“Do as I say, not as I do. Now drive.”
Chapter Twenty-eight
TIM
For the next week, I manage to avoid Alice, except in the most extreme, strangers-passing-in-the-night way, like when my car has hers blocked in, or I come out to help her unload groceries, which I do even though she tells me she can do it all herself. On one of my non-Cal days, I’m jogging on the beach, and there she is in the distance, cooling down. I play through this whole lame-ass movie in my head where she hurts herself and I have to carry her to her car and—there my imagination stalls out because the minute I make it to the Bug in my mind, I rewind and replay that day at the beach and think of all the things I might have done—or even said—if I’d known for sure that was my one shot.
ALICE
For the next week, I almost never bump into Tim. Evasive maneuvers—my new favorite pastime. Forget schoolwork, and rotation at the hospital, the forty-thousand pounds of paperwork that go with moving Dad to the rehab, the unpaid hospital bills piling up. There’s running as though I’m being chased by cheetahs, going to the batting cage with the baffled Brad as though I’m training for the majors, and taking care of my brothers and sisters like Mary Poppins on amphetamines. I keep waiting for Tim to show up with Cal and ask for help, but he doesn’t. I keep waiting to get used to seeing him climbing the steps of the garage apartment with the car seat, but I don’t. When I look out the kitchen window while I’m doing dishes, I think I see him on the steps, but he never snaps the outdoor light on, and without the glow of a cigarette to place him in space, he could be only a shadow. It’s a rainy, cloudy September too, cool for Connecticut, and there are times when I think the last time the sun shone was with him on McNair Beach.
“Al,” Andy says, her voice drifting through the dark in our bedroom, scantily lit by the blue lava lamp night-light, one of the few things we agreed on when we redid the room two years ago.
“Mmm.”
“When I see Kyle in the hallway—”
“Ugh, Ands, not Kyle again.”
“When I see Kyle in the hallway,” she perseveres, “should I ignore him? Like, obviously? Look away or make a face or glare at him?”
I honestly can’t remember where the Kyle saga left off—just that he’s either playing games or is oblivious. Either way, he’s no good for Andy.
“Just live your life. Don’t glare, because then he’ll think it matters too much to you.”
Sigh from my sister. “It kind of does matter.”
“Don’t give him that power. Really. It won’t be worth it.”
And what, exactly, am I doing with Tim, while handing out this sage advice to my sister?
It kind of does matter.
“Honey, I’m home.”
I’ve wanted it, dreaded it, known it can’t be avoided, and here it is: Tim and me, working together at Garrett’s Hardware.
Here he is, striding into the back office, carrying a large cup of coffee with a blueberry muffin balanced precariously on top, assorted baby paraphernalia, including Cal in his car seat, and a greasy-looking brown paper bag. He hands me the last, drops everything else down on the counter. (Except Cal.)
And I make no sense because the moment I see him, a wave of sheer happiness rolls in, swamps me completely. His hair’s shorter, freshly trimmed. He’s wearing an olive-green T-shirt that brings out the fire in his hair, and worn-in jeans. Somehow, he looks less lost; there’s something competent and confident in the way he sets Cal in the car seat down.
I fumble for Dad’s reading glasses, which I’ve been using as I sit at his desk, crunching numbers, making lists. When I shove them onto my nose, Tim goes blurry, except for his wicked smile.
“Hullo, Alice.”
The wave rolls on, snatching my breath too, because I don’t, can’t, say anything. I look down. Scribble Make appt. at eye doctor on the to-do list unfurling in front of me.
“Vegan breakfast burrito from Doane’s. I had no idea they made those. They acted kinda surprised too.”
I write the date at the top of the list. Don’t look up because I’m just so busy.
“Here I am to save the day. You’re free to go.” He studies me, head tilted, grin broadening as he takes in the glasses. “Ah, the librarian look. A classic for a reason.”
Now the wave sucks right back out, leaves behind a jumble of anger and sadness—because once again, one small turn of events—a car crash, a baby—and the whole landscape has changed. I keep tripping over things that just aren’t where I expect them to be.
I look at him over the glasses. “We’re playing it this way, are we?”
He passes me the coffee, which turns out to be an extra-large cinnamon mocha cappuccino, my favorite. “The Doane’s barista guy knew this about you, for some reason. I assumed you’d want the biggest size.”
“Don’t pull the evasive maneuver. I’m immune.” Hypocritical to the max. But I can’t seem to stop it. I ball my hands into fists under the desk.
Tim sighs, wedges his hip against the edge of the desk, then says in an overly patient voice, “Playing it what way, Alice?”
“Like everything’s carrying on the way it was before. Like—Calvin—didn’t exist.”
“That would be hard, even with my well-honed denial skills, since Cal is right here in front of us. Got a better plan? Hit me.”
The truth comes crashing out. “I’d love to.”
“Yeah, got that down last time we actually spoke. I’m sure you would. Get in fucking line.” Still the relaxed lean against the desk, but his voice has roughened.
I take off the glasses, rub my eyes, stare down at the list in front of me like that’s the only thing that matters in my world.
“I’m not disappearing in a puff of smoke if you shut your eyes, Alice, if that’s what you’re hoping. I’m here. He’s here. But you don’t need to be here. Go—study. Administer CPR. Stick pins in a voodoo doll of me. Whatever you need to do. You’re free. I’m on for today.”
“So am I.”
“Alice,” he says. “It doesn’t have to be both of us.”
“But here we are. So let’s just keep this civilized, shall we?” I thrust the glasses onto my nose again, tilt my chin up so they don’t slide right off.
He bursts out laughing. Then salutes me. “Whatever you say, Professor.”
I ignore that, even though my cheeks heat, even though my hand is suddenly tingling with the urge to slap him. Something I’ve never done to anyone. Not even Joel.
“You’re right, though,” I manage. “At this point, the store really doesn’t need two people manning it. So from here on we should come up with a schedule, some rules.”
“Again with the rules. You’re so rule-based. Is that a nurse thing or an oldest-daughter thing?”
“It’s a practical thing,” I say. “I’m assuming you’ve worked out some kind of a schedule with Hester?”
“Does ‘you get the baby when I’m about to lose my mind’ count as a schedule?”
“If that’s all you’ve got.”
He spreads his hands.
I outline a plan, working around classes and clinicals—maybe I can have someone take notes for me—I can keep it all going if I do that. Then we sketch out his work days. “So basically, four days a week, alternating mornings and afternoons,” I finish. “Stock delivery is Monday and Friday, so if you can manage not to have Cal with you then—”
“No overlap with me and you, Alice?”
“Not much need for it, is there?”
“That would depend on what need we’re talking about.” He does that stupid smirk thing.
“Professional. You asshole.”
“Alice said a bad word.” Singsong.
I drop my pen, bend forward, planting my hands flat on the desk—the better not to slap him. “Tell me something, Boy Most Likely To. Why is it you are the biggest sarcastic idiot when you are entirely and deeply in the wrong?”
The second the words are out, I know I’ve g
one too far.
Tim opens his mouth, shuts it, looks up at the ceiling, turns to go. Stops, comes back, bends over the desk, landing hard on his elbows. “I did something I’m not proud of. Yep. But you are not my judge or my sponsor or my pop. You want to keep things professional? Fine. I’m not even sure what that means in your dictionary, but in mine, it doesn’t mean making judgey personal jabs. I did not do this to you. I did not even do it to me. I did it to Hester and this kid. Especially to him. So my penance, or punishment—if that’s what you’re looking for—is to take care of him. Which I am now going to do. Out front. Where you will find me if you want to continue our professional discussion about when stock deliveries are. Which I already know, because I’ve been working here all summer long—and I only black things out when I’m wasted. Which I do not happen to be at the moment. Although, if you’d like to take my car keys, be my guest.”
He scoops up the car seat and stalks to the door.
“You gave me your car keys!” I call after him.
Three hours later, the store’s still dead. As is the air between us. You wouldn’t think you could completely avoid each other in an eight-hundred-square-foot space, but we succeed. I rip open the boxes full of new deliveries out back, wielding the box cutter, waving Tim off.
He backs away, stone-faced.
As I restock, he sits behind the counter, studying trigonometry, feeding Cal, drumming the callused fingers of one hand on his thigh, changing Cal’s diaper, biting his thumbnail, rocking the car seat with one foot—in the shoes I gave him—while frowning over a textbook, jumping up every once in a while to refill his coffee cup.
I arrange and rearrange a short and simple string of words in my head, but they never make it all the way to my lips. Five words. “I was wrong. I’m sorry.” Every time I head toward Tim, he busies himself with something else. There’s just not that much to do around here, trust me.
Coming back from a totally unnecessary mail run, I find him trying to wedge open the bottom of our broken cash register with a screwdriver—pointless. “Don’t bother with that.”
He mutters under his breath, “At least I can fix this.”
In goes the screwdriver once again. He’s trying. Cal squawks a little and Tim again rocks the seat distractedly, still wrestling with the cash register.
He’s trying.
“Look,” I start. “I was—”
He looks up at me, then away, doing the whole muscle-twitching-in-jaw thing so beloved of angry boys. Then turns his back—actually physically turns his back—on me and keeps on jamming the screwdriver into the bottom of the register. At least it’s not into my head.
“Tim,” I start again.
More screwdriver action. Back turned.
“Never mind.”
Brad stops in for last-minute tips on his way to an interview for a part-time training job at the gym. Tim scowls at him over the top of his civics textbook, highlighting away in multiple colors, while I hand Brad a comb, get a stain off his sleeve, etc. Tim’s hunched so far down in the seat, feet kicked up on the counter, that Brad doesn’t even notice him. “Kiss for luck, Liss?” he says, popping the collar of his shirt.
I fold it back down. “Remember to call your boss by his name, not ‘Big Mac’ during the interview.”
“You forgot to put a note with a smiley face in his lunch box,” Tim says without looking up from his civics book as the door closes behind Brad.
TIM
“Nans, I need you,” I mutter into my cell, on break out behind Garrett’s, slouching on the back stoop.
My twin’s voice goes instantly high-pitched. “Why? Do you need bail money?”
“Jesus Christ, Nan. When have I ever needed bail money?”
“Well, I don’t know. You’ve been gone for weeks and I’ve hardly heard anything from you. I just thought . . . I don’t know.” She sighs.
“Well, I’ve missed you too. Jesus. Can I see you—” Uh, where? Not ready to spring Mason Family: A New Generation on the parents. So I say, “What are Ma and Pop up to these days?”
“Who knows? She’s doing all that Garden Club fall planting stuff. He’s . . . just busy all the time. Till six when he heads for the ‘home office,’ then goes comatose in his recliner. So it’s safe to come here, unless you want to meet in an underground garage or something.”
I laugh. “Not only do I not need bail money, kid, but I haven’t become a government mole. Can I come over in a little while, during lunch?”
“Why? I’ve got Key Club this afternoon, and I was going to go to the library and—” The twin-psychic-connection thing is bullshit, but her voice is high-pitched again, nervous. Guilty conscience much?
“Blow off Key Club. This is important.”
“I’m home,” she says simply after this pause where I can hear her breathing a little fast. “Come anytime.”
ALICE
I don’t even hear the bell ring when Tim’s Hester comes in, as though she materialized in the room, hovering near the garden tools.
When I do look up and see her, she’s watching me, her dark eyebrows drawn together.
“Oh. It’s you. I didn’t recognize you without your bikini.”
We’re studying each other like there’s going to be a midterm. She’s tall with longish, straight brown hair, wearing sort of plain, old-fashioned clothes, blue skirt, white long-sleeved T-shirt, pale blue sweater. Almost like a uniform. She has one of those old-fashioned faces, too, heart-shaped, sweet, like something you’d see inside a locket. I try to picture her with Tim and I can’t bring that into focus at all and why am I even doing that.
Stranger still is that she’s chewing her lip and looking me up and down and maybe sort of doing the same thing.
Pause.
“Where’s Tim? Where’s the baby?” She looks around a little wildly, like I’ve maybe done away with both of them.
“Cal’s right here.”
“It’s Calvin,” she corrects. “That’s the name I gave him. After Calvin O’Keefe.”
“A Wrinkle in Time,” I say. “My first book boyfriend.”
“I loved him too,” Hester says. “Obviously. He was so smart. And he liked the awkward girl. And—”
“He had red hair,” I finish.
Oh God. Is she in love with Tim?
Her hand moves to her neckline, and she pulls on her necklace, a plain gold chain with a single pearl. “Are you—you and Tim—”
“I’m a friend of his.” Not sure if that’s strictly true at the moment. “That’s all.”
“I’m—” She falters. Understandably. “Calvin’s mother. Obviously. I mean, of course you know that. I thought Tim was expecting me. I’m only half an hour late.”
We both check the clock, which at least breaks up our staring contest.
“He’s late himself, actually.” A lash of worry whips up my spine. It doesn’t seem like Tim, who is apparently making a mission out of not asking for baby help, to abandon Cal for long. Or at all. I had to kind of insist on him leaving the sleeping Cal behind when he went to get lunch.
Even then, he started to tell me what to do if he wakes up, more talkative than he’d been all day. “Look, I’ll be fast with the pickup. I’ve got an errand to run afterward, but it won’t take me long. And Hester should be here any minute. He always gets a little freaked out when he first opens his eyes, if he doesn’t see anyone there, you have to pick him up right away, or he gets cranking and—” He stopped himself. “I’m sure you’ve got this.”
Do I tell Hester to wake Cal up and get going? Pour her a cup of coffee and talk books with her?
“So—have you known Tim a long time?” She’s toying with her necklace again.
Now, as Hester pauses mid-sentence, there’s a gasping, indrawn breath from behind the counter, then a piercing scream. She practically rockets to the ceiling and back.
I hurry to scoop up Cal, already blotchy, teary, legs rigid. “Shh. Shh. Got you,” I whisper into his ear. He snuffles, bum
ping his head into my cheek for a second, then resting against it, fisting a hand in my hair. I’m holding him, swaying back and forth, and he’s giving those shivery little baby sobs. Hester stares at us for a moment. “It’s so constant. He cries all the time.”
He seems pretty mellow to me, but I’m not with him 24/7.
She takes him, with a sigh, and is fumbling in the diaper bag one-handed when Tim returns, whistling, with a white cardboard box of takeout from Esquidero’s, splotched with grease, the peppery-spice smell of their signature curly fries heavy in the air.
Hester hands me Cal.
I’m holding him reflexively, stunned, to tell the truth. She just passed him on over, like he was Hot Potato and her turn was up.
Now she’s pouring out the words on Tim.
“Thank you so much for holding on to him for so long. You honestly saved my life. My sanity, anyway.”
Tim nods, without saying anything, looks over at me, face unreadable.
“Have you ever had any STDs? I forgot to ask the other day,” Hester continues.
My eyebrows hit my hairline. Tim, who has scarfed a french fry out of the bag, coughs.
“Um. No?” Then he clears his throat and repeats, not as a question this time, “No.”
“Did you finish filling out the medical history? We need to get that in as soon as possible.”
“E-mailed it to you last night. That’s everything from me, so we should be able to really get a move on this, right?”
“Oh. Good. That’s good. Yes.”
They sound like polite strangers on an elevator. But here’s Cal, with his Mason hair and his wide, innocent Hester eyes.
“Put him in the basket. Thanks, Alice,” she says briskly. She has a raspy voice, almost as though she’s been a pack-a-day smoker for a long time, which I somehow doubt is the case.
Then there’s a weird pass-off thing, where Tim, with an exasperated glance from Hester to me, takes Cal out of my arms, hands him to Hester, and she puts him in the Moses basket, straightens up, looks back and forth between us, then focuses on Tim again.
“My grandfather really wants to meet you. Do you want to come over for dinner—tomorrow night? Or the night after? Or do you . . . have plans with . . . someone?” Her voice goes higher on the last part, the words running together fast.
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