As the sun dips below the trailer and a chill bites the air, I have a sobering thought. It’s something I have always known but didn’t want to believe. I had shoved it into the depths of my own denial. Seeing him in this state makes it bob to the surface: He’s all I’ve got.
Yes, I have Rena, but I think she’s done all she can. When I left for school, she told me that I was a woman now.
“What does that mean exactly?” I asked her.
“You don’t need me anymore.”
I started to get choked up, but I wasn’t sad. I realized that she did her best, and that one person can’t be everything to someone.
“You know what, Rena? I was so pissed when I got here and you asked me to rake the leaves. But I get it now. I get that whatever your story was shaped who you are, and I know you aren’t perfect, but I did need you. I needed you a lot.”
She looked away, and I thought I saw her eyes moisten.
“That is why I never told you,” she said. “I wanted you to need me, to feel like you had a real family member to take your care.”
“I did, Rena. Like you said, it doesn’t matter if we aren’t blood related. You’ll always be my grandmother, the one that raised me.”
“What about your boy, Billy Ray?”
“Well, hopefully he’ll realize I’m not trying to break his heart. I’m just moving on.”
“He is very good people.”
“I know, Rena, I know. But he feels like a stepping-stone, you know?”
“I have a feeling you’ll have plenty of those.”
I hugged her, and for the first time she really hugged me back.
Rena will always be my family. So will Fin and Billy Ray.
But Levon is still the giant question mark in the sky, the dream I’m still dreaming. Then there’s Wade, this meek man in front of me, the one who made me. He messed up royally, but I can feel that he wants to make things better, that he’s for real this time.
“Tell me about Mom. Why didn’t she take her scholarship?”
He stares off into space for a second, then turns back with a new, gentler smile. “She didn’t like institutions. She didn’t want to be labeled a Columbia grad. She was writing a book, freehand, in all these journals. They were in my garage. I brought them, and I’d like you to have them.”
I picture the mother I knew. Flowers in her hair, that ethereal presence, how it seemed everything in the world held promise to her. I don’t remember any journals.
“Did she write them before I was born?”
“Mostly. And when you were really little.”
“How did you meet?”
His eyes glaze over again, then he starts to talk languidly, as if recalling a dream.
“I was practicing a song in an alley, in Marin County. The band was inside the venue, sound checking. We weren’t big then. I could go anywhere. So I was playing this new song I was working on. And when I finished, I heard someone clapping. I looked up, and there was your mother, in the window of an apartment in the next building. She stuck her head out, and we talked for a little bit. She had that smile, one I’d never seen before. You have it too.”
Something gathers in his throat, and he puts his head in his hands. I let him cry softly, trying not to give in myself. The girl comes out to see if we need anything else but then quickly turns around. After he calms down, he takes a deep breath and looks at me, almost like he’s about to beg for his life.
“You are all that’s left of her and me. I know I’ve been a shitty father, but I want to know you. I want to be in your life. I can’t take back what I’ve done, but I can change things going forward.”
“We’ll see,” I say.
I think he must actually have a heart, because I swear I can hear it beating.
I lean closer to him.
“So what happened after that? With Mom?”
“We were about to head out on a European tour. I asked her to come, and she said yes. It was easy, really. Everything was always easy with her.”
I contemplate asking him about the truck accident at Joshua Tree, if he remembers the giant whipped-cream peace sign we made, but I stop myself. I’d rather have faith that he remembers. I’m not sure I can handle it if he doesn’t. It’s my one memory of him, like a small gold stone in a river of gray ones. I want to preserve its color.
• • •
Graduation day is really hot. From the top row, the bleachers look like a sea of maroon gowns, with programs being used as fans, flipping like the wings of white birds. The Navy SEAL, who also has a gay son, gives a touching speech. In the end, he says, “The only thing you should be intolerant of is intolerance.”
Wade is like all the other parents, beaming and clapping when I get my diploma. Mrs. B takes a selfie with him, and I don’t cringe. When it’s time for him to leave, he tells me to come live with him in Miami, if I want.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I’m not sure about that, but I’ll think about it. Thanks.”
I watch him get smaller and smaller from my window as he walks away.
“Dad,” I say softly under my breath. Although it’s not second nature, the word doesn’t feel like another language either.
• • •
I am leaving for Albuquerque in my favorite dark-blue dress. My hair has completely grown back. I have my HD handheld video camera, my laptop, my mom’s journals, a few changes of clothes, and Randolph the frog.
When I hug Brittany, she says, “Go get him, but don’t be desperate.”
Jiwa, who always smells like flowers, says, “Be you. That’s who everyone loves. And keep in touch.”
Mr. Keller, my film teacher, asks me to send him a digital copy of There’s Something About Gary because he wants to enter it in the New England Student Film Festival.
Fin takes me to the airport, and it’s not as hard as I thought it would be saying good-bye. It’s like he’ll always be there. I know we will cross paths again.
“Promise me this,” Fin says. “When you have your big premiere in Hollywood, you invite me.”
“Yeah right.”
“No yeah rights anymore! How about yeah, that’s right.”
“OK, yeah, that’s right. There’ll be a chair with your name on it. And one next to it for your daughter.”
Before I walk into the terminal, we stand facing each other on the sidewalk. People with their own stories, their own risks, walking around us, oblivious to ours. But we are a strong fixture in that chaos. Two people who needed to come together, who shared four years of hanging out. Now it is time for all that to change. I hand him a Post-it with my email address, since he’s finally started doing email. He shakes his head, like he can’t believe I made it this far. I know what he means. We do one last fist-bump explosion, and I hoist my bag over my shoulder and head through the automatic doors.
• • •
I sleep for most of the plane ride, waking as we make our descent. My eyes focus on the flight attendant’s cart in the aisle next to me, and I see two mini bottles of Dewar’s, the whiskey Levon likes. I steal one and slide it into my bag.
The Albuquerque airport is tiny, and there are makeshift stores selling turquoise jewelry and magnets. On the way into town, I can see that Levon was right. The sky is huge. There are walls of red buttes with dense clouds curling over their tops like tablecloths. The taxi driver is American Indian and has a very intricate dashboard with taped pictures and inspirational sayings.
“You here for the festival?”
“No,” I say, not knowing what he’s talking about.
The road gets smaller, and more trees appear along the side. Ahead, 585 Solar Road is a small adobe house with a circular drive.
I get out of the cab and just stand there, staring at the house. There’s a small garden out front that has
been neglected, which might be a good sign. If a girl were here, wouldn’t she plant flowers?
There’s no car in the driveway.
I walk slowly toward the house.
I feel older. Much older than that day I was shoved into a red Toyota.
I cup my hands to the window and look inside. His jacket is laid over the kitchen chair. Our trip floods back into me, the fear and the adventure, the highways and the motels, the candlelit silo, the field of tall wheat where we first made love.
There’s a lone coffee mug on the table.
I knock, but no one answers.
And he shall be Levon,
and he shall be a good man.
I sit down on the driveway and lean against the sun-soaked garage door.
Then my breath catches when I see them.
Hundreds, hundreds, of hot-air balloons in every color, bulbous and bright, floating gracefully in irregular patterns under an impossibly vast blue sky. The beauty of the scene travels behind my eyes and down my arms and into the tips of my fingers. I think about getting out my camera but decide against it. Some things are meant to be experienced in real life.
After a few minutes, the hot-air balloons are gone, and there is only sky.
I keep looking, waiting for another miracle.
Acknowledgments
I first must thank my wonderful friend and agent Christopher Schelling of Selectric Artists, who put a lot of effort into making the book you’re holding a reality.
Also, my editor Annette Pollert-Morgan, who immediately fell in love with the character of Candy and who, along with her clever team at Sourcebooks, helped me in shaping the final product. It takes a village.
I wrote most of this book on my bed, next to my French bulldog, who would sometimes place his head on the keyboard for attention. Oliver, I would give you the moon if I could reach it.
Lastly, to Steve: thanks for being my other half, for supporting all of my creative endeavors, and for your kindness. I couldn’t do it without you.
About the Author
Stewart Lewis is a singer-songwriter who lives in Washington, DC, and Nantucket Massachusetts. Stewart’s previous young adult novels, You Have Seven Messages and The Secret Ingredient, were published by Delacorte Press. For more information, please visit stewartlewis.com.
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Stealing Candy Page 17