Things I’ll Never Say (9 page)

They left town right after the school year ended. And good as her word, Ruthie sent me three letters the first week. Two the second. And one a week for three months after that. I thought about writing her back, but something always stopped me. It wasn't just that popular kids didn't write someone like Ruthie. After all, no one would have known if I'd slipped her a note now and then, if I'd responded to her enthusiasms about the house they found with a stable right next door, about skinny-dipping in their neighbor's creek, and finally about her new school. I never answered those letters, though, never wrote her a single word.

The truth is, when the Kepners drove off, they took their craziness with them. The girls at school closed ranks again, as if a wound had healed, an infection been drawn out. I stopped composing song lyrics after that; my secret notebook remained untouched, a third of its pages still begging for angst and dirty words. I gave no more air concerts with Courtney. My mirror was used only to make sure each morning that my jeans were the approved length and that my hair conformed to the officially sanctioned style. When people asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I usually said a lawyer or a dentist. And I meant it.

Even alone in my room, I no longer dreamed of being a rock star or pictured myself on album covers with a black rose clenched in my teeth. That rose, finally, seemed as improbable, as far from my reach, as a Hello Kitty pencil case or mismatched socks. I simply didn't have what it takes. I would never laugh at rules, never kiss strange men, never put my fist through a mirror or my shoes on a coffee table.

But Ruthie Kepner would. It was in her blood. I'd seen that the afternoon she and her mother stood on the sidewalk, howling into each other's faces. I'd known, listening to the raucous, infectious music of their laughter, that all the stories she took for granted, only half listened to, had made Ruthie Kepner strong in a way I could never be. That wherever she went, whatever she did, she would never be afraid of who she was. And I just couldn't forgive her for that. Any more than I could write and tell her why.

I had been summoned to Bread & Waters Loans. I was walking in just as she was walking out, and I held the door, like you should even for somebody nowhere near this pretty. It just makes the world a little less sucky to live in when you bring the small courtesies to it. I don't care if it's a guy, even — I will hold that door for a nice thank-you. She nodded and smiled at me, like you should when somebody holds a door open for you.

So right from the start, we were both doing just what we should have.

“Who was that?” I say to Charlie Waters Jr., who owns the whole place even though he's not that much older than me. It's a pawnshop. His father died.

“Sally sells seashells by the seaside,” he says as I approach the counter.

“That's your answer?”

He holds up a heavy ceramic dish, like a dinner serving platter. It's not for dinner, though. It's more of a wall plate, painted. Hand-painted, from the look of the daubs and swirls. And the painting is of the storefront of this very establishment, Bread & Waters Loans. In real life, the place looks more like a big old junk shop, but in this rendering, it appears closer to one of those countrified general stores where you buy an eight-dollar cranberry-walnut loaf that tastes just like a red brick.

“Celeste sells ceramics to the seashore saps.”

“Did you just make that up?”

“That's it; you're bringing too many questions today. I told you people don't like a lot of questions around here, didn't I?”

“You did.”

“There, that's better. You'll never be popular in Lundy Lee if you ask a lot of questions. You want to be popular, don't you?”

“I certainly do, sir.”

“Don't be sassy with me. Getting sassy is right behind overquestioning on the list of things that will severely hobble your popularity around . . .”

While Charlie Waters Junior continues like that, it should be noted that he talks to me in this way because he feels he's got ownership of me. It's not right, but not completely without reason, either. I sort of got myself into this situation and he sort of liked it and so here we are.

It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that I pawned myself to him.

“Just tell me about that girl, Charlie, dammit.”

“Shouting and swearing. Shouting and swearing. Those things are fine around here. Lundy Lee loves a shouty sweary guy.”

He does this stuff on purpose. He knows how nuts he's driving me, and it is no small treat for him. So, rather than fuel it anymore, I just make praying hands.

“Now we're talkin',” he says. “That, I like. First off, she's
hardly
a girl. She's a woman. Too old for you. But I agree, she is definitely catch of the day. Now,
me
and her, that's a different story. I think this plate here is just the beginning, an opening move in a romantic chess match that's gonna result in something . . .”

While Charlie goes on, it should be noted that two months ago, I was the fresh catch. I was what the tide washed up on the Lundy Lee shore. My father sent me. Dad had borrowed money from his brother, my uncle Dominic, and to the surprise of absolutely nobody, was unable to pay it back. So Dad paid him with me. I was to come up here and work in the café Uncle Dom had just opened here to restart life with his brand-new Estonian bride, who he called Bobbi because I'm sure he gave up on pronouncing whatever her name actually is.

That could be why I'm so comfortable with the situation now where Charlie Waters Jr. holds the pawn ticket that is essentially the leasehold on my life. I was my father's property, and then my uncle's property, so indentured servitude is no shock to my system. My circumstances certainly don't appear to be any grimmer than those of most of the people I see around here every day. It's a kind of bleak place, I suppose. But I'm happy here, and was pretty much from the start.

“Are you even paying attention to me?” he asks.

“No.” I have the painted plate in my hands, examining it up close. It's nice, professional looking as far as I can tell. And it's familiar. “Wait a minute. I know her. Well, not
her
, but her paintings. They weren't on plates; they were on canvas. My uncle's café had them up all over, watercolors of the coast all around here, and they were for sale.”

“Yeah, those were Celeste's. She never got 'em back, either, when your uncle bugged out, so I guess you owe her, too.”

“They're probably still there, buried inside the café building. I don't think he got away with anything before the bank locked him out.”

“Eh, same result. She doesn't have her art, so technically I'd say your family has purchased the whole batch. They had price stickers on them, right? Case closed.”

My family. Case closed. How many cases has my family closed?

“How come your legal rulings never come down in my favor?”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Warren, but your case has already been closed. We can hear no more motions.”

“Yeah? Can you
see
any?” I say, and manhandle myself in an obscene manner to register my contempt for the court.

“Your crudeness does not alter the fact that you have been found liable for the outstanding bill or returning said works to the artist.”

“Well, then, I guess I'd better start making some serious money.”

“Yeah, you
are
a very serious monkey. You should lighten up sometimes.”

“Grrrr. What did you call me in for, Charlie? You got a job for me or what?”

“Nah, I was just lonely.”

I growl again, “Grrr,” even though it never has any effect on him. “You
should
be lonely.” Then I pivot to storm out.

My storm, however, gets downgraded almost instantly as the door opens and she comes in again.

“Hiya, Celeste,” Charlie Waters calls, very rushed-like and uncool just to beat me to hello even though I am easily fifteen feet closer to greeting her than he is. Very, very uncool.

“Hiya,” I say weakly and
waving
like a simpleton when she's only three feet in front of me. On the way past, she's smiling like a sunrise and she touches my ribs lightly with her fingertips. The sensation prickles all up down and around, as if she's got a thousand fingers and I have a thousand piano keys for ribs.

I
waved
at her. It's no wonder, Warren, honestly.

“I was thinking about what you said earlier,” Celeste says to Charlie as I stand like a stupid sapling, rooted right in the middle of the shop.

“Hold on a second,” Charlie says to her. “Warren, shouldn't you be getting on that job?”

“What job is that?”

“Unearthing that buried treasure. Take the bike, too. Having a nice cycle for yourself will be healthy.”

He didn't have to say that. I came here on the bike, after all. But since the bike was one of the many items Bread & Waters loaned me when I needed to establish my new life, he probably felt a little reminder was in order. I also got a phone and some basics like a microwave, space heater, and electric blanket for the room I rented when the café went under and took my accommodation with it. The new place isn't bad, right in town and above a bait-and-tackle shop that is out of business in every way but the smell.

“I'll get right on it, sir,” I say, leaving Charlie alone with Celeste in the shop.

And get right on it I do. Because while Charlie Waters Jr. clearly seems to have some kind of plan that involves keeping Celeste around and keeping me away, I might have another kind of plan. I have to do what he tells me because I am his, after all, but I can control how fast I get it done and get back.

I pedal hard on the cobalt-blue mountain bike I was allowed to choose from the four he had in the shop. It could have been pawned when the owner realized that Lundy Lee is flat as a coin and doesn't need mountain gear of any kind. I selected it half as a gag, expecting Charlie to say no and stick me with one of the other rickety bikes. But he didn't. He took care of me right. Like he does.

The town seems spooky motionless as I tear through it. It can seem practically abandoned at certain times when you are just walking through it, past the Laundromat and the tiny pharmacy and the liquor store and the bakery that tells you with a great big sign that
WE'RE OPEN!
Even though they never are. But when I am speeding through on two wheels, it is entirely possible to believe that the last ferry came and emptied this place of humanity a decade or two ago.

I love it here. That's why I stayed even when I had no job and no room and no family once my uncle's café closed down. He and Bobbi came here like a lot of people taking advantage of the boom times predicted by new ferry routes this summer. The one existing ferry running between Lundy Lee and the big island twice a day was joined and would eventually be replaced by some sleek and fast new thing that was going to do a schedule of landings on many of the vacation islands in these waters.

It was a sparkling bright idea. It's what brought me here, essentially, to serve the spenders who would return the Lee to former glories it probably never had. Except it turned out nobody was all that interested. My father expected me to come back after the summer or after “Dum-Duminic” went bust, whichever came first. He might still be expecting me. Or not.

Uncle Dom's bride, Bobbi, at least made use of the service, hopping on one of those boats when nobody was looking and as far as I could tell nobody was caring.

And so the rusted tub of an old ferry, the
Lucky Buoy
, just continued on, chugging in and out of the old harbor twice daily as if to mock all those fancy ideas anybody might have had about moving on up and scuttling the old
Buoy
anytime soon. It is steaming into port as I pass out of the town center again and head up the Tidal Road, along the marshy grasses to the locked-up premises of the Crabbit Café.

It wasn't a bad place, in a nice sunsetty spot here on the tidal river. But even with tourists, Dom would have had a tough time, since he didn't know anything about running a restaurant and didn't seem to want to know. The café was open for only five weeks before the curtain came down on the whole thing, but still, as I stand on the porch that runs the whole length of Crabbit Café's west-facing, marsh-scented frontage, I feel sad. I hate it when somebody tries. When they try something and it just refuses to work for them.

It is all of two minutes before I am inside the café. Despite the lockdown, I knew I would be able to shimmy my skinny self through the small screen window leading to the pantry. Once inside, I go straight to where the artworks are lined up like dominoes alongside tables and chairs neatly stacked for whatever the next stage of this kind of awfulness is.

I flip through the selection of more than a dozen watercolor coastal scenes, and I think I like them well enough despite a sort of sameness that connects them to one another and to probably every other local-artist watercolor all the way up and down the coast and across the sea. But these are good, I think. I don't know art, but I know I like Celeste.