The Barbecue

The barbecue was just getting started, and Dad was already grilling. Cass had decided she was a vegetarian last week. She had been holding her baby brother when she realized that he was made out of meat.

“Can you help with my pinkie toes?” Betsy asked. She had forgotten her allergy medication, so her voice was thick and phlegmy, her eyes red like she’d been crying.

“Just make sure that there’s only a little bit of paint on the brush.” Cass fanned at her own toes—acid green.

“School starts in three weeks,” Betsy said, blobbing red polish on her pinkie toes.
“I know.”
“We’re going to be high schoolers.”
“Shut up,” Cass said. 
“It’s gonna be awesome.”

“It’s going to suck.” Cass wished for the millionth time Jacquelyn wasn’t visiting her stupid grandma. Then Cass could’ve invited Jacquelyn instead of Betsy. Betsy might have been fat and boring but the alternative was fat, boring adults. 

“Can we get some food?” Betsy asked.

They went downstairs.

“Cassidy Ann Clements,” Mom said. She had put on her makeup and dress, but her shoes were in her right hand. She gestured with the red pumps. “You go upstairs and put on that yellow dress. I didn’t pay sixty dollars for it to sit in your closet.” Her face was pinkening under her liquid foundation. 

Cass turned around and went back upstairs and folded herself into the linen dress that made her feel like an Easter duckling. Betsy followed her. Cass felt like there was an invisible leash connecting them together. 

Cass stopped and spun in a slow circle in front of Mom. “Good,” Mom said, and she smiled, the foundation sinking into the creases she was trying to cover. “You too Betsy. Spin,” she said. She was obeyed. “Your leggings don’t match but that’s okay. Before you go, Cassidy, get your brother into his outfit and take him out with you.” 

They went to the nursery. The thick curtains were closed but there were three nightlights. Cass peered into the narrow gap between the crib and the wall. She’d hid her baseball bat there, in case there was an intruder. Someone had broken the neighbor’s windows. 

The baby was asleep. His head was lumpy like a lemon. She imagined his brains were little seeds under a thick rind of squishy bone. He was almost one-and-a-half. His name was Chevalier, but Cass usually called him the baby.

“Where’s my little boy?” Dad popped his head into the room and flicked on the light, the baldness of his skull gleaming under his comb over. The baby squeaked.

“You’re just in time,” Cass said, and she handed him the outfit Mom had laid out. 
“Thanks, sweetie. Hi Betsy, how are your parents?”
“They’re good. They’re sorry they couldn’t come.”

“Aw, it’s okay.” Dad spoke slow and ponderous. If he’d been an animal, Cass thought, he would be an elephant. Mom would be a flamingo. “I just made some dates wrapped in bacon. You two should go try them.

Cass and Betsy went outside. Dozens of people were corralled in a ring of folding tables. The grill in the corner produced piles of meat, manned by one of Dad’s accountant friends in a checkered button-down shirt.

“I’m going to get some food,” Betsy said.
“Okay.”
Betsy didn’t move. “Are you coming?”
“I’m not hungry. Go get your food. I’ll be right here.”

Betsy slowly stretched the invisible leash between them. Cass imagined it snapping like the thick wire of a bridge, whipping through the crowd. 

“Hey there, Cassidy.” She looked up to see Mitch, the guy who lived two doors down. He was holding a beer. He didn’t have any kids; he had a boat. He was the neighbor who had his windows smashed. Nothing had been stolen. Cass smirked. 

“Hello.”
“Gone swimming yet this summer?”
“A couple times.”“Have I taken your family out on my boat yet?” he asked. He was wearing sunglasses like he was a racecar driver.

Cass shook her head.

“I’ll have to take you and your mom out sometime. It’s a lotta fun.” His sunglasses barely hid the tan line he had from always wearing sunglasses. His green polo was a little too small for him, tight around the muscle of his arms and his round little potbelly.

“So what are you thinking about?” he asked, his big smile reaching up to his glasses.
“Meat,” Cass said, deciding to not lie.
“And why’s that?”
“Everyone is made of meat.”
He frowned but said, “Yup. We’re all animals.”
“Not me.”
He cleared his throat. “Uh,” he took a sip of his beer. “What are you, then?”

She narrowed her eyes at him, looking at her own reflection in his sunglasses. She’d braided her hair that morning, but a halo of frizz escaped in the humidity. She made a face at her reflection and didn’t answer him.

Betsy came back with a paper plate covered in saucy ribs. Cass tried not to look at it. The white edge of the bones made her aware of the texture of her teeth.

“Well,” Mitch said, “you two girls have fun.” He smiled at Cass and then walked away. 
“He smells weird,” Betsy said.
“You’re weird to notice.”

Betsy made a sour face at Cass, biting into the ribs and staring at her until Cass looked away, holing her arms away from her body so she couldn’t feel her own ribs.

Someone had moved the tables to break the corral of seating. A man with a tacky looking spray-tan started a game of bocce ball. Most of the ladies had clustered themselves around the baby or were clumped together like wrapped bouquets. It was the last of the summer parties, and most of the women were wearing dresses that made Cass’s pleated yellow dress seem dull. Mitch was in the clump, a half-head taller than the women.

Cass watched as Mom handed the baby to one of the other women. She started talking with Mitch and she did her party laugh: her head tipped back while her jaw stayed frozen. Mitch put a hand at her back as he laughed with her. Dad’s grill was in the sun and he was sweating so much that his comb over was beginning to melt into his forehead. His brown moustache was damp.

“Let’s get some popsicles,” Cass said.

Betsy followed her to the kitchen, her plate folding like a taco around the ribs. They ate in the kitchen and then went into the living room to play a videogame. Betsy played Cass’s old baseball game on easy. 

“Hey there, ladies,” Mitch said. He was holding a beer. He sat down next to Cass with a thump. “So, who’s winning?”
“I am,” Cass said. She had the top three high scores. Dad had the fourth and fifth. 
“You get to play any time you want to,” Betsy said. “This is only the second time I’ve ever played this game.”
“Complaints are just excuses for losers,” Cass said, quoting their baseball coach.
Mitch laughed. 

Betsy, instead of hunching her shoulders and ignoring the comment like Cass had expected her to, set down the controller and stood, looking over at Cass. Betsy was trying to glare, but her face was just too round, her eyes too brown, her hair too curly. She’d always be a cherub. Still—she was at least trying, and Cass respected that.

“I’m going to get a freezie,” Betsy said, and she left, accidentally-on-purpose kicking the controller across the floor as she went. Not bad, Cass thought. 
“So,” Mitch said, “Do you still play softball?”
“Baseball.”
“Are they different?”
“Softball uses a softball,” Cass said, talking like she would to the baby: slow and clear. The baby wasn’t stupid but he had a lot to learn. “Baseball uses a baseball.”

Mitch nodded, and his sunglasses slipped down. He took another drink of his beer. His eyes were green and his lashes were lighter than the brown hair on his head. Some of the wrinkles in his face were tanned-in. The creases were pale like he’d spent hours smiling at the sun—probably driving his boat around. He pushed up the lenses.

“How’s it going in here, Cassidy?” Mom asked, leaning against the doorway that led to the kitchen. One of her bra straps had slipped down, and draped over her arm. She fixed it with a snap. “Oh, hi there Mitch.”
“Hi, Sara. How’s it going?”
“Positively wonderful. Have I given you a tour of the house yet?”
“Not lately.”

“Come on, let me show you upstairs.” Mom and Mitch held eye contact as he stood up and moved to her. As they walked upstairs, Mitch touched Mom’s calf, squeezing the muscle below the back of her knee like it was a stress ball. Mom giggled.

The barbecue went into the evening. People trickled in while others trickled out. Cass didn’t understand how her parents had so many friends. They were all so boring. When it was dark, there was a bonfire. Cass and Betsy were looking for marshmallows in the kitchen when Mitch and Mom walked in, stumbling and laughing. Mom had spilled some wine on her dress but didn’t seem to care.

“Hey girls, it’s eight o’ clock. Time for bed.” She put a hand on Mitch’s shoulder as she tried to take off her red pumps. When the girls didn’t move right away she looked at them with her Mom Stare. Her hair seemed to prickle up. Her makeup was smudged, which altered the outline of her face and broke up her features, so there was no expression to read outside of her wide-set blue eyes. The girls went upstairs and got ready for bed. 

“It’s been a really fun day,” Betsy said. Cass was certain that was a lie, and she wasn’t sure if she should like or dislike Betsy for it. Dislike for lying. Like because she knew that lying took practice to get any good at, which was admirable.

“Yeah,” Cass said, lying right back at her. 
“Tomorrow morning, before my parents come to pick me up,” Betsy said tentatively, looking at her toes as she worked them into the thick white carpet. “Do you think we could play catch in the field? I brought my mitt.
“That sounds awesome,” Cass said, and meant it. She missed playing baseball, and she could tell that Betsy missed it too. They said goodnight.

Cass went to her bedroom but did not go to bed. She waited for a half hour and then went downstairs. Adults with drinks in their hands were clogging up the kitchen, but she weaved through them and took Dad’s keys off the hook by the microwave. She put them in her pocket and then went to the nursery. The baby was asleep.

She slid her hand into the gap between the crib and the wall, doing her best to lift the bat without touching the sides, like she was playing Operation. She tickled Chevalier’s toes. He chortled in his sleep. Cass had been there when he was born; it had been gross, but he was turning out okay so far.

She walked out the front door. Nobody stopped her.

Cass went to one of the cars parked in the cul-de-sack. She picked a red one that was next to the driveway and tried to make a giant heart on the hood using the keys. It was more difficult to control than she had expected, so it was a little lopsided. She wrote SC & M in the heart. She couldn’t remember Mitch’s last name. She wasn’t sure what else to do. After a moment of consideration, she dropped the keys down the storm drain. She picked up the baseball bat from where she had set it against the wheel of the car. 

“Hey there, kiddo.” 

Her shoulders jumped up. Mitch was walking down the driveway with a cigarette hanging off of his lips and a beer in his hand. She felt adrenaline pinching at her veins. Mitch was smiling all the way up to his sunglasses again. The lamp post at the end of the driveway cast a yellowish light, like they were in silty water; the glass orb was a quarter of the way filled with dead bugs.

“What are you up to?” He saw the keyed car. His smile pulled outwards like invisible hands pinched his cheeks. There was no wind, and the cigarette smoke hovered around him. “Do you know whose car that is?”

Cass shook her head. She set the baseball bat on her shoulder.

“Me either,” he said, and he took a breath through his cigarette. “Were you the kid who broke my windows?” 

Cass didn’t respond. 

“Just like your mother. Crazy little lady.” The cigarette still in the corner of his mouth, he took a sip of his beer. Dad had smoked once. Mom made him stop.

It started in her right foot as a buildup of pressure between her toes and the pavement. In one easy motion, that pressure travelled from her foot, to her knee, to her hips, to her spine, to her shoulders, and to her arms, growing exponentially at each new twist. The baseball bat jumped off of her shoulder and into Mitch’s ribs. Through the bat, she was surprised by how much she felt his ribs flex, and the feeling of air being forced out of him. The bat naturally bounced back, and she rested it on her shoulder. She felt as light and beautiful as her aluminum bat.

She hadn’t felt so beautiful since the last game of the season, last year. The ball seemed to come at her in slow motion, her bat already moving while her mind stayed in one place, the bat connecting explosively, the ping of the aluminum singing its strike, the ball jerking away like an invisible string yanked it up and out, out of the field and over the trees. Mom, in the bleachers, was screaming “That’s my girl!” stomping her feet, her hands punching the air with the same uncontrolled energy of Chevalier getting a handful of someone’s hair. “That’s my girl!” she shouted, Dad’s arms around her shoulders, embarrassed by her outburst, but smiling like the first time he held Chevalier, his eyebrows contracting in a frown while his mouth smiled, a tense contradiction of joy and fear, disbelief that he should be so lucky. Cass took her victory lap, breathing thanks for her muscles and bones and blood. It was the only thing that was truly hers, her only unarguable power.

She breathed deeply and tossed her hair of out her eyes. Mitch was doubled over, his mouth making one large O of shock. His glasses had fallen off of his face but he still held on to his beer and cigarette. He fell back into a sitting position. His breathing was shallow and his face had turned white. She had never seen anyone so pale before. In the harsh yellow light, all the little bumps and divots of his face stood out, like craters on the moon. 

Cass pointed the bat at his nose. “You only have friends because you have a boat,” she said. He gaped at her.She walked back into the house and replaced the bat in the nursery. Chevalier whined and she had to comfort him before she could leave. She picked him up. He was heavier every day even though he only ate pureed veggies. Dad startled her by walking into the nursery.

“How is he? I came to check,” he said. Cass shrugged and set him back in the crib. “Is Mitch okay?”

She froze. His tone was soft but that could have been to avoid waking up the baby. 

“I saw you were talking to him,” Dad said, “and then he walked home just a few minutes ago, so I was wondering. Mom wanted to play a videogame with him.” He stood beside her and checked to make sure Chevalier’s clothing snaps were all secured.

“Chevy Chevy,” he murmured while he checked. “Chevy Chevy fresh spaghetti.”
“He said he was tired.”
“What were you doing outside anyways?”
“I couldn’t sleep. You guys are too loud.”
“Aw, I’m sorry sweetie. People will be leaving pretty soon, and it’ll quiet down. Good thing you don’t have school tomorrow.” He put a hand on her shoulder and guided her out. “Go back to bed, honey.”

Cass went to bed and only relaxed after she heard the pitch of the party dwindle away. She heard Mom and Dad go to bed and heard Betsy floundering around in the guest bed, trying to get comfortable on the old mattress. Cass could feel her bones lengthening, her muscle and tendons stretching across their connections, her body struggling to contain her.

LYDIA KLINSMITH HANSEN lives and works as a freelance writer in St Paul, Minnesota, and is in the MFA program at Hamline University. The Under Review is the first to publish her work; you can congratulate her at www.lydiaklismith.com.