Saint Anything

  “You have coupons?”

  The guy’s smile broadened. “You need to see them?”

  “Yeah,” Mac said. “I do.”

  He turned, walking over to a table that was piled with books, takeout containers, and chargers plugged in but not charging anything. After moving a few things around, he returned.

  “Here you go.” He smiled. “I think you’ll see that says we can get two pizzas and two garlic knots for free from your fine establishment.”

  “Pizza,” one of the guys, still focused on the TV, said in a robotic voice.

  “Free pizza,” his friend in front of us said. Then he looked at me. “It just tastes better, you know?”

  I didn’t say anything, just stood there as Mac examined the coupons—back and front—and then pocketed them. When he nodded at me, I handed over the food. “That’s twenty-four seventy-two at full price,” I told him, hoping at least he would tip.

  “I know!” he said gleefully. “It’s great. Thanks!”

  And then he shut the door. I was so surprised, I just stood there looking at the 2B on it, but Mac was already walking away. As I caught up with him, I said, “I amend my earlier assessment. They are also assholes.”

  “Agreed.” He looked so annoyed, I knew to stay quiet as we started across the lot toward the truck. He pulled out his phone, glancing at it. “No deliveries on deck. I need a break. Let’s do something.”

  “What did you have in mind?” I asked, pulling my door open.

  “We’re near your neighborhood,” he replied. “Want to show me that sinkhole?”

  I thought of my brother on the phone, how he’d surprised me by his reaction when I’d brought this up. Like the fact that he saw the story differently—him as stupid, not superhuman—made it seem like maybe it hadn’t happened at all. “Sure,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  The path was more narrow than I recalled, and overgrown enough in a few places that I had to stop and bend branches back to get through. It was weird to be in the lead, as I’d always followed Peyton. After about a quarter mile, though, the woods opened up, and Mac fell in beside me. As we climbed a ridge, a hawk soaring over us, he took my hand.

  His palm was warm, and my own felt small within it. Protected. We didn’t talk, the only sounds our footsteps as they crunched over leaves and the occasional whisper of trees, swaying in the breeze. I thought of all those other afternoons, walking this same path, and how different it felt now, for so many reasons.

  “It should be up here somewhere,” I told him as we climbed another hill. “I remember this clear-cut.”

  “Looks like they were going to build here.”

  “Maybe. Or just cut them for logging.” We navigated around a bunch of stumps covered with moss and lichen. A couple of beer bottles, half-filled with dirty rainwater, sat against one of them. And then, just when I was wondering if I truly had imagined everything, I saw it, just ahead: a place where the ground opened up, wide like a mouth. We walked right up to the edge.

  It wasn’t as vast as I remembered, and no log lay across it. But there was something familiar, in the exposed roots, the layer of red clay halfway down, the suddenness of its appearance, so unexpected.

  “I guess it’s not that impressive,” I said to Mac. “Not like the carousel.”

  “I wouldn’t want to walk across it, though.”

  I smiled. “When Peyton did that, my heart was in my throat. I was sure he was going to fall and die and I’d have to go home and tell my mom.”

  Mac leaned over a bit more, peering down. “But he didn’t.”

  “Nope.” I looked up at the blue sky over our heads. “I think he had his own saint protecting him back then. Is there one for morons taking stupid risks in the woods?”

  “I don’t think so. But there are a few that can be applied pretty broadly. Like the saint of wanderers, travelers, the lost. Or whatever.” He reached up, taking out his own pendant and glancing at it. “My mom’s favorite is Saint Anthony, the finder of lost things. She has this rhyme she says when anything’s missing: ‘Tony, Tony, turn around. Something’s lost that must be found.’”

  “Does it work?” I asked.

  “Sometimes,” he replied, sliding the pendant back under his shirt. As always, I noticed the give in the chain, the empty length now there. “Doesn’t hurt.”

  We stood there a moment, everything silent except the breeze blowing overhead. Looking across the hole, I had a flash of Peyton’s rigid shoulders as he walked over that tree. For once he was focused not on finding the invisible place, but on having everyone’s attention; it was just the beginning of that.

  Remember? I’d asked him on the phone that night when I’d mentioned this.

  Not my brightest moment.

  All this time, I’d thought Peyton saw himself the same way I did, the way we all did. Invincible. Otherworldly. But he’d known he was human, long before I did. Or maybe all along.

  Mac turned, looking down at me. “What is it?”

  I knew he was asking because I’d made a noise, or a face, thinking this. Or even just gone visibly still. But I took this inquiry wider, stretching it to include everything that had changed since that first day I walked into Seaside. The changes in me.

  What is it? Maybe the lives I’d glimpsed in the last hour: the sneaky geeks eating pizza while savoring their resourcefulness, the new bride serving bought fettuccine on her wedding china. Or this place, so strong in my memory, even as I made another memory right now. All I could think was that here, finally, for once, I wasn’t only watching and reporting but part of this moving, changing world as well.

  I took my hand from Mac’s, then reached up to touch his cheek. When I did, his fingers moved to my waist, pulling me in closer. It was fluid and easy, like everything had been since we’d met, as I stood on my tiptoes and finally, finally kissed him. There, in the woods, on a late fall Thursday afternoon, it was perfect. I’d had no way of knowing this when I did it, of course. It was just a hunch.

  CHAPTER

  17

  “WAIT. SO we can’t use the studio?”

  “No, you can,” I said. “It’s just going to be a little more complicated than I thought.”

  I was leaning against Mac in the truck, his arms around me so I couldn’t see his face. When I twisted, he was giving me a look I already recognized: wary, waiting. Classic Mac. “Complicated,” he repeated. “That sounds promising.”

  “It’s fine.” I turned back around. “Just trust me. Okay?”

  He didn’t reply as I rested the back of my head against his chest, folding my legs up against me. The cab of his truck was cramped and smelled of garlic knots, hardly the ideal place to be together. But I’d learned not to even expect perfection in any form. And actually, this was pretty close.

  It had been less than a week since the afternoon in the woods. Since then, one unbelievable thing had happened after another. Us saying good-bye a half hour later, and lingering, the way I’d only seen others do, before I finally made myself drive away. Texts all through the evening and one final call, so his voice was the last I heard before going to bed. Then there was the first day back at school, everything so different, if only to us. Again, I was a girl with a secret. This time, though, it was a good one.

  I felt bad keeping anything from Layla, especially something so big as me actually, maybe, falling in love for the first time. This, though, was complicated. Kimmie Crandall, the cautionary tale, was always in the back of my mind. As much as she liked me, Mac was her brother. Better to keep things quiet, for now, anyway.

  So we’d done our best to proceed as normal. At school during lunch, we stayed on our separate benches. At Seaside, he remained behind the counter with his textbooks while Layla and I took our normal table to do homework. Nothing was different, except when we were alone.

  Like now, pulled over in a neighborhood pla
yground called Commons Park. No deliveries waiting, nowhere to be. The engine was off but the truck’s cab still warm as I curled up against him; outside, red and yellow leaves kicked up by a breeze swirled across the windshield. In a twist I never would have expected, these hours between school and dinner I’d once dreaded were now the ones I most looked forward to.

  I was learning new things about him all the time. Not just that he was a good kisser (very good, actually) and had the tightest set of abs I’d ever seen or touched (Kwackers, maybe?). There was also the way his hair was just long enough in front to always need to be brushed aside, something he did with a slight jerk of his head, something I now considered a signature move. The way that when he talked about a topic that troubled him—his dad expecting him to take over Seaside, for instance—he automatically lowered his voice, so you wanted to lean in deeper, listen harder.

  “As far as my dad’s concerned, it’s just how it is,” he’d told me a few days earlier when this came up. “Business is family, and vice versa. Nothing trumps them.”

  “You going to school would be good for the family, though,” I pointed out. “More education, more earning potential. And Layla wants to take it over.”

  “Layla says she wants to take it over,” he corrected me. “There’s a difference.”

  “And there’s Rosie, too,” I said. “It shouldn’t be just about you because you’re the boy.”

  “Not how he sees it,” he said. He shook his hair out of his face again. “I’m still going to apply to the U and a few other schools, though. I can’t not try. That’s like quitting.”

  I thought of our talk, weeks earlier, about broken things and how he didn’t accept there wasn’t a fix for everything, somehow. It wasn’t just about clocks and starters. Like so much with Mac, what he felt strongly about was wide and vast. I felt so lucky to be included in it.

  For as long as I could remember, other people had either overshadowed me or left me out in the open, alone. But Mac, as Layla had said all those weeks ago, was always somewhere nearby. He left me enough space to stand alone, but stood at the ready for the moment that I didn’t want to. It was the perfect medium, I was learning. Like he was my saint, the one I’d been waiting for.

  This was never more evident than when I talked to him about Ames. One day, when we were out delivering, a red Lexus had pulled up beside us. I’d frozen, he’d noticed, and the next thing I knew I was telling him everything.

  “I can’t believe your parents aren’t aware of any of this,” he said when I finally finished talking. “The dude’s got a bad vibe.”

  “Not to them,” I said.

  “They should be able to tell if you seem weird.”

  I shrugged. “I told you. They don’t look too closely at me.”

  “Then make them,” he said. “If you told them what you just told me, they’d pay attention.”

  I knew he was probably right. But just the thought of bringing this up with my mom made me nervous, like I didn’t have even a foot to stand on, much less a leg.

  “Just think about it,” he said, clearly sensing my hesitation. “Okay?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Okay.”

  In response, he turned to face me. When he leaned in, kissing me once on the lips, then on the forehead, I felt safe enough to close my eyes.

  At home, however, things were getting more and more strained. On Thursday, my parents would leave to spend the night at a hotel in Lincoln so they could attend Peyton’s ceremony the following morning. My mom was in overdrive, fielding phone calls and sending e-mails as she organized the reception she and a couple of the other family members had put together.

  “I was thinking we could have dinner with the Biscoes the night before,” she’d told us one evening. “You know, Rogerson’s parents? I told you about him, he’s on Peyton’s hall? It might be really helpful to share our stories, get to know one another. I’ve found a good place that takes reservations—”

  “Julie.” My father’s voice was gentle, even though it was obvious he was cutting her off. “Maybe we should hold off on that.”

  She put down her fork. “Why?”

  My dad looked so uncomfortable, I found myself shifting in my chair in sympathy, like it was me who’d chosen to walk out on this particular plank. “We’re going to an event at a prison,” he said finally. “Not a preschool.”

  Instantly, her smile vanished. “You really think it’s necessary to point that out to me?”

  “I didn’t before. But from the way you’re talking—”

  “I,” she said, her voice wavering, rising, “am putting a positive spin on a bad situation. When life gets dark, you celebrate any light. This is my light. Let me enjoy it.”

  It was a testimony to how black things had gotten that this event signified brightness. I was always aware of how things had changed. Times like this, though, it surprised me all over again.

  I couldn’t talk to her about this, of course, or to my dad, either. But there was someone who did understand, or at least listen. Thank goodness.

  “So, Sydney,” Mrs. Chatham said. “How are things at home?”

  We were in their living room, with her in her chair, me on the couch, keeping my distance from the dogs. Mac was taking a break from deliveries to tinker with the truck’s still-stubborn starter, as he often had to, and I’d taken to visiting with his mom until he was finished or another order came in.

  “The same,” I told her as the engine gurgled to life outside, then quickly died. “My parents are going to a graduation thing at the prison, and my mom’s completely obsessed with it. You’d think he was getting a diploma from Harvard, the way she’s acting.”

  She smiled. “I felt the same way when Rosie finished her rehab. You take what you can get, I guess.”

  We were both quiet a moment. Outside, I was pretty sure I heard Mac cursing.

  “Layla tells me you bumped into that boy,” she said. “At SuperThrift.”

  Just hearing this, I had a flash of those galoshes. “Yeah. It was the first time I’d seen him face-to-face.”

  “And?”

  “I freaked.” At the other end of the couch, one of the dogs sighed loudly. “I couldn’t even speak.”

  “Oh, honey.” She was quiet for a moment. “It’s not like it’s going to come easy, if it ever comes at all. You know that, right?”

  “I just don’t know what I could say that would even make a difference. An apology won’t change anything.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t expect it to. For him, anyway.” She looked at me, her gaze kind as always. “But that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t help in some way for you. It could, you know, lift some of the weight.”

  Again, she’d hit it dead-on. How the guilt felt so heavy on me, like ten of those drapes they put on you at the dentist before they take X-rays. More than enough to hold you down, no matter how you struggle to rise up.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You don’t have to right now,” she told me. “You’re doing just fine.”

  I wasn’t so sure about this. But hearing it was a comfort anyway. As was the sound of the truck starting up again outside, the engine revving a few times. Making stuff work. Somehow.

  That afternoon I came home to find the house empty and the phone ringing. It was five forty-five, a time that Peyton often called. This time, though, I didn’t have that familiar sense of dread when the recording announced it was a call from Lincoln.

  “Hey,” I said, once he was on the line. “How are you?”

  “Okay.” A pause, voices in the background. “What’s up with you?”

  I paused, wondering what I should tell him. It seemed weird to mention Mac or the Chathams, to talk about a world he was no part of, all my own. But then I remembered that day in the woods.

  “I went out to the sinkhole with a friend of mine,” I said.
“It had changed.”

  “Yeah?”

  I nodded, even though he couldn’t see me. “I mean, it was the same, I guess. But the perspective was different. I remember it being so wide. Huge.”

  “It looked even bigger when you were halfway across it,” he said.

  “I bet.”

  We were both quiet a moment. Then he said, “So, it’s funny. That show you love, the one with those crazy women? I’ve been . . . watching it.”

  I blinked, surprised. “You’re watching Big New York?”

  He laughed. “And Los Angeles. Although I can’t believe I’m admitting it.”

  “I thought you hated those shows,” I said, still in shock.

  “I did.” He sighed. “But this friend of mine here . . . he’s totally into them. He’s a doctor, a shrink. He claims for him it’s about the personality disorders, all that narcissism. But I think he just likes the drama.”

  “He’s your doctor?”

  Another laugh. “No. He’s an inmate, an addict. Got busted for selling prescriptions. We call him MD. He’s a nice guy. Even if he has bad taste in TV shows.”

  “Hey, now,” I said. “Remember who you’re talking to.”

  “Like I could forget,” he said. And then the recorded voice came on, warning us time was about up. For the first time, I wished it weren’t.

  I didn’t mention any of this to my mom, even when I told her he’d called. After all the pushing for us to talk, now that we were, I wanted to keep it to myself. Peyton didn’t tell her, either. Another secret, all our own.

  The truth was, Mom was so immersed in her plans, she wasn’t noticing much of anything. The upside was she hadn’t said more about Ames staying with me. It was foolish, I knew, to think I’d dodged this particular bullet because it hadn’t been fired just yet. But everything else had been going so well. I should have known better.

  “So,” she’d said that morning when I came down for breakfast. “Tomorrow, your father and I are leaving at around three. Ames will be here by ten at the latest. It’s not ideal, but with Marla out of the picture and his valet job, it’s the best we can do.”