by John Coy
* * *
RAYNE LOUNGED AGAINST THE WALL IN FRONT OF THE fountain reading a book. She wore an orange dress, a green scarf, and her bowling shoes.
She turned her head. “Cray.” She jumped off the wall and ran to me. She held out her arms like a bird about to fly. I dropped my pack and wrapped her up in a big hug and felt her body against mine.
“You look good.”
She pulled back to examine me. “So do you.” It seemed like forever since I’d seen her. Jett had warned me to be careful with Rayne. I’d spent my whole life being careful, and what had it gotten me? I was ready to take a risk.
“I love my new shoes.” She lifted one and then the other and did a little dance holding the book over her head. Other people eating lunch turned to watch.
“What are you reading?”
“Mary Oliver.” She showed me a cover with a woman with dark hair looking to the side, away from the camera. “Murph said I’d like her and I do.”
“Cool.” I picked up my pack, and when I turned around Rayne was holding out a package.
“For you,” she said. “Homemade banana bread with rice flour. Try it and tell me what you think.”
I picked out a piece and took a bite. “It’s good.”
“I’m glad.” She took some tortilla chips and an apple out of a paper bag. “Do you want to share my lunch?”
“I just had pizza.” I took another bite of banana bread and chewed it slowly.
“What’s in your pack?”
I explained about the clothes and Dad and the warning and Rayne listened—not just pretend listening, but real listening. Her listening was one of the things I liked best about her. It made it easy to tell her things I didn’t tell anybody else. Forget careful—this was exactly what I needed.
“So you don’t have any plans for dinner?” she asked.
“No.”
“Why don’t you eat with us? You can meet my dad and brother.”
“Okay.” I was thrilled to have someplace to go since I was avoiding home. But meeting Rayne’s family felt like a whole new level.
* * *
AFTER RAYNE WENT BACK TO WORK, I got a call.
“Cray, this is Stephanie. I need you to come by the office today. What time works for you?”
“I’m free now.”
“Come down as soon as you can.”
I wondered if Rayne was wrong about orientation. Maybe Stephanie was letting her stay but firing me. I picked up my pack and threw it over my shoulder. I absolutely needed to keep my job since I didn’t have anything else.
When I got to the office, the first person I saw was Gail, the program director. “Hi.” I tried to sound cheerful.
“Hello,” she said flatly. “I’ll tell Stephanie you’re here.”
I sat down and worried that Gail had ordered me fired. She’d never wanted me in the first place.
Stephanie walked out looking serious. “Come in, Cray,”
I followed her and prayed I’d keep my job.
She closed the door as I sat in front of her desk, which was tidy with pictures of her husband and grown-up sons.
“Rayne assures me that you recognize the severity of your mistake, but I need to hear it from you.”
“I definitely do.” I attempted to look remorseful. “It will never happen again.”
“Good.” She turned to a picture of her sons with their arms around each other. “I’ve parented teen boys, so I believe in second chances. But if something like this happens again, you’ll be terminated.”
“It won’t.”
“Make sure.” She put on a pair of silver-framed glasses and looked at her computer. “Gail wants to see you now. She’s had a complaint.”
“About something else?”
She nodded. I got up and walked out in a daze. I couldn’t figure out what else I’d done wrong.
Gail pointed at a chair when I entered. “Sit down.”
She might be the one to fire me.
“I understand that you’ve been encouraging behavior that isn’t appropriate.” She cleared her throat.
“What?”
“Kirsty said you asked people at Oakcrest to call you—” She paused and looked down. “Race Car?”
“I didn’t ask that. It was a joke. I was joking with Sean.”
She studied her paper. “Kirsty says this does not display the proper level of respect and is not age appropriate.”
I squeezed my hands together and wondered at what age it would be appropriate to call someone Race Car.
Gail took off her glasses. “We expect our staff to be professional at all times. We need people to call you by your correct name. Is that understood?”
“Yeah.” I attempted to hide my frustration. I hadn’t asked anyone to call me Race Car, and Stephanie had been there and hadn’t objected. I didn’t say that, though, because that would get her in trouble. Figuring out how things worked at Oakcrest was impossible.
She rambled on about professionalism and best practices, but I was furious. Kirsty had already told me how she felt. She didn’t need to go behind my back to Gail.
I thought things had gone well when we’d worked together and Brent had his seizure, but then she’d complained about me. I’d worked with her once and she’d turned me in. She was somebody I needed to watch out for.
THE CALL
WHEN I GOT TO RAYNE’S BUILDING, I called like she’d told me to and she came right down.
“Welcome.” She wore flip-flops and a green apron that said KISS THE COOK over a violet sundress.
“Are you the cook?” I asked.
“I am.” She smiled and her eyes sparkled.
I leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, but she pulled back.
“For the cook,” I said. “Following directions.”
“You like to follow directions, don’t you?”
“Sometimes. Depends on who’s giving them.” I wanted to kiss her again, this time on the lips.
“Wouldn’t you rather not have directions and find your own way?”
“I don’t know. Not if I was trying to get someplace.” Talking to Rayne could be confusing, like solving a riddle. I followed her up the stairs as her dress swished back and forth.
“We’re the only ones on the third floor,” she said. “Some other people live on second, and there’s a couple who live behind the woodworking shop on first.”
“No elevator?”
“There’s a freight one in the back, but it’s unreliable. When it breaks, you have to wait until someone comes to fix it.”
Getting stuck in an elevator with her sounded exciting, and as she climbed, I admired her legs. Going up and down stairs and walking everywhere must be how she stayed in such good shape.
“You can leave your shoes here.” Rayne slipped off her flip-flops at the third-floor landing.
I untied my Nikes and set down my pack. She opened a big wooden door and the smell of food made me hungry. Inside was a long hallway with timber beams and high ceilings.
“This used to be a box factory. They made wooden boxes here originally and then switched to cardboard,” Rayne said.
I touched the reddish-brown brick wall. Nobody I knew lived in a place like this. I wondered what Rayne’s dad was like if he chose to live around people like the crazy guy who’d threatened me.
At the end of the hall, Rayne turned and a huge room with shiny wooden floors opened up as the evening sun poured in.
“Cray’s here,” Rayne announced.
A man with light curly hair starting to go gray spun around from his computer and got up.
“Hello.” He walked across the room in his bare feet and I was struck by how tall he was. He was over six foot four. Rayne must have gotten her height from him. “I’m Gordon.” He held out his hand.
“Hi.” I clasped his firm grip and looked into his blue eyes, which didn’t look at all like Rayne’s.
“How about a glass of iced sun tea with fresh mint?” he asked.
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“Okay.” This didn’t seem like a Coke or Sprite place.
He nodded to Rayne, who put ice cubes into a blue glass. Behind him, the windows let in so much light that it seemed like I could walk out into the sky.
He led me over to the other wall, where things were pulled back from another window and scaffolding was up. “Rayne’s putting new glass in here.”
I noticed three clear panes of glass in the top row. “That’s a big job.”
“There are thirty-six pieces of glass in each window.” Rayne handed me my tea. “It takes an hour to chip out the old pane, apply new caulk, and install a clear piece.”
Gordon went over to the stove to check on a pan.
“We did the west windows first because the sunsets are spectacular.” Rayne raised her glass to me in a toast and we clinked.
At the clear window, I surveyed the stream and the cement steps where Otto had threatened me. I took a sip of tea and it tasted better than I expected as I stared across the valley to the bluffs on the other side.
“These long views are supposed to help your eyes relax.” Rayne stood close to me.
A couple of skateboards decorated with skulls and flames leaned against the wall. “Is Aaron around?”
“He’s on his way. We’ll eat when he gets here.”
I took another sip as the sun ducked behind a cloud. “Kirsty complained about me to Gail.”
“I heard that from Stephanie. That’s Kirsty. She does that kind of thing to keep people off-balance. It’s a power thing. She’s scared of you.”
“Scared of me. Why?”
“People at Oakcrest like you. They don’t like her. She’s got to do something to make you feel uneasy.”
“If nobody likes her, why’s she at Oakcrest?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Kirsty is Gail’s sister-in-law. Gail makes sure she keeps her job.”
“Oh.” I kept looking out the window at the long view. It wasn’t working, though, since I still felt nervous.
“You know, Cray, you question yourself a lot.”
“I do?”
“See, that’s a question.”
“Really?”
“That’s another one.” Rayne laughed.
“Yeah.” I turned to her. “I hate being so uncertain about the fall. Everything’s always been laid out for me, but now it’s not.”
“Don’t worry.” Rayne put her hand on my shoulder. “You’ll find it.”
* * *
WHEN AARON GOT BACK, the four of us sat down to eat at an old table as the sun descended in a burst of orange. Aaron, who was fourteen, seemed kind of shy, but when Rayne asked him questions about skating, he described a new trick he was working on in detail. Aaron had dark hair and brown eyes like Rayne. The two of them must have gotten that from their mom. I wanted to see a picture of her but didn’t dare ask.
“How do you like the eggplant, Cray?” Gordon asked.
“It’s good.”
“That and the tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers in the salad are from our community garden plot.”
Rayne passed me a basket of bread.
“It can use a good watering tomorrow if it doesn’t rain tonight,” Gordon said.
While I ate, I listened to the three of them discuss how things were growing. Rayne had told Gordon I wasn’t going to college in the fall, and I appreciated how he didn’t quiz me the way most adults would. He seemed about Dad’s age, but he didn’t act like him. He was much more relaxed and didn’t need to dominate the conversation.
As we were eating caramel ice cream with strawberries, Rayne turned to me. “I told my dad about what happened with you at home. I hope that was okay.”
“Yeah.” I was surprised.
“Dad, can Cray crash here if he needs to?”
I couldn’t believe she was asking.
“No.” Gordon shook his head.
“Why not?” Rayne asked.
It was strange to hear them talking about me, and I was embarrassed in front of Aaron, who didn’t have any idea what it was about.
“Cray should talk to his dad.” Gordon set down his spoon. “He can work this out. When you have a chance to work something out, you need to try.”
“But Cray’s dad is being unfair,” Rayne protested.
“Cray can still make it work.”
I sat silently. I hadn’t asked to stay. I hadn’t thought of it, especially since Rayne would be working at Oakcrest, and it would be too weird to stay here without her. But when Gordon said no, I was still disappointed. I watched the lines in his face and tried to figure him out.
He wasn’t like any dad I knew. But then he wasn’t a usual dad. With Rayne and Aaron, he’d had to be both mom and dad after his wife split to follow her guru. That had to be really difficult.
* * *
AFTER DINNER, Rayne and I were standing outside on the loading dock when her phone rang. She pulled it out and looked at the screen.
“It’s Marco. I’ve got to take this.”
She walked away and I overheard her telling him she was with me. She laughed and I wondered what joke he’d made. What terrible timing. Marco was like a ghost hovering over us.
After a few minutes, Rayne came back smiling. “You won’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Marco’s coming. He says he’s desperate to see me and can’t stay away. He just finished getting his tickets. He’ll be here Wednesday.”
“No way. This Wednesday?”
“Yes, can you believe it?”
“No.” Of course I couldn’t.
“He switched some things at work so he can stay for a week. I’m so excited I can’t stand it.”
I didn’t know what to say. All kinds of things could happen in a week.
“I’ve been telling Marco about you and he’s eager to meet you.” Rayne kept grinning.
As if that’s what I wanted.
GAP LIFE
AFTER I WALKED RAYNE TO OAKCREST, I called Jett. “Is it okay if I stay over again tonight?”
“Ah, just a minute.”
I heard a voice in the background. His folks were fine with it, so I knew it wasn’t them he was checking with.
“Okay,” he said, “come over in half an hour.”
“Sure.” It had to be Nora.
I went down to the river and thought about Marco coming. I shifted my pack from one shoulder to the other. I was sick of carrying it around like a kid pretending to run away going nowhere.
I considered what Gordon had said. Maybe I should go back and try to deal with Dad. But I couldn’t face that and I’d already told Mom I was staying at Jett’s. I sat down on a park bench. If anybody saw me, they’d think I was homeless and had no place to go. They’d be right.
I checked my phone and saw I still had twelve minutes to kill. After being warned by Stephanie about professionalism, it didn’t feel safe to even call Rayne at work. I wasn’t eager to hear more about Marco anyway. I remembered the easy way she and Aaron talked at dinner and chose someone I didn’t often call.
“Yeah.”
“Hey, Lansing.”
“What do you want?”
“Nothing. I’m just saying hi.”
“Why aren’t you here?” he asked.
“I need a break. How are things?”
“Okay.”
Silence hung between us. Lansing and I were so different that we didn’t have many regular conversations. Usually we were giving or getting information or ignoring each other.
“They talk about you,” he said.
“Who?”
“Mom and Dad. They miss you.”
“Yeah, what about you?”
“Nah, they don’t talk much about me.”
“No, I mean do you miss me?”
“A little,” Lansing said. “They’ve been on me more lately with you gone. When you’re here, you take the heat.”
“I’m working some things out.”
“Like what?”
“What I want, what I’m doing, how I’m d
ealing with them.” I paused. “Do you remember when we went to that shop in Tulum when we were in Mexico?”
“Yeah, I loved that town.”
“Me too, but remember how Dad made me do the negotiating for him in Spanish when he wanted that jaguar mask? He kept forcing the shop owner to lower the price by saying what was wrong with it and pretending to walk out.” I got up and paced back and forth in front of the bench. “That was embarrassing. Dad could easily have paid what the guy was asking, but instead, he kept driving the price down like it was a game he had to win. I hated being involved in that.”
“I didn’t like that, either,” Lansing said.
“He’s doing that with me on St. Luke’s. He’s trying to force me to accept a deal I don’t want.”
“But you want to go to college, right?”
“Yeah, but I’m not sure how.”
“Okay. I’ve got to go, Mom’s yelling something. See you soon.”
I picked up my pack, surprised that Lansing actually seemed to understand some of what I was dealing with. Part of why I’d left was so they could see what it was like without me. It wouldn’t be a big deal to be at home for the summer if I were going to college in the fall. But because I wasn’t, I felt I had to get started with my life. I needed to figure out my gap year.
* * *
AT JETT’S, he and Nora were wrapped around each other on the couch and I was irritated to see her since I’d waited the extra time.
“What did you do tonight, Cray?” she asked.
“I was over at Rayne’s.” I sat down in the chair across from them.
“Interesting.” Nora brushed her hair back.
The way she said interesting pissed me off. “What do you mean by that?”
“She already has a serious boyfriend.”
I didn’t need her reminding me. “What business is it of yours?” I was sick of her interfering.
“Be careful,” she said.
“I can make my own decisions.” I raised my voice and stood up. She was using the same words Jett had. “What do you even know about Rayne?”
“Hey.” Jett got in front of me to try to calm me down.
“What are you saying?” I pushed Jett’s hand out of the way.
“Whoa, take it easy,” she said.
“What do you mean about Rayne?”
“She can be rough on guys. That’s all.”