Chip
“Shit,” they hear from inside. “Give me like ten minutes!” Hawk yells.
“I’ll leave,” they hear a woman’s voice say, and they look at each other and step away from the door.
“Appreciate it,” Hawk calls after them as they walk down the hall.
“He better be in his cot,” Phil says, and they walk downstairs to the lounge and turn the television dial and sit and wait.
Later that night, Chip borrows an iron from Amy, who works reception and the gift shop; he presses his gray shirt and black pants.
He meets Nancy, the activities director, in the recreation building, where there are basketball hoops down the hall from the indoor pool.
There is a sign for bowling in the basement, and an archery and rifle range on the other end.
Nancy has set up a stereo system with some taped-down Xs on the gym floor.
“I know nothing about ballroom dancing,” he says.
She smiles. She has long dark hair like Cher and green eyes.
She’s been at the job for a couple years, and he imagines she’s twenty-one or twenty-two.
“Well, you have about an hour to learn.” She stands in the middle of the floor and beckons him.
He feels weak, and his stomach flips. He just got platelets yesterday, Vicky in the waiting room the whole time, not even looking at a magazine, just staring at the door.
“All done,” she said afterward and gave him a brave smile.
“I really can’t dance,” he says now, but Nancy is fearless. She holds out her hand, and he takes it.
“Your palms are sweaty.” She laughs.
“This is way out of my comfort zone.” She puts her other hand on his back and he wonders if he is sweating through his shirt—it’s stuffy in here, and against the ceiling is a stray balloon.
He wonders when it got stuck there, when it will finally deflate and fall.
He steps on her feet a few times, but she doesn’t seem to care.
She keeps her cool, redirecting him and counting as they dance.
“You’re getting it,” she says, and she trots over to the stereo, her heels echoing on the floor, which he worries about scuffing—he remembers Mr. Grakowski was always so protective of the gym floor.
She puts on a record that he thinks is Glenn Miller, and she walks back over to him. “Let’s see if the music helps.”
“My grandma likes this song,” he says as they step together. He tries to keep his body square and keep up with her, and she shoves him playfully.
“I’m no grandma,” she says and smiles. “ ‘Moonlight Serenade’ is a classic.”
He steps on her toes a few more times, but after a while, he feels more fluid, and she starts letting him lead. “That’s it,” she says. “See that? Just let your body sense it. Don’t overthink.”
They move across the gym floor, and he can make out the different instruments in the song: clarinets, trumpets. He feels like he and Nancy are gliding. Her hand in his, they keep moving in time with the music.
His face is so close to hers that he can see her eyelashes move, and a faint smile on her lips.
He feels something—not love. He doesn’t know if he could fall in love at this point.
You have to believe in something to fall in love, you have to have at least an ounce of trust in the universe.
He doesn’t know if you can believe in love when you’re facing the end at eighteen.
He feels himself get choked up, and leans in closer to her, and her hair brushes his face.
“That’s it,” she says.
He feels her hand on his back, and he wonders about his blood underneath his skin. What did the doctors first see under that microscope? What would Nancy say if she knew what was going on inside him as they swayed across this wide gym floor?
He closes his eyes as they move, and he imagines being outside under the stars. He imagines this moment, a moment like this, could fix him like the music box. “Please,” he whispers, so quietly he’s sure she can’t hear. Their feet move together. He never learned anything this quickly before.
They are like fireflies: graceful, lighting up. The record plays and plays.
Hawk jostles him awake the next morning. “Hey man.” Chip looks up and sees his cleanly shaven face, his serious eyes. Phil is sleeping soundly in the top bunk.
“What the hell?” Chip stretches. He feels like a parent whose kid wants to open Christmas gifts at four in the morning.
“Come fishing?” Hawk whispers.
Chip turns and looks at his clock. He pulls it closer to his face. “It’s just after five.” Is this guy insane?
“Best time to catch fish. I thought it would be cool if you came with me.” He cracks his knuckles.
When did Chip ever say he wanted to go fishing? He barely knows this guy. And Chip is in pain. He felt it after the dancing. All his joints ache, and he’s running low on acetaminophen. Hawk stands there as if this was an agreed-upon plan, as if they are friends who do this all the time.
Chip grips his forehead for a second and looks up at Hawk. “Give me two minutes.”
They walk and walk through the woods, and Chip has no idea how Hawk knows where to go or where he got the two fishing poles he is carrying.
Hawk is the strangest roommate, and Chip doesn’t think he ever sleeps.
Once in a while, Chip wakes in the middle of the night and sees Hawk’s eyes open, staring at the ceiling.
“What’s his deal?” Phil has said. Hawk has brought at least three different girls back to the room, and Phil has given double middle fingers to the door when they’ve come home and the dresser is pushed in front of it.
“Hawk three, Chip and Phil zero,” Chip said.
“Speak for yourself,” Phil said. “Old Philly gets the ladies, but he doesn’t bring them back to an eight-by-ten room where two other guys live.”
Now Chip and Hawk come to a creek, and the sound of water rushing over rocks settles him.
He crouches down and lets it wash over his hands.
He used to tell Maggie he wished he could float on a leaf in water like this.
Just a small speck of something rushing by.
He almost tells Hawk this, but you can’t tell guys stuff like that.
He thinks for a second that’s an observation Holden Caulfield would make.
Last night, he read to the part where Holden gets drunk and has icicles in his hair.
Holden talked about his own funeral and Allie’s funeral, which he didn’t go to.
Chip wonders what kids from school will show up to his. He wonders if anyone will talk about what he’s meant to them. Sometimes he just wants to scream. It’s so fucking unfair. How can this be real? He’s only ever known how to be alive.
He’s glad he’s at the Red Maple though. If he’d stayed home and gone to doctors’ appointments, everyone would just be staring at him, waiting.
Hawk jabs a worm onto the hook without flinching. “She’s all yours, bro.”
Chip swallows. “Nifty.” He takes the pole and thinks of their dad taking him and Maggie fishing.
They’d bring Cokes and bologna sandwiches and oatmeal cookies.
They’d go to Bushkill Creek and laugh as they stood by the water, and the sunlight peeked at them through the tall trees.
Maggie got a tug on her line, squealed, and wouldn’t let anyone help her.
She reeled it in carefully and looked so triumphant when she held a beautiful trout and their dad said, “Wait, wait!” and took out his Kodak.
Hawk doesn’t speak. He nods when Chip offers him a cigarette, otherwise stares straight ahead at the water.
“This is pretty nice,” Chip says. He keeps imagining something’s tugging his line, but nothing. He hears mourning doves and the twitter of robins and blue jays. He hears some rustling in the leaves and sees a chipmunk.
“Yeah.” Hawk scratches his chest. Chip stares straight ahead. He wonders why this guy wanted him to come fishing if he had no interest in company.
They don’t talk for a few more minutes, and Chip shakes out his arm, which feels tired. Hawk turns to him. “Can I ask you something?”
“What’s that?”
“What’s going on with you?”
Chip doesn’t feel totally awake. His stomach growls. “What do you mean?”
Hawk exhales and keeps staring straight ahead.
Chip imagines the darkness beneath the surface of the river, the occasional fish swimming by.
“I mean,” Hawk says, “like I can tell you’re in pain.
Even right now, it’s like you’re trying not to show it.
” He blows out air. “I don’t sleep so well, and I can tell you don’t either.
” He turns to him. “I hear you taking pills sometimes, too.”
Chip sighs. “You a detective?”
“It’s my curse, I guess.” He flicks a bug off his arm. “You have a war injury or something?”
Chip shakes his head.
Hawk seems disappointed for a second. “Then what’s going on?”
Chip watches his line and wishes so hard that something would happen. In a second, he feels a tug, and Hawk’s eyes widen. “Looks like you won,” Hawk says.
“Still need to reel it in.” Chip holds the rod carefully, the line bending as it gets more taut.
He watches the fish lift into the air, and knows he’ll only look at it for a second before releasing it back into the water.
He’ll imagine what it’s like to be unhooked from doom, to get another chance.
He imagines how refreshing the water would feel, splashing in again, and he’s envious.
He wishes his dad and Maggie were there to snap a picture.
“Nothing’s wrong with me,” he says.
It’s a little after seven when they head back to the resort. Chip’s back and joints ache. He clenches his teeth and tries to make small talk. They see two deer and what looks like an eagle overhead, and the day is warm but not humid. A light breeze ripples their shirts as they walk.
They are still in the woods, and their steps barely make a sound. “I could eat a cow,” Chip finally says.
“Me too. We should’ve kept the trout. I could have cooked them up nice.”
“Nah,” Chip says. “They didn’t want to be our breakfast.”
“How would you know?” Hawk says and ruffles his hair. He can’t figure this guy out. He’s half gruff and half protective big brother.
“What are you, some kind of grizzly bear?” Chip grins at him, and he offers to take the poles, but Hawk laughs and ignores him.
“Your mom called me a grizzly bear last night.”
“Piss off,” Chip says.
Hawk looks over at him. “By the way, if the pain or whatever, the not pain, ever gets bad, I got some stuff that will help.” He pats his chest pocket and nods.
“Good to know,” Chip says, and then he sees Rhonda in the small clearing up ahead. She’s sitting on a tree stump and rubbing her face.
She doesn’t see them. He thinks she might be crying. They both freeze and watch her, and Hawk finally taps him and jerks his head, and they retreat and take the long way back so as not to disturb her.