Once Was Lost (17 page)

And I don’t know how he does that. How someone going through everything he’s going through can say exactly what I need to hear, when my own dad, who does this for a living, can’t. I nod, though I know he can’t see me.

“Speaking of your dad, that’s one reason I was thinking about you. I saw the news today. He talked to us about going in for the polygraph, so I knew, but after it got out I thought about how you’d feel, and I know how I’d feel. I mean I know how I
do
feel, with half the country saying it’s me. And I wanted to give you advice, which is this: ignore everything everyone says.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“Are you going to get in trouble for being on the phone this late? Or, I guess, this early?” He sounds better now than he did when this conversation started.

“I’m in the garage. My dad can’t hear me.”

“You’re sitting in the garage at two in the morning. Now I really feel bad.”

“I don’t mind. I have a camp chair. It’s comfy.” I look around, noticing my bike hanging from a hook in the corner and my box of soccer trophies exactly where I put it last summer. “It is kind of hot in here, but my mom keeps it really clean. Kept it.”

“I do that, too,” Nick says. “I keep switching from present to past to present tense when I talk about Jody. Every time I accidentally say something in the past tense with my mom around, she gets this look on her face like she’s hearing the news all over again. But when I say ‘Jody is’ or ‘Jody does’ or ‘Jody likes,’ that feels wrong, too.”

I nod.

“Sam?”

“Still here. I was just thinking. About the past and present thing. And thinking at least I know where my mom is.”

“But if she’s not there, she’s not there.”

“Yeah.”

“So,” Nick says, “just how clean
is
your garage? Is it like OCD clean or regular clean?”

I laugh. “Well, it’s a garage. Regular clean. A lot of stuff is in plastic storage boxes but not everything.” I get up and walk to the big metal shelf where my mom keeps household stuff organized. “For example,” I say, lifting the lid of one bin, “we have wrapping paper, ribbons, and cards neatly organized, but then there are some Christmas decorations sitting on top of all that because whoever put them away was too lazy to find the decoration bin. Probably me.”

“That’s good. You don’t want to be too perfect.”

“Some are labeled,” I say, sliding out a large bin that’s on the floor. “Like this one says ‘winter clothes.’ But I bet—” I pry off the lid. The bin is filled with bottles. Empty wine bottles, empty gin bottles. A few dozen of them, which must have been washed out carefully because there’s only the faintest smell of alcohol wafting up.

“Winter clothes?” Nick asks. “Or… zombie remains? Though I guess the living dead can’t really have remains…”

I put the lid back on. “Just… junk. Actually. Actually not junk. Empty wine bottles and stuff. My mom must have hidden them here so we wouldn’t find them in the garbage.”

Nick blows out a breath. “Man. I still can’t picture your mom stumbling around drunk or anything. She always seemed—seems—so together.”

“She is. She never stumbled around drunk like that. Most of the time we didn’t even know. For her, even passing out was more like laying down to take a nap. It’s not like it is on TV or anything.” I want to change the subject. “Did you decide about college?”

He tells me about how he went online to pick out his classes, and talked to his assigned roommate on the phone. “I’m still not sure, though. They’re holding my spot so I don’t have to decide right this second or anything.”

“I’m probably starting a new school, too. I haven’t said anything to anyone about it yet.”

“No more Amberton? Is that going to be okay?”

“It’s too expensive. So it has to be okay. But… yeah. I’ll still see Vanessa and Daniel all the time outside of school.”

“You’ll probably make other friends, too,” he says, sounding so sure.

“Maybe.” I can’t see myself going up to someone at lunch and introducing myself. I yawn and try to catch myself in time to cover my mouth so Nick won’t know, but he hears me and says, “I should let you get to bed.”

“Probably.”

“I’m glad you were up.”

I don’t tell him I wasn’t actually up until his text woke me. “Me, too.”

“Good night, Sam.”

“Night, Nick.”

After I hang up I sit in the garage awhile longer, going over our conversation, his voice. And what it means that he wanted to talk to me in the middle of the night. I don’t know, maybe nothing. Maybe he’s missing Jody. Maybe he’s fighting with Dorrie again. Or maybe he truly likes me, just likes the person that I am. Maybe we’re friends.

•  •  •

In the morning, I stay in bed a long time, listening to my dad get up, talk to Ralph, make coffee, shower. Eventually, he knocks on my door. “Sam?”

“Come in.”

“Hey.” Ralph trots past him and leaps onto my bed, purring and walking over my legs. “Not feeling so good?”

“Just tired. I guess I didn’t sleep that great at Vanessa’s.” Plus there was my two am phone conversation.

Dad sits in my desk chair. He looks tired, too, like he’s acquired a few gray hairs and wrinkles he didn’t have a week ago. “Why don’t you come to the office with me today?”

“It’s your day off.” I’d thought maybe we could work in the yard together.

“I know, but I’m so behind with administrative business because of all of this with Jody. You could help Muriel organize the church library.”

That’s the part-time secretary who’s worked at the church forever. “Muriel doesn’t like me.”

“Sure she does.”

“Then she doesn’t want help. Whenever I come to the office, she shoos me away and I end up with nothing to do but sit around and wait for you.”

“I remember when you actually
liked
coming to work with me. You’d beg.” He puts his elbow on my desk and leans his head on his fist. “What happened?”

I pet Ralph, who has settled on my chest, eyes closed to slits. It would take me all day to answer that question, all week. Dad doesn’t have that kind of time. I try anyway. “Mom needed me.”

He stares at me awhile. “When Mom comes back, I don’t want you to think that’s your job anymore. Not that it ever was. I know that’s kind of the pattern we got in. But it’s not.”

“Who’s job is it, then?” I look at him, my hand still nestled in Ralph’s fur.

“It’s her job, Sam.”

“But yesterday you wouldn’t even let us tell her the truth. You
say
now it’s not our job but you act like it is.”

He rubs his face with the hand he’s been leaning on. “I don’t mean to. Yesterday, Sam, what can I say. I was very nervous.”

Looking at him, I realize for the first time that it’s possible he feels as lost as I do. Maybe what I’ve been thinking of as him being clueless is actually him not knowing what to do.

“Me, too.”

For a second I think we’re really going to talk. For a second I think this is the moment our whole relationship will change.

“Well,” he says, getting up. “I’ve got to head out.” He bends forward to give me a kiss. “Call me if you need me for anything. Promise?”

I nod, and watch him leave. What I said, about things changing because of Mom needing me, that’s definitely at least partly true. But also, I grew up, is what happened. Why can’t he see that?

Out in the yard, my plastic sheeting is in the heap where I left it, now speckled with dust and dirt. I start to pull it over the wild bushes and fallen-over hollyhocks but then stop halfway. I don’t know what I’m doing. What if I kill off something that’s actually not as already-nearly-dead as it looks? There are enough clouds in the sky to make me think we could get more rain today. Maybe I should leave all this alone and see if the rain helps. I sit down in a lawn chair and flip through the xeriscaping book, comparing the pictures of the plants in the book to what we’ve got. A lot of the stuff my mom and dad planted two summers ago matches up with what’s in the book. They already picked some good drought-resistant plants; they just need maintenance.

I stare at the mess. It’s too big a job for someone who doesn’t even know where to start. Maybe I can get Vanessa and Daniel to help me with this later. If Vanessa will talk to me. Last night after my dad agreed that I could come home, I handed my cell phone to Vanessa’s mom so he could let her know what was going on, and before he picked me up Vanessa watched me pack, sulking. “It sucks that much here, huh? You’d rather be home all by yourself?”

“It’s not that,” I said, shoving the last of my clothes into my duffel. “I just need one thing in my life to feel normal.”

I think she could have understood if she’d tried, but I know that also she was still mad at me for taking off on Saturday. I’d be mad, too. Now, I get up and pull the sheeting over as much space as I can cover, and secure the edges of the plastic with rocks and the stone frog I gave my mom a few years ago.

My bike, in the garage, has a flat tire but otherwise looks okay to ride.

I pull the pump off the frame of my mom’s bike and inflate my tire. I’ve got my phone, my key, and this time a ten dollar bill I took out of what I’ve been saving up for clothes. I open the garage and walk the bike out to test the tire. Technically, I’m still probably not supposed to go anywhere without permission, but Dad didn’t say anything this morning and this will be quick. The tire seems to be holding its air. I close the garage and pedal away.

The sky is thick with clouds by the time I get to the hardware store. While I park the bike, I can see Cal through the window. He’s sitting behind the register, reading a book. He looks up when I come in, bells jingling. His glasses are on the top of his head. “Hello,” he says, and I can tell he’s trying to remember my name.

“Hi,” I say. “I have your two dollars. Thanks for the loan.” I go to the counter and pull the ten out of my pocket.

“No problem.” While Cal makes change, I ask him about container gardens.

“What happened to xeriscaping?”

“I’m still doing it. Only… my mom’s been away, and I want to have something look nice when she comes back. The yard’s going to take forever. I thought I could at least do one pot or box in the meantime.”

He closes the register and puts his glasses on. “How long do you have?”

“I’m not sure.” It could be a week, it could be another month. I err on the side of optimism, for a change. “Not that long.”

“You’ll probably have to go to a real gardening store and get some plants that have already started growing if you want it to really look nice.”

“Oh.” I’m about to ask him if he thinks it will work for me to transfer a cut of something from our own yard into the container, when the store rattles with a huge clap of thunder.

“Wow,” he says.

I go to the storefront window and watch the rain start to come down.

“Is that your bike out there?” he asks. “You can’t ride home in this.”

“I’ll wait a minute. Maybe it will stop.” I don’t want to call my dad for a ride and get in trouble again, even if he didn’t actually say I couldn’t go anywhere.

Cal comes around from behind the counter and stands next to me. Rain blows against the window; a few birds fly by, looking for shelter. “I thought your dad did a nice job with the special service on Friday,” Cal says.

Thinking about my conversation with Nick last night about the vigil, I’m not sure what to say. “I guess.”

“I noticed you ducking out early.”

I look at him; he’s looking at me, his hands clasped behind his back. “You did?”

“I think so,” he says. “Green dress? I was way in the back.”

“Yeah. I needed air.” The rain hasn’t slowed down at all, but I decide it’s time to leave the store, which suddenly feels very empty. “Well, I guess I’ll just deal with being wet. Thanks for the gardening tips.”

“I could run you home, if you want,” Cal says. “I don’t think I’m going to get a rush of customers or anything.”

“It’s okay, thanks.” My heart pounds but I try not to show it. He’s just being nice. A ride home in the rain is the kind of thing anyone in Pineview would offer.

“You sure? I think it’s going to be a pretty big one.”

I shake my head. “It’s okay. I’m not supposed to take rides, anyway.”

He smiles and nods. “That’s probably a good rule, these days.”

Before I’m barely a quarter mile away, my tire is going flat again. I get off the bike and start to walk with it, against the wind, thinking about what just happened at the store. I hate this feeling of suspecting everyone, even the nicest people who are only trying to be good neighbors, but also I wonder if I should say something to someone. Not my dad, because I’ll get in trouble for going out in the first place. The police? That feels extreme. I could call in an anonymous tip…

The rain finally starts to taper a little when Nick’s silver truck comes around the corner, toward me.

He rolls down his window. “Hey! Stay right there.”

The truck makes a three-point turn to maneuver next to me, and Nick jumps out. “Here.” He picks up my bike and lifts it easily into the truck bed. “Get in.”

“Good timing,” I say, breathless, as I climb in.

“So, where are we going?” He revs the engine and glances over his shoulder before pulling back out onto the road. “Vegas? Paris?”

I rake my fingers through my soaked hair, hoping it looks okay. Water droplets make a trail down my back, inside my shirt. The rain has also left small marks on Nick’s cargo shorts and settles in beads on the tops of his knees.

“Just home.”

“I offer Paris and you take home? Fine.” He looks over at me for a few long seconds while stopped at a crosswalk. “You okay?”

I nod. “Why?”

“I don’t know. You seem a little upset.”

“Just…” I shake my head. “The storm kind of snuck up on me.” The farther away I am from the hardware store the surer I am that I was being paranoid.

“The rain is nice, though,” Nick says. We drive a bit, watching it bounce off the hood. He glances at me. “Did you get back to sleep okay after we talked?”

“Yeah. Did you?”

“Sleep isn’t really high on my list of achievements lately.”

We’re already almost to my house. It’s like the first time Nick gave me a ride, which was only like five days ago, but this time it’s different. This time it’s like we’re really friends, more equal. When I think about how it felt to have his hand on mine, something in me hurts, but in a good way. And I don’t want to go home. I just want to be with Nick a little bit longer.