by Ginger Scott
Her hand pats against my window frame and I glance up to see her back up a few steps.
“Let me know about the title and stuff. It’d be great if we could close in a week.”
I nod, barely, but enough that she turns away and lifts her hand in a final goodbye gesture.
I sit parked in the driveway for several minutes, my eyes shifting from one house to the other, a seam of memories sewn between them both.
Chapter Four
Nicole
I’m not on my game today. I think I overdid it in the garden over the last three days. My head has been pounding ever since Chase woke me up with his phone call this morning, and I haven’t been drunk in years, but I vaguely remember it felt something like this. I’m sure it’s exhaustion.
I was starting to worry about how I left things—concerned that he wouldn’t sell the house to me after the guilt I laid at his feet over my parents’ death. I think a part of me had been waiting to zing him with that for years. It didn’t feel as good as I imagined it would though. It left me feeling hollow, and ashamed that I stooped so low to make my family tragedy a bullet to correct years of harbored teen resentment.
I stumble through the drugstore dizzily, my head swimming with everything that’s happened during the last two days and my lack of sleep, and along my wobbled path I knock over a rack of sunglasses.
“Shit,” I whisper to myself, dropping the box of cold medicine as I clumsily try to catch the last few sunglasses before they hit the ground.
“Nicole, don’t worry. I’ll get it.” My shoulders sag heavily as I sigh and let the final two pair fall from my fingers.
“I’m sorry, Dale.”
“No worries,” he says, pushing his glasses up from the tip of his nose and tucking his pen in the pocket of his white coat. Dale is the only pharmacist I’ve ever known. And that’s because Rider Springs is the only place I’ve ever really known. If you get sick here, you see his brother, Dr. Marshall. It’s our own kind of monopoly.
“Looks like you’re getting hit with that bug going around.” Dale hands me my medicine, shooing my hand away when I start to pick up the fallen glasses. “Stop, I said I’ll get it.”
I exhale again, and pinch the bridge of my nose.
“Maybe. I think I’m just tired though. My head is killing me, and my throat hurts a little,” I say.
He tilts his head at me and slides his glasses back down, raising his brow for permission to feel my forehead. I nod and let him.
“I think it’s more than tired, missy.”
He urges me toward the counter and I follow. He rings up my purchase, and I hand him a twenty. Before he puts it in the drawer, though, he pauses and leans forward with a grin.
“Hey, did you hear Chase Pennington is in town? I haven’t seen that boy…ha…man, I guess…well, since he was a boy.”
I smile at Dale, my headache pausing for just a few seconds—long enough to let my present tense into my conscience again.
“I did know. I haven’t seen him in a while either,” I say, staring at the money in Dale’s hand, wishing I had the power to force him to fast-forward.
“He came in for the funeral. Awful about Evelyn. That woman brightened my day. I was a little sweet on her, you know.” Dale’s bushy white eyebrows waggle, and I giggle. He finishes making my change and hands me four dollars and my medicine in a small plastic bag.
“I didn’t know that. Hard not to love her though,” I say, holding up my bag in a gesture of thanks, and to excuse myself from one of Dale’s long conversations. I make it to the door before he circle’s back to Chase.
“You and Chase,” he starts to chuckle, this time pulling his glasses from his face and tucking them in the pocket with his pen. “You used to steal money from Evelyn’s purse on Sundays at church and run here as soon as the sermon was done to buy candy. You remember that?”
I let myself drift back, and looking at the counter and row of candy bars in front of me adds to the realism of the memory that floods my body. We liked Rocket Suckers. I’m sure they’re actually gross, but we would drop quarters like crazy on those things, stuffing our pockets with nine or ten of them at a time.
“When I got older, she told me that she put the money in her purse on purpose, because she knew we’d take it.” I laugh at the memory and hurt a little over the loss.
“I’m sure she did. Sounds just like her,” Dale says.
I pause in the doorway of the store for a few seconds, then impulsively move back to the counter and kneel down for a pair of grape-flavored Rocket Suckers.
“How much I owe you?” I toss them both on the counter.
“On the house,” Dale answers, sliding them toward me. I grin at him and take them in my hand.
“Thanks, Dale,” I say, actually exiting this time.
I leave the suckers out on my passenger seat during my drive home, and grab them in my hand excitedly when I see Chase standing next to his car parked between what will soon be my two homes. Before the words leave my mouth, though, he turns and holds up a finger, his phone pressed against his opposite ear. I slide the candy into my pocket and forget about it.
“Right, I understand. This should be two more days, three tops. I’ll be there.”
Chase’s eyes dart over me, so I take a few steps away to give him privacy. That small bit of eavesdropping reminds me that he has a whole entire life I know nothing about. And that life has nothing to do with me, or Rider Springs. I laugh at myself silently, and a part of me envies the places Chase has seen. I’ll get there soon, though. The world is waiting for me.
“Sorry about that,” he says, stepping closer to me and holding up his phone in his palm. “Work…never stops, I guess?”
“No worries.” I push the suckers deeper into the pocket of my jeans and pull the bottom of my sweatshirt low on my hips. The cold front came through two days ago and brought a new chill to the air. We may get snow by the end of the month. It’s rare, but it does happen.
Chase holds the car door open for me, and I climb inside, buckling before he slides into the driver’s seat.
“The title company is in Chester. I hope you’re okay taking a long lunch,” he says, shifting gears and pulling away from home.
“I work from home right now. Sort of. At least, I’m writing grants and plotting research points, so nothing I need to drive into the university for.” I think about the phone call I’m also waiting to get from the board in New York—the one that will approve three months in Burundi working with a team of engineering contractors and botanists to create our first model garden.
“Sounds like you’re needed at the office?” I ask.
Chase chuckles, then relaxes into his seat, resting his arm over the steering wheel as we turn toward the highway.
“Need might be a bit of a strong word for talk radio.” He laughs. “There’s a spot opening up, though. It’s…kinda a big one, I guess. Anyhow, my boss talked the station owner into giving me a trial, but it starts next week. Just a little stressful. I’m not so sure I have interesting things to say for four entire hours.”
“You’ll come up with something.” I think of the way Chase used to take over classes in grade school, junior high and eventually high school. When he didn’t have answers to questions, he would take the conversation in an entirely new direction, but he’d captivate everyone in the room—almost hypnotically—to the point that he was getting praise when he really didn’t have a clue about the original topic at all.
“I wish I had the same faith in myself that you seem to have in me,” he says, glancing at me sideways briefly before turning his attention to the road.
I watch him drive for a while, and he catches me staring more than once. It doesn’t stop me, though. There’s so much about Chase that’s familiar. He could so easily be home, and that’s strange because for so long, he represented that one place I didn’t want to go.
“What happened to us?” I squeeze myself with my arms when I realize my words were o
ut loud. Chase glances at me again, mouth shut tight and a line on his forehead. “Sorry…I was just…”
“No, it’s…it’s okay,” he says, and my lungs loosen a little with relief. “I’ve been thinking about us a lot lately, too.”
I feel the nerves take root in my lips, my heartbeat felt all over my skin and my mouth tingling. I know it’s the situation we’re in, and I know he doesn’t mean it that way, but still…hearing Chase Pennington utter the word us. Maybe that’s the magic Evelyn was hoping for. It would be enough.
“We just led different lives, I think. You were so smart, and I was this dumb jock,” he says, and I interrupt to defend him.
“You were never dumb.”
He rolls his eyes and twists his neck, shifting in his seat as he chuckles.
“You don’t need to make it better. I know what my GPA was. I smartened up after triple-A ball, and maybe that was in me all along, but call it what you want—lazy maybe—my grades were shit and my classes were borderline paint-by-numbers and cut-and-paste.”
I settle into my seat and laugh at his self-deprecation.
“Whatever you want to think, Chase. I seem to remember you ruling the school, though. Meanwhile, I was in the science building basement pouring chemicals into beakers and cooking solids to liquids and boiling liquids to gas.”
I was driven. My parents didn’t spend much time with me at home, so spending hours at school seemed like heaven. When I was a kid, more of my time was spent with babysitters rather than my mom and dad. They were both chemists, and they worked at the pharmaceutical company in Chester. I always figured I was a surprise baby, or something in their mental makeup didn’t let them show affection like a mom or dad should. They weren’t cruel, they were just…cold. Evelyn started babysitting me in second grade, and that’s when Chase and I became best friends.
“You’re still the smartest person I know,” Chase says after a few minutes of quiet. I think about that statement for a while, and all of the things it isn’t. It’s not beautiful, or kind, or interesting. It’s smart.
“Thanks,” I say, turning my attention back to the window. We’re both quiet for the rest of the ride.
The meeting with the title agent is short and sweet. She makes copies of my driver’s license, and I fill out a few documents to verify who I am, what I do, and what I’m worth. She tells me she’ll give me a final number to make the check out for in a day or two, and Chase and I are on our way back home.
The same quiet exists around us, and I hate it. I’m angry, even though there isn’t really a reason for it. When we near Rider Springs, though, Chase must sense it, because he stabs the emotional wounds in one breath.
“I’m sorry I abandoned you.”
My brow draws in.
“Did you?” I ask out loud because even though that’s how I felt, I’m not sure he really did. I sort of abandoned him, too.
“I did. I picked the cool crowd and I quit asking you to do things in favor of doing dumb shit with people I thought would get me somewhere. Where that is, I have no fucking clue.”
He laughs then shakes his head.
“I never asked you to do anything either, Chase. And that’s on me.”
The car idles at a stoplight and Chase twists to look me in the eyes.
“My friends weren’t very nice to you.”
I mentally rifle through the dozens of cruel names and nod with a raised brow.
“You’re right on that one,” I say. “Your friends were dicks.”
A burst of sound escapes his chest as he laughs at my response.
“What’s funny?” I ask as he starts to pull through the green light.
“You…and the word dicks. I just never thought of you as the kind of girl who said curse words.”
“Dick is not a curse word,” I say, prompting more laughter from him. I start to enjoy making him laugh. “Fuck…now fuck is a curse word. And shit-fuck…that’s a compound curse word.”
His head turns to the side and he leans into the steering wheel with hard laughter, and it takes him almost a full minute to compose himself. I smile and rest in my seat while he calms down, and I start to feel drowsy. I almost nod off before the car shakes from the gravel of the road to my house, and when I sit up straight, my head throbs hard.
Chase stops in front of my house, and I get out with my bag in my hands, anxious to swallow my pills and fall into my pillow.
“I’m really sorry about your mom and dad.” I’m surprised by his words behind me, and I jump a little.
“Sorry, I wanted to say that the entire drive and I just now felt strong enough.” He licks his bottom lip and shuffles his feet from side-to-side, his hands deep in his pockets and his chest tight. He’s holding his breath; I’ve seen Chase act this way before—nervous.
“You don’t have to be sorry, Chase. It was a long time ago. Right after graduation. Your parents had moved by then, and I was getting ready for college. The saddest part is how little my life changed.”
My eyes sting at my pathetic words. It feels heartless to say out loud. I loved my parents, like any kid would. But we were never close. Sometimes I wonder if fate knew what was in store for them and was trying to protect my heart.
“I still should have been there,” he says, and a part of me warms at the thought. Chase was there for many of my celebrations in life, at least more than my parents were.
“You were there for enough,” I say, letting my feet fall back toward the path to my house. My head jerks with a sneeze, followed by about six more, and by the time I fling my hair from my face and look Chase in the eyes again, I realize I’ve lost the battle.
There’s a bug going around, and I’m sick.
I make it one more step before I throw up in the flower bed.
“I got you,” Chase says. Without hesitation, his hands slide under my back and knees, and he lifts my wilted body against his chest. I press my cheek against the knit of his sweater, and I listen for his heart underneath, my skin pushing against him so hard I won’t be surprised to see the pattern of the stitches on my face when he sets me down.
But I never want him to set me down.
And that…that’s a bigger problem.
Chapter Five
Chase
Whatever crawled up into Nicole’s body and took root is not letting go. She’s been asleep for at least ten hours. She woke up for a minute twice—both times to rush to the bathroom and throw up. There’s nothing left in her body by now, and her skin is so cold. I was checking on her every fifteen minutes for a while, but I got so worried that I decided to just grab a few magazines and prop my head on a pillow on the floor in her room.
It’s weird being in here. This was always her parents’ room, but there’s no trace of them now. Nicole’s old room has become an office, loaded with stacks of books, papers, notes and a computer that looks like it’s just always on. I used her internet to check my work emails, and laughed when I saw she had thirty-seven windows open at once.
I left her still sleeping about an hour ago so I could meet my parents at the other house to box up a few more things. It didn’t take long for my mom to drill me with questions, and she doesn’t show signs of stopping.
“I feel so bad that we didn’t go to the Laramies’ funeral,” my mom says. She hands me a stack of photo albums to put into the box she’s taking home.
“If it makes you feel better, her parents donated their bodies to science. There wasn’t a ceremony,” I say, flipping through the first few pages of each book before I tuck them away.
“Well that’s noble,” my mom says.
I stop on an album from my senior year of high school, and I smile at the form of my younger self. I thought I was so grown up in that jersey, with those pinstripes on my legs and black rubbed under my eyes. I didn’t know shit then.
“You were so handsome,” my mom says, leaning over me and running her hand over the photo of me with my teammates.
“I object to the use of the word
were,” I say. My dad lets out a gut-busting laugh, and my mom covers my ears.
“Shhhh, he’ll hear you. Let him go on thinking he’s still handsome,” she jokes, letting her hands fall to my shoulders where she squeezes me and reminds me I’m always her son.
“You know, Coach Bowman is retiring. It’s his last spring. I heard from our old neighbors. I guess he bought himself a condo down in Florida or something. That’s the only baseball coach Rider’s ever known.” My dad pats my shoulder as he passes me to carry a box out to the car.
He meant nothing of that remark. I know it. He loves that I have a radio job. But the coincidence feels strong enough that I take notice. I linger on my baseball photos a little more then move on to the last album. I almost dismiss it and put it in the box without even looking, but one of the photos is sticking out from the side and I don’t want to bend them. There we are on the first page.
Nicole’s knees are wrapped in pads, and I have my dad’s socks tied around my elbows. We were going to become professional skateboard riders, an idea we dreamed up after watching the X-games on TV, and despite never having ridden a board, we were confident we could pull it off. Evelyn never stopped us from trying the crazy things. She’d make sure we didn’t die, but she let us get the bumps and bruises we needed to learn lessons. That day left me with a nice raspberry on my right leg, and Nicole’s palms took the brunt of her fall onto the pavement.
I flip through more pages, a memorized story to go with each one. Giant bubbles with dish soap and string in the front yard; my first all-star game for Little League, Nicole leaning on my shoulder and blowing a bubble with her gum; and our junior high graduation photo. It was the first time I’d worn a tie, and Nicole had on a short dress that showed more of her legs than I was used to seeing. I remember noticing them that day. We were shadows of our future selves. We had so far to go.