My Life Next Door

  Nan turns to her with a bright, professional smile. “I can ring those up for you. Would you like to put them directly on your club tab, or pay separately?”

  I hover nearby until the clock tells me I’ve got to report for duty. Nan doesn’t say anything else, though, until I’m getting ready to leave, when she pauses in changing the paper for the cash register to say, “Samantha. You have what every girl wants.”

  “You have Daniel,” I say.

  “Sure. But you have everything. How do you always do that?” Her voice is ever so slightly bitter. I think of the Nan who just has to do the optional extra credit work for every school project. Who has to point out to me whenever I have a minus next to my grade while she has a plus. Who has to comment that pants that fit me would be “way too big” for her. I’ve never wanted to compete with her, only be her friend, the one person she doesn’t have to best. But sometimes—like now—I wonder if, for Nan, there’s any such thing.

  “I don’t do anything special, Nanny.” The bell jingles as another customer walks in.

  “Maybe you don’t.” Her voice is weary. “Maybe you’re not even trying. But it all works out for you anyway, doesn’t it?” She turns away before I can offer an answer. Assuming I even had one.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  I pour myself a lemonade after work and am climbing out of my stupid crested bathing suit right in the kitchen when the doorbell rings. Even our doorbell chime has changed since summer began. Now we have this one that can chime the first few notes of about twenty different tunes, all the way from “Take Me Out to the Ball Game” to “Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah.” In the last two weeks, Mom’s programmed it to chime the opening of “It’s a Grand Old Flag.” I kid you not.

  I grab a tank top and shorts from the laundry room and pull them on hastily, then peer through the frosted glass. It’s Nan and Tim. Odd. Thursday and Friday are Daniel nights for Nan. And my house is not exactly Tim’s preferred hangout. It’s not even my preferred hangout.

  “Are you interested in a closer relationship with the Lord?” Tim asks when I open the door. “’Cause I’ve been saved, and I want to pass on the Good News to you—for only a thousand dollars and three hours of your time. Kidding. Can we come in, Samantha?”

  As soon as they get into the kitchen, Nan heads for the fridge to get some of my mother’s lemonade. After all these years, she knows exactly where to locate the special ice cubes with mint and lemon peel. She pours a glass for Tim and he takes it, frowning at the little ice cubes with their flecks of yellow and green frozen inside.

  “Got any tequila? Just kidding, once again. Ha-ha.”

  He’s uncomfortable. It’s been a long time since I’ve really seen anything from Tim but bored indifference, stoned apathy, or jacked-up contempt.

  “Tim wanted to say he was sorry about last night,” Nan offers, crunching an ice cube.

  “Ac-tu-ally, Nan wanted me to say I’m sorry,” Tim clarifies, but he looks directly at me. “I wanted to say I’m fucking sorry. That was wicked stupid, and I would have thought anyone else who did that with my sister—or you—was a complete and unredeemable asshole, which of course, leads to the inescapable conclusion that that is, in fact, indubitably what I am.” He shakes his head, takes a gulp of lemonade. “Note my use of impressive SAT words, though. Too bad I got my ass booted out of boarding school, huh?”

  How long has it been since I’ve heard Tim apologize for anything? He’s got his head hunched down, sandwiched between his folded arms, taking deep breaths as though he’s been running miles, or this all takes more oxygen than just breathing. Even his hair is damp, like he’s sweating. He seems so unmoored that just looking at him hurts. I glance at Nan, but she’s polishing off her lemonade, her face impassive.

  “Thanks, Tim. We all survived. But you’re really scaring me. How are you?”

  “Well, aside from being the same idiot I was yesterday—only not quite as trashed—I’m fine. And you? S’up with ole Jase Garrett and you? Is he gettin’ any further than my buddy Charley did? ’Cause Charley was pretty damn frustrated. More importantly, what’s doin’ with Jase’s hot sister?”

  “His hot sister has a boyfriend who’s a football player and weighs about two hundred and fifty pounds,” I answer, dodging the Jase question.

  “Course she does,” Tim says with a smirk. “He probably teaches Sunday school too.”

  “No. But I think he might be a Mormon.” I smile back. “Cheer up, though. They’ve been together for about a month, and from what Jase tells me, that’s pretty much Alice’s limit.”

  “I’ll live in hope, then.” Tim drains his glass and plunks it down. “Do you have anything like plain carrots or celery or apples? Everything in our fridge has some kind of crap in it.”

  “It’s true,” Nan says. “I bit into a perfectly ordinary-looking plum this afternoon and it had some weird blue-cheese filling. It’s that thing Mommy got from QVC.”

  “The Pumper. It injects tasty filling deep into the heart of all your favorite foods,” Tim quotes in a Moviefone voice.

  Just then the doorbell rings again. It’s Jase this time. He’s wearing a faded gray T-shirt and jeans—must have come straight from work.

  “Hi!” Nan says brightly. “In case you didn’t figure this out last night, I’m Nan, Samantha’s best friend. I’d love to say I’ve heard all about you, but actually, she hasn’t said a word. My brother says he knows you, though.” She extends her hand to Jase. After a beat, he takes it, shakes it, looking over at me with a slightly nonplussed expression.

  “Hullo Nan. Mason.” His voice gets an edge as he greets Tim, and I see Tim’s jaw muscles clench. Then Jase moves to my side and slips an arm tight around my waist.

  We wind up in the backyard, because everything inside my house is so hard and formal, no comfortable place to sit and lounge. Jase lies on his back in the grass on our sloping lawn, and I lie, crossways, with my head on his stomach, ignoring the occasional flick of Nan’s eyes.

  We don’t talk much for a while. Jase and Tim idly discuss people they knew from soccer in middle school. I find myself studying the boys together, wondering what my mother would see. There’s Jase with his olive skin and broad shoulders, his air of being older than seventeen, nearly a man. Then there’s Tim, so pale, dark circles under his eyes, freckles standing out in strong relief, rangy skinny legs cross-legged, his face handsome but pale and angular. Jase’s jeans are stained with grease, and his T-shirt is frayed at the collar, stretched out of shape. Tim’s in crisp khakis, with a blue-striped oxford shirt rolled up at the sleeves. If Mom was asked who was “dangerous,” she would immediately point to Jase, who fixes things, and saves animals, and saves me. Not Tim, who, as I watch, is casually crushing a daddy longlegs.

  Wiping his hand on the grass, Tim says, “I need to get my GED, or I’ll either be shipped to the foreign legion by my parents, or spend the rest of my life—which will then be very short—living in their basement.”

  “My dad did that—got a GED,” Jase offers, playing with my hair. “You could talk to him.”

  “Your sister Alice didn’t do it too, by any chance?”

  Jase’s lips twitch. “Nope.”

  “Bummer. I also need a job so I don’t have to spend my days at home with Ma, watching her figure out new uses for the Pumper.”

  “There’s an opening at Mom’s campaign,” I say. “She needs all the help she can get now that she’s totally distracted by Clay Tucker.”

  “Who the hell’s Clay Tucker?”

  “The…” Nan lowers her voice, even though all she says is: “…younger man Samantha’s mother’s dating.”

  “Your ma’s dating?” Tim looks shocked. “I thought she pretty much confined herself to a vibrator and the shower nozzle since your dad screwed her over.”

  “Timmy.” Nan turns scarlet.

  “There’s always a job to do at my dad’s store.” Jase stretches and yawns, unfazed. “Restocking, placing orders. Nothing too exciting, b
ut—”

  “Right.” Tim’s eyes are cast down as he tears at a hangnail on his thumb. “I’m sure that’s just what your pop needs—a plastered dropout stock boy with a jones for illegal substances.”

  Jase props himself up on one elbow, looking squarely at him. “Well, provided that stock boy isn’t still drinking, et cetera, taking my girlfriend on a joyride when he’s hammered. Ever again.” His voice is flat. He watches Tim for another moment, then lies back down.

  Tim turns, if possible, slightly paler, then flushes. “Uh…Well…I…uh…” He glances at me, at Nan, then returns his attention to the hangnail. Silence.

  “Well, restocking and stuff might not be thrilling, but that’s probably a good thing,” Nan says after a minute or two. “What do you think, Timmy?”

  Tim’s still focusing on his thumb. Finally, he looks up. “Unless Alice does restocking too, preferably spending most of her time on a ladder in those little short-shorts, I’m thinking I’ll talk to gorgeous Grace about politics. I like politics. You get to manipulate people and lie and cheat and it’s all good.”

  “From what I read, Samantha’s mom prefers to think of it as working for the common weal.” Jase stretches his arms over his head, yawning. I sit up, surprised to hear Jase recite Mom’s last campaign slogan, the one Clay Tucker mocked so mercilessly. Jase and I never mention politics. But he must have been paying attention to hers all along.

  “Cool. Sign me up. I’ll be a cog in the common weal. With my track record, I’ll probably be able to screw up all three branches of government in about a week and a half,” Tim says. “Does hot Alice have any interest in politics?”

  Mom gets back early, luckily after Nan and Tim have trudged home and Jase is again training. She has a meet-and-greet in East Stonehill tonight and wants me to come along. “Clay says that since I’m focusing on family, we really need to see more of mine.” I stand next to her at Moose Hall for approximately eight thousand years, repeating “Yes, I’m so proud of my mother. Please vote for her,” while she shakes hand after hand after hand.

  When she first got elected, this was kind of fun and exciting. All these people I’d never met who seemed to know me, happy to meet us. Now it just seems surreal. I listen hard to Mom’s speech, trying to analyze how things have changed. She’s much more assured, with all these new hand gestures—chopping the air, arms outspread in appeal, hands crossed over her heart…but it’s more than that. Last time, it was mostly local issues Mom talked about, and mildly. But now she’s taking on federal spending and the size of government, and the unfair taxation of the wealthy, who create all the jobs…“You’re not smiling,” Clay Tucker says, bumping up next to me. “So I figured you were hungry. These hors d’oeuvres are amazing. I’ll take over while you eat a few.” He hands me a plate of shrimp cocktail and stuffed clams.

  “How much longer does this go on?” I ask, dunking a shrimp.

  “Till the last handshake, whenever that is, Samantha.” He gestures at my mom with a toothpick. “Look at Grace. You’d never know she’d been doing this for two hours and her shoes probably hurt and she might need to visit the little girls’ room. She’s a pro, your mama.”

  Mom does indeed look fresh and calm and cool. She’s bending her head to listen to an old man as though he’s the most important thing in her world. Somehow I’ve never seen her ability to fake it as a strength but right now, I guess it is.

  “You gonna eat that?” Clay asks, spearing a scallop before I can answer.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Late that night, I’m lying on my bed, staring at the ceiling, fresh out of the shower, wearing a white nightgown I’ve had since I was eight. It used to be romantically long; now it clings to my thighs.

  Mom’s finally admitted exhaustion and has gone to bed in her suite. For the first time I find myself wondering if Clay’s ever spent the night here. I wouldn’t even know if he had—her rooms are on the other side of the house and there are stairs from the yard. Ugh, don’t think about that.

  There’s a tap at my window, and I look over to find a hand splayed on the glass. Jase. Seeing him is like that feeling you get when you’ve gotten the wind knocked out of you and then can, at last, draw a deep, full breath. I go over, put my hand against his, then push up the window.

  “Hey. Can I come in?”

  He does, gracefully, legs planting themselves firmly, while ducking carefully under the transom, as though he’s done this a thousand times before. Then he looks around the room and smiles at me. “It’s so tidy, Sam. I’ve gotta do this.”

  He takes off one of his sneakers and tosses it toward my desk, then the other, carefully and quietly, toward the door. Then one sock, hurled to the top of my bureau, and the other, into the bookcase.

  “Don’t hold back.” I catch hold of his shirt, yank it off, and throw it across the room, where it hooks onto my desk chair.

  As I’m reaching for him, he puts his hand on my arm. “Sam.”

  “Hmmm,” I say, distracted by the thin line of hair that circles his belly button and edges lower.

  “Should I be worried?”

  I look up at him, my thoughts scattered. “About what?”

  “The fact that you’re apparently the one girl on the planet who doesn’t tell her best friend everything the moment it happens. I have sisters, Sam. I thought that was a rule—the best friend knows all. Yours didn’t even know I existed.”

  “Nan?” I ask quickly, then realize I don’t know what else to say. “It’s kind of complicated with her. She’s got a lot going on…I just thought I’d…” I shrug.

  “You’re being considerate?” Jase asks, moving away from me and sitting down on the bed. “Not ashamed?”

  I feel the breath whoosh out of my lungs and can’t seem to take the next breath. “Of you? No. No. Never. I just…” I bite my lip.

  His eyes assess my face. “I’m not trying to put you on the spot. Just figuring out what’s what. You’re…I don’t know…the ‘State Senator’s Daughter.’ I’m…well…‘one of those Garretts’—as Lindy’s dad used to say.”

  He says the phrase as though it’s in quotes, and I can’t stand it. I sit down on the bed next to him, put one hand on his cheek.

  “I’m just me,” I tell him. “I’m glad you’re here.”

  Jase studies my face, then takes my hand, pulling me down. He carefully curls around me, so my head is resting on his arm, and his head’s resting on my shoulder. His fingers move slowly through my hair. The paradox of Jase is that at the same time I’m so conscious of the heat of his chest against my back, and the muscles under the shorts on the legs twined around mine, I feel so safe and comfortable that I fall, almost immediately, asleep.

  I wake to Jase shaking my shoulder. “I should go,” he whispers. “It’s morning.”

  “Can’t be.” I tug him closer. “That was too short.”

  “Is.” Jase kisses my cheek. “I’ve gotta go. It’s five twenty-seven.”

  I grab his wrist, squinting at his digital watch. “Can’t be.”

  “Honest,” Jase says. “Listen. Mourning doves.”

  I tilt my head, discern a series of owl-like sounds. Sliding out of bed, Jase hauls on his shirt and socks and shoes, comes back over to me, leans forward, kisses my forehead, then moves his lips slowly to the corner of my mouth.

  “Do you have to go?”

  “Yeah. Samantha, I—” He stops talking. I put my arms around his neck and tug him down. He resists for a moment, then slides in next to me. He has his hands in my hair, which came out of its braid during the night, and our kisses get deeper and a little wilder. I slip one arm under him and pull, moving him on top of me, looking into those green eyes, which widen a fraction. Then he leans on his elbows and those careful, competent hands undo the front buttons of my nightgown.

  Strangely, I’m not embarrassed at all. I’m impatient. When his lips descend, my sigh of pleasure feels like it is traveling through every inch of my body.

  “Jase?
??”

  “Mmmm.” He nudges his lips against one breast and slowly skims his fingertips over the other, so lightly, giving me goose bumps all the same.

  “Jase, I want—I want…please.”

  He looks up at my face, his eyes drowsy and dazzled. “I know. I know. I want too. But not like this. Not with no time. Not with nothing—” He swallows. “Not like this. But Jesus, Samantha. Look at you.”

  And the way he does look at me makes me feel absolutely beautiful.

  “I can’t look away,” he whispers huskily. “But I have to go.” Taking a deep breath, he buttons my nightgown back up, then presses a kiss to my throat.

  “Jase, are you—have you—”

  I feel his head shake once, then he moves so he’s looking me in the face. “No. I haven’t. Almost. With Lindy. But then, no. I just didn’t…I never felt with her the way I feel whenever I even catch sight of you. So, no…I haven’t.”

  I lay my palm against the stubbly skin at the side of his face. “Me neither.”

  His lips curve and he turns his head to touch them to my palm.

  “Then we do need time. So we can—” He swallows again and shuts his eyes. “Sometimes when I look at you, I can’t think. We need time so we can figure it out together.”

  “Okay,” I say, suddenly shy for some reason. “Um…”

  “I love the way your whole body turns pink when you’re embarrassed,” he murmurs. “Everywhere. Your ears blush. Even your knees blush. I bet your toes blush.“

  “That’s not the way to get them to stop.” I flush even more.

  “I know.” He slides slowly off me and off the bed. “But I don’t want them to stop. I love it. I have to go now. When will you be home today?”

  I fumble to think about something other than yanking Jase back down onto me. “Um.…I have a double shift at Breakfast Ahoy. So just till three.”

  “Okay,” Jase says. “Too bad the store’s open late tonight. I’ll be back around seven. I’ll miss you all day until then.”