“Where did you get these?” Weldon asked.
Emma looked down at the pages, her finger gently traced a line of ink.
“From your father. An engagement gift. He knew I loved that particular comic.” She smiled at Weldon, a real smile, warm and engaging. The tightness in Weldon’s chest eased a little. Maybe the counselor was helping, and she was getting better. Maybe. Just a little.
“They were a gift to me. Now I’m giving them to you.”
Weldon sat back on his heels, staring at the pages. He liked the way Micah Kendrick drew Skylark’s mouth, the way the brush traced the outline of her lips. The way she always seemed to be smiling, just a little bit, as though thinking of some private joke. It reminded him so much of Mir. The way she’d looked at him in the Starbucks, before sliding her hand across the table toward him. The way she looked when she reached for him at the beach, and he dove with her under the cool, dark water. Weldon sucked in a breath.
“I want to give these to Mir,” he said.
Emma tilted her head, curious.
“Mir? Who’s—oh.”
Weldon looked up at his mother, suddenly worried he’d hurt her.
“Is that okay?”
Emma smiled. “They’re yours to do with as you please. But—are you sure? Original comic art, the really old stuff, can sell for a lot of money to collectors. Are you sure you want to give that up?”
Weldon nodded, staring at the pages.
“She can’t know they’re from me,” he said. “Can you send them to her? I don’t—we, um, had a fight.” Weldon tried to imagine Mir’s face as she took the pages from him, hating that he had this power over her. Weldon Warrick, descending from on high to give Miriam Kendrick something taken from her grandfather years ago.
Weldon kept his head down, still staring at the pages. He felt Emma’s gaze boring into the top of his head.
“What happened?”
The story came out of him in fits and starts. Stealing the car on his second day in Sandford, meeting Mir at the Emporium of Wonders. Running into her family at the waterfront, the invitation to dinner. Mir’s family. Stella and Henry and Nate and their weird house and Henry’s crazy stories and Stella’s studio where she painted the TomorrowMen. Mir being angry with him, and then that anger ebbing, just a little. Mir calling him out of the blue, telling him about her terrible day. Mir and him holding hands, him waking up every morning at 5:00 a.m. to walk with her to her golf course job, their days at the lake, the lie about the TomorrowMen script coming back to haunt him, and then the fight that ruined everything. When he finished talking, Weldon realized how tired he was. The trip from Sandford to San Diego had been nearly nine hours of flying.
“I’m sorry, kiddo,” said Emma. There were soft lines on her forehead, creasing her pale, nearly perfect skin. Weldon liked the lines. It made his mother look a little more human. A little less like an alien queen with the power to launch ten thousand starships.
“Yeah,” he said, looking down at the comic pages drawn by Miriam’s grandfather. “Me too.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Mir walked down the long golf course driveway toward Sandford, the heat from the day pressing her downward. The muggy July air felt like soup. Incredibly hot, heavy soup, coating her lungs with heat, covering her with sweat. All Mir wanted was to dive in the cool lake water and stay there for the rest of the summer.
She also wanted Weldon. Her left hand felt empty without his. The walk to and from work was so lonely she felt like she was sleepwalking, zombie Mir putting one foot in front of the other, never sure where she’d end up. She got to work on time, but waking up was so much harder now she knew he was no longer waiting for her.
She’d almost called him. She’d stood in the kitchen and stared at the phone, three days after the fight. Her hand had twitched and she’d reached for the receiver, but then she’d walked away and returned to the couch, where she’d been lying facedown for most of those three days. She hadn’t tried to call again. She couldn’t make her brain form words that seemed adequate. So the three days had turned into a week, and then another week. And she still couldn’t make herself pick up the phone.
What could I say? she thought, staring at her feet as she walked home from work. Ahead of her was their usual meeting place. No Weldon. Of course not.
I’m sorry I blamed you for something that’s not your fault. I screwed everything up because I can’t let things go. Mir let her breath out slowly. I want to let it go. But I don’t know how.
Mir wanted so badly to touch him again. She wanted to lean her cheek against his shoulder. She wanted to slide her hands over his shoulders and clasp them behind his head. She wanted to stand on her toes and press her forehead against his, to—
A car horn honked. Mir looked up. An orange pickup truck pulled up beside her, Evan leaning out of the driver’s side. At the sight of Evan, a hand grabbed Mir’s heart and squeezed hard.
“Hey,” Evan said. He was smiling and tan, not dirty and sweaty like Mir. “Are you avoiding me?”
Mir adjusted her backpack strap so she wouldn’t have to look at him as she walked toward the truck. When she reached the driver’s-side door, she continued staring at the ground. She could feel Evan’s gaze on the top of her head. She couldn’t bear looking up.
“Kinda,” she said.
“I figured. Where have you been?”
“Hiding,” Mir said, still staring at the pebbles between her steel-toed boots. “And then feeling more awful because avoiding someone is something only a crummy person would do, so clearly it’s not just my brain telling me I’m crummy, it’s actual scientific fact.”
“Hop in,” said Evan, leaning over to unlock the passenger’s-side door. “I’ll take you home and we’ll talk this out.”
Mir clambered into the truck, stowing her backpack at her feet. She leaned toward the air-conditioning vents and closed her eyes, enjoying the feeling of cold air across her skin.
“This is because of the script, isn’t it?”
Mir looked at Evan. He was leaning against the driver’s-side door, chin propped in his hand. For the first time Mir noticed how grown-up he looked. His body didn’t seem so unwieldy, like he’d grown into it over the course of the summer. His hair was cut a little shorter than normal, which looked nice on him. The beard was the same, though, a little bit too long, a little unkempt. It was his signature.
Mir nodded.
“What happened? Weldon Warrick thought it was crap?”
“No,” Mir said. “He wouldn’t even look at it. Some legal thing about not being able to read unsolicited TomorrowMen scripts. Apparently it’s a policy Warrick Studios has.”
“Huh,” said Evan, looking out over the truck’s steering wheel. “That’s the first I’ve heard of that, but I guess it makes sense. So why’d he say that stuff in the Emporium of Wonders, about how he could pass the script off to his dad?”
“He lied,” said Mir. “He was trying to impress me.”
“Huh,” said Evan again.
“Are you mad at me?” Mir said. “I—I’m the one who wanted to give Weldon the script. You didn’t. I know you love TomorrowMen comics, and this maybe screws that up for you—”
“Nah,” Evan said. “I’m not mad at you. It’s fine.”
Mir stared at her hands. Silence hung between them in the truck cab.
“So are you and Weldon…”
“Yeah,” Mir said. “We were. But maybe not anymore. I don’t know.”
“I knew he liked you. The minute I saw him come into the Emporium of Wonders that day, giving me that ‘Oh, crap, she has a boyfriend’ look. I knew he had a thing for you.”
Mir’s hands twitched. They itched to pick up the phone and call Weldon. They itched to reach across the space between her and Evan and fix things. Mir dug her hands into her knees and they stopped twitching.
“I really liked writing that script,” Evan said, still staring out over the steering wheel. “I think I want to wri
te another one.”
Mir looked away from her hands and up at Evan.
“I think I want to write something original,” Evan said. “Something with characters we completely made up. Not someone else’s characters. Not the TomorrowMen or the X-Men or Batman, something new. Something we made all ourselves.”
He turned toward Mir.
“You’re good at writing too. You made that Tristan Terrific script a lot better than it was originally.”
Mir shrugged.
“I was just refining what you wrote. The story was yours.”
“So maybe I’m good at story stuff. You can take a story and make it better. You make it something people actually want to read. And you came up with the ending. It was a good ending.”
“Thanks,” Mir said. “I thought it was too.”
“Did you like writing the script?”
“Yeah,” Mir said, surprising herself. “Yeah, I really did. It was fun.”
It had been fun. It had been like assembling a giant puzzle made of story pieces. Little pieces of dialogue and character moments sitting next to larger pieces of action and adventure. She had felt the thing in her chest flutter with excitement as she collected the pieces Evan had created and put them in a more orderly fashion. It had been beautiful watching it take shape on the page, a tapestry of a million tiny story pieces, twining together to make a shining, glorious whole.
“Will you write another script with me?”
Mir turned and looked at Evan, still leaning his elbow against the driver’s-side door. He looked mostly the same, but also like parts of him were drawn more sharply into focus.
“Yes,” she said. “But I don’t want to do a superhero comic. I want to make something different. Is that okay?”
“Absolutely,” Evan said. “No superheroes. No tights, no flights, no capes.” Solemnly he extended his hand. “Shake, writing partner.”
Mir grinned and shook his hand. Evan reached for the gearshift and threw the truck into first. They drove away from the side of the road, kicking a cloud of dust into the muggy air.
“At some point we’ll need an artist,” Evan said thoughtfully. “Do you know of any artists who might want to draw a comic by two unpublished writers for little to no money?”
“Actually,” said Mir, “I think I might be related to one.”
“You think your mom would want to draw a comic?”
“I don’t know,” Mir said. “But it’s worth asking.”
* * *
Mir stood in her parents’ kitchen and stared at the phone hanging on the wall. In a single motion she reached for it, and slammed the seven numbers for Alex and Kay Warrick’s home phone into the keypad. The phone rang.
Once.
Weldon, I’m still angry about what happened to my grandfather and I took it out on you and that wasn’t fair—
Twice.
Weldon, there’s all this stuff between our families and I’m trying my best to get over it but—
Three times.
Weldon, I didn’t even know my grandfather. He and my grandmother died before I was born and I guess the TomorrowMen is all I have of them—
Four times.
Weldon, I’m sorry.
“Hello?” Alex Warrick said. Mir’s heart leaped into her throat and she nearly choked on it.
“Hrk—Hello, um, is Weldon there?”
“No,” said Alex, “he’s gone to San Diego. He left yesterday.”
“Oh,” Mir said, stunned. She had not anticipated Weldon being gone, and managed to sputter out an “Um … okay” before trailing off. On the other end of the line, Alex waited.
“Um, it’s Miriam,” Mir said finally. “Miriam Kendrick. I just … I needed to talk to Weldon about something.”
“He has his cell phone. Do you want his number?”
“Um,” Mir said again, brilliantly. “Yes. No. Yes, please.”
Alex chuckled.
“How’re your mom and dad doing, Miriam?”
“Um,” Mir said a fourth time. “They’re good, I think? Maybe? Yeah, they’re okay.”
“That’s great to hear. Please tell them I say hi. Here’s Weldon’s number. You have a pen handy?”
Mir grabbed a pen from a basket of odds and ends on the kitchen counter, and scribbled the number on the back of an electricity bill.
“It’s a four-hour time difference between us and San Diego,” Alex warned, “so try not to call him too early in the morning. Okay?”
“Okay, thanks,” Mir said.
“Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Mir said again, and hung up, realizing a split second too late she’d forgotten to say goodbye. She stared at the numbers she’d scribbled down on the back of the bill. Her hand fumbled for the phone on the wall, and she punched them into the keypad. She listened to the tinny sound of the phone ringing, practicing what she was going to say in her head.
Weldon, I—
“Hello?”
Not Weldon. A woman’s voice. Mir yanked the phone away from her ear and slammed it back on the receiver. She darted away from the phone and ran down the hallway toward her room.
Behind her, the phone rang. Mir froze.
It rang again.
Mir walked back in the kitchen and stared at the phone on the wall.
It rang again.
Mir picked up the receiver, held it to her ear.
“Hello?”
“Nine-oh-two, that’s the Sandford area code, isn’t it?” the woman’s voice said.
“Yes,” said Mir.
“Oh,” said the woman. “Well, you’re not Alex or Kay, since I don’t think they’d hang up on me like that. Are you a friend of Weldon’s?”
“Kind of?” Mir said.
The woman on the other end hesitated.
“Are you Miriam Kendrick?”
“Yeah,” Mir said, surprised. “How did you know?”
The woman chuckled, and Mir heard an eerie resemblance to Weldon in the laugh.
“Just a guess. Listen, Miriam, I’m so glad you called. I wanted to get in touch with you, and here you are. Kismet, fate, whatever. It’s perfect.”
“Okay,” Mir said.
“Miriam, how would you like to come to San Diego? For the weekend, to Comic-Con. I have something here I want to give you, and I don’t trust the postal service to get it all the way to Nova Scotia. I think it would be much better if you picked up this item in person and took it home with you. Does that sound okay?”
“Um,” said Mir. “I can’t fly to San Diego.”
“Why not?”
“Because that would be very expensive!” Mir sputtered, outraged. Who was this strange woman, suggesting she just hop on an airplane as though it were the easiest thing in the world?
“Oh, that’s no problem. I can pay for your ticket. I’ll call a travel agency and get them to set something up. You can fly down on a Friday red-eye flight and I’ll send you home on Sunday. You have a summer job, don’t you? Weldon said you did. This way you won’t miss a day of work.”
“I work on Saturdays,” Mir said.
The woman on the phone sighed.
“Damn, that’s no good. Are you sure you can’t get that day off?”
“I don’t know,” Mir said, thinking of Holly and her devotion to a six-day work week. Maybe she could beg. Maybe she could offer to work every Sunday for the remainder of the summer. It was worth a try. “Maybe. I could ask.”
“Great. Miriam, why don’t you see if you can get Saturday off, and then call me, and we’ll arrange something. Does that sound good?”
“Um,” said Mir. “Who are you?”
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
“Oh god,” said the woman. “I’m so sorry. I’m Emma Warr—um, Sanders. I’m Weldon’s mother.”
The elf queen, Mir thought. Galadriel. The woman whose beauty in any other city would have no equal, and in Los Angeles was just one of dozens.
“He’s asleep on the couch,” Emma
Sanders continued. “That’s why I answered his phone. I think the travel caught up with him. He flew out of Sandford at six in the morning. Poor thing.” Mir caught the note of fondness in Emma’s voice.
“Why didn’t you let him stay with you this summer?” Mir asked. She wasn’t sure where the question came from.
“Things are complicated in our family,” Emma said. She let out a sad, awkward little laugh. “We’re trying to make them less complicated and a little more functional, but it’s a long road.”
Mir waited, listening.
“Weldon talked about you and your family a lot. He told me about your mom. You seem … really good for him.”
“The first day we met, he bought a painting of my mom’s,” Mir said. On the other end of the line, Emma was silent.
Mir closed her eyes, thinking of Weldon.
“I’ll try to get Saturday off.”
* * *
“You want what?” said Holly, a carrot stick hanging out of the corner of her mouth like a cigarette. Mir cringed and repeated what she’d just said.
“I—I was hoping I could get this Saturday off. I’ll work all the rest of the Saturdays this summer. I’ll work longer hours. I’ll work all the Sundays too. Whatever you want. I just need—I just—”
“You need this Saturday off more than you need this job?” Holly said. She eyed Mir narrowly. She was sitting in her office in the turf shed, steel-toed boots propped on the desk in front of her. She held a bag of baby carrots in her lap, and was methodically pulling one after another out of the bag, crunching them noisily between her teeth.
“No,” Mir said. Her stomach turned over and sweat started rolling down her back. “No, I need this job more than I need Saturday off. But I—I really need Saturday off. So I’ll do anything.”
“You could quit,” said Holly. “Then you’d have every Saturday off for the rest of the summer.”
“Please,” said Mir.
Holly stuck another carrot in the corner of her mouth and chewed thoughtfully.
Comics Will Break Your Heart Page 23
