A Package Deal

by Mia Kerick

  “Yeah?” I turned to look at her. “I wish I got to see him. How was he?”

  “He was great—he brought me a mocha latte. He brought you something too.”

  “He did?”

  “Look on the coffee table.” Her hands stilled.

  I looked at the table and actually didn’t know how I could have missed it when I first came in. I guess I really was tired. Spread out on the table was a Red Sox jersey. I lifted it up. Number 34. Even I knew that it was David Ortiz’s number. Underneath the jersey was a Fenway Park postcard. I turned it over and quickly placed it back down on the table as if it had burned my fingertips. There was a note on it from Robby.

  Tris-

  The time to learn about baseball has arrived. And we’re going to do it in style. Can you get next Sunday off work? I got three tickets to the play-offs and do you know whose names are on those tickets? Yours, mine, and Savannah’s—that’s who!

  Robby

  I WAS totally disconcerted by what he’d done. I just dropped down to my knees on the floor and put my head in my hands. Why had Robby gotten me a gift? And tickets too? What does he want from me?

  When my mind cleared enough, I lifted my head. Savannah was staring at me.

  “I didn’t let him fuck me, so that jersey isn’t payment for anything.” I knew my words were vulgar, reminiscent of my thirteen-year-old self who sometimes reemerged when I felt threatened. But this unexpected gift-giving just hit too close to home—my Uncle Ben had thought he could swap a new CD from Walmart for privileges with my preteen ass, and he’d let me know that I’d be acting ungrateful if I tried to refuse him. So right then I just wasn’t able to control my language like I usually could. “And it’s not like fucking either one of us is just over the horizon for the guy. He’s bright enough to have figured that out. I just don’t get why he’d do this.”

  Now when Savannah looked at me, her disappointment was obvious. “Maybe it’s not all about sex to him.”

  Wishing like hell that were true but knowing otherwise, I picked up the jersey and hugged it to my chest. And then I shook my head. “So you actually think that Mr. Normal—Robby Dalton—the straight athlete and businessman, the poster boy for blond-haired, blue-eyed, all-American good looks—is into a cozy little threesome relationship with us?” I’d pulled myself together enough to clean up my language, but not my attitude. “Tell me another one, Savannah.”

  Savannah didn’t answer me and I wasn’t sure why. Probably, she wanted me to keep on rambling so she could better understand what was going on in my head. Of course, I obliged. “Nobody but you cares about me and no man has ever, ever wanted a thing to do with me for any other reason than getting themselves something, most typically for getting themselves laid. And I just don’t buy it that Robby Dalton could have any sincere interest in somebody like me. You, yeah, I get that. You are perfect, and perfect for him. But not my nasty ass.” Once I’d gotten back together with Savannah after she found me in Gus’s cellar, I’d made a huge effort to clean up my act—foul language included. But every once in a while, in the heat of the moment, I slipped back to being the Tristan who had survived for so many years on the street. So I stared back at Savi, waiting for her to speak so I could shoot her words down, but she just continued to study my face with serious eyes. She knew me too well. She knew that if she waited, I’d eventually blurt out everything that was on my mind.

  “Can’t you see it, Savi? He’s just doing this so you’ll give in and be his girlfriend! And that’s exactly what you’d do if you, if you used your brain!” I crawled over to the couch. “Just be his! It’s okay. I’ll be okay.”

  Savannah shook her head. “He cares about you.”

  I was stunned; Savannah never lied to me. Sure, sometimes she omitted telling me portions of the truth, but she never looked right into my eyes and lied. I grabbed her hand, needing her to steady me.

  “Tristan, I saw it in his eyes tonight. When he brought over the jersey and the tickets, I saw it. Robby is falling in love with you.”

  “You saw it?” My heart was pounding. Hope, dread, elation, terror.

  She nodded. “And it’s okay. It’s what I want for you.”

  “What you want? For me?” Monosyllabic words—not good.

  Another nod. Then she pulled me up by my elbows so I was sitting beside her on the couch. “Tris, I love you; you’re my family. You’ll always be my family and I’ll always be yours. Now it’s time to let Robby in.”

  This was so not what I’d expected to happen when I came home from a fourteen-hour shift. I can’t deal with this and I’m going to bed. I tried to get up but she wouldn’t let go of my wrist.

  “No, Tris. We’re not done here.”

  “Well, what do you want me to say?” I tried to sound sarcastic but then the truth slipped out again. “I’m scared, Savi.” Shit, when had I started rocking back and forth?

  “Scared of what?”

  “Scared to lose you, scared to feel for him. I-I’m just….”

  And that’s when Savannah pulled me against her chest in the way that always comforted me so well, as if she was the one who was six feet tall and I was the tiny one. “You will never lose me. But it’s time to open your heart to a different kind of love.” She paused and then asked the million-dollar question. “Do you think you could fall in love with him?”

  It felt so comforting for me to sway my body that I didn’t stop. But somehow Savannah managed to hang on. She gripped my shoulders with all of her strength and rocked right along with me, and that’s when I let it spill. “Maybe I already have fallen a little bit, but it’s so hard for me. Savi, it’s just so hard to trust.”

  “I understand that. But I really do think you can trust Robby.” She kissed my cheek as if I’d somehow pleased her with my honesty. “He’s a good man.”

  “But how do the three of us fit together? How?” Maybe this was really the million-dollar question.

  And that’s when she took my face in her hands firmly, in that I-mean-business manner I was so used to with Savi. She made me look right at her, and I saw that her eyes were filled with hope, not hurt or fear, and definitely not jealousy. “I don’t know exactly how it will work. But if you love me, you’ll allow yourself to feel for him. Let your heart be in charge of your brain. Please, Tris—it’s what I want.”

  Barely a minute later, as if we could read each other’s mind, we both stood up in a single motion and headed to our bedroom.

  Looking back…. Savannah

  LEAVING Tristan had been devastating for two reasons: first, for what it had done to me, and second, for what I was certain it had done to him.

  It was true that I’d only been fourteen when I’d met him, and we’d only known each other for a month and a half, but it had been the most volatile, life-altering time in my short life. And when you are fourteen and lonely and afraid and needy, well, six weeks is all it takes for you to fall in love.

  It hadn’t been a kind of love I’d ever experienced before, because I’d never known anybody who had put my needs before their own. And Tris had been nothing short of devoted. He’d come up with food for me to eat, relative warmth for me at night, and he’d given me more emotional comfort than I’d ever known. What’s more, he hadn’t expected me to have sex with him in return for any of that.

  No matter where we’d found ourselves in the dark of night, Tristan had simply held me, no funny business at all; he’d smoothed my greasy curls and placed tiny kisses on my dirty skin until I’d fallen asleep. And he’d done that every night for six weeks.

  He had also taken the rape that was meant for me.

  And in return, I’d left him, vulnerable and alone.

  But I’d meant what I’d said, as only a fourteen-year-old could, when I’d told him I was going to find him. For the first four years, though, all I could do was dream about the boy I loved… where he was, what he was doing, whether he loved me too. I’d fantasized that he’d grown tall and strong, that he’d found all of
the men who’d hurt and used him over the years and had taught them all the biggest lessons of their lives. And I’d dreamed he was somewhere warm and safe and happy, and all he needed to be complete was me.

  As one of several foster daughters of Mrs. Sarah T. Watson of Somerville, I hadn’t had as much freedom as I wanted to spend hours upon hours scouring the streets of Boston in search of a runaway teenage boy. What I did have was high school classes, plenty of chores, a steady babysitting job. I’d even had a few friends.

  But I’d never forgotten Tristan.

  As soon as I’d turned eighteen, my dreams of Tristan Chartrand had changed into an obsession with finding him. He’d been the only person who had ever made me feel precious. I just couldn’t let that feeling, or the man who’d given it to me, go. I’d searched all of the hangouts around Boston that Tristan had taken me to when I was with him, but had been disappointed time and again to find that he no longer frequented them. I’d asked about him at the Outreach Center, and they’d said that they’d actually seen him in Somerville every now and again over the past several years. But since he’d become a legal adult, he was no longer their concern.

  Finally, in the spring of my senior year of high school, I’d given up the search and resigned myself to the fact that Tristan had moved on, maybe to a warmer climate, if he was still homeless. I’d also accepted that I needed to get a more lucrative job to support myself through my next four years at Somerville University. And that’s when I applied for a job as a waitress at the S-Squared Diner.

  Chapter 17

  Robby

  TO PUT it politely, Mikey and I hadn’t exactly been seeing eye-to-eye lately. And because of that fact, I now found myself exhausted, starving, and freezing, not to mention, stranded, in a remote South Boston neighborhood. At ten at night.

  Tonight Bill Cheney, the only job superintendent on the company payroll, Mikey, and I had presented a sales proposal for the renovation of an Evangelical Baptist church’s parish hall. The “coworker chemistry” between Mikey and me just, well, it just hadn’t been there tonight. I mean, even with Mikey’s able assistance, I had absolutely choked.

  RD Builders just couldn’t sell its plan. We’d stuttered in the face of simple questions. Our claims of previous successes in similar jobs had come off as nothing more than hollow bragging. Our PowerPoint presentation kept resetting itself back to the beginning about thirty seconds in. Come to think of it, calling it a failure would be way too kind.

  Before he’d departed, Bill had made a particularly valid observation. “Maybe you guys woulda had better luck selling your pitch to your client if you woulda actually looked at each other. Like you’d come here together and worked for the same company.”

  Mikey had shrugged and somehow managed to make his eyes appear as round and innocent as a child’s. But I’d known Mikey as a child and he’d never been that innocent.

  But yes, Bill had been right. Since the morning I’d shoved Mikey’s back against the wall of my office, neither one of us had acknowledged the other’s existence on planet earth. And that kind of unresolved anger made it tough to sell a client on the steadfast and consistent attributes of your company’s personnel.

  “Jesus, Mikey. Couldn’t you have put your childish anger aside and considered the interests of this company?” I’d stood there in the flickering glow of a streetlight, my arms folded tightly in an effort to contain my rage, and attempted to shift the entire blame for our night’s flop onto Mikey.

  In response, Mikey had sweetly suggested that I go cry on the shoulders of “that bitch and her fag” (yes, Savannah and Tristan) and while I was at it, find my own frigging ride home. In the heat of the moment, I had less than rationally threatened him with his job, saying something like, “If you can’t focus on building buildings, I’ll find someone who can.” No, nothing about tonight had been sufficiently warm and fuzzy to induce an Evangelical preacher and his committee of six middle-aged housewives into signing on the dotted line.

  And so here I stood. Unfortunately, very few cabs frequented this area, and I had no clue where the nearest bus station was. I was stuck.

  Thankfully, I still had my cell phone, and I pulled it out and pressed T. “Tris?”

  “Yeah. It’s me. What’s up, Robby?”

  “It looks like I’m not gonna make it over to your place tonight.” I tried to make my voice sound slightly less pissed off at the world than I actually felt.

  “Why not?” He was clearly disappointed.

  I asked myself whether I should unburden myself on my unsuspecting partner. But, hell, that’s what relationships were for, so I dished it out. “Not a good day. I just finished a disaster of a job interview and, well, at the moment I’m stranded in South Boston.”

  “Where’s your Jeep?”

  “Back at the office. Mikey drove me over here, but let’s just say I wasn’t welcome for the return trip.”

  Silence. The Tristan hesitation.

  “I don’t think I’d be decent company tonight anyways.”

  “Have you eaten dinner yet?”

  “Dinner?” Sometimes he totally lost me.

  “Yeah, have you had dinner yet tonight?”

  “Uh, no. Not yet. But I think I have Cheerios at my apartment.”

  “Robby, grab a cab and get over to our place. I’m leaving work now and I’ll meet you there with dinner from the restaurant.”

  I had to smile because I could hear the grin in his voice. He wanted to do this for me.

  “What do you say?”

  Dinner from Michael’s with Tristan and Savannah sounded a hell of a lot better than dry Cheerios alone in my cold apartment. “All right. I’ll be there, buddy. But don’t hold your breath. I haven’t seen a single cab go by in the past fifteen minutes. Maybe I’ll try to call for one.”

  IT TOOK me well over an hour to get to my partners’ apartment. And at that point I felt like complete and total crap. Tonight had pushed me over the edge.

  When Tristan opened the door, the first thing I noticed was his beautiful brown eyes. Only after I took a few seconds to appreciate them, did I notice the delectable smell of seafood emanating from inside. I dropped my coat and briefcase by the door and followed Tristan down the hall. “This smells unbelievable.” I yanked at my tie to loosen it.

  Standing beside the kitchen table, laying out food cartons and occasionally tugging up those baggy gray sweatpants that kept slipping down his narrow hips, Tristan appeared quite pleased with himself. “It was one of tonight’s special’s—Seafood Linguine.” He gestured toward a chair. “Sit down; I’ll grab us a couple beers.”

  Before my ass hit that chair, I was drooling. Tristan had thought of everything: beer, rolls, butter, salad, and plenty of those delicious croutons. “Where’s Savannah? Isn’t she going to eat?”

  Dishing out the most enticing food I’d encountered since I’d been invited to dinner at Mikey’s mother’s house last summer, Tristan replied, “She went to bed right after I got home. She had a kind of bad day too.”

  “What happened?”

  “This girl she’s friends with, Lani, from a group home in Malden, got into some major trouble at school today. She took it really hard.”

  “Does she need our help to deal with it?” That was what people in a relationship were supposed to do for each other, right? Plus, I hated the thought of Savannah being upset. She was such a strong person; her only weaknesses seemed to be in the people she cared about.

  “She’ll be okay. I’ve seen her deal with worse.”

  “You have?” This was the first time Tristan had presented me with an opening to ask questions about his and Savannah’s bond. I didn’t overlook it. “Like what?”

  Conveniently, he used chewing as an excuse to avoid my question, pointing to his mouth and shrugging, as if he was helpless to answer.

  But I was persistent. “Tell me about when you met her.”

  A shadow crossed Tristan’s face, and he lifted his beer and took a long swig in
an attempt to distract either himself or me. Then the shadow lifted and his expression was sweet again. “She was amazing. The best thing that ever happened to me, in fact. Savannah was—”

  For the first time, I reached out to touch the skin on Tristan’s wrist, and it was every bit as soft as it looked. When he didn’t freak out at my light touch, I covered his hand with mine and interrupted him. “Not just her, Tris. I want to know about you too.”

  Our hands fell apart and then we both took a few more bites of dinner as he pieced his thoughts together in his mind. “Well, I’d been living on the street, you know, for maybe a year and a half or so before I met Savannah. For some of that time I’d been down in Atlanta ’cause it was warmer there, but I’d been back in Boston for about six months before I met her.”

  I nodded and waited. Patience seemed to be the way to get the most out of Tristan.

  “Savi was really young, just fourteen. She left home to get away from her mother’s pervy boyfriend.” Avoiding my eyes, he buttered a roll. “Let me know when you want another beer, okay?”

  I nodded but stayed focused. “Why did you leave home?” I knew it was blunt, but I also knew that I needed him to volunteer this information so our relationship could move forward. And by now I knew I wanted that.

  He completely ignored my question. “And I was just this skinny teenager, trying to keep everybody else off her, trying to keep her safe, you know?”

  He had more to say and I knew I had to let him reveal himself at his own pace. For some reason, I was finding that very difficult at the moment.

  “I did the goddamn best I could.”

  I’d never heard him curse before. “I know you did.” I reached over and touched him again. His hand curled up around mine.

  What he said next escaped from his lips quickly and in a hushed tone, as if it would hurt less that way. “I left because of the stuff my uncle was doing to me.” And as I could’ve easily predicted, Tristan looked down at his lap and tugged his hand from beneath mine to plow his fingers through his hair. Then all of a sudden, he popped up out of his chair and asked, “Are you finished, Robby? Let’s go hang out in the living room.”