The Silver Tongue
Ian
It’s been about a week since Mia up and left my house without a word and I haven’t yet been able to pry an explanation out of her.
At least I’m in the one place where she can’t ignore me entirely.
Class starts and I’m writing in my notebook, still trying to figure out some way to get Mia and me back to where we were before my loudmouthed father had to crash the party. I tear the page out, fold it once, twice, and I use it to tap Mia on the shoulder.
She turns her head and sees the paper. Rolling her eyes, she whispers, “Really?”
I nod.
She sighs and takes the note, unfolding it.
I wrote, “We should get together again, soon.”
The professor’s discussing something that would probably make a lot more sense if I had paid attention at the beginning, so I just give up and tune out entirely.
I still haven’t been able to get past my vert problem and I’m starting to lose hope.
It’s the stupidest thing, having the sponsorship hang on how good you do in three different categories. Not everyone does vert. Not everyone does street. The best trick competition seems fair enough, as everyone does that shit with their friends for fun anyway, but I never wanted to be a vert skater.
This is bullshit.
Sadly, none of those arguments have changed anything yet.
Mia passes me back the folded piece of paper and I open it up.
She wrote, “You mean for our project? We should probably get going on those interviews.”
I don’t know if she can hear me scoff, but if I had to guess…
I write, “I don’t mean for the project. We should hang out, get to know each other. You look like you could use some fun.”
She turns before I can tap her on the shoulder and takes the note.
I can actually see the skin of her neck turn red as she reads the note, and I can’t remember hearing someone write so loudly. I didn’t even know it was possible for someone to write loudly.
About 15 seconds later, she’s holding the note behind her head before dropping it on my desk.
I have to cover my mouth as I chuckle at how easily I can irritate her.
Her new addition to the passed note reads, “I just love how you assume I never have any fun, like I’m some sort of spinster freak who’s afraid of a good time.”
This is too easy.
I write, “So you’re up for a night out, then?” and pass it up to her.
After a hasty rustling of paper, Mia groans loudly enough for the professor to stop mid-sentence to look at her.
“Sorry,” Mia says. “Just clearing my throat.”
The professor goes on talking whatever voodoo she’s talking, and Mia hunches forward to respond.
She’s so much fun to torment.
Mia tosses the note over her shoulder, now crumbled into a ball, and it bounces off my desk before going off onto the floor.
I lean over, pick it up, open it, and read it.
She just wrote, “Does this approach ever work?”
I smile and write, “You tell me. There’s a skate exhibition tonight. Nothing big, just some kids whose parents are particularly proud of them. They’re not great or anything, but it might be fun to watch.”
I pass it forward.
“Ian?” the professor says as soon as the note has left my hand, and I’m having a flashback to third grade English class when I used to pass notes to my friend Bobby—he goes by Rob now.
“Yeah?” I ask.
“What do you think we can make of the placebo effect?” she asks.
I love it when professors try a gotcha question when you’re not paying attention, but then don’t bother making it difficult. It’s so great watching that smug superiority drain out of them and then feel it entering me.
“I think we can make of it that the mind is a powerful thing and that when it comes time to test a drug, much less treat a patient, it’s important to take all aspects of that patient, including that power of their mind to heal itself when it believes it’s being healed, into account,” I answer.
“What does it tell you about the nature of the mind, though?” she asks.
“I’m not quite sure what you’re asking,” I return, but before she can clarify, I make a guess. “If you’re asking what it means that the mind can be fooled through nothing but its own perceptions regarding medicine and the authority of doctors, I’d say it means that the mind is easily manipulated. When a person wants to believe something, they’ll construct their entire reality around making that belief a reality. The problem comes when that belief and objective reality don’t coincide and a person is either unable or unwilling to recognize it. That’s when people become delusional.”
“So you think that the placebo effect is just a delusion?” the professor asks.
“Of course it is,” I answer. “Patients believe they’re taking medicine, given to them by a doctor in order to cure or at least treat a condition they have. That belief can go a long way. The problem with a delusion is that it never goes all the way, though. If it did, anyone who experienced the placebo effect, assuming nothing shatters the illusion for them, would be cured of whatever was wrong with them.”
“So you’re saying that the body knows how to fight illness, even mental illness, it’s just—I don’t know, lazy?” the professor asks.
In front of me, Mia tears up the note we’d been passing and she starts writing on another paper. If my posture was better, I might even be able to see over her shoulder enough to read it.
“No,” I answer. “I’m saying that delusion isn’t a cure. A person isn’t actually getting better, their symptoms merely improve for a little while as the belief holds out. Eventually, though, even if the delusion isn’t shattered, their body will return to its natural state, and if it’s not being treated by a treatment that actually works, they’re going to go back to where they were before the event and just continue to degrade.”
“I think Mr. Zavala brings up an interesting point…” the teacher says, and I can finally ignore her again. While she’s waxing poetic on something I said or something she inferred from what I said, Mia passes me back a new folded piece of paper.
I open it up and read, “When and where?”
Sometimes, actually coming off as if you know something can be a positive thing.
* * *
I ride down the sidewalk, weaving in and out of pedestrians as I go.
I’d suggested that I pick Mia up—with a real car and everything—but she insisted that we meet up at the exhibition.
The First Annual Peewee Skating Demo is the result of a few parents who were bugged relentlessly by their 6 or 7-year-olds to build them some kind of ramp. The demo itself isn’t so much a testament to the skill of the kids on their boards as it is an exhibition of the fathers’ various works of wooden art.
It’s always kind of bothered me when people tag the word “peewee” onto a kid’s sport. I just remember playing soccer when I was in first or second grade and never wanting to tell anyone about it for fear that word would come up at some point.
I get off my board about a block away from where they’re setting everything up and I look around the crowd for Mia.
Something small and blunt goes half an inch between my ribs and I pull back, spinning around.
Mia waves, saying, “Hey, so what is this exactly? I didn’t know there was anything going on tonight.”
I rub my side and I’m almost angry until I get a good look at her.
She’s dressed the same as always: skater garb with that same pair of Converse that she always wears, but something about her is different.
“You look happy,” I say.
She furrows her brow, as that wasn’t really a solid answer to her question, saying, “Why wouldn’t I?”
“You look good,” I tell her.
She looks down at what I’m pretty sure are the same clothes she had on earlier, saying, “Thanks.”
“So,” I say and we start walking together toward the growing crowd, “what did it?”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
“What changed your mind about coming out with me tonight?” I ask.
“I never said I wasn’t going to,” she answers.
“Yeah, but you’ve been avoiding me, and before you wrote that new note, you didn’t seem too thrilled to be near me at all,” I tell her.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I was going to say no.”
“Why didn’t you?” I persist.
She rubs the back of her neck, avoiding my gaze, and says, “I guess I thought it couldn’t do much harm.”
“Why would it do any harm?” I ask.
“Let’s just forget about it,” she says. “I’m here. Now, who’s skating tonight?”
“Kids,” I tell her. “I think there are four or five of them and they’re all under 10.”
We get a little closer to where they’ve set up on the blocked off portion of the street, and it’s just what I’d envisioned: a couple of plywood kickers, one actually decent quarter-pipe, and what I can only assume are objects to be avoided.
“Where’d you hear about this?” she asks.
“Tonya’s kid’s skating today,” I tell her. “She knows I skate and she wanted to know if I’d like to come and show my support.”
“Stop doing that,” she says.
“What?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” she says. “Forget it.”
“What?” I ask again. “Is something bothering you? You’ve been avoiding me since that night at my house and now you’re acting all weird.”
“It’s nothing,” she says. “Let’s just watch the kids skate.”
We stand there quietly for a little while as a surprisingly large group of people gather to watch these kids tear it up on what are, for the most part, the sketchiest jumps, rails, and pipes I’ve ever seen.
Someone comes out and gives a little introduction, explaining how the whole thing started and what it means to have so many people come out to cheer the kids on and so on and so on.
“It was my dad, wasn’t it?” I ask. “He wouldn’t tell me what you two were talking about, but I know what kind of mood he was in. I hate it when he’s like that.”
“It wasn’t him,” she says. “I just think that it might be best if we only got together to focus on our project from now on.”
“You have me a little confused then,” I tell her, but have to wait for the crowd to stop cheering as the kids come out and start to skate.
“What do you mean?” she asks loudly, still clapping her hands until one of the skaters, a little blond kid with bits of curly hair coming out through the bottom of his helmet goes racing straight into the wrong side of one of the kickers and does a rather impressive, though clearly unintentional, flip, and lands with one leg on the slope of the kicker and the other knee coming up to hit him in the forehead.
I don’t know how nobody expected any injuries tonight.
The kid cries loudly for a minute, but just as his mom comes out to help him off the course, he grabs his board and skates off, his face still almost maroon with embarrassment and wet with tears.
“You said I confused you,” Mia says when the whole scene is over and the mother wanders back off the course, looking back repeatedly at her son, unsure whether she should let him continue or not.
“Yeah,” I tell her. “You told me that you think we should only see each other when it’s regarding our project, and yet here you are.”
“Yeah,” she says distantly.
This isn’t how I saw tonight going. I figured she’d be a little annoyed with me at first, then she’d spit out whatever’s bothering her and we’d move on. So far, she only seems to be concerned with being annoyed.
“Tell me about yourself,” I say, hoping a different approach will do the trick.
“You know,” she says, “a couple of those kids aren’t half bad. That one’s over there doing kick flips and the one wearing the Spider-Man costume just did a nose manual.”
“Why don’t I ever see you on a board?” I ask.
She turns and looks at me, her mouth open a little. “What do you mean?” she asks.
“Well, you’re so into skating, but I’ve never seen you on or even near a board,” I tell her. “Are you just a fangirl or have you actually given it a shot?”
“A fangirl?” she asks. “You think I’m a fangirl?”
“Aren’t you?” I ask.
When all else fails, she seems to respond to negativity pretty consistently.
“I’m not a fangirl of anything,” she says. “I skate. I just don’t like to do it around people.”
“Neither do I, really,” I tell her. “How do you solve that little problem, though?”
“Oh yeah,” she scoffs. “You have trouble skating around people.”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “Haven’t you noticed that I’ve never actually learned how to be comfortable on a board?”
“You’re full of crap,” she says.
“Seriously,” I tell her. “I do a lot better than I used to, but I don’t have a normal or goofy stance. Neither one seems to work for me, so I just keep switching back and forth as I ride. Over time, you know, I got to where it wasn’t a problem, but I’m still not what I would call comfortable on a board.”
“That’s what it is,” she says with a gasp. “I was wondering why you look so different when you’re skating—not dropping in, obviously. I think that’s pretty standard for someone who doesn’t know what they’re doing. You never favor one stance or another, and what looks like masterfully contained clumsiness is actually masterfully contained clumsiness.”
“I’m glad I could confirm your theory,” I tell her. “I look clumsy?”
“I don’t know if that’s the right word or not,” she says, “but you always look like you’re right on the verge of losing your balance, but you never do. How do you ride, though? Why’s it taken so long for you to feel comfortable on a board?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her. “It’s just one of those things that never really set in. I think I tried a normal stance at first, but when I found out that Tony Hawk has a goofy stance, I started doing that, but after a couple of weeks, that didn’t seem to work any better for me than the normal stance did. I just kept going back and forth until, finally, I just kind of gave up and rode however I happened to land.”
“Everyone rides how they happen to land,” she says, “but everyone favors one side or another.”
I shrug. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s great for the scoring, though. I’m counting on that in the best trick. I’ll do the first two runs normal and the last three goofy. They’ll count one or the other of them as switch and bump up my score a little bit.”
“You’re the weirdest skater I’ve ever met,” she says.
“Oh, so now I’m weird?” I ask. Actually, given my personality and my general appearance, I suppose a case could be made for that particular point.
“I don’t mean as a person,” she says. “I mean as a skater. You can pretty much take anyone I’ve seen in a street competition, but you can’t drop into a vert ramp. One of the things that makes you so entertaining to watch is that you move differently while you’re on your board, but that’s because you never settled on a favored front foot. You’re kind of a mess, you know.”
“Thanks,” I tell her. “What do you ride?”
“I don’t know,” she says. “Neither one of them feel particularly comfortable to me.”
“Hilarious,” I say in a monotone.
“What do you want me to say?” she asks. “I get all nervous talking about skating when I’m around a real skater.”
“You talk skating with me all the time,” I laugh.
“Me skating,” she says. “It’s one thing to talk about it as a sport or critiquing someone else’s style, but I just feel weird talking about me skating.”
“You call me weird?” I ask.
“You know, it’s unfortunate that neither of our dads seem open to us being around one another,” she says and quickly looks back toward the course where the kids are now taking turns doing mini-runs on the quarter-pipe. It’s inspiring, hilarious, and at times a bit sad, but it is undeniably entertaining to watch.
“Yeah,” I say. “Men are such pigs.”
She looks back at me with a mock expression of shock on her face. “That is not what I’m saying,” she gasps. “My dad isn’t a pig. He’s just a little overprotective.”
“Yeah, how’s the view from the tower, Rapunzel?” I ask.
“I’m out now,” she says. “The tower has a staircase and a door, you know.”
“I noticed how you were quick to say that your own dad’s not a pig, but you didn’t seem to mention mine,” I tease.
I don’t know if I’d necessarily call the guy a pig, but—actually, yeah; he is kind of a pig.
“I never said that anyone was a pig,” she protests. “I’m just trying to explain my own dad’s issue. When Mom left, he just started clinging to anything that seemed like it might have some stability to it, and for a good portion of my life, that’s been me. He’s not a bad guy. I just wish he hadn’t insisted that I help raise him.”
“Have you heard anything from her since she left?” I ask. “How long has it been?”
“I don’t know, nine years, ten years. I know it’s been a long time, and no, I haven’t heard anything from her since she left. She just decided she was done being a wife and a mother and that was that,” Mia tells me.
It’s a strange venue for such a conversation, but I’m thrilled to have it. This is the most I’ve been able to get Mia to open up about herself, and if we’re going to finish the kiss we didn’t get the chance to start, it’s going to be because she’s found a reason to relax and take things as they come.
“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “That must have been rough.”
“It was,” she says. “It wasn’t. I think, for all his failings as a parent, my dad really helped me learn how to do things by myself.”
“When you’re not given the option, I imagine it’s good to at least come out of it with that,” I respond.
“I didn’t have a bad childhood,” she says. “I didn’t have a bad time as a teenager, either. Things were always just a little bit different after Mom left. It seemed like there were more steps required to get anything accomplished. Everything took more time, and when we’d managed to get something done, it never seemed to be as nice as it would have been before she was gone, you know?”
“What do you mean?” I ask as the kid in the Spider-Man costume drops into the quarter-pipe with all the grace of me on a vert ramp, and comes to a sliding halt halfway to the other side.
“At some point, this stops being cute and starts feeling a little sadistic,” Mia says.
“I’m with ya,” I tell her. “Let me at least make eye contact with Tonya so she knows I was here and we can take off.”
“We?” she asks. “As I remember, I only agreed to go to the exhibition with you.”
I’m looking for Tonya through the crowd, but I finally just give up. If she doesn’t believe I was there, I’ll mention something about her kid sliding across the quarter-pipe dressed like a superhero and I think her temper will cool.
I’m walking Mia home and we just keep talking. Or rather, I ask questions and let her do the talking. I don’t know exactly what my dad said that scared her off, but I’d really like to avoid any turn that would make things weird again.
“So you do skate?” I ask.
“I dabble,” she says, her chin jutting out a little.
“You’re especially smug for someone who has yet to actually show any ability on a board whatsoever,” I tell her.
“I know what I’m doing,” she says, “but I’m not great or anything. I’ve gotten pretty good at staying on the board most of the time.”
“Yeah, I’m going to have to see it to believe it,” I tell her, and drop my board to the ground in front of me.
“What?” she asks. “Here?”
“Why not?” I return. “You said you don’t like people seeing you skate, well, we’re the only ones on the whole street from what I can tell.”
I kick the board in front of her.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” I say.
A bit of a smile creeps up one side of her face, but it quickly vanishes as she looks down at the board and kicks it back in front of me.
“I’m not really in the mood,” she says. “I’m enjoying the walk. So, tell me why you act like an idiot so much of the time.”
“Excuse me?” I ask, picking up my board.
“I don’t mean that in a bad way,” she says. “Okay, that doesn’t really make sense. What I mean is that when it’s just you and I, you seem perfectly intelligent, but when we’re in class or the times we’ve been out in public, or around anyone, really, it’s like you’ve lost a significant portion of your IQ.”
“It’s just habit,” I tell her. “Growing up, you kind of start to talk like your friends after a while. I try to lay some knowledge on them from time to time, but they usually just make a stupid fucking face and call me four-eyes. I don’t think they know that’s meant as an insult for people who wear glasses, but it’s the thought that hurts, really.”
“Why does it come out with me?” she asks, glancing at me out of the corner of her eye.
I shrug. “You’re different,” I tell her.
“How?” she asks.
“I haven’t pictured any of my friends naked,” I tell her.
Finally, finally, I get to see her really laugh for the first time since the last time she watched me try to drop in at the park.
She brushes her hair back behind her ear and says, “So that’s it? You’re just the cliché tattooed guy who looks at women as meat?”
“I never really understood that expression,” I tell her. “People say you treat women like meat if you look at women in a mostly sexual way, but I’ve never wanted to eat a person or fuck a hamburger, so it all kind of falls apart for me.”
“You wonder why I called you an idiot?” she asks.
“No,” I tell her. “I think you’re very attractive, but not just physically, though…” I make a bit of a production about checking her out “…damn. But it’s not just your body, it’s your mind. You’re smart, but you like to be treated just a little bad and I find that fascinating.”
“I like to be treated bad?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
“Just a little,” I correct. “When I talk to you straightforward, the way I feel most natural talking to you, you don’t really respond, but when I’m just a bit of an asshole, you’re suddenly interested.”
I wonder if she knows I’m teasing her. What I’m saying isn’t entirely false, but it’s far from the whole truth.
“Must be a daddy issues thing,” she says.
“Daddy issues,” I chuckle. “Hot.”
“Oh, don’t tell me you’re—” she starts, but I interrupt.
“I’m not really one of those guys,” I tell her. “No, I don’t find people with complicated paternal relationships to hold added sex appeal. You need to stop taking everything so literally and learn to joke around from time to time.”
I look over to see her reaction, but she’s not next to me anymore. After a few seconds, I spot her. She took a right and I just kept going, thinking she was still there.
I change course and catch up with her, though I can hear her laughter before I get to her.
“You say I can’t have fun,” she says as I fall back into place by her. “I thought it was pretty fun watching you walk off toward nothing while talking to nobody. What about you?”
“It was a riot,” I tell her.
“Why do you talk differently with me?” I ask. “You say it’s because I’m different and then you make a series of jokes, but what’s the real reason?”
I scratch my chin and pretend to think about it for a minute.
“You know, we’re not too far from my house, and I have things to do when I get back,” she says.
“I like you,” I tell her. “I thought I’d made that pretty obvious by now.”
“What does that mean to you, though?” she asks. “Do you like me as a prospective girlfriend or as someone you’d like to nail and never call again or as a friend or what?”
“You ask a lot of questions,” I tell her.
“You’re the one who was asking my opinion on everything this whole walk home,” she counters.
“I don’t know how to answer that, really,” I tell her. “I like you as more than a friend and I know that I wouldn’t want to stop calling you. The thought of dating you makes me kind of nervous, though.”
“Why’s that?” she asks, stopping on the side of the road.
“Because you don’t have a problem talking to me about the things that matter, but you do have a problem talking to me about things that do,” I tell her. “Why were you avoiding me all week?”
“Can we just not—” she starts, but I’m getting bored of treading water, so I interrupt.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” I tell her. “Relationships work better when the people in it have an idea what the hell each other are thinking. Maybe it’s nothing at all, maybe you’ve just been busy or there’s some perfectly justifiable excuse, but at the same time, maybe it’s something big and we should talk about it. All I can tell from where I’m standing is that we were getting along until my dad got home that night, and then we haven’t really talked until today, and I had to badger you to get that much. I know what I want out of—”
“You get obsessed about these little things instead of letting them go when I tell you not to worry about them,” she interrupts.
“Yeah, how dare I want to figure out why you’re acting like you’ve got a second or third copy of yourself walking around, each with different personalities,” I tell her.
“It’s not like that,” she says. “I just don’t want to get you into anything you’re going to regret.”
Now there’s a shot out of left field.
“What would you get me into that I’d regret?” I ask.
“Your dad,” she says. “He told me that it’s people like me that are making it so hard for you to do what you need to do to make a good life for yourself. I mean, I hardly even know you, and already I’m causing things to go bad for you.”
“My dad’s a prick,” I tell her. “If there’s anyone in the world making it difficult for me to have a good life, it’s that asshole.”
“You live at home, though,” she says. “It sounds like he’s helping out a lot.”
“Okay, he helps me in that he lets me live in his home while I’m going to college,” I start. I have more to say, but Mia’s quicker.
“Isn’t he paying for your tuition?” she asks.
“Well, yeah, but—” I stammer.
“So why would you talk about him like you’re talking about him?” she asks.
“Because he’s a dick!” I protest. “He helps me out financially and he gives me a place to live and I am very grateful for that, but the only reason either of those things are true is because I made a deal with him a few years ago that I’d go to college right out of high school, I’d stay at home with him and Mom, and I’d put schoolwork before anything with wheels. In exchange, he allows me to live in his home and he pays for me to go to college for something I’m not passionate about, and if I were to make too big a fuss about it, he’d cut me off like that.” I snap my fingers.
“If things are so miserable, why not move out?” she asks.
“One of the side effects of living at home is extra time,” I tell her. “If I was out on my own right now, I wouldn’t be able to put so much time into the board, and I wouldn’t be anywhere near prepared for the competition. It’s a means to an end.”
“You’re not particularly prepared for the competition as it is,” she says, punching me playfully in the shoulder, and we start walking again.
“There’s one thing I haven’t been able to get quite right,” I explain. “In the grand scheme of things, that’s pretty impressive.”
“It is,” she says. “It’d be a lot more impressive if that ‘one thing’ wasn’t so completely crucial to your entire performance, though.” We take a few more steps and she stops again, saying, “Wait.”
“What?” I ask, stopping next to her.
“Let’s just talk for a minute before I get home,” she says.
“I don’t suppose you’re going to actually listen to me when I tell you that you’re not in danger of ruining my life, are you?” I ask.
“You’re right,” she says. “The only person that can really do that is you. I just don’t want to be a bad influence.”
“Okay, that is hilarious,” I tell her. “I think maybe you knew things were starting to heat up between us and you took the first out that was presented to you.”
“You’re right,” she says.
“Yeah, I know you’re going to say that’s not what you were…” I stop. “What was that?” I ask.
“You’re right,” she says. “I got scared. Okay, your dad helped with the scaring a bit, but I was already there.”
“What is it about me that scares you?” I ask.
She crosses her arms and looks down. “I like you,” she says. “I think I might like you a lot.”
“I like you, too,” I tell her. “What’s the problem?”
“There’s no problem,” she says. “It’s just, that’s kind of the problem. I’ve got a complicated situation at home that I’m not sure I’m going to actually be able to get myself out of anytime soon, and I go to college full-time. It’s not the easiest time in my life to figure out how to squeeze in a relationship, and I know I wouldn’t want anything with you to just be halfway.”
Wow, she just opened right up there.
“You’re busy, I’m busy, we’re all busy,” I tell her, “but if you don’t figure out how to make some time to enjoy your life, you’re never going to—”
“You always say that,” she interrupts, “but that’s not it at all. I go out and do things. Just relationships are more than just the time two people spend together, they’re everything else and all the time and there’s not really an off switch or a time-out signal.”
“I think you’re looking a bit too far down the road,” I tell her. “We haven’t even kissed yet and we don’t know where a relationship would go. Wouldn’t it make more sense to find out before simply calling it—”
“Can we just not…” she interrupts, and I really can’t tell you who makes the first move or if we both make it at the same time, but before another word leaves her mouth, we’re kissing right there on the side of the road.
Her arms are resting on my shoulders and my hands are on her back, pulling her close.
We pull apart long enough to look at each other with wide-eyed surprise, but an instant later, we’re making out again and our hands are starting to wander.
I’m not much of an exhibitionist, but it’s impossible not to get turned on kissing Mia’s soft lips, her tongue and my tongue coyly mingling with one another.
Then it’s over and I’m still facing where Mia was only moments ago and she’s walking off, waving and saying, “Gotta go.”
What the hell was that?