GRAYSON

“TIMBERLANDS,” I SAID. “THE UNIVERSAL SHOE choice of complete tools. Poor Wren.”

“Jealous much?” Eben asked, stuffing the last of the tablecloths into the bag.

“Jealous? Of what?” I asked, hoisting the laundry bag over my shoulder. At that moment Wren came into view. She caught me staring. I waved. Me. The village idiot with a nut‑sack‑shaped thirty‑pound bag of laundry on his back. Jealous couldn’t even describe what I felt when I watched the four of them disappear into the night.

“That was more about Maddie,” Eben said. “You do realize that?”

“Whatever.” What had I expected by taking this job? Of course she thought I was stalking her. Was I stalking her? No. Stalking was sinister, like I wanted to scalp her and make a sweater from her hair. I had something more, ah, mutually pleasurable in mind. I thought–well, she felt the same, didn’t she? We’d been getting along all night.

I followed Eben to the loading‑dock door and slammed the laundry down.

“So we’re done?” I asked, wiping my hands off on my pants.

“Still want to go to Leaning Tower?” he asked. “I can see that Wren’s leaving has your boxers in a bunch, and I’m as hungry as hell and don’t feel like eating alone.”

“I could eat,” I offered.

“Great, see ya there.”

Eben was sitting in a front booth when I arrived. He had a couple of Corona longnecks in a bucket of ice and one opened in his hand. I slid into the cushy, red‑booth seat across from him.

“Can I grab one of those?” I asked, taking off my jacket.

“They’ll card you,” he said, smiling.

“No problem,” I answered, taking one and wiping off the excess water with my cuff. The waitress came over. An older chick, probably about Eben’s age. Cute.

“I’m going to need some ID.”

“Really? C’mon,” I said, leaning back. She stiffened. Eben shifted in his seat.

“My manager is over there, and if you want me to open this for you, you’re going to have to prove you can legally drink it.”

“Sorry, just messing with you. No one’s asked for this since my birthday,” I said, reaching into my back pocket and pulling out my wallet. She grabbed my ID and held my gaze a moment before putting it up to the stained‑glass lamp that hung over the table. Her light eyes scanned the important information. Satisfied, she handed it back to me.

“Do you want a lime?” she asked, cracking the cap off with a bottle opener.

“Nah,” I said. Her fingers grazed mine as she pulled away.

“Don’t mess with me, Mike. I’m not in the mood.”

I raised the beer to her before taking a sip and watching her walk away.

Eben sat bug‑eyed across the table. “Mike?”

“It’s the name on my ID.”

“I get that, but I just witnessed you transform into a completely different person than you were back at the Camelot. It’s like the air around you changed,” he said, fanning his hand around.

“C’mon,” I said.

“So tell me this,” he said, leaning across the table. “Why should I be in your corner and not, say, the tool in the Timbos?”

I almost snotted my beer. “What do you mean?”

“Mike. Grayson. Whatever your name is, it’s plain to see you’re into Wren. You were heartbroken back–”

“Whoa, dude, I don’t get heartbroken.”

“Well, dude , you sure played the part back at the Camelot. And I’m right with you. Maddie means well, has been trying to hook Wren up since her jackwad of a boyfriend dumped her at the beach over the summer–but Wren’s not into it.”

“Someone dumped Wren . . . at the beach?” I sat up straight, intrigued. “Continue.”

“Then today . . . there’s something different about her. I didn’t put two and two together until the end of the night, after I egged her on to go with Maddie, and she told me she wanted to hang with us. Or more correctly . . . you.”

Hope bubbled in my chest. “She said that?”

“Yes, but not so fast–I’m not sure you’re worthy of her either.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You appear out of nowhere. Mysterious, hair‑flinging boy giving all his attention to my pretty little hothouse wallflower. My Spidey sense is up to begin with, and now this . . . Mike .”

“Hothouse wallflower?”

“Wren is all kinds of awesome; she just doesn’t know it. Being dumped really did a number on her pride. So she thinks it’s easier to hide out at the Camelot every weekend and call it work instead of putting herself out there. I want to make sure you’re not just playing her. Why are you interested?”

A question I’d tossed around myself. Eben seemed like the kind of person who might understand or who would at least listen, and considering my friends were scarce these days, I had nothing to lose.

“You know that saying, ‘One door closes, another door opens’?”

“My bullshit meter is off the charts,” he said, taking a long sip from his beer.

“Okay, Eben, I’m a total screwup. Got kicked out of school last year; my friends are gone. Any future I thought I had is on hold at the moment, and in walks Wren. . . .”

“And?”

“And I want to know her.”

“Know her how?”

Knowing Wren in every sense of the word had crossed my mind, but it wasn’t the first thing. And that was something I hadn’t experienced since, like, never. I dug the way I felt around her. I could be myself, but a new‑and‑improved version.

“She’s . . . sweet. Smart. I feel good around her, like it’s okay to be myself. And I think she’s the kind of person who is, you know, naturally good. Not because it’s right or anything, just because that’s who she is, like a moral compass. I want her in my life, and if that’s just as friends, well, okay. I’m down for that.”

“Well, I was hoping for something sexier than a moral compass, but okay. I like you for her,” he said, clinking his beer against mine. “But I smell an iota of bullshit and . . .”

“And I leave the Camelot.”

“Glad we understand each other,” he said.

The waitress came back with our pizza and set it down on the stand between us. My stomach growled, but something else Eben had said bothered me. He took a plate, doled out a slice, and handed it to me.

“Dude, do I really fling my hair?”

Three beers and four slices later, I left Leaning Tower buzzing with something that felt like good cheer. The Chrysler was safe on a side street for the night, and I walked the ten blocks home, trying to stuff down thoughts of Wren and Caleb. Together. Somewhere warm. You told her to go, idiot .

So much for good cheer.

My house was dark, but I made no attempt to walk in quietly. Dad and Tiff were most likely out at some function, playing the part of the power sales couple. I went to the fridge, determined to reignite my buzz, and reached for a can of whatever beer my father chose to stock. I popped the lid, walked over to the great room, and screamed like a second grader when I saw a shadowy figure sitting on the sectional.

“Pop, what the hell?”

His throaty “Gotcha” cackle made me smile in spite of my heart, which was ready to tear out of my chest. “That was a good one.”

“Why are you sitting in the dark?”

“Eh, don’t know. I’ve been sitting here awhile. It’s peaceful. Tiff’s out at a Black Friday blowout sale with her friends. Where’ve you been?”

“I got a job. At the Camelot,” I said.

“Really? Why?” he asked, tipping his nightly glass of Bushmills to his lips. I sat down on the opposite end of the sofa.

“Don’t know. Seemed like a good thing to do. A way to keep busy,” I answered.

“Guess it’s better than pounding those drums.”

“Yeah, guess so.”

“Your mom called.”

I swallowed, hard, the cold beer burning the back of my throat. The taste of grease and cheese snaked its way up, not as good the second time around. Pop and Tiff had been out when I got in the night before and were still sleeping when I’d left in the morning. We hadn’t discussed Thanksgiving at all.

“Why did you hightail it out of there before dessert?”

I shrugged. “Watching my figure.”

Pop took another sip of Bushmills. “Your mother told me about the lacrosse thing. Grayson, if it bothers you so much, there’s got to be some league you could play in.”

“Pop, it doesn’t bother me,” I said, not wanting to get into a conversation about how I missed St. Gabe’s, which would just set him off into stories from his glory days. Today had been a good day, a day I’d forgotten about all that other crap.

“Then why’d you leave? You know how much this stuff upsets your mother. You have to take one for the team now and again.”

“What team? I’m definitely not an Easton.”

He swirled the whiskey in his glass. “Grayson, you know, if the tables were turned and you agreed to live with her, there’d be no way I’d put up with your bullshit. They are your family. It’s about time you came ’round to it.”

The day my mother left wasn’t monumental. My parents’ divorce was sickeningly amicable . That’s the word I heard them use when talking to friends. I remember looking it up. Peaceful . And on the surface, it was true. There were no shouting matches. No glasses thrown across the room. No heated debates over who got what. They simply woke up one day, decided they didn’t like the life they were living, and said, “Okay, done with this . . . next.” But the one thing they couldn’t split down the middle was me.

My mother had wanted me to live in Connecticut with her and Laird. This was before I figured out they’d probably been together before she broke up with Pop. I was in sixth grade and didn’t want to leave my friends. That was natural, she’d said, but I’d make new friends. Have better opportunities. A whole new world. And a dog.

I’d been groomed by Pop to go to St. Gabe’s. The silver and crimson Crusaders. Sat and froze my butt off during every Turkey Day game with him telling me, “That’ll be you someday, kid.” And even though I had no interest in football, the way he took such pride in it, the way he talked about the good old days, made St. Gabe’s sound like the only place for me.

But the dog . . . the dog was a tipping point. My mother had given me an out clause: If I completely hated it, I could come back and live with Pop. I would have weekends and holidays in Bayonne and summer vacations wherever he chose to take me. It would all work out great, she assured me. And I had decided as much. It was after school, on a Friday at dusk, when I’d padded down the stairs to tell him I’d give the Connecticut thing a try.

He’d stood with his back to me by our sliding doors to the deck. We had this thing about scaring each other, and I was stoked, because damn, this was a good one. He’d been so deep in thought, he hadn’t even heard me walk across the living room floor. I was about parallel to him, ready to pounce, when I noticed he was crying. Not sobs, just quiet, wet streams on his face. He was holding his glass of Bushmills, swirling the ice in the glass. And in that instant, even at eleven, I knew that if I left, this was what his life would become. When he saw me, he staggered back and dropped the glass of whiskey. The moment became about mops and blotting and vacuuming the shards, and it all took a good ten minutes to clean up.

We’d had a frozen Red Baron pepperoni pizza that night, and I’d told him I wanted to stay with him.

My mother already had Mr. Motherfucking Home Wrecker and a wedding date and a house in Connecticut. Pop had me, Bushmills, and frozen pizza. Maybe it all would have gone down the same if I chose to live with my mother. Maybe Pop would have found Tiff, and his real‑estate business would still have boomed. But maybe it wouldn’t have.

“Screw them,” I said, standing up. Sick of the darkness, the beer, and the depressing direction this conversation had taken, I clicked on the lamp and squinted in pain. My father put his hand over his eyes.

“Hey, don’t talk that way about your mother,” he said.

“Why? If she cared so much about keeping the family together, why’d she go create a new one?”

My father made an attempt to stand up, but he kept sliding down, losing his footing. He slammed down his drink on the end table; a splash of whiskey came up over the side.

“I hate this effing couch; my ass keeps slipping!” he yelled. A beat passed where neither of us said anything, just stared until we both cracked up. I reached out, gave him a hand, and pulled him to standing. He squeezed my shoulder.

“They are your family, Grayson. Even Laird.”

“Whatever.”

“Don’t whatever me. I won’t be here forever.”

“That’s the whiskey talking. Stop.”

“Maybe. But promise you’ll make an effort at Christmas.”

“Yeah, sure,” I lied.

NINE

WREN

“SO TELL ME AGAIN, WHAT WAS WRONG WITH Caleb?” Maddie asked, handing me another piece of tape.

In an attempt to build some community‑service hours, I’d joined the Sacred Heart Spirit Club. The club must have been a holdover from the century when most Sacred Heart students got married right after graduation. The bylaws were an old‑fashioned decree about learning how to beautify the world at large, beginning at home. I was pretty sure that hanging glitter stars and snowflake garlands along the hallways after school wouldn’t impact the world at large, but if it counted as community service, then I was determined to beautify. Mads was along for moral support.

“Let’s see, he licked my neck–and not in a sexy way, in a Great Dane kind of way. Sloppy,” I said, securing part of the garland and shimmying across the step stool to drape the rest of it. I reached out for more tape.

“That’s it? One flaw was enough to make you blow us off for the rest of the weekend?” she asked. She pulled the tape away as I reached for it, forcing me to turn to her.

“What?” I asked, grabbing it.

“There’s more to this, Wren. I know it. Caleb was hot, funny, and here for two nights. In a word, perfect.”

“Then why didn’t you offer Jazz that perfection?” I asked, taping the last bit of garland to the crease where the wall met the ceiling.

“I did. She wanted to rest up for her long run on Sunday, so she said. I think she’s just afraid that no one will live up to her movie‑romance ideals,” she said, giving me a hand down. “Besides, Caleb was really into you .”

“What do you think?” I asked, stepping back to admire my work.

“I think you’re above decorating the hallway,” Maddie said. “Wren, why did you join this lame club? You know it’s like–”

“NHS lite, I know. It’s not all about decorating the hallway. They do some cool community‑service projects too. I just want to do something, Mads, not sit back and wait until I’m worthy enough for the NHS.”

“What about yearbook? You’ll be up for editor next year.”

I loved yearbook. Of course, it helped that both Jazz and Mads were on the committee. The solitude of working on copy or figuring out the puzzle of an interesting layout was perfect for me, but I wanted to do something different too.

“Yearbook’s great, but it’s not exactly social, is it? I need to get myself out there. Prove being quiet doesn’t mean I don’t want to be a part of anything. So Spirit Club it is. I think that garland looks exceptional, don’t you?”

“It’s crooked,” said a voice from behind us.

We parted to see Ava Taylor, vice president of the Spirit Club and all‑around annoying suck‑up. For some reason Ava liked to pretend that she wasn’t once the third corner of the Maddie/Wren/Ava triangle of St. Vincent de Paul grammar school. During the summer between eighth grade and freshman year, she got her first kiss from a high school guy and dumped us as if we were some Barbie‑playing ten‑year‑olds. At freshman orientation she already had a circle of friends and made it clear we weren’t welcome by completely ignoring us. Soon after we stopped analyzing why and went on with our own social lives. We met Jazz, and she more than filled the void Ava had left.

But, still.

Our disbanded friendship was the big pink elephant in a tutu pirouetting in the hallway. Part of me believed that if I stared into Ava’s eyes long enough, the girl who could write in cursive backward and touch the tip of her nose with her tongue would still be in there. The same girl who insisted we build a tent of blankets in her room to sleep under, but who later laid out such a whomping fart, we had to vacate and sleep in her den.

These days it looked like Ava farted pixie dust, if she farted at all. Her cool, green eyes surveyed my work. The corner of her mouth downturned slightly. She got up on the stepladder and moved the end of the garland two inches to the left.

“Perfect,” she said, stepping down.

“Big difference,” Maddie said under her breath.

Ava folded up the stepladder, put it against the wall, and clapped her hands together as if she were trying to get dust off of them.

“That’s all for today. Be here fifteen minutes before the first bell tomorrow. That should be enough time to finish up.”

“Why can’t we finish up now?” I asked.

“I have dance‑team practice. Competition season is coming up. Don’t worry about being late to your first class. Spirit Club is always excused.”

“Great,” I answered, not thrilled with the prospect of having to wake up earlier all for the sake of hanging decorations.

“You know, I’ve been dying to talk to you, Wren,” Ava said, coiling her arm around mine. My body stiffened. Maddie’s eyes nearly popped out of her skull. My expression had to be the same.

“About what?”

“Darby Greene told me Grayson Barrett picked you up after school last week? Is that true?” She asked the question slowly as we strolled down the hallway, keeping her eyes forward until the last word.

“Yes.”

She snickered. “Oh my God, I didn’t believe her. How do you know him?”

My skin prickled.

“She saved his life,” Maddie said, stopping in front of us. I’d been about to give a less informative answer.

Ava unhooked her arm from mine and her hand went up to her mouth. She puzzled a moment until her eyes charged with understanding. “Wait, so you’re the cocktail waitress?”

“Cocktail waitress?” I said. How could she possibly know any of this?

“That’s right. You work at your parents’ catering place; Gray was at his cousin’s wedding. Now it makes sense, sort of. Still, why did he pick you up after school?”

“I don’t know why he picked me up. He just did. Why do you care?” I asked, my eyes narrowing.

She stepped back, her full ponytail swaying with the movement. “I don’t. Just wondering how you know him. You don’t exactly hang out with the same people, do you?”

“Where do you get off–” Maddie began, but I put my hand up to stop her and then glared at Ava.

“We work together. At the Camelot. We’re pretty tight,” I said, fabricating.

“Seriously? Grayson works with you?”

I spun away from her, done with the conversation, angry with myself for giving her one shred of information. Why didn’t I just keep quiet? Maddie caught up to me, her mouth a thin line.

“Why did you stop me? I wanted to let her have it,” she said.

“I can fight my own battles,” I snapped, galloping down the stairs ahead of her to the locker dungeon.

“Wren, why are you mad at me?” she asked, calling after me.

I growled and ignored her question, stomping off to my locker. I took out my frustrations by shoving books into my messenger bag. I wasn’t even sure what I needed. I flung my scarf around my neck, grabbed my coat, and slammed my locker shut, turning the lock dial in a violent twist. Maddie was waiting at the top of the stairs in the vestibule.

“Sorry for losing my shit,” I said.

“I know, but hey, that’s what friends are for,” she answered, leaning against the wall.

“How did Ava even know what happened?”

“She must know him. It’s sort of big news, Wren. He wouldn’t be breathing if it weren’t for you.”

I pushed open the door and squinted in the sunlight.

“But did you hear her? That tone in her voice? Is it so unbelievable that Grayson would pick me up after school?” I asked.

Maddie stopped midstep. “Omigod, you like him! I’m so stupid.”

“No, it’s not like that.”

Maddie studied my face. “Oh, yeah it is soooooooo like that. It’s the way you say his name. That’s why you weren’t into Caleb. That’s why Queen Bitch got to you. I thought you said you thought he was a bit of a jerk after he gave you a ride home. Why didn’t you just say you changed your mind?”

“I don’t know what I’m feeling, okay?” I answered. This budding friendship with Grayson, his explosive entrance into my life–it was mine and mine alone. Something apart from school, my family, Jazz and Maddie, the Trevor hump‑and‑dump. I didn’t feel like analyzing it; I was enjoying just letting it happen.

Maddie swayed into me as we continued to walk the tree‑lined driveway toward the street.

“Hey, he has a shitty ride, but otherwise you have my blessing, Wren.”

“Mads, is that stuff so important?” I asked.

“Not when a guy is that scorching,” she said.

I exhaled deliberately, lowering my gaze to the ground. “I don’t know if he’s just being friendly or if there’s more to it. We only–”

“Well, you’d better figure it out fast, because he’s right there,” she said.

Grayson was perched on the rear bumper of his car, reading The Republic . Pretty much the sexiest model of literacy awareness I’d ever seen. I smiled as a jolt of recognition pulsed through my body. He was there for me .

“Bet you wouldn’t mind if he licked you like a Great Dane,” Maddie whispered.

“Mads!” I shrieked. Grayson grinned as we walked up to him. I slowed my pace, trying to calm my heart rate, which was racing for reasons that had nothing to do with exertion.

“Hey,” I said. Maddie waved and continued to walk past.

“Maddie, want a ride?” Grayson asked, over his shoulder.

She walked backward in the crosswalk for a moment. “No, thanks,” she called, mischief in her tone. “I think Wren wants you all to herself.”

I bit my tongue and held my breath as I watched her walk toward the bus stop.

“Still reading Plato . . . any good?”

“Kind of heavy. Some of it I can get behind, but I’m too much of a hedonist to relate to most of it,” he answered with a wink.

I nodded, pretending to understand.

His smile faded a bit as he waved to someone behind me. I peered over my shoulder to see Ava in sweats and a tee, opening the gymnasium door. She stood stock‑still, eyebrows practically up to her hairline. This was fun. I waved too.

“See you bright and early tomorrow!”

Ava said nothing, her ponytail swaying behind her as she walked back inside.

“So how do you know Ava?” I asked.

“She kind of stalked me last year,” he said, wrinkling his nose. “She had this on‑again, off‑again thing with a friend of mine. She’s, um, a bit much.”

“When you say she ‘stalked’ you, you mean she was strategically putting herself in your path to be friends?” I asked, touching the tip of his sneaker with the tip of my ballet flat.

He laughed this infectious belly laugh that made the unpleasant events after school evaporate. I made him laugh. God, it felt great.

“Well, when the attention is unwanted, it crosses the stalking line,” he said, shoving the book in his jacket pocket and bouncing on his toes. “I hope I’m not crossing that line.”

I chewed my lip. By answering that question, I’d be admitting that I liked having him around. Which I did. A lot.

“No, no line crossed.”

“Good. Feel like getting a coffee?”

“Why didn’t you tell me you hate coffee?”

It was too cold for our usual (could you claim a usual spot if you only visited it once?) boat pond/coffee outing, so we ended up at the Starlight Diner. A place whose claim to fame was the World’s Best Pies, which were displayed in a six‑foot glass case with shelves that rotated slowly to make sure each dessert had its moment in the spotlight.

“I don’t know, you seemed so passionate about it . . . I don’t do pretty coffee and all that,” I teased, taking a sip of my hot chocolate. He laughed.

“Don’t remind me what an asshat I was that day.”

“You weren’t,” I said, tucking some loose hair behind my ear. He leaned forward, eyes on mine, lips parted like he had something to say. My mind went blank. Breathe, Wren . There was no discomfort, no squirmy feeling, no wanting to fill the silence. I could have sat that way, looking at him, for hours.

“Here you go.” A redheaded waitress placed Grayson’s second slab of Boston cream pie in front of him. I finally looked away, smiled at her.

“Thanks,” I said.

Grayson grabbed his fork and tucked in. “That day in the park . . . what did you mean you were screwing up your semester?” he asked, before shoveling the pie into his mouth.

“You remember that?”

He chewed quickly, wiped his mouth with a napkin. “I remember everything.”

Now that made me squirmy. “I suck at math. It’s just not my thing, you know. I study, or at least I think I do, but then I just freeze on the tests.”

“You’re in luck. Math is my thing.”

“And that would help me . . . how?”

“I can tutor you.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure that would work,” I said, seriously doubting I could focus on anything with him so close.

“Totally legit,” he said, raising his hands. “I used to tutor at an after‑school program once a week. I’m good.”

Oh, God, of course he is .

I cleared my throat. “And you could tutor me in algebra and trig?”

He was about to take a sip of his coffee, but he paused, the side of his mouth curling up, eyebrows arcing slightly. The gleam in his eyes made me blush.

“I could tutor you in anything you want,” he answered, voice low.

Holy crap, I walked right into that one.

“I might be interested. I’ll think about it,” I said. “But why the offer? Aren’t you busy with your own stuff? College applications and everything?”

He took his fork and played with the whipped cream left on his plate, making four little rows, then crisscrossing again. “The sort of schools that were on my wish list frown upon academic fraud.”

“Like where?”

He pressed his lips together, smiling slightly. “Harvard.”

I put down my cup and covered my eyes with my hands. “Oh, wow.”

He laughed. “It was a reach, but I figured why not? Penn was my top. NYU. Columbia . . .”

“But would they even find out?”

“Technically no, but the transfer after three years might make them wonder. And I’m too embarrassed to ask my old teachers for letters of rec. Besides, I would know. At one point that didn’t bother me, but now . . . it does. I’m thinking of going somewhere local, get a strong year in, figure stuff out, then transfer. I’m not even sure I want to go into finance anymore.”

“You still have more of a plan than I do.”

“I want to help you. That day in the park . . . what you said . . . I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”

I puzzled for a moment, trying to remember what else I could have said that made an impression.

“About being a number. What bullshit it is. You’re right. And I used to be so into that. Christ, I built my whole term‑paper business around it.”

“But it is important,” I said. “It’s what they look at, isn’t it? I should take it more seriously. At least I’m trying to. In the meantime I’m ramping up my extracurriculars just in case my average number doesn’t measure up.”

He put his hand over mine, sending a charge through my body that made it hard to sit still. “You’re one of the most genuine people I’ve met. You’re not average, Wren. Not even close.”

I moved my thumb out from underneath his fingers and ran it across the top of his hand, forcing myself to lock eyes with him.

“Okay, tutor me,” I said.

He breathed out, squeezed my hand. He was about to say something when his phone went off, “Flight of the Bumblebee” sounding furiously from his pocket. He rolled his eyes and pulled his hand away.

“Sorry, I’ve got to take this. Hey, Tiff,” Grayson answered, eyes still on mine. I turned away to give him privacy. “I don’t understand. What?”

The waitress placed the check on the table. Grayson put his hand over it before I could grab it. I was about to protest but stopped. His eyes were dark, his face serious. Something was wrong.

“Yeah. okay. I’ll be there as fast as I can. Bye.”

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

“My father was rushed to the hospital.”

TEN

Date: 2015-02-16; view: 645