by Erica Boyce
The rest of the group had been talking about taking him off the email list. They wanted me to approach Lionel about it, because for some reason, they thought he respected my opinion. Wilson looked at me and raised his eyebrows like See? See what we’re dealing with?
Luckily, Lionel chose that moment to begin, allowing me to ignore Wilson. “Now, I know I haven’t received many requests lately,” he said. He leaned into the podium. “Becca and Jim have found a lead in Maryland and will be working with him this summer. It’s their very first project, so let’s all congratulate them.”
Everyone clapped while Lionel smiled. But before the applause petered out, Ray began to speak over it.
“Here’s what I don’t get,” he said. He had one arm slung across the empty chair next to him and held the other one lazily in the air, for show. Lionel had been avoiding calling on him lately, as more and more circlers started ignoring him and his questions grew more and more frustrated. “Why do we bother waiting for requests?”
Ray leaned forward, grinning. Becca’s fan stilled. “I’ve been coming along to these meetings, even popping into a couple of reveals, and it’s cool and all, but we can’t devote months to this shit, getting cover jobs and all that. Some of us have day jobs, families to support.” He looked around the room, but no one met his eyes. None of us had that, actually. Just him.
“I saw this field on my drive over, and it’d be perfect. I could just sneak in there one night with one of you guys, and it’d all be done in a couple hours. None of this messing around in the town.”
“Circlers do not trespass,” Lionel said, clipped and clear. “We do not break any rules. We do not want police investigations. We do not need notoriety.”
“But it would add to the mystery, if even the farm owner didn’t—”
“Enough!” Lionel slammed his palm against the podium. “We follow the protocol. Period. Now, does anyone else have any questions?” In the silence that followed, we were all aware of Ray’s glower.
We should’ve seen it coming. What he was going to do with that anger, that resentment. Part of me is irrationally mad at Lionel. He should’ve bent the rules that one time, let Ray have his fun.
Because now, if someone sees those markings in Sam’s field, if they figure out it was me when the circle’s all done, if they’ve seen the latest viral video of the radio interview with the local lunatic, if Ray manages to list our names somewhere. Now it won’t just be that one circle in Vermont that loses its myth. It won’t just be me that loses face. It’ll become another piece of evidence that the circle—that all circles—are made by us, by a finite group of people on the fringes. Nothing more than glorified social engineers, doodlers. I’ll have put us all at risk.
* * *
We stop two hours from Charlie’s place so Nessa can get a coffee. We sit at a rickety table inside the empty midafternoon café. Nessa’s hands shake as she tears open a sugar packet.
“Nervous?”
“Not at all,” she says, closing her eyes to inhale the steam. She opens one eye. “Well, maybe a little.”
“You didn’t text him or anything?” In my family, unannounced visits are not a good thing. My mom ends up spending more time fluffing pillows than actually sitting with the visitor.
Nessa shakes her head, no big deal. “He’s probably expecting to hear from me, but not in person.”
Every family’s different. Maybe she’s right about hers. “It’ll be okay,” I say, touching her arm. I remember the way her fingers moved a little when I grabbed them in the cave, like I was holding them back from something.
I put my hand back in my lap. She finishes her coffee in a few big gulps. “Shall we?”
* * *
Charlie lives in a rent-controlled apartment in Haight-Ashbury, and even I’m a little nervous when Nessa parks in front of his building. It’s more of a house, really, with cats and plants in the windows, flaking brown paint. She has to jiggle the doorknob and shove with her shoulder to get the door open, but inside, the light streams in through stained-glass windows, painting the tile floor red, yellow, green.
“Pretty cool, huh?” Nessa says. I trace the carvings on the wooden railing as I follow her up the stairs.
We stop in front of a red door, two pairs of running shoes lined up parallel beside it. Nessa looks at me expectantly. I smile and try to make it look reassuring. She takes a deep breath, tugs at her collar, and knocks.
For all Nessa’s told me, I expect someone to open the door, grunt, and throw us back out. But instead, it’s a skinny, olive-skinned man with dark hair, whose mouth drops into a mildly surprised O.
“Zach!” she cries.
“Nessa,” he says. He hugs her close. “What are you doing here?”
“Just got back from Vermont and wanted to stop by on my way up north,” she says breezily as Zach yells over his shoulder for Charlie.
She darts past Zach, who turns to me with his hand outstretched. “I’m sorry, you are…?”
“Daniel. I’m a—friend of Nessa’s.”
“Ah.” He grins.
I want to tell him that I only hesitated because I’m working for her dad. I’m someone he contacted to make a crop circle in his field, not really your garden-variety friend. Something tells me that wouldn’t go over well.
I follow him into the apartment, where Nessa’s hugging Charlie. He’s got his blond, curly head tucked down into her shoulder, but he looks up when he hears us.
“Charlie,” Zach says, laying one hand on his back, “this is Daniel. He’s a friend of Nessa’s.” Even I can hear the air quotes around the word “friend.”
“Another one?” He looks down at her in mock surprise.
“Oh, shut up,” she says, finally letting go of him to smack him on the arm. “He was working on the Shannons’ farm and very nicely offered to help me drive out here.” She turns to me like she’s asked a question.
“Got it.” He pauses. “We’ve only got one guest bed, so—”
“I’ll sleep on the couch,” I say hurriedly. “Or the floor, or wherever. Anywhere’s fine.”
If this was a test, I’ve passed. Charlie looks at Zach, who turns to me and says, “Well. Can I get you anything? Water, beer?”
* * *
Nessa and Zach wedge themselves into a beat-up leather love seat. She props her bare feet up on the coffee table to tell him about the caves, our perky waitress, a hitchhiker we apparently passed at some point.
“Can you believe people still do that?” she says as Charlie turns to me from the other end of the couch.
“I hope she didn’t grill you too hard on the way over here,” he says with a half smile. “Three thousand miles is a long time to be in the car with my sister.”
“Oh, well…” I say, shuffling around for words that aren’t a lie but aren’t the whole truth, either. After the caves, Nessa hasn’t brought up Claire at all, and I’m still not sure how much I should’ve told her.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I know. She has a way of figuring you out.” He watches her throw her arms wide to recreate the hugeness of the caves for Zach while he laughs.
Charlie may have been the aloof person Nessa described when he was a kid. Maybe neighbors and teachers always marveled at how much more talkative and friendly she was than her older brother. But his eyes are so soft on Nessa and Zach that I have to look away.
* * *
Charlie and Zach insist that I sleep on their air mattress on the guest room floor instead of on the couch. “I have to get up at 5:00 a.m. on Monday to get to the clinic,” Charlie says, “and no farmer wants to wake up that early on their vacation.” I consider joking that no farmer can sleep past the sunrise, but I just lug my bag into the room after Nessa.
Zach’s already unfolded the mattress onto the strip of floor next to the bed, and Nessa plugs it in. The motor whirs as the m
attress swells.
“I’ll sleep there,” I say, tossing her pillow onto the bed.
“Nah,” she says, snatching it back. “I like sleeping on these things. It reminds me of when Charlie and I used to sneak out and sleep under the stars when we thought our parents weren’t looking.” She flops back on the mattress to demonstrate, her arms flung over her head, pieces of hair stuck to the plastic with static.
“Well, at least put some sheets on it,” I say, looking away from the line of white skin where her shirt has lifted. I pick up the stack at the foot of the bed, old, faded floral. I hand her a corner, and we stretch it onto the mattress.
“So,” I say, “when are you going to tell him?”
She sighs, sits back on her heels. “Tonight, I guess,” she says. “Or maybe tomorrow morning. I’ve got to catch him alone, you know?”
She looks down at her nails, picks at them. The skin around them is red and irritated. I come around the mattress and grab her hand before it gets worse.
“Hey. It’ll be okay.” The words sound even faker than they did the first time I’d said them, in the café. But she touches her head to my shoulder, a little lean.
“I know,” she whispers.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Nessa
According to the Post-it Note on the Formica countertop, Charlie and Zach have already gone to buy dinner supplies. I hold the note up to Daniel and say, “Wanna take a walk?” I need steady motion to match the constant spinning in my head.
Charlie lives a few blocks from a park on top of a hill, so we walk in that direction, my lungs burning as we climb. We pass a middle-aged woman practically skipping to keep up with a tall, scrawny kid, her son, carrying overstuffed fabric grocery bags. She’s talking as quickly as she walks, and the look he throws us is full of desperation. I try to wait until they’ve turned the corner to laugh, but I don’t quite make it. Daniel shakes his head and grins as I bend over, the laughter clearing out my skull.
We start walking again, and I nudge him in the ribs. “Tell me about your parents.”
“What about them?” he says, looking at me sideways.
“I don’t know. What do they do? What do they look like? Does your mom make you carry her groceries?” I shoot him a mischievous look, and finally, he chuckles.
“My mom’s a therapist, and she likes to do therapy. I’m serious,” he says as I raise an eyebrow at this, a woman with no hobbies. “On the weekends, she volunteers at a teen rehab center. You have to be careful what you say to her—she stashes everything in a file in her head. Her dad was a farmer, actually, but she tries to hide from that in her office. Unfortunately, she ended up marrying someone who loves to get his hands dirty. My dad’s a science professor at the state university. Entomologist—bugs. He likes to take walks in the woods. At least, he did when I was home.”
We’ve reached the edge of the park, and we follow the path to the center. A line of kids walk by, strung together, hand-in-hand, led by their skinny blond teacher. Two dogs fight over a stick, their owner watching as he talks into his phone.
“How often do you talk to them?”
He looks up at the sky. “Every month. Sometimes less, depending on if it’s harvest season or finals period for my dad.”
“I can’t remember the last time I went more than two weeks without talking to my parents.”
“Uh-huh.” He watches a woman wiggle her fingers at her baby on a blanket on the grass.
I bite my lip, hard. He probably didn’t need a reminder of how he neglects his parents.
“I’m sorry,” I say, tugging at his elbow. “I’ve got no filter when I’m stressed out. Or ever.”
“Yeah. It’s all right.” He looks down at me. His eyes are deep and brown. Something passes through the air between us. The base of my neck tingles, electric.
I drop his arm. “Well, there’s the view,” I say with relief as we crest the hill.
“It’s not the worst I’ve seen,” he says.
I smile. In fact, it’s pretty amazing. The street at the bottom of the hill is lined with gingerbread houses, the sides of each painted a different shade of pastel, like Easter eggs waiting to be found in the middle of the city. Behind them, the skyline is ribbed with office buildings thrusting their suited accountants and cargo-shorted techies farther and farther into the sky.
“Welcome to San Francisco,” I say, sweeping my arm out. Immediately, the gesture feels fake, forced, but Daniel touches my shoulder, and we continue on down the path.
* * *
When we get back to the apartment, Charlie and Zach are in the kitchen, unloading boxes of pasta and packets of meat from paper bags. Charlie wiggles an eyebrow suggestively at me, but I roll my eyes.
“What’s for dinner?” I say, opening a box of crackers they’ve left on the counter.
“Spaghetti with meatballs,” Zach says. He pulls a bundle of basil out of the bag with a flourish that sends the fresh, green scent my way.
“It’s his family’s recipe,” Charlie says. He leans in and plants a kiss on Zach’s cheek, and Zach smiles back at him.
“I’ll help.” Daniel steps around the counter to peer into the remaining bags.
“And I won’t.” Charlie walks over to the living room.
I collapse into the couch next to him, the box of crackers still in my hands.
“First, we need some music.” Zach turns on the stereo, and a slicked-over wedding band version of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” starts to play. He nods his head to the beat as he walks back into the kitchen.
“Isn’t this a cover?” I say.
“Yeah, and a bad one at that. He’s got terrible taste in music, my husband.” Charlie says the last word like a touchstone, like a prize.
I haven’t seen them since their wedding at the city hall, where they stood with their hands clasped together and their eyes shining. We’d hugged goodbye outside the Chinese restaurant where we’d eaten afterward, and I told them I’d see them soon. The restaurant had been mostly empty, a Tuesday night Charlie happened to have off, and part of me couldn’t believe the story, that he’d just woken up that morning—my last in town—and told Zach he wanted to get married that day.
I lean over so our shoulders are touching, like they used to in the barn while Dad told us how this cow or that was feeling today. “You look good,” I say. “Marriage agrees with you.”
“Zach agrees with me,” he corrects. “But marriage isn’t so bad, either.” He’s in a good mood. I have to tell him tonight.
“So.” He turns to me, green eyes like mine studying my face. “Who is this guy, seriously?” He pitches his voice low, but Daniel is far away anyway, his head bent over as he dices tomatoes into cubes.
I hesitate. Daniel is so vigilant about covering his tracks, but I know Charlie would never tell. I set the cracker box down on the coffee table. “Dad hired him, actually. To make a crop circle in their field.”
He smirks but then stares at me when I don’t laugh along.
“Yeah,” I continue. “Apparently, it’s a thing, making crop circles. They’ve got meetings and everything. Dad found a video online, if you can imagine that, him on the internet. I guess one of his farming friends saw the link and sent it his way.” I tap his knee with mine. His eyes don’t leave my face.
“Why?”
I shake my head. “Who knows? You know what happens when he gets one of his ideas. Remember the year he made that farm stand at the end of the driveway? He made, like, two dollars, and the sweet corn just sat there and rotted until Mom made him close it down.” I laugh a little, but Charlie doesn’t.
“Won’t that hurt their yields, damaging the fields like that?”
“Daniel says you can still harvest the corn after the circle’s all done.” I glance up at Daniel, who has moved on from tomatoes to onions and is singing along to
the music, painfully.
“Huh.” Charlie sits back in the couch and studies Daniel with narrowed eyes.
I need to tell him tonight. I need to explain why Dad wants to do this now, why he didn’t even bother to ask how it would affect his future yields.
Tonight. Not right now.
* * *
We sit down at the table, Zach placing a wooden salad bowl on the blue-and-white tablecloth. Charlie distributes glasses of beer, and Daniel brings over a steaming pot of pasta.
“Cheers,” Charlie says, raising his glass as everyone settles into their chairs. “To new friends,” he says as he tips the glass toward Daniel, who lifts his own in reply, “and to family.” He looks right at Zach as he says it.
Zach reaches over and pats me on the arm, and everyone digs in. The beer, when I sip it, is so bitter, it makes my tongue ache.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Molly
It happens quickly. I’m sitting at the kitchen table after I’ve finished the day’s cleaning, a cookbook spread in front of me. It will have to be simple, I decide, just plain roasted chicken breasts. I sigh as I walk toward the fridge, making a mental checklist for my next trip to the grocery store.
The door flings open. There is Sam, his face pinched. He staggers to the table. I rush to help him, but he shakes me off. He collapses into a chair. It bucks back a little under his weight.
“Sam? Sam, what’s wrong?”
He looks at me, then screws his eyes shut, shaking his head.
“I’m calling the doctor,” I say. I pull Dr. Cooper’s card out of my wallet. It’s soft with wear, with the number of times I’ve worried my fingers along the edges. I can still read his home phone number where he’d scrawled it on the back. The phone shakes as I pick it up, and so does my finger, finding the numbers. As the phone rings, jangling rudely, the thought is faint: it’s as if the doctor’s words gave Sam’s body permission to fold.