“Does everyone remember the table?”
There were groans, laughter. One of his dad’s cousins threw a hand in the air and pretended to walk away, but Maggie kept talking.
“Ray built a little furniture, here and there. Simple stuff. You all know that. I asked him to build me a table, oh god, twenty years ago? I had the wood! I paid him! And still, the whole time he was making it, he complained that I was going to get to keep it. He finished it, brought it to my house, and every damn time he came by, every time he talked to me, he would say again that he shouldn’t have given it to me. I got so sick of it that I finally put it in the back of Nate’s truck. Nate, you helped me. You remember. Ray had just moved to that apartment in Germantown, and I drove it all the way there, left it in the lobby. He came down and got it, but never said a thing, never thanked me, just ate on it for years.”
People were laughing now, and Tucker felt himself smiling a little.
“I bet you think you know where this is going, right? Well, no. You’re wrong. He didn’t leave me the table. I have no idea what happened to that table, but wherever it is, I hope someone’s enjoying it, because it was lovely, it really was.”
Now people were laughing harder. Someone started clapping and others joined in, a gentle, tentative applause. Maggie had a beer in her hand, and she raised it in the air.
“A toast to the disappearing table, and a toast to Ray.”
She looked at Tucker, and he wondered if he was supposed to be raising a drink, but he didn’t have one. Instead he smiled at her and nodded.
Maggie nodded back, kept her eyes on him.
“He was a difficult man,” she said, “but he left behind some beautiful things.”
Tucker needed a few minutes to himself after that, but when he felt steady again, he went and found Maggie. He stood with her under a magnolia tree, its branches making delicate, complicated shadows all around them. He told her the story about beer tasting ugly, and she laughed so hard, wiping tears from her eyes.
Tucker wanted to laugh, too, but he was feeling troubled.
“I was going to tell him that story, you know . . . that night. But I never got a chance to. I didn’t say enough to him. I wish . . . I wish I’d done better.”
Leaves rustled overhead, and Maggie grabbed his arm, giving it a gentle shake.
“You did fine, okay? I’m sure you did fine. I know I said some tough things to you that night, but Tucker—I wouldn’t have blamed you if you hadn’t come at all. I know, okay? I know what he was like. I know how much he failed you.”
Tucker managed to say okay but nothing else.
“And you know what?” she added. “Whenever I think of that night, I’m going to remember you on the porch, with Riley. So I’ll always have something beautiful to think about, even when I’m feeling sad.”
Both of them were quiet then, and eventually Maggie said she needed to go bring out some more food. Before she went, she straightened Tucker’s shirt collar and gave a flick to his hair. She mumbled something about him being too cute for his own good, but then she stopped, her gaze focused over his shoulder.
“Who’s that?”
When Tucker first turned, he was staring into the glare of the sun. It took a moment for him to focus, to be sure that it was really her.
40
Erika
She took a big breath of the clean spring air, trying to keep calm despite the fact that she’d walked right into a party she wasn’t invited to.
She’d almost changed her mind a dozen times on the short drive here, but there were some conversations you couldn’t have over the phone. There were some conversations that couldn’t wait.
Her eyes jumped around, taking in all the people who were staring at her. She was suddenly worried he might not actually be here, or that she’d been wrong and this wasn’t the place. She was so sure, though. He’d showed it to her once on a map, and she always thought of him when she drove by . . .
And then she saw him, jogging toward her.
She liked watching him, the athletic way he moved.
She liked having this chance to take in his face, the naked, questioning look there.
He arrived at her side, but she didn’t know what to say. She’d had all that time in the car to prepare, and now she’d lost her words.
“Hi,” Tucker said.
“Hi.”
She wanted to hug him, but it seemed too soon, and there were so many people watching. Besides, Tucker’s expression was strange, and for a second she thought that he didn’t want her here at all.
“I saw that he took a plea,” Tucker said. “I’m not stalking you online or anything. I set up a news alert, so that I’d hear when something happened. I just saw it an hour ago.”
She’d forgotten her sunglasses, and she put her hand up against the brightness of the day, grateful for an excuse to hide a little.
“I’m told it’s a win,” she said. “Even if it doesn’t feel like one.”
The sound of birds and wind and insects filled in the space between them.
“That seems like bullshit,” Tucker said.
“Yeah, it’s bullshit for sure.” She swallowed and looked at her feet. “As for being a stalker, I think I probably take the cake today . . .”
He didn’t laugh, and that’s when she decided that she didn’t care. She hugged him, collapsed into him.
“I didn’t know he was gone, Tucker. I didn’t know until today.”
Tucker asked if she wanted to go for a walk, and so they headed for the woods, following a wide, hard path that was full of fallen branches and stones. Tucker reached up and plucked a leaf free, then let it flutter to the ground. He told her what had happened that night, getting a phone call from his mom, driving to the farm.
It broke her heart, the thought of him enduring that alone.
He was looking up as they walked, and Erika looked up, too, admiring the trees etched against the sky.
“I know that I apologized in a text,” Tucker said, “but that obviously wasn’t enough. I should have said more, but I was . . . well, you know. A little overwhelmed by everything. But I’m so incredibly sorry, about what I said to you, how I acted. I got all possessive and competitive and it was not okay, any of it.”
Tucker stopped in his tracks and turned to her.
“I’m been thinking a lot today, about my dad. My whole life, I felt like I was the total opposite of him, nothing like him at all. And maybe that’s true, but still . . . All the insecurities I have from the times I was around him, those aren’t just going to disappear. And there are so many people in the world that can make me feel the same way, if I let them. I’m more aware of that now. I think I’m in a better place, where I can really fight against it. But I wish I’d figured that out sooner. I wish I’d never said those awful things to you. I can’t stand the thought that I hurt you.”
Erika pressed her lips together and took her time before she spoke, wanting the words to be right.
“I should have apologized, too. I’m so sorry, you have no idea. I was purposefully keeping things from you, and implying how much I cared about you, but then I was afraid to really go there.”
“I understand. And I forgive you. Obviously, I forgive you.”
“I forgive you, too.”
The two of them slowed their pace as they came across a fallen tree. Erika hopped up and sat on it, and Tucker followed. The bark was rough under her legs, but she liked being up here, getting to take in all the green around them. When she turned to look at Tucker, though, he still looked anxious.
“Erika, I hope you don’t feel like you have to say all this, just because I lost my dad, or because you’re worried about me. I don’t want you to be here, forgiving me, because of that. If that’s why, I don’t deserve it.”
Around them, insects hummed, squirrels chattered. The air was warm, and the sunbeams were golden, coming in shafts through the trees.
“That’s not why, I promise,” she said. “That
night, at St. B’s—when you told me you were happy that we found each other again? I felt the same way. I still do.”
He nodded slowly. Overhead, a pair of birds let out a sweet, warbling song.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” Tucker told her. “I’m happy that you get to see this place, meet my family. And . . . I really missed you.”
“Me too. I missed you, too.”
The two of them sat quietly, their hands so close but not quite touching.
41
Tucker
Tucker took Erika to meet Maggie first, so of course Erika was smothered in a hug and told how welcome she was and how pretty she was, except too skinny, so what did she want to eat?
Erika admitted she was starving, and so they hit the buffet table, and then she had to meet a dozen more people while clinging to a flimsy paper plate that was wilting under the weight of an overcooked hamburger and a pile of Doritos, plus potato salad, Jell-O salad, pasta salad. “All of the salads that aren’t really salads,” Tucker called them, and Erika said that’s why they were the best ones. Nate patted her on the shoulder when she said that and announced she was a keeper.
Tucker started stammering, trying to explain that she was just his friend, but Erika waved at him to stop, mouthing it’s fine.
The two of them retreated to the steps of his grandmother’s porch, eating quietly, taking in the scent of charcoal undercut by honeysuckle.
“I’m going to Michigan,” Tucker said.
“That’s great. I’m really happy for you.”
“You’re done with your semester?”
“I am, but . . . I’m leaving. Tomorrow morning. My mom’s driving me up to Massachusetts. I start the program at Smith on Monday.”
“Are you excited?”
Erika’s plate was empty, but she was poking at it with her fork.
“I am excited, but I’m also freaking out a little. I hate being away from my mom. And I’m nervous to be around a bunch of, I don’t know, super-accomplished, confident girls.”
“I am positive your mom is painfully proud of you and has told the entire hospital all about this. And you are a super-accomplished, confident girl.”
Now Erika graduated to full-on stabbing the paper plate, filling it with a constellation of tiny fork holes.
“There’s another problem. We all have to come with a plan for an individual project to do while we’re there. Mine was supposed to be writing an essay, about my experience testifying. I filled out a whole stupid sheet about it, saying what the thesis was going to be and how I was going to try to pitch it to BuzzFeed or Jezebel or whatever.”
“I think that sounds great.”
“But there wasn’t a trial. I didn’t do anything. And besides—it doesn’t feel right. I feel like I was going to try to tell some story that wasn’t mine.”
“You’ll think of something else. I’m sure you will.”
Erika nodded, mumbling sure, sure as she finally set down the fork.
“What about you?” she said. “What are you doing this summer?”
“Oh! Uh, Ryan’s family has a beach house. In Bethany? Me and a couple other guys are going to stay with him. His dad’s a partner in this new crab house that opened last summer, so we can all work there.”
“Wow. That’s really cool, Tucker.”
Was it really cool? Tucker had been pretty excited about it for the past month, ever since the plan had come together. He thought it was exactly what he needed. An escape from his difficult year, from losing his dad. A summer to remember.
But then he’d come here today. He’d walked inside his grandmother’s house, which had always been spotless but was now half boxed up, dirtier than it should have been. He’d watched how slowly she was moving now, trying to imagine how she could possibly keep up with a six-year-old . . .
Right then, Riley came screeching up from the creek, clutching a frog.
“Is that him?” Erika asked gently.
Tucker smiled. “Yeah. I’m actually about to take him to my house for the weekend. Do you want to come by and say hi?”
Riley was immediately sprinting around the house, taking stock of every room, confused about the lack of toys but very excited about Tucker’s Xbox.
Meanwhile, Erika was back in Tucker’s kitchen for the first time since Christmas break, perched on that same stool at the breakfast bar that she always sat in, drinking a can of the mango seltzer that she liked. The sight of her there was so familiar, yet also a reminder of how much had changed in the last few months. It gave Tucker a bittersweet pang.
Frank and Janet had just gotten home, and they were unloading a bag of groceries—kid food, Tucker realized. There was peanut butter and chicken nuggets, Goldfish and macaroni and cheese.
“Are we going to start the movie?” Frank asked. “Because I am so ready.”
Tucker turned to Erika, a pleading look on his face.
“You have to stay. Please. Riley has never read a word or watched a second of Harry Potter, so we’re starting with the first one tonight.”
Erika spun herself around on the stool, letting out a frustrated groan.
“I would love to do that. But I have a thing I really have to go to. My dad and his new wife are having a party, and I need to meet my baby sister. Or half sister. Is it me or does half sister seem sort of rude, like why make that distinction? I should just say sister, right? Shit, I’m really nervous. And now I said shit in front of a kid. Twice.”
“Ray said shit all the time,” Riley announced, while trying to balance his stuffed Spider-Man on top of his head.
Erika caught the doll as it fell, then handed it back to him.
“Well, thanks. For letting me off the hook. But yeah, I should split. I’m going to run to the bathroom, and then I’ll take off.”
As Erika headed for the front hall, Frank called to Riley from inside the pantry, asking him to help pick out the snacks.
Janet appeared at Tucker’s side.
“Did you want to go with her?”
“What? No. She didn’t ask me, and I told you, I was going to do everything this weekend. I’m taking this seriously, I swear . . .”
“I know you are, Tucker, I know. But we’re just going to watch a movie and put him to bed. I think we can handle it. And besides, you have truly, truly watched Harry Potter too many times.”
“Yes, but sharing it with people you love is different. It’s kind of a monumental occasion.”
Janet pressed her lips together, then reached out and messed with his hair.
“That’s great and all, but this is literally your mother telling you that you’re an enormous nerd and you need to leave the house.”
Tucker rolled his eyes.
“Mom. To be entirely and completely clear? They do not sell last-minute prom tickets, and I’m not taking her.”
“Okay, I’m not that obsessed with you going to prom. And I’m not trying to match-make, either. I think you’ve spent a little too much time by yourself, since your dad died. It would be nice if you got out.”
Tucker knew that was true. Just hearing her say those words—your dad died—was painful to him. He had to take a moment to center himself, to push away the desire to run to his room and sink into his bed.
A party might do him some good.
“Okay, yeah. Thanks. I’ll see if she wants me to come. To be honest, I kind of messed up earlier this year. With Erika. So it would be nice to have a chance to be a good friend.”
“Well, okay then. Go be a good friend.”
42
Erika
“There it is,” Tucker said, slowing the car as he spotted the right address. “That’s the place.”
Erika stared out the passenger window, taking in her dad’s new home. The house was small but stately, with pretty white shutters and a cherry tree in the yard. There were cars lining both sides of the street, and Tucker had to park half a block away.
He turned off the engine, but Erika stayed where she was, h
er seat belt still buckled.
“I honestly have no idea if this is going to be boring or totally uncomfortable or what.”
“How are you feeling in general?”
Erika peered back at the glow of the little house, as if she’d magically be able to see inside.
She sighed. “I’m not very good with kids.”
“Just do your best. Or maybe it will be different, because it’s your sister.”
Still not used to the word, Erika repeated it quietly to herself a couple times.
“Okay, sister is definitely better than half sister,” she said. “And I do like the name Tessa.”
“So are you ready?”
“I suppose.”
“That’s the Erika Green spirit I know.”
“Shut your stupid face, Tucker.”
“Okay, okay, but listen—I know you said you didn’t want to stay long, but we can be here as late as you want.”
Erika’s lips twitched. “I should try to get some sleep. My mom and I are getting on the road really early.”
Tucker looked down at his lap. “Right, right. I keep forgetting that.”
Erika finally unbuckled her seat belt, then told him she was as ready as she’d ever be.
Laughter and chatter were coming from the backyard, so the two of them headed that way. Tucker pushed open the gate and they walked through. There was a small crowd gathered on a patio, flanked behind by a garden in bloom and above by little white lights strung all through the trees and across the fence. Erika spotted a couple people she knew and waved awkwardly. She was looking for her dad, but it was Jennifer she saw first.
She was wearing a long, loose dress that billowed as she hurried to Erika.
“Oh, you’re here, you’re here!”
Erika blushed, mumbling that she was sorry they were late, but Jennifer didn’t seem to be listening. She was too busy hugging Erika so hard it almost hurt.
Our Year in Love and Parties Page 19