by Jenn Bennett
“Fuck,” he said. Then, “I didn’t mean to say that, sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m sure Buddha will forgive you.”
He tried to laugh. “I can’t believe . . . I’ve never . . .”
Mom went through a series of questions. Could he breathe okay? Did his chest hurt? Numbness? She took his pulse again and inspected his head.
“I’m okay, really,” he said, pushing himself up.
“Oh, no you don’t,” Mom answered, pushing him back down. “Heath, go fetch a glass of water and find that stash of Easter candy in the pantry. Noah, you help him.” After the boys trotted off to the kitchen, she said, “Okay, so tell me what was happening. No judgment here, and I mean that.”
“Did you . . . ?” His hands felt around his open belt buckle.
“Nurse Katherine’s a perv,” I said.
“Bex,” my mother scolded.
“Look, the whole thing’s my fault,” I told her. “I was showing him gruesome sketches.”
“No, no. I haven’t had a lot of sleep lately,” he argued, buckling himself back up. “I’m probably just run-down. Either that, or I’ve got a Victorian woman living inside me. Jesus, this is embarrassing.”
“Sweetie, nothing embarrasses me,” Mom said. “The things I’ve seen and done in the ER this week alone would make Vin Diesel faint. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
And he was, or he seemed to be—enough that he finally fought off Mom’s ministrations and stood with no problem. He made self-deprecating remarks in front of Heath and Noah, and after it was determined that Jack was back to normal, he said he had to get home and promised Mom twenty times he could drive himself.
“If you don’t make it back safe, your dad will sue me,” Mom argued.
“I can drive his car, and Heath can follow on my Harley,” Noah suggested.
Jack shook his head. “I appreciate your good intentions, but I’m trying to impress a girl and not look like a total putz, so I’m leaving now. Thank you for dinner. It was excellent, and I mean that.”
“It was probably food poisoning that did it,” Heath joked. “Jack’s just the canary in the coal mine. The rest of us will be on the floor before the night’s over.”
Mom smacked him in the arm as we all headed outside, and because Heath was staying over at Noah’s, they were leaving, too. So I had to walk Jack back to Ghost under my family’s watchful eyes.
“I know you’re tired of answering this, but are you really okay?” I asked. “I’m so sorry about Minnie.”
“Not your fault. Seriously, I’m just tired.”
Some tiny voice in my head whispered that he wasn’t exactly telling the truth, but I decided not to hammer him on it. “Despite the bad ending, I’m glad you came.”
“I’m glad you hunted me down at the Zen Center.”
“It was only fair. You hunted me down at Alto Market.” I crossed my arms and shivered in the night air as he unlocked his car door.
“What are you doing for the Fourth?” Jack asked. “You scheduled to work?”
“I don’t think so. It’s already here?”
“Day after tomorrow. My dad will be showing his face at Pier Thirty-Nine for fireworks over the Bay, which, as you know, might be a moving patriotic display or a muddled cloud of pink fog, depending on the weather.”
“We used to hunt a spot to watch them, but it’s not worth the hassle.”
“Then, how about a movie at my place? Andy and a few other people are coming. It’s been an Independence Day tradition over the last couple of summers, since I always have the house to myself.”
“Sounds fun.”
“Okay, well, since Nurse Katherine is watching us, I’m going to leave now with half my male pride intact.”
“We should advertise: Lose your machismo at the Adams family home. We’re like the opposite of that skeevy roll-on underarm testosterone treatment.”
“Even having lost my machismo, I can promise it’s not enough to keep me away,” he said as he slipped into Ghost and rolled down a window. “Good night, Bex.”
“Good night, Jack.”
I watched him drive off and waved at Heath, who looked ridiculous on the back of Noah’s motorcycle. Then I headed back up to Mom. It took her all of one minute to end up in my room, perched on my bed where Jack had sat earlier.
“Okay, what really happened?” she said.
“I don’t know. Like I said already, I was showing him my art—”
“Dammit, Bex. Normal people don’t want to look at that stuff. It’s grisly.”
“I know.”
“You used to be so creative. Why don’t you paint anymore?”
“I like doing this, and it’s practical. I’m thinking about my future, which is what you’ve always drilled into me. And it’s not that different from what you do at work—or what you’re all jumping up and down about Heath going back to school to learn. My art could help save lives one day.”
She grabbed my shoulders and forced me to look at her. “Heath and I aren’t blessed with a gift. If I had your talent, I wouldn’t be stressed out, working graveyard and missing out on my kids’ lives.”
“But—”
“Art shouldn’t be practical. It should be emotional and expressive. There are other ways to save people’s lives than drawing teaching diagrams for med students. You could do something bigger. Something that makes people happy—and that makes you happy.”
I pushed free from her grip. “I’m not unhappy. I’ve told you that a thousand times. Why don’t you believe me?”
“Because you’re the most stubborn person I know.”
“Tenacious,” I corrected. “It’s a gift.”
She sighed dramatically. We both looked anywhere but at each other until she finally said, “People don’t faint for no reason. Could be an indication of something more serious going on with Jack’s health, or could’ve been emotionally triggered. Anything he’s stressed about at home?”
Besides his mom’s seizure and having the mayor of San Francisco for a father? Gee, I didn’t know. “He’s definitely going through some serious stuff right now with his mom.” I couldn’t tell her any details about Jack’s mother—not even the little I knew—because what if Mom said something at work? It might spread all over the ER and get back to the Vincents or someone in the press. I already spilled Jack’s vandalizing secret to Heath, which was bad enough.
“His mother?” she mused. “Oh, that’s right. There was that break-in.”
“What break-in?”
Mom shrugged absently. “A couple of years ago. It was in the news. Someone broke into the mayor’s house. His wife went to the hospital—injured by the burglar. Maybe Jack was traumatized. Some people can’t handle seeing blood after witnessing something shocking. Acute stress disorder, it’s called. Over time, it can develop into PTSD.”
First of all, I thought PTSD mainly affected soldiers. And second, I sort of remembered hearing about the break-in, but seeing how Jack’s status as the mayor’s son was only a couple of hours old to me, I hadn’t really had time to think about it.
Mom sighed. “Why didn’t you tell me about him? Jesus, Bex—the mayor’s kid?”
“I know.” Or, rather, I didn’t, but no way was I admitting that now.
“How serious are you two?”
“The smallest amount of serious you can imagine—like, not even a teaspoon. We haven’t even kissed. You’ve gotten further with him than I have, unbuckling his belt. Or he could be more into Heath than me for all I know.” Okay, that definitely wasn’t true, but minimizing my mother’s curiosity about my romantic life was of the utmost importance to me at that moment.
“Oh, sweetie,” Mom said. “He’s completely into you. He couldn’t keep his eyes off you during dinner.”
“All hail the power of the Roman orgy shirt,” I said with a smile.
She closed her eyes. “God help me make it through the summer.”
You and me both, Mom.
Dear Miss Adams,
Thank you for your email inquiry. Your artist’s mannequin was made in house by one of our master wood-carvers, Ben. He greatly enjoyed working on the project, which was, indeed, commissioned. Unfortunately, we do not give out clients’ names over email. But if you could make time to visit our shop in Berkeley, I think you’d find Ben a rather talkative conversationalist, and perhaps you’d be able to get answers to your questions. Let me know what date and time would be best for you, and I’ll gladly arrange an appointment. Perhaps next week after the holiday?
Happy 4th,
Mary Spencer
I reread the email several times. I should’ve expected this. Anything connected to my father is always complicated. If I wanted to know more, I guessed I’d have to make an effort. Taking a BART train to Berkeley wasn’t a huge deal, but it would eat up an entire afternoon, and I’d have to lie to Mom. And was it worth it? Did I really want to pick open a wound that had already healed and been forgotten? I honestly wasn’t sure. I’d have to think about it.
And I had more important things to worry about, like Jack.
After he left our house, I went online and skimmed a few news articles about the break-in Mom mentioned. They were all vague, mentioning only that Mrs. Vincent was injured and treated at the hospital and that no one else in the household was hurt. All the articles included the same handful of quotes from the mayor: that his wife was doing fine, that she’d returned home in good spirits. He requested that the press respect his family’s privacy.
Nothing was particularly interesting . . . until I clicked on a local blog run by the opposing political party, which not only theorized that there was something more to the break-in that the mayor’s office was trying to keep quiet, but also mentioned that the mayor’s teenage daughter had been sent overseas to boarding school in Europe.
Jack had a sister.
Why hadn’t he mentioned her? I wondered if they were close or if he ever saw her. But if I asked him about it, then he’d know I’d been stalking him online. Not cool.
I started poking around in the comments section to see if there was any mention of either the sister or his mom’s schizophrenia, but reading the first few nasty remarks not only pissed me off, it also made me feel guilty for snooping into his family’s life. Like they were disposable celebrities and not real people. So I decided that if I was going to learn anything more about the break-in and Jack’s mom and his faraway sister, I’d avoid the toxic gossip online and just wait to hear it from Jack himself.
The next afternoon, Mom left for her holiday-pay shift at the hospital, and for once I didn’t have to concoct some elaborate story about where I’d be. She was completely fine with my going to Jack’s house, and even said, “Maybe you’ll make friends with some of the other youths.” Youths. Like it was some sort of church group.
It definitely wasn’t.
Jack had offered to pick me up at seven, but Mom was still getting ready for work, and I didn’t want her to give him the third degree about the fainting thing. Besides, just because he had a car didn’t mean he was obligated to chauffeur me around town. That’s what I told him, but after standing for the better part of an hour on a packed train, I regretted it. Holidays plus mass transit equals disaster.
Jack texted me directions to his house. It wasn’t a long walk from the Muni stop, but I was already an hour late, it was all uphill, and I’d stupidly worn my tall gray boots over my jeans in an attempt to fake coolness for his rich friends. Huge mistake. Blisters would haunt me later. But after several minutes of schlepping past million-dollar homes, I finally spotted Ghost. The vintage Corvette was parked in front of a three-story wood-shingled house tucked away on a side street.
Like everything else on the block, the house was jammed right up next to its neighbors and at first glance didn’t have much curb appeal, with nothing to show but a two-car garage and a fancy copper street number. Lilac vines dripped like frosting over the garage, where a semiprivate entrance hinted at the wealth within. To get there, you had to enter an arched redwood gate and go up a steep flight of steps. You also had to pass under two Big Brother security cameras. Did his dad have Secret Service around here, too? Or was that only for DC politicians? I really had no clue, but the cameras weirded me out.
I texted Jack: Do I need clearance to enter this place or what?
A few seconds later, rubber soles slapped against stone, the gate swung open, and there he stood, filling up the redwood arch: pompadour, black boots, black snap-front shirt with silver koi over the front pockets, and, heaven help me, that 4-H belt buckle.
His slow gaze swept from my boots (the blisters were a small price to pay) all the way up my tasteful (yet boob-flattering) shirt to my face. “Happy Fourth,” he finally said. “Or is that ‘Merry Fourth’? What’s the standard Independence Day greeting?”
“I think you’re supposed to salute the flag while imitating the mournful call of a bald eagle.”
“Is that like using a turkey whistle at Thanksgiving?”
“Exactly the same.”
He stepped closer. “I can’t believe you’re actually here.”
“You’re not going to faint on me again, are you?”
“Am I ever going to live that down?”
I shook my head.
“I figured as much,” he said with a smile. “You’re in color.”
“I am?”
“Red,” he said, pointing to my head.
Breaking my long-running cycle of grayscale fashion, I’d tied a red bandanna around my head à la Rosie the Riveter (“We Can Do It!”) and gone with one loose fishtail braid that I’d wound up and pinned underneath. “Holidays bring out my daring side.”
“Good to know,” he said with a teasing smile. “Come on. We’re back here.”
17
AS I WALKED UNDER THE ARCH, I GLANCED UP AT THE camera and felt his fingers slide around mine. “Hi,” he said in a softer voice. God, he smelled nice, all woodsy and clean.
Someone yelled out from behind the house. “Keep your pants on,” he called back. Up-tempo guitar-and-drum music grew louder as we walked side by side down a stone path between his house and a crazy high wooden privacy fence. Tree branches from the neighbor’s yard curved over the fence to create a shaded green canopy, and the farther back we went, the darker and more heavily wooded it became.
There were zero trees on my block. In fact, about two yards of dirt and broken cement patio sat between the back of my house and the one behind it.
But not the Vincents’.
Within the castled defense of their soaring privacy wall, a series of terraced decks rose from the wooded property, separating Jack’s house from those of the surrounding neighbors. We stood on the most expansive deck, which started at the back door and fanned out to other, smaller decks—one behind a waist-high stone wall and another that sat behind a small guesthouse in the corner. Modern stairs zigzagged to a fourth, loftlike deck above us, where a bridge led to a door on the second story.
“Is M. C. Escher your architect?” I asked.
“My dad built all this when he won the first election.”
“Are there cameras back here, too?”
“Only over the back door,” he said. “But the house is off-limits tonight. Surprise—my dad doesn’t want unsupervised party guests trampling his polished wood floors. Though I don’t spend a ton of time in the house anymore. I moved into the guesthouse last year.” He gestured toward the small building in the corner of the yard. “My parents used to have people stay over a lot, but not anymore.”
Before the conversation got too sad, I said, “The
guesthouse is private, which is cool. And now I see how you’re sneaking out for your midnight expeditions. Except for the cameras.”
“Willy taught me some tricks with those.”
“Panhandler Will?”
Jack grinned. “He’s sharper than you’d think.”
We strolled beneath the stairs. A dozen or so people were lounging around the main deck. A couple of towheaded boys out of an Abercrombie & Fitch ad appeared to be divvying up the contents of a flask into several plastic cups on a long table crammed with food and soda. A guy with a Mohawk was hanging up a white sheet on the wall of the guesthouse, and another was setting up a digital projector.
There were only three other girls. One of them was piggybacking on Jack’s friend Andy. He rushed toward us and tilted back to drop her onto her feet. She landed with a breathless laugh.
“Hi, again,” Andy said, grinning as the girl he’d been carrying ducked into the crook of his arm. A very familiar girl with asymmetrically cut hair streaked purple and pink.
Sierra.
“Oh, wait. I know you. It’s her?” she said to Jack. And because of the fairylike pitch of her voice, I couldn’t tell if her words were condescending. But what I could tell was that Jack was uncomfortable, because he was squeezing my hand harder and drawing me ever so slightly away from Sierra.
With his arm slung around Sierra’s shoulder, Andy said, “You two have met?”
“A couple of weeks ago,” I said.
“I accidentally dumped tea all over her,” she told Andy with a little laugh.
So funny. Yuk, yuk. Before she could elaborate, I asked, “How do all of you know each other?”
She leaned into Andy. “I met Jackson when I was staying at the Zen Center. I was going through some stuff at home, and they gave me a place to sleep and fed me in the student quarters for a few weeks until I got my shit together. I’m back at home now.” Then she added, “He helped me, so I helped him.” I had no idea what this meant, but from the way she was biting her lower lip, it was 100 percent salacious. “And now I’m helping Andy.”