“I’m ready,” I say.
Twenty-Four
When I get into Nick’s car, I’m surprised it looks so new inside. “I thought this was an old car?”
“Yup. Dad and I restored it.”
“A Mustang, right?”
Nick nods. “Sixty-four and a half.”
“You couldn’t spring for a sixty-five?”
He grins, shaking his head. “Don’t tell you me don’t know the significance of the sixty-four and half Mustang.”
“Sorry, useless trivia isn’t really my thing,” I say.
Nick’s mouth pops open and then he’s shaking his head in mock horror. “April 17, 1964, the day the Mustang was introduced to the world. At New York’s World Fair, since you’re asking.”
“I don’t think I asked. But, wow, that’s fascinating.” I’m surprised by the light sarcasm in my voice, this new energy inside my body. I feel relaxed and ready to have my date with Nick. I think maybe it’s Hank finally coming along, telling me his plans. Now at least I know what’s going to happen and I don’t have to try to guess.
Maybe knowing I’m going to die has freed me to live.
Nick looks at me, still shaking his head and grinning. “Sacrilege.” He starts the car up, pulls away from the curb and zooms down the road like he’s been driving his whole life.
We’re quiet for a little while, I think because Nick doesn’t know what questions to ask, which ones are safe and which ones would bring on the quiet. It doesn’t feel great, being high maintenance, so I get us started.
“Margie found your webpage. At your school?”
Nick nods and his hair dips forward and back. “They made me put that up.”
“They’re proud of you there.”
“I guess.”
“So you get to choose what school you go to?”
He glances over at me and is eyebrows are scrunched together in the middle. “Yeah, I guess.”
“You don’t seem happy about it.”
“Have you ever had three people trying to decide your fate, all the choices ones you wouldn’t make for yourself?”
“Nope,” I say. “I never had three people who cared that much.”
Nick looks sorry he complained.
“It’s okay. My mom loved me a lot. When I was a kid, Hank did too. It was enough.” The words come easier than I expect.
“I’m glad,” Nick says. “What was she like, your mom?”
I start to shake my head, ready to tell Nick I can’t talk about Mom yet. But there are words in me to tell about the good times. “She was the best, you know? She always took time to answer my questions, no matter how stupid they were. When I was little I was curious about color, I think because Hank painted.” I glance at Nick to make sure he’s not falling asleep. He’s nodding and I think he gets what I’m saying. “I didn’t care about why the sky was blue, though. I wanted to know why blue and red made purple, why yellow and blue made green. This sort of led to a talk about how babies are made. That stopped my questions for awhile.”
Nick laughs. “You went from mixing paint colors to making babies in the same conversation?”
“I was a nosy kid, I guess you could say. I had a lot of questions.”
“And made some pretty impressive connections.”
“I guess. Anyway, Mom turned bright red when I asked how she and Hank got mixed up to make me.”
Nick’s laugher is all around us in his old-new car. I join him and don’t feel even a little like I’m going to rip open.
After a bit we quiet down and I watch the scenery go by outside my window. We’re crossing a different bridge this time, heading to a theater Nick says is close to the university.
“So you’ll be a junior next year, right?” Nick says.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I haven’t thought much about going back to school.”
“What was your last school like?”
The answer to Nick’s question bounces around inside me for a while. It feels like a lifetime ago, my sophomore year. A brand new school. Not one familiar face. Not one friendly one either. Each day a fight to stay invisible, each class torture until the bell rang. The first flutters I ever felt were last year, until the boy I had a crush on announced in English class that, by the smell of me, I was going for the hi-pro glow. I remember a group of girls pinching their noses closed and fake barfing when I walked into the cafeteria, remember eating my lunch in dark corners of empty classrooms after that, remember even the outcasts casting me out.
“It was okay,” I finally say.
Nick glances over at me. “You’ve never had it easy, have you?”
“It’s not a right.”
“What?”
“To have things easy. It’s not a right.”
“I know, but it seems like the best people go through the worst kind of hell.”
I let his words sink into the hollow place inside me, let them knock around in there like the bees do. With all that Hank said to me over the last two years, all I believed to be true, with my not answering the phone the night he came with his gun, I don’t feel like one of the best. But I don’t say so. I don’t mind Nick thinking I’m good.
We get to the movie theater and Nick has to drive around for a little while before he finds a parking space. We drive past Twice Told Tales where Cheetah-the-cat gave me kisses on my cheek and where Hank sat on the floor with me.
I stay quiet, trying to ignore this new feeling in my stomach, the not-flutters because there’s no room. We finally park and Nick tells me to stay where I am. When I see him coming around the car, I understand. He sweeps my door open, holding out a hand. I let him fold my small, cold hand into his big, warm one, let him give me a little tug out of the car. I take mine right back, though, and rub my arms. I feel bare and cold without Mom’s sweater even though the night’s a warm one.
We walk up the road a little ways to the movie theater. It’s a busy night, a lot of kids our age hanging around out front—some smoking, taking drinks from bottles inside paper sacks, talking and laughing in big and small groups.
My stomach sinks, a shiver goes through me and all the new energy in my body leaves as fast as it came along. I pause in front of a little shop just before the theater and pretend to look in the window.
“Are you okay?” Nick asks.
“There are a lot of people here.”
“Yes.”
I look at Nick, need him to see how turned inside-out I am. He puts his arm around my shoulders. “It’s just me and you,” he says. His eyes let me know he understands. I let his arm stay so I can absorb some of his strength. His words and his sureness settle into me and I feel better after a bit. We finish our walk and get to the theater, stand in line and wait to buy our tickets. It’s not a minute or two before a group of boys starts shoving around behind us. Nick drops his arm from my shoulders when one bumps me hard. He turns around.
“Nicky!” the boy doing most of the shoving says.
“Hey, Bret,” Nick says. “Take it easy, huh?”
“Yeah, sorry, man. Didn’t see you there.” Bret looks me up, down, up, smiling big. “Who’s this?”
Nick takes my hand and I hold on tight. “This is Lily. Lily, this is Bret,” Nick says and then starts pointing at the other kids in the group. “Paul, Devon, Arturo.”
I don’t like how they’re looking at me—eyes darting from my sneakers to my hair and everywhere in between.
“She’s hot, Nicky. Where’d you rustle this one up?” Devon says in a deep, raspy voice, which only deepens my chill.
Nick looks embarrassed and I want to disappear into the sidewalk. My face is burning. Nick’s hand over mine, his warmth and the heartbeat I feel in his palm, these are the things I focus on. I think Nick’s heartbeat and it’s enough. For now.
“Hey, see you guys later, okay?” Nick says. He turns, tugs me out of line and back toward his car. “Forgot my wallet, you believe that?”
“What are we doing?” I whisper as we walk fast toward Nick’s car.
“Sorry,” he mutters. He’s watching the sidewalk and I think maybe he’s embarrassed to be with me. I want to sniff my shirt to see if it’s the hi-pro glow boy all over again, but then remember it’s a new one. This is a Margie shirt, not a dog food shirt.
We get to Nick’s car and he opens the passenger door for me. He hurries to the other side and slips behind the wheel.
“Did I embarrass you?” I say.
He looks at me, his eyes wide. “Of course not.”
“Then what’s up?”
He leans his forehead against the steering wheel. “I’m sorry,” he says again. I don’t get the feeling he’s saying it to me, though, so I keep quiet.
Nick finally sits up, digs his keys out and starts his car. “There’s a park nearby. Would you mind if we went there instead?” He says this without looking at me.
“Sure.” I’m only a little worried about Margie getting mad if she finds out.
We’re at the park in a few minutes and Nick stops near a big jungle gym. There’s an old swing set a little ways away and when we get out of Nick’s car, we both head right for it. The swings are those old-timey rubber kind that make your butt mush up around you. They’re nice. They face west and all we do for a little while is swing and watch the city lights.
“Are you sure I didn’t embarrass you?” I say to Nick.
He shakes his head. “Why would you embarrass me?”
“I don’t know. You just wanted out of there so fast.”
Nick doesn’t say anything at first and then he points to the swing I’m in. “That’s where I spaced out after Mom died.”
I look around the park with new eyes, imagining Nick here, his mind far away, time passing without him knowing. “Good choice,” I say. “It’s a pretty park.” Except for a clearing where you can see the city lights, the whole place is packed full of trees.
Quiet settles between us while we swing and drag our sneakers in the grooved sand underneath the set. “So… who were those guys?” I finally ask.
Nick glances at me quick, then looks back down at the ground. “Some kids from school.”
He doesn’t seem like he’s going to say anymore, so I ask him another question. “Your friends?”
“No.” He looks at me and his eyes are full of hurt. “I used to be a different person, Lily.”
“Oh yeah? Are you in witness protection or something? Bet your name’s really Hornsby Generica.”
A slow grin. “How’d you know?”
“You sort of look like a Hornsby.”
“I don’t think that’s a compliment.”
“Probably not.”
Nick laughs a little, but the seriousness in him is too big and pretty soon he’s frowning again. “Can I tell you something? It’s not a good something.”
“Sure.”
“Those guys in line?”
“Yeah.”
“They make up about half the wrestling team at my school.”
“Okay.”
“And they did used to be my friends.”
“Far as I know it’s okay to have wrestlers for friends. Nothing in the constitution against it, I don’t think.”
Nicks smiles again and in his smile is a lot of sadness and regret, I’m pretty sure. “I used to hang out with them because I was afraid they’d target me otherwise.”
Something in my stomach knows what Nick’s talking about before my head does. It’s the same feeling I got around hi-pro glow boy and those girls who would pinch their noses closed when I walked by. “Target you?” I say.
“They’re bullies. And I don’t mean take-your-lunch-money bullies. I mean corner-you-after-school-and-beat-the-crap-out-of-you bullies.”
I stop swinging and stare hard at Nick. “You helped them beat people up?”
“No, but I picked on people. There was one girl in particular. If you wanted to be part of the inner circle, you did what they said. Arturo—the short one?”
Nod.
“He’s the one who told me about this girl Georgia. She was big, you know?”
“Yeah, I know.” It was the same in the schools I went to—the big girls always got the worst of it.
Nick looks at his feet again. “I teased her.” He shakes his head. “Screw that. I tortured her. Day in and day out. You know what it took to make me stop?”
“No.”
“She showed up at my door with her mother. The way Georgia’s mom explained it, she’d found a suicide note in Georgia’s history book and made her say what was going on at school. My parents wanted to kill me. Seriously, I’ve never been grounded so long before or since.”
I don’t say anything, instead just wait for Nick to finish. My stomach’s settled down, but there’s something in me that sees Nick in a different way now. I wish there wasn’t.
“Anyway, I stopped hanging out with those guys and apologized to Georgia.”
“Is she okay?”
Nick nods. “She’s goes to a private school at the other end of town now. I hear she’s a lot happier.”
“Did the wrestlers start in on you?”
“No and that’s kinda the worst thing, you know?”
“You wanted to be punished.”
Nick tents his fingers and nods. “Yeah.”
“And you didn’t want to see the movie even though they don’t bug you?”
“The way they looked at you, it reminded me of…”
“Georgia.”
Nick shakes his head. “No, not like Georgia. Like the pretty girls they harass.”
I think Nick’s believing I’m pretty would feel better if I didn’t know about Georgia. All I can think is how I like a boy who almost pushed a girl to suicide.
“People change, Lilybeans.”
Mom always believed so. It’s how she explained Hank going from a real dad who taught me how to ride a bike to a mean dad who said I wasn’t good enough. I changed too, the second I saw Mom on the living room floor. I don’t remember how I was before, but I know I wasn’t empty or hearing bees or seeing not-Hanks. I think I was close to normal, especially when it was just me and Mom. People change. If I changed, if Hank changed, maybe Nick did too.
“I’m glad you don’t hurt people anymore,” I say. The words sound lame, but they’re all I can get out.
“Me too,” Nick says. “God, my parents were so disappointed. I never want to see that look in my dad’s eyes again.”
“Because he knows how it feels.”
“Yeah. We all do. Seattle’s more open than most places, but people all over have strong opinions.”
“I get it,” I say.
Nick looks at me from under his long eyelashes. “So do you totally hate me now?”
“Not totally,” I say and follow this up with a grin.
Nick swings in close until we’re almost nose to nose. “Listen, Spacey, I figure we’re even for the dinner party letdown now. Yeah?”
“I guess if you call trading a deep, dark secret for some unrealistic expectations an even swap.”
Nick plants a kiss on my cheek, a loud smacker that echoes in the fading light. “Unrealistic my ass.”
I can’t say anything right now because where Nick kissed me feels like it’s lit right up with sparks and tingles. A little circle of life. Nick is good. He did bad things, but now he’s good. This is how I will remember this moment.
There’s a rumbling across the park. I look up in time to see a black SUV with a painted-over logo on its door disappear around the corner. Maybe Hank’s decided I don’t get two days after all. I don’t know how I thought I could count on him telling me the truth. He’ll come—I know this for sure. But even if I choose to go with him, it isn’t about living anymore. It’s about dying.
Being here with Nick, listening to him talk about the ways he�
�s changed, hearing Margie’s words earlier about how she believes I’m strong, I think it’s time I make some choices too. I have a lot of stuff to work out and the bees are starting up, letting me know I better get to it.
“I need to go home,” I say.
Nick looks at his watch. “It’s only been—”
“Nick, please. I need to go home.” I get up off the swing and walk fast toward Nick’s car. I wait while he opens the door for me.
We’re silent all the way to Margie’s apartment and Nick looks hurt when I turn to say good night. I lean over and kiss him lightly on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not feeling very well. Maybe it’s a cold or something. You understand?”
“And what? You’re giving it to me as a thank you for the park?” He grins, showing me he’s glad it’s not him I’m upset about.
“It’s the least I could do.”
I wave at Nick as he pulls away from the curb, then look up and down the street to see if Hank’s followed us back. No black SUV, no Hank. I walk fast toward Margie’s apartment anyway, trying to outrun the bees.
Twenty-Five
I almost head on into the quiet place when I’m through the front door, but then Binka scales me, sits on my shoulder and tells me with her nose in my ear how much she missed me when I was out with Nick. She drives the bees away. Margie’s curious about why I’m back early, but accepts my words about not feeling up to it after all.
The next morning I decide to look at Dr. Pratchett’s workbook to see if it can give me ideas for how to get the bees to disappear. If I can do that, if I can answer their buzzing, maybe I can stay and defend myself against Hank, try to have a new life with Margie, Sam, Nick and Binka.
I grab the workbook out of the canvas bag Dr. Pratchett gave me and set it on the table next to the sun chair, then press down on the binding so it’ll stay open on its own. I’ve put the picture Hank tucked behind the cover at the bottom of a drawer where Margie won’t find it.
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