Senior year, she’d convinced herself that she hated it here, complaining to Marissa all the time that she couldn’t believe they had to live somewhere so dull and yet so crowded. But had she really meant that? She’d been so ready to run at that point, it had helped to act like the whole place was tainted. Really, it wasn’t so bad. It was close enough to DC to have some of its worldliness, a touch of its polish and shine, but still—there were all those sublimely ordinary joys of suburbia. Birthday parties at the Cave. Mozzarella sticks at Applebee’s. A Christmas house so tacky it had the power to start a traffic jam.
Watching the lights of the strip malls blur as they drove, Erika was reaching for a certain feeling, wanting to be nostalgic for her hometown. She was close, but couldn’t quite get there. Then a familiar sign crested into view.
It was the Athena, etched against the sky in blazing neon.
“We could stop now,” Erika said. “For pancakes.”
Tucker didn’t respond at first, and just when she was about to take it back, he looked at her with that bullshitty smile on his face.
“Because there was nothing to eat at that party, nothing at all.”
She flipped him off—very slowly this time, very deliberately.
“Twice in one night? I’m starting to feel kind of special over here.”
“Well, whatever. We don’t have to. It’s late, and you’re about to miss the turn.”
“Oh, it’s happening. It’s so happening.”
Tucker zipped over to the right lane, and Erika gave a little squeal.
20
Tucker
The hostess greeted him by name, and then she sat the two of them in Bonnie’s section, of course. Bonnie arrived at their table all smiles. Two times in a week, to what do I owe the pleasure? They both ordered coffee, even though Tucker knew the coffee there was terrible.
Bonnie left, and they were alone. Tucker kept staring at the menu that he basically knew by heart, because he always needed something to stare at when he was there. Something that wasn’t his dad.
“Are you okay?” Erika asked.
“Yeah, yeah. It’s just . . . my dad is staying literally around the corner. He can walk over, so he’s here all the time. I was actually kind of worried we might see him, but so far so good.”
“Jesus, Tucker. We didn’t have to do this.”
He shrugged, mumbling that it was no big deal. The truth was, as soon as she’d suggested this, he’d imagined sitting with her in some back booth, how that memory could keep him company on nights when he really didn’t want to be here.
“Let’s talk about pancakes instead,” Tucker said.
Erika shifted in her seat, then nodded. “Okay. Sure. I have lots of thoughts about the pancakes here. Deciding between the cinnamon roll pancakes and the chocolate caramel pancakes is almost impossible.”
“Okay, wow. You like this place more than I realized.”
“I stopped coming for a while because it was always crawling with people from high school, and I hate people from high school, so I’ve been very deprived. Of the pancakes.”
He wondered if he should ask her more about that, but he didn’t want to bring all the messiness of their lives into the warmth of the booth. Besides, Bonnie was back, setting down their coffee. She turned expectantly to Erika, who looked physically pained as she stared at the menu.
“All right, all right. Cinnamon roll pancakes. Sorry, that decision was brutal.”
Bonnie turned to Tucker. “Reuben and sweet potato fries?”
Tucker handed her the menu. “Can I have chocolate caramel pancakes?”
Bonnie disappeared, and the two of them looked at each other. Erika’s face had gone pink, and it made all her freckles pop.
“If you’re nice to me, maybe I’ll share,” he said.
She kicked him in the leg, and he gave an exaggerated flinch, pretending to be hurt.
“Not cool,” he said.
She kicked him again, a little harder this time, and now he actually flinched. He told her to leave him alone, and then he felt her foot, hooking around his under the table. She held on for a moment, just a moment, and then she let go.
When he finally looked up, she had ripped her empty sugar packet to shreds. His eyes swung to the window next to them, at the snowflake decorations that were starting to peel off. He could not believe how tense things suddenly felt.
“So, uh, what do you like to do when you’re home?” Tucker asked.
You sound like you’re trying to ask her out. Abort, abort.
Erika was hard at work cleaning up her massacred sugar packet. “Oh, I don’t know. This and that.”
Her freckles were popping again. He suddenly felt like there was not enough air back there, in that corner of the room.
“I still can’t believe you knew the ingredients to Polyjuice Potion,” he said.
“I can’t believe you knew Hagrid’s mother’s name.”
For five solid minutes, they relived the glory of their win, and then a runner from the kitchen appeared with two plates of pancakes, sliding them down, hers and then his.
They were bordering on pornographic. Big and fluffy, whipped cream everywhere. Buried in toppings.
“How the hell,” he said, “did these get here so fast?”
“It’s always like that. I think they’re continually making pancakes all day, every day. I can’t believe you come here every week and never get them!”
Erika set about meticulously cutting hers into slivers, and he followed her lead. When she started talking again, she kept her eyes on her plate.
“That was a hell of a party, but honestly, I can’t wait to get home to my nice, quiet house.” She carefully added more syrup. “My mom’s working a night shift.”
Tucker’s heart started thumping a beat faster, as he started to wonder what exactly was happening right now. He was feeling way too keyed up to eat, and was stuck staring at this giant pile of pancakes, wondering if he could even manage to take a bite . . .
And then there was a cough, a presence.
His dad was hovering close at the edge of their table.
Ray had that stupid bandanna on, the one Tucker absolutely hated and wanted to rip right off his head every time he saw it. He looked like hell, of course. He always looked like hell these days, his skin gray and sagging, his eyes bloodshot.
He had an awful smile on his face, absolutely awful.
“Hello, hello,” he finally said. “Who’s this?”
Tucker had felt sick as soon as he saw him, but now the sensation went deeper because, of course, the stupid smile was about Erika.
Don’t fidget. Don’t let him make you squirm.
“This is my dad, Ray. This is my friend Erika.”
“Your friend?”
His dad put his hands in his pockets, his eyebrows up.
“My friend,” Tucker repeated, and he leaned back in the booth, as if he could put some distance between himself and her, like that might help.
“Okay, okay.”
Ray was still smiling like he didn’t believe him, like it was all a joke, and oh god—this was a fantasy Tucker had had for so long and in so many different ways. That he’d finally find some way to surprise his dad, impress him. He used to picture him showing up to his baseball games, but as he’d gotten older, he’d imagined exactly this. That Ray would see him with a pretty girl, and then . . . what? He’d know that someone did want to fuck him? It was stupid, he knew it was stupid, but he’d never been able to kill those little make-believe scenarios. When he was younger, these ridiculous scenes of being with some hot girl with his dad wandering by had been a way to imagine a path toward forgiveness, reconciliation. But as time went on, it became an excuse to picture exactly how he’d tell his dad to fuck off.
Now here they were, it was actually happening, and Tucker didn’t want it at all. He didn’t even want Ray to look at her. The seconds were ticking by, his dad rocking back on his heels, staring now at the pancakes
idling on the table. The whipped cream was starting to sink.
Tucker realized he was still wearing his Harry Potter scarf, and as subtly as he could, he took it off and shoved it under his leg. He began pulling some words together, some nice to see you now get away from us kind of words, but it was taking forever to form them.
And then it was too late. Very slowly, Ray was sliding into the booth, uncomfortably close to Tucker.
Tucker moved as far as he could into the corner. It was sticky there, and cramped.
“You two look awfully fancy, for this place,” Ray said, his eyes all over Tucker’s suit.
“We were at a party,” Tucker said.
Ray’s eyebrows went up. He picked up the fork and poked at the pancakes with a smirk on his face. Erika still hadn’t said a word, and Tucker wanted to rescue her from this, but he didn’t know how, and that made him feel weak, pathetic. An ache started in his head at the same time that he got a twinge in his shoulder, and before he could stop himself, he was touching it with his hand, rolling it back.
Ray saw, of course he saw.
“I thought that was finally better?”
Tucker didn’t answer, so Ray pushed the pancakes out of the way, leaning his elbows onto the table, taking up more space than seemed logically possible. And now he was looking at Erika.
“Injuries like that, they always come back. Did he tell you what happened?”
Back in the kitchen, there was the crash of a dropped glass.
“Maybe?” Erika finally said. “I can’t really remember.”
She’d spoken in a neutral tone, and now she valiantly took up her fork and knife again, acting as if all of this was perfectly normal.
Tucker had tried that method with his dad plenty of times, though—acting nonchalant, not rising to the occasion.
He knew that it wouldn’t stop him.
“We were over at my mom’s place, last May. Tucker’s cousin Bill asked if he wanted to drive the ATV. Didn’t go too well.”
Tucker had spiraled down to a place where he couldn’t speak, could barely seem to move. He stared at the speckled Formica table, while in his mind, that day he’d tried so hard to forget was coming back in a rush.
He could still picture the thing perfectly. Big black tires and a neon yellow body, all skeleton, like some monstrous insect.
“Tucker got it bad, but Riley got it worse. He’s Tucker’s little cousin? He was sitting right on Tucker’s lap.”
Tucker had been staring at Erika’s plate, and so he saw her pause, briefly but undeniably, before she resumed her façade of casually eating.
Meanwhile, Tucker’s mind became a storm as he thought of Riley, little Riley who belonged to no one. Or rather, he’d belonged to Ray’s youngest sister, Jean, but she’d disappeared more than two years ago, leaving Riley to live on the farm with sad, quiet Grandma Ruth.
Tucker had made a point to play with Riley always. He was so much younger than all the other cousins—only six. That day, as Tucker had put his hands on the wheel, Riley had scrambled into his lap, all warmth and flailing, skinny limbs.
“Not your best moment, Tucker, if I’m being honest.”
Tucker leaned his head against the back of the booth. He closed his eyes.
“No,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t.”
Aunt Maggie had screamed no, no, no and run toward them, arms outstretched to snatch Riley back. But Bill had been laughing, begging him to go, and when Tucker had looked up, he’d seen his dad, watching and waiting to see what he would do.
Tucker had hit the gas.
“Whew, that was one hell of a wreck,” Ray said. “Never seen anything like that.”
Blue-green, blue-green, blue-green. That’s what Tucker remembered, from when he first came to. His consciousness had returned slowly, the world coming into focus in such incremental degrees that at first he could not comprehend that he was lying on the ground, his face in the grass, sky blazing above him. He could only think blue-green, blue-green, blue-green.
Then he’d seen the toppled ATV. He’d seen Bill sitting up, dazed but in one piece. And finally he’d seen Riley, a limp rag to his left, one of his knees bent wrong. Tucker had wept and tried to go to him, but he’d fallen as soon as he stood, still too dizzy, his shoulder full of pain that was like its own private sun. Tucker had lain there, crying, while Ray took Riley in his arms and ran him to the car to drive him to the hospital.
Tucker had been right behind them in Maggie’s car, completely unable to look at her.
All around them, the diner was full of loud talking and clinking silverware, but silence had descended over their party of three. Tucker finally managed to turn and look at his dad.
“Are you done? Have you had enough fun for one night?”
His dad looked at him in mock surprise.
“Well, she should hear the end, right? That Riley’s mostly fine? He was in a cast all summer, but he’s okay now. I’ve got scars worse than the one he’s got, much worse.”
Ray took his elbows off the table, examining his arms, looking at both of them like maybe they would ask to hear his stories, to see the evidence of his wounds. Tucker felt nothing but rage.
“I don’t care. She doesn’t care. Can you leave now?”
For a few long seconds, his dad just sat. Then he moved to slide out of the booth, pausing first to poke an elbow into Tucker’s ribs.
“You remember what Riley always used to say? ‘I wish Tucker was my brother.’”
And then finally, finally, his father stood to leave.
“Not sure he really says that anymore.”
21
Erika
They sat in the car in the parking lot, Styrofoam containers full of uneaten pancakes on their laps. Erika had let him know she was sober and could drive, but they hadn’t yet clarified where exactly she’d be taking him. Her house? His house? Back to the party?
She hadn’t started the engine yet, and was still trying to decide whether or not to say something about what had just happened. Then Tucker cleared his throat.
“My dad’s never liked me, even when I was a kid. He’s been calling me, you know . . . a pussy for pretty much as long as I can remember. Which, yeah, that’s a messed-up thing to say, but I guess I know what he means. Because I’m soft, I’ve always been soft, ever since I was little.”
That word had sounded so unnatural coming from Tucker—it was like it had disrupted the air, rearranged its atoms. Erika was squirming now, trying to figure out how to respond.
“Tucker, you’re not a pussy. And a little kid can’t be a pussy.”
Now he was looking at her, but this stupid car was too small for that much eye contact, and they both turned away.
“There have been times in my life when I should have thrown a punch. I could never do it. You know how people always ask what you want to be when you grow up? I knew I was supposed to say a fireman or a race car driver or something, but I could never picture doing any of that stuff. The only thing I could imagine was, you know, having kids or whatever. Being a dad.”
Erika took in a sharp breath, pressed her lips together.
“Those aren’t bad things. At all.”
“No, but they make me a Hufflepuff.”
They were back to that again, which was reminding her of Ryan’s guest room, and then she was remembering Tucker’s puppy dog comment and oh.
Now it finally clicked.
“You heard what I said that night. In the tree house?”
He ran a hand through his hair, then started rubbing his shoulder again.
“I shouldn’t have been listening, I know. I’m really sorry. And it was stupid to bring it up again. I just want to forget about it.”
Erika didn’t know how she felt about that—angry or guilty, just embarrassed maybe. She didn’t want to think about that night right now. Also, she was tired of holding these stupid pancakes. Sighing, she took a second to put the Styrofoam container on the back seat, then took his from him
and stacked it on top.
Now they were both stuck staring at their empty hands.
Whatever she’d been planning for tonight, it wasn’t for the right reasons. She knew that now. She knew, too, that she cared about this boy. She cared about him a lot.
As for what she should do about it—she had absolutely no idea.
“Listen, I’m really sorry you had to sit through that, with my dad,” Tucker said. “And I know you had an intense night, remembering everything from school and then you got the text . . . Anyway, I hope you’re feeling okay now.”
She was too ashamed to admit that she hadn’t even been crying about any of that on the dance floor. She’d been crying because of her fight with Marissa. But in this cramped car, with all these words being spilled, she could feel everything weighing on her, and she wanted to talk.
“I keep wondering what will happen if there’s a trial, if I have to testify. What if everything that happened senior year comes back to ruin my life? Sometimes I think that’s the thing that’s stressing me out, more than anything else. So in case you were wondering how shitty of a person I am, the answer is pretty shitty.”
Erika was afraid maybe she’d said too much, that she’d made a mistake. But when Tucker spoke again, his voice was gentle.
“You’re not a shitty person. At all. Anybody would feel like that.”
Erika closed her eyes. You’re not a shitty person was a phrase that, right then, she really needed to hear. The words kept flowing out of her.
“It was a video. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess. I heard stuff at the Cave, but I tried not to listen.”
Erika nodded, then steadied her voice.
“It was thirty seconds. Of me going down on him. You can barely tell it’s me, except for my stupid pink hair. So the asshole that took it sent it to a second asshole, because it was some bullshit dare that was running through these jerks on the hockey team. The second asshole posted it on this Facebook page that was run by the booster club, this place for sharing stats from meets, clips from games. Tons of people followed it.”
Our Year in Love and Parties Page 10
