Holden shakes his head. “You know it’s more than that.”
“Maybe,” she says. “But it’s only because he loves you.”
“Whatever.”
“No,” I say. “It’s true.”
“You’ve got to cut him some slack. He’ll get over it. You know Dad. I think right now he’s just hurting so much, he doesn’t know how to handle anything.”
Holden falls back into the chair. “Do you think we’ll ever be OK? I mean, obviously I have these moments where I can feel happy. But then something will remind me of Charlie, and I get so overwhelmed. And Mom . . .”
We all look toward the stairs.
“She’ll get better,” Sara says. “It’s just going to take time.”
She looks over at me. I realize that Sara has been more of a mom to me in the past twenty-four hours — in the past few weeks, even — than my mom has since I can remember. She’s been a mom to Holden, too. It seems like she’s aged so much so fast. Like she was forced to. It doesn’t seem fair.
“Mom will be OK,” Sara says. “Dad, too. All of us. It’s like the minister said. We all grieve differently. We’ll all miss him in our own way.”
Her words make me think of my secret, and I know it’s not fair to keep it anymore. “There’s something I have to show you guys,” I say. I hadn’t been meaning to tell anyone, but suddenly the moment feels right. “Stay here.” I go upstairs and come back down with the answering machine.
“Klepto!” Holden says. “I wondered where that went.”
I set it on the coffee table. “I couldn’t change the message. I couldn’t bear to erase his voice.”
Holden reaches out to touch the machine.
“I want to save it,” I say. “I know Dad has the ‘See You at Harry’s’ ad on disc somewhere, or we could watch it on YouTube. But this is different. That day I helped Charlie make the message, well, I just remember it so clearly. It was a day I was nice to him.”
“You were always nice to him,” Sara says.
“No, I wasn’t. Anyway, I wanted you to know I have it. In case you ever need to hear him.”
“I don’t think I could bear listening,” Sara says. “But I’m glad you saved it, Fern. Really glad.”
“Me, too,” Holden says.
We all lean back and watch the answering machine as it sits there on the coffee table. Like it’s a treasure that holds a secret only the three of us will ever know. I guess that’s exactly what it is.
THE FOLLOWING SUNDAY, we all go to the restaurant to help work the Sunday brunch. The restaurant is even more packed than usual. My mom pulls Sara and me aside and reminds us to watch for Silver Purses. This is her code word for the little old ladies who like to put the silverware in their purses. You would be surprised at how many sticky-fingered little old ladies there are in the world. Sometimes they even take the salt and pepper shakers. It’s been a family joke forever to come up with the best reason they steal the silverware. Holden’s theory is that they take the silverware to their church bazaars to sell and impress the priests. Sara thinks they hoard the utensils, and once they have a set, give them away as wedding gifts to their grandchildren. I think maybe there’s some silverware club where there’s a contest to see who can gather the most silverware, and you get different points for spoons, knives, and forks. There is a whole underground club throughout the country, and they have these big super-secret conventions where they display their goods. Charlie always liked my theory best. Unfortunately, he believed it. One day he actually caught a lady in the act and marched over to her.
“Mine!” he yelled. Then he reached into her purse and pulled out a fork.
The poor lady looked like she was going to have a heart attack. “I don’t know how that got in there!” she kept saying in a shaky voice. The other old ladies she was sitting with looked horrified, but we all thought they probably had a spoon or two in their own purses.
My mom gives us each a quick hug before she rushes off to help Mona wait tables. Sara smiles at me as we watch my mom greet customers in her old, happy voice. It’s a start.
“Hey, Fern!” Holden says in a loud whisper, coming up to me with a rubber bin for dirty dishes. “Check out those three guys over there. Do you know them?”
I look to where he’s gesturing. There are three cute boys at a booth. They look about college age. What is it with Holden and older men?
“No,” I say.
“What do you think?”
“They’re kind of good-looking, I guess. But they’re too old for you.”
“Noooo. You know. What do you think?”
“I thought this was Gray’s job. To help you. I don’t know how to tell.”
He rolls his eyes. “You’re useless. Go wait on them and see if you can figure it out.”
“I’m not a waitress!”
“Oh, forget it. I’ll ask Sara.”
“No! Wait. I’ll do it.” Holden actually kisses me on the cheek.
I like the new Holden. In fact, I love him. Well, yes. Obviously. I always have.
I grab a pad and start to walk over to the boys. But my mom beats me to them. I turn back and Holden shrugs.
“Useless,” he mouths.
The morning flies by. At two o’clock the last customers finally waddle out, and Sara flips the OPEN sign to CLOSED. Then all the staff get together to eat leftovers just like old times. Except for one thing.
And yet he is here. I can feel his warmth. I can feel how he’s brought us together. It’s as if before Charlie died, my family was connected in a circle, as if we were holding hands. But when he died, we let go. Now, somehow, Charlie has helped us link hands again. Sitting at the table, I can feel Charlie here as if he never left. He is here, just in a different way. I can feel him under the table, threatening to try to tie my shoes to Holden’s. He’s here next to me, saying how much Doll loves their sundae. He’s here reaching for my hand, whispering in my ear. I love you, Ferny.
See you at Hawee’s, I hear him say. And it doesn’t feel like a lie anymore.
He is here. And he is not here. He is love. That’s what’s left. I think again of the poem the minister read at Charlie’s service. I still have it in my jewelry box. I haven’t read it yet. I can’t. But I remember one line the minister read: When all that’s left of me is love, give me away. And I finally understand how to do that. I reach for Holden’s hand on one side of me and Sara’s on the other. I give them each a quick squeeze, then start to let go. But at the same time, they both squeeze back. “It means I love you,” my mother taught us. “It’s how you say it when you don’t want anyone else to hear.”
So I squeeze one more time. This time for Charlie. I am giving him away, and I am getting him back in the way Charlie knew best to give. And it is enough.
“Thank you” is such a tiny phrase for such a big gesture. I wish I could think of something more grandiose and appropriate to convey how truly grateful I am to the people who made this book possible. To my agent, Barry Goldblatt, for telling me, “Someday you need to write about growing up in the restaurant business”— and for waiting ten years for me to do it. To my editor, Joan Powers, for guiding me through the thicket and brambles, as she always does, with kindness and patience. To Holly Black, for our hours-long talk that saved this book. To Robin Wasserman and Libba Bray, for saying just the right things at just the right time, as usual. To my writing partners, Cindy Faughnan and Debbi Michiko Florence, for reading multiple drafts and keeping my spirits up whenever I thought it was just too hard. To my son, Eli, for saying those magic words every writer longs to hear: “Keep reading.” And to my husband, Peter, for reading and listening and cheering me on through it all. Thank you.
JO KNOWLES is the author of Jumping Off Swings, which, in a starred review, Publishers Weekly called “absorbing from first page to last,” and Lessons from a Dead Girl, which Kirkus Reviews described as “a razor-sharp examination of friendship, abuse, and secrets.”
About this new novel, she sa
ys, “Some years ago, my agent suggested that I write a book reflecting my own experience growing up in the restaurant business. When I began, I imagined the book as a gift to my brother, in which I could rewrite our past and make it kinder and more gentle. But I soon realized these characters weren’t us and that fate had other plans for them. Ironically, by writing this story about strangers whom I came to love, I was able to understand my own family story more clearly.” Jo Knowles lives in Vermont.
The author gratefully acknowledges permission from Merrit Malloy to quote from her poem “Epitaph.”
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2012 by Jo Knowles
Cover photograph copyright © 2012 by Image Source/Getty Images (tablecloth)
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2012
The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Knowles, Johanna, date.
See you at Harry’s / Jo Knowles. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-7636-5407-8 (hardcover)
[1. Family problems — Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters — Fiction. 3. Homosexuality — Fiction. 4. Grief — Fiction. 5. Restaurants — Fiction.]
I. Title.
PZ7.K7621Se 2012
[Fic] — dc23 2011018619
ISBN 978-0-7636-5994-3 (electronic)
Candlewick Press
99 Dover Street
Somerville, Massachusetts 02144
visit us at www.candlewick.com
Table of Contents
Title Page
Dedication
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
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21
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25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Jo Knowles, See You at Harry's
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