Astrid rolls her eyes. “Drama Queen.”
“Shh, Ass-trid.” I glance at my mom, who’s turned her questioning gaze on me. “I, um, don’t need to do it. It’s expensive.”
“Honey, we can cover it,” Mom says.
I raise an eyebrow. “Well, I really don’t want to.”
“Why not, Beef?” Tom takes a huge bite out of his burger and says, with his mouth full, “You’re really good at it.”
Millicent makes a sound of disgust. “Tom.” Then she adds, “Bee, I really, really want you to do it. Come on, please?”
“It’s too expensive, and that’s that.” I shrug. “I don’t know…it might be good to keep in mind for next fall, though. Besides, I’d rather be here more, spending time with you guys.”
“The class is next semester, Bee,” my dad says, like I’m crazy for wanting to hang out at home. “A long way away from now.”
“So?” I shrug.
“Your attitude sucks,” Papa replies, good-naturedly. “But speaking of spending time with us, when is Levi coming over for dinner again?”
“Um.” I choke on a fry.
“Soon, I hope,” he says, looking at me closely.
Very closely.
I clear my throat. “Maybe soon?” I say, because I’m a coward.
Papa raises an eyebrow. “Well, he’s been nice to stop by this week. He said last week he was so caught up in TCP work that he couldn’t make it over. Poor kid. Looked terrible.”
“He stopped by?” It takes a lot of work to keep my voice from sounding shrill.
“A couple days ago, and again today. Didn’t he tell you?”
I quickly stuff my mouth with fries to avoid Papa’s gaze, which tells me he definitely knows something happened. “No, he didn’t. Must’ve forgot.”
Tom wipes his hands on a napkin (I’m pretty sure that was my napkin) and says, “Well, if Bee doesn’t want the spotlight, I’m going to steal it.”
Yes, please do. I smile. “As always.”
He scowls at me, but his smile is quick to replace it. “I got promoted—I’m a shift leader with a raise. My boss says I’ll be manager soon if I keep this up.”
Everyone raises their hands to high-five him, raining praises and good-jobs and excellents. He waits until we calm down before adding, “I’m also going to take classes again next year, maybe transfer to a four-year university if I decide what I want to do. Who knows? Maybe things will go even further at work and I’ll never look back.”
I clap Tom on the back and fake a smile. “I’m really proud of you.”
He beams. “Shut up, stupid.”
Mom shushes him. “That’s rude. You know the rules—now you have to say ten nice things to Bee.”
“Mo-om,” Tom groans. “How about five?”
My mother considers. “Okay. But make them count.”
Tom grunts, counting on his fingers as I wait with a smug expression on my face. “Your hair is long, you have glasses that fit your face right, you sometimes dress cute, your perfume is appealing, and you have a nice boyfriend.”
I gasp incredulously at this, trying to pretend like I didn’t hear that last one. Like it doesn’t cut deep.
Mama sighs, raises an eyebrow, and nods in Tom’s direction. “Bee, you can smack him.”
I lightly punch his shoulder.
“Harder,” my dad puts in.
I hit him again, this time with my palm, feeling the satisfaction that only comes from smacking an annoying older brother. He yelps in pain, which causes my sisters to burst into giggles. I sit back on my heels and smile even though I don’t feel like it. My chest hurts. Tom mentioned my boyfriend—the one who hasn’t called me, who’s been stopping by my house when I’m not around, who, my Papa says, looks terribly stressed. I’m the only one who knows it’s not because of TCP.
Ex-boyfriend, I correct myself after a moment of denial.
Ignoring the catastrophe that is my heart, I eat the last of my fries, bring my knees up to my chest as I sit back, and listen to my family’s laughter.
Chapter 46
Tonight, after we clean up the blanket and trash from dinner, I get ready for my shift on the couch.
Tom heads to work, and my sisters are tucked into bed, and my mom is soaking in a much-needed bath, so I curl up on my uncomfortable makeshift bed. I’m just starting to fall asleep when my dad’s voice surprises me awake.
“Hey, Bee,” he whispers.
I sit up and scoot toward his chair. “Yeah?”
“Why did you and Levi break up?”
I try to keep my breathing even. “What?”
Papa’s eyes are on me, white against his shadowed face. “He came this morning just after you left for work because he didn’t want to upset you. He even asked me not to tell you he’d stopped by. I had to pretend like I knew what he was talking about.” He clears his throat.
“Daddy.” I don’t know what to say except, “It was too much, okay? I was dragging him down and I couldn’t do it anymore.”
“You’re not dragging anyone down.”
I ignore him. “I wanted to do everything but I couldn’t. We were fighting so much.”
Papa nods. “He understood, though. He told me he understood why you couldn’t work through it right away. He even went as far as to say that he would have gladly fought with you for months if it meant you were together.” My dad laughs, but it’s a sad laugh. “Then he turned red and apologized, as if he’d said something wrong.”
I try to say something, but my words get stuck. The only thing that escapes are my tears. Then, so quietly I hope he can hear it, “I love him, Papa.”
“I know.”
“I can’t do it right now. Not while you’re sick.”
He snorts a laugh. “Just because I’m sick doesn’t mean you get to stop living your life.”
“I haven’t—”
“Have, too.” He reaches over, pats my hand. “Bernice, if you deny that class one more time, I’m going to spank you. I don’t care that you’re almost eighteen.”
I can’t help a laugh. “Shh, Papa.”
“You’re a stubborn one. And why you thought it was okay to say goodbye to That Boy is still beyond me.”
“It wasn’t the right time. I have a lot to figure out,” I whisper. For once, the truth—and he seems to recognize that because he doesn’t comment for a while.
“You’ve got to go out there, Bee. Face the wide world,” he finally says. “I can’t wait for you to do everything, while I’m here and while I’m not. You have so much time.”
I close my eyes. I understand what he’s implying: that he doesn’t have any time left. “It doesn’t feel like it,” I cry. I feel like I’m always crying, always wiping away tears, no matter how hard I try to stop it. “It feels like the world’s going to end tomorrow and—”
“And what if it does? So what! You should be doing all the things that will make you happy if the world does end tomorrow.”
I shudder.
“You love him, Bee.”
I can’t argue (even though I want to) because I just said that yes, I love Levi. I nod, biting my lip so hard I think it might bleed.
“And he loves you—more than any of us expected. Boys are dumb, Bee, but Levi isn’t a typical boy.” He looks at me pointedly. “You know, your mother told me about how she was certain he was a Precious Heart, all those months ago, and I was skeptical.”
I sniffle. I’d forgotten about this, but now that I know him, now that I’ve been with him and loved him, I know he is one hundred percent a Precious Heart. He is more deserving of that title than anyone else who has ever lived.
Papa continues. “But, darn it, Bee—he’s proven himself again and again. What about him makes you worried he won’
t be enough?”
“What?!” I exclaim. “I’m not worried he won’t be enough—I’m worried I won’t be enough.”
“Why?” he asks quietly, as if my words have somehow hurt him.
(I don’t understand anything.) “I couldn’t even tell him my name, Papa. Not once did I actually think about telling him; I was never ready like he was. He loves me so much and I’m scared I won’t ever be able to love him equally. I’m such a mess all the time… What if, down the road, I’m not worth his time?”
“Bernice.” Papa’s voice is hushed but commanding. I look up. “Bernice, did I ever teach you to be stupid?”
I practically snort in between sobs. (I am the queen of attractive.) “No.”
“Then I don’t know why you’re saying these things. Who told you that you aren’t worth the mess?”
It hurts. “No one, I just—”
“Bee.”
I stop.
“You can turn this car around any time you want.”
I whisper, “I know.”
“He loves you, and you’re going to need someone to lean on. Things aren’t always going to be as they are right now, Baby Bee.”
I cry in earnest again, gripping his hand too tight, but he doesn’t seem to mind.
“Hey, hey, don’t cry.” He pulls me in so that I’m crossing the foot of space between the couch and the recliner. I rest my head on his shoulder and let him stroke my hair. Finally, when I’ve soaked his shirt through, he says, “Why don’t you read Crime and Punishment to me tonight? We’re almost done with it.”
Thankful he’s changed the subject, I sniffle. “I think, last I counted, we had one hundred pages left.”
“Can we finish tonight?”
Brushing his hand away gently, I stand and retrieve the book. Its pages and cover are bent from being tossed and crushed and moved a thousand times, but I’ve never been happier to see a book of mine destroyed. “Maybe, if you can keep your eyes open long enough.”
“It’s a challenge I willingly accept.”
I blow my nose via the box of tissues my mom permanently keeps on the coffee table, then turn on the lamp on the opposite end of the couch, turn it on, and open the book. “Ready for this?” I ask.
“So ready,” he says.
I start to read.
The words rush from my mouth rapidly, but not so rapid that we can’t follow the story. I make sure he’s listening ten times before I stop checking and just read. My eyes droop, and my posture slouches, and I adjust my legs over and over so they don’t fall asleep, but I do it. I finish that book right there on the couch, with my Papa in the chair next to me.
He made it through most of the end, but even when he started snoring softly, I kept reading. And when I finish and turn off the lamp, I vow to read what he didn’t hear over again in the morning. Taking extra care not to make noise, I slip under the blankets and put my feet up. I fall into a deep respite at four in the morning, to the sound of my Papa breathing, his chest rising and falling, gently.
There is, however, a catch about sleeping: You have to wake up.
Matt Wescott doesn’t wake up again.
Chapter 47
There is an aftermath, but I don’t really feel it. I just see it, in my mom and sisters, and sometimes in Tom. I see it in the uniformed, faceless humans who come to our house and cover the body and take it away in a brightly lit vehicle. I can’t even cry then. I’m just…quiet. Everything I do feels wrong, feels like a show, like I’m plastic. Stiff and unwilling.
I have nothing I want to share. Nothing I care to say.
It isn’t until a few days after that the world starts to go silent. That’s when I cry. The days become one thing, a meshing of tears, a messy daydream that I can’t quite grasp. I’m pretty sure the dawn hasn’t come since Papa died, but I’m also pretty sure that the sun hasn’t set.
The world continues onward, blurry and raw, an endless string of things that don’t matter and people who can’t possibly understand. It is along this endless string that we prepare for my father’s funeral this weekend.
My mother is the strongest of us all, even though she would claim she isn’t. She goes forward like a train that can’t stop, or maybe she just won’t stop. I wonder, if she did, would she stop forever? So she goes and goes and goes, and I follow just behind, stumbling.
Millie and Astrid follow just behind me. Astrid pretends she doesn’t cry, but I see her swollen eyes and I know she’s hiding. Millie never stops crying, and every time I see her wet cheeks, I can’t help but cry with her.
Sometimes, on the off chance we’re both home at the same time, Tom joins me on the couch or my bed or the porch swing out back, and we sit wrapped in each other’s arms. I see the tears on his cheeks and running down his chin, and he sees mine, and we don’t talk.
(What is there to talk about?)
Every second that I’m not thinking about my father and the night he died, I’m thinking about Levi. Every waking moment is spent wondering, grasping. Everything is wrong, and I don’t want it to be my fault, but it is. Fixing my world is impossible, however, because I don’t have the strength. It’s the same as before: there’s not enough energy left in my reserves to make something happen. I can’t go to him or talk to him without looking like the bitch who only begs to get a man back when she needs something.
I won’t be that girl. Levi deserves infinitely more than who I am.
I go to work again a few days later, but it’s hard to get through fifteen minutes without crying. I have a moment of solace before I see the order my mom placed for Papa’s funeral, lying on the back counter, and I have to bend over, have to heave to get my breath back.
Ludwig finds me when I’ve been crying for a full five minutes. He puts a hand on my shaking, wavering shoulder, then helps me to stand up straight again. Sighing, his hands clasping my shoulders, he waits for me to stop crying.
I sniff until I can breathe again, rubbing my puffy face, and put a shaky hand on the table. “Th-thanks,” I stutter.
He frowns at me. “What can I do?”
“Nothing.” I wave him off, tightening my apron, reaching for the nearest clean vase.
“Hmm.” Ludwig takes the vase from me and says, “I think there’s something. Can you get me five white roses and three stems of the pale yellow spray roses?”
I don’t really have the will-power to say no, so I follow his instructions. When I lay the flowers on the worktable, he asks for filler and light pink stock. I go back inside, fighting tears again, but when I come back, I see he’s almost finished the arrangement. It immediately makes me think of flower fields in spring, and life, and happiness.
He’s right—he can do something, and he has. I give him a crooked smile, sniffling unattractively once more, as I accept his gift. “It’s so beautiful.”
He winks. “I like seeing happy Bee. Care to ring me up?”
Ludwig pays for the arrangement, and when I’ve put it in a box and set it in the back of the cooler to take home later, he calls me back to the work table. “I want you to take my class, Bee.”
I shrink inward a little, sitting on the stool beside him. “I know you do. I do, too.”
“It’s as simple as that, then.”
I give him a look.
He shakes his head at me. “It really is. Buy the tools, pay me whatever you and your mom can afford—but I want you at that class every week.”
I shake my head. “I can’t.”
“Accept a gift?”
“I already have—your arrangement.” (I’m stubborn sometimes. Real stubborn.)
“That’s nothing. Let me give it to you straight: There are people with talent, and there are people with passion. Then, very rarely, there are people who have both. You, Bee, are one of the few. Don’t waste it.”
I open my mouth—and close it immediately. I have nothing to say to that.
“Now, do I have a volunteer to help me with these orders?” He waves a stack of papers at me. “I have to get through nine in the next two hours.”
“Ew. I have nine deliveries today?” I snatch the paperwork from him, smoothing it out on the table. I’m still not happy, but I’m not crying anymore, either. “All right. What do we need?”
“Bee, will you do me a favor?”
I snap out of my trance at the sound of Mama’s voice. She stands in my doorway, her hair dragged into a messy bun, her eyelids puffy, her pajamas the same as yesterday’s. I nod at her, inviting her in.
“Who made those for you?” she asks, pointing to the vase on my desk. She makes herself comfortable on my bed.
“Ludwig,” I say, quietly.
She knows he’s doing Papa’s flowers. She shudders, her eyes drifting closed for a moment. “They’re beautiful.”
“Yeah. What’s up?” I don’t want to talk about flowers.
Mama nods. “Right. Um, I was wondering if you could pick up the last check from TCP?”
Okay, I also don’t want to talk about TCP, but there is no way in hell I’m refusing my mom anything right now. “How come?”
“Suzie forgot to drop it off yesterday, and won’t be able to come by until Friday. But…” She takes a deep breath in. “I need to pay the bills tomorrow.”
I try not to cringe. “Okay. I’ll go.”
She stands up again, nodding. “Thanks, Bee.”
As she’s about to close my door, I take a deep breath and say, “Mom, Levi and I broke up.” They tumble from my mouth, these long overdue words that make my body stiff and my heart burn. Will I never learn?
“You…what?”
I go quiet again, fighting tears. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. It was three weeks ago, and it wasn’t a good time to say anything.”
“Bee,” she says softly, and wraps her arms around me. “It’s always a good time.”
“Not with…Papa.”
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