Free Far from Xanadu by Julie Anne Peters

never finished anything he started. Most of his junk heaps had been propped up so long on cinder blocks there was bindweed choking the carburetors.
    I eased open the back screen and tiptoed into the kitchen. Pastor Glenn was in the living room with Ma. Like always, he was reading the Bible and she was weeping. Sometimes he’d recite his Sunday sermon, since Ma was too fat to go to church. She’d sob through that too.
    Ma’d always been heavy. She stayed indoors, in hiding. Which was fine with me. I didn’t need all the kids in school making fun of her. After Dad died Ma got worse about going out in public. Eating too. I bet she weighed close to five hundred pounds now. And she hadn’t left the house in a year. Not to go to church. Not to shop. Not to step outside for a breath of fresh air.
    Unfortunately, the only way to my bedroom was past Ma and Pastor Glenn. He glanced up from his reading. “Hello, Mike.” He grinned. He had a gap between his two front teeth that made him look like a big kid.
    “How’s it goin’?” I said.
    “Every day is a blessing. Thank you for asking. We miss you at church.”
    I forced a grim smile. “I’ll try to get there next week.” That was a lie, and he knew it. I’d stopped going to church after Dad died. Too many sad eyes. Too many prayers said for me and Ma and Darryl.
    I took a shower. While I was soaping up, I could feel Pastor Glenn in the other room. It creeped me out. A memory seeped into my mind. The last time we all went to church. The Szabos, five of us, along with half the town. It was Camilia’s baptism. I was, what? Seven, eight? Ma had handed the baby to Pastor Glenn, then sat on a folding chair. She couldn’t stand too long, even then. I remember, she started bawling. Tears trickling out the sides of her eyes and streaming down her blotchy face. Dad had handed her a handkerchief and patted her shoulder. He wasn’t crying. He never cried. He was strong. He was holding my hand, smiling down on me.
    Why was Ma crying? It was a happy occasion. Did she know then that Camilia was going to die?
    What? That thought brought me up short. I blinked soap out of my eyes and rinsed off my face.
    Camilia died the next day. Ma couldn’t have known. Not the way she reacted when it happened.
    But how did Camilia die? As hard as I racked my brain, I couldn’t remember. It wasn’t violent, I don’t think. I’d remember that.
    By the time I was done and dressed, Pastor Glenn had gone. Thank God. Ma was back in her room, doing whatever it was she did in there thirty-six hours a day. Consume pies by the box load, then ask the Lord’s forgiveness for gluttony. Darryl’d been up. He’d left the milk out to sour. I fixed myself a power shake and took my glass out back. On the porch stoop, I drank and tried not to think about stuff. About how it might’ve gone with Xanadu and Bailey.
    When I got to the water tower at quarter to eleven, the ladder was already propped up against the side. I freaked. What if some dumb kid had climbed to the top and did a copycat? This town couldn’t take another death. They couldn’t afford it. Dad’s suicide had cost everyone, not only in terms of burial costs. I scaled the ladder as fast as I could.
    The dumb kid turned out to be Jamie. He was greased from head to toe with baby oil. Somehow he’d managed to cart up a chaise lounge and cooler, in addition to his boom box and beach bag.
    “What’s that?” I said, noting with disgust what he was wearing. Or wasn’t wearing.
    “Like it?” He snapped the strap on his thong. “I bought these on eBay. One for each day of the week. Want to see where it says ‘Sunday’?”
    I ignored him as I spread out my towel. The metal walkaround was already generating visible heat waves. I pulled my undershirt over my head. All I had to wear were my sports bra and boxers, since my swimming suit was way too small. I’d bulked up a little over the summer — okay, a lot. But it wasn’t worth buying a new