The Promise of Amazing

by Robin Constantine

  “Oh, no fucking way, Pop.”

  “Hey, cool it,” he said. He wasn’t enough of a hypocrite to really mind my dropping an F-bomb with him, but he had to pretend. “Tiffany found a box of ornaments up in the attic—belongs to your mother, some antique hand-blown glass she thought she lost. Your mom would like you to bring them and stay for the party.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You could bring Wren. Have some fun, Grayson. You’re allowed, you know.”

  Hearing Wren’s name made me smile. I could practically hear Grier saying, When and Gwayson.

  “I’ll think about it.”

  “It’s nice to see you getting serious about a girl, Grayson.”

  “Serious? Pop—”

  “I know, I know . . . you don’t want to talk about this with your old man, but even in the ER I could see the way you were around each other. She seems like a nice girl, Gray,” he said, rising from the chair with a creak. “I always liked those Sacred Heart girls. Thought those plaid skirts were cute.”

  Guess the horndog doesn’t fall far from the tree.

  “Dinner’s at six, when Tiff gets home. Will you be around?”

  “I guess,” I said. My butt vibrated.

  I made a deal with myself. If it was Wren, I’d answer. I could explain away two texts, but ignoring three would just be plain cruel. I stared at the screen.

  Fuknuts, cum pick up ur drums @ Andys. L

  Andy’s house had been the hub of my St. Gabe’s extracurricular life. And it was one constant after-party. After school. After lacrosse practice. After games. As a freshman, I had my first beer in Andy’s basement. It was also where I got my V-card stamped by some girl who was friends with Andy’s older brother. The Foleys were loaded and spent a good portion of their time working for it, overcompensating for their absence with a rec room that was pretty much a wet dream. Plasma TV. Killer sound system. Every video-game console as soon as it came out. The bar was always fully stocked with premium liquor, although I wasn’t sure how much of that was their doing and how much was Andy’s and his brother’s.

  Andy’s basement was also where Operation Amsterdam was conceived.

  The name was a goof, but it stuck, because it was better than saying “selling stolen goods to finance our post-graduation trip to Europe.” We all liked the sound of backpacking across Europe, but Amsterdam, an eighteen-year-old’s version of Disneyland, was our goal. Our reward for four years of breaking our balls at St. Gabe’s.

  And the whole thing had been started so innocently . . . by yours truly.

  I’d met Caitlyn just over a year ago in the fall at a lacrosse tourney in West Orange. She was there watching her best friend’s brother play. I’d told her she looked bored, and she answered, “Not anymore.” We hung out on the sidelines, and by the end of the game I had her digits. We spent a week or so exchanging racy texts, then set a date to meet. This was pre-Chrysler, so our hookups were limited to whenever I could catch a ride from Andy’s brother, who was seeing someone from the same town.

  Our relationship was no-strings-attached, purely physical. The first night we hooked up, we did it in her pool house.

  This pool house made Andy’s basement look about as tricked out as a grass hut, and I wasted no time bragging about it to Luke. When Caitlyn texted me that she was going to Cabo with her family for winter break and she’d have to cancel our plans, I joked with Luke that we should go to her house anyway. He talked Andy and his brother into going too, because we had nothing better to do, so the four of us headed over.

  We didn’t intend to take anything that first time, just hang out. I’d seen Caitlyn punch in the door combination for the pool house, and I tried it—making sure my hand was in the sleeve of my jacket so I didn’t leave fingerprints. Once inside we weren’t that careful. We drank the six-pack we’d brought with us and watched a Vin Diesel flick while the guys pushed for details of my hookups with Caitlyn. All in all a pretty boring night, and at some point, it felt wrong. We were about to leave when Luke suggested we make the visit worth our while by swiping some stuff.

  Andy and his brother were stoked by the idea, which I didn’t get, because they already owned half the stuff anyway. We ended up taking a small flat-screen TV. The whole time I felt detached, not really participating but not stopping them either. We left without the headlights on and tore down the street, pumped up with adrenaline from doing something so stupid. We stopped at a White Castle on the way home and didn’t talk about it again.

  Until Caitlyn got back from break and wanted to show me her tan lines.

  “Dude, you have to see her again. Show her you’re not afraid of going there—you’re not guilty of anything,” Luke said, almost making me believe it was true.

  My nerves were on edge when I saw Caitlyn, but it was same old, same old. We hung out in the pool house. The TV we’d taken had been replaced by a bigger model. There was no mention of anything that had happened while she’d been away. I left that night, promising to call her, but I knew I wouldn’t. I changed my number the next day. And I never saw her again.

  That was when the seed was planted. Hadn’t it worked out great? We didn’t even need to break in, Luke said. If we could do this . . . find a way to get in without being obvious, get to know the lay of the land, find out when a family would be there and when they wouldn’t . . . It was too perfect. I told him I thought we’d just been lucky. He said he was going to prove me wrong.

  And he did. Swiping a gold necklace that he sold for the equivalent of five of my term papers. Our Amsterdam fund was born, but if we were really going to make a go of it, Luke said, we needed to get smarter.

  We didn’t use our real names or personal cell phones, just in case there was a slipup. Logan and Dev, our lacrosse teammates, each wanted in, so then we were six. At first we took turns finding hits, but soon enough our talents sorted us out. Luke and I were best at finding the right mark. Andy, Dev, and Logan swiped the stuff. Andy’s brother unloaded it.

  The selling part was a bit trickier. Andy’s brother dealt with the electronic stuff, the ones with serial numbers, the stuff that could be traced. Gold was a cinch to sell—Luke found a guy through Spiro willing to take our stuff, no questions asked. Deep down I knew what we were doing was wrong, but since I wasn’t physically stealing anything and was directly involved with only two or three hits, I could kid myself that I wasn’t a thief. I was only doing my part for the team. And with each successful job, we became more confident. Cocky. We were gods, on and off the lacrosse field.

  Occasionally someone’s conscience would bubble up, but Luke was fantastic at talking anyone down from the ledge of I want out. We weren’t robbing people blind. Just lifting stuff here and there. GPS systems, iPods, jewelry people probably didn’t even wear anymore. Extra stuff, easily replaceable.

  And we ate it up, all of us, the feeling of being . . . invincible.

  So walking into Andy’s on that Thursday afternoon felt a bit like stepping back in time. Andy’s brother had moved on to Seton Hall, but the rest were assembled as always. Logan and Dev were planted on the futon playing Black Ops on the wide-screen. Andy had headphones on, strumming his guitar. Luke was sitting behind the bar, to-go cup of coffee in one hand, The Life of Pi in the other. I could picture myself there too, walking in with a sack of burritos from Taco Bell, setting up my laptop, writing my term papers, running my business. All separate parts of a whole. Would it be that easy to fall into it again?

  Then I saw my drums. Or, more specifically, my bass drum, with a huge tear. Andy pulled off his headphones when he saw me.

  “Grayson, sorry about the drum, man. Things got out of hand. Some chick put her heel through it. Accident.”

  “Accident,” I repeated as I knelt down to assess the damage.

  “Yeah, wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed at the party,” Luke said. I stood up and turned to him; he was still reading. He used a drink stirrer to mark the page, closed the book, and placed it on the
bar next to his coffee.

  “Nah, probably would have happened anyways. Things were pretty outta control when I left,” I said, breaking down my kit.

  “Grayson, why the rush? Hang out awhile, man,” Andy said.

  “Yeah, hang out,” Luke said, hands in pockets.

  Logan and Dev came up behind me. I stood up with the feeling I was about to get jumped . . . mentally, at least.

  “What?” I asked.

  They all just stared at me. Finally Logan spoke.

  “Gray, you gotta come back. It hasn’t been the same without you around.”

  “We’re sorry about, you know, not calling—” Dev began.

  “But really, dude, if the great Grayson Barrett could get caught, what chance did we have?” Andy finished.

  “Like it or not, you’re the proverbial glue that holds us together, Grayson,” Luke said.

  If I’d heard this speech six months ago, I would have fallen into step again. Now it seemed contrived. Getting kicked out of school for selling term papers was humiliating enough, but I was picking up the pieces, working my way through it. Getting caught for the Operation Amsterdam stuff would be damaging beyond anything these idiots would be prepared for. I may have missed St. Gabe’s, but I was not willing to go back to the way things were. I’d broken free of the cave and the shadows on the wall. Maybe I wasn’t too much of a hedonist for The Republic to sink in after all.

  “You’re doing fine without me,” I said.

  “Maybe we are,” Luke said, “but we’re expanding a bit.”

  “Yeah, my brother’s got a lock on apartments at school, an easy hit,” Andy said.

  “And none of us can score the best hits like you, Gray,” Logan said.

  “Well, except maybe for me, but I’m just one. Strength in numbers,” Luke said, putting a hand on my shoulder.

  I returned to breaking down my kit, silent, but their questions and pleas swirled in the air around me.

  “I’m rusty,” I said. It was all Luke needed to hear.

  “Dude, please. It’s like riding a bike. Easy. Remember that hit you were working on, the chick from Hollister in Staten Island? Pick up with that again. You’ll be back in the swing of it in no time.”

  Allegra.

  “No, don’t think so,” I said.

  Luke smirked and pulled out his phone. My stomach sank as he scrolled through his contacts and lifted the phone to his ear.

  “What are you doing?”

  His eyes were planted on mine.

  “Hi, can I speak to Wren, please?”

  I charged toward him, reaching for the phone, but he spun his back to me, moving away. Logan and Dev grabbed my arms. I squirmed against their hold, but four months without so much as lifting a five-pound barbell and I was no match for them. Only Andy appeared shocked at what was happening.

  “Luke. Don’t,” I begged.

  He turned to me then, still on the phone.

  “Oh, she’s at yoga? No, no message, I’ll just call back later. She’ll be in after seven? Okay, thanks, Mrs. Caswell,” he said, pressing End. He slid the phone back in his pocket. Logan and Dev let go.

  “You’re fucking crazy.”

  “No, I think you are,” he said, getting in my face. “I think getting tossed from school did a number on you. And since I’m your best friend, it’s my job to shock you out of it. We’ve been working on this since last winter. Don’t quit now. Wren is inconsequential.”

  My jaw clenched. “Wren is not inconsequential.”

  “Tell you what, just go see the Hollister chick—sniff it out—then you can do whatever you’re doing with Wren, take her to freakin’ prom for all I care. My theory being that once you get a taste again, you won’t want to stop.”

  “And after I do this, you’ll just let me walk away?”

  He folded his arms across his chest. “Sure, you can walk away and have polite, monogamous sex with your uptight, little, quiet chick. Although, yoga, hmm, she must be very bendy.”

  “Fine, then,” I said. “Just stay away from Wren.”

  He held out his hand. Andy chanted my name, quietly at first, “Gray-son, Gray-son,” until Logan and Dev joined in. I shook Luke’s hand. He grinned.

  “Enough of this girlie-man shit. Let’s have a beer,” he said.

  FIFTEEN

  WREN

  MY MOTHER STOOD IN MY BEDROOM DOORWAY, waving two dresses at me.

  I took out my earbuds. “What?” I asked, propping myself up on an elbow.

  After school I’d told her I needed a quick nap, but the truth was the thought of going to work and facing Grayson made my stomach churn. It was a pathetic, annoying feeling, and I wanted it to go away. He hadn’t texted me all week, but there’d been a strange phone call to the house yesterday. A boy, my mother had said, prodding me to elaborate. The caller ID read Unknown.

  I hoped it was Grayson, but I didn’t need anyone to know that.

  “The black one or the burgundy one?” my mother asked, annoyance edging her voice.

  “The black one.”

  “Right, it’s slimming.”

  She disappeared in a rush, the dresses fluttering on their hangers in her wake. I put my iPhone on my bedside table and followed her to her room. She was already putting her arms through the sleeves of the black dress.

  “Could you zip me?” she said, standing with her back to me. I pulled up the zipper, which stopped at the middle of her back—leaving a good three inches of zipper just gaping, like a taunting, sharp-toothed mouth saying, Fatty!

  “Um, Mom,” I said.

  “Is it stuck?” she asked.

  I tried bringing the two sides closer together, but even with all the breathing in and the tight, binding underwear that promised to take off ten pounds, there was still a good inch between both sides of the zipper. She muttered something under her breath, grabbed the burgundy dress from her bed, and disappeared through the bathroom into her walk-in closet.

  “Why all the fuss?” I asked, following.

  “I didn’t tell you?” she asked, walking out of her closet in the burgundy dress and standing in front of her bathroom mirror. The size tag stuck out at the nape of her neck. I walked over and tucked it in.

  “Tell me what?” I asked.

  “We’re meeting Brooke and Pete for dinner. Pete’s parents will be there. This is the first time we’re all meeting since . . .” She hesitated a moment, squeezing out some beige liquid makeup from a tube onto the back of her hand, then smoothing it onto her face with her fingers. “Well, since the announcement.”

  “Oh,” I answered. My mother hadn’t brought up Brooke’s pregnancy with me, but I knew it was something she thought about . . . a lot. I’d seen her sneaking her mini pretzels and Nutella—her go-to comfort and stress foods—more and more over the past few weeks.

  “I’m heading over to the Camelot just to make sure everything’s in place. Eben will be maître d’ for the wedding tonight.”

  “Eben’s maître d’? He must be stoked!” I said.

  “He’s earned it.” She dipped a brush into light cosmetic powder and twirled it onto her face until her skin was matte perfection. “I just wish we had more to offer him.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, leaning against the counter.

  She placed the brush back in a cup on the vanity, then fished through her makeup bag, pulling out a compact of different shadows. She fumbled with it for a minute.

  “Here, let me,” I said, taking it out of her hand. Her eyelids twitched as I smoothed on champagne-colored shadow with a brush.

  “Business is down from last year, even after the renovations,” she said. I picked out a contour brush and ran it across a shade called Fawn to put in the crease of her eyelids.

  “But we’ve been busy,” I said, using the tip of my finger to smudge the color to her outer lids. My mother blinked fast a few times, then glanced at her reflection in the mirror. She turned her face from side to side with approval.

  “Broo
ke told me about what you said on Thanksgiving—”

  “What?”

  “About how you thought you could run the Camelot someday. Wren, I had no idea.”

  “Mom, that was random,” I answered, grabbing an amber eye pencil. “Close ’em.”

  She obeyed, and I gently pulled her lid taut to draw a line as close to her lashes as possible.

  “We have an offer on the land. A builder. They want to put condos—”

  “Don’t talk, unless you want crazy Cleopatra eyes. Almost done,” I said. My heart sank. The tug of sadness I felt surprised me. Tears clouded my vision as I finished up. I stepped back to admire my work.

  Her eyes met mine and softened. “Wren.”

  “Close one more time. I just have to smudge the line—”

  She took my hands in hers.

  “Mom, I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s fine, really.”

  “Believe me, I thought long and hard about this, but the Camelot isn’t the place it once was—people want exotic locations.”

  “And cupcakes,” I said, pulling my hands away and swiping a tear.

  “Did you really want to run it someday?” she asked, leaning against the vanity counter, arms folded.

  Having the question asked point-blank made me realize that my answer was a resounding no. The Camelot had only been a “just in case,” because it felt so comfortable. Safe. The news still made me feel ungrounded. The Camelot had defined so much of our lives. My life. Everything kept changing so fast; I wondered if I’d ever catch up.

  “No,” I answered, reaching over to finally smudge the liner. Satisfied, I stepped away. “It was just an idea, that’s all. I change my mind a hundred times a day.”

  “I would never want any of you to be forced into taking over the business. I fell into it myself. The Camelot was my grandfather’s baby, but he would have known when to get out.”

  “Does the staff know?”

  She spoke as she put on a coat of mascara. “No, I haven’t said anything. I’ve got mixed feelings about closing. We’ve tried so hard, and I hate the idea of knocking the place down, but in the end we’re just not making our nut. And it’s an excellent offer. This influx of cash will help with so many things, but it’s still not an easy decision. Some of the staff are like family. It’s why I’ve been so tense. Well, part of the reason. I’m not even sure I should have told you,” she said, putting the lash wand back into the mascara tube. “I think I just wanted to hear how it sounded.”