“How did I not know this was here?” Wren said. “How have I never been here before?”
“Let’s go up,” Charlie said, leading her toward the embankment. Above them stood a decaying railroad bridge that was built probably a hundred years ago. The wooden support beams stretched like a row of giant As into the clouds. The steel rails that trains once rode on were long gone, but the underlying tracks remained.
At first, Wren kept her arm linked in his as they climbed. Then the dirt grew loose, and she had to use her hands for balance and to clutch at branches. Charlie, behind her, glimpsed the curve of her ass and a flash of panties.
He took several big steps to pass her. From the top of the rise, he extended his hand.
“Oh wow,” she said, breathing hard. “We’re as high as the treetops.”
“Let’s go out,” he said. He squeezed her hand. “You want to go out?”
“To the middle of the bridge?”
“Yeah, come on.”
Two rotting wooden tracks, each approximately three feet wide, stretched across the gulley below. They were sturdy enough to walk on—Charlie would never put Wren in danger—but the ground dipped steeply away several yards past the top of the embankment. Walking along them was like walking along a wide balance beam, only much higher off the ground. Charlie went first and kept Wren’s hand in his.
“Crap,” Wren said when they reached the center. The trail they’d hiked up was now fifty or sixty feet below them. “O-o-okay, this is far enough for me.”
“Let’s sit,” Charlie said. “Wait, hold on.”
He let go of her hand and dropped to one knee. He brushed sawdust and decaying leaves from the track, and a musty, earthy smell rose up. He took her hand again, and then her forearm, steadying her as she lowered herself down. Then he sat beside her and let his feet hang over the bridge. After checking his expression, she gingerly scooched her legs to the side and did the same. Her cowboy boots dangled in the air. She was so cute. And last night—her lips, and the moonlight, and the way she pressed up against him. He hadn’t imagined that, had he?
No. Of course not.
She shifted to arrange her skirt, and her leg touched his. “We’re on top of the world,” she said.
“We are,” he replied.
A breeze lifted her ponytail, and he smelled her citrus shampoo. He smoothed the hairs by her face.
“You are so beautiful,” he told her. “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”
Her eyes widened. She opened her mouth, possibly to answer, but he actually hadn’t been asking for permission.
Later, they sat on the hood of his Volvo and ate the sandwiches he’d packed. He’d brought a two-liter bottle of Dr Pepper, which for some reason she found funny, and they passed it back and forth. Their legs touched, her bare skin against his jeans.
She smiled as they talked, and leaned against him, and once she reached up and pushed his hair behind his ear, which nearly undid him. She also scarfed down her entire sandwich, a bag of chips, and at least three of Pamela’s homemade cookies.
“I’m starving,” she marveled. “I don’t know why, but I am seriously starving.”
“We walked a pretty long way,” he said. “And that hill, to get to the bridge, it’s pretty steep.”
“I guess,” she said. She seemed happy, which made him happy. Happy and proud. “Charlie?”
“Hmm?”
“Earlier, I was going to say … well, I’m glad you called me.”
“Of course I called you. Why wouldn’t I call you?”
She ducked her head. “I don’t know. I’m glad you did, that’s all.”
He lifted her chin with his finger and gazed into her eyes, which were brown with flecks of green. He leaned in and kissed her, because now that he knew he could, he planned on kissing her every chance he got.
nearly seven. Wren knew her parents would be waiting for her to come eat dinner. They were probably peeking out the window of the front room and checking on her, though they would pretend not to be when she walked in. They were acting very stiff around her. It hurt her feelings, but one good thing came of it. Since they were pretending not to care what she did, she could do whatever she wanted.
Like go on a picnic with Charlie, and when the picnic was over, sit with him in his car in her driveway. Hold his hand. Talk. Hopefully kiss him again—and be kissed again and again—before they finally said good-bye.
She asked him to name five places in the world he’d like to live. Quick, no overthinking.
“Hmm,” he said. “Well, Italy. Brazil …”
“Brazil?”
“Really cool waterfall. Really cool big waterfall. Iguazu Falls? Second biggest in the world after Niagara.”
“I didn’t know you were a waterfall guy.”
“Huh,” he said. “Guess I am.” He folded his arms over his chest, which was hard and strong. She didn’t want to stare, or rather she didn’t want to be caught staring, so she filed away a mental image that she could return to later.
“And Italy?” she asked.
“Pasta.”
“Ha. Okay, three more.”
He took a moment to think, and she said, “What about Paris? Aren’t you going to say Paris?”
“Paris,” he said.
She laughed again. “Omigosh. All right, why Paris?”
“Because maybe you’ll go there with me?”
She shoved him. He grinned and put his arm around her shoulders, and she scooted closer.
“Two more,” she said.
“Give me a second. I haven’t traveled that much, you know.”
“I haven’t either,” she said. She’d gone on a couple of trips with her parents over the course of various spring breaks and summer vacations—Florida, to check out Disney World; Colorado, to go skiing; and South Carolina, which was where she and her parents went to the beach—but that was it. She’d applied for her passport at the beginning of the month, though. It felt like a good, if scary, step.
“All right, how about Santa Barbara, because it’s on the coast,” he said. He played with the hairs at the nape of her neck. “I’ve heard the ocean is pretty awesome.”
“Ah. I’ve heard that, too. I’ve only swum in the Atlantic, but I’m sure the Pacific Ocean is nice.”
“And for my last place … Singapore.”
This surprised her, and she liked it.
“Why Singapore?”
“Because it’s in Asia. It’s an entirely different continent, an entirely different culture. Singapore is the crossroads of the East, right?”
“Is it?”
“I think it would be cool.” He leaned over and brushed her lips with his. “And you? Where would you want to live?”
Back into your arms, she thought. She tried to focus. “Um … Paris.”
“Why?”
“I guess because of the movie An American in Paris.” She felt sad for a moment, thinking of how she’d watched that movie with her parents. She’d watched so many movies with her parents. Often on Saturday nights, when Tessa was out on a date, Wren had eaten popcorn with her mom and dad, and they’d taken turns choosing which classic film to introduce her to.
She wasn’t with her parents now. She turned toward Charlie. “It’s good. Have you seen it?”
“I haven’t. I’d like to.”
“Okay,” she said.
“Where else?”
“Um … Guatemala.”
“Right. Okay, how come Guatemala?”
She thought about the question deliberately and was surprised by what floated into her mind. “Sarah Shields.”
“Who’s Sarah Shields?”
“Wow. I haven’t thought of her for ages. She was a neighbor of ours when I was little. She always wore long skirts, down to her ankles, and kept her hair in a bun. I think she was super religious?”
She shifted her body. “But her husband—he was a big guy with a baby face—he always, like, barked at her. ‘Why hasn’t the car been wash
ed?’ ‘Why haven’t you done the laundry?’ Stuff like that.”
“Sounds like a jerk.”
“Yeah, I didn’t like him. I thought Sarah was great, though. She talked to me whenever she saw me, and she always smiled, and she gave me cookies whenever she baked a batch, although they weren’t all that good, because she put flaxseed in them.”
Charlie traced the line of her neck. “Flaxseed?”
She laughed. “It’s weird what your brain stores away.”
“What does she have to do with Guatemala?”
Her laughter trickled off. “Um … one day I came home from school, and my mom told me Sarah was gone. She’d moved to Guatemala to do mission work.”
I guess she got out, Wren’s mom had said, and it must have meant something to Wren, for her to have remembered it all these years later.
“So are you going to visit her when you’re there?” Charlie asked.
“Visit who?”
“Sarah. In Guatemala.”
“Oh. I doubt it.”
Charlie rubbed his eyebrow. Wren wondered what else about her own life she wasn’t aware of.
“Okay,” Charlie said. “Well, Paris and Guatemala—that’s two places. You get to name three more.”
“That’s all for now,” Wren said. “There’s tons of places I want to go, but for now, that’s enough.” She bit her lip. “Will you kiss me?”
He took her chin and guided her mouth toward his.
On Monday night, at 11:58, Charlie sent Wren a text that said, I miss you. Is that weird?
They’d talked and texted during the day, but they hadn’t gotten to see each other, and Wren missed him, too.
Not weird! Wren typed back. No more long days at Chris’s shop!
Agreed, Charlie texted. Can I call you tmorrw?
tmorrw? Wren typed, smiling at his typo.
*Tomorrow. Sorry, crap phone. Can I?
Absolutely, Wren typed back.
Good. Are your parents awake?
??? she typed.
You might turn your ringer off, that’s all, he texted.
Her phone rang. Oh. Ha. It was tomorrow already.
She hit ACCEPT and brought her phone to her ear.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he said. “Did I wake you?”
“Yes, because I was asleep. That wasn’t me just texting you. It was my doppelgänger.”
“Your doppelgänger is pretty cute.”
She drew her knees to her chest and pressed the phone to her ear. She was wearing a thin T-shirt and the soft cotton shorts she slept in. She was sitting on her bed, with her comforter half-turned down and her pillow propped beneath her. A sock monkey sat beside her, a sweet little sock monkey with bunny rabbit ears. Sometimes she still held it while she slept.
Her bunny rabbit sock monkey sat beside her, and her parents were right down the hall, and Charlie Parker was talking to her from his house. She asked about his day, and as she listened to his reply, she thought about how much she liked his voice. It was low and gentle, and he articulated his words in a deliberate way. He said At-lan-ta with both ts enunciated, for example. Most people, Wren included, said it more like Atlannuh.
She wondered what his room was like. She wondered what he was wearing. She wondered if he thought about her, and all the ins and outs of her existence, as much as she thought about him.
“So, yeah, it felt good to get it all done,” he said, wrapping up his story about an order he’d been working on. “What about you? You had that thing with Tessa, right?”
He meant the mom-and-daughters luncheon she’d gone to.
“Totally fine, totally unexciting,” she said. “They served chicken salad. It had too much mayonnaise.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yes. Alas. Oh, and my dad …” She broke off, not sure she wanted to follow up on that thought.
“Your dad doesn’t like chicken salad, either?”
“No, he does. I think. I was going to tell you something else completely … but never mind.”
“Why never mind? Does it have to do with your parents and Guatemala?”
Wren had told him about her conversation with them after graduation, when she broke the news about Project Unity. She was touched that he grasped how much it mattered.
“Well, yeah, I guess,” she said. She rested her chin on her knees. “My dad gave me a guilt trip about the car he and my mom gave me, that’s all. I don’t know. It had to do with Guatemala, but it didn’t have to do with Guatemala. I guess it made me a little sad. But it’s no big deal.”
“It is a big deal if you felt sad. What happened?”
Tears welled in her eyes. He was just being nice, but how nice that he was nice!
Oh, Charlie, she thought. Her body softened. She turned her head and rested her cheek on her knees.
“First of all, they gave me a car,” Wren said. “I have nothing to complain about, right? I’m so, so, so, so, so thankful … mainly. And I only say ‘mainly’ because I don’t actually need a car. But whatever. Maybe I just feel guilty?”
“What happened?”
“Um, this afternoon I did a grocery store run for my mom, and I drove my car, and my dad made a comment about how he was glad I was getting some use out of it since I wouldn’t be using it this fall. By ‘some use,’ he meant not enough. Meaning, why did he buy it in the first place.”
She sighed. “But that’s all that happened, just that one passive-aggressive remark to make sure I knew what a bad daughter I am. So seriously, it isn’t that big of a deal.”
“I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “Sounds like he let you down.”
Wren was startled. She’d expected him to accept her dismissal of the whole thing. “What do you mean?”
“There’s no way you’re a bad daughter. I know you, and that’s impossible.”
She gripped her phone. Did he know her? She hoped so. And she didn’t think she was a bad daughter, either. Not truly.
“As for your dad, it sounds like he’s struggling with letting you go,” Charlie went on. “It’s sounds to me like …” He paused. “Um, I don’t want to overstep.”
“You’re not,” Wren said.
“Will you tell me if I do?”
“Yeah, absolutely, but I want to hear what you’re thinking.”
“It sounds to me like you want him to support your choices.”
“I do.”
“And you feel bad for not choosing the path that would make him happy, but you want him to want you to be happy.”
“I do. Yes!”
“Instead, he’s saying he wouldn’t have gotten you a car if he’d known you weren’t going to go to college next year.”
“He didn’t actually say that, but yeah. And not just college. Emory. And I guess it’s more like he’s confused about why he got me a car, since I’m not holding up my end of the bargain.”
“Did you have a bargain?”
“N-n-nooo, not about what would happen after high school. He assumed he knew what would happen, maybe? I think we all did. I just changed my mind.”
“Which you’re allowed to do,” Charlie said.
“Huh.”
“He’s your dad,” Charlie said in his measured way. “It would be great if he could say, ‘Okay, this is what you want, so I’m here for you. I want to support you in whatever way I can.’”
“It would, wouldn’t it?” Wren said. She shifted onto her side and propped her weight on her forearm. She ran her finger along a line of stitching on her bedspread. “Now I’m the one who doesn’t want to overstep, but … do you have a relationship or whatever with your dad? Your real dad?”
“My biological dad? No.”
“Biological. Sorry.”
“He took off before I was born.”
“Oh.” She felt out of her element. Charlie had said to her, just now, Hey, you’re a good person. I care about what you’re going through. He hadn’t used those words, but she wanted him to know s
he felt the same way.
“What about your mom?” she asked tentatively. “Your biological mom. Do you ever see her?”
“She’s an addict. She gave up visitation rights a long time ago.”
“Oh. I’m so sorry.”
“Thanks, but you don’t need to be.” His tone wasn’t sharp, exactly, but there was an edge to it.
Wren twisted a lock of her hair. On the other end of the line, Charlie breathed out.
“I was six the last time I saw her,” he said. “The family I was with—not Chris and Pamela—took me to her every so often. They’d tell me to get in the car, and we’d go to McDonald’s, or a park, or sometimes this weird room in the basement of a church. They’d say, ‘You’re going to see your mom,’ and I’d get excited, because I was little.”
“And because she’s your mom,” Wren said.
“Mmm,” he said noncommittally. “Half the time, she didn’t show up. I guess I must have cried, because that couple—I know they got mad.”
Wren didn’t know what to say.
“Shit,” Charlie said. “I shouldn’t have told you that, huh? Wren, shit. I’m sorry.”
“Charlie, please,” she said. “I just complained about my father, who bought me a car. You just told me about …” She pressed her lips together. “Please. Charlie.”
“I didn’t mean to mess things up,” he said, low and fast. “I don’t know why I even—”
“Because I asked, and so you told me, and … thank you.”
“For what?”
A lump formed in her throat. “For trusting me.”
He fell silent. She rolled onto her stomach, bending her knees and pressing the toes of one foot into the sole of the other.
“You’re welcome,” he finally said. He sounded embarrassed, and Wren wanted to wrap her arms around him and hold him.
They spoke at the same time.
Wren said, “Do you want to …?”
Charlie said, “Is it all right if we change the subject?”
“Whatever you want,” Wren said, although the question she’d started to ask was, Do you want to talk about it?
Apparently not, and that was his choice. She meant it when she said thank you, though. She felt different now than she’d felt twenty minutes ago. She felt honored that Charlie had shared the story about his mom with her, even though it was sad.
The Infinite Moment of Us Page 9
