A question. As if I’ve forgotten the woman who showed me photos of a bullet-riddled body. And not just any bullet-riddled body. The body of that boy.
“She has a few things she’d like to discuss with us. Your mom and I can talk with her first if you’d like.”
“Okay,” I say. “Thanks.”
We work in silence, because there’s not really anything more to say, except maybe that I’m grateful to them, for dealing with Karen. I’m studying the map, double-checking the radius at several points on the circle’s circumference, when I get a text from Aunt Lauren.
Won’t need your help today. I’ve decided to come home early to take kids for haircuts.
That’s a first.
Okay. See you tomorrow?
She texts back immediately.
Yes, but need to talk tonight. Want you to plan some new activities with kids. Maybe library? Ancient history museum?
In other words: not garden. Not Phoenix. I sit there, staring at the screen, trying to imagine Luke’s reaction when I tell him that instead of digging in the dirt, he’ll have the wonderful opportunity to walk quietly through a dusty room and look at statues.
Is this about my friend Phoenix?
As I said, let’s talk tonight. But that was bad judgment, Gretchen. It’s not safe for them to be with that boy. You shouldn’t have taken them there. We can’t let it happen again.
I feel my gut clench. I can’t even form a response. I don’t want to talk to Aunt Lauren. I want to talk to Phoenix.
Why isn’t he texting me back?
“Gotta go,” I tell my dad, pushing my chair back from the table. “I’ll drive today if that’s okay.”
“Sure, honey. Have fun with the little terrors!”
I don’t answer. He doesn’t need to know I’m not on my way to work. I’m going to find “that boy.”
* * *
Finding Phoenix is easy. He’s in the garden, where he is almost every afternoon. But getting him to look at me is something else entirely. He’s all wrong. His body is hunched over, his eyes are darting around. I can’t figure it out.
“Where is everyone? No volunteers today?” I’m walking alongside him as he carries a big bag of topsoil from the shed to a raised bed.
“No shows.” He hurls a bag of soil to the ground and turns to get another.
I try to help, but he won’t let me.
I follow behind him, thinking he must know about the online forum and what that woman said about him. Maybe that’s why he’s acting so strange.
“Because of that neighborhood message board post?”
He’s leaning down to pick up more topsoil. Two bags this time. He lets out a grunt when the bags hit his shoulders. His jaw clenches tight and he walks slowly, deliberately, under the weight of the soil.
“You know about that?”
I nod. “I can’t believe she said that stuff about you.”
“Yeah.” He leans forward and lets the bags fall to the ground. Then he shoves them on top of the one he’s already carried over. I feel like an idiot, following him back and forth, so I finally give up on trying to help, and sit down on top of the pile.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “Except the neighborhood bridge club was supposed to show up for a garden workday this afternoon, and no one did.”
“God, that’s so lame.” I’m shaking my head, because this is all happening a mile from where I live. It’s so wrong.
He takes a shovel from the shed and starts to jab it at the ground. He still hasn’t looked me in the eyes. Not even once.
“I don’t even know what a bridge club is.” He tosses the shovel so that it lands next to the pile I’m sitting on. “All I know is that I can’t plant a hundred flats of flowers and vegetables alone.” His voice is low and grumbly. “And all my volunteer groups canceled.”
“All of them?”
He nods but doesn’t answer. I glance toward an enormous quantity of little pots, lined up in neat rows on the other side of the shed. When I turn back, I catch him looking at me. His expression is one I’ve never seen. His eyes are bloodshot and rimmed in red. He looks away quickly.
“Are you high?” I’m not even thinking. The words just come tumbling out of my mouth.
“Jesus, Gretchen!” he says, angry. “You think I’m out here getting high alone?”
“No, it’s just—”
“No, I’m not high. And just so you know, I never have been.”
“Sorry,” I whisper, looking away from him. “You seem a little off or something, and I thought maybe—”
He gestures to the bags I’m sitting on. “I need those.”
I get up and he grabs one from the top. He tears it open and starts to dump dirt onto an empty raised bed. We both watch in silence as the dark soil hits the ground. He shakes the last of the dirt from the bag and grabs another. Tired of feeling useless, I go to the shed and grab a hoe. I bring it back to the bed and start to spread the soil.
“Thanks,” he mutters. “Where are Luke and Anna, anyway?”
“Their mom sort of freaked. She said I shouldn’t have let the kids be with you.”
“Really?” he asks, looking up. His face doesn’t have that light in it, and he won’t smile. Everything feels so off balance.
“It’s just a misunderstanding,” I say. “I’ll clear it up.”
He keeps dumping soil into the bed, and I keep pushing it around, and it feels to me like neither of us can say what we want to say. When the last bag of soil is in, Phoenix glances at me, like he wishes I weren’t still around.
“Can we take a break?” I ask. “Talk, maybe?”
He points over to three spindly bushes. “I’ve gotta get those in the ground.”
“What are they?” I ask.
“Dunno. Amanda bought them. Some kind of berries I’ve never seen.”
“I’ll help.”
It turns out, they’re blackberries. I hold the branches steady while Phoenix fills the holes around them with dirt. By the time we’ve finished the third one, I can’t take the silence any longer.
“Adam and I broke up.” I blurt it out.
He stops shoveling and looks up at me. “What?”
“Last night I went to Athens and we ended it.”
He studies my face for a split second and then starts to shovel again. “I’m sorry.”
Not the response I was expecting—or maybe hoping for.
“I’m not,” I tell him.
“You can let it go now.” He nods once.
“Huh?” I don’t get what he’s saying.
“The vine. You can let go.”
I release the bush, and Phoenix starts to pound the dirt with his shovel, packing the dirt around these bushes or vines or whatever they are. They don’t even have any leaves on them. They’re just these weird-shaped sticks, all lined up in a row.
“So, that’s it?” I ask him. My heart is starting to beat fast in my chest.
“What?” he asks.
“That’s all you want to say about Adam?” I feel cold, suddenly. I cross my arms and hug my chest tight.
Phoenix looks away from me, across the garden and toward the street. It’s like he’s ready to bolt out of this conversation as fast as he can.
“Let’s sit,” he says.
We walk over to a stack of two-by-fours and sit down at opposite ends.
“There’s something I need to know—I mean, a question I need for you to answer. It’s been bugging me—” He’s staring down at his hands.
“Sure,” I say. “Anything.”
“What did he look like?”
“Who?”
“You know who,” he says.
Of course, he’s right. I know who he’s talking about. That boy.
“It doesn’t matter,” I tell him.
“It does to me.”
I turn to face him, but he doesn’t look up. He keeps studying his hands.
“You never even said—” I watch his face, his sharp jaw,
clenched teeth. “I mean, was he black or white or…”
I press my lips together and look away from him. I don’t understand what he’s doing.
Phoenix finally faces me. “He looked like me, didn’t he?”
“He was Latino, if that’s what you mean,” I say. Now it’s my turn to study my hands.
“And he looked like me.” The words come out sharp, like shards of glass. “Just say it, Gretchen.”
“I guess he sort of did at first, but…”
At first I thought so, I want to say. His hair was the same color as yours, and he was lean and strong. But you’re much taller, and you’re you. He looked nothing like you. He was nothing like you. But I don’t say any of that. Why can’t I say any of that?
“I was wrong,” I tell him.
“Are you sure?” he asks. His eyes meet mine, under thick black lashes and dark eyebrows. The angles of his jaw are so perfect, strong and gentle at the same time.
“Yes, I’m sure.”
He wasn’t beautiful, I want to say. You’re beautiful. Your eyes are brown, but also gold. They shine, they glimmer. And your skin. I can’t help touching it. It’s so smooth, except for those callouses on your hands. I love the way they feel against my skin. And your color: it’s light, but rich and deep, and it makes me want to climb inside you to see what substance God filled you with, to give you that sheen. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. You’re like nothing I’ve ever seen.
But I don’t say any of that, either.
“I think maybe—” He’s talking to me, but he can’t look at me. He closes his eyes and bites his lip. “I think we shouldn’t hang out, Gretchen.”
“What?” My heart is beating fast inside my chest, making its way up into my throat. “Why?”
“We shouldn’t be spending so much time together. I can’t give you what you need, Gretchen. I’m not him.”
I feel heat rush to my face. What have I done?
“No,” I say. “No! Jesus, Phoenix. Of course you’re not him. What are you talking about?”
“I think you need help.”
“But you’re helping me. I’m so much better.” I hate the way it sounds. I sound so needy. I can’t believe I’m saying it, but it’s true.
“Yeah, um—”
Oh God. He thinks I’m crazy. And maybe he’s right. There’s plenty of evidence. But I need him, and not because he looks like the person who hurt me. That is insane. He doesn’t. Not anymore. He probably never did.
“I think you need, like, professional help or something.” He’s mumbling. He opens his eyes and looks into mine. I see it there. He wants to be close to me. It is killing him to say this.
Why is he saying all of this?
I stand up and walk over to him. Then I speak, loud and firm. “Listen,” I say. “I’ve had professional help. It completely sucked. I hated it and I am never going back if I can help it. That’s not what I need.”
His eyes are closed again. He’s leaning away from me.
“Phoenix, look at me.”
He opens his eyes.
“I need you,” I say. “And you need me too.”
He stands up and starts to back away from me. “You don’t need me, Gretchen. I’m not who you think I am. I can’t be what you need. And maybe I do need you, but I definitely don’t deserve you.”
“You’re not making any sense.”
“You’re into me because of that guy who died, which is messed up.” He says it so slowly. “I’m sorry, but that really is messed up.” He keeps trying to move away, but I close the distance between us.
“You’re wrong,” I tell him. “This may be the only thing in my life right now that’s not a mess.”
He stops and studies my face. And for just a second he smiles—the real smile, the one that opens up the whole world. “I gotta go,” he says.
“Wait,” I say. “I want to give you something.” I dig inside my bag and grab the map I’ve been working on, with the twenty-mile circumference and the color-coded tabs. By the time I pull the map out, though, he’s already running, fast.
“Phoenix, wait!”
He doesn’t look back.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
PHOENIX
IT’S BEEN TWENTY HOURS since that judge pretty much green-lighted me, and sixteen hours since I ran away from Gretchen in the garden. I haven’t slept. I haven’t eaten. I’m hungry, but after what Amanda and Sally heard about me yesterday—I don’t even want to face them. So I’ve been hiding out in the basement.
I wish I could talk to Ari. I think maybe that would help—just to hear my little brother speak. I wish I could tell him that he’s gonna be fine, that he’s gonna stay here, and he’ll go to one of these big-ass American middle schools with the flag flying out front, and he’ll study the presidents and play on the soccer team—maybe the baseball team too, and that after school he will walk home with his buddies, and they’ll go to, like, McDonald’s and stuff. They’ll go get a milk shake and some French fries. Maybe Ari will get fat; maybe he’ll stop being a scrawny little bastard and he’ll pack on the pounds. He’ll be a real American. Maybe he’ll be in one of those pep bands, like we saw at the basketball game. He’ll be so buff that he’ll play trombone, or maybe he’ll wanna bang on the drums instead.
Christ, maybe he’ll even have a new family or something. Who knows? Maybe he’ll have a bunch of little brothers and sisters, and they’ll all look up to him. Maybe they’ll live in a brick house with trees out front and, like, a fence around it, and they’ll have a dog—and not a scrappy little stray that wanders around, searching for garbage. They’ll have a good-looking dog that lives inside the house. They’ll call it Ruff or Buster. And Ari will be the one who has to feed it every day—little cans of food that they buy special at the supermarket just for that dog. Two dollars for each can, but it won’t even matter, because Ari will have plenty of food, plenty of everything.
But I can’t talk to my pissant little brother, because he refuses to speak.
God, I need to get out of here. I need to stop thinking about all of this—about Ari and Gretchen. Oh Christ. Gretchen.
I really fucked it up this time.
I’m not an idiot. I know I handled things all wrong yesterday. But I’m not gonna let myself think too much about it, because the thing is, I’ve let too many people down already. I’m not adding Gretchen to that list.
* * *
After hanging out alone in the basement all day, I’m pretty much crazy with worry and regret. So I decide to head over to Bo and Barbie’s. I figure they’re the only people inside this twenty-mile radius who don’t have a reason to be pissed off at, disappointed with, or just plain afraid of me. When I get to the shop, Bo tells me we’ve gotta make a stop to visit the Colonel on the way home. At first I haven’t got a clue what he’s talking about, but then he pulls into the KFC drive-through and I understand.
When we get to the house, Barbie pulls out some paper plates and we dig in. I’m gonna be honest, Amanda and Sally’s dinners are way better than the food Bo and Barbie feed me. But I’m not complaining. It’s great to be here, actually. Sitting in plastic chairs around their kitchen table, licking chicken grease off our fingers, washing it down with a cold beer. TV’s on in the background, playing some bad reality show that no one even cares about, and the kids are in bed now, but before, they were running around like maniacs, screaming at each other about who the hell even knows. They’re cute kids. Both of them have hair so light that it’s almost white, and the little one, the girl, has those fat little cheeks and dimples. I had to ask Barbie how to say that tonight. Dimples. It’s a cool word, actually. The kind of word that sounds like what it means.
Anyway, all the noise is good. I mean, it can be so quiet at Sally and Amanda’s place.
“You want some more mashed potatoes, baby?”
I don’t really know why, but Barbie always calls me baby. Maybe she forgets my name. She picks up a Styrofoam container and reaches toward me.
“Sure,” I say. Honestly, I don’t, but I’m not gonna be rude about it. I scoop some white stuff onto my paper plate and Bo hands me this brown juice to pour on top.
“Gravy,” he says.
We’ve got a bunch of KFCs in San Salvador. For some reason, they always build them near the Walmart. We’ve got a couple of those, too. When I was working for Sister Mary Margaret, Ari and I used to meet up outside of Walmart for me to give him money. It was safe, because of all the security guards. That place was swarming with security guards carrying big-ass guns. And the KFC, too. Nobody’s going near the KFC unless you got a wad of cash in your fist and you’re headed straight for the counter to order up some food.
That place is expensive in El Salvador—like a dollar and a half for a Coca-Cola.
So, yeah, I’ve never tried KFC until tonight. It isn’t bad or anything. It’s kinda making my stomach hurt a little, though. Probably all that grease. But, madre de Diós, the beer tastes good. It’s been, like, six months since I’ve had a cold beer. When Barbie offered me a second can, I went ahead and took it. I know from movies and from some of the missionary groups that kids in America love to get drunk off beer. They have wild parties and drink straight from the keg. Over in El Salvador, though, we mostly just chill with a beer. When it’s crazy hot outside and the air is so steamy you can see it, a beer’s about the best thing to cool you off.
We start talking about stuff. I don’t really know why, but it’s pretty easy to talk to Bo and Barbie. I tell them about Gretchen, and how much I like being around her, but I think she might need more help than I know how to give her. I tell them that I messed up, and I said a bunch of things I wish I hadn’t said. They listen, but they don’t say much until I say it doesn’t matter, because I’m gonna be deported soon anyway. That’s when Bo’s fist lands on the table.
“You can’t talk like that, El Salvador.”
Bo sometimes calls me El Salvador. Maybe he forgot my name too.
“I’m just being honest with myself,” I say. I’m thinking about why I couldn’t be honest with Gretchen—why I couldn’t tell her that, instead of saying all the hurtful things I did.
“You’ve gotta fight for it, boy. You have a little brother to look out for.”
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