“I’ve got nothing going on. Nothing at all.”
“That’s good. My grandfather’s a great cook. So . . .” She hesitates, as though she’s waiting for Tim to fill in, make this any less awkward.
But he only adjusts the blanket around Cal, skims a tear away from the baby’s cheek, nudges it with a knuckle, gives him a little smile.
Hester half waves to me, scoots toward the door, bending to pick up the car seat. Then she tries to open the door with her foot, with the basket in one hand and the seat in the other, bumps both against the wall. Cal lets out a thin wail that gets louder.
“Oh for Chrissake,” Tim mutters, striding over to take the basket, open the door with his hip, and usher her out.
TIM
The outside of my parents’ house is “cheery.” Not a word I usually use, but there really is no other. Ma’s got yellow flowers blooming along the walkway. There’s this little statue of a girl in a polka-dotted dress bending over with a watering can, and then another kid, in overalls, flopped back against our lamppost, blowing a horn for some weird-ass reason. They’ve been there as long as I can remember, but their paint’s still shiny. Does Ma repaint them? Freakin’ depressing thought.
I push open the front door. “Kid?”
My sister bursts out of the living room.
Unlike the house, Nan is totally different from just a few days ago. She never even wears makeup, and now she’s got dark eyeliner, bloodred lipstick, a black T-shirt, and white jeans. Her hair is chopped short just below her chin.
“Nans. You look different.”
“Different, like, better, right? As in incredibly chic and urbane and not like I’m from some dinky Connecticut town?”
“Right. Like that. You look . . .” Guilty, honestly. But it’s Nan’s curse that she constantly looks that way. The girl could tell the stone-cold truth and come off guilty as hell. The house smells the same, like musty stuff covered by Tropical Breeze Febreze. Same old Thomas Kinkade crap paintings lining the wall. She leads me into the living room, like I’m a guest.
Here it’s all Tim and Nan Are Twins shots, each one worse than the last.
“Because that’s the idea—New Nan, new leaf, moving on.” She’s chattering. Also plumping the pillows and straightening coasters and all busy-busy-busy.
I’m barely listening, because what I’m mostly thinking is that I’m a stranger in my own home. Like my life has already left all this behind, and it’s some museum I’m visiting, trying not to disturb the velvet ropes, the Hummel stuff everywhere, the window seat with a tiny village on it and a mirror that’s supposed to be a lake, and a bunch of houses with windows Ma plugs in so they light up at night. She puts cotton on the roofs in the winter to look like snow. Now there’s some miniature pumpkins scattered around and a tiny bale or two of hay. It’s possible that my ma, like me, like Nano, does not have enough to do with her hands.
“What’s wrong?” Nan asks.
I collapse onto the couch, plop my feet on the coffee table, knocking to the ground a pile of books like Chicken Soup for the Whatever and Who Moved My Cheese?
“Well, yeah, here’s the deal.” As I give her the details, quick and dirty, she methodically chomps her fingernails down. When I wind up, Nan gusts a long, exhausted sigh, like she’s been doing all the talking and is just. So. Tired.
“Say something. What? You’d rather you had to post bail than find out you’re an aunt to a son of mine?”
She steeples her fingers, lowers her forehead onto them.
Shades of Pop.
When she finally says something, it’s the last thing I expect.
“How are you sure he’s yours?”
Chapter Twenty-nine
TIM
“Wha-at?”
“Tim,” Nan says, all exasperated. “You can’t possibly have been the only ginger guy at Ellery Prep. What about that Mike McClasky guy you roomed with fall semester? The one with the pierced eyebrow? Why not him? How do you know this Hester is telling the truth?”
“What . . . you think she’s come up with some con because I’m, like, such a great candidate for fatherhood? Ha.”
“Well, I don’t know.” Nan plunks down on the sofa and reaches for the cut glass bowl Ma always keeps full of gumdrops and Swedish fish and begins pulling out a school of the suckers, holding up one after another as she counts off. “You have no recall of the party. You only remember seeing her in classes. You didn’t hear anything about this pregnancy, which had to have been major gossip.”
“I was booted. How the hell would I hear?”
“You’re not in touch with anyone? Not one single, solitary person passing on the latest Ellery drama?”
“Nah. The crowd I hung with? I barely remember them, and I’m sure likewise. It’s not like we’re all pals-y online.”
Nan’s troubled expression lasts only a second before it’s traded for deep suspicion.
“I’m trying to protect you here, Tim. This girl . . . I don’t know what she’s up to, but it doesn’t sound right to me.”
She scarfs down a few fish, then offers me the candy bowl.
I shake my head, shuddering. Gummy crap—give me stale Peeps or Pixy Stix any day.
“How can you be sure?” she presses. “That this girl wasn’t involved with some other guy who wouldn’t take responsibility, and then decided to use you?”
“Because she’s not that kind of girl? Because that’s freakin’ psychotic? Because I’m hardly known for taking responsibility?” I look around the room like one of the Hummel figurines has the key to convincing my surprisingly cynical sister that I’m Cal’s dad. Even though by all rights I should be jumping at the idea that I might not be.
My eyes light on the bookshelf by the mantel where, sure enough, there’s a baby picture of Nan and me—our first Christmas—propped against each other in a puffy pink armchair with a stuffed Rudolph at our feet. I’m dressed in a Santa suit, Nan as Mrs. Santa (nice, Ma—incestuous baby outfits). Of course, I’ve got the Santa hat on so no hair’s visible, but still, there’s that little chin cleft Dominic pointed out on Cal.
“He looks like me,” I say finally.
I still don’t have this “blood bond” thing with the kid, but after you’ve slept next to someone (me on the couch, Cal in the basket, my hand on his stomach half the night) and cleaned up after them and fed them and frickin’ worn them, you’re kinda tight with them.
“All babies pretty much look alike, Timmy.”
All Patient Tone.
Patient gives me a rash. Subtext: I know what’s really going on here while you’re wandering around in the dark.
“Since when do you know shit about babies? Babies pretty much look alike, Tim,” I say, high and squeaky. “Right, Captain Infant Expert. The last time you were around one for any amount of time was me.”
I expect her to get pissed and yell back. I want her to get as angry as I am, chuck it right back in my face. Instead, she hooks an arm around my waist. The sharp point of her chin digs into my collarbone. Nan never eats enough. That I’m too fat crap girls do.
Or is it actually drugs now?
I sigh. Release my fingers from fists. “He’s my kid. I mean . . . it’s not like I want this. Since when did you get all cynical? That’s supposed to be my deal, Nano.”
“You were always faking that,” Nan says.
“BullSHIT,” I say on a startled laugh.
She picks up the Easter picture of us posed next to a chick the size of Godzilla in comparison. She’s screaming in it; I look zoned out. Now Nan wrinkles her freckled nose as she traces a finger over our bunny-ear hats, first mine, then hers. “How old were we when Mommy stopped with the dress-ups?”
“Fifteen or so. Kid, you’re not four. Lay off the ‘Mommy’ jazz. That’s not going to play with the sophisticated set. Makes you sound ridiculous, trust me.”
She starts to laugh, tightens her arm around my waist. “You have no idea how much of a difference it makes not h
aving you home.” She lifts her face and, hell, I should’ve guessed it from the sound of her voice. She’s crying.
“Hey.” I tap her back awkwardly, drumming my fingers. “I know I’m a ray of happy sunshine, but how different can it really be?”
“There’s no one to make me laugh. No spare change to scrounge out of the swear box without you being a supplier. There’s no one to rearrange the Hummels in compromising positions.” She sniffs and wipes her face with a swat of her wrist.
“Well, I grant you that was an important service I provided.”
She looks up at me, all gray eyes spilling over, cheeks wet, lower lip quivering. The Fix Me face. Doesn’t work as well as it used to, not since Cal. Who has no one else to fix him and honestly can’t do it himself.
“Speaking of services, wanna itemize the ones ol’ Troy Rhodes is providing for you?”
Nan jerks away like I’m a downed wire.
“Who told you? Samantha?”
“Nooo. Why would she know? I was under the impression you two weren’t speaking.”
Nan grabs a handful of Swedish fish and shovels them into her mouth. “Then who?”
“I spied you with my own little eye. What gives, Nan?”
She’s still chewing the fish, points to her mouth like “I can’t talk.”
Once she finishes, and swallows, she folds her arms and stares me down. “So, when do I get to meet Cal?”
“Don’t pull this crap with me, Nan. You don’t get to change the subject here.”
That angry, hard voice? Dead ringer for Pop’s.
“Why are we talking about me? You’re the one with a baby!”
“What’s going on in here?” asks an even voice from the door.
I don’t have time to arrange my face, so Nan and I probably both look equally guilty as we turn to face Pop.
Hell, I forgot the time—nearly six. His tie’s loosened, jacket still on. Thank God no scotch yet. But then, Ma isn’t home to bring him the ice bucket. Don’t think I’ve ever seen him get it himself.
“Hi, Daddy. Dad,” Nan says, flicking me a glance.
“What’s doin’, Pop?”
He looks back and forth between us the way he did when we were little and up to no good.
“We haven’t seen you lately, Tim. In some kind of trouble?”
“Nope, all good. Just, you know, don’t live here anymore. Checking in with Nano.”
“Asking her for money?”
“No, Dad,” from Nan, just as I say, “Nah, Pop.” Then add, “The drug-running gig is really working out for me. Add in the pimping and I’m golden.”
“Is that a joke? Is he joking?” Pop addresses Nan, who’s fidgeting and turning red at the drug reference. Then to me: “Not seeing the humor.”
“Not all that funny,” I say. “Look, I’d better beat it. I have a—thing.” I jerk my chin at my sister. “We’ll talk about this new little project of yours later. Count on it.”
Nan starts twisting at a hunk of her hair. I notice that she’s twirled one on the other side so much that she’s got this Rasta thing going on. Not the best look with the new do. She doesn’t answer.
Pop claps me on the back, gives me a very small shove in the direction of the door. I’m half expecting him to pick me up by the collar and toss me out on the lawn. Instead he says, “I’ll walk you to your car.”
“What, to make sure I really leave?”
He actually steers me down the driveway. It’s half prison march and half one of those scenes in some old flick where the dad dispenses fatherly advice. But ten will get you twenty he’s not slipping me some cash so I can take Mary Lou to the soda fountain for a milkshake.
We reach the Jetta. He stands there for a sec, his eyes darting around the street. I kinda expect cops to leap out of the Crosbys’ bushes, clap cuffs on me, and shove me into the backseat of my own car.
Nothing but silence.
Pop, looking anywhere but at me.
Me, waiting for whatever he has to say.
We’re not in his office, though, and I’m not under his roof. I prop my back against the car, cross my arms. If he can wait, I can wait.
And wait.
Pop edges his cell phone out of his pocket, glances at it, shoves it back in, more like a reflex than like he’s actually checking. I scrape at a callus on my hand with a thumbnail. Some dry leaves blow across the street. The grass grows. Somewhere, a star is born.
Again with the cell phone check. How many important calls can the manager of the Stony Bay Building and Loan get?
“Pop. I’ve gotta head back to work. I took an hour off to come see Nan. Time’s up now. Are we done?”
His lips compress and he looks at me but doesn’t say anything. Then, finally, “I’ve never understood you, Tim. Not one single day of your life.”
What is there to say to that? Ever try?
“We’re done,” I say, and get into the driver’s seat, shift into first, and pull away.
ALICE
“So—just friends,” Andy says, leaning her elbows on the counter next to the scattered pieces of the cash register. “Does that mean anything? Or is it some kind of code? Does it ever mean what it says?”
“I need context,” I say, looking up from reorganizing the paint chips.
“It’s a kiss-off.” Tim flips a page in his chem book, without looking up.
“Really? Like, not even a second-place-ribbon thing? An actual ‘get lost’?” Andy sounds crushed. Tim looks up, checks her face, and says, “Wait. No. Not always. Uh—context is right. Need that. Could have it all wrong.”
“Suppose there’s this guy—” Andy says.
“Kyle. Ditch him,” I interrupt.
“Whoever. That’s not the point. When he’s around his friends, he doesn’t even talk to me. But whenever he sees me on my own, he’s all nice and talky and jokey and says he wants to be friends.”
“Loser. Ditch him,” I repeat. “He’s just hoping for benefits.”
“We weren’t doing that,” Andy says. “We were nowhere near that. We were just barely beyond hanging out. Like at—hanging out with potential. And some kissing. With definite potential.”
Tim’s all about the cash register once again, trying to reattach the type transfer wheel to the spindle, brow furrowed. He flashes me a quick look midway through Andy’s explanation, then hunkers back down, wipes grease off on his jeans, refocuses on the scattered parts.
“If he acts differently in front of his friends, forget him. Hypocrite and player. Ditch him.”
“He’s not mine to ditch,” Andy says. “We aren’t dating and we weren’t even friends before we went out. Up till then, we’d said, maybe, three sentences to each other? Or, actually, he’d said them all to me, because I was always speechless. He has this really great smile—you just want to lick his cheek when he does it. And the first month of sailing camp three years ago, he said. ‘Will you untie the jib sheet?’ and then last year, he told me to haul down the clew lines while slacking away on the halyard and—”
“So, you weren’t friends,” I sum up. “Before the potential kicked in.”
“Exactly. We were basically strangers. With magnetism. Or not. I mean, I thought there was. And obviously he did for at least a moment or two—because he asked me on a date. And, you know, kissed me? Some. But then that didn’t work out. Although I thought it was working, but obviously I was wrong, which is why I doubt my own instincts now.”
“Bottom line,” I translate, “you didn’t know each other.”
“Yes. So there’s no context . . . to translate him. Which is why I need you guys. Together you’ve probably dated, like, fifty people, right?”
“I didn’t date,” Tim says flatly.
“Far fewer than fifty,” I tell her.
Andy rolls her eyes. “You’re missing the point. I need experienced perspective. Because I. Know. Nothing. Does he want us to be something we weren’t before—like now that we aren’t . . . possible . . . now that
there’s no potential, does he want to get to know me?”
“Probably not,” I say.
Andy’s lip quivers a little. “So it’s all bullshit?”
“Not necessarily,” Tim says.
“Oh come on. Give me a break, Tim.”
“Give someone a break, Alice. Maybe he’s genuinely sorry. Maybe he really thinks he blew it. Maybe he’s one of those poor bastards who doesn’t know what he has until it’s gone. Maybe he sees what a great girl Andy is and wants to honestly, actually get to know her. Everyone who makes a mistake isn’t doomed to be an asshole forever.” He waves one hand for emphasis, and the counting arm, which he’d been trying to reattach, goes flying, tinkling on the tile floor and disappearing somewhere near a tub of asphalt sealant.
“This guy is,” I say. “He’s just playing games.”
“So, basically, let’s be friends is at best an insult and at worst completely meaningless,” Andy says. “Great. That’s wonderful. Thanks, you two have been a huge help. Self-esteem at an all-time high now.”
“It isn’t you,” I say. “Some guy being a loser takes nothing away from you.”
“It takes away potential,” Andy says, raising her eyebrows, widening her eyes as if the answer’s so completely obvious. “Which is another word for hope.”
“Ands—” both Tim and I say at the same time, each of us starting forward. He reaches her first, circling around the counter, arm around her shoulders.
“Maybe we’re wrong, maybe—”
Tim should be trying to fix the bell over the door because, again, it makes no sound as the door swings open, but Tim’s dad’s footsteps are loud enough to stop Tim mid-sentence.
“I’ll cut to the chase,” he says abruptly, his face thunderous. “Your sister spoke with me. We have a few things to talk about.”
“We were just headed out back,” I say, motioning urgently to Andy, who mouths Why? at me, then takes one look at Mr. Mason’s face and follows me out.
TIM