Interference Read online

“Sounds good.” Ralph grunts. He laughs at Ellen. She’s playing some game with a bunch of shouting, excited, chubby women. They are stacking cubes and whacking each other with soft bats. Every so often one of the women falls and everyone shrieks and giggles and screeches. So much noise on Ellen.

  “We could write in about your cancer,” Jude says. And then he goes quiet. Ralph looks at him.

  “You think Ellen would give me a car?” Claire starts opening cupboards in the kitchen. Trying to find a can of refried beans. Jude turns the volume up on the TV. Claire looks out the window into the back garden. It is dingy and grey. She can’t imagine that in a couple of weeks, a month, there will be lush green growth; she can’t imagine that soon she’ll be unable to see through the trees into her neighbours’ kitchens. Seasons amaze her. Claire wouldn’t want to live anywhere they don’t have seasons. Nature would seem so sedentary then. But winter, spring, summer, fall, the changes are immense and powerful. One day you are walking down the street and there are no leaves on the trees, the next day you can see a shimmer, a thickness in the branches, and the next day, buds. Then suddenly the trees are full and you are walking under lush foliage, shade, green growth. It’s a miracle, really.

  Caroline comes into the room. She plops down with Ralph and Jude. She is wearing large slippers shaped like ducks. The duck heads are immense. Claire knows that if you squeeze the beak the ducks will quack. Jude makes room for Caroline on the couch.

  “Nachos okay with you, Caroline?”

  Caroline shrugs. “Whatever.”

  Claire begins to make nachos and Ralph gets up to help her grate cheese. There is talk later during dinner of Caroline’s university applications. Like the seasons, time moves quickly. Every so often Claire tries to catch her breath but most of the time she is winded by the speed.

  In his bed at night Jude wonders if he’ll remember back to when he used to watch Ellen with his mother. He worries about this, his memories. He doesn’t want to have them. But then he also wants to have them and worries that he won’t remember them. How can he mourn her already if she isn’t even gone yet? And the doctors say she’s doing okay now. This waiting game. This trying-to-file-into-your-head-every-little-second game. He hates it.

  At school there is someone. A girl. She likes him. He isn’t sure if he likes her even though he knows he should. In fact, he likes her twin brother better than he likes her. She giggles a lot and puts her hand up to her mouth to hide her braces and flips her hair, whereas her brother merely stares blankly at Jude and shrugs. Both of them are funny. And have been nice to him. They know about his mother, by accident — they saw her when she had absolutely no hair back in the fall and the girl asked Jude about it. Jude confessed even though he wanted more than anything to say she had shaved her head for fun and wasn’t she a dork and, god, how stupid. But the girl is getting tighter with Jude at school these days and the brother is becoming more distant even though Jude has asked the brother to do more things with him. It’s as if the girl has told her brother to stay away from Jude. As if she has warned her brother, has said, “He’s mine.”

  Jude is hanging out with her at the baseball diamond behind their school. He meets her there after last class most days and they sit in the dugout and they hold hands. Sometimes they kiss and her braces are cold. They taste like a fork, like utensils, metal ones. The taste is bizarre. It’s part of her but not part of her. Jude likes it, but he also hates it.

  When he kisses the girl he sometimes thinks about his mother. And about Ellen. Or about what he’s going to eat for dinner. But mostly he thinks about the girl’s brother. Jude admires the way the brother rolls his eyes upwards when their history teacher is talking. He rolls them up into his head and all Jude can see are the whites of his eyes, the beautiful brown has disappeared. Jude likes this. It makes him laugh. The brother is shocking, he writes “Dirty pig,” next to a picture of Hitler in their history textbook and, even though it’s an appropriate thing to write, it’s also bad to deface textbooks. So when Jude is kissing the brother’s sister he thinks about her brother. He feels hot and angry. Once Jude felt so angry that he pulled the sister’s head back, pulled her by the hair, hard, when he was kissing her, and she grunted and said, “Ouch.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  In the evening they watch Ellen again. She has people come on to her show and sit with her and talk about all the good things they are doing: how they are taking care of animals, or other people, or how they are stopping bullying and how they are progressive and believe in gay rights. Ellen is married to a woman. A beautiful woman.

  Claire laughs and says this to Jude, and then she mentions that most gay men she knows are really handsome too and why is it that the ugly ones are straight.

  “Like Dad?” Jude says. And they both laugh because Ralph is quite attractive and Claire loves him dearly. Especially now, especially with all he’s done for her over the last year, the way he held her hair back when she vomited, the way he made Earl Grey tea for her with milk and sugar, just like her mother used to make, when she felt sick from the chemotherapy. The way he will go to the store at the drop of a hat if she mentions she has a headache and there is no acetaminophen in the house. Never a sigh. Never a hesitation. Ralph is great. And who is she to talk about appearances when for the last year she’s been alien-looking and bony, her eyes deep set with no eyebrows, her hair gone, pale skin and rashes.

  Back in the dugout Jude is kissing the girl and her brother shows up. He knows they go there to kiss, but he’s never come before. What does he want, Jude wonders. To watch? The girl keeps kissing him but Jude feels bizarre kissing in front of the brother so, instead, they all sit back, leaning against the wooden dugout, and they talk. They talk about history class. They talk about sports. They talk about Ellen because the girl watches Ellen in the evenings too and she loves Ellen and thinks Ellen is really cool and funny. Jude and the brother roll their eyes. Jude tries to roll his eyes as high into his head as the brother does but he can’t because it hurts.

  “Have you seen that guy at the car wash with the scar down his face?” the brother asks Jude. “We should write to Ellen about him. I bet she’d get his story out of him.”

  “I think you should just ask him,” the sister says. “He won’t ask him what happened.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “You’re the one who wants to know what happened, not me.”

  “But it’s rude to ask him.”

  “Why’s it rude? Maybe he wants to talk about it. Maybe he’s sick of people looking at him and not asking.”

  “You’re an idiot,” the brother says.

  “You’re an idiot.”

  They argue in front of him all the time. Jude kind of likes this. It also kind of makes him angry. Mostly he agrees with what the brother says more than with what the sister says. Even though she’s his girlfriend. Not officially. But they kiss a lot.

  Sometimes, when they are watching Ellen, Jude wants to tell his mother about the girl, about kissing her. Sometimes he wants to tell his mother about the brother, about how they are twins, the boy and girl, but have nothing at all in common. How, in fact, the boy is much smarter and better looking than the girl, which is funny because you’d think they would look a little bit the same. But they don’t. She is short and blond, he is tall and dark. She likes arts and French and English literature, he likes science and math and gym. But Jude doesn’t. Tell his mother, that is. They mostly watch Ellen and talk about what Ellen says and what she’s doing and how she’s changing the world a little bit at a time. He respects her for that and he knows his mom does too.

  “Is there bullying in your school?” Claire asks Jude one day. But before he can answer she says, “of course there is. There’s always bullying in schools. And workplaces. And life. People have always bullied.”

  Jude hears her but he also hears what she’s not saying. Or, at least, he thinks
he hears that. He hears, “That’s another thing I won’t have to deal with when I die. Bullying.” Jude always thinks he hears the unspoken stuff in his mother’s words. And his father’s and even Caroline’s. And the brother and the sister. All the things left unsaid. Jude often wonders why people don’t say what they mean. But then, Jude doesn’t say what he wants to say most of the time.

  What is it he wants to say?

  He wants to tell the brother how much he loves him. He wants to tell the brother that the only reason he hangs around with the sister, the only reason that he kisses the sister, is because it makes him feel closer to the brother. He wants to say that when he kisses the sister he feels as if he’s kissing the brother. He wants to tell his mother about his feelings for this boy in his class, but he doesn’t want anything else to worry her. In fact, he doesn’t want to waste her time with things like this. Instead they waste their time watching Ellen together, which isn’t really a waste, it’s more like a pause, a stop-gap measure, a way to be together without being together.

  “Everyone is going to die,” the brother says one day, in the dugout.

  “But this is different.” Jude doesn’t want to argue with him, but the brother is baiting him, controlling him, playing with him. The sister has her hand high up on Jude’s thigh and she’s popping her gum and tracing small circles with her fingers on his leg. This is annoying to Jude even though he knows he should find it sexy.

  “I don’t see what’s different about it. Your mother knows that her life is coming to an end eventually, but that’s the same for all of us. She’s no different from the rest of the world.”

  Jude knows this makes sense but it doesn’t sit right with him. “That’s not true,” he says. He clears his throat. “Sure, we’re all going to die, but my mom has been told that she has a limited amount of time, that there’s only so much she can do about it, and,” Jude clears his throat again, “and she knows how she’s going to die. That’s the real difference. How.”

  “She could get hit by a bus on her way to the store,” the sister says. Gum popping. “That could happen. Or she could have a heart attack maybe.”

  The brother does his eye roll. “Why,” he says to the sister, “do you always ruin a good conversation?”

  “I don’t. It was a stupid conversation anyway. And what are you doing here? We don’t want you here, do we, Jude?”

  Jude says nothing. The conversation has moved from him and his mother to them again. It’s always about them. The twins. The brother leaves. Jude kisses the sister. Hard. As hard as he can. He cuts his lip on her braces. She puts his hand up under the back of her sweatshirt. He can feel her skin, the line of her bra, her muscles and bones. He rubs her back. Like he would rub his mother’s back. He rubs in circles, comforting her, occasionally he pats.

  When Claire turns on Ellen that night she gets a news report instead. A pedophile ring. In their city. The news flashes on the screen. Big names are involved. Local police officers even. A judge. Some lawyers. Claire stands immobile, watching. Their small city. Child porn. Numbers of computers confiscated. They haven’t found the ringleader, the guy with the means and the way. Not yet. But they will. Say the police.

  “Where’s Ellen?” Jude says.

  “Not on right now.”

  Jude leaves the room. He isn’t interested in anything but Ellen. Claire listens to the newscaster say, “The scope of this perversion is astounding. Especially in such a small town.” Claire wants to take the remote control and throw it at the TV. She wants to break something. Justified anger like this makes her glow. She feels warm and full and sharp. It’s easy to be angry at these criminals. A good thing to be furious about. What they do to kids. What they do to the world. It astonishes Claire.

  She wishes Ellen’s show was on. She wishes she were cuddled on the couch with Jude. But then she’s also pleased to be mad at something other than her body, her cancer, her illness.

  “Is she on yet?” Jude is back in the room.

  “No, not yet.”

  He leaves again.

  The newscast ends. Ellen is there, on her chair, talking to a beautiful movie star about her new movie. Claire sinks into the couch to watch. “Jude,” she calls out, “she’s on.”

  Ralph comes in and asks what’s for dinner.

  “For god’s sake,” Claire snaps. “Make it yourself.”

  The brother has taken to watching Jude. All the time. Jude can feel the brother’s gaze on his back in class or in the hallways between classes or when he’s in the dugout kissing the sister. It’s hot, his gaze. Penetrating. Jude likens it to a laser beam. Like radiation. He feels burnt sometimes. The sister is losing interest in just kissing. She wants more. She puts Jude’s hands where she wants them. Breasts, hips, legs, thighs, between the thighs, crotch. She holds his hand there and sighs. She tries to touch him, but Jude pulls away. If the brother is there, which he often is, he snorts. He says, “Gross,” and “Get a fucking room,” and the girl says, “Why don’t you just leave us alone?” Jude is caught in the middle. Balancing on the edge. Hanging over a precipice. Like a hang-glider with no glider, like a parachutist without a parachute, a pilot without a plane, a hockey player without a puck. Jude’s English class is studying similes and so he peppers his speech and his thoughts with them.

  Jude has never seen his mother mad at Ellen but today she is. Today she sits on the couch next to Jude, her arms crossed in front of her chest, and she scowls at the TV. Her legs are crossed and one foot is furiously pumping up and down.

  Ellen’s guest needs a new kitchen. She’s lost her job. Her kitchen is a mess. Ellen is having one made for her and, for some reason, this bothers Claire. She doesn’t know why. She looks over at her own kitchen, the stained and cut-upon counter, the broken tiles on the floor, the splattered backsplash, and she is angry.

  “What did she do to deserve a new kitchen?” Claire asks.

  “She wrote a letter to Ellen,” Jude says. “It’s as easy as that.”

  “Not fair.”

  “Life’s not fair.” Jude looks at his mother. She looks at him. They laugh.

  “I’m supposed to say that to you,” Claire says. “That’s the kind of thing I say to you all the time.”

  “I’m just imitating you,” Jude says. “Because I know that’s exactly what you’d say to me.”

  “Well, it’s not. Fair. Life.”

  “Nope.”

  Ralph is in the kitchen filling up a pot with water. “Pasta,” he says. “I think we’ll have pasta tonight. Sound good?”

  She doesn’t show up at the dugout. It’s cold. A sharp breeze. Jude is there by himself. Wondering. Thinking. Should he stay here or go home? And then, suddenly, the brother drops down beside him. Sits close.

  “She’s not coming?”

  “Not today. She felt sick or something.”

  “Great,” Jude says. “I’ll probably catch it and then give whatever she has to my mom and then —”

  Jude is rambling.

  The brother reaches over and grabs Jude’s head. He turns Jude’s face towards his own, looks at Jude, fierce, and stops Jude’s words with his mouth. Hard. Jude recoils at first, pulls back, but the brother smashes his mouth against Jude’s, keeps Jude there, stuck to him. He is stronger than Jude and Jude can’t pull away.

  And Jude’s heart is racing, his heart, his heart, his heart . . . his mind has stopped. His heart pulses and beats and pounds until Jude can’t feel anything or think of anything. Jude doesn’t want anything for the first time in his life. There is nothing. Just the brother’s lips and tongue and hot mouth. Everything else has gone black. The world seems simple. As if everything in it has been erased. No dugout, no girl, no metallic tasting braces, no Ellen, no mother.

  Jude’s mother kisses him goodnight. She comes into his room and sits on his bed. He has his laptop on his lap and it is hot and he’s work
ing on his history essay in bed. She sits there, staring at him.

  “How are you doing these days?”

  Jude looks away from his laptop and into his mother’s eyes. Into her concern. “Fine?”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “How,” Jude asks, “are you doing?” But he doesn’t want to know, he doesn’t want the answer to this.

  And his mother senses this, because Claire is aware, she is smart, she is sensitive. “Great,” she says, happily. “I enjoy our Ellen time together.” She ruffles his hair.

  “Me too.” Jude smoothes his hair back into place.

  “We should dance more,” Claire says, laughing. She stands up from the bed and dances towards the door. A crazy dance, a funny dance, an Ellen dance. Swaying her hips and bending her legs. Arms in the air.

  Jude laughs. He rolls his eyes back into his head.

  “I’m practising for when I get on Ellen,” she says, and she dances out of the room.

  Ms. Maisy Crank

  Build-Your-Bear™

  Madison, Wisconson

  Dear Ms. Crank,

  I am writing to see if we can come to some sort of amicable agreement regarding Build-Your-Bear™ and my business, The Bear Company. I have read and reread the letters you have written me and I have to say they’ve put me in a tizzy. I’m quite stressed, actually. I’m sure you didn’t intend this and I’m sure you didn’t realize that I’m just one person in my house in a sewing room. You probably think that I have staff! Or even an income that makes up for the amount of work I do! Well, I don’t. I have nothing, really, but my bears. And my family, of course. But nothing else. If you go ahead and sue me or make me stop working I don’t know what I’ll do. Probably break down. Probably go into a deep depression. Probably just give up. Now, do you really want that to happen? Is that what you are trying to do? Destroy me? Because, honestly, Ms. Crank, that is what will happen.

  I make my bears with love. I make them to order. I do what people ask. I also do what comes to mind. I’m quite creative. In fact, right now I’m working on a female hockey bear. She has little hockey skates and the full equipment (even a stick!) and she has long hair that flows out of her helmet. I play hockey — yes, hard to believe at my age — and so, you see, the inspiration comes from me, from my life, from the things around me. I’m not trying to steal anything from you. I do not have a store where kids can stuff their own bears. I do not have boxes and boxes of accessories for my bears — each tiara, tutu, briefcase, for example, is made specifically for that particular bear. And each bear is made specifically for a particular person.