Books by Philip Hoy

Coming Right Back

“Okay.”

Her face brightens and she leans across to give you a quick, firm kiss on the mouth. “If you’re not here,” she says, her lips hovering inches from yours. “I’ll understand.”

“No, I’ll be here.”

She kisses you again, more softly this time, then gets out, shuts the door and hurries up the sidewalk, her long hair silver in the street light. The moment she disappears into her front yard, you have to pee, badly. You check your watch: six minutes to eleven. The engine sputters to life and you pull away from the curb.

Thankfully, Foster Freeze is still open. The lights are on with at least a dozen diners. The waistband of your jeans presses painfully against your bladder as you roll into the lot, park, and hurry inside. As soon as you step through the door, your body decides with an immediate urgency that it will no longer be holding your pee and you head straight for the restrooms on the far side of the front counter.

“Restrooms are for customers only!” snaps the man behind the register just as you reach for the door.

“I’m coming right back.”

“Customers only,” he repeats, crossing his arms over his potbellied apron and planting his feet as if he were physically standing in your way. “This isn’t the mall, you know. I have to clean that.”

You hurry back to the register, pulling your wallet out on the way. “Two cheeseburgers, two fries, two chocolate milkshakes,” you say, slapping your last ten-dollar bill on the counter.

“No chocolate, only strawberry,” he says, but the restroom door is already closing behind you.

Minutes later, waiting by the front counter for your order, the smell of fried goodness wafting from the kitchen, you realize how extremely hungry you actually are and you feel oddly grateful to the owner for his strict restroom policy. You check your watch: eight past eleven. You’ve only been gone about fifteen minutes. You can still make it back on time.

A tray of burgers and fries appears from the kitchen and you step forward in anticipation, but the owner immediately walks it out to the group gathered at the restaurant’s center tables. You recognize most of them from school. The one in the blue Hawaiian shirt is Manny, one of Gus’s math club friends. You also recognize the two in the corner booth wearing their double-layered polo shirts with both collars turned up. They are brothers or cousins at least, with the same compact builds, short curly hair, and blunt features. Boxers, or so you’ve heard. Regardless, nobody messes with them. The man with them, an older, scary looking dude, appears an unlikely companion with his shaved head, white t-shirt, and Dickie jeans, but the brothers seem to hang on to his every word as he speaks to them in an animated fashion.

You check your watch: thirteen past eleven. You’ve been gone nearly twenty minutes now. You see Sam standing on the empty curb, crushed at your betrayal. She returns to her house, closing the front door slowly behind her just as you turn the corner, cut the engine, and roll to a silent stop in the exact place she left you. You wait there, food growing cold, for the next half hour until finally you give up and go home, having missed each other by seconds and never knowing who stood up whom.

“Two specials,” says the owner, pushing a large, brown paper bag across the counter.

“And the shakes?”

He nods toward the bag, which is folded over on top and stapled shut.

“Napkins, straws, extra ketchup?”

“Everything in the bag,” he says with a pleasant smile. “Enjoy.”

Not until you are back in your car and out of the parking lot do you realize you didn’t get your change.

Sam’s street is just as quiet, dimly lit, and crowded with parked cars as when you left it, but your spot is still there so you park and wait. After a few minutes, a car turns onto the street from behind you and slows to a crawl as it passes, eventually pulling into a driveway about four or five houses down. The brake lights remain on for at least another minute, but when they finally go off it’s too dark to see if anyone got out. Stop being so paranoid, you tell yourself, and you roll down your window a few inches. There is a chill in the air that wasn’t there before, as unsettling as the silence. Far away a dog is barking. Out on the highway diesels pass like breaking waves on a distant beach. But here on this street everything is still.

A knock on the window causes you to jump in your seat. It’s Sam. You unlock her door, and she quickly climbs in.

“Were you worried I wasn’t coming?” She’s wearing sweatpants, bootie socks and a loose, grey t-shirt with “Property of the Los Angeles Lakers” across the front. There are damp spots on her shoulders from her still wet hair, which is brushed straight and matted darkly against her head. Her cheeks look flush and fresh and she smells like baby shampoo.

You can only smile and shake your head.

Suddenly her eyes go wide. “What’s that smell?”

“Hungry?”

“Oh my God, I’m starving.”

Five minutes later the cheeseburgers are gone. You slow down on the fries, taking sips of your milkshake between bites. Sam has taken the lid off of her shake and is dipping her fries into the ice-cream one at a time like it was ketchup.

“Are you real?” you ask.

She looks over at you, a french-fry suspended above her cup. “What, you’ve never eaten them this way?”

“Oh, no, I mean, at school. I’ve never seen you before.”

She plops the fry in her mouth, chews, swallows. “I’ve seen you.”

“Oh yeah? We don’t have any classes together.”

She gives you a knowing look, one eyebrow raised. “Are you sure?”

You feel your face grow hot. “Shit, do we?”

“No,” she says, smiling and shaking her head. “We don’t.”

“Why is that?” you ask. “Who do you have for English?”

“Jensen.”

“So do I. When?”

“First.”

“Oh, that’s when I have algebra.”

“I know,” she says, “I pass you in the hall.” She puts another milkshake-fry in her mouth. “Mostly you walk with your head down.”

“Really?” That’s not how you pictured yourself. “That sounds so pathetic.”

“No, I mean, you seem so serious. Except this morning.”

“This morning?”

“You were talking to someone.”

You draw a blank. “I was?”

“Yeah, she was pretty, with curly hair.”

Thank you for walking me to class, she had said, her hand on your arm. “Oh, she’s in my algebra class.”

“What’s her name?” asks Sam, another fry in her mouth.

You put several in your own, take a moment to chew and swallow. “Ruth, I think.”

“Hmm.” She circles her finger around the inside of her French fry carton, comes up empty, dips her finger into her shake instead and licks it. “Tell me something,” she says, the tip of her finger still in her mouth. “Anything.”

“What do you mean, anything?”

“I don’t know.” She turns in her seat to face you. “A confession, something you did as a kid, a memory, whatever.” Her knee is pressed up against your thigh. “The first thing you think of.”

“Okay, but you first.”

“All right,” she says. “I hate laundromats.”

“You hate laundromats?”

“Yeah, I won’t even go in one.”

“Really?” There are a few fries left in your own carton, but you set it between your legs with the remains of your milkshake to give her your full attention. “Why?”

“When I was little, like maybe three or four, I was at one with my dad. I’m not sure if it was because we didn’t own a washer or if ours was just broken at the time. Come to think of it, why I was there with my dad and not my mom, I don’t know. Anyway, they had this corner with kid’s stuff, like a box of toys or whatever, books, dinosaurs, dolls, stuff like that. So, I was playing there by myself—"

“What were you playing with the dolls or the dinosaurs?”

She frowns. “I don’t know. I was reading the books.”

“You could read at four years old?”

“Hey.” There goes her eyebrow again. “Probably, but can I go on with my story?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“So, I’m playing there.” She pauses, as if daring you to interrupt. “Or reading or whatever, and I guess I looked up after a while to see where my dad was and I see him walking toward the exit with our laundry basket, all the clothes folded and everything. So, I dropped what I was doing and booked it after him out the door and all the way to the car. Except when he turns around, it’s not my dad.”

“Wait, what?” You twist in your seat to better face her. “What did you do?”

“I freaked out. I started crying, like screaming as loud as I could. My dad came running out and got me.”

“What did the other guy do?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember. I just know that I felt so scared and so guilty.”

“Guilty? Why?”

“I don’t know, I guess because I felt like I betrayed my dad or something, like I picked someone else over him.”

“But you didn’t. You were just a kid. You thought that man was your dad.”

“Yeah, but that’s how I felt. I still feel. In fact, never mind.” Her shoulders slump as she lowers her knee and turns to face forward again, pushing the milkshake cup between her knees. “I don’t even like talking about it. I shouldn’t have told that one. I think I’m going to be sick.”

“Oh, no, really?”

Yeah.” She puts her hand to her throat, swallows. “A little.”

“Alright, alright.” You touch her lightly on the shoulder, feel the damp ends of her hair. “Don’t think about it anymore. My turn,” you announce, even though you still aren’t sure what you will share.

“Okay, please.”

“So,” you decide, “when I was like three or four.”

“Oh, nice.” She turns to you with a hurt look. “Make fun of me.”

“No, really.” The memory is beginning to take shape. “I’m pretty sure I was like three or four.”

“Oh, sorry. Go on.”

“Okay, so, we have two bathrooms in our house. The main one in the hallway and my dad’s bathroom on the other side of the house.”

“Your dad has his own bathroom?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. At least that’s what we call it. I mean, everyone uses it, but it’s where he keeps his shaving stuff and cologne and all that.”

“Everyone?” She seems to raise her chin with interest. “Who’s everyone?”

“Well, back then it was just me and my older brother, and well, yeah, my mom and dad.”

“And now?”

“Now it’s my three little sisters, little brother, and…” Your thoughts catch you off guard. You didn’t mean to come this way. “And well, yeah, but anyway,” you attempt her previous look of impatience. “Back to my story?”

“Yes, sorry,” she says miming a zipper across her lips. “Go ahead.”

“So, one day my dad has had enough and he says my brother and I can no longer use his bathroom.”

“Enough of what?”

“Oh, well.” You wonder if she has brothers. “Little boys don’t always have perfect aim, plus they don’t always remember to lift the seat.”

She smiles, knowingly. “Ohhh, okay, yeah.”

“So, one Sunday morning while everyone is getting ready for church, I’m in there peeing when I suddenly remember. I panic, run to my room, and hide under my bed. After a while, my mother notices I’m missing and starts to call for me. Matthew, where are you? We’re going to be late for mass! I see her white church shoes from under the bed. For some reason this terrifies me even more. Now my brother is looking for me too. My mother is getting more and more frantic. I wedge myself as far as I can against the wall with the lost toys and the dust bunnies. Finally, her head appears beneath the bed. Matthew! She drags me out by the arm, stands me up. Why didn’t you answer me? She’s shaking with anger. Because I used dad’s bathroom and now he’s going to spank me! I cry. Your father is not going to spank you for using his bathroom, she says, but I’m going to for hiding from me! And then she smacks me several times on the butt, tells me to stop crying, and go wash my face.”

“Why didn’t you just come out?”

“I don’t know. I guess the thought of my dad angry at me was the worst thing. I wasn’t even thinking about my mom.”

“What did your dad do?”

“Nothing. I don’t think he even knew I was missing.”

She puts her hand on your arm. “Ay, my poor baby.”

“So, now,” you say, slowly shaking your head. “I have a phobia of bathrooms.”

She crosses her arms. “Oh, really?”

“Yeah, I won’t even go in one.”

“Okay, now you are making fun of me.”

You pull a fry from the bottom of your container and offer it to her. “More fries?”

Her eyes narrow dangerously, but she’s having trouble hiding her smile. “Humm,” is all she says, as she takes it and puts it in her mouth. “Have you ever told that story to anyone before?”

“Actually,” you say as you consider the question. “I honestly don’t think I have. How about you?”

She shakes her head.

A car turns onto the street from behind, its headlights illuminating the inside of the car. Sam slides a few inches lower in her seat, then straightens up after it has passed.

“Tell, me more,” she says, reaching between your legs to take another of your fries. “Like, whose car is this? When I asked you before, you changed the subject. Don’t think I didn’t notice.”

“It’s my, uh, brother’s,” you manage to say.

“He let you borrow it?”

You shake your head.

“He doesn’t know?”

You shrug.

“Well, where is he?”

Another shrug.

“Why won’t you look at me?” she asks. “Matt, what’s wrong?”

You want to answer. You want to tell her, but—

“Did something happen? Did something happen to your brother?”

It’s like you are trapped in a shrinking room, the walls pushing in on you. No windows. No doors. No air.

“Matt, please—”

A sudden, loud rapping on your car window, bare knuckles on glass, brings you back to yourself. Someone is standing right outside the car.

“Oh, fuck,” breathes Sam. “It’s my dad.”

To be continued...

This story is a work in progress — I’m writing it as fast as I can! More episodes in this thread coming soon. While you are waiting, feel free to return to the beginning: if you make different choices you will get a different story. 

I would love to hear from you!

THE MISADVENTURES OF MATTHEW VAN DER BOOT is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental … no matter how many times you ask.​