Thwack

By Marlene Fanta Shyer

Thwack! A Teenage Love Story is a novel about the joy and pain of first love. Caryl, about to turn fifteen, admires her beautiful older sister, Dawn, who is "doing it" with her boyfriend, Justin. For Caryl "it" seems far in the future until she falls in love with the Ecuadorian paper-delivery boy. Early every day she hears the thwack as the newspaper hits her front door. Their mother, distracted, is still mourning for Caryl's father and is crushed when the tree under which he used to sit must be cut down. Caryl meets Luis in the local park, where on Saturdays he sails his miniature sailboats, and she falls hard for him. Justin begins to cheat on Dawn, which fuels her suspicions of all boys, but her warnings about Luis fall on her younger sister's deaf ears. At every opportunity, Caryl and Luis "make out," but their meetings are innocent, until Caryl accepts a job babysitting for twins. Things go further than she wants them to, and when the twins' mother reports to Caryl's mother that her daughter invited her boyfriend over, her mother forbids Caryl to see Luis ever again. There are further complications which make it seem Dawn was right about all boys' faithlessness.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marlene Fanta Shyer
• Release date: Sep 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301752560

Marlene Fanta Shyer

Marlene Fanta Shyer is an author and playwright who has published six novels and twelve children's books. Her fiction, essays and travel stories have appeared in major magazines and newspapers.

Book preview

Chapter 1

THWACK. It was six in the morning and I'd been waiting for that sound for half an hour. I jumped out of bed and ran to the window, twisted apart the blinds to get a glimpse of him. He was at the end of our front walk, just getting back to his brother's van. The sun was coming up and it was almost exactly the same faded yellow as his sweatshirt, an excellent match. He was patting the head of the black and white dog whose face was sticking out the back window of the van. A minute later, he'd climbed into the passenger side, slammed shut the door, and was gone.

In the kitchen, my sister and mother were having words. It's what my mother calls their arguments, which happen about every twenty-four hours.

My sister wants to be a fashion model, but my mother wants her to eat, and as everyone knows, it's the one thing models don't do. Dawn was named for the time of day she was born–one perfect, beautiful morning syllable, easy to spell, impossible to forget. Along with all that, she has the spooky ability to interpret dreams. She's read a bunch of books on the subject and if I tell her I dreamed of going on a hayride, let's say, she'll know it doesn't mean anything about hay or horses. It really means I'm going to ace my next history test. Stuff like that.

It's not her only talent. Dawn can also watch a dancer on TV and a minute later do the exact same steps. Her feet seem to know and just take off. She's amazing.

When I came downstairs that morning, the fight was over and my sister was sitting at the table eating half a grapefruit and a sliver of toast. It looked like a draw. I told her I'd dreamed I was swimming with dolphins and she predicted I'd be getting an email from an old friend.

Mom put a bowl of oatmeal hopped up with cinnamon and apples in front of me, knowing I'll never be a model. (I got my mother's short-legs and hair equation: One drop of humidity equals seven parts frizz.) I threw some extra sugar on top when she wasn't looking and tried not to think of the paper boy. I didn't want anything to show on my face, a losing battle.

Don't forget, we have an orthodontist's appointment after school, Mom reminded me, and added, Caryl, sit up straight, as I have a habit of slouching. Slouching is one way to deal with life when you are algebra-challenged, when you are still nowhere near having the braces taken off your teeth, and when you have a name that just about everyone spells wrong. What were my parents thinking to call one child Dawn, and misspell another?

Mom says I had a great aunt who lived to be one hundred and painted beautiful watercolors. She signed them Caryl. Unfortunately, I don't paint in watercolors, oils or anything, although my father did. He used to sit under the old elm that stands on the little patch of grass across the street and do charcoal sketches. That's what he did when he got too sick to go to work. Sometimes Mom would join him and I have a picture of the two of them there, wearing straw hats, holding hands and smiling into the camera.

Later Dad actually did a sketch of that tree when he was too weak to go outside, and Mom had the picture framed. Now it hangs right over the chair he used to sit in the living room, It's the first thing you see when you walk into the room.

I was too young when he died to remember much about him except his calling me Sweetie-pie. I also remember the smell of 4711. That's the aftershave he always wore before he got too tired to shave. Mom still keeps a sealed bottle in a drawer of her dresser. It's probably at least ten years old. Dad had a smile with the short beard that later grew around it, and touching it when he tucked me into bed reminded me of the rough plush of the stuffed toys lined up on the window sill in my room. In fact, I kept Goodie, my fuzzy gorilla, who now has a bald spot on his stomach and a thumb missing from his hand. Goodie is how I got started being interested in apes.

***

I'll pick you up at the east door at the dot of three, Mom reminded me as I rushed out the door. We both know Dr. Trumbull, the orthodontist, cannot be kept waiting. Every six weeks he has to take his little pliers and tighten what he calls arch wires, pull and jerk things up and down in my mouth, and make me miserable for the five minutes that seem like five hours. They have all kinds of new braces that are almost invisible, but not mine. For the last two years I've glowed silver when I smile, speak or even yawn. I picked the rubber bands that attach the top to wires in my blue and yellow school colors, but my mouth is still a metal disaster. Getting there, Dr. Trumbull always says, but somehow, Getting there is not Got there, is it?

***

School was good that day. I got an A on an essay I wrote about the Native American Green Corn Festival and I found a quarter someone had dropped on the floor of the gym. I bought a brownie at the lunchtime bake sale with it and split it with my best friend, Heather. We watched a documentary called Walking With Dinosaurs after lunch. There was a forest fire scene so exciting that I almost forgot I was in school and this was Science class. For a while, I also almost forgot the paper boy.

Chapter 2

Mom was waiting for me and right away I saw something was wrong. It was a cloudy day, not even a streak of sun, and she was wearing sunglasses. She wasn't chatty either. No, How was school today, Honey? followed by the usual Q's. Instead, she said, Don't change the station, okay, Caryl? I always reach for the radio dial the minute I hop into the car; her music is so last century.

What's wrong, Mom?

Not a thing. Not a damn thing, Mom said.

Is it Dawn?

My mother's storm-clouds are usually about my sister, even when she's managed at dinner to eat a plate of zucchini and one bite of a protein. At the moment, Dawn's decided to paint her room the color of royalty, and Mom doesn't like purple walls.

Not Dawn.

What then, Mom?

Mrs. Gorski, is what it is.

Mrs. Gorski is our next door neighbor. The nicest thing about her is her cat, Verdi. The worst thing is her voice. She used to be an opera star during the war years and she sings very high notes. (Which war? The Civil? Dawn always asks.) When her windows are open, ours have to be closed.

What did she do?

She wants to have the city come and take down the tree.

"What? Our tree?

It's not ours. It's the city's. And it's sick, very sick.

We've known that for a long time, since Mrs. Gorski brings it up every time we happen to meet in the driveway, or wherever. The tree has Dutch Elm disease, which means little beetles are chewing away at it a mile a minute. I never paid too much attention to the tree's sickness because there it always was, huge and green or red and yellow. To be honest, did I imagine little beetles could bring down a tree higher than our house that's been standing there maybe since Mrs. Gorski's war? I didn't.

Wow, that's just stagnant, I said.

Why do you always use that word where it doesn't fit?

It's Heather's word and I like it. Anyway, I make it fit.

Two minutes after I said the name Heather, my cell phone rang and there she was. A Silverback sighting, she said. Silverback is our code name for the paper boy. The Silverback is the big shot Alpha male in the Big Apes world, as I explained to Heather. She's the one who discovered him. He delivers her family's newspapers too. We're the holdouts; half the town gets its newspapers online these days.

He's at the lake, she said. Doing something with a little radio and a sailboat. I think it's a race.

We'll go!

Just a minute, Mom said. Don't you have homework, Caryl?

Obviously she wasn't so upset she'd forget to play the homework card.

A tad, I said. I didn't tell her it was math, which could take a week to get right. Just the tiniest little bit of homework I can do after dinner, I pleaded, and Mom caved.

I didn't realize, though, why my mother was wearing sunglasses on a cloudy day until we rolled into the garage and she took them off. Her eyes were red as a bunny's. Of course, it was about the tree. Today, I suppose I could have gotten away with anything. For her, it's not just any big old elm. Too much of Dad is tied up in it. It's not that he's still sitting under its branches, but maybe that's where she pictures him. I guess she sees him with his charcoal and sketch pad, wearing the old straw hat she still has up in her closet, maybe still smelling of 4711. Or, it's possible his spirit is with us in its shade. She thinks so. I do too.

Mom, why don't we make some fruit smoothies? I said as soon as we'd walked into the kitchen. I know my mother. Keeping her busy is the way to go to get her mind off bad stuff. She pulled out the orange and a banana and some pineapple slices and sure enough, by the time Heather arrived, she was smiling. As soon as we'd gulped down the last delicious smoothie drops, Heather and I headed out the door, hopped on our bikes and flew like the wind toward the lake.

Chapter 3

How did you know he was here? I whispered, as soon as we'd spotted him. We jumped off our bikes and kept a safe distance, but stayed close enough to catch the action.

Mom and I passed the lake on the way home from my cousin's. We brought her some doughnuts I got at the bake sale. She lives right up there, behind those trees.

***

It's practically the first thing I ever learned after the alphabet: Don't chase boys. For one thing, boys don't like girls who run after them. For another thing, I don't think it's good etiquette. I know my mother would lecture me to the tenth power if she had a clue I was like pedaling two miles to be near a boy I don't even know. And if the kids at school found out, the balloon would go right up. But Heather understands. She knows how I feel because she feels pretty much the way I do.

The paper boy is no ordinary mortal. For one thing, he's the hottest sixteen-year-old I've ever seen. It's not just his face, either. He's cute, but Monsieur Audiard, the French teacher, is more handsome. The paper boy has eyes that are lasers, that's one thing. They look as if they've been dipped in the River Styx, and the one time–the only time he ever really looked at me–they rolled at me sideways. It was like we had a secret together. I got a jolt, like I'd walked across a wool rug and then touched a light switch.

It was one morning when the newspaper delivery was late. I was leaving for school and he had just thrown the paper against the door: thwack. I stepped out, and there he was, the length of the walk away from me. He looked at me, blinked and said, Hey.

That's all. Hey. It was a surprise to him, I suppose, to see the door open and a face–mine–appear.

I said, Hi, and then he gave me that high-definition beam, like he'd never seen a person before...and he walked slowly back towards me, leaned over and picked up the paper. It was right at my feet. He handed it to me so I wouldn't have to pick it up myself.

Happy reading, he said, and I guess I said Thank you, because he made a little salute instead of saying, You're welcome.

Then he said, I never knew who lived here. He pointed two fingers at me. Now I know.

I was just holding the paper, not knowing whether to go back inside, when he gave me a slow smile. I have that smile sort of glued permanently up in my head, like the primary colors. Then his dog barked, he turned, walked back to the blue van he'd come in. Someone in sunglasses and a baseball cap I couldn't see very well was in the driver's seat. I found out later it was his older brother. Before climbing in, the paper boy stopped.

Hey, skip the news and go right to Rudy Park. Funny today!

He waved. I waved back. And that was it. Anybody would say I was making too much of it.

So would I, under normal circumstances. Honestly, I'm not boy crazy. Heather is the one who has a crush on a new boy like every ten minutes. Still, isn't it possible something poetic happened that morning? I mean, a big-league moment when he and I came face to face?

***

It happened exactly a week ago Monday. Now here he was in real life, wearing shades and a black t-shirt that said, Fort Lyle High School, and Heather was whispering We should have brought binoculars. She'd found out his name because she'd come across an old tip envelope he'd left with his name on it in her kitchen. She spelled it out for me: Luis Alfero. To me, that name was like a song title. It had music built into it.

Heather had also pulled out of her cousin that he was a tenth grader, and plays in the school band. Look at him, the way he walks. Like he just landed on the moon and is about to plant a flag. Like an astronaut.

Yes, that's it. An astronaut, or an American Idol.

We got up the courage to move a little closer.

The park is in Fort Lyle, which is the next town, and it's a town that's got a lot more crammed into it than ours: parks, the lake, a big high school, shopping streets, tall buildings and people. It is also where he, Luis Alfero, lives. Somewhere.

A few boys I'd never seen before were with him on the shore of the little Fort Lyle Park lake. Each one was holding one of those black remote control radios, walking back and forth, calling out to each other. I'd never seen miniature sailboat races before but I caught on very fast; the one with the number 31 on its sail was his.

"I want him to win," I whispered to Heather.

Go, tell him, she said.

Oh, sure.

Go ahead, I dare you.

No!

You're a wuss, Caryl.

Give it up, Heather.

I double dare you!

Heather!

If you won't, I will.

No, you won't!

Watch me!

Heather–have you lost it?

Before I could stop her, she'd put down the brake of her bike and began walking toward the boys at the edge of the lake.

Heather! I called after her. What are you doing? Heather!!!

She turned, gave me a little smile, and kept walking.

Chapter 4

I don't know where Heather gets her nerve, which my mother calls moxie. For a while she just tried approaching him, but Luis didn't stay put. He was pacing along the shore, going back and forth, his back to her, and of course, to me. His eyes were on Number 31. There were some sort of buoys