Lock and Key

  “Well, I have you to thank for them. Yours was the inspiration.” She picked up one trimmed with green stones. “In fact, you should take one. It’s the least I can do.”

  “Oh, no. You don’t have to.”

  “I want to.” She gestured at the rack. “Or I can make you one special, if you prefer.”

  I looked at them, then down at my own necklace. “May-be later,” I said. “I’m good for now.”

  Outside, the air was crisp, cool, and as I headed toward the greenway and home, I reached up, running my hand over my own necklace. The truth was, lately I’d been thinking about taking it off. It seemed kind of ridiculous to be carrying around a key to a house that was no longer mine. And anyway, it wasn’t like I could go back, even if I wanted to. More than once, I’d even gone so far as to reach up to undo the clasp before stopping myself.

  On that first night, when Nate and I had met, he had asked me, What’s it to? and I’d told him, nothing. In truth, though, then and now, the key wasn’t just to that lock at the yellow house. It was to me, and the life I’d had before. Maybe I’d even begun to forget it a bit over the last few weeks, and this was why it was easier to imagine myself without it. But now, after what had happened the night before, I was thinking maybe having a reminder wasn’t such a bad idea. So for now, it would stay where it was.

  After everything that had happened on Thanksgiving, I’d thought things might be a little awkward for the ride on the first day back at school. And they were. Just not in the way I was expecting.

  “Hey,” Nate said as I slid into the front seat. “How’s it going? ”

  He was smiling, looking the same as always. Like nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But then to him, I supposed that it hadn’t. “Good,” I said, fastening my seat belt. “You?”

  “Miserable,” he announced cheerfully. “I’ve got two papers and a presentation due today. I was up until two last night.”

  “Really,” I said, although actually, I knew this, as I’d been awake until about the same time, and I could see the lights from his room—two small squares, off to the right—breaking up the dark that stretched between our two houses. “I’ve got a calculus test that I have to pass. Which means, almost certainly, that I won’t.”

  As soon as I said this, I expected Gervais to chime in from the backseat, agreeing with this, as it was the perfect setup to slam me. When I turned around, though, he was just sitting there, quiet and unobtrusive, the same way he had been for the last couple of weeks. As if to compensate for his silence, though, I was seeing him more and more. At least once a week, I caught him watching me at lunch, the way he had that one day, and whenever I passed him in the hallways he was always giving me these looks I couldn’t figure out.

  “What?” he said now, as I realized I was still looking strangely at him.

  “Nothing,” I replied, and turned back.

  Nate reached for the radio, cranking it up, and then we were turning out into traffic. Everything actually felt okay, wholly unchanged, and I realized maybe I’d overreacted, thinking they would have. The bottom line was, I knew something I hadn’t the week before, and we were friends— at least for another six months or so. I didn’t have to get all wrought up about what was going on with his dad; I’d never wanted anyone to get involved with me and my domestic drama. Maybe what we had now, in the end, was best—to be close but not too close, the perfect middle ground.

  Half a block from school, Nate pulled into the Quik Zip for gas. As he got out to pump it, I sat back in my seat, opening the calc book in my lap. About half a page in, though, I heard a noise from behind me.

  By this point, I was well acquainted with Gervais’s various percussions, but this wasn’t one I was used to. It was more like an intake, a sudden drawing in of breath. The first one I ignored; the second, barely noted. By the third, though, I was starting to think he might be having an attack of some sort, so I turned around.

  “What are you doing?” I asked him.

  “Nothing,” he said, instantly defensive. But then, he did it again. “The thing is—”

  He was interrupted by Nate opening his door and sliding back behind the wheel. “Why is it,” he said to me, “that whenever I’m in a hurry I always get the slowest gas pump in the world?”

  I glanced at Gervais, who had hurriedly gone back to his book, his head ducked down. “Probably the same reason you hit every red light when you’re late.”

  “And lose your keys,” he added, cranking the engine.

  “Maybe it’s the universe conspiring against you.”

  “I have had a run of bad luck lately,” he agreed.

  “Yeah? ”

  He glanced over at me. “Well, maybe not all bad.”

  Hearing this, I had a flash of us in the kitchen that day, his hand brushing against mine as he reached for the key lying in my palm. As Nate turned back to the road, I suddenly did feel awkward, in just the way I’d thought I would. Talk about bad luck. Maybe this wouldn’t be so easy after all.

  For me, December was all about work. Working for Harriet, working on my applications, working on calculus. And when I wasn’t doing any of these things, I was tagging along with Nate on his job.

  Logically, I knew the only way to stay in that middle ground with Nate was to let space build up between us. But it wasn’t so easy to stop something once it had started, or so I was learning. One day you were all about protecting yourself and keeping things simple. The next thing you know, you’re buying macaroons.

  “Belgian macaroons,” Nate corrected me, pulling two boxes off the shelf. “That’s key.”

  “Why? ”

  “Because a macaroon you can buy anywhere,” he replied. “But these, you can only find here at Spice and Thyme, which means they are gourmet and expensive, and therefore suitable for corporate gift-giving.”

  I looked down at the box in my hand. “Twelve bucks is a lot for ten macaroons,” I said. Nate raised his eyebrows. “Belgian macaroons, I mean.”

  “Not to Scotch Design Inc.,” he said, continuing to add boxes to the cart between us. “In fact, this is the very low end of their holiday buying. Just wait until we get to the nut-and-cheese-straw towers. That’s impressive.”

  I glanced at my watch. “I might not make it there. My break is only a half hour. If I’m even a minute late, Harriet starts to have palpitations.”

  “Maybe,” he said, adding a final box, “you should buy her some Belgian macaroons. For ten bucks, they might cure her of that entirely.”

  “I somehow doubt the solution is that easy. Or inexpensive. ”

  Nate moved back to the head of the cart, nudging it forward past the chocolates into the jelly-bean section. Spice and Thyme was one of those huge gourmet food stores designed to feel small and cozy, with narrow aisles, dim lighting, and stuff stacked up everywhere you turned. Personally, it made me feel claustrophobic, especially during Christmas, when it was twice as crowded as usual. Nate, however, hardly seemed bothered, deftly maneuvering his cart around a group of senior citizens studying the jelly beans before taking the corner to boxed shortbreads.

  “I don’t know,” he said, glancing at the list in his hand before beginning to pull down tins decorated with the face of a brawny Scotsman playing a bagpipe. “I think that what Harriet needs might be simpler than she thinks.”

  “Total organization of her house, courtesy of Rest Assured?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “Reggie.”

  “Ah,” I said as the senior citizens passed us again, squeezing by the cart. “So you noticed, too.”

  “Please.” He rolled his eyes. “It’s kind of flagrant. What does she think all that ginkgo’s about?”

  “That’s what I said,” I told him. “But when I suggested it to her, she was shocked by the idea. Shocked.”

  “Really,” he said, pulling the cart forward again. “Then she must be more distracted than we even realize. Which, honestly, I’m not quite sure is possible.”

  We jer
ked to a stop suddenly, narrowly missing a collision with two women pushing a cart entirely full of wine. After some dirty looks and a lot of clanking, they claimed their right of way and moved on. I said, “She said she was too busy for a relationship.”

  “Everyone’s busy,” Nate said.

  “I know. I think she’s really just scared.”

  He glanced over at me. “Scared? Of Reggie? What, she thinks he might force her to give up caffeine for real or something? ”

  “No,” I said.

  “Of what, then?” he asked.

  I paused, only just now realizing that the subject was hitting a little close to home. “You know, getting hurt. Putting herself out there, opening up to someone.”

  “Yeah,” he said, adding some cheese straws to the cart, “but risk is just part of relationships. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t.”

  I picked up a box of cheese straws, examining it. “Yeah,” I said. “But it’s not all about chance, either.”

  “Meaning what? ” he asked, taking the box from me and adding it to the rest.

  “Just that, if you know ahead of time that there might an issue that dooms everything—like, say, you’re incredibly controlling and independent, like Harriet—maybe it’s better to acknowledge that and not waste your time. Or someone else’s.”

  I looked over at Nate, who I now realized was watching me. He said, “So being independent dooms relationships? Since when?”

  “That was just one example,” I said. “It can be anything.”

  He gave me a weird look, which was kind of annoying, considering he’d brought this up in the first place. And anyway, what did he want me to do, just come out and admit it would never work between us because it was too hard to care about anyone, much less someone I had to worry about? It was time to get back to the theoretical, and quickly. “All I’m saying is that Harriet won’t even trust me with the cashbox. So maybe it’s a lot to ask for her to give over her whole life to someone.”

  “I don’t think Reggie wants her life,” Nate said, nudging the cart forward again. “Just a date.”

  “Still,” I said, “one can lead to the other. And maybe, to her, that’s too much risk.”

  I felt him look at me again, but I made a point of checking my watch. It was almost time to go. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe.”

  Ten minutes later—and one minute late—I arrived back at Harriet’s, where, true to form, she was waiting for me. “Am I glad to see you,” she said. “I was starting to get nervous. I think we’re about to have a big rush. I can just kind of feel it.”

  I looked down the middle of the mall, which was busy but not packed, and then the other way at the food court, which looked much the same. “Well, I’m here now,” I said, sticking my purse in the cabinet under the register. As I did, I remembered the thing I’d bought for her, pulling it out. “Here,” I said, tossing it over. “For you.”

  “Really? ” She caught it, then turned the box in her hand. “Macaroons! I love these.”

  “They’re Belgian,” I said.

  “All right,” she replied, tearing them open. “Even better.”

  “Come on, Laney! Pick up the pace!”

  I looked at Olivia, then in the direction she was yelling, the distant end of the mall parking lot. All I could see were a few cars and a Double Burger wrapper being kicked around by the breeze. “What are you doing, again?”

  “Don’t even ask,” she told me. This was the same thing she’d said when I’d come across her, ten minutes earlier, sitting on the curb outside the Vista 10 box office on this unseasonably warm Saturday, a book open in her lap. “All I can say is it’s not my choice.”

  “Not your—” I said, but then this sentence, and my concentration, were interrupted by a thump-thump noise. This time when I turned, I saw Laney, wearing a purple track-suit, rounding the distant corner of Meyer’s Department Store at a very slow jog, headed our way.

  “Finally,” Olivia said, pulling a digital kitchen timer out from beneath her book and getting to her feet. “You’re going to have to go faster than that if you want me to sit out here for another lap!” she yelled, cupping her hands around her mouth. “You understand? ”

  Laney ignored her, or just didn’t hear, keeping her gaze straight as she kept on, thump-thump, thump-thump. As she got closer I saw her expression was serious, her face flushed, although she did give me a nod as she passed.

  Olivia consulted the stopwatch. “Eight minutes,” she called out as Laney continued on toward the other end of the mall. “That’s a sixteen-minute mile. Also known as slow.”

  “Still training for the five-K, huh?” I asked as a mall security guard rolled by, glancing at us.

  “Oh, she’s beyond training now,” Olivia replied, sitting down on the curb again and setting the timer beside her. “She’s focused, living and breathing the run. And yes, that is a direct quote.”

  “You’re supportive,” I said.

  “No, I’m realistic,” she replied. “She’s been training for two months now, and her times aren’t improving. At all. If she insists on doing this, she’s just going to embarrass herself.”

  “Still,” I said, looking at Laney again, who was still plodding along. “You have to admit, it’s kind of impressive.”

  Olivia harrumphed. “What is? Total denial?”

  “Total commitment,” I said. “You know, the idea of discovering something that, for all intents and purposes, goes against your abilities, and yet still deciding to do it anyway. That takes guts, you know?”

  She considered this as the security guard passed by, going the other way. “If she’s so gutsy, though, why is it that she usually quits at about the two-mile mark, then calls me to come pick her up?”

  “She does that?” I asked.

  “Only about every other time. Oh, wait. Is that not supportive, though?”

  I sat back, ignoring this, planting my hands on the pavement behind me. It wasn’t like I was some expert on the meaning of being supportive. Was it being loyal even against your better judgment? Or, like Olivia, was it making your displeasure known from the start, even when someone didn’t want to hear it? I’d been thinking about this more and more since Nate’s and my discussion at Spice and Thyme. Maybe he was someone who lived in the moment, easily able to compartmentalize one part of his life from another. But to me, the Nate I was spending more and more time with was still the same one who was going home to a bad situation with his dad and who planned to get out as soon as he could—both of these were reasons I should have kept away, or at least kept my distance. Yet if anything, I kept moving closer, which just made no sense at all.

  Now, I looked over at Olivia, who was squinting into the distance, the timer still counting down in her lap. “Do you remember,” I asked, “how you said that when you first came from Jackson, it was hard for you, and that’s why you never bothered to talk to anyone or make friends?”

  “Yeah,” she said, sounding a bit wary. “Why?”

  “So why did you, then?” I asked, looking at her. “I mean, with me. What changed?”

  She considered this as a minivan drove by, pulling up on the other side of the box office. “I don’t know,” she said. “I guess it was just that we had something in common.”

  “Jackson.”

  “Yeah, that. But also, not being like everyone else at Perkins. You know, having some part that’s different, and yet shared. I mean, with me it’s my family, my economic standing. You, well, you’re a lush and a delinquent—”

  “Hey,” I said. “That was just one day.”

  “I know, I’m just kidding,” she said, waving me off with her hand. “But neither of us exactly fit the mold there.”

  “Right.”

  She sat back, brushing her braids away from her face. “My point is, there are a lot of people in the world. No one ever sees everything the same way you do; it just doesn’t happen. So when you find one person who gets a couple of things, especially if they’re impor
tant ones . . . you might as well hold on to them. You know?”

  I looked down at the stopwatch sitting on the curb between us. “Nicely put,” I said. “And all in less than two minutes.”

  “Conciseness is underrated,” she said easily. Then she looked over my shoulder, suddenly raising her hand to wave to someone behind me. When I turned, I was surprised to see Gervais, in his peacoat standing in front of the box office. Seeing me, his face flushed, and he hurriedly grabbed his ticket from under the glass and darted inside.

  “You know Gervais?” I asked her.

  “Who, extra salt, double-lic whip? Sure. He’s a regular.” I just looked at her. “That’s his concession order,” she explained. “Large popcorn, no butter, extra salt, and two packs of licorice whips. He hits at least one movie a week. The boy likes film. How do you know him?”

  “We ride to school together,” I said. So Gervais had a life outside of carpool. It wasn’t like it should have been surprising, but for some reason, it was.

  Just then, I heard a buzzing: her phone. She pulled it out of her pocket, looked at the screen, then sighed. Laney. “I’d say I told you so,” she said. “But it’s not like I get any satisfaction from this.”

  I watched as she flipped it open, hitting the TALK button and saying she’d be there in a minute. Then she picked up her book and got to her feet, brushing herself off. “Still,” I said, “you have to get something, though.”

  “From what? ”

  “From this.” I gestured around me. “I mean, you are out here timing her. So you can’t be totally opposed to what she’s doing.”

  “No, I am.” She pulled her keys out of her pocket, shoving the book under her arm. “But I’m also a sucker. Clearly.”

  “You are not,” I said.

  “Well, then, I don’t know the reason,” she said. “Other than she’s my cousin, and she asked, so I’m here. I try not to go deeper than that. I’ll see you around, okay?”

  I nodded, and then she was walking away, across the lot to her car. Watching her, I kept thinking of what she’d said earlier about having things in common, and then of Nate and me in his garage on Thanksgiving, when I’d told him about my mom and our history. Clearly, sharing something could take you a long way, or at least to a different place than you’d planned. Like a friendship or a family, or even just alone on a curb on a Saturday, trying to get your bearings as best you can.