Hiding

I was surprised she downplayed it, because she really did always brag about almost everything else, her family especially. But I knew she was very good, because she used to do these crazy flips in the park when we’d go for walks, and she was actually incredibly good at it, at least in my opinion. She’d just sort of grin at me and say, “Hey, watch this!” and then whoosh, she’d run over the grass and suddenly, she’d literally be upside down in the air, and then back on her feet again like she’d just stepped off a curb or something. I must admit I was always very impressed by that, and these were also some of the few times that I ever saw her really seem to feel good, like she’d done something special that only she could do.

Now, you probably won’t believe it, but all I wanted to do was get out of that basement.

First of all, I will admit it was actually very exciting being down there on the dog bed and knowing Laura was upstairs. I mean, I can’t deny that.

But despite all the undeniable excitement, I was worried.

I really did begin to worry pretty badly, because despite everything I’ve already said about how it would be impossible to ever be unhappy in this sort of house and how all your problems would just be sort of fun, the truth is, I didn’t want to know. I didn’t want to know that maybe everything wasn’t perfect in this house.

I didn’t want to eavesdrop, for one thing, because I knew how terrible that would be to do, and my only real wish was that Jack had forgotten to shut the window and turn on the alarm, so I could just climb the hell out of there.

Because to tell you the truth, I didn’t want to be disappointed. And I had the feeling I would be.

I mean, I knew I had all these kinds of illusions about Laura, because for one thing, I totally loved her, and for another thing, she wanted me to have them.

She had, I must admit, always bragged about how rich her family was, especially her dad, who she said managed a hedge fund, and I for one, not being much up on financial matters, really had no idea what that even was and at first thought it was maybe some kind of joint bank account for landscapers.

But she let me know that actually it meant he was, like, the big cheese for a whole huge group of investors and subinvestors and sub-subinvestors, and the whole thing sounded so complicated that I never really could get my head around it, except that she said, “He makes about two million a year.”

That part I understood.

I was like, “Wow. Your dad makes two million a year.”

And she said, “He’s buying a house in Buenos Aires next year. He does a lot of building down there with developers. My dad’s from Argentina, you know.”

We had been standing by a fence in a park, the one by my old elementary school. It was twilight. I don’t know why, but she seemed sad. I mean, here she was bragging about her dad and how rich they were, and telling me all the details, but it didn’t really seem to make her smile. If anything, she seemed a little angry.

But she didn’t stop there. She went on and told me about their boat, called the Esmeralda or something, which sounded like a really great boat with, like, six sleeping cabins in it, and how she was going to get a Jet Ski, which was certainly something that I’d always wanted.

I asked her if she would let me ride it.

She said, “Sure. If you can get to Buenos Aires.”

That crack made her smile a little, which she almost never did when she was around me, so I was glad she’d made it. Like the times she did the flips, I really liked to see her happy, even if this time it was at my expense.

What’s weird about this is you might think, you know, that by making that sort of joke—because I obviously would never be able to get myself down to Buenos Aires unless I walked, and that would take probably five years—she was being mean to me and maybe didn’t like me. But this whole time she was holding my hand, really holding it tightly, as if her life depended on it. It actually even hurt a little, and I could feel her fingernails sticking into my palm. Holding her hand made me feel so glad I was with her, even more than seeing her face, which I thought looked so beautiful in the dusk, with those liquid eyes she had looking at me and seeming to search me for something without ever finding it, but hoping to find it, and her round face that I thought was so beautiful and her shiny brown hair that fell across her forehead like a wing.

Just then I heard water coming through pipes, not loud and obnoxiously like in most houses, but pretty smoothly. I figured somebody had used the toilet or turned the water on in a sink.

I heard voices.

I had said I didn’t want to eavesdrop, but I must admit that a sort of intense curiosity was building up in me. I really wanted to hear what they were saying. I had to get up and cross the room. I mean, lying on the dog bed, I knew I wasn’t going to learn too much about anything.

I know I said I was afraid of wrecking my illusions about her; I know I sort of said that.

But just hearing her voice again would be great.

So I got up and went to the stairs.

I had to kind of hold my crotch when I walked. That’s because I still had to pee. Already in my mind I was sort of factoring what I’d do when everybody left. I hoped they were all going