In Broken Places (31 page)

“Thanks—I’ll wait here for your second run.”

“I’m not carrying you.”

“You couldn’t lift me anyway. I’ve got my first-performance bulge going on.”

“You’re not fat, Shelby.”

“My love handles have grown into a love steering wheel.”

“You’re not fat,” he said again, lifting a limp Shayla into his arms and arranging her against his shoulder. “But your lips should be a lot skinnier for all the flapping they do.”

Any talk about mouths or lips always got my brain thinking about kissing, and thinking about kissing always made my toes curl, so I put the thought out of my mind, what with having to walk out to the car and all. Curled toes made it ungainly.

I followed Scott outside and waited while he installed Shayla in her car seat. It was a lesson I’d learned only recently. It went something like this: wait for the cute guy to open your car door or he’ll get all huffy and make you get back out of the car so he can be a gentleman. Scott was trying to break me of my single-girl habits. When he got around to my door, he reached for the handle but didn’t open it right away.

“So are we going to talk about the kissing thing or just have a moment of panic every time it crosses our minds at the same time?”

I put on my Scarlett accent. “Why, Scott, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Flapping lips.”

My toes did the sighing thing. “Fine. Go ahead and talk about it, then.” I hated that I still went a little junior-high when I was out of my comfort zone.

“You want subtle or nonsubtle?”

“I want quick. Shayla’s freezing in the backseat.”

He glanced into the car where Shayla slept peacefully and warmly under the blanket Scott had wrapped around her. “She’s not complaining.”

“Okay, let’s go for subtle.”

He cleared his throat, and I thought I saw a bit of a blush working its way up his neck. “All right,” he said, “here’s the deal. I’ve known you for, what, six months now, and we’ve spent a lot of them being just-friends—which, by the way, was your idea.”

“Are you blushing?”

“Hush. I’m trying to be subtle.”

“Whatever.”

“But we’re not just just-friends anymore and . . .”

“All right, enough of subtle. I don’t have time for this. How ’bout you go for nonsubtle and get whatever this is over with?” There was an elf tap-dancing on my stomach and he was driving me nuts.

“Nonsubtle?”

“Please.”

“All right, here it is. I really, really want to kiss you, and if you don’t say no in the next three seconds, I’m going to do it.”

One.
No, no, no, no, no . . .

Two.
Okay, well, if you have to, let’s get it over with.

Three.
What are you waiting for?

One minute I was standing there feeling three seconds tick by, and the next . . . and the next, a warm hand was snaking through my hair to the back of my head and drawing me in. I had a moment of panic right before his lips touched mine, because it felt so conclusive somehow—in a what-are-you-doing-for-the-rest-of-my-life? kind of way. But then his lips were on mine and his breath was on my face and my hands were clinging to the front of his jacket because my legs were doing a limp-noodle imitation.

Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, quadruple axel, knotted-up toes, tap-a-tap-tap, and all that stuff.

It was nice, in other words.

He pulled away just enough to take a look at my eyes—like he expected me to have fallen asleep or something.

“Still here,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“For the record?”

“Uh-huh?”

“I haven’t stopped liking you yet . . . or wanting to pursue you.”

“Oh.” My turn to blush. “Well . . . give yourself some time. It might still happen.”

“See you tomorrow, Shelby.” He said it against my lips, and my innards did a twist.

“Shut—your—mouth,” Trey said with so much pent-up impatience that I clamped my jaw shut and ordered myself to be quiet. Apparently he wanted his surprise to be a silent one.

I’d never been into surprises. Maybe because they were by definition something I couldn’t prepare for, and preparing was a critical issue for me. I blamed it on the drama of my seventh birthday, when Mom had asked a few girls from my class to my house for a party. I hadn’t expected it. Trey and I had gone to the library to return some books and pick new ones for the weekend, and the house had seemed really quiet when we’d returned. Right up until we’d walked into the living room and Vira Snurdly had popped up from behind the couch yelling, “Happy birthday!” loudly enough to scare the crows out of the tree in the yard. I was so surprised that I fell backward over the
La-Z-Boy’s footrest, legs in the air, and exposed my Tuesday undies to the assembled guests. It wasn’t showing my Tuesday undies that had humiliated me so much as the fact that it was Saturday. My day-of-the-week panties were a big deal at the time.

So when Trey had insisted on covering my eyes with a scarf several minutes ago, then shoved me into the passenger seat of his car and driven around town for a while, I’d had flashbacks to that fateful birthday party.

“I don’t like surprises.”

“You’ll like this one.” He sounded sure of himself, and that scared me even more.

“Just give me a hint.”

“Nope.”

“Is Vira Snurdly involved?”

“Be quiet, Shell.”

“Well, at least I’m not wearing day-of-the-week panties.”

“Huh?”

“Remember the day we got books at the library and then went home and Vira Snurdly was hiding behind the couch with Jocelyn Hicks and Carrie Smith and they jumped out at me and yelled, ‘Happy birthday!’ and I fell over the footrest and they saw my panties and—”

“Shell.” There was a warning in his tone. A kindhearted warning, but a warning nonetheless.

“Wait, you don’t understand—they were my
Tuesday
panties!”

There was a pause before a reluctant “And?”

“And it was Saturday! Saturday, Trey! They saw my Tuesday panties and it was Saturday, and I’m telling you, I just knew that Vira would never let it drop because she never let anything drop, like the time Corrie split her pants and—”

That was when Trey told me to shut my mouth. Which I did. But I opened it again to explain to him that surprises scared me and that
blabbing soothed me, at which point he said a “Shell!” that crackled a little too much for my own good. So I shut my mouth and sat there in silence while we drove around long enough to make me sick to my stomach. He eventually parked, turned off the engine, helped me out of the car, and ushered me through a door into some sort of resonant room.

“You ready?”

I was standing there blindfolded, trying not to throw up, but yes, I was ready.

“Keep your eyes closed until I tell you to open them,” he said, his fingers fiddling with the scarf’s knot. “Okay—open.”

I opened my eyes and found myself standing in an empty room with unpainted walls, a semifinished tile floor, plastic-covered windows, and dangling wires where light fixtures should have been. Trey was looking at me with so much expectation that I didn’t dare react.

“Where am I?”

He looked around the room with a deep smile spreading across his face. “Picture it,” he said. And he proceeded to describe in minute detail every invisible item he could see in the space, from the wall decorations to the window treatments, from the espresso machine to the whipped cream dispenser. He was still talking exultantly about the bakery of his dreams when I interrupted.

“You bought your bakery?”

He nodded and smiled like he’d swallowed the sun. “Signed the papers this morning,” he said with so much excitement that his voice and eyes danced. “I start renovations next week.”

“You bought your bakery!” I threw myself at his neck with so much force that he teetered, and then we both did a ridiculous hopping routine that had us turning in circles in the middle of the echo-chamber room, waving our arms above our heads, and whooping like drunk cheerleaders.

When I’d whooped myself hoarse and hopped myself breathless, I plopped down in the middle of the floor, mindless of the dust and dirt, and looked around at the vision Trey had described. I could see it all, every hue and nuance of the dream he had bought with dogged pursuit and relentless dedication. He sat down next to me and leaned back on his hands, taking in the half-finished space with the eye of an artist.

“You think it’ll fly?” he asked.

“With you as the chef? You bet your booty.”

He exhaled loudly. “Tell me I’m not an idiot.”

“You’re not an idiot.”

“It’s financial suicide opening this kind of thing, Shell. Even with Mom’s money. I mean, the guy who had it before me only got halfway through the renovations before he threw in the towel.”

“But you’ve worked it all out, right?”

“Down to the last penny. With a bit of a cushion in case of emergency.”

“Then you’re not an idiot.”

“I’m calling it L’Envie.”

“So it’s a Chinese bakery?”

His head dropped back and he stared at the ceiling with his usual my-sister-the-moron expression. “That’s French, Shelby.”

I smirked. “I know.” I looked out the plastic-covered front window at the cars going by and savored the moment. “So what now?”

“We paint the walls, and the tile guys come next week to finish this up.” He motioned at the front part of the room, where the beige tile ended and rough cement extended to the door. “Kitchen gets installed after that. Then I have the inspectors come in to make sure it’s up to snuff, design flyers, put ads in the paper, maybe hire some help, organize a grand opening . . .”

“So you’re going to be busy, in other words.”

“For the foreseeable future.”

I nodded and inhaled the brightness of his dream. “It’s going to be fabulous, Trey.”

“I’m thinking of maybe serving meals, too. Maybe one meal a day—single-item menu.”

“As long as the single item is calorie-loaded and mushroom-free, I’ll be your designated taster.”

I giggled at his goofy, happy grin and lay back on the dusty floor, bending my knees and getting comfy while the grime of construction got into my hair. There wasn’t much to look at from that position. Then again, there wasn’t much to look at from any position yet. He joined me in the dust and let out a happy sigh.

“I like the postmodern light fixtures,” I said.

“Yeah? The French are big into the tangled-wire look.”

“And the ripped plastic on the windows is a really fancy touch.”

“Thanks. I ripped it myself.”

“This is your dream, Trey.”

“Yup.”

“You made it happen.”

“I did.”

“God’s not spitting anymore.”

“He never did.”

I turned my head to look at him. “You used to think he did.”

“We were only kidding.”

“Yeah, but remember after you killed the bird? When you went downstairs and started throwing things around in your room? You kept yelling at the ceiling, ‘Stop spitting on me, you . . .’ And then you used a word I won’t repeat because I don’t want to damage your fancy new bakery with a lightning bolt from heaven.”

Trey chuckled and breathed deeply. “I remember,” he said. “But I think I knew even then—way down—that God hadn’t spit on us. Dad had.”

“Literally and figuratively.”

“But not God. God does things like this instead,” he said, basking in the accomplishment and miracle of L’Envie.

“Took a while.”

“Well, he kinda wanted me to be part of the process, and I spent a few years getting over the Dad factor, so . . .”

Something bittersweet breathed across my mind, but since I didn’t recognize it, I let it glide on by. Trey must have sensed it too. He captured it before it passed.

“You’ll get your dream someday, Shell.”

“Yeah?”

An ambulance went braying by, its siren jarring the hope-laden air. Our celebration settled, mellowed, dimmed.

“How did you figure it out?” I asked, with inner eyes exploring the dull blankness of my hopes.

“My dream?”

I nodded.

“I don’t know. It just kind of came.”

A shadow crept across the weary gray of jadedness. “So what’s mine?” I asked. “What’s my dream?”

Trey grabbed my hand as we lay on the pale, hard tile—so plush, moments before, with the joy of dreams come true. “It’s out there, Shell. Just wait.” He squeezed my hand, exhaled. “Life isn’t finished with you yet.”

ALL THINGS CONSIDERED
, life could have been a lot worse. My greatest problems, two days before opening night, were that Kate had a cold, Seth hadn’t slept in three days, Thomas still thought all the English accents stank, two of the auditorium’s spotlights were out, the wardrobe’s pulley system only worked once in every five attempts, Shayla had tried to walk out of the house wearing one of my bras that morning, and there was a cannonball where my stomach used to be. I was nervous. I was nervous enough that I’d forgotten to eat several times in the past few days. And forgetting to eat was a scary thing indeed for this ingestion addict.

This was very much the students’ play—and they’d earned every bit of praise they would receive for it—but it was also my directorial debut, and though I hoped I’d done things right, I wouldn’t be sure until the final blackout after our first performance.

Scott had come by my classroom earlier in the day to ask if Shayla and I would like to go out for an early dinner with him before the forty-eight-hour circus we knew was ahead. As I was in a particularly astute and intelligent mood at the time, I accepted, though I did disinvite Shayla, whose lack of sleep in recent days had transformed her into a human version of the Tasmanian Devil. Since she’d be sleeping at the Johnsons’ for the next three nights anyway because of the play, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to add one more evening of being spoiled by Bev to her vacation from me. I just hoped my daytime hours with her would compensate for our separation at night. The thought of not having her under my roof made me weepy.

Scott took me to the Café Inka that evening, a tiny family restaurant in the village of Ötlingen, where renovations in the late eighties had revealed paintings dating back to 1819. The owners had exposed and cleaned the valuable artwork and, as a preservation measure, had imposed a smoking ban on the café. This was probably the only restaurant in the area where smoking was not allowed. As accustomed as I’d become to the thick air of German restaurants and to the strong smell on my clothes when I got home, it felt wonderful to be in a smoke-free environment for the evening.

I ordered a slice of broccoli quiche and Scott got a pork steak. It was one of those evenings when I was acutely aware of the calm before the storm, and I felt an expectancy and eagerness that made it hard for me to sit still. I just wanted to get to opening night and find out if this play could fly.

Scott did his best to distract me from the tension, but my state of mind was undistractable.

“How’s your quiche?”

“Do you think the pulley system will work if we lay hands on it and pray really hard?”

“That’s a lot of vegetable for someone like you. Try not to have a health overdose.”

“I could just leap onto the stage and yank the doors open if they stick. A little directorial cameo. Bet they haven’t done that in a BFA play before!”

“Did I tell you I have a surprise for you?”

“A surprise?” Scott didn’t know how much I disliked them.

“Yup,” he said, and I could tell by the dancing lights in his eyes that it was a doozie.

“You’re scaring me. . . .”

He pointed with his chin toward the doorway behind me. “It’s right over there.”

I was concentrating so hard on looking for a wrapped present or a bouquet of flowers when I turned that I didn’t immediately see the blond guy with the silly, jet-lagged grin leaning against the doorframe.

I was about to turn back to Scott in frustration when the U of I shirt worn by the gentleman holding up the doorway registered in my mind. My breath caught.

“Trey?” He was too out of context, too unexpected to be real.

“Hey, Shell,” he said, sauntering over to my table with a goofy smile and pulling me out of my chair.

It wasn’t until I smelled his Drakkar Noir aftershave that I believed he was really there. If he’d been taller, I think I would have climbed him like a tree. He was Trey. Trey was here. My brother, Trey, was in Germany, in the same room as me and . . .

I turned on Scott. “You knew he was coming?” My voice was a little too loud for the environment, and every German head in the room turned to frown at the insensitive American making a scene.

“I did.” He was smiling with so much affection that I didn’t
know whether to leap across the table and strangle him or leap across the table and hug the living daylights out of him.

“This is Trey,” I told him with all the love of thirty-five years of tandem survival.

Scott stepped forward and shook Trey’s hand. “Good to meet you, man.”

Trey shook back. “You too.”

“Well, sit, sit!” I forced Trey into a chair, mainly so I could sit too. My legs had been through a lot recently, what with performance jitters and first kisses and long-lost brothers showing up, and they weren’t doing a very consistent job of keeping me upright.

I just stared. I stared and grinned stupidly and occasionally opened my mouth to say something, but lost my train of thought before the first word was even out. I looked from Trey to Scott, from Scott to Trey, and just kind of beamed—like the Cheshire cat on crack. I was kind of happy.

“How was your flight?” Scott asked when it became clear that I wasn’t conversationally competent yet.

“No problems. Just a three-hour layover in Frankfurt before the flight to Basel. Gus drove up to the curb just as I walked out, and . . . here I am!”

I found my tongue. “When did you get here? Where are you staying? When did you decide to come? Who else knows about this? How did you get to Ötlingen?”

Scott and Trey exchanged glances, then did a kind of tandem shrug. It was the gesture of men who knew me well and found my weirdness endearing, so I allowed it.

“Well, 2 p.m., on your couch, three weeks ago, just Scott and the Johnsons, and . . . what was the last one?”

I smiled. I was going for the gold medal in smiling.

“Want something to eat?” It’s a good thing Scott was playing host, because my hosting skills were comatose.

Trey, my brother Trey, who was supposed to be in Illinois—that Trey—shook his head. “Maybe just coffee. I had something to eat at the Johnsons’.”

“Are you exhausted? Have you slept?” Me again—still slightly demented.

“Easy on the decibels, Shell. I took at nap at the Johnsons’ before coming out here, so I’m good to go. Bev told me I had to sleep because you were going to keep me awake all night, and she’s a pretty convincing woman.”

“She’s the best.”

There was something a little odd going on at the table. We were all being friendly, but there was an underlying vibe that was making me a little uncomfortable. Trey leaned over to give me a sideways hug, then turned his attention on Scott.

“So . . . you’re Scott.”

“Been practicing that opener all the way over here, Trey?” I smiled.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Scott said.

“Yeah? I’ve heard a little about you too.”

On a scale of one to ten, this conversation was scoring a twenty-three for lameness. It felt like a face-off—subtle, mind you, with no guns drawn, but something was definitely going on here.

Trey stared at Scott for a little too long and Scott returned the stare, unflinching.

“So what’s with the two of you?” Trey asked.

“Oh, great, Trey. Way to be smooth.” I was finding this comical—in an unfunny kind of way.

“I’m serious. I’m the brother. I’m supposed to know.”

“Shelby and I are . . . What are we, Shell? Dating?”

“You don’t have to answer him, Scott. He’s just playing King of the Sandbox with you.”

Scott turned his eyes on Trey, smiling. “We’re dating.”

“Cool. And . . . what are your intentions?”

“His intentions? His intentions! Maybe you should have taken a longer nap, Trey.”

Scott sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “What do you want to know?”

“Are you treating her right?”

“I am.”

“Are you leading her on?”

I was outraged. “Trey!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Do you see this going somewhere?”

“Okay—earth to moron! Trey, stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself and you’re humiliating me.”

“I hope it’s going somewhere. I pray to God it’s going somewhere.” Scott was undeterred.

“And where would that be?”

“Hello?” I looked from one staring man to the other staring man. “Is anyone hearing me? ’Cause I’m pretty sure I’m talking, but I’m not getting a whole lot of response from either of you.”

Scott, still ignoring me, leaned his forearms on the table and assumed his most serious, responsible expression. “I love your sister,” he said, “and my ‘intentions’ are to be the kind of man she can love enough to want to marry.” There was a bit of a challenge in the smile he aimed at Trey. “And since you’re the brother who’s kept her sane all this time, I’m happy to answer any other questions you have.”

I thought of saying something witty about the “sane” thing, but the
L
word was messing with my zingers—not to mention the
M
word turning my cognitive skills to mush. Scott hadn’t ever told me that he loved me—not directly, anyway. He hadn’t been shy about expressing it in other ways, but hearing it so unexpectedly in a crowded café with my newly reunited brother sitting next to me awoke a cacophony of voices in my mind, each of them speaking from a different fragment of my heart.

“He’s lying,”
said my daughterness.

“He’ll hurt you,”
said my woundedness.

“He doesn’t know how warped you really are,”
said my brokenness.

“You can’t afford to trust him,”
said my betrayedness.

“Maybe . . . just maybe . . . ,”
said my uncertain hopefulness, the part of me that wanted to cheer—and dance—and cry—and laugh—and beg all the other voices to be wrong.

I was too fragile to address Scott’s declaration at that moment. Too stunned. Too confused. Too terrified. So I stayed mute and hoped the two men whose lives were so entangled with mine wouldn’t notice my withdrawal. Scott reached across the table and squeezed my hand just as Trey reached to do the same. We all froze for a fraction of a second; then Trey withdrew his hand as Scott twined his fingers with mine. An invisible page turned with such finality that it grieved, frightened, and sobered me.

My brother just sat there looking at our hands, biting the inside of his lip like I’d seen him do a thousand times when he was thinking. His eyes met mine, and he smiled in a way that said he knew. He understood.

“Just so you know,” he said to Scott, “she’s stubborn.”

“Trey . . .”

“So is my sister,” Scott said. “I’ve had practice.”

“And she drags her feet like no one I’ve ever known.”

“Trey!” Consternation was quickly overtaking my confusion.

“I’ve noticed.” Scott smiled, bringing my hand to his lips.

“And she has a hang-up about the whole ‘love’ concept—never believes it’s for real.”

“And expects people to change their minds about it once they get to know her?”

“That’s Shelby.”

I slid down in my chair and covered my burning face with my hands. “I am so humiliated.”

“And,” Trey continued, raising a finger to punctuate his statement, “she can build some pretty thick walls around herself to keep people at arm’s length.”

“Any advice?”

“Oh—that’s right. You’ve been up against a couple of those, haven’t you.”

I groaned.

“Well,” Trey continued, ignoring me, “if you run into them again, my advice is to storm the barricades.”

“Storm them?”

“Blast ’em to smithereens.”

“Really.” Scott seemed to be warming to the concept.

“Don’t give her any wiggle room.”

“Thanks, man. That’s good advice.”

“I’m sitting right here, boys,” I said in a weary voice. “Sitting right here.”

The inquisition had apparently ended and Scott seemed relieved, though he had a purposeful look about him—like a warrior readying for an assault. My brain was suddenly exhausted from the surprise, the face-off, the
L
word, the
M
word, and the look on Scott’s face. We all let the loaded silence stretch for a while. A few moments later, Trey slapped Scott on the shoulder and settled back in his chair, relaxing for the first time since he’d
arrived. Scott smiled and continued to hold my hand, idly toying with my fingers and leaning in to kiss my temple.

“So,” Trey said with enthusiasm, “how ’bout them Bulls?”

And they were off—a little awkwardly at first, what with the rather brutal introduction to the evening—but once they got going, it was like listening to childhood friends. I realized, about ten minutes into their conversation, that I was going to have to do some serious brushing up on my sports if the three of us were going to be spending any amount of time together.

Trey went inside ahead of me when we got home, and I was thankful for a few moments alone with Scott in his beat-up old Volkswagen.

“So that was painful,” I said.

“It was fun.”

“The beginning part, I mean.”

“It didn’t really surprise me.”

“He’s not usually that . . . forward.”

“He was just checking out the guy who’s been hanging out with his sister.”

“Hanging out, huh?”

“Sure. Hanging out.”

“Um . . . About that ‘love’ thing.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“You know, the whole ‘I love your sister’ thing. . . .”

“Yes?” His grin told me he’d been expecting the topic to arise.

“Well . . . it’s just that I’ve never really heard you say the word before. I mean . . . not directly to me. So it kinda took me by surprise when you just blurted it to my brother.”

“What are you getting at?”

I sighed and weighed my words. “You’ve only known me a few months,” I said.

“Yes.”

“So . . . really, you don’t know me very well at all.”

He looked at me for a moment before responding. “I know you well enough.”

“It’s just that . . .”

“I’m sorry I blurted it out to your brother before having said it to you,” he said softly, running the back of a finger down my cheek. “I just wanted him to know that you were safe—that I wasn’t out to harm you.”