by Sarah Dessen
Ladder buddy, I thought, smiling. And in the next beat, what Bailey had said: if you really want to know someone, look at what they do when they don’t know you’re watching. Oh, Gordon.
“She saw me,” I said, remembering all over again. “When I was drunk. I feel awful about that.”
“Yeah, well.” Weirdly, I appreciated that she didn’t tell me I shouldn’t, or that it was okay. It wasn’t. “It won’t happen again.”
“No,” I said. “It won’t.”
We were both quiet for a moment, the only sounds the distant puttering of a motorboat and some kid shrieking from the beach.
“Just get back over here,” Trinity said suddenly. “Okay? We need you. Or, my toenails do.”
“I will,” I promised. “And thanks.”
“For what?”
Even though I’d been the one to say it, now I wasn’t so sure how to answer this question. “Just being there.”
“I’m bedridden,” she reminded me. “Where else would I be?”
After hanging up, I walked back to the window. It was now three p.m., and the beach was crowded, almost every chair taken. Earlier, Tracy had invited me to go for a late afternoon swim with her at the pool, something I supposed she’d cleared with my dad. At the time, I’d said no. But Trinity and Bailey were right: this wasn’t a bad place to be stuck at all. I went to look for my swimsuit.
I’d just put it on, and tied my hair back, when my phone buzzed again. It was another number I didn’t recognize, so at first I just ignored it, assuming it was a spam call. As it kept ringing, though, I got curious and answered it.
“Hello?”
“Good afternoon! My name is Chris and I’m calling from Defender Storm Shutter Solutions. How confident are you in your window protection?”
Nope, I thought, moving my finger to the END button. Just as I was about to push it, though, he spoke again, much more softly this time.
“Saylor. It’s me.”
I blinked, startled. “Who?”
“Roo.”
Roo? I almost dropped the phone. “Oh, my gosh,” I finally managed. “How are—”
He cleared his throat, then said loudly and confidently, “Well, then it’s a good thing I called! For just a moment of your time, I can tell you why Defender Storm Shutters are the best choice for your home.”
Slowly, I was starting to understand. “Hold on. You’re selling storm shutters now?”
“Yes!” he said in that same loud, cheerful voice.
“What are you up to, now? Six jobs?”
In his normal voice, he said, “Actually, I’m back to four. Had to give up the airport job when they realized I’m not twenty-one. And then the Park Palms hired someone on salary for the overnight shift. I was panicking until I saw this open up.”
Of course he was. “So now it’s the Station, Conroy Market, Storm Shutters—”
“And the Yum truck,” he finished for me. The next beat, he was back to his booming salesperson voice, saying, “Well, then, let me tell you about our in-house financing! With our easy payments and credit offer, you can focus on safety, not paying bills.”
“Am I supposed to respond?” I asked.
“No,” he said loudly. Then he added, in his normal voice, “I’ve been here since nine and have cold-called the entire list Juan gave me. Not one nibble. I think I suck at this?”
“Nobody buys anything over the phone,” I told him.
“Clearly.” I heard someone in the background, distant, say something. Returning to his big voice, Roo said, “Oh, no, ma’am, installation is simple! We do all the work so you can rest easy, knowing you and your home are protected.”
“Let me guess,” I said. “You’re being watched.”
“Yes!” he boomed. A pause. Then, in a normal tone, “Juan’s a great guy. And he’s paying me by the hour to sit here. He just passes through every now and—well, ma’am, of course! Our bonded installers will arrive at your home, do the work, and leave everything as they found it. No stress for you. Just peace of mind!”
“Sounds great,” I said, trying to play along. “Unfortunately, I kind of live in a hotel now. So—”
“I heard you’re grounded,” he said, back to his regular voice.
“News travels fast.”
“Well, I asked Bailey for your number,” he explained. “I was worried about you.”
Hearing this gave me a little twinge in my chest. He wasn’t mad. He’d been thinking about me. “I’m so sorry,” I said to him now. “I never meant to get you into trouble.”
“You didn’t,” he replied, then added, “That’s right, ma’am! I can easily run a credit check to find out if you qualify for our winter payoff plan. Get the shutters now, rest easy all year long!”
“You got pulled over by the police,” I pointed out to him, once he’d finished.
“By Later Gator,” he corrected me. “And I was sober as a judge. You, on the other hand, had reason to be worried. Your dad was pissed.”
“No kidding. He’s not speaking to me.”
“Still?” He gave a low whistle. “Ouch.”
“I know.” Trying again, I said, “Seriously, though. I feel really bad. About you having to help take care of me, and Hannah getting upset—”
“It’s not necessary!” he said, so loudly I had to pull the phone away from my ear. “We handle all removal and recycling, if pertinent, of your old shutters!”
“It’s necessary for me,” I continued, finally getting a rhythm between these two very different conversations. “You never signed up to be my caretaker.”
“There was a sign-up period?” he asked, back to normal. All I could do was hope Juan would stay away for a bit, if only for my sanity. When I sighed, he said, “Look, Saylor. We’re ladder and corsage buddies, remember? We help each other out.”
“I didn’t exactly help you.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what comes next!” Here we went again. “First, we’ll set up a time convenient for you to have one of our trained sales teams come to your home for an estimate.”
I waited.
“And at that time, we can also discuss the current specials we are running.” His voice faded out on this last part, then he was back, speaking normally again. “You’re helping me now. I have two hours of this left to go and I’m here all week, until Kenyatta comes back from Barbados.”
“What?” All this back-and-forth, now with detail, was making my head swim.
“She’s the normal cold caller,” he explained. “I’m just filling in, which stinks because this is an inside job, in A/C, where I get to sit down all day. It’s the best.”
“Except for the whole selling window protection over the phone thing.”
“Ma’am, I am glad you asked!” he replied. “All of our shutters are American-made, guaranteed, and come with a ten-year warranty.”
I felt like at some point, I should play along. “Do you take checks?”
“No, we do not!” he boomed back in reply. “But your credit card or bank draft is more than welcome, and again, we do offer our Winter Payment Plan, for ease of mind. Okay, we’re clear. Sorry about that.”
The switch was so quick this time I almost didn’t notice. I was still waiting for more details about the installment plan. “He’s gone?”
“Went to the bank. Which gives us about ten minutes to talk about things other than shutters.”
So here it was. I’d apologized—or tried to, he certainly hadn’t made it easy, or accepted it—and now we had time, uninterrupted, to get out everything else that had been on my mind. Maybe, if I was really brave, I’d tell him I’d been missing him, and how often I replayed that moment on the night of Club Prom, when we’d almost gone from friends to something more. But when I spoke next, I was surprised to find it wasn’t about any of these things.
“I miss the other side so much; I was only there three weeks,” I said. “I can’t imagine my mom just swearing it all off when her whole life was here. Why didn�
�t she ever come back, except that once?”
He was quiet for a moment, considering this. Finally he said, “Well, I’ve heard a lot of theories over the years. But I think it had to do with the accident. I mean, would you come back?”
“Probably not,” I said, looking again at the lake, so pretty and blue with the sun glinting off it. But the water had moods and moments, like everything else. I could understand how after something like that happened, you’d never see it the same way again. “I just don’t know what’s worse. Not having any idea of any of these stories or history before last month, or only learning some to have them taken away.”
“The stories haven’t gone anywhere,” he pointed out. “They, like me, remain in convenient central North Lake.”
I smiled. “True. So maybe I should ask you to tell the rest to me.”
“What? Your mom’s history?”
“Yeah.” According to the clock, it was now three thirty: I was going swimming with Tracy at four. “Or at least, some of them. I mean, I have the album you lent me, but—”
“Pictures only tell half,” he finished. “I had my mom to tell me the rest, what was going on in the pictures.”
“Maybe I should talk to your mom.”
“Maybe. Or, you could just talk to me. I mean, I do know that album by heart. At bedtime it was that and Goodnight Moon. Which I can also remember perfectly.”
“Really,” I said, getting up and walking over to my bureau, where I’d left the album in the back of a top drawer. I reached in, pulling it out, then sat down on the carpet. “So what’s the first picture?”
“Shot of my dad as a kid in footie pajamas,” he replied. “They have yellow ducks on them.”
I opened the album to look: he was right. He and his dad had the same face, those blue eyes and white-blond hair. “And the story?”
“My dad was an only child,” he said. “Grandparents had him late in life, after they thought they could never have kids. And he was wild, full of energy, always keeping them running. See that guy in the background, on the plaid sofa?”
I hadn’t before, too focused on the cute baby to notice. Now, I looked, saying, “Yeah.”
“That’s my grandfather. He was about fifty in that picture.”
I studied it again. The man had white hair, his face tired. “Really? He looks much older.”
“Exactly. Takeaway: my dad aged people, he was so exhausting.”
“That’s how the album of stories begins?”
“Yep. I guess it was both history and, for me, a subtle warning.” He laughed. “Now, see, after that there are, I think, a bunch more of my dad as a kid. School pictures, holding up a fish, at Halloween dressed like a Ninja Turtle . . .”
I was following along as he spoke, running a finger over each of these. “Impressive.”
“. . . until finally, on the top of page two,” he said, “we have the arrival of Waverly Calvander. They met at summer day camp at Church of the Lamb, just after kindergarten.”
I turned to that page, finding the picture. Chris and my mom were in the center of a group of about six kids standing on a dock. Everyone was wearing LAMB CAMP T-shirts, and he and a few others were smiling. My mom, however, held her mouth in a thin line, clearly displeased.
“She looks mad,” I observed.
“She hated camp,” he told me. “Too many rules. I don’t think she even lasted the summer.”
I zeroed in more closely, taking in every feature I could. My mom’s bangs, blowing slightly sideways. The rope bracelet around one wrist. How adult she seemed, in comparison with the rest of the kids, like she’d discovered something they wouldn’t for many years. And without Roo’s voice in my ear, that would have been me, as well: I’d have the image, but as he said, that was only half. And I’d had enough of bits and pieces.
“Okay, so below that,” he said now, “like, two or three rows and to the right? That’s them on the Fourth of July with Celeste. It was my dad’s first time over to Mimi’s: she’s the one who took the picture.”
My mom wasn’t smiling in this shot, but she didn’t look openly hostile, either. She had on a jumper and sandals with little block heels, one arm thrown around Celeste, who was looking off to one side, her mouth open as she was saying something. Chris, excited, was holding a lit sparkler out to the camera, sparks falling off it. I recognized that same clump of gardenia bushes behind them.
“Your dad looks fiendish with that sparkler,” I said.
“Good catch. He loved blowing things up and the Fourth. Later it was him who organized the fireworks out at the raft every year,” he replied. “In fact, if you turn to the next page, on the right—yes, ma’am, that’s correct! We’re based in convenient North Lake, a quick trip to all of Bly County, and we offer a wide variety and price range of both hurricane and storm shutters.”
Juan was back. I looked back at the picture, the goofy way my mom hung on her sister, hamming it up. I’d never known her to be silly. I guess by the time I came along, there was a lot less to laugh about.
Outside in the suite, I could now hear voices: my dad and Tracy were back from whatever outing they’d taken, and soon enough I’d need to go on that swim. But for now, with Roo still reciting his cold-call points in my ear, I studied the other shots on the page. My mom and Chris on the back of a tube, in life jackets. At the table at Mimi’s, eating hot dogs with Celeste and another boy around the same age whose features looked a lot like Trinity, Bailey, and Jack.
“. . . of course, I’d be happy to follow up with some more information when it’s more convenient to talk,” Roo was saying now. “I’ll just take down your info and be back in touch. Will that work?”
Yes, I thought, although I stayed silent. At least until he stopped talking in that voice, his normal tone filling my ear. “You still there?” he asked.
“For a minute,” I said. Which I hoped was long enough. “Can you tell me another one?”
That was how it started. The calls, and the stories. Before I knew it, I’d gone from watching the clock all day to watching my phone. Because every time it rang, there was a chance for a bit more connection with Roo, as well as everything I’d left on the other side. His voice was the conduit. All I had to do was listen.
“Top of page, three or four over,” he said that evening, after I’d slipped out early from dinner at the Tides restaurant and come home while my parents and Nana shared a nightcap. “Middle school dance. Also known as the only time your mom and my dad ever tried to be more than friends.”
Everything about the picture screamed awkward. First, there was the stiff button-down Chris Price was wearing that made him look like a kid playing dress-up. My mom, in a periwinkle dress with spaghetti straps, her hair loose over her shoulders, seemed years older and, solely by the twisty smile on her face, like she might be trouble. They were standing side by side outside of Mimi’s house, not touching.
“It looks like a date.”
“Mom always said my dad called it the worst one ever,” he replied. He was in the arcade at Blackwood Station: in the background, I heard a siren, which meant someone had won from the bonus ticket machine. “Picture it. Eighth grade. Since Celeste and Silas had paired up the year before, they thought maybe they were meant to do the same. But it felt weird and they bickered all night except for one kiss, which was disappointing for everyone involved. So that was that.”
“Makes me wonder if you ever thought about dating Bailey,” I said. I couldn’t imagine it, but I also didn’t want to.
“No.” He replied so quickly, and flatly, I was reassured. “Her brother would have killed me. Also, there’s Vincent. Who has been hooked on her since middle school.”
So it was true. “I thought he was into her!”
“He’s obsessed.” I heard a cash register beep: he’d told me his main job was making change for the arcade. “Unfortunately, he’s also too scared to let her know or make a move. It’s like watching paint dry, but more frustrating.”
&n
bsp; “I bet he’d be a great boyfriend,” I said.
“Yeah? Maybe you should date him.”
Hearing this, I had to think how to respond. Was he kidding? Trying to find out more information? Finally I said, “He’s sweet. But not my type.”
“No?” he asked. The siren went off again. “And what’s that, exactly? Yacht club guys?”
“No,” I said. “I got set up with Blake because of Bailey. Left to my own devices, I’d choose differently.”
“You would? Like how?”
“I can’t say exactly,” I said, running my finger around the edge of the picture we’d been talking about. “But when you know, you know.”
“Well, that’s frustratingly vague,” he replied.
I grinned, sitting back against my bedroom door with my legs stretched out in front of me. “But it’s like my mom and dad, right? She didn’t know what her type was until he showed up. We’re not to that part of the album yet.”
“But there aren’t any pictures of her with your dad in there,” he pointed out. “I know it by heart, remember?”
“True. I’m speaking of it in a larger sense.”
“The big album in the sky,” he said, clarifying.
“No,” I said, stifling a snort, “just that, like history, it’s ongoing. Just because the pictures stop doesn’t mean the story does.”
He was quiet, long enough that I wondered if we’d been cut off. Then he said, “You’re right. I guess we all have those invisible pages, so to speak.”
“Exactly,” I said. “Like, say, for you, there will be shots from in college, you working on the paper there, thanks to all those hours working at Defender and every other place in town.”
I swore, I could hear him smile at this. “You think?”
“Sure,” I said. “And Bailey’s pictures will have her, like, running the Tides or something after college. And Trinity pushing her baby across a different campus, when she gets back to school.”
“You’ve thought about this,” he observed.
“It just makes sense, right?” I said. “A life isn’t just the pages you know, it’s everything. We just can’t see what’s happened yet.”
