by Marie Sexton
He was surprised Levi hadn't told them about leaving The Zone. "He doesn't work there anymore."
He regretted it immediately. Nancy actually dropped the pretzel she was holding, and Ruth leaned halfway across the table toward him. "Really? Since when?"
"Since..." Their questions made him uncomfortable. He felt like he was gossiping about his best friend. "A couple of weeks ago, I guess."
"Where does he work now?" Nancy asked.
"Nowhere, but--"
"He quit his job without having another one lined up?" Ruth asked. "In this economy?"
"Well," Jaime said, feeling even more like he should shut up, but not knowing how to extricate himself from the conversation, "I don't think he thought it through much. It seemed like it happened kind of fast."
"What made him quit?" Ruth asked.
"I don't know."
"When was this exactly?" she asked. She had the look and feel of a bloodhound on the trail. She'd found the scent. She just hadn't followed it to the end yet.
"Two or three weeks ago."
Ruth nodded, looking pleased. But all she said was, "Very interesting."
"Is he looking for a new job?" Nancy asked.
"He has an interview next week at a nursery."
Nancy and Ruth were obviously pleased to hear it. Carter, who until then had shown the lack of interest typical of kids when it came to adult conversation, looked confused. "He's taking care of babies?"
"No," Ruth said, without looking away from Jaime. "A plant nursery."
Carter went back to his game, obviously unimpressed.
"Tell me, Jaime," Ruth said, "is Levi still..." She waved her hands in a circle in front of her, as if she didn't know quite how to say what she wanted to ask. She seemed to think Jaime would catch her meaning, but he had no idea what she was getting at. She blushed when she realized she was going to have to spell it out. "Is he still"--she lowered her voice to a whisper--"seeing lots of people?"
He was still confused by her meaning, and she sighed in frustration. She glanced at Carter, apparently to make sure he wasn't listening, before turning back to Jaime. "S-E-X," she spelled quietly. "Is he still seeing lots of people?"
Jaime felt his cheeks heating and he knew they were turning bright red. He felt like an idiot for not having caught on to what she was asking sooner. "I don't know," he said. It wasn't something he'd thought about before. The idea Levi was suddenly celibate seemed odd. And highly unlikely. And yet, when would he see another man? He'd quit the club, which meant his primary means of finding partners was gone. He certainly never brought anyone home in the evenings, even though Jaime did his best to assure him he wouldn't be offended if Levi asked him not to come over once in a while. Of course, Jaime didn't know everything Levi did during the day while Jaime was home working, but he went to Levi's house every single night, and not once had he seen anything there to indicate another man had been there before him.
Nancy and Ruth were both watching him with unabashed curiosity in their eyes, and Jaime could only shrug. "I don't know," he said again.
Ruth nodded, a knowing smile on her face. "Yep," she said, nodding smugly, "that's very interesting indeed."
* * * *
The rest of Levi's family arrived after dinner, and the kids argued over who would be sleeping where. Jaime wished he had the option of trading with one of them. When they'd visited Levi's family back in September, he hadn't had any nightmares, but that was before Levi had awakened them. Looking back, Jaime couldn't help but marvel how Levi was simultaneously the cause of his terror and the remedy for it.
He was used to falling asleep in Levi's bed, cocooned in soft sheets and Levi's comforting smell. He had grown accustomed to listening to Levi's quiet breathing on the other side of the bed. He would have been happy to sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag like one of the kids if he could have done it in Levi's room. Instead, he found himself in a twin bed with rough, starchy sheets smelling of laundry detergent. There were three boys in the room with him, sleeping on the floor, but their presence did nothing to keep the nightmares at bay.
He woke shortly after one o'clock, sitting bolt upright in bed, gasping for breath. His heart was pounding and his sheets were soaked. For one horrifying moment, he thought he'd wet the bed again, just as he had when he was a child. But no, it was only sweat causing his sheets to stick to his body.
"You okay?" one of the boys asked from the floor.
Jaime fought to regulate his ragged breathing. "Yeah," he said.
"You scared me." Jaime thought it was Carter talking.
"Sorry," Jaime said. He thought about lying back down and trying to sleep more, but he could feel the ugliness in his brain, lurking in dark corners and crannies, waiting for him to sleep again. It was like being in one of those Halloween haunted houses and knowing there was a man in a mask right around the corner, waiting to scare the piss out of you. No way did he want to face that.
He climbed out of bed and made his way through the sleeping bags on the floor to the door, with Dolly behind him.
"Where you going?" Carter whispered.
"To the bathroom," Jaime lied. "Go back to sleep."
He went down to the family room, which was dark and empty. Dolly sat on the couch next to him, and he turned on the TV. He turned the volume down low and flicked through the unfamiliar channels until he found Syfy. He could always count on them in the middle of the night. He fell asleep again sometime before five and was awakened at six by Ruth. She was still in her pajamas.
"Did you sleep down here all night?" she asked.
He knew she would ask questions if he told her the truth. "I came down a bit ago," he said instead.
She yawned as she sat on the other couch. "Oh man." She moaned. "Don't tell my mom, but I'd kill for a cup of coffee right now. How about you?"
"I don't drink it."
"Really? No coffee?"
He shook his head.
"Tea?"
"Nope."
"Pepsi? Mountain Dew?"
"Sprite."
"Do you drink alcohol?"
He laughed, thinking about pina coladas. "Once with Levi, but no, not normally."
She shook her head in amusement. "You're a better Mormon than any of us real Mormons."
Dolly had apparently decided they had been chatting long enough. She had more urgent matters on her doggy mind. She stood up, nudging his ear with her nose and whining.
"Okay, girl," he said, pushing her off the couch and standing. "Let me get my shoes and we'll go."
Dolly turned in frantic circles, panting, as if she couldn't even wait that long, and he laughed.
"Care for some company?" Ruth asked, surprising him. "Maybe a bit of exercise will help wake me up."
And so, ten minutes later, the three of them set off on foot in the fresh morning air. It was chilly, but not quite cold. There were few cars out, and the only other people they saw were lone joggers.
"There's a park around the block," Ruth told him, and he followed her around a couple of corners, then across the street into a small park. She kept up a constant stream of chatter as they walked around it. It wasn't until they were leaving the park that she said, "Levi seems happier now than he's been in a long time."
She and Nancy had said the same thing the day before, but Jaime couldn't see any significant difference. "He always seemed happy to me."
"Hmm," Ruth said, and they walked in silence for a bit. "You guys really aren't... She glanced at him sideways.
Jaime laughed. "No."
"But you live together, right?" she asked, sounding suspicious. "It sounded like it."
Jaime felt himself blush and kept his eyes on Dolly, who was sniffing along the sidewalk ahead of them. "It's not like that."
"Then like what?"
Her questions were coming dangerously close to his secrets. He certainly didn't want to tell her he spent the night at Levi's more often than not because he couldn't bear to sleep alone in his own house. "We're fri
ends," he said.
"Why not more?" she asked.
"Because." It was the only thing he could say. The rest was too hard to put into words, but it boiled down to two simple things: because Levi could have anybody he wanted, and because Jaime was damaged. Levi may not have known the details, but Jaime suspected he had an idea, and nobody could be expected to deal with that. Even Jaime himself couldn't quite handle it.
"What is it, Jaime?" she teased, when she realized he wasn't going to say more. "Is my brother not cute enough for you?"
He laughed. "Yeah, right." He shook his head at the idea Levi would be not good-looking enough for anybody.
"Don't you like him?"
"Of course I like him," he said. "He's my best friend." He blushed again when he realized how childish he sounded. He turned to find her looking at him, her eyebrows up, bangs hanging in her laughing hazel eyes. He'd never noticed before how much she looked like Levi, and it struck him that this woman was Levi's sister. Of course he'd known, in theory, but it suddenly dawned on him what it really meant--shared genes and shared memories. Years of eating breakfast and dinner together, watching cartoons on Saturday mornings, teasing each other and fighting over toys as kids, and probably over CDs and bathroom time as teenagers. Sharing tears and frustrations, joys and sorrows. Having no secrets. As an only child, he couldn't imagine having someone be such an integral part of your everyday life whether you wanted them or not.
She was looking at him now as if she couldn't quite believe what he was saying. It made him uncomfortable.
"Why do you think he quit the club?" she asked.
Jaime shrugged. She'd already asked him the day before, and his answer hadn't changed. "I don't know."
"Did you ask him to quit?"
"What?" he asked, startled. "Of course not. Why would I?"
She looked like she was tempted to laugh at him, but instead she shrugged. "No reason," she said, turning away from him, and they walked back to the house in silence.
Most of the family was up when they got back. Nancy, Rachel, and one of the K-Wives were bustling around the kitchen. The turkey was in the oven. Levi was at the kitchen table with a slew of his nieces and nephews. The center of the table was filled with clean bowls, jugs of milk, and at least eight boxes of cereal. Ruth moved two of the kids to the breakfast bar so she and Jaime could sit down across from Levi, who was pouring what appeared to be neon confetti into a bowl.
"What the hell are you eating?" Jaime asked.
"Fruity Pebbles." Levi offered the box to him. "Want some? They're good."
"No, thanks," Jaime laughed as he reached for the Corn Flakes.
"Jaime?" Levi said, his voice low and serious.
"What?" He looked across the table and found Levi regarding him with troubled eyes.
"You okay?"
"Of course."
Levi didn't look convinced. "Did you sleep last night?"
"Sure," Jaime said. He hated sometimes how easily Levi could read him. He glanced around the table. It wasn't just Levi looking at him. Ruth and a couple of the older kids were watching him, too. "I slept fine," he said weakly.
"He woke up around one and left to go to the bathroom and never came back to bed," Carter said.
Ratted out by a ten-year-old. Jaime felt his cheeks burning and he couldn't meet Levi's eyes. "I'm fine," he said, and was glad when Levi didn't argue.
* * * *
Thanksgiving dinner was fantastic. As a kid, Jaime had always envied the children who came from large families. His own family meals had been lonely and pathetic. It was only he and his mother, if she wasn't working, and her mother, until she died when Jaime was fourteen. And, of course, his aunt and his uncle, who Jaime did his best to avoid. Holidays had never been very comfortable.
But in Jaime's mind, Levi's family was perfect. It wasn't that each individual person was perfect. Far from it. They were human, after all. Rachel's husband rarely spoke, but when he did, it was only to complain. Caleb's wife did her best to avoid Rachel, and Rachel was for some reason being overly friendly to Jaime and Levi. Levi was obviously suspicious of her motives. Jackson and Isaac seemed to circle each other warily. They were always civil to one another, but sometimes their politeness was too stiff to feel genuine.
Jaime also knew the Binders had upset Levi on their last visit. Despite it all, though, or maybe because of it, to Jaime they were beautiful. They were bright and animated and happy, and even when there was a disagreement, like when two of the K-Wives argued over whether or not to put giblets in the gravy, it felt normal. It felt the way he'd always imagined a family would. They loved each other. That was the simple underlying truth behind it all.
In the end, they had two pans of gravy, one made by each wife, and Jaime tried them both. The turkey was dry, and the cranberry sauce came out of a can, but the ham was good and the stuffing was so delicious it made Jaime's eyes roll back in his head. They drank Sprite and lemonade and ginger ale and chocolate milk, and even though he heard Levi, Jackson and Caleb wishing they had a beer, Jaime thought it was better this way. There were no bitter arguments. No Jerry Springer drama. No jabs thrown after somebody'd had a few too many. And even with nineteen kids talking and laughing and crying and arguing, Jaime felt at peace.
That night, some of the family spread around the table to play Trivial Pursuit and the rest of them packed the family room to watch a movie. Levi pushed Jaime down into the corner of the couch and sat next to him, almost on top of him. It confused Jaime until he realized the adults were cramming themselves onto the couch. Jaime would have preferred to not be touched at all, but if he had to be crammed up against somebody, he was glad it was Levi, and he was glad Levi had foreseen the problem and nipped it in the bud.
"What are we watching?" Levi asked.
"My Little Pony," one of the little girls yelled, and the parents issued a collective moan.
"No, baby," Rachel said. "We have to pick something everyone will like."
"The Notebook," one of the K-Wives said, and the men all groaned.
"No chick flicks," Caleb said, and Jaime silently echoed the sentiment.
"The Breakfast Club," another K-wife said.
Isaac turned to her with a smile so much like Levi's teasing expression Jaime was taken aback. "Something that doesn't suck," he told her, and she laughed.
"Transformers," one of the older kids said.
"Yeah, Transformers," several of the others chorused, but Nancy shook her head.
"Too many little kids in the room," she said. "Something not so violent."
There were more moans, but no real protest, and they went back to arguing. Levi turned to Jaime with a smile. "It's all your fault we're here, you know," he said conspiratorially.
Jaime smiled. "Thanks for bringing me."
"You're welcome." Levi's hand nudged his leg, and Jaime thought he might have been reaching for his hand. Jaime might have let him take it, but then he glanced over and found Ruth watching them and he pulled away instead, feeling his cheeks burning for no reason he could name.
They finally settled on The Watcher in the Woods. Jaime'd never seen it, but it had obviously been a favorite of Levi and his siblings when they were young. The little kids were scared, and the big kids pretended not to be. Jaime found the movie amusing, but he hoped it didn't give the younger ones nightmares. He knew first hand how awful they could be.
Chapter 23
The weather had been unseasonably warm, which was what gave Levi the idea. It was a bit childish, but that was part of its appeal, and he hoped it would allow Jaime to get a decent night's sleep. He waited until everybody else had gone to bed. Once the house was silent, he got up. Jacob's son Roy looked up at him from his spot on the floor. That was good. It meant Levi didn't have to wake anybody up.
"Hey, champ," Levi whispered to him, "why don't you sleep in the bed tonight?"
"Dad says--"
"Don't worry about your dad," Levi told him. "I'll tell him it was my idea."
<
br /> "Will we get in trouble?" Roy asked.
"No trouble," Levi told him. "I promise."
Once Roy was climbing into Levi's bed, Levi took the empty sleeping bag out into the hall. He left it by the linen closet and crept to the spare bedroom, where Jaime slept. He was a bit worried about how to wake Jaime without scaring him to death, but it turned out to not be an issue. Jaime was wide-awake and staring at the ceiling.
"What's going on?" he whispered to Levi.
"Come on," he said to Jaime. "Follow me."
In the dark room, he couldn't tell if Jaime was confused or curious, but he got out of bed. He watched silently as Levi nudged Carter awake. Carter didn't need any convincing to give up his bag in lieu of the empty bed.
Levi took Carter's bag and pillow and handed them to Jaime. He led Jaime and Dolly down the hall, grabbing his own sleeping bag on the way. They went down the stairs and across the linoleum floor of the kitchen with Dolly's nails clicking softly behind them, then out the sliding glass door and onto the patio.
"What are you doing?" Jaime asked, but Levi could hear the smile in his voice. "Are you crazy?"
"There's nothing wrong with sleeping outside." He started around the table on the patio without thinking about it, but then heard a thump and a muffled curse from Jaime. "You okay?"
"I can't see anything."
Levi reached back. His hand landed on Jaime's arm. He was pleased Jaime didn't try to pull away. Levi slid his hand down and gripped Jaime's wrist. He led him around the first table and past the giant potted strawberry plant his mom had grown every year for as long as he could remember, now withered and brown. Then around the kid-size picnic table, down the steps and onto the lawn.
The air was cool and comfortable, and the grass felt cold and prickly against his bare feet. Once they were past the obstacle course of the patio, he let go of Jaime's wrist, but to his surprise, Jaime grabbed his hand instead. Levi turned to look at him, wondering at the sudden intimacy, but in the dark, he couldn't read Jaime's expression at all. He could tell only that Jaime was looking up at the half-bare branches of trees above them.
