Before he left I made him tell me all the things we’ll do when he comes back. I looked into his eyes as he recited each one because in my heart of hearts I’m not sure that he’s planning to. I’m holding onto the idea that he wants me to be unsure, on purpose, so my heartache appears more real. But it is real. The hardest part hasn’t been convincing everyone we broke up for good—that’s evident to anyone with eyes. The hardest part has been maintaining the guise that Alexander and I both chose to end it, and that I’m okay with this. And the cherry topping on this rotten sundae is that the plan doesn’t even seem to be working. Avestan left San Mar after his fight with Alexander, but two days ago, according to Alenna, he came back.
“Declan! Finn!” Mrs. Warner says when she opens the door to Liz’s house. “How nice to see you. I’m sorry though, dears—Liz is at work right now. She isn’t here.”
“Hi Fran,” we say, calling Mrs. Warner by her first name, which she vehemently prefers. “Nice to see you, too,” I say. “We actually know Liz isn’t here but we came by because I think I left my phone here the last time I was over. Do you mind if we take a look?”
“Of course,” she says with a welcome smile as she opens the door wide and steps aside to let us in.
“Finn,” I say, “do you think it’s in the family room? Is that where you thought you saw me leave it?” Finn nods with vigor but doesn’t answer. He doesn’t want to be embarrassed by admitting that he lost Liz’s present, but he can’t lie to Mrs. Warner. Or anyone else. Even white lies. He’d just stumble all over himself trying to do it and be obvious—like the strange way he’s nodding right now. It’s simply not in his nature to tell an untruth. He took a job at the boardwalk one summer working the game where you throw three balls to try to break a bunch of plastic plates lined up in rows in the back of the booth. If you broke one or two you’d get a tiny prize like a small stuffed crab or a blow-up mallet with the “San Mar Boardwalk” logo stamped on it, but if you managed to break a plate all three times, you got to choose one of the impressively enormous stuffed animals hanging along the walls of the booth. Invariably he’d get guys who were trying to impress their girlfriends (who were clearly coveting one of the big prizes) and, after expending many rounds of cash, they’d say something like, “C’mon, I’ve broken two every round, this game is rigged, just give it to me.” I told Finn the best way to defuse those situations was to say, “I would if I could, but it’s against the rules and I’ll get in trouble,” to take the heat off of him and put it on a faceless bureaucracy. But Finn couldn’t lie—he wouldn’t give them the big prize if it was up to him, because they didn’t meet the full criteria (set by his bosses and clearly stated to Finn when he was trained) for a “large win.” Instead, he insisted on saying, “I’m sorry sir, but the rules clearly state that you have to break a plate with all three throws. You didn’t manage to do that. But if you think you can succeed, you’re welcome to keep trying.” I was afraid some drunk guy was going to end up punching him someday. At any rate, that leaves me in charge of the fib-telling to Mrs. Warner right now, so we can get to work tearing Liz’s house apart to find the ring he hid here. Somewhere.
“You have free rein of the house to search,” Mrs. Warner says cheerily, spreading her arms wide, “but I’m sorry I can’t help. I’m hosting my weekly drawing class in the back yard right now. Feel free to join the class after you find your phone if you’re interested. It’s quite fun. A lively group.”
Finn and I smile and thank her. I can’t help wondering what ‘a lively group’ means in Mrs. Warner parlance because she’s a pretty lively lady all on her own. I like Mrs. Warner. A lot. Liz pretends to be embarrassed by her sometimes, and maybe she is … but not really. Her mom is cool, like almost too cool. Liz and I have so many good stories involving her mom’s artsy eccentricity through the years that we laugh so hard we cry and practically pee our pants when we play them back for each other.
As soon as Mrs. Warner leaves, Finn and I go to the family room and get to work searching on opposite sides. It’s a big space with a game table and chairs, large couches in the middle, bookshelves lining the outside walls, and an entertainment center at one end with more shelves holding a large collection of original vinyl albums, among other things.
“I’m sorry,” Finn says after about forty minutes of fruitless searching.
“Finn, don’t worry about it,” I say, “we all lose things. It’s not a big deal, and we’ll find it.”
“But we’ve been looking for a long time. And the anniversary is tomorrow.”
He’s right. We’ve been looking for a while, and in about forty minutes more we’ll have to leave because we’re meeting Liz downtown. As we’ve been searching I’ve been lamenting the fact (strictly in mind only) that Finn didn’t buy Liz a giant present, like a stuffed animal or a bike, rather than something tiny like a ring that is proving freaking impossible to find. “It’s okay,” I say with forced calmness, “it didn’t disappear. It’s here. We’ll find it. Maybe if we take a break for a second it’ll help. Do you want a glass of water?” I realize as I say the words that my throat is parched.
“No, I want to keep looking,” he says as he pulls another book off the bookshelf he’s been searching through.
“Okay, you keep going and I’ll be right back,” I say. “I’m dying of thirst.”
I walk into the kitchen and try my damnedest to shove the image of Mr. and Mrs. Warner in here with ice cubes and a spatula out of my mind as I grab a glass from the cupboard. Why in God’s name did Liz have to tell me that? I get some ice from the freezer, and then turn to the kitchen sink for some water. I decide to take a peek out the window at Mrs. Warner’s “lively” drawing class in the back yard to see what it’s all about as I wait for the water from the tap to fill my glass. I scan the large yard over to the pool area and see a group of about seven ladies sitting on stools in front of easels with pencils, sketching. As I continue to scan the scene my eyes nearly pop out of my skull at the vision of a very buff, very nude, very well-endowed man posing provocatively on a white lounge chair in front of them. Mrs. Warner and the other ladies are sketching furiously and I can hear trills of merry conversation as they go about their work. Jesus, I should have known not to look … Mrs. Warner is the woman who told Liz and me when we were twelve that she was taking us up the coast to a “naturists” beach—something that also sounded harmless (and fun!) at the time but also popped the eyes out of my skull in the end.
“Are you sure you hid it here, in the family room?” I ask Finn when I get back.
He nods. “Or somewhere in the theatre downstairs.”
“Why didn’t you hide it in her bedroom?”
“I didn’t want her to find it.”
“But what if her mom or dad found it?”
He pauses from pulling out books stacked on the large walnut bookshelf. “It’s not their anniversary. It wouldn’t ruin the surprise.”
I stop opening and closing drawers. “It’s in a box, right?”
Finn looks at me, puzzled.
“A ring box?”
“If a ring box is a clear plastic bag with a zipper.”
“It’s in a Ziploc bag?”
“A miniature one,” he says, “the size of a movie ticket.”
My eyes go wide at the thought of how much harder it will be to find a ring in a tiny plastic bag, but I try not to show alarm.
“That’s how they sold it to me,” he explains.
“That’s fine,” I say with as much nonchalance as I can muster. “I just need to know what form factor we’re looking for.”
“Oh. The form factor is a card,” he says.
“You put the ring bag in a card?”
“Yes. An anniversary card.”
I groan inside because I haven’t been looking for a card, but I keep it together. I don’t want to upset Finn. It’s my fault for not clarifying all this earlier. “Okay,” I say. “Is the envelope white?”
“It’s dark pink.”
>
“With Liz’s name on it?”
He nods. My shoulders slump with relief. Thank God. I would have noticed a pink envelope with Finn’s writing. I won’t have to re-search covered territory. “That’s good,” I say. “If Liz found it, she wouldn’t open it. She’d call you first.”
Finn visibly relaxes for the first time since we got here and when I see how tensed up he was my heart hurts for him. He did all the right things buying this present for Liz and now he thinks he messed it up.
He places a stack of books back on the shelf. “What if we don’t find it?”
“We won’t stop until we do,” I say with determination as I start looking through the Warners’ collection of vinyl record albums one by one. Twenty tedious minutes later a pink envelope with “To Liz” written on it sails to the floor when I pull out Led Zeppelin’s album In Through The Out Door.
“Found it!” I cry out as I pat the envelope and feel a blessedly tell-tale lump.
Finn turns and peers at the album in my hand. “Oh yeah,” he says, “I remember now.”
I shake my head and smile. “Do you want to take it home with you?”
“No, put it back. Otherwise I might forget to bring it over tomorrow.”
I shake my head again and slide it back in front of the album. I can’t argue with his logic. And, at least now, two of us know where it is.
As Finn and I walk to meet Liz downtown my mind wanders as we talk and eventually lands where it always does, on Alexander. I close my eyes for a moment and imagine sending the warm white light in my core to him wherever he is to keep him safe. It calms me to imagine that I have a modicum of control over the situation and I take a deep breath in and try to set all my worries aside for the night so I can focus on this evening with Finn and Liz.
On our way, we stop at Finn’s house. His parents are at a work conference and Finn needs to feed Zeno, his dog. The day Finn and I met in pre-K we rescued Zeno when he was just a little beagle-mix puppy. I was jealous when Finn got to keep him but I consider Zeno my dog, too, and so does Finn. We spent many a day playing with Zeno for hours and then eating peanut butter sandwiches (Finn’s plain, mine with jelly) and drinking homemade lemonade at the picnic table in his back yard. Zeno has a favorite spot where he likes to sit under the poplar tree in the back corner of the fence and I suspect he likes the way the wind sounds rustling through its leaves as much as I do. It’s peaceful … and relaxing. I always loved coming to Finn’s house.
We open the side gate to enter through the back yard and I smile when I see our old picnic table and Zeno sitting in his spot under the tree. He jumps up when he sees us and walks over so we can pet him. He’s gotten slower over the years but he’s still as cheerful and loving. He rolls over on his back so we can rub his tummy and then he pops up again and walks through the doggy door and peers at us through the sliding glass door in back of the house, waiting for us to join him inside.
When Finn walks up to the door to unlock it Zeno licks the glass and then he plops his long tongue out of the side of his mouth and lets it hang there, hysterically. When we laugh, he does it again, flattening his tongue against the clear glass as he licks it, and then letting his long tongue fall out of his mouth to the side, hanging like a limp necktie. It’s so funny and the more he does it the more we laugh until Finn and I both have tears in our eyes from laughing so hard. God, I love Zeno. Somehow he knew to cheer me up and take my mind off Alexander right when I needed it.
When we reach Surf Pizza downtown and step up to join the line extending outside to the sidewalk, Finn peers over at me. “You look kind of awful,” he says.
I meet his eyes. Finn can be very observant when he wants to—he once memorized the rotation of our gym teacher Mr. Finkle’s wardrobe—and he’s also very, very blunt. “Gee, thanks Finn.”
He looks guilty. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “You’re only telling the truth. I do look terrible. I haven’t slept much and I was thinking about Alexander.”
“I don’t understand you,” he says.
“Why?”
“Why did you break up with him if it’s making you miserable?”
“It was never going to work.”
“Why?”
“Eventually he’d be going back to Australia for good.”
“But when?”
I wonder if he’s purposely trying to irritate me but I can see by his eyes and his tone that he’s genuinely just trying to understand. “I don’t know, Finn, but eventually … and it would hurt too much. It was a mutual decision—we broke up with each other.”
“Then why are you so sad?”
“Because I miss him.”
“Then why did you break up with him?”
I put my face in my palms and stare at him through my fingers as I drag my hands down my cheeks. “Finn,” I growl, “I know you want an answer that makes sense. But I don’t have one. Sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do because they’re the right decision. In the long run.”
Finn is silent.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”
He nods. “I’m just sorry you’re sad.”
Something in the way he goes straight to how I’m feeling makes my eyes tear up. “Thanks, Finn,” I say, squeezing his hand. “I’ll be okay.”
I look around again for Liz as we move forward a little in line but still don’t see her.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
“Sure.”
“You know that list you keep in your head of all the things to worry about? Alphabetized?”
“Yes,” he adds.
“What do you do when you don’t want to think about those things?” I ask. “How do you turn it off?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“So you don’t worry all the time.”
“That’s the reason I keep the list. The statistical chances of most bad things happening are very low. Especially if you take common sense precautions.”
“So, you like it,” I say, “because it helps you keep things in perspective.”
He nods.
“So what do you recommend I do if I don’t want to think about something? And I don’t want to keep a list in my head of probabilities?”
He thinks for a moment before answering. “Drink barbecue sauce.”
“What?”
“It seems like it would taste good, but it doesn’t.”
I laugh. “Are you serious?”
“You won’t be able to think about anything else for a while, because you’ll be trying to get the taste out of your mouth.”
“Did you do that?” I ask. I’m weirdly fascinated by this conversation.
“Once.”
“Why?”
“I like my mom’s barbecued chicken. Then I wasn’t eating meat anymore so I figured I’d cut out the middle man and just drink the sauce.”
I can’t help but laugh. “How much did you drink?”
“I realized quickly it was a bad idea.” He looks at me and we both start to laugh.
“Did you get sick?”
He shakes his head. “You know me.”
I nod. Finn loves spicy things. He eats jalapenos whole and he loves big gobs of wasabi with his sushi. The guy craves intense flavor and he has an iron stomach. Yet, for whatever reason, he recoils from eating all fruit as if it’s poison.
“I don’t think I want to drink barbecue sauce,” I say.
Finn shrugs. “You could also do math problems in your head. I used to do that when you had panic attacks. Before you told me to hold your hand. Actually, now I do both. Sometimes. But you haven’t had any lately.”
I smile at him. I don’t know what I would have done without Finn in my life.
“Or you could watch cat videos on YouTube,” Liz says as she walks up.
“Huh?” I say as I turn to give her a hug hello.
“I heard you guys talking,” she says. “You
Tube is the answer. Remember that video we made of Willow dressed like a leprechaun?”
We all laugh.
“We should make some more of those,” she says. “We haven’t done any in a long time.”
I smile. “I don’t know if Willow would let us dress her up anymore,” I say. “She mostly just likes to sit in my lap these days.”
We reach the front of the line and order our pizza slices and drinks.
“Are you trying to distract yourself from Alexander?” Liz asks as we sit down in a booth with our food.
I nod, knowing she understands.
“That’s what we’re here for,” she says. “Like right now, making you celebrate our seven-month anniversary a day early, at my favorite pizza place in the entire freaking world.” She takes a bite of her ‘Veggie Special’ slice and groans. “This is amazeballs.”
I smile. “Do you want your present now since you and Finn are going down to Moonstone Beach tomorrow?”
“You got us a present?” she says. “Are you kidding? You didn’t have to do that. You’re the one who got us together.”
“So you don’t want it then?” I tease.
She tilts her head and smiles. “Hand it over.”
I laugh and bend down to get it out of the bag by my feet.
“This present idea must be making the rounds,” Liz says as I slide my gift to her across the table. “My mom heard me talking about our anniversary with Finn and she says she has something for us, too. Probably because she likes Finn so much.” She flashes a smile in his direction. “I think it’s a gift certificate to that new vegan restaurant that just opened up. I hope. I don’t think she’d have time to give us anything too crazy. She’s working on some big art project.” Her voice lowers a register before she continues. “The model she’s painting is seriously hung, you should see it.”
Fallen (The Guardian Series Book 2) Page 10