Closer Home (12 page)

“What on earth did you do?” I start to reach for his hand to get a better look, but I stop myself. Two weeks ago, before this prom thing came up, I would have grabbed it without thinking.

“Stupid,” he says. “Dropped a wrench on it.”

“Doesn’t it hurt?”

He shrugs. “Stupid’s gotta learn, right? I stuck a hot needle through the nail to let off the blood. It’s okay.”

I catch myself wondering if his hands would feel the same as Kelvin’s or different if he played with my hair or touched my waist. My face heats up at the very idea, and I lean forward to turn on the stereo.

“How are the tunes?”

Dale laughs. “If you were buying a car, you’d choose the one with the best sound system. Wouldn’t even care about how it runs.” It’s not said in a mean way, though. More like he approves of my weirdness.

We drive in silence for a bit, the music turned up good and loud. One of his speakers has a buzz, and it grates on my nerves. I feel like I do in summer when there’s a big storm rolling in, all pins-and-needles irritability. My skin seems hot and itchy and three sizes too tight.

“About prom,” he begins, as if he’s read my mind, then pauses and turns down the music.

“Yeah, about prom.” Seems like there’s a whole school of goldfish in my stomach, and my hands have gone all clammy and cold. I grab on to a flicker of anger for courage. This whole situation is Dale’s fault. If he hadn’t brought up prom, he and I would be the same as always, easy and comfortable together. He’d tease me about going with Kelvin, and I’d push him to take some girl.

He glances over at me, and I watch his eyes go dark.

“Spit it out.” Each word sounds like it’s been carved out by a hammer and chisel.

“I’m going with Kelvin.” My words hang in the air between us. I wait for him to say something so I can bring out my excuses.
We were going as friends. I didn’t think you’d care. It’s not like we’re dating or something.
If I just blurt them out on my own, they will sound too much like guilt. So I wait. But Dale doesn’t say anything. He turns the music back up, and we drive the rest of the way in loud silence. When he pulls up in front of my house, he still doesn’t say anything. Doesn’t look at me. Just stares straight ahead, hands on the steering wheel.

“I’m sorry . . . ,” I start.

“Don’t be.”

“Dale—”

“I’ve gotta go, Lise. I’ll be late for work.”

When Dale’s mad, he generally yells. I don’t know what to make of this mood, but my heart is in my shoes when I open the door and climb out of the car. My backpack feels like it’s made out of lead, and I just hang there for a minute, holding the door open, looking in at my best friend, who still won’t look at me.

“You coming over to study after?”

“Nah, I’ve got some stuff to do.”

There’s nothing I can do then but close the door. The maple tree over my head is bright green with baby leaves, and there’s new grass under my feet. But the world feels as bleak and cold as January as I watch him drive away.

A thud on the bathroom door brings me back to my current predicament.

“You gonna be in there all day? Shadow needs to pee, and I want a shower.”

“Be out in a minute.” I can’t turn off the water, because all at once I’m crying, and they’ll hear me. Not just a few tears, either. Something is trying to tear me apart from the inside out. Grief doubles me over, jagged sobs ripping me open from belly to throat. I don’t even know what I’m crying about. Not Dale surely, not after so many years. As for Callie . . .

Callie is dead.

I’ve heard this said more often in the last few days than I’ve heard comments about the weather. I’ve said it myself. God, I saw her lying in a coffin. But it’s not until this minute, in a hotel shower with a teenage girl impatiently banging on the door, that I finally believe it’s true.

I sit down in the bathtub and let the water pour over my head and face while this new reality shifts everything in my world. Present, future, and even the past. All of my memories have a new and darker filter. If it hadn’t been for that stupid prom. If Kelvin hadn’t asked me, if I’d gone with Dale, if I hadn’t written a song for her to steal, then maybe Callie would still be alive.

And in a long and roundabout way, this means maybe it’s not the horse that killed her. Maybe it was me.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I wake up Tuesday morning feeling like I’ve been run over by a logging truck. Every muscle in my body is bruised and sore. My eyelids are puffy and swollen, my brain foggy. The room is dark. Ariel snores softly. Shadow, an indistinct shape on the couch, mutters something in his sleep and rolls over onto his side. For a minute, I think it’s still night, but the clock on the bedside table says 5:00 a.m.

Tired as I am, my eyes are wide open and don’t want to close. I need coffee. Good coffee. The in-room swill is not going to cut it this morning. Besides, when Ariel and Shadow wake up, I’ll have to talk to them, and I need caffeine on board for the conversation that’s coming.

It’s time to be a grown-up and make Ariel go home, wherever that is.

Using stealth that Callie would have appreciated, I slip into the bathroom to pull on jeans and a T-shirt. I splash water over my face. Drag a comb through my hopeless hair. And then I ease out of the room in search of a hotel coffee kiosk, hoping against hope it will be open at this hour.

I’m in luck.

The barista is getting ready for the day and there’s only one person in line in front of me, an elderly gentleman with a cell phone pressed to his ear and a briefcase in hand. He doesn’t even glance at me. I skip the fancy stuff and order a cup of good strong coffee.

“You look familiar,” the girl says as she puts a sleeve on my cup and hands it over.

“Probably.” I fake a smile. “I was here yesterday morning.”

She shakes her head. “Janelle worked yesterday. I wasn’t here.” Her eyes narrow.

I shrug. “I get that a lot. Sort of face that looks familiar, I guess. Have a good day.”

As I walk back to the elevators, I can feel her eyes burning into my back. The gift shop is closed and dark inside. But there’s enough ambient light to see by, and on the magazine racks, I catch a glimpse of my own face staring back at me. It’s all I can do to keep from running for the elevator as if the bats of hell are on my tail, but I keep my steps slow and steady.

When I open the door to our hotel room, Ariel is sitting up in bed, looking rumpled and half-awake. Her laptop is open in front of her. Shadow is nowhere to be seen, but the bathroom door is closed and I hear water running.

“Get packed. We’re finding a flight back to Vegas this morning.”

Ariel shakes her head. “We’re flying to Pasco. Look.” She turns the laptop in my direction and scoots over to make room for me on the bed beside her.

E-mail again. The open message reads:

Hi, Ariel!

There is nothing in the world that would make me happier than a chance to meet Callie’s daughter. I can’t imagine how you must be feeling. She was a beautiful and talented woman, and her loss is inconceivable to me. Why don’t you text me when you’re in town, and we’ll set up a place to meet?

Timothy

With her hair tumbling around her face and that wheedling expression, Ariel reminds me of Callie. And like her mother, she’s not one to waste an opportunity to exploit my weakness. She grabs my hand. Her eyes are red rimmed and bloodshot, and I suspect I’m not the only one who has been hiding tears in my pillow.

“Come on, Auntie Lise. Timothy sounds ever so much nicer than the preacher guy. We have to go now—he’ll be totally disappointed if we don’t.”

I’m still struggling with the name on the page. “Timothy McCallahan? You’re kidding, right?”

Ariel’s face falls. “He’s not a nice guy, then. Figures. Mom only went for jerks.”

I shake my head. “Not true. Timothy was too nice, if anything. But I can’t see him hooking up with your mom.”

“He was in the book. Right after Kelvin. You want to see?”

No. I don’t want to see. I’m disillusioned and a little sick, and the last thing I want is to read all about it. The only thing I do want to do is crawl into my very own bed at home, pull the covers up over my head, and shut out the world. Instead, I take a long pull at my coffee and promptly burn my tongue. The pain is bracing and a distraction from that god-awful emptiness at the center of me.

All at once, I realize that I want to talk to Timothy, that I need to know how this all went down. Because if he is Ariel’s father and never claimed her, I’m a terrible judge of character. At the same time, the right thing to do is call off this wild goose chase and drag Ariel back home. It’s not like money is an issue. We could hire an attorney to check paternity on all of these men.

“Ariel, I really think . . .”

Her lower lip quivers. Her eyes fill with tears, and she blinks them back.

That does me in. I sigh and surrender. “Oh, hell. All right, we’ll go. At least Pasco isn’t big on paparazzi.”

She sniffles, drawing the back of her arm across her eyes. And then her arms go around my neck in a hug that’s both swift and fierce, and she’s out of bed and pounding on the bathroom door.

Pasco is not my favorite city. Too flat, too dry, too windy, but I have to admit it’s pretty in May. In a few weeks the land will be brown and naked, but now the trees are in flower and the grass is lush and green. We’ve checked into another Best Western, this one within easy walking distance of the airport. It’s clean and offers a continental breakfast. I figure if—and it’s a big if—any celebrity types are hanging out in Pasco, they’ll go for the Red Lion. Nobody will look for us here.

We take a taxi to our lunch meeting with Timothy. It’s a silent trip. The driver doesn’t talk after asking where we’re going. Ariel stares out the window, pale and intense. Shadow, as usual, is obsessed with his phone.

I haven’t been here for a long time, and I’m surprised by how much the downtown has changed. Most of the businesses are Mexican now, even a couple of the restaurants I remember as plain Jane cafés. The restaurant Timothy has selected doesn’t look like much from the outside, but as soon as we open the door, my doubts fall away. The food smells amazing. Even better, the place is pretty much empty.

Timothy waits at a table in the corner with his back to the wall, talking quietly with the man sitting across from him. When he sees us, his face lights up and he blazes his signature smile in our direction, making me feel like the prodigal child come home. Two long-legged strides bring him across the room, and he wraps me in a warm hug.

“I’m so sorry about Callie.” His voice breaks and he squeezes me tighter. I respond in kind, tears spilling onto my cheeks. I hug him back as if graduation was only yesterday and he’s still my pal and not some relative stranger. When I pull away he smiles again, completely unselfconscious of the tears on his cheeks, and turns to Ariel.

“Beautiful, just like your mother.” He takes both of her hands and kisses them. “I was afraid you wouldn’t really come.”

I find myself glancing around the restaurant, embarrassed, aware that we are making a public scene. The woman behind the cash register catches my eye and looks away, busying herself and putting on a disinterested expression. A man in the far corner is staring, but drops his gaze to his menu when he sees me looking at him. There aren’t any other customers except for the man Timothy was talking to.

“I want you to meet Dennis,” Timothy says, leading Ariel by the hand. The man gets to his feet, removing a pair of wire-rimmed glasses as he does so.

“Dennis, this is my old friend Annelise. And this is Ariel.”

Dennis smiles and shakes hands with Ariel first, then me. He’s a soft-looking man, with a chubby, red-cheeked face and a monk-like bald spot. His blue eyes are kind, and his handshake is good and strong.

“So happy to meet you both.” He turns to Shadow, who is positively glowering by now, and smiles as if the boy is a sight for sore eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name.”

“Because nobody introduced me,” Shadow mutters.

“Oh, grow up.” Ariel slides into a chair. “None of this is about you.”

A genuine hurt flashes in his eyes, and for the very first time I consider the probability that he’s a human being with real feelings and that I should try to make him feel included, but then I’m distracted by wondering why on earth Timothy would invite a stranger to what promises to be an intensely personal meeting.

This is the point where the conversation promises to get awkward, so we chat about the weather and summarize what everybody’s been up to since high school. We’re saved by the prompt arrival of a thin Hispanic boy in a white apron who deposits chips and salsa on the table before asking, “Anything to drink?”

“Corona,” Timothy says. “You want one, Denn?”

The other man shakes his head, and Timothy turns his smile on the rest of us. “Anybody else?”

“Sure,” Shadow says, and I squelch him with a look.

“They’re not old enough to drink. But I could use a beer.”

Or three, I add silently, dreading the conversation that’s coming. Timothy is the only one who seems perfectly at ease. That’s one thing that has changed about him since high school. I watch him dip a chip into salsa, every movement pure grace and confidence. He was an awkward teenager—always dressed in floodwater pants, bony wrists sticking out of too-short sleeves, as if his clothes could never quite keep up with his growth spurts. Now he’s perfectly put together, from the top of his smoothly combed head to his spotless shoes. I only notice the thin white scar on his left cheek because I’m looking for it.

Ariel nibbles contemplatively on the chips, forgoing the salsa, her eyes darting from one face to another as Timothy and I discuss what we know of our classmates. As soon as the drinks arrive and we’ve placed our food orders, she gets straight to the point.

“I’m looking for my father.”

Timothy takes a long swallow of his beer and exchanges the kind of look with Dennis that implies they’re so in tune with each other they can say things without passing a word between them. It’s the kind of look people exchange when they’ve been married for twenty years. He sets down the beer and pushes it forward an inch, as if its placement on the table is the most important thing in the world right now.

“I thought that might be it. How did you know?” His eyes meet hers, dark blue and steady. No defenses, no denials. Everything about him is honest and open and
nice
. I take a breath and squeeze my hands together under the table. A nice guy would have stepped up and claimed his own kid, not waited for her to come looking with a Walmart Identi-Match kit.

“She kept a diary,” Ariel says. Her cheeks are flushed. “You’re not the only one in it.”

He nods. “The chances are—” He breaks off and clears his throat. Dennis reaches across the table and takes his hand, and again their eyes meet and hold. “I—we—always wanted kids,” he says, finally. “We’ve been talking about adopting—”

Shadow snorts and chokes on a mouthful of Coke. As soon as he recovers from the coughing spell, he breaks into laughter. “This is awesome. Wait until Ricken gets his teeth into this one.”

Ariel’s face has gone beet red. She slugs him in the shoulder with her fist, nothing gentle or affectionate about it. “Nobody’s telling Ricken. Don’t be a dick.”

“Ah, come on, Ariel. You’re missing out on the irony of the situation. A preacher, a gay man, and a country singer walk into a bar—”

“Shut up!” Her voice breaks, and she shoves back her chair and heads for the bathroom, blundering into the corner of another table hard enough to clatter the silverware.

Silence stretches out between the rest of us like a rubber band. I can’t bear the waiting, so I launch into Shadow.

“You’re supposed to be here to support her.” I don’t realize how angry I am until I hear my own voice. “She trusts you, God only knows why. This isn’t about you and your stupid jealousy.”

He leans forward across the table, dark eyes burning with a rage of his own. “You think you can just waltz in here after ignoring her for her whole life and shoulder me out. News bulletin: I’m not jealous. I was here before you.” His gaze sweeps across all of us. “Any of you. And I’ll still be here when you’ve all evaporated.”

Another silence, dark and ugly, as we avoid each other’s eyes, not knowing what to say.

Shadow shoves back his chair. “Fuck this shit. I’m going back to the hotel room.”

I let him go. He’s got money and a phone. He can get a cab or wander around downtown for all I care. A flicker of guilt follows this thought the minute it passes through my mind. Maybe I don’t like him much, but Shadow has been there for Ariel. I haven’t, and neither has her father. I let my gaze flicker over the two men, and then I escape into my Corona. The waiter comes back with food, and all three of us stare at the steaming plates sitting at the two empty places at the table.

Dennis shakes his head. “Poor kid.”

Timothy sighs. “Teenagers,” he says, finally, as if this is a tiff over curfew. “I teach at the high school.” He smiles, ruefully. “Social graces run thin with them. They’re adept at spitting out the truth the rest of us try to bury in politeness. Messy.” He pushes his food around with his fork but doesn’t eat.

Ariel comes back, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, hair damp. I know the moves—cold water on the face to stop the crying, hide the evidence of red eyes even though everybody and his dog already saw the breakdown. Salvage the remnants of your pride at all costs. Dennis gets up and pulls out her chair for her.