when+the+foot's+not+real

__When The Foot's Not Real__

"Okay," My cousin Amanda, who the family calls Mims and her friends call Schwartzy, mutters as she stuffed the key of her 1999 White Volkswagen New Beetle into the ignition. "This is gonna be--" With a flick of the wrist, the car jolts to life. "--Really quick." It's Saturday mid-morning, right before lunch. One of those perfect May days right before it gets too hot to call it a nice day.

Mims has those obnoxious keys that people like to whip in and out of their purses and pockets and swing around. There were the car keys, the trunk keys, the automatic lock clicker, the house keys, a lime-green Coach "A" key chain, another shaped like a miniature sandal with "ORLANDO" in orange script, and a card holder with her grinning license visible, all hanging from a threadbare navy and gray "Westlake High School Cheerleading" lanyard. "Help me! It's too heavy!" the frayed lanyard seems to cry.

We back slowly out of her driveway, all the way out. Some neighbor a few houses back has a work van double parked. People just don't do that kind of thing in New Jersey. And up the street we go, literally. This whole town is on palisades, everything is either up or off a cliff.

I've been here enough that I recognize some landmarks. There's the Korean nail salon, and the German deli. There's the gas station with the broken pump--only charges 99 cents a gallon, and so far, none of the attendants have caught on. There's Il Giardino, and in the tinted front windows of that restaurant, I can see the reflection of us in the Beetle as it cruises on by. It still has the old New York license plates. Red, white, and blue, with the Statue of Liberty in the middle. How silly, everyone's well aware that the Statue's in Jersey waters.

But, I run out of landmarks when we pass the intersection where they're building a new clock tower. You turn left, you get to Starbucks. You turn right, you get onto the Saw Mill. We're going straight.

I've been listening to Mims make small talk for awhile, mostly about how annoyed she is at Ben. How everything about him annoys her, down to the shirt he wore last night, and the prominent mole above his lip. I wonder if she'd like me to add other things to the list of why Ben annoys her. I think about how he has the jaw of a Neanderthal, but somehow I don't think she'll want to hear that.

"So what did Ben do?" I ask, because that's the only thing that she won't say.

I almost wish I didn't ask. She begins describing how Ben started talking to a girl named Siobhan, and this is why we're taking our "quick" trip. She explains that we're going to look for Siobhan's car, where ever it may be, and try to get a hold of Siobhan's phone. That way, Mims can prove once and for all that Ben's been talking to Siobhan, because she's sure Ben deleted all remnants of any texts or call histories on his phone with any mention of Siobhan.

I didn't think people were actually //named// Siobhan.

She goes on about how gross Siobhan is, how much she can't believe Ben would associate with a girl like that. Her voice changes pitch in a frightening way. She's smiling as she makes fun of the poor girl, but her voice just gets angrier and angrier.

Now, this is Saturday. When I talked to Mims on Thursday, things were still peachy with Ben. And that was also the last time I'd talked to Dylan. I wondered then if at that very moment, Ben and Dylan were talking about Mims and I, the way we did about them. I pictured them gossiping like girls in their lifeguard chairs, but then I doubted it.

We're driving up a cliff now, this winding road, surrounded by trees, thick in the late Spring. And then we're going downhill, with sharp turns and more trees. I keep waiting for the fatal turn. The one that sends us in the Beetle flipping roof over tires into the brush, down the rest of the cliff.

But it never happens. Within a few minutes of nervous tightening my seatbelt, and Mims' insults about Siobhan, we arrive at a paved clearing.

It's a parking lot. The Westlake Community Aquatic Center. Where Ben and Dylan guard. I remember it from their personally embroidered lifeguard sweatshirts. Mims explains that Siobhan's brother guards here too, home from SUNY Purchase for the summer, and she's probably here "visiting" him, but really trying to talk to Ben.

I give a sidelong glance out the driver's side window to see that we've pulled into a parking spot next to another Beetle, a newer model. It's that yellow color, reminiscent of a taxi, but less important. The car color people want because they seem to believe it implies they have a luxury car. Except it's a Beetle.

Mims turns the car off, and it's very quiet for a moment. She smiles at me.

"I bet the bitch left her car open." She unbuckles her seat belt and opens the door. "I'm //sure// the bitch left her car open."

I watch Mims peer into the window of the yellow Beetle. She claps with excitement.

"The hoe left her purse! It's like she knew I was coming!"

Mims is right, the bitch left her car open. I can't help the guilty feeling that bubbles up inside of me when I watch her open the other Beetle's door, and begin to go through the fake striped Dolce bag that Siobhan left on the passenger's seat.

I'm really just too nice.

The week before, it was me and Mims in her basement, with Ben and Dylan, Lucky Joe, Korean Dan, Steve--who at the time was covered in hickies, Fransisco, Ron, Scott, Ron's girl Mo, Scott's girl Jackie, and a blonde girl everybody calls Red were watching one of the Saw movies, I have no idea which sequel.

I sat next to Dylan on the longer leather couch, completely on accident. I mostly ignored him for the movie, as I dug my bare feet into the new carpet.

But then a severed foot appeared without warning on the screen. The jagged ankle bone still stuck out from the clotted stump, while tendons hung down onto the grayed skin.

"Jesus Christ!" I squealed. My bare feet squirmed up onto the couch, knees tucked below my chin, as if I was going to somersault backwards completely into the couch and vanish.

As suddenly as the disgusting sight of the foot, Dylan put his arm chivalrously around my cannonballed body.

"It's okay," he assured, very matter-of-factly. "It's not a real foot."

Like that was what concerned me. Whether or not the foot was real.

I could feel that crowd of acquaintances all looking at us. I was still all curled-up, and Dylan's arm was still around my shoulders.

So, I unraveled my body to put my feet back down on the floor, albeit hesitantly. Somebody might try to chop them off.

And Dylan's arm was still there, and I ignored it and ignored it until I didn't notice it anymore.

Mims has found Siobhan's phone now, and she's gleefully going through the call history for any evidence of Ben.

I turned my neck and looked out the rear window. I could see through a chain-link fence where the lifeguard chairs were set up, facing the deep twelve-foot end of the pool. There was Ben, and Dylan too, shirtless and sunglassed in their red lifeguard bathing suits. They were both sunburned, just sitting and looking important.

I can't talk for Ben, but how can Dylan be a lifeguard? I imagine myself drowning at the deep end of the Westlake Community Aquatic Center, thrashing to keep my head above water. And Dylan dives in to save me, calmly swimming up next to me.

"It's okay," he'll call over the sound of my panicked splashing. "You won't really drown."

Only proving that words don't ever seem to solve anything.

But sometimes, we really do need that assurance.

Like Mims, who's now looking incredibly disappointed. She's thrown Siobhan's phone back in the fake Dolce bag, and slammed the door of the other yellow Beetle. Whatever assurance Siobhan's phone will give her, it'll never be good.

"Bitch probably deleted them," she grumbles, climbing back into her own Beetle. "I know she talked to Ben. I'll get him tonight, I swear to God he'll tell me."

She continues off on her tangent as she starts up the car and we back out of the spot.

I know a lot of things about life.

Like, I know how this will go. Tonight me and Mims will hang out with Ben and Dylan. Mims will yell at Ben until she gets tired of seeing him whimper about how sorry he is, for whatever he did to make her think he was talking to Siobhan.

And then they'll be happy, but who knows what will happen with Dylan.

Maybe there'll be another foot. Another excuse to talk. Another reason to smile.