The Secrets of Lily Graves (6 page)

On rare occasions, he would brighten when he mentioned his baby nephew, the son of his older half sister, Susan, who lived in Illinois. Other than casual references to his father's strict rules against partying, he didn't talk about his parents much except to say that his mother worked at the DMV and liked to crochet, and that when his dad wasn't coaching high school football, he did construction. They watched a lot of football on TV.

He never spoke of James again, much to my disappointment.

One day, we had just finished a session on Henry Ford and the automobile's affect on American culture when I let it slip that I didn't have my license. Matt sat on the tomb of Arthur Waxman in the blistering August heat as the cicadas buzzed and gaped in awe.

“You don't know how to drive?”

I shrugged. “Not really.”

“But you're going to be a senior. What the . . . ?”

There were plenty of lies at my disposal—the family car was a hearse that got lousy gas mileage and was hard to park, the environment could do with a little less air pollution, thank you, walking was good exercise,
etc. Instead, I went with the truth.

“I took driver's ed and I have my permit, but my mother won't let me use the car.” There. Done. “Now, we really should try to squeeze in . . .”

“Your mother won't
let
you?” Matt scoffed. “What are you, six?”

Obviously, he was not going to be satisfied until I explained the situation. I closed my book and let him have it.

“Look. When you work in the funeral business, you go to the scenes of a lot of car crashes,” I said, relishing the shock I was about to induce. “My mother has actually had to shovel people off the road.
Shovel
, Matt.” I made a shoveling motion. “As in
scrape
.”

He remained impassive. “So?”

Was he for real? Human remains splattered on the pavement were about the grossest thing ever. “The woman's been traumatized. Do you have any idea what it's like driving with her? She grips the door handle and smashes an invisible brake over and over. It's impossible to rack up forty hours with her sitting next to me. We'd kill each other.”

He ran a finger under his lower lip. “All right, starting next week, I'll pick you up in my truck and we'll clock some hours.”

I was speechless. Then again, how else was I going
to rack up the necessary hours demanded by the DMV? “I don't suppose your truck is automatic.”

He reeled in offense. “Do I look like a wuss?”

“I can't do it, then. I tried once with Boo's Honda and nearly broke the clutch.”

“I don't care. You've got to learn standard,” he said, placing his hand on mine. “Every girl should.”

His hand was warm and his fingers, I noticed, were long, like an artist's. Matt didn't seem to think anything of letting his hand linger there and I didn't dare pull away.

“Why girls?” I asked, acting as if guys like him held my hand every day.

Matt's gaze met mine. I'd never realized before how mesmerizing his eyes were, slightly almond-shaped and a deep brown, framed by surprisingly feminine lashes.

“Because guys are dicks, that's why. You don't want to be leaving a party with some drunken asshat behind the wheel just because you can't shift.”

He had me at “guys are dicks.”

Alas, even the most sensible plans can turn out to be failures. Three days later I was behind the wheel of Matt's blue pickup truck in a deserted church parking lot, ready to explode. Driving sucked. Stick shift really
sucked. Truck stick shift could go . . .

“Swearing's not necessary, Graves,” Matt said, smiling. “Cool down, and this time, as you raise your foot off the clutch, step on the gas in an even motion.”

Hot, bothered, and totally frustrated by this stupid, stupid system, I blew a stray strand of hair off my sweaty cheek, gripped the steering wheel, and did my best to ease my foot off the clutch. But either I was releasing too soon or not gassing it fast enough, because the truck lurched, bucked violently, and stalled.

I sat back. “I hate this.”

Matt yanked up the parking brake to stop our forward roll. “No, you don't. You
want
to hate this. Soon you will love shifting and yearn to go zero to sixty in under five.”

“Never. I give up. Anyway, what we're doing is illegal. Technically, I'm supposed to be accompanied by a licensed driver who's at least twenty-one. You're seventeen.”

“Eighteen,” Matt corrected, adding with a twist of his lips, “and don't worry. You're with me. Membership in the Matt Club has its privileges.”

“Oh, please. Because you're the Potsdam Panthers' football hero?”

“Don't get pissy. Now, seriously, let's give it another go. Once you get the hang of shifting, you'll never
forget it. Like learning how to ride a bike.”

Another miserable childhood experience. “Maybe you should drive,” I said. “I've lost interest.”

“Not so fast. I have another idea.”

Unsnapping his seat belt, he got out and jogged around to my side, opening the door and sliding in. I scooted over, glad to once again be a passenger. Then he raised the steering column, pushed back the seat and patted his shorts. “Hop on.”

I gawked at his bare knees and snorted. “You have got to be kidding.”

“It's the only way you'll learn. I did it with my dad. I was seven, but, you know, better late than never.”

“You honestly want me to sit on your lap?”

“And put your feet over mine. That way you'll get the feel of how and when to release the clutch.”

I'd get a feel for a lot more than that, I thought, flustered by the images racing through my mind. “It won't work.”

He arched an eyebrow. “Wait. If you think this is my lame attempt to make a move . . .”

“No. Geez. Matt.
No.
” Though that was exactly what I'd been thinking.

“. . . because if I wanted to make a move, Graves, I just would. I don't need a trick.”

“I never said you were trying to trick me. That was
the furthest thing from my mind.”

He grinned. “Then why are you blushing?”

I slapped my cheeks in horror. “I'm not blushing. In case you haven't noticed, it's ninety degrees in this truck.”

“Okay, well, I'm not moving until you give this a shot.” He shrugged. “You can sit there being weird or you can relax and give it a try.”

“Fine. We'll do it your way.” Anything to wipe off that smirk. Wiggling over, I squeezed my hips under the steering wheel and perched myself on his knees. “There. Satisfied?”

“Almost.” With both hands around my waist, he slowly pulled me into him and positioned me so my back was solidly against his chest. I was acutely aware that my flimsy cotton sundress was the only material separating my legs from his lightly hairy, rock-hard thighs. When he reached around to grab the steering wheel, my heart dropped five stories.

“All righty then. Left foot over left foot. Right over right. You put your hand on the shift.” I put my hand on the shift. “Follow my lead.”

He closed his hand over mine. My stomach clenched as I registered the warmth of his body.

The truck started and Matt murmured into my ear, “You okay?”

I swallowed. “Yup.”

“Clutch is on the left. Gas on the right.”

“I know that.”

“Do you? From the way you just stalled, I wasn't sure.”

I elbowed him in the chest.

“Hey, hey, hey. No need for violence. Now, pay attention.”

He lifted his left foot and simultaneously depressed the right. The truck took off gradually and I noticed that Matt had leaned more on the gas than I had. So that's what I'd been doing wrong. I'd been too hesitant to give it juice.

We revved the engine and then I said, “Shift!” remembering to pull the stick into second after he stepped on the clutch. Heading down the service road, out of the empty business park, I moved into third without his reminder.

“Excellent!” he said, pushing my hair out of his face, his fingers trailing along the back of my neck.

He's got a girlfriend,
I reminded myself.

“The engine's straining. Got to get it up to fourth,” he said. “There are monkeys on YouTube better at this than you are, Graves.”

That did it. My nervousness and the image of YouTube monkeys sent me into an uncontrollable spasm of
hysterics. I lifted my feet and in doing so accidentally kicked Matt's off the pedals, causing the truck to jerk with a shudder and stall. My head nearly went through the windshield.

Matt shifted into neutral and slammed the brake. “What's wrong with you? You were doing fine.”

I fell off his lap onto the passenger seat and kept on laughing. I couldn't help it.

“Have you no dignity?” He placed a hand on his hip and feigned shock at my exposed, bare, tanned legs, which he was openly admiring.

“Rude!” I said, blushing again as I smoothed down the skirt of my dress and sat up.

“Those are not half bad. If you didn't always keep them hidden in that funeral garb of yours, you'd probably get more action.”

“Shut up. I get plenty of action,” I lied.

“With who? Eric Pienkowski?”

Low blow. Eric was one of those cocky nerds who went on and on about the advantages of PCs over Macs, as if anyone cared. He'd also been my lab partner in Chem, which Matt kept trying turn into something more.

I slapped my hand over his mouth. “Drop the Eric Pienkowski stuff.”

Matt licked my palm until I yanked off my hand
and wiped it on the seat. “Ew!”

“That's what you get for trying to shut me up.” He turned the ignition and took a left toward downtown and the library.

My damp hand was coated with small white hairs. “This truck is so gross. Don't you ever clean it?”

“Relax, Martha Stewart. Erin's dog, Sparkle, was riding shotgun yesterday. Guess she's shedding.”

It so figured that Erin had a dog named Sparkle, no doubt a yippy shih tzu with a rhinestone collar. “What kind is it, a little fluff ball?”

“A little fluff ball that can take your head off. It's an Akita, nastiest canine on the planet. Fortunately, she likes me.”

We drove through depressed downtown Potsdam, past the Dollar General and Salabsky's Beverages with its neon Yuengling sign, past Twice Is Nice, a store selling used furniture, and Victoria's Attic, the secondhand/antique store where I'd found the Persephone necklace.

Matt glanced out his side window and groaned. “You get one place to grow up, and this is the card we drew.” He flicked his fingers toward the old Woolworth, its windows soaped and boarded. “Lucky us.”

“What's wrong with it?” Not that I didn't have my own criticisms about Potsdam; I was just curious to
hear his take.

“The air smells like stale beer, for starters.” He rolled down the window, sniffed, and then coughed as the pungent stench wafted into the truck. “Everything here is dying. Or already dead. There's no place to go, nothing to do. The day after graduation, I'm outta here and never coming back.”

“Where to?”

He slouched against the truck door, one arm dangling over the steering wheel. “The whole world, I guess. Everywhere.”

“Everywhere is a pretty big place. Do you have a starting point?”

“I don't know. Alaska, maybe. My uncle has a connection with a guy who runs a salmon boat and is looking for gillnetters. Good money in that. You could make eight thousand in just a summer, easy.”

Interesting. Until he brought up Alaska, I'd pictured Matt as the typical jock whose best years would be playing for Penn State. After that, it would be a mid-level job at the brewery managing inventory, a pretty but dissatisfied wife, two kids playing Little League, and on the rare occasion, a reunion with his frat brothers, where he'd get totally wasted.

“With eight grand, I could go anywhere, cross the Bering Strait to Siberia, hike through China and check
out Thailand,” he continued. “Then, I'd really like to get to India and see sunrise at the Taj Mahal. I hear it's a very spiritual experience.”

My eyebrows lifted. Was this the same Matt Houser who couldn't have cared less about the Transcendentalists' effect on American culture?

“You seem shocked,” he said when we stopped at the light.

“Not shocked.” I hunted for the right word that wouldn't offend his precious male ego. “
Confused.
What happened to ‘I've got to pass US History so I can play football'?”

“Technically, I still have to pass so I won't sit on the bench.” The light turned green and he took a left toward the library. “But if I had it my way, I wouldn't go to college. At least not yet. I want my life to be different than what everyone's got planned for me, Graves. I want to be
free
.”

That word hung in the air between us, potent with meaning.

“You're already free,” I said. “You're eighteen and a boy. You can do whatever you want.”

Matt threw an arm over the back of the seat and parallel parked into a space one block from the library, completing with one smooth move a maneuver that would have taken me fourteen tries. Then he killed the
engine, removed his keys, and said abruptly, “I can't.”

“Can't what?”

“Do what I want.”

“Sure you can.” I lifted my book bag from the floor. Like everything else in this truck, it was covered with Sparkle's white hair. “Why can't you?”

“Because.” He stared straight ahead, his expression vacant.

I followed his gaze to the library, where a girl sat on the steps, wearing a green tank top and shorts, her red hair pulled into a tight ponytail, her arms folded. Waiting.

For us.

“Uh oh,” I said.

Matt rubbed his brow. “Shit.”