Speak My Language: Now with commentary! by zara hemla
I'm doing this for winter baby, in the middle of trying
to stream the new Get Up Kids album. Let's see, I wrote
this in November, in spite of pervasive fear that I
would get jossed and the whole plot would change out
from under me. It hasn't as of this writing, but we'll
see.
It was only yesterday -- my eyes touched yours
across the street. We cut the words and waved goodbye
and dropped off the edge of the world. -- the CureI was a Cure fanatic in high school. That's partly
why I chose a Cure song. And they're poetic and stuff.
Like I said in the notes, I wanted to pick a
"contemporary" song, b/c the OTH episodes are all named
after songs (this particular episode was named after a
Dashboard song, I think.)
2003
Keith sits in the kitchen, staring at Karen's things.
He's been in the kitchen before, maybe a thousand
times, but rarely when she's out of it. And now
she's in Italy and he has the place to himself.
Himself and Lukas, who is never home. He breezes in
for a quick meal and then out again, off to play
hoops or go to a party or whatever it is that
teenagers do nowadays.
So, we come to the "how this got started" part of the
segment: it started with Karen giving Keith that kiss
at the airport. And I thought two things about it:
number one, here these two people have been in love for
years, and number two, she's going to kiss him
NOW? And leave for six weeks? Ouch.
Sometimes I write based on a series of images that come
to me, and I connect them as best I can. The three
images in this story were: 1) Keith standing in Karen's
kitchen, looking at her things; 2) Keith hanging on to
the fridge door as he talks to Dan in the flashback, and
3) also in the flashback, Karen sitting on a swing
digging her toe into the ground. I know Stephen King
said he wrote "The Langoliers" based on an image he had
of a woman standing ... I can't exactly remember and the
book is in the back bedroom ... she is in an airplane
and has her hand on a hole in the ceiling, I think.
Anyway, this was like that. I thought to myself, "How
could she just leave him like that?" And I got the
image of him in her kitchen. Then as I kept writing,
the second image came, and the third.
Why had he been so quick to volunteer to stay here?
Why not say, Lukas can stay with me, instead of, I'll
stay with Lukas? It's muddled, complicated. He's
not the boy's father -- and that's half the problem -
- but surely he doesn't want to spend the next six
weeks in her house, lounging in her living room,
sleeping in her bed.
The "sleeping in her bed" part is kind of gratuitous,
but hey.
Keith studies his hands, the oil grained into the
fingers. She'd kissed him in the airport. She had
just -- just -- He shoves back from the table
suddenly. What right did she have to do that? Just
do that and walk away like it was nothing, like she'd
see him later? He goes over to the sink, gets the
dish soap, scrubs the two plates and glasses he and
Lukas had used for dinner. Her plates. Her soap
(citrus scented). Her dish towels, printed with --
he squints -- fading teddy bears.
Image #1. If I was Keith, I'd be kind of mad too.
The sun is setting, and he peers out the window,
trying to make out the street. What is Lukas doing
right now? The boy had promised to call if "he was
going to be late," but Lukas hadn't volunteered a
time and Keith hadn't pushed it. It's a man thing:
trust the other guy until he fucks up, then come down
on him. That's what his father had always done with
him. And Keith, secure in that knowledge, had made
sure not to get caught fucking up, which he had done
on a regular basis.
Now I don't know if that is really The Man Code, but
Keith seemed like a guy who'd done his share of fucking
around and was willing to cut Lukas some slack as long
as the kid didn't do something really obvious. (Recent
events do not bear out this theory, but that is alllll
right.)
Now he's too old for all those games and suddenly he
envies Lukas all that energy: the time and the vigor
to go out and get the girls or the booze or the ball
game. Apparently it's his own karma to wait and wait
and have the girl come to him only when she's also
leaving.
He slouches into the TV room and turns on a hockey
game. Lets the players slide across his vision:
lets the shuffle of skates on ice lull him. His gaze
wanders over Karen's books, her stereo, the little
notes she leaves to herself about things. Some
pictures of her and Lukas as a boy; some pictures of
the three of them. Only they weren't three: they
were Lukas and her, and sometimes him in the
background, smiling foolishly and wishing, wishing,
wishing.
It comes back to him now in flashes as always: the
day he'd come home from technical college to find his
brother sitting at the kitchen table and frowning,
picking apart a paper napkin.
Maybe this part is also unconsciously from "The
Langoliers": I remember now that I'm thinking about it,
that the villain of that piece was always shredding up
napkins and newspapers. Huh.
1985
He got a glass of juice, asked Dan what was wrong.
Things didn't go wrong in Dan's world: parents,
friends, school all went his way or he didn't deal
with them. So to see him sulking pleased Keith a
little, somewhere deep down. Till Dan opened his
mouth and sulkily said: "Karen's pregnant."
And wham! It hit him in the gut right there. He had
to clutch on to the edge of the fridge so he didn't
show weakness in front of Dan, who went after it like
a raptor. So he didn't let Dan know that somewhere
in the back of his mind he'd always hoped that Karen
Rowe would come to her senses and ditch his ass of a
brother. Maybe figure out that an older guy had more
to offer, even a guy who was only going to take over
his father's business.
Image #2: And I've always guiltily liked the idea
of two brothers fighting over the same woman. Only in
this case, Keith doesn't fight. (Which is mainly his
problem.)
Karen, chocolate-eyed Karen. With black hair that
sometimes, if they were swimming or something, she'd
shake down to her waist. It fairly hurt to look at,
but he couldn't stop. Keith tried to hide it, stayed
away from her now, but maybe his brother had noticed.
If he had, he didn't say: Dan had always been about
Dan, from the day he was born.
"Yeah, go ahead and laugh," Dan said sourly. "Joke's
on me, ha ha." Then he finished picking apart the
napkin and just sat there, stared at the little piles
of paper.
"Do -- mom and dad know?" Keith already knew the
answer to that. If his parents knew already, they'd
be in the kitchen with Dan now, screaming at him
about all his lost opportunities.
Keith is the Bright of this story: he goes to
technical college and no one cares about him, and Dan is
the one with "the Future."
"Hell, no," Dan said. "I'll -- I'll take care of it
before they ever know."
And Keith thought, out of nowhere, the hell you will.
She'll take care of it, keep it whether you like it
or not. He made himself let go of the fridge door
and take a drink of juice. Forced a little laugh.
"Maybe -- maybe you should marry her."
This was still a discussion you could have in 1985
without sounding like a misogynist. Of course, I was
only ten back then, so what the hell do I know?
And Dan turned on him, hissing, "I'm not going to
marry her! First of all, I'm going places, and she's
not good enough for -- "
"For marriage?" Keith also hissed, clutching the
glass in a sweaty hand. "Good enough to fuck,
though, to keep on the side, right? For -- what's it
been -- a year? And a half?"
"Shut up!" Dan screamed, the closest to unstrung
then that Keith had ever seen. "I don't even know if
it's my baby! I asked her and she wouldn't answer
me!"
I had to make Dan even more of a prick than usual,
so I put this in. I do think it's something he might
say (and really expect an answer to), but in retrospect
it does sound a bit Danielle Steele-ish.
And Keith felt sick and angry, but also so sorry for
her that he could barely get out any words. He just
stood there for a minute and Dan looked at him and
looked away, looked at him and looked away. And
Keith put down his glass on the counter so it
wouldn't break. He said quietly, "I wouldn't answer
either," and he didn't wait for Dan's reply. Just
went out to his truck and got in the cab and drove
away.
He screamed out of town, pulled off the road
somewhere, tried to think straight. Maybe Dan would
come to his senses and stop being such a fuckwit.
He'd ask her to marry him, and that would be okay,
because she'd have someone to help her out with the
baby.
Totally gratuitous use of the word "fuckwit": I
don't know if it was slang of the 80s but I just like
it so much.
A baby -- Dan's baby. Hard enough to think about her
in Dan's bed, but now -- and she wasn't even out of
high school. Her folks would probably kick her out
of the house. Keith had always thought that her
mother had been trapped the same way, and she
probably would try to kill Karen for this.
Added in the part about her mom: we don't know
anything about her parents, so I guess I could get
jossed at any moment here.
Keith remembered the first time he had seen her,
really seen her: when Dan had brought her home for a
while to watch a b-ball game. She'd gotten into it -
- she loved basketball, loved sports. Knew the
rules. Dan had beamed at her and then given Keith a
look like, see? Even girls from the wallflower pool
can be brought up to snuff.
I was always in the wallflower pool, dammit, and
I made good, so there.
She'd had her hair up in some kind of clip and an
off-the-shoulder shirt. And Keith had sat there with
them, not saying a word, trying to watch the game but
watching her instead. She'd been friendly to him but
spent all her time with her head next to Dan's,
letting him run his hand over that one bare shoulder.
Keith had had to leave before the game was over,
mumbling some excuse, because he couldn't watch
another minute.
The off-the-shoulder shirt is a flashback to "The
Cutting Edge," thank you very much. Doug and Kate!
Theirloveissogoldmedal!
He and Dan and Karen and some of her friends had gone
places together: swimming in the creek, tennis at
the courts, up to Durham or Chapel Hill a few times,
to parties at Duke and in the local clubs. He gave
the appearance of legitimacy that they needed: he
knew that's why Dan had asked him along. And the
girls had always been nice: giggly, young,
thoughtless. Karen had always been polite. Dan had
sometimes made sneering remarks about his clothes,
the way he dressed like a truck driver.
"I am a truck driver, dumbass," he'd said mildly.
And Karen had put her hand on Dan's arm and said,
"Let's dance," and given him a kind of a look like
she was sorry for both of them.
And he'd never danced, no matter how many of Dan's
giggly friends had asked him. Just smiled and said
no thanks, and watched her like it was a sickness.
He'd felt out of control, dizzy, watching her shimmy
up close to Dan. He'd drunk a lot more than was good
for him. And eventually he'd stopped going. Dan was
looking older by then, old enough to not need him any
more. And so he'd tried to stop thinking about her,
but it caught him at unguarded moments. And now she
was going to have his brother's child -- he was
absolutely certain that Dan would offer an abortion
and that she would say no.
I suppose if Keith had a flaw, and I'm not saying he
does, it would be passive-aggressive behavior. I just
have him take it all out on liquor here.
He wasn't sure, but he thought he loved her. He knew
he had a crush, but it went farther than how he
wanted to put a hand in that hair and follow it all
the way down. It was in the way she was friendly to
everyone; the way she led Dan out of fights; the way
that a really good three-pointer at the last second
could make her shriek. The way that she was going to
have this baby, whether Dan was there for her or not.
Awww....disgustingly WB, that.
Someone should be there. Someone should. If Dan was
going to skip out, if Dan was only going to "take
care of it" -- the barely coherent thought had him
gunning the truck as fast as he could out to her
house, parking with a squeal at the curb. It felt
unreal, it felt like fate. He jumped out of the cab
and slammed the door. Partway up the walk, he heard
her voice from behind him.
"You looking for me, Keith?" She sounded polite,
distant. He whirled and peered into the twilight.
Across the street was a ratty playground with a
broken merry-go-round, and there she sat on the
swings, digging into the ground with the toe of her
greyed-up Keds. She looked like a kid herself, and
as he approached her, he could see the tear tracks on
her face. It made him want to punch Dan into next
week.
Image #3: I guess it underscores the powerlessness
he feels. Here she is alone, and he still can barely
make a move. Not that there's any move to be made.
Hence, your basic Catch-22.
He stood in front of her, toying with a merry-go-
round spoke, and had no idea what to say. She didn't
help it along -- just sat there sniffling, shoulders
shaking. Then she wiped her eyes and she said, "You
know what your brother just did?"
Today or two months ago, thought Keith sourly. "He
called you up and offered to take you to a doctor in
Durham," he said. "And he said he'd pay for
everything, and he'd drive you home, and everything
would be just fine, and you didn't have to mention
anything to your mom or dad."
"Yeah." She bent her head again, and he saw that her
hair was loose, flowing forward to cover her face.
"Yeah, take care of it. That's exactly what he said.
And I asked him, didn't he want to make a go of it?
Didn't we want to have a baby together? And he -- "
She sobbed again, somewhere deep in her gut, and
Keith tried to stop himself but instead he went and
stood next to her, put a hand on her head, told
himself he would not, he would not touch her anywhere
else.
"He said, he was going places, and he wasn't going to
tie himself down now."
"How did you know that?" She still wasn't looking at
him.
"We're brothers," he said, and he meant it, but she
jerked at that, shaking the chains on the swing.
"You are nothing like him!" she said fiercely, and
he wasn't unsure anymore, he knew it like he knew his
own heartbeat. He loved her.
Again with the Danielle Steele, but I was trying for
a little bit of WB drama here.
"We talked about it earlier. He said almost that
exact thing to me. Karen -- you're going to keep the
baby."
"Of course I am." She'd stopped crying, but hadn't
lifted her head, and though he felt like the worst
kind of bastard, his hands followed the curve of her
head down to the back of her neck. She sniffled and
swiped her hair out of her eyes. "I'm going to keep
it and someday I'm going to come back and throw it in
his face, what he could have had."
They were both silent again. Keith didn't know what
to say -- of course he knew what to say. Marry me,
Karen. I'll take care of you. I will. But somehow
he knew it was wrong, that offering to take care of
her would only make her angrier. Would only make him
sound like his brother.
Instead he stammered as she leant into his hand,
"Please. Isn't there anything I can do for you?" He
felt sick, lust and responsibility warring in him.
He wasn't responsible, but maybe he could have
stopped it somehow -- talked to Dan, made sure they
were being safe.
Older brother syndrome. "If I could just get through
to him!" I've thought that a lot about my own younger
siblings.
"It's not your fault, Keith. You don't have to worry
about me. I'll figure something out." He can feel
her breath against his fingers and he jerks his hand
away from her. She leans her head against the chain
instead and looks at him. "Why'd you come here?"
"He left you alone," Keith said heatedly. "He left
you and went home and sulked about the problem you
were causing, as if you could get yourself pregnant."
He stalks across the playground, waving his hands and
venting. "Poor Dan, what an inconvenience. It's
okay to have a girlfriend as long as she keeps her
mouth shut -- unless she's cheering for your jump
shots or down on her knees."
I'm not sure in retrospect that I should have had him
say that. He presumes a lot on just acquaintanceship,
know what I mean? He's loved her from a distance, but
it's not like they had meaningful conversation. But
I suppose in a way they are shoved together by Dan, so
they can talk a bit more openly than they might've.
"He's not like that."
"Close enough."
"He's a good guy, Keith."
"The hell he is, Karen. How can you defend this?"
"I guess I don't need to, if I have you to do it for
me." He looks at her then, and she is smiling a
little bit. "You my knight in a jean jacket?"
MMmmm....Jean jackets. Very North Carolina chic.
"I wish I could be." As soon as he said it, he
wished he could take it back. She gave him another
half-smile that turned into a kind of grimace.
"This has nothing to do with you, Keith, you're a
good friend. But I feel kind of nauseous."
This came because I had no idea how to end the scene
(I wanted to do it suddenly and I didn't want any more
physical intimacy -- see below of course, but that's
almost impersonal). I think it works all right.
"Sure, sure. You should be inside the house
anyways." He was relieved for the distraction and he
hurried to help her out of the swing. She let him
walk her across the street but then stopped him at
his truck.
"I'll call you if I need anything," she said to him.
"I will. I think -- I think you're all I have right
now."
"Even to talk," he said. "And let me know how -- the
baby's doing, all right? I'll try to talk some sense
into Dan."
I had him react to pregnancy the way most guys of
20 or so would -- sort of dancing around the subject,
relieved that they don't have to do any of the work.
"Sense," she said, "ha," and then she turned
extremely pale and clutched at his arm.
And it was a stupid thing to do, foolish and ill-
advised, and he did it anyway, he picked her up and
carried her into her house. She weighed nothing at
all, and she was breathing shallowly through her
mouth. She looked like she was going to faint. In
the living room, her mother looked up from a sewing
project, startled.
See, he is her knight in a jean jacket.
"Keith Scott! What are you doing?"
"She's sick," he said briefly and laid her down on
the couch. She grabbed his hand for a minute and
then let go and turned to her mother. Keith got the
hell out of there. On the way home, he opened the
window as far as it would go, breathing in air and
breathing out panic and love and mistrust: letting
go of everything.
Remember my obsession with poetic endings?
2003
He remembers how sick she had been, morning and night
for four months. Dan hadn't even asked. She had
finished school before Lukas was born. Keith had
tried to talk sense into Dan but obviously, until he
got hooked up with Deb there was no sense to the man.
Dan rabbited off to college, but once in awhile Karen
had called Keith, let him know how the baby was.
Even let him hold Lukas right after he was born. By
then Dan was too interested in Deb's baby to even
care. But Keith cared, he's cared all of Lukas's
life.
He should have married her. He should have asked.
But he'd been too chicken, too young, too stupid. He
couldn't say the words, and so the two of them ended
up close, very close, but too far apart for him to
ever touch her again, to ever put his hand on her
hair like he'd done seventeen years ago.
I wrote this as a contrelamontre challenge about
regret. You're supposed to write about regret without
ever actually using the word. This is my regret
paragraph.
And now? Now. The hockey game is entirely over and
now it's on some Sports Illustrated infomercial.
Lukas hasn't called or come home. And here he is
with her things, with her albums full of photos from
other dates, other boyfriends, and her bowl full of
rose petals from who knows where.
I have a bowl full of rose petals.
The phone rings. Once, twice, and he picks it up in
case it's Lukas. But it isn't. It's Karen. She
sounds excited and she doesn't mention that she
kissed him in an airport, in front of God and the
security guards.
They make small talk. She asks after Lukas and he
lies and says the boy just called him. She asks how
the Impala restoration for the Boyds is going. He
says, fine. And she tells him that Italy is
wonderful, that she got him a present. He can hear
the smile in her voice.
"What is it?" he asks.
"I'm not telling. And you're going to have to wait
five whole weeks to find out, mister."
"Is it bigger than a breadbox?"
"Not telling!"
"Keeping secrets are we? Well, I don't care what it
is."
"Spoilsport!"
"I hope you're actually learning some cooking over
there, not just how to keep secrets."
"I am. Oh Keith, it's wonderful!"
So are you, thinks Keith, staring out the window and
seeing Italy. So are you.
I wanted to put this in to show that there aren't
any hard feelings about the airport kiss, that he
knows they'll get around to it when she comes back.
I think he wishes he could have gone with her and
seduced her by the Trevi Fountain. But that's just
me.
--end--
Thanks for reading! It was fun to write this one,
because I bet all the OTH fanfic is Peyton/Lukas or
something. But I'm too old for that. :)