are you keeping this concert a secret from her too?” I interrupt. It was a ruthless move, and part of me felt bad for bringing it up again, but the other part wanted us to finish the conversation we started earlier.
“Atta, come on. You’re my sister’s best friend, not my girlfriend. Holding this information over me is stupid,” Ben says, with some ice in his tone.
Diana lets out a thick sigh.
“I just want to know why you didn’t tell her,” I say, turning around in my seat to look at Ben in the back.
“You already know why. So why sneak into my room with the Genesis tape? It looks like you’re trying to threaten me with it. You can see that, right?” His full lips are pursed together, waiting. Ben scoots over to the middle seat and grabs the steel bars under our headrests, his upper half leaning in toward the front of the car, ready for a full-fledged debate.
“Diana and I really wanted to listen to Genesis . Corky suggested I listen to Genesis and Diana agreed we should grab it from your room. That’s it,” I say with an uneasy smile. He wasn’t making this easy on me.
“Bull, Atta. That is such bull.”
“I’m telling you the full truth.” I hold up my fingers with the ol’ scout's honor sign, somewhat put off with his angry tone.
My memory flips back to our sibling-like squabble last month.
“Try the homemade dip, Atta,” he pressured me for the third time that night in Non-80s-Land. We sat on his couch watching New Girl after his latest female interest left us for a family function earlier that night—too early in a feeling-things-out kind of courtship for Ben to accompany her. He’d poured his heart into a fancy artichoke dip made from scratch and I wouldn’t touch artichokes or mayonnaise. Especially not the yellow kind made from scratch.
“Your girl already tried it. Rely on her feedback. Not mine.”
“There’s nothing I’ve made that you haven’t tried and disliked. You’ll like it. Come on. A tiny taste.” He’d held the bowl out as if he intended to force spoon feed me.
“Nothing you say will convince me to put that near my mouth.”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“Would you be this stubborn if your boyfriend asked you to try something he slaved all afternoon over?” he’d asked.
“I don’t have a boyfriend.”
“You really should get one,” he’d said with sternness before grabbing hold of me and forcing the spoon at my mouth. He’d left me with a long streak of appetizer smeared across my face when I refused to taste it and I’d left him disappointed.
Irritated that I wouldn’t taste his food he’d said, “That’s your punishment, little sis.”
In the Civic, I lower my hand, pressing it against the dashboard. Diana looks annoyed taking the sharp turn. I recall Erica making the same turn this morning. Thankfully we’re close, just a minute or two out from Tyler’s grandparents’ house.
“And since when have you ever wanted to be a cheerleader?” Ben says. “You joined the cheer team to mess with me. To be near Bennette and Corky, and to what? Blackmail me? Make me nervous that you’ll expose what you know to Bennette?”
He brings his head into the nook between our headrests.
“Paranoid much?” I say, rolling my eyes back into my head. He wouldn’t answer my question and now he’s accusing me of blackmail.
“Fine, don’t take me seriously. You’ve done nothing but irritate me all week with your not-so-subtle moves. You’re either jealous or extremely bored. Bennette and I are happy. Things are great between us. I don’t need you judging what I do.” He spits out that last bit under his breath, but he’s so physically close I have no problem hearing.
“Oh great. We’re having this conversation so you can tell me all about how great of a boyfriend you are,” I say with derision. Ben looks uncomfortable. He sits up straight then leans back into his seat.
“Yes, that was my master plan. I walked into my bedroom earlier so that I could find you and tell you just how great of a boyfriend I am,” he says.
“I knew it!” I say. My mood has reached the answers-only-in-sarcasm level. I can feel the steam-powered fumes force their way out of my nostrils like an angry bull cartoon.
“I can’t do this right now,” he says, shoving the back door open as Diana rolls into Tyler’s driveway. Ben’s out before Diana actually stops the car and the garage walls tremble from the blaring music inside. It’s muffled, but I can almost make out song lyrics from the grass until we reach the professionally landscaped shrubs at the front door.
“What was all of that about in the car? You two were arguing like a married couple. Are you sure you aren’t jealous of him dating Bennette? I get the frustration, but that was heavy, even for you two,” Diana says as we linger at the door. Neither of us has decided to knock.
“I’m not jealous.”
“Oh, Atta. Please don’t fall for my brother. He’s not worth it. Like not worth it all. Look what he’s doing to Bennette. If you somehow ended up together, I’d be your third wheel. Please. No.”
Young Diana was a stark contrast to older Diana who was practically begging me to date her brother. But I couldn’t blame her for this reaction. At this age we were inseparable and both of us hated the thought of someone getting in the way of our friendship.
“It’s not like that. He’s dating her and I’m not jealous.”
“So you’ve never liked him, right?” she says, her eyes pleading for me to deny, deny, deny as we stall in front of Tyler’s home. I stare at her with an awkward cheeky smile, sucking my lips in instead of answering. We both know I can’t honestly answer this question. My face has already given it away. Diana’s eyes widen. “Well?” she says.
“You don’t have to worry. Trust me, I know for a fact he’d never date me.”