She seems to know who I am, and we start talking, me pretending to be more familiar with her and her friends than I am, keeping the conversation going because I like her white two-piece swimsuit. I figure out that her name is Danielle. She’s here with her baby sister, and as we’re talking, she keeps irritably turning to glance at a young girl splashing in the shallow water along with a little boy.
I have to make an effort to keep the conversation going. Talking to girls has always come easily for me, but I’m not feeling it now. I’ve never been in love, I’ll tell you that, though I’ve had a couple of girlfriends. I’ve never felt the way Cole obviously feels about Viola, and to tell the truth, I’m not sure I ever will. I don’t think I could feel anything real for this girl, but I wonder whether she would make the rest of the summer go by a little bit faster.
Then she asks me about Paul.
“He’s just a friend of mine. The brother of a friend. I’m just taking him out.”
“Who’s his brother?”
“Andy Gerber. This is Paul; his brother was Andy Gerber.”
Her eyes widen and flicker from my face to Paul, sitting in the middle of a growing sand castle, and back again. “Oh . . .” She sounds impressed, interested. What’s the word? Titillated.
I try to place Danielle. Which year did she move to town? I can’t remember.
Her interest in Paul has ruined the moment, ruined the conversation, ruined whatever might have happened for the rest of the summer. It feels totally wrong. It feels like she’s butting in on something she shouldn’t be. This must be what it’s like for Cole all the time; walking around, hoping no one recognizes him, hoping they won’t connect the dots. No wonder he doesn’t want to talk to people.
I want this girl to leave me alone, but before I can think of a way out of the conversation, her sister pulls a shovel out of the boy’s hand, sending him tumbling. He begins to wail, and Danielle turns and runs over to her, screeching about what a problem she always is, and drags her away with an embarrassed wave, which I don’t return.
The boy’s mother wades into the water, helping him to his feet and brushing wet sand off him. She seems old to have a kid this age, and she’s not Asian like he is, and I wonder whether she might actually be the grandmother. The kid stops crying and goes back to digging. The woman turns to me, and I recognize her right away.
“Hello, Matthew Simpson!”
“Hello, Mrs. Maiden.”
“I didn’t expect to see you here at the beach!”
“No, I don’t come much. I’m just here with Paul.” I nod toward him. I wait for her to say how lovely it is that I’m paying attention to Paul and taking him out, but Mrs. Maiden just nods as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
“Well, it’s a good day for the beach.”
“Is he, um, with you?” I ask, nodding toward the little boy.
“Oh, of course he is! I don’t think you’ve ever met my son, Stephen. Stephen, come over here and say hello to my friend Matthew.”
The boy wades out of the lake and stands before me, dripping, shovel in his hand. He looks me directly in the eye and says, “Hello, Matthew.”
“Hello,” I say, and, not knowing what else to do, I put my hand out, and the boy shakes it. He has a good handshake. We stand, looking at each other, and then Stephen nods, turns, and goes back to digging.
Mrs. Maiden laughs. “He’s such a pistol.”
“How old is he?”
“He’s eight. He’s small for his age. He was in an orphanage for the first few years of his life. He came to me when he was three years old. He’d gone to a foster home by then, but he was still malnourished. I don’t know if he’ll ever make it back up, no matter how much I pour into him.”
“Does he go to school?”
“Well, naturally he goes to school! He’s going to be in the third grade at Harrison in the fall.”
Harrison Elementary is what they built to replace the old East Ridge Elementary School after they tore it down.
“He’s one of the smartest ones in his class,” Mrs. Maiden continues. She turns back and looks at me. “Speaking of smart, I understand you’re going off to a very good school in the fall, Matthew.”
“I’m going to Bucknell. But it’s for baseball.”
“You’re just joining the baseball team? You won’t be taking classes?”
“No, I will; it’s just . . . I meant that I got in because of baseball.”
“I know what you meant. But you think too little of yourself.”
The comment makes me happier than I’d expect. It means something, coming from her. Unlike all the other parents who lost kids that day, Mrs. Maiden continued on with our class. She knows all of us. She came to our events: concerts, awards ceremonies, games, the elementary-to-middle-school step-up party. I saw her there at the high school graduation, too, handing out programs.
Stephen gives up on digging and finds a handheld fishing net. He’s standing knee-deep in the lake, spinning in a circle, one arm dragging the net through the water and the other extended toward the sky. “Mommy,” he shouts, “I’m going to catch us a fish for dinner!”
“Of course you are!” she calls back. She watches him and laughs out loud.
I watch him spin. I know that Mrs. Maiden’s husband has been gone for many years; they were one of the first couples to break up after the shooting. Even as kids, we heard things. I know that Kendra had been their only child, so she must have been alone. But here she is now, with a child of her own. Another child. Starting over again. I don’t know what to think of it. She looks at me for a long moment as Stephen continues to fish.
“You look sad, Matthew.”
“I . . . no, I’m fine. I’m fine.” I study the structure Paul is making in the sand.
She nods, eyes not leaving my face.
“I’m just tired,” I say. It’s true. The sun is beating on my head. I don’t think I ever woke all the way up.
She turns back to her son. “Stephen,” she calls, “we have to be going. We have Dr. O’Hara.” Stephen wades out of the water and stands at attention, the net over his shoulder, like a little soldier with spindly arms and a sunken chest. “Most children hate going to the dentist,” Mrs. Maiden says, “but not Stephen. He likes to show off what a good job he’s doing with his teeth.” The boy grins at me, displaying flashing white, and I can’t help but smile back at him.
Stephen and his mother gather up a few things, and she turns to me once more and lays a hand on my arm. “Be gentle with yourself, Matthew,” she says. Then they are gone.
I sit down in the sand and stare out at the water. I wish I could sleep. Paul is directly in front of me and doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, so I lie back in the sand and fold my hands in front of my eyes and try to rest. Maybe I do. My mind drifts, not really dreaming but not awake. It feels like a long while, but when I finally sit back up, only a little bit of time has gone by. The sun is really bothering me. I look at Paul and the sand castle, which is actually surprisingly good.
“Hey, Paul.” No response. “Paul!”
Paul looks over.
“Feel like an ice cream?”
Paul nods, and I lead him up the beach to the Snack Shack. We stand in line, and when we get up to the counter, I wait for him to place his order. When he doesn’t, I ask him what flavor he likes, and then I have to relay the answer to the guy working the soft-serve machine. I get a chocolate cone for Paul, pay for it, and then on second thought, I get another cone for myself. Vanilla, covered in rainbow sprinkles. My parents hardly ever let me get ice cream at the beach when I was young; it was a treat for special occasions, always carefully measured, never any sprinkles to throw things off. But now, standing on the hot sand with this cone, I’m remembering when the other kids all had treats like this, melting over their hands, and I was the only one left out. I check my phone: blood glucose of 224. Too high. The extra toast at breakfast.
I shouldn’t have this. I should take som
e insulin. Instead, I take a bite.
The sprinkles mix with the soft vanilla cream in my mouth. It’s incredibly good. I turn to Paul, who is attacking his chocolate cone and getting a fair amount of it on his chin.
“Paul, do you remember Andy?”
His eyes flicker; then he goes back to his cone.
“Andy. Your brother. Your twin brother, Andy. Do you remember him?”
“Andy.”
“Do you remember when I used to come over to your house? Me and Cole? We used to play in the backyard.”
He doesn’t respond. I go back to the counter to take a handful of napkins and then return to his side. I eat more of the ice cream. I’m going to finish it, even though I’d sort of told myself that I’d eat only half. I stare out at the lake, thinking that I almost made it across.
I spot someone off to my right, slipping through the crowd. A woman in a bikini, long black hair tied back, ponytail shimmering in the sun. She’s gone in a moment, and I turn and follow her. There are more families on the beach now, and for a moment I lose sight of her behind a big umbrella, but then there she is again, and I walk faster, not taking my eyes off her. I step around sand castles and moms rubbing sunscreen onto their kids, closing the distance, and I tap the woman on the shoulder just as she pauses by a beach chair. She turns and immediately looks alarmed. I’ve never seen her before.
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry. I thought you were someone else.”
She looks at the now-soggy cone I’m gripping in one hand, ice cream running over my wrist. My phone blares suddenly, alarmed at the sudden spike in my blood sugar, and we both jump. I take it from my pocket and swipe the screen. It reads 256, with an arrow pointing straight up.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m sorry.” I turn and walk away. My body feels dry and brittle. Sugar coats my mouth and the inside of my throat, and I know that inside me, large globs of it are circulating in my blood, clogging things up, taking their toll on my kidneys and my eyes. I need to take insulin, now. More than 250 is dangerous. More than 300, and the app automatically sends a message to my mom.
I retrace my steps and find that Paul is nowhere to be seen.
I look up and down the beach. Kids are running everywhere. I keep on walking, back toward the spot where we’d been sitting when Mrs. Maiden found us, scanning the sand and the water’s edge for him. The sun is too bright, and black spots are popping up in my vision. There’s a throbbing pain behind my eyes. Paul should be easy to find; he was wearing orange-and-black checkered shorts and a Rolling Stones T-shirt. I pass his half-finished sand castle—I’d been thinking that he might have come back to finish it—and I reach the edge of the beach area. There’s a path here that runs along the side of the lake to a smaller beach, mostly gravel, directly across from the Monument. A mom is sitting on a blanket with two toddlers.
“Excuse me,” I say. “Did a young guy come through here a few moments ago?” I describe Paul, and she shakes her head. One of her kids offers me an animal cracker. I take it and turn back to the beach. Does Paul know how to swim? Where’s the lifeguard? I can see the chair, but no one’s in it. I’m still holding the cone, which is a sticky mess now, and I throw it into a trash bin as I head back, my eyes on the water. I’m coming up to the empty lifeguard chair when I hear a noise and see a stir of activity up by the Snack Shack. I walk toward it.
Paul is there, behind the building, crouched on the ground, the remains of his ice cream cone lying between his feet. People are gathering around him and speaking to one another, and as I approach, Paul shudders and makes a sound like a gulping bark. The people probably think he’s upset because he dropped his cone, and one mother is rummaging in her purse as if she’s getting ready to buy him another. I crouch down and try to look into his face.
“Paul,” I say, “Paul, settle down.”
He isn’t looking at me. His eyes are on the ground, and he’s shaking his head.
“Hey, look, I’ll buy you some more ice cream and we can, we can go home.” Even as I’m saying it, I know that the ice cream isn’t the problem.
Paul continues to shake his head, rhythmically, bouncing a little bit on his heels. I look up. Some of the people have moved away, but a number of them are still here. I feel like telling them to move along, but I don’t, and I turn back to Paul just in time for the ice cream to hit me full in the face. He’s scooped it up from the ground and flung it in one motion. Someone screams. I can’t see for a minute, and I stand and use the wad of napkins to wipe it away. When I look up again, I see that Paul has also risen and is staring directly at me.
“I remember Andy.”
We look at each other for a long moment. I don’t know what to say. I’m not angry, and I’m not scared. To tell the truth, what I want to do is talk more about Andy, but there are people all around, so I just wipe my face some more. Then I turn and walk toward the parking lot, glancing back once to make sure he’s following me. I get into the truck, and so does he. Paul fastens his own seat belt without being asked. My phone goes off again: 298. I have to pee, badly, my body struggling to purge the excess sugar, but I don’t want to leave Paul alone again, so I go and pee standing in front of the truck. I text my mom with my free hand, letting her know I’m going to take my medicine and to ignore the alert. Then I get back into the truck and we drive back to the Gerbers’ house in silence.
Mr. and Mrs. Gerber are waiting for us in rocking chairs on the porch. Mr. Gerber has switched over from coffee to something in a cocktail glass. They both stand up.
“How did it go?” Mrs. Gerber asks.
“We went to the beach,” I tell her. I look at Paul, who is looking at the ground. “We had some ice cream, too.”
“Oh, that’s great. Let me pay you back.”
“No, no, that’s all right.”
The four of us stand silently for a moment, the two of them on the porch looking down at us. Some kids are running around on the lawn across the street, having a water-balloon fight. “I’d like to take him out again,” I finally say.
“Would you like that, Paul?” Mrs. Gerber asks. “Matt could come by again sometime, and you could go out together. He’s going to be gone in the fall, you know. Off to college.”
Paul doesn’t say anything, but he looks up at his mother and he nods, maybe to acknowledge the truth of my leaving; maybe in response to a thought of his own rather than to anything his mother said; maybe to say that he’d go out with me again. His mom clearly chooses to believe that last one, and she claps her hands and says, “Wonderful!”
Mr. Gerber comes down off the porch to shake my hand and clap me on the back, and I can smell the liquor on him now. He squeezes my shoulder hard and reminds me that an internship is mine for the asking, and I thank him again and get back in the truck.
I wonder for a moment, as I’m pulling away from the curb, how tired and desperate these people need to be to allow a passing eighteen-year-old, someone they barely know, to take a kid like Paul out with him on a moment’s notice, without even knowing where they’re going.
I come to the stop sign by Route 21 and realize that I never took any insulin.
I accelerate out onto the empty road, roll all the windows down, turn on the radio. I’m beyond tired. I should crash for ten or twelve hours. I can’t do it, though. Every time I lie down, the thoughts close over my head, like I’m sinking into deep water.
I step on the accelerator. The road ahead of me is empty, and for just a moment, not very long, I close my eyes, letting the dice roll.
And then I open them again and continue on, looking for a reason not to go home.
Five
— Cole —
“Over here.”
Matt’s voice comes out of the darkness, and I stand for a moment at the edge of the parking lot, letting my eyes adjust. It’s late, the Snack Shack is closed, with a big padlocked board across the window, and the beach is just a black strip with the blacker lake behind it.
“Where are you?” I ask.
I hear a rock hit the water once, twice, three times. Even when he was a little kid, Matt was able to get at least three skips out of the least aerodynamic stone.
“Fuck you,” I call. “I have the beer.”
“In that case . . .” Matt emerges from the darkness farther down the beach and grins. “Is it cold?”
“Ice-cold.” I toss the lukewarm six-pack to him, and we walk down to the overturned lifeguard boat. Matt pulls himself up onto the hull and twists a can free, popping it open and holding the foaming edge to his mouth. “Is this all we’ve got?”
“You’re welcome.” I pull myself up next to him and twist off one of my own. Dad left lots of beer in the garage. I doubt that Mom even remembers it’s out there, and she definitely has no idea exactly what and how much he had, so I can bring some whenever I want. But it’s not cold.
Matt grunts, drinks, and looks out at the water. “Did you know,” he asks me, “that Mrs. Maiden adopted a kid? A Chinese kid? I saw them out here a few days ago.”
“Sure. Everyone knows that.”
“Where was I?” he asks.
I shrug. Where is Matt usually? Somewhere off in his own head. “I don’t think they made an announcement or anything. I’ve just seen them around town. They go into the diner all the time.”
“Isn’t that kind of crazy, though? Adopting a little kid like that? I mean, what is she, sixty or something?”
“I don’t know. How old she is, I mean. I don’t think it’s so crazy. What else is she supposed to do?” We sit for a few moments, drinking our beers and looking out at the dark lake. “How are things going with Finn?” I ask. We almost never see each other at the store.
He shrugs and drains most of the rest of the can. “It’s fine,” he says. “It’s a job, right?”
I almost laugh. It’s the first job Matt’s ever had, and here he is, sounding like a working guy. He takes it way too seriously.
Every Moment After Page 8