by Zoey Castile
Kiss her.
“Go on,” I say.
“It’s your turn.”
“My turn?” It’s my turn to chuckle my nerves out, that’s for sure. “I told you about the accident.”
“Not the accident. Your brother.”
I think of Jack laying up in that recovery room. I remember the moment I opened my eyes and I saw him pinned against the door of the car, more blood than I’d ever seen in my life. I thought he was dead. “It used to be me and Jack and Ronan. Ronan was our big brother. We used to call him Hercules because he was so fucking tall and strong. He was a smoke jumper. There was a really bad fire down in California. Ronan didn’t make it. Broke my mother’s heart. My mom had an aneurism the same year. My dad followed soon after that at a work accident. Jack is all I had left and I almost killed him.”
“I’m so sorry, Patrick.”
I shut my eyes and lean my head back. It’s the first time I could say all of that and get through it. “I shouldn’t be telling you all of this.”
“Well, too late. Between us, we can fill our own cemetery. Sorry, that’s weird and morbid. Sometimes I don’t think before I say things.”
I laugh so hard it gets her going again. Laughing out loud with Lena is an outer body experience. I can see myself. I am floating out of my self and watching me sit in my boxers on a wet bed on the phone with a girl who is less than fifty feet away.
Go to her, a voice tells me.
“It’s a good thing,” I tell her. “I feel like I can be assured that you’ll be honest with me at least.”
“Yeah, I can do that.”
“Thank you.”
The silence returns and this time it’s awkward. We’ve run out of things to say. She’s bored. I’ve scared her.
“I should go to sleep,” I say.
“Okay. Good night.” I’m about to hang up when she says my name. My name on her lips is the last thing I want to hear before I go to sleep from now on. “It’s nice to meet you, Patrick.”
“You can call me Pat.”
6
Party in the USA
LENA
July
It takes me two days to paint the salmon room and another to do the finishing touches. The boxes in the living room contain vases that I fill with wild flowers. There are matching bedsheets and Scarlett helps me find throw blankets as fluffy as white clouds. When it’s done, I can finally feel Scarlett was right when she said it looked like something out of a coffee table magazine. I snap a couple of pictures for Pat to see and send them to him even though he’s probably going to look at it in person the moment I leave.
After that weird conversation we had the other night, part of me gets a rush every time I see his name on my phone. It’s a completely different feeling from the ire I felt before. It’s like living with a new person versus the one I met on the first day and I’m not exactly sure how I feel about the change. Why is it easier to be angry at someone than feel some sort of empathy?
I don’t let myself linger on that for too long because I might have told Scarlett that I don’t know about love or relationships, but I know enough to recognize this feeling. Butterflies unfurling in my stomach when I hear him walking upstairs. Nerves rattling when he calls me before bed for the most random reason. Last night it was to ask me what I put into my food to make it taste so good, which is his way of a compliment. Eventually we ended up talking about our respective favorite summers as kids—him with his brothers running around these hills. Me on my block eating cherry snow cones with my friends on the way to Coney Island to sunbathe.
All morning I’ve heard him shuffling around in his gym downstairs. If I didn’t know any better, I’d just think he was throwing things around. When I head to the laundry room, I think I hear him on the phone. I wonder if he’s talking to Scarlett. I wonder if there’s someone else he has to talk to aside from the few people I’ve met. Does he talk to his brother the way I talk to Ari? Whenever I bring it up, he changes the subject in that way of his, making a deep rumbling sound at the back of his throat. I shake my head, dispelling the memories of his voice and the tingling it sends down my spine.
I am not allowed to like him.
I am not allowed to like him.
I’m not.
I repeat that as I get ready for the Fourth of July party at the lake. I grab my clothes from the dryer. Had I known I was going to do this much swimming, I would have packed another bathing suit, but I’m relegated to the same one. At least it’s thematic.
I leave Pat’s lunch on the island counter and head to the bottom of the stairs, my small laundry bag slung over my shoulder.
“Pat?” I call out.
He opens the door to the gym and steps close enough that I can see his shadow. He runs a hand through his hair, and then stands still. My name is a quick gasp, his breath surely short from his workout. “Lena?”
“I’m going to the July Fourth party by Scarlett’s.”
“You don’t need permission,” he says, his words softening into humor. Being funny, or trying to be funny, is strange on him.
I make an ugh sound. “I know I don’t need your permission. I just—I thought I might mention it in case you were thinking of going.”
He’s silent. Shifting his weight at the threshold. All he has to do is take a single step and he’ll be at the bottom of the steps directly in my line of sight.
Come on, Pat, I think.
“That’s not a good idea,” he says.
“You can sit with me,” I say playfully. “We can count the number of cutoff Carhartts we see.”
That garners a chuckle at least. “You should go, Lena.”
“Well, if you don’t want to,” I say, and I swear I’ve had this conversation with Ariana, trying to get my sister to put on her clothes to go to school in the mornings. Well, if you don’t want to be super smart and learn. Well, if you don’t want to eat your vegetables to be as tall as me. Only Ariana was a kid, and she didn’t suffer the same trauma as Patrick.
“I want to,” he says. The whisper is low, begrudging, but it’s out there.
I take a step down the stairs where it’s dark, and the wooden floorboards so new and tight that the only sound is the brush of my bare feet against the cool surface. I swallow the nerves in my throat. Why am I so nervous? It’s Patrick. My rude, jerky, angry housemate. He’s also my middle-of-the-night phone call, sweet, heartbroken friend.
I should leave him alone.
But he just said he wants to come. He doesn’t want to be alone. That’s different. Maybe what he needs is a little push, a bit of help to bring him out of his dark room and into the light.
I take a second step and I hold my breath when I take the third. His shadow is still, elongated against the opposite wall.
“Don’t,” he tells me.
I stop.
I take hard steps back so he knows that I’m not coming closer. “Okay, Pat. Take your time. You know where I’ll be.”
* * *
I drive to the lake around Scarlett’s property. I could have taken one of the trails through the woods, but two miles in the dark on the way back would be a mistake even I don’t think I can make. I park in the gravel lot stacked with cars facing the water.
The lake is, as Ariana would say, poppin’. Groups of the younger locals are gathered around four large picnic tables. A rainbow of blankets line the lake shore, and thankfully, I’m glad to not be the only one wearing a themed swimsuit. I find Scarlett by a coal grill, a Game of Thrones–themed apron around her waist that says “Chef in the North.”
On the way over, I take out my phone to send Ari some snaps. The only people I have on Snapchat are my fifteen-year-old sister and Mari. Mari’s photos are filled with pristine blue waters and the portrait worthy vistas of the Greek seaside town Mykonos.
Ari sends me a selfie where she looks pensive. I fail to see why you aren’t here.
I type back: Christmas!
Ari: Fine. Is your weirdo boss there?
Me: He’s not weird. And he’s not my boss. Call you later.
Ari: Send me picssssss.
I stow my phone in my back pocket so I can carry the box of beer I picked up on the way.
“Lena!” Scarlett shouts, flipping burgers over a grill pit. “Come over here and meet people.”
I can’t be shy after trying to persuade Pat to come out of his torture room, but meeting new people always gives me a queasy sensation. Small talk is boring and there are only so many times I can talk about the difference in weather between Montana and New York. When I had my first attempt at art school, my teachers would lose patience with me because I wouldn’t communicate. I felt out of my element. I say the first thing that runs through my head and not everyone likes that. The problem with meeting new people is that you’re being judged by how you look and what you say in the first sixty seconds of a conversation. What if you’re in a bad mood? What if you have a headache? What if your home life is in shambles and you don’t want to talk about the source of light in so-and-so’s latest art exhibit?
Wow, all I have to do is say hi to Scarlett’s friends, but my brain takes a hard left into Shy Town.
“You own a lake?” I ask Scarlett.
She barks out a laugh. “God, no. Though I did get the house in the divorce. Property line ends over on that tree line. This is just a state campground.”
“Do you want a hand with that?” A tall, dark-haired guy with kind brown eyes asks. He’s probably the most beautiful man I’ve seen in the last six months, with broad shoulders and a smile that is as genuine as it is hot.
“Sure,” I say, handing over the twelve pack.
“Lena, this is Hutch and River,” Scarlett says, pointing the metal spatula at a young woman with cornflower-blue eyes and blond curls that reach her bare midriff. She’s like a punk rock Stevie Nicks. I shake both their hands.
River asks with a lift of her chin, “Where in New York are you from?”
“Sunnyside,” I say.
“Forest Hills,” she says, with a wink.
I let out a squeal and yank her into my arms. I feel her relax and laugh as she hugs me back. I definitely needed this tiny piece of home, even if it’s from someone I’ve never met.
Scarlett turns to Hutch. “Do you think they’re going to do some secret New York handshake?”
He musses his thick brown curls and shrugs. “I’ve seen it with my own eyes. They’ll probably start talking about the best deli sandwiches next and something called bagels.”
“Shut your filthy beautiful mouth, Hutcherson,” River says, but she’s all smiles, and a pink blush creeps around her cheeks when she stares at him.
“Make me, Thomas,” he shoots back, playfully biting his lower lip.
They are definitely together and definitely madly in love. I don’t know why, but couples in love make me happy. I know I’m the first person to say that I’ve never experienced it, but still. When I see it and it’s real, it gives me hope that maybe I’ll find something similar.
“Pass me that tray of hot dogs,” Scarlett says, and Hutch volunteers as grill master junior for the afternoon.
Over by the lake, music blares from a speaker. Two guys are lining up boxes and boxes of fireworks. The sun is bright and unobstructed by clouds, and bodies slick with oil brown (or at least turn different shades of red). I grab a beer and take a seat across from River at the picnic table designated for food prep.
“So, no bullshit, Sunnyside, what brings you out here?” River asks, offering me an open bag of chips that I gladly dive into.
“Well, Forest Hills. Second attempt at getting a degree and running away from my family,” I say. There’s something about River that makes me feel at ease. I sure as hell know I’m not talking about how perfect the weather is. “You?”
“Went to rehab a few towns north of here and fell for the wrong guy who turned out to be the perfect guy,” she says, and pushes her curls away from her face. I follow her stare to where Hutch is bent over, checking the tank of gas attached to the portable grill.
“Why was he the wrong guy?”
“He was my counselor,” she says. “Well, a counselor, not mine. But still. Very bad for all parties concerned. But it worked out in the end. Scarlett says you’re working up at the Donatello Ranch? We just moved down from Missoula.”
“What’s down here?”
“Oh, you know, saving the world,” River says, an easy grin on her lips. “I had to find myself someone with dreams.”
I laugh at that. “How will you save the world?”
She shrugs a bit. “Hutch isn’t going to be a shrink anymore. But I think about the way I grew up and I wonder if there’s a way that we can help other kids, too. The goal is to start a youth center and get enough funding to bring kids here from all over the country. Sort of, disrupt the school to prison pipeline, among other things.”
“Like a school for wayward kids?” I offer.
“Yes, minus the super powers,” she says.
“Well, sounds to me like Hutch isn’t the only one with dreams.”
River peers over her shoulder, and the look of love and admiration that crosses her face is as plain and bright as the day. How can someone love another that much? How can you give yourself over? Isn’t that dangerous?
Thankfully, I don’t have time to ruminate on that for too long because the music gets increasingly louder. Scarlett introduces me to her small writer’s group, which consists of a lesbian couple writing cozy mysteries in their lake house twenty-five miles away, an old man who is on his fifth career and attempting his first gay erotic romance, and a librarian with blue hair working on her young adult novel.
“I’ve never met so many writers before,” I whisper to Scarlett between beers.
“We are everywhere. You can’t escape us.” She winks.
“Don’t look now,” I say, though I think I’m too tipsy to be cool. I set my beer down. “But there’s a guy over there who has been staring at you for hours.”
She looks, and I have to fight myself to not fall over laughing. Right by the lake there is a man. He’s tall as the trees surrounding us and thick, with a shaved head and full ginger beard.
“That’s Jake Madison,” she says, trying to suppress a smile. “They brought him up here as a trainer for the football team.”
“And?” I ask.
“And he’s about ten years too young for me.” Scarlett looks at him, though, and I can feel the way she fidgets with her hair, the collar of her shirt.
“How old is Patrick?” I ask.
She lifts a brow suggestively. “Thirty-six. Why?”
That feeling of anxiousness swirls in my stomach. I can feel heat creep up on my neck. I want to, he said before I left the house. What would I have done if he took me up on my offer? Would we be swimming? Would we be staring at each other like River and Hutch?
“Because,” I squeak. “He sounds like a grumpy old man. Older than thirty-six. You know he referred to Snapchat as Slap-clap? We live in the modern world! You can’t hate some tech and like others when it’s convenient.”
Scarlett holds her stomach laughing. Over in the lake, River has her arms wrapped around Hutch’s neck as he does the swimming for both of them. I force myself to look away because it feels like I’m intruding in their private moment, even though we’re surrounded by tons of people.
“Pat’s a little bit old-fashioned and hates social media even though he loved attention as a kid.”
I try to think of the man that belongs to the voice I hear before I go to sleep every night. Playful, self-conscious, sweet. He can be all of that as well as the things that made me want to hate him when I first met him. Those butterflies return and I hold my breath, like that’ll squash them.
It doesn’t completely work. I end up trying to call Ari, but she doesn’t pick up. She texts she can’t come to the phone, but I know she has to be at a neighborhood party.
“Come, my sister wants to see you,” I tell Sc
arlett. “She asked if she can read your books.”
I wrap my arm around Scarlett’s neck and bring her close. It feels so nice to be able to have this kind of closeness with someone. We record a little video in which Scarlett tells Ari that she is far too young to read her book, but will gladly send her a list of teen novels.
Ari is extremely excited by this.
I haven’t had this kind of day in a long time. I’ve drank enough beers that I don’t care about how cold the lake will be. I float in the water for a few hours with a couple of guys who are getting their masters in forestry. I didn’t realize that was something someone could study. I think about how I live in one of the biggest, most populated places in the entire country and still there is so much that I don’t know about the world. I think about what Hutch and River are trying to do with their youth center and I wonder, after all of this is done, how am I supposed to give back to the community that raised me? The people that supported me through my mom’s death and then my dad’s. How am I supposed to make life better for Ari?
Suddenly, it feels like too much, so I submerge into the water, so clear and refreshingly cold. I find a sparkling blue stone and bring it back to the picnic table. I give Scarlett a wry smirk because she’s talking to the hot football trainer. When the sun has set and everyone is good and drunk, the fireworks go off. I consider that it’s a bad idea to mix booze and explosives, but at my family July Fourth two thousand miles away, we used to do the exact same thing.
I take pictures of the fireworks to send to my sister. Then, because I can’t help it, I also send one to Pat. I’m sure he can see them from his bedroom. I wonder if he’s lonely.
It’s not your problem, I think. It’s not your job to coax him out of that shell.
