Second Chances (7 page)

Johnny Lewis was standing near the counter looking around. He was dressed in a white shirt and blue jeans and his black curls were pulled back into a short ponytail. He'd begun growing a beard and it made him look even better than the first time I'd seen him. My eyes dropped to his bare feet then back up to his face. His eyes got a little less shiny when I stepped out from behind the shelves.

“Your mother not working tonight?” he asked real casual-like. He picked up a pack of gum from the carton and flipped it end on end in his hand while he looked at me with his Al Pacino eyes.

“She's out with my dad for supper,” I said. “They do lots of things together.” I skirted around him and got behind the counter. “Dad wanted to take my mother somewhere so she wouldn't have to cook. He says she's been working too hard lately.” I said it all without taking a breath.

“Well, that's nice,” Johnny said, looking at me with a half-smile on his face. His eyes looked amused. “She deserves a night away. I'll just buy this gum for Candy and a pack of cigs for me.” He pointed to the green Export A pack on a ledge behind the counter.

I grabbed one and set it in front of him. “How do you like Cedar Lake? I'll bet you can't wait to get out of here and go back to Toronto for good.”

“This is a great spot. I never liked living in the city much.”

There was a hint of an accent in his voice. I looked down at his hands. They were tanned and rough-looking, and his nails were bitten down and jagged.

“Where did you live before?”

“Toronto the last while.” His eyes softened and he grinned, looking way younger and friendly. “I understand you live in Ottawa when you're not here at the lake.”

No wonder my mother liked him. The way he looked made me jumpy inside. My hands felt awkward, like they belonged to somebody else. I wondered what he and my mother talked about when they were together.

Whether he kissed her.

“We have a big house and Dad works in the mill. Mom inherited this store.”

“When I was a kid, we used to come to Cedar Lake in the summers. It was way before your time.”

“Did you know my mother then?”

“I was younger than her by a few years, but yeah, who wouldn't remember your mother?”

The way he said it made me feel a flush crawling up my cheeks, and I moved over to the cash register to ring in his sale. If I met Tyler Livingstone twenty years from now, would I feel something too, especially if I was married to someone like my father? I reached out to give Johnny his change. My fingers brushed against his skin and I felt a tingle that went up my wrist.
What the hell is wrong with me?

Maybe Dad had sensed something between Johnny and Mom, because he never took her out for supper when we were at the lake. He preferred she cook for him. He liked to say why waste money on restaurants when you could get a perfectly good meal at home. The truth was so far from what I'd just told Johnny that I felt sad.

“So, you grew up in Toronto then?” I asked. “You don't sound Canadian.”

The expression in his eyes disappeared like he was shutting down inside, but he answered my question without any less friendliness in his voice. “Lived in South Carolina when I was a boy. My family spent summers here with my relatives. Your mom and her sister Peg spent summers here too.” He grabbed the cigarettes and gum. “Thanks and give your mom my best.”

He was near the door. I called out, “Mom told me you grew up in New York.”

His shoulders tensed before he swung around and looked at me. “Yeah, that's right. We lived in New York after South Carolina. Manhattan to be exact.”

“Your accent isn't as strong as Candy's.”

Johnny studied me. “She spent more time in the South than I did. I got out first chance I could. Well, I guess I'll see you around.”

“Yeah, see you around.”

He pushed open the door and stepped outside, letting the screen door snap hard like a gunshot against the frame. He was gone so fast, he didn't look back to apologize. It was almost as if something had spooked him.

I
crossed the beach and climbed until I reached the refuge of my flat rock. Tonight, I'd brought my poetry notebook. I propped my back against the rock behind my seat and bent my knees so that I could write with my book resting against my legs. I'd been working on a poem inspired by my father.

I am not the person you see

When your eyes meet mine

I am more

Than the broken pieces

You've formed in your mind

The start seemed okay, but I was struggling with the last line. I wasn't too sure about the word formed, but would let it stay for a while until I could think of something better. I looked out at the water.

Who did my father see when he looked at me? Was it me or my sister Annie? I used to think he got the two of us confused in his head, especially before he had the breakdown. He'd sit and stare at me when he thought I wasn't watching, as if he was trying to see something in my face that should have been there.

It was early evening in Ottawa. I was eight years old, sitting on the living room floor playing with my paper dolls. Dad had been in his recliner reading the paper as he did every night after supper. For some reason, I'd turned and looked up from where I'd organized my dolls on the couch. It might have been the sound of the paper dropping to the floor or the heaviness of his grief filling the room that made me raise my eyes to look at him. I remember not being able to take in what was happening at first, and then the fear that kept me rooted in place as if my arms and legs were frozen.

Tears silently tracked down my father's face in two straight lines. His shoulders heaved back and forth as if his whole body were going to come apart. I could feel my heart pounding hard in my chest where I sat as still as a mouse, trying to disappear into myself, but I jumped when a whimpering started deep in his throat. It rose in pitch to a keening, like a dog I'd seen once with its foot caught in a rabbit trap when William took me for a walk in the woods. The sound scared me so much that I sprang up from the carpet and ran for the door. I opened my mouth to call for my mother, but she was there before I made a sound. She'd flown past me into the living room, wiping her hands on her apron and calling my dad's name over and over. She'd dropped onto her knees beside his chair. I stood in the doorway until she yelled at me to go find William.

The ambulance came when I was skipping outside on the sidewalk. I stopped and watched two men dressed in white take Dad away strapped down on a stretcher. Mom followed with a look on her face I never wanted to see again.

When she got home from the hospital, I was in bed. She climbed the stairs to my room to check on me. I asked if Dad was okay, and she said he would be in time. For now, it was better if we didn't visit him in the hospital. She told William and me later that we shouldn't talk about Annie or Dad being sick after he came home. It was the last time I asked my mother about his breakdown. It was the start of our silent pact to pretend that Annie had never existed.

I sat on my rock, listening to the waves breaking on the beach and watching the sun sink lower and start to light up the horizon in faint pink that deepened into orange and black. Every so often, I'd close my eyes and let myself drift off. The mosquitoes and blackflies were making their nightly visit, but I'd brought a hooded sweatshirt that I pulled on over my head. I tightened the strings around my neck so that they couldn't get into my hair and hunkered down to wait them out. Once the sun went down completely, they'd be gone wherever it is flies go to sleep. I sat there on my rock until the rim of the sun disappeared and the moon took over, sparkling light across the water and the sand. I liked being at the beach when it was dark. The whole world took on a mystical feel and I felt part of something bigger than myself. Less alone.

I must have dozed off because I didn't hear his approach until he was on the rock below me. I almost tumbled sideways off my ledge.

“Not scared to be out here all by yourself after dark?”

I clutched where my heart was trying to break through my chest. “Not until this exact moment, I wasn't. What are you doing here?”

“I just like sitting here with you on this rock.”

Tyler swung a blue-jeaned leg up over and turned himself around so he was next to me. His leg touched mine, he was sitting that close. I wondered if my heart would ever slow down, but I knew I was being stupid. He'd chosen Jane Ratherford over me the summer before. He didn't want me for a girlfriend and I didn't want to be anything but. An angry part of me wished he'd just leave me alone. The bigger part of me was glad he'd come.

“What're you writing?” he asked. He'd picked up my notebook and let the first page fall open. I grabbed it from him and tucked it under my bum.

“Just some poetry I'm playing around with. Nothing worth reading.”

“Maybe you can read me something.”

“It's too dark.”

“Yeah.” Tyler sighed and leaned back against the big rock behind us. His voice got real soft. “Do you miss Cedar Lake when you're away for the winter?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Hard to believe, I know. There's never much going on here, but I feel … I don't know … free or something when I'm at the lake.”

“I know what you mean. I guess you have to come here from the time you're little to get it. Remember all the fun you and me had? It would be nice if things hadn't changed.”

I couldn't look at him. If he knew how much I missed his company, he'd beat it off my rock in double time. I pulled the hood back from my sweatshirt. “No stopping change,” I said.

We sat quietly for a while. A wind had come up off the water that tossed my hair around my face and felt cool on my skin. Somewhere off to my right, a dog howled and a second dog answered. The waves crashed louder on the beach. It was okay that Tyler and I weren't talking. It felt easy for the moment sitting there next to him, listening to the night sounds.

“Do you ever wonder if it's worth it sometimes?” Tyler asked.

I turned to look at his face in profile. In the shadowy light, he was staring straight ahead as if he couldn't take his eyes off whatever it was he was watching that hovered beyond us in the dark. He shifted his leg away from mine. His hair was blowing back from his face and he looked younger than sixteen.

“What is it, Tyler?” My voice was almost a whisper. I put my hand next to his on the rock. I wanted to touch him, but didn't feel that I could.

“I just can't see an end to all the crap some days. It drags me down, you know?”

Something in his voice made me sad. “It'll get better,” I said. “We all know these are the hard years. At least, that's what my mom says.”

“Your mom. She's a good person. You're lucky to have a mom like her. She's a lot more fun to be around than mine, that's for damn sure.” He turned to me and laughed. He picked up my hand and squeezed it before letting it go. “Sorry for getting all weird there. You're just so easy to talk to.”

I tried to get over the fact that he'd just grabbed my hand. I took a breath. “Is something going on with you?” I asked. “Something you want to talk about?”

“Life's good. I was just … getting sidetracked. Mom wants to put Andrew into a group home but Dad says no. She says raising a mentally handicapped son has worn her out, but Dad doesn't want any son of his living with other freaks. His words, not mine.”

“What does Andrew want to do? He's eighteen now, right?”

“Yeah, he's eighteen. He wants to leave and have a girlfriend and do all the things normal people do, but he's not normal. Never has been and never will be.”

“Where is he now? I haven't seen him around.”

“Dad finally agreed to let him stay in the group home until September. Now my parents are fighting over whether he should come home or not.” Tyler shrugged and stopped talking. After a bit, he said, “It's nice sometimes though to think of you sitting here on this rock, watching the waves and writing in your book. I've missed being friends. I know what I did to hurt you, and I'm sorry.”

“It's okay.” I took a breath. “I missed you too.”

“I guess we're friends then.” I could see his lips curve into a smile. “So how's your old man these days?”

“Not great. He's getting more and more obsessive about stuff, and flies off the handle for nothing.”

Tyler sat still for a few seconds then turned toward me. “Do you ever wonder what he'd be like if your sister hadn't died?”

“All the time.” I closed my eyes for a second and pushed my face into the wind. It felt good on my skin. “Dad hates coming up here. He wanted Mom to sell the store, but she wouldn't because it was her dad's and she spent every summer here when she was little. After Annie died, Dad couldn't handle this place. Even after all this time, he just comes weekends and leaves early Sunday. He's never been back to Minnow Beach.”

“I'm sorry, Dar. I shouldn't have brought it up.”

“It was so long ago, I don't think about it much. Ten years is a long time. I was just six when she drowned.” I didn't talk about the dull ache in my chest when I thought of Annie or the weird dreams I had sometimes that she was still alive. “Since my dad got sick, we all act like the accident didn't happen, like there never was an Annie. But I used to hear Mom crying in her room when I came home from school for a long time after she died. When Mom heard me in the house, she'd come out of her bedroom and pretend like nothing was wrong. She put away all the pictures of Annie so we wouldn't be reminded.”

“If you ever need to talk … “

“I know.”

We sat for a while longer not saying anything, then Tyler stood and stretched his arms into the sky. “It's too dark for you to write any more. You ready to go? I'll walk you home.”

“Yeah, I'm ready.”

Tyler left me at the footpath to our house. I listened to his footsteps smack the road as he jogged away from me until they were only a faint echo in the distance. Then I slowly started up the path to our store.

Monday morning, I'd picked up another babysitting job not far from Gideon's. After I'd earned my two-fifty, I biked over to see him. He didn't answer his door and I wandered around into the backyard to find him sitting on the bench next to a bed of yellow daylilies with his head thrown back, snoring. Ruby lay at his feet, her head resting on her front paws. She looked up at me and her tail thump-thumped on the bench leg as I approached, but she didn't get up to meet me as she usually did. I eased myself next to Gideon and gave Ruby's head and ears a good rub. Gideon stirred beside me and his eyes opened.

“Hey, Gideon. You looked peaceful sleeping in the sun.”

“Little Fin. I was just saying to Ruby that you'd probably be by today.”

Gideon's voice was full of phlegm and he turned his head to cough. He leaned forward and spat on the ground.

“You should see a doctor about that cough,” I said. “You might have bronchitis or even pneumonia.” I'd had pneumonia twice and had been really sick the second time when I was twelve. I'd had to spend three weeks in the hospital, and soon after that they'd removed my tonsils. Gideon's cough sounded worse than mine, and there had been times I'd thought I was coughing up a lung.

“I've seen a doctor and he has me on some medicine. It's probably what's making me sleep in the middle of the day. Nothing to worry about. Let's head inside for some tea. You can make it if you're wanting to look after me.”

He smiled his quick smile and we stood together. Nanny was bleating in her pen on the other side of the yard.

“Silly old goat,” Gideon said. “Thinks she's a real person. Probably heard our voices and figured she should be in on the excitement. I'll see to her while you go make the tea. I might need to give her a bit more lunch.”

“Okay.”

I stopped at the back door and turned to look at Gideon. He was moving stiffly and more hunched over than normal. I watched him open the shed door and step inside before I opened the screen door to enter his kitchen.

We sat in our usual chairs, Gideon in his desk chair and me in his leather recliner. We sipped our tea and I felt myself relaxing. Gideon set his cup next to him on the desktop ringed in coffee stains and scarred by cigarette burns. He said, “Have a little project for you, if you're interested. I'll pay since I know it'll take away from the store and babysitting.”

“A project?”

“Yeah. A writing project. I'd like you to do the legwork on an article I promised to one of those fancy ladies' magazines. I meant to do it myself but between writing my column in the
Globe
and a few poems and articles I got on the go, this particular project won't get the attention it needs.”

“What's this article about?”

“It's about life in cottage land. The pros. The cons. What it means to those who own a cottage and come back year after year. What it's like for new cottagers.”

“I could collect information about that,” I said excitedly. Already a storyline was taking shape in my head. “I could interview some people and get their quotes and bring you enough to write an excellent piece.”

“Exactly what the magazine is after. If you could take a few photos too, that should be enough. I can lend you my camera over on the shelf there.”

I glanced at him to see if he was kidding. Gideon's Canon 35mm camera was his baby. He developed his own photos in a darkroom he'd set up in one of the bedrooms. I'd worked with him often, developing black and white pictures as he taught me the process, hanging the pictures by clothes pegs on a line he'd strung over the workbench.

“How long will the article be?”

“Oh, a few thousand words. Maybe three thousand. The important thing is to tell an interesting story and to add some human interest.”