Taking It by Michael Cadnum

purse.
    â€œOpen it,” I said.
    She worked the snap, one knee on her jeans torn, a pair of rubber sandals on her feet, one toenail with just a trace of red polish.
    It was in her hand, a bundle of tissue paper held together with Scotch tape, neatly. Maureen sniffed the scented paper, and gave me a look.
    â€œAre you okay?” she asked without much interest.
    â€œOpen it,” I said.
    â€œWhat are you doing?” she asked, vaguely impatient with me, like all this was an interruption she could do without.
    I waited.
    She tore the tissue paper, and tore it again until she could see what was there, nestled in her hand.
    I didn’t say the words. I just let her figure it out.
    It took her a moment, but she got the point.
    At last she said, “It’s no wonder.”
    Okay, I told myself. It was over. But I stayed where I was.
    â€œI know how your mind works,” Maureen said. “You don’t think there’s anyone else. You see us talking, moving around, but it doesn’t really touch you.” She didn’t say this like someone delivering criticism. She sounded frank, dead calm.
    I could leave now.
    â€œWait.” Maureen gave Lincoln the Frisbee, and he threw it into the air himself, and caught it. “You have to explain something.”
    There was a rattle and a creak from behind me. Her father came through the side gate, wheeling his decrepit bicycle. “I think—heh—the university wants to get rid of me,” he said.
    Maureen and I must have just stared at him. I was glad for a break in the action, but at the same time I wished he wasn’t there.
    She kept the frog wrapped in the white paper. He couldn’t see what it was. He looked at Maureen and he looked at me, and must have realized he was interrupting. He went on, “The chairman bought me a turkey sandwich—heh—and all he talked about was early retirement.”
    I wanted to tell this kind man what I had done. I wanted to tell him that I had never wanted to hurt him.
    â€œRed polka dots,” said Mr. Dean, smiling at me. “I used to have a tie like that. I wore it on my twenty-first birthday.” Then he gave a little nod, an apology for interrupting, and leaned the bike against the back porch.
    When her father was inside, I took Maureen’s arm. She pulled herself away. I knew: It would be different between us from now on.
    â€œDo you think people are happy to see you, Anna? Do you think people are hey, Anna’s coming, she’s always so much fun?”
    All this in a tight, quiet voice. I kept quiet.
    â€œEverything you do is— everybody, look at me . You don’t have any right to hurt my family.”
    I was at the gate when she said, “Don’t come over here anymore.”
    She didn’t say this like someone who was angry. She said this like someone who saw the truth, sure she was right. But I could see something else in her eyes: She wanted me to say something. This was one fight she didn’t really want to win.
    I managed a smile. She didn’t have to worry. I was never coming back.

19
    The pool van was there, right behind the Mustang.
    I was surprised at how much I did not want to see Barry. Even from my bedroom I could hear the whine of the Pool Vac, residue being sucked off the bottom of the pool. Dad paid extra for him to come twice a week and fine-tune the chlorine.
    I sprinkled some fish food into the tank, leaving the cap off the container so Dad wouldn’t feed them later that evening. You feed them too much, something bad happens, gill rot, or you have to buy those snails that eat green scum off the inside of the tank.
    I didn’t know what Mother had planned. Maybe I was going to pick out my own bedroom furniture. I was going to sit with a big book of wallpaper in my lap while she and Adler looked over my shoulder.
    No, Adler would say, she doesn’t want that little flower pattern wallpaper. He would close the book.