“To being a civilian,” he said, toasting.
The wine was rich and full; like velvet; like autumn. Alex closed her eyes. She would have liked to hold on to this moment, drag it wider and fuller, until it covered up so many others that had come before.
“So, how is it?” Patrick asked. “Being unemployed?”
She thought for a moment. “I made a grilled cheese sandwich today without burning the pan.”
“I hope you framed it.”
“Nah, I left that to the prosecution.” She smiled at her own little inside joke, and then felt it dissolve on the tails of her thoughts as she imagined Diana Leven’s face. “Do you ever feel guilty?” Alex asked.
“Why?”
“Because for a half a second, you’ve almost forgotten everything that happened.”
Patrick put down his wineglass. “Sometimes, when I’m going through the evidence and I see a fingerprint or a photo or a shoe that belonged to one of the kids who died, I take a little more time to look at it. It’s crazy, but it seems like someone ought to, so that they’re remembered an extra minute or two.” He looked up at her. “When someone dies, their lives aren’t the ones that stop at that moment, you know?”
Alex lifted her glass of wine and drained it. “Tell me how you found her.”
“Who?”
“Josie. That day.”
Patrick met her gaze, and Alex knew he was weighing her right to know what her daughter had experienced against his wish to save her from a truth that would cut her to the quick. “She was in the locker room,” he began quietly. “And I thought…I thought she was dead, too, because she was covered in blood, facedown next to Matt Royston. But then she moved and-” His voice broke. “It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
“You know you’re a hero, don’t you?”
Patrick shook his head. “I’m a coward. The only reason I ran into that building was because if I didn’t, I’d have nightmares for the rest of my life.”
Alex shivered. “I have nightmares, and I wasn’t even there.”
He took away her wineglass and studied her palm, as if he were going to read her the line of her life. “Maybe you should try not sleeping,” Patrick said.
His skin smelled of evergreen and spearmint, this close. Alex could feel her heart pounding through the tips of her fingers. She imagined he could feel it, too.
She didn’t know what was going to happen next-what was supposed to happen next-but it would be random, unpredictable, uncomfortable. She was getting ready to push away from him when Patrick’s hands anchored her in place. “Stop being such a judge, Alex,” he whispered, and he kissed her.
When feeling came back, in a storm of color and force and sensation, the most you could do was hold on to the person beside you and hope you could weather it. Alex closed her eyes and expected the worst-but it wasn’t a bad thing; it was just a different thing. A messier one, a more complicated one. She hesitated, and then she kissed Patrick back, willing to concede that you might have to lose control before you could find what you’d been missing.
The Month Before
When you love someone, there’s a pattern to the way you come together. You might not even realize it, but your bodies are choreographed: a touch on the hip, a stroke of the hair. A staccato kiss, break away, a longer one, his hand slipping under your shirt. It’s a routine, but not in the boring sense of the word. It’s just the way you’ve learned to fit, and it’s why, when you’ve been with one guy for a long time, your teeth do not scrape together when you kiss; you do not bump noses or elbows.
Matt and Josie had a pattern. When they started making out, he’d lean in and look at her as if he couldn’t possibly see any other part of the world. It was hypnotism, she realized, because after a while she sort of felt that way, too. Then he’d kiss her, so slowly that there was hardly pressure on her mouth, until she was the one pushing against him for more. He worked his way down her body, from mouth to neck, from neck to breasts, and then his fingers would do a search-and-rescue mission below the waistband of her jeans. The whole thing lasted about ten minutes, and then Matt would roll off her and take the condom out of his wallet so they could have sex.
Not that Josie minded any of it. If she was going to be honest, she liked the pattern. It felt like a roller coaster-going up that hill, knowing what was coming next on track and knowing, too, that she couldn’t do anything to stop it.
They were in her living room, in the dark, with the television on for background noise. Matt had already peeled off her clothes, and now he was leaning over her like a tidal wave, pulling down his boxers. He sprang free and settled between Josie’s legs.
“Hey,” she said, as he tried to push into her. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Aw, Jo. Just once, I don’t want there to be anything between us.”
His words could melt her just as surely as his kiss or his touch; she already knew that by now. She hated that rubbery smell that permeated the air the moment he ripped open the Trojan packet and stayed on his hands until they were finished. And God, did anything feel better than having Matt inside her? Josie shifted just a little, felt her body adjust to him, and her legs trembled.
When Josie had gotten her period at thirteen, her mother had not given her the typical heart-to-heart mother/daughter chat. Instead, she handed Josie a book on probability and statistics. “Every time you have sex, you can get pregnant or you can not get pregnant,” her mother said. “That’s fifty-fifty. So don’t fool yourself into thinking that if you only do it once without protection, the odds are in your favor.”
Josie pushed at Matt. “I don’t think we should do this,” she whispered.
“Have sex?”
“Have sex without…you know. Anything.”
He was disappointed, Josie could tell by the way his face froze for just a moment. But he pulled out and fished for his wallet, found a condom. Josie took it out of his hand, tore open the package, helped him put it on. “One day,” she began, and then he kissed her, and Josie forgot what she was going to say.
Lacy had started spreading corn on the lawn back in November to help the deer through the winter. There were plenty of locals who frowned upon artificially giving the deer a helping hand during the winter-mostly the same people whose gardens were wrecked by those surviving deer in the summer-but for Lacy, there was karma involved. As long as Lewis insisted on hunting, she was going to do what little she could to cancel out his actions.
She put on her heavy boots-there was still enough snow on the ground to merit it, although it had gotten warm enough for the sap to start flowing, which meant that at least in theory, spring was coming. As soon as Lacy walked outside, she could smell the maple syrup refining in the neighbor’s sugar house, like candy crystals in the air. She carried the bucket of feed corn to the swing set in the backyard-a wooden structure that the boys had played on when they were small, and that Lewis had never quite gotten around to dismantling.
“Hey, Mom.”
Lacy turned to find Peter standing nearby, his hands dug deep into the pockets of his jeans. He was wearing a T-shirt and a down vest, and she imagined he had to be freezing. “Hi, sweetie,” she said. “What’s going on?”
She could probably count on one hand the number of times Peter had come out of his room lately, much less outside. It was part of puberty, she knew, for adolescents to hole up in burrows and do whatever it was they did behind closed doors. In Peter’s case, it involved the computer. He was online constantly-not for web surfing as much as programming, and how could she fault that kind of passion?
“Nothing. What are you doing?”
“Same thing I’ve done all winter.”
“Really?”
She looked up at him. Against the beauty of the brisk outdoors, Peter seemed wildly out of place. His features were too delicate to match the craggy line of mountains in the backdrop behind him; his skin seemed nearly as white as the snow. He didn’t fit, and Lacy realized
that most of the time when she saw Peter somewhere, she could make the same observation.
“Here,” Lacy said, handing him the bucket. “Help.”
Peter took the bucket and began to toss handfuls of corn on the ground. “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Is it true that you were the one who asked out Dad?”
Lacy grinned. “Well, if I hadn’t, I would have probably had to wait around forever. Your father is many things, but perceptive isn’t one of them.”
She had met Lewis at a pro-choice rally. Although Lacy would be the first to tell you that there was no greater gift than having a baby, she was a realist-she’d sent home enough mothers who were too young or too poor or too overburdened to know that the odds of that child having a good life were slim. She had gone with a friend to a march at the statehouse in Concord and stood on the steps with a sisterhood of women who held up signs: I’M PRO-CHOICE AND I VOTE…AGAINST ABORTION? DON’T HAVE ONE. She had looked around the crowd that day and realized that there was one lone man-well-dressed in a suit and tie, right in the thick of the protesters. Lacy had been fascinated by him-as a protester, he was completely cast against type. Wow, Lacy had said, working her way toward him. What a day.
Tell me about it.
Have you ever been here before? Lacy had asked.
My first time, Lewis said.
Mine, too.
They had gotten separated as a new influx of marchers came up the stone steps. A paper had blown off the stack that Lewis was carrying, but by the time Lacy could grab it, he’d been swallowed by the crowd. It was the cover page to something bigger; she knew by the staple holes at the top, and it had a title that nearly put her to sleep: “The allocation of public education resources in New Hampshire: a critical analysis.” But there was also an author’s name: Lewis Houghton, Sterling College Dept. of Economics.
When she called to tell Lewis that she had his paper, he said that he didn’t need it. He could print out another copy. Yes, Lacy had said, but I have to bring this one back to you.
Why?
So you can explain it to me over dinner.
It wasn’t until they’d gone out for sushi that Lacy learned the reason Lewis had been at the statehouse had nothing to do with attending a pro-choice rally, but only because he had a scheduled appointment with the governor.
“But how did you tell him?” Peter asked. “That you liked him, you know, like that?”
“As I recall, I grabbed him after our third date and kissed him. Then again, that may have been to shut him up because he was going on and on about free trade.” She glanced back over her shoulder, and suddenly the questions all made sense. “Peter,” she said, a smile breaking over her. “Is there someone you like?”
Peter didn’t even have to answer-his face turned crimson.
“Do I get to know her name?”
“No,” Peter said emphatically.
“Well, it doesn’t matter.” She looped her arm through Peter’s. “Gosh, I envy you. There’s nothing that compares to those first few months when all you can think of is each other. I mean, love in any form is pretty fabulous…but falling in love…well.”
“It’s not like that,” Peter said. “I mean, it’s kind of one-sided.”
“I bet she’s just as nervous as you are.”
He grimaced. “Mom. She barely even registers my existence. I’m not…I don’t hang out with the kind of people she hangs out with.”
Lacy looked at her son. “Well,” she said. “Then your first order of business is to change that.”
“How?”
“Find ways to connect with her. Maybe in places where you know her friends won’t be around. And try to show her the side of you that she doesn’t normally see.”
“Like what?”
“The inside.” Lacy tapped Peter’s chest. “If you tell her how you feel, I think you might be surprised at the reaction.”
Peter ducked his head and kicked at a hummock of snow. Then he glanced up at her shyly. “Really?”
Lacy nodded. “It worked for me.”
“Okay,” Peter said. “Thanks.”
She watched him trudge back up the hill to the house, and then she turned her attention back to the deer. Lacy would have to feed them until the snow melted. Once you started taking care of them, you had to follow through, or they just wouldn’t make it.
They were on the floor of the living room and they were nearly naked. Josie could taste beer on Matt’s breath, but she must have tasted like that, too. They’d both drunk a few at Drew’s-not enough to get wasted, just buzzed, enough so that Matt’s hands seemed to be all over her at once, so that his skin set fire to hers.
She’d been floating along pleasantly in a haze of the familiar. Yes, Matt had kissed her-one short one, then a longer, hungry kiss, as his hand worked open the clasp on her bra. She lay lazy, spread beneath him like a feast, as he pulled off her jeans. But then, instead of doing what usually came next, Matt reared over her again. He kissed her so hard that it hurt. “Mmmph,” she said, pushing at him.
“Relax,” Matt murmured, and then he sank his teeth into her shoulder. He pinned her hands over her head and ground his hips against hers. She could feel his erection, hot against her stomach.
It wasn’t the way it normally was, but Josie had to admit that it was exciting. She couldn’t remember ever feeling so heavy, as if her heart were beating between her legs. She clawed at Matt’s back to bring him closer.
“Yeah,” he groaned, and he pushed her thighs apart. And then suddenly Matt was inside her, pumping so hard that she scooted backward on the carpet, burning the backs of her legs.
“Wait,” Josie said, trying to roll away beneath him, but he clamped his hand over her mouth and drove harder and harder until Josie felt him come.
Semen, sticky and hot, pooled on the carpet beneath her. Matt framed her face with his hands. “Jesus, Josie,” he whispered, and she realized that he was in tears. “I love you so goddamn much.”
Josie turned her face away. “I love you, too.”
She lay in his arms for ten minutes and then said she was tired and needed to go to sleep. After she kissed Matt good-bye at the front door, she went into the kitchen and took the rug cleaner out from underneath the sink. She scrubbed it into the wet spot on the carpet, prayed it would not leave a stain.
# include ‹stdio.h›
main ( )
{
int time;
for (time=0; time‹infinity (1); time ++)
{ printf (“I love you|n”); }
}
Peter highlighted the text on his computer screen and deleted it. Although he thought it would be pretty cool to open an email and automatically have an I LOVE YOU message written over and over on the screen, he could see where someone else-someone who didn’t give a crap about C++-would think it was just downright strange.
He’d decided on an email because that way if she blew him off, he could suffer the embarrassment in private. The problem was, his mother had said to show what was inside him and he wasn’t very good when it came to words.
He thought about how sometimes, when he saw her, it was just a part of her: her arm resting on the passenger window of the car, her hair blowing out its window. He thought about how many times he’d fantasized about being the one at the wheel.
My journey was pointless, he wrote. Until I took a YOU-turn.
Groaning, Peter deleted that, too. It made him sound like a Hallmark card writer, or even worse, one that Hallmark wouldn’t even hire.
He thought about what he wished he could say to her, if he had the guts, and poised his hands over the keyboard.
I know you don’t think of me.
And you certainly would never picture us together.
But probably peanut butter was just peanut butter for a long time, before someone ever thought of pairing it up with jelly. And there was salt, but it started to taste better when there was pepper. And what’s the point
of butter without bread?
(Why are all these examples FOODS!?!?!??)
Anyway, by myself, I’m nothing special. But with you, I think I could be.
He agonized about the ending.
Your friend, Peter Houghton
Well, technically that wasn’t true.
Sincerely, Peter Houghton
That was true, but it was still sort of lame. Of course, there was the obvious:
Love, Peter Houghton
He typed it in, read it over once. And then, before he could stop himself, he pushed the Enter button and sent his heart across the Ethernet to Josie Cormier.
Courtney Ignatio was so freaking bored.
Josie was her friend and all, but there was, like, nothing to do. They’d already watched three Paul Walker movies on DVD, checked the Lost website for the bio on the hot guy who played Sawyer, and read all the Cosmos that hadn’t been recycled, but there was no HBO, nothing chocolate in the fridge, and no party at Sterling College to sneak into. This was Courtney’s second night at the Cormier household, thanks to her brainiac older brother, who had dragged her parents on a whirlwind tour of Ivy League colleges on the East Coast. Courtney plopped a stuffed hippo on her stomach and frowned into its button eyes. She’d already tried to get details out of Josie last night about Matt-important things, like how big a dick he had and if he had a clue how to use it-but Josie had gone all Hilary Duff on her and acted like she’d never heard the word sex before.
Josie was in the bathroom taking a shower; Courtney could still hear the water running. She rolled to her side and scrutinized a framed photograph of Josie and Matt. It would have been easy to hate Josie, because Matt was the über-boyfriend-always glancing around at a party to make sure he hadn’t gotten too far away from Josie; calling her up to say good night, even when he’d just dropped her off a half hour before (yes, Courtney had been privy to a display of that very thing just last night). Unlike most of the guys on the hockey team-several of whom Courtney had dated-Matt honestly seemed to prefer Josie’s company to anyone else’s. But there was something about Josie that kept Courtney from being jealous. It was the way her expression slipped every now and then, like a colored contact lens, so you could see what was actually underneath. Josie might have been one-half of Sterling High School’s Most Faithful Couple, but it almost seemed like the biggest reason she clung to that label was because that was the only reason she knew who she was.
Nineteen Minutes Page 40