“Good night, Mom,” Evan said. He leaned back for a second, exhaling audibly. He opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a fourteen-by-seventeen pad of bristol board, a heavy, smooth, bright paper, and his good brush and ink. He opened the pad to a clean sheet of paper and drew a fast, loose, round sketch with a sharp, hard pencil, ready to make something good.
SHE CAME IN THROUGH THE BATHROOM WINDOW
It was eight o’clock when Evan woke up. His bedroom window was a quarter covered with snow, and daylight just barely made it through. Evan rolled out of bed and stumbled down the stairs.
Mom had already put the coffee on. She stood by the counter in her bathrobe, looking out the window at nothing in particular. Gram was up, too, reading the paper at the kitchen table. Evan said his good-mornings.
“Dad left already?” Evan asked his mom as he entered the kitchen in his pajamas.
“Already? He’d been waiting to leave for an hour before the plow went by.”
“So why doesn’t he just work from home?” Evan asked.
“Because he’s your father.”
Evan knew that Dad came from the school of thought that said work and home were never the same thing. A man goes out to work and comes back home, simple as that. Mom worked, too, as a nurse. She’d take off a day or two a year when the weather was this bad, since all the other nurses lived near the hospital in the city.
Evan savored the smell of the coffee, something he had always enjoyed, even before he learned to like the taste. He’d found coffee bitter at first, but an especially gruesome finals week in junior year had made him a coffee pro.
“How’s Lucy doing?” Mom asked, pouring coffee for herself and for Evan. “When is she going to come over and say hello?”
“Uh, I don’t know,” Evan said. “Soon?” He wondered if it was even a good idea. He’d adjusted to Lucy 2.0, but now his mom would have to: Bye-bye, sweet Lucy. Only his grandmother, despite being several generations removed, was likely to accept her. Evan was still having trouble explaining to her that a straight male can be friends with a gay one, though. And of course there was Dad. The uncertainty of his reaction was a sign of just how negatively he’d view her.
The phone rang, and Mom handed Evan his cup and picked up the phone. “Oh, okay, glad to hear it. Love you, too,” she said, and turned to Evan. “Your father’s at work. He made it in okay. I didn’t want to say anything, but I was really worried. Look at it out there.”
The road was already covered in a layer of white snow again, and activity outside was nonexistent.
“Well, I’m going to try to finish that report,” Evan said, sliding back his chair. “I don’t know why I’ve been dragging my feet on it.”
“Oh, go play. It’s vacation,” Gram said. “What are they giving you homework over the holidays for, anyway?”
“I guess to keep us sharp,” Evan said.
“Any sharper, Evan, and you’ll cut yourself,” Gram said. Evan thought that if he were younger, he’d go out and do something dumb, like place a giant rock in the middle of the road, but he was determined to finish his paper. “God bless you, but I don’t know where you got those studious genes from. Not your grandmother, I’ll tell you that much. I get tired just watching you sometimes.”
“Oh, that’s Charlie, one hundred percent,” Mom said.
“I suppose it is,” Gram said. She watched Evan for a few seconds. “This is the same boy who used to run away in stores and hide in coatracks and climb on restaurant tables.”
“Sounds like I needed medication,” Evan said.
“You were mischievous but always good-hearted. You were a fun boy.” Gram placed her hand on Evan’s.
Upstairs, Evan spun around slowly in his chair. His bookshelf passed through his line of vision, and then his table, and then the door. The window floated by, and there was his bed, and two more windows. Then his dresser and the TV and the computer, and, hello, there’s the bookshelf again. And there was the table, holding his history book.
Evan clicked his mouse and turned on the monitor and speakers and played “Move,” the first track off Miles Davis’s Birth of the Cool. No lyrics, no visuals, no distractions. The idea was to cancel out the thoughts and the noise and to focus. He had a playlist of jazz albums and movie scores that he had conditioned himself to associate with homework.
Evan kicked off the wall, rolled in his chair to the window, and looked outside. The snow was coming down fast, wet, and thick, and it was sticking to the ground and piling up quickly. The plow had pushed the early snow off the road and onto cars parked along the curb, making the street and hill look like a luge track.
Back to the desk. He put his book square in the middle of the desk, opened it up, and began to read. The first paragraph went slowly, but by the second, he was gaining focus. Evan pulled the highlighter out of his pen holder and started highlighting useful phrases. A page went by, and then another. When he was not highlighting, he was holding the end of his marker to his chin, and he knew his concentration was where it needed to be. Twenty minutes slid by as paragraphs and chapters were compressed into ideas and facts, and a paper began to form in his head.
“Evan! Lucy is here!” Mom called, and the locomotive in Evan’s head hit the brakes, raising a deafening rusty squeal as the train derailed and cartwheeled down a hill, flattening a storefront and emptying a dozen citizens into the street, running and screaming. It would take hours for the dust to clear.
“Evan!” Mom called again.
Evan put down his marker and looked at his highlighted and marked-up page. He took a deep breath and pushed away the book.
* * *
“Honey, you walked here?” Evan heard his mother asking Lucy as he got to the stairs, still in his pajamas. Lucy was standing inside the door, wet and cold and pale, her makeup a mess and her hair flat along her face. She looked like a helpless dog that had come in off the street. Or like a child in grown-up clothes.
“We’re having a blizzard out there, Lucy. Look at you!” Mom said, taking Lucy’s leather jacket off her. All her motherly instincts must have been on red-flag status.
“Hey, Lucy,” Evan said, trying to conceal his surprise at seeing her there. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah, I was just, you know, bored,” Lucy said with a dead stare and a shrug of the shoulders. “Am I bothering you?”
“No. No, of course not. I was just working on that paper,” Evan said, pointing his thumb back to his room.
“Oh, God, you’re right. I’m sorry, I forgot about that. I’ll leave,” Lucy said, starting toward Mom, who’d taken her coat away.
“No, don’t go,” Evan said.
“You’re not going anywhere, missy,” Mom said. “Evan has the whole break to finish his paper. First thing you’re doing is taking a hot bath, and I’m gonna take those clothes and dry them. Come over here.” Lucy looked at Evan with semiwide eyes as she sluggishly did as she was told. Evan stifled a chuckle. “I can’t believe your father let you come out in this weather.”
“He doesn’t really care what I do,” Lucy said.
“I don’t know about that,” Mom said. “But you’re here now. Let’s get you dry and warm, at least, and I’m going to call your father and make sure he knows you got here okay. Did you eat yet?”
“I’m not hungry—” Lucy started before Mom took over.
“You wash up and I’ll fix you breakfast. Will you eat pancakes?”
“I’ll have some pancakes, Mom,” Evan said from the bottom of the staircase.
“Hush, you. Lucy?”
“Sure,” Lucy said with a blush.
“Leave your clothes at the door, honey, and I’ll put them in the dryer for you, okay?”
“Okay. Thanks, Mrs. Owens.”
“Don’t you worry about it, sweetie. I’m a nurse and a mom. This is what I do.”
The smell of food filled the kitchen. Not just pancakes, but bacon and eggs, too. Evan sat at the table and poured himself a glass of oran
ge juice.
“I’m going to ask you a personal question now,” Mom said. “Is she all right, really? I’m worried. Just tell me not to worry and I’ll stop, but I have to ask.”
“Who, Lucy?” Evan asked.
“No, Oprah Winfrey. Yes, Lucy!”
“Yeah, she’s fine,” Evan said, before taking a big gulp of his orange juice. He had figured this conversation would happen at some point. “I mean, I think so. You don’t?”
“I don’t know,” Mom said, moving pans and adjusting the stove heat. “She looks different, and I don’t like her walking out here in a snowstorm. I need to call Doug. We haven’t had him over in a while anyway.”
“It’s just the hair and makeup.” Evan shrugged. “It threw me off at first, too. It’s not that long of a walk anyway. I’d have probably walked it if I hadn’t been planning on writing today.”
“Well, never mind that,” Mom said, scrambling the eggs around in the pan. “You can work on it later. You want any chocolate milk?”
“No, Mom, thanks,” Evan said, smiling. He hadn’t had chocolate milk in years.
“She could have waited, or I could have picked her up,” Mom said, and turned toward Evan. “I should let her know that—maybe she didn’t feel comfortable asking me. It’s just so strange, walking out in the snow.”
A simple concern about Lucy’s well-being could escalate into a full-fledged investigation of his entire history with her. Which, of course, would be a waste of Mom’s time. It was best to play it simple.
“I’ve compelled young ladies to do worse, Mom.”
“Listen to you, mister. You’re dreaming.” Mom took the pans off the heat and got plates out of the cabinet. “So you think she’s okay, and I should stop worrying, then?”
“She didn’t tell me anything. I asked her when I saw the new look.”
“Were you tactful?”
“Tact—? Yeah, I was tactful.” Evan noticed her twist her face into a semiaccusation. “What?”
“Oh, brother,” Mom said, pouring the scrambled eggs out of the pan and onto the plates. The thought passed through Evan’s mind that maybe Mom actually could find out what was going on with Lucy. Maybe it was girl problems, something Lucy couldn’t talk about with him. Maybe she really needed a mother figure to talk to. Lucy’s mom wasn’t exactly June Cleaver, after all. The thought passed. He’d rather involve his parents as little as possible.
“Want me to ask again?”
“You’d really better not, dear. No offense to you.”
“None taken,” Evan said, finishing his OJ and pouring another glass.
“If there’s anything to tell, Evan, I’m sure you’ll be first in line to hear it when she’s good and ready,” Mom said. I would be, right? he wondered. “Will you watch the pancakes? I think her clothes should be dry.”
“Yeah, sure, Mom.” Evan stood up and walked to the stove. He looked down at the bubbling white batter on the griddle and realized he had no idea how to tell when pancakes were ready.
Evan watched Lucy survey his book collection. Her finger ran along the spine of each book. Lucy examined his room each year as if she’d never seen it before. He did add to his myriad collections frequently and changed his furniture around every year or two.
“The Stand, but not the Dark Tower books? Are you serious?” Lucy said, lifting the heavy hardcover.
“I’ll read them, already! Promise!”
Lucy gasped. “Gaiman! I remember when you were obsessed with American Gods and it was, like, all you’d talk about for a month.” Evan filed her immediate involvement with his bookshelf under “Old Lucy.” The only change was that she now looked like a character out of Gaiman’s Sandman series.
“So what would I like?” Lucy asked, looking back at the shelf.
“Hmmm,” Evan said. He spun his chair to face the bookshelf. His eyes scanned the titles, looking for fantasy, edgy, cool, layered, quirky. “There are a few graphic novels you might like. I’d recommend Dead@17 or Swallow Me Whole.”
Lucy picked up Dead@17, impressed with the girl holding a large ax on the cover.
“What Is the What was good…. I can’t think of any fantasy to recommend.”
“That’s not all I read,” Lucy said. “I’m not some stuck-in-la-la-land-pathetic-faerie-princess-wannabe dork or anything. I can appreciate a book without goblins. I just think they make books better, is all.”
Lucy continued to poke around the bookshelf, pulling books out, opening them, closing them, and putting them back. Evan wondered what she expected to find beyond blocks of text and illustrations. The majority of them were graphic novels, fantasy books, and sci-fi. She knew that. Maybe she was looking for signs of evolution. Maybe she had noticed his copy of Thus Spake Zarathustra and thought he was turning some new existentialist leaf. He looked down at the history book he had been perusing earlier, still open on his desk.
“Oh, your paper,” she said, and touched her lower lip. “Do you want to keep working on it? I can be quiet.”
“No, I’ll just do it tonight,” Evan said. “You’re here, so we might as well hang out.”
“I can read,” Lucy offered, seemingly eager to please. Evan wondered again why she had come over. He was glad to have the company but wasn’t sure what to do with her. Lucy seemed content, but almost guilty. Had she really forgotten about the paper? “I’ll just read one of your suggestions, and you work on your paper—then we both win. Everyone wins. Yay, winning.” Lucy raised her hands shoulder-level in the world’s tiniest celebration.
“Yeah?” Evan looked at the history brick again. “I mean, only if you really want to.”
“It’ll be more fun than sitting at home,” Lucy said, one eyebrow raised.
“If you’re sure. It’d be good to get this out of the way,” Evan said nonchalantly. If he looked too excited to work on a history paper, Lucy might take offense.
“Then it’s decided. You go work, and I will reaaaaaad…”Lucy ran a finger along her choices and raised Dead@17. “The Adventures of Ax Girl! Starring me.”
Evan laughed. “Fair enough. Enjoy. I’ll expect a full report.”
“And I’ll expect a full history report, from you. Cleverness.” Lucy dropped to Evan’s bed with a bounce and turned on the reading lamp. She looked cute with her hair all wet and none of the eye shadow blocking her eyes. He didn’t understand why she needed it. It had everyone wondering if she was okay, and clearly she was fine.
Evan shook his head and spun his chair back to face the desk. Where were we? The train was back on track, and the cargo was being loaded. Time to start it up again. Evan reread his highlighted passages, leaning over the book, ready to devour it. The train, follow the tracks. History-town, here we come, all aboard.
Evan read through the chapters he needed to read, highlighting and making notes. He started to jot down the broad strokes on what he wanted to say in his notebook. Time passed and Lucy was quiet, just breathing, softly at first, and then deeper, and steady, in and out, full deep breaths through her nose. The sound of someone really comfortable… the sound of someone fast asleep. Jealousy set in. It just sounded good. To close your eyes, and breathe in, breathe out, and slip away…
Evan dropped his book on the hardwood floor. The deep rhythmic breathing stopped.
“Why?” Lucy grumbled.
“I’m sorry, did I wake you?” Evan leaned over and picked up the book.
“You know damn well what you did, meanie.” Lucy rolled onto her side and let an arm drop off the bed.
“You were snoring, it was distracting. It was like a buzz saw going over a pile of bricks.”
“I was not!” Lucy said. She took a small pillow off the bed and threw it at Evan. He deflected the pillow and laughed.
“It’s all right. It’s a cute snore. You’re safe. You’re not gonna scare off any prospective mating partners or anything.”
“You’re walking, like, twelve thin lines right now,” Lucy said with her eyes closed and her head
on a pillow. Evan grinned and turned once again to face his book. He’d made a little progress, but there was a long way to go. “What’s Zombies?” Lucy asked.
Evan turned to see her looking up at a box on top of his bookshelf. “See, now you’ve done it. Now I can’t work,” Evan said, thinking she was probably bored anyway. Thinking he was definitely bored.
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t say anything,” Lucy pleaded. “I don’t care about Zombies, whatever it is. Actually, I’m deadly curious, but no, you have to work.”
“I can’t believe we haven’t played Zombies. This is inexcusable,” Evan said.
“No, go back to your project. I’m going to feel guilty now.”
But Evan was already up and reaching for the game. This was perfect—another great classic Evan-and-Lucy event. “Nope, we’re playin’ Zombies, my friend.”
Evan sat in the living room with Lucy, his mom, and his grandmother. The couches were pushed apart, and all the game parts were sprawled across the floor. There were a few stacks of cards, a pile of square tiles, red and blue dice, army figures, and one hundred little plastic zombies. Mom and Gram took the couch, Evan had a chair, and Lucy insisted on sitting on the carpeted floor.
“This is my first time playing without Marshall and Tim,” Evan said, straightening everything up and placing one of the square tiles in the middle of the table. “Hopefully I don’t mess this up.”
Evan explained the rules. You roll the dice and move your army guy, then roll again to move the zombies. When you land on a zombie, you need to kill it and put it in your bin. The goal is to kill twenty-five zombies or reach the helipad to escape. If you get killed, you go back to the start and lose half of your zombies. Evan’s longest game with Tim and Marshall went four and a half hours.
“I want to play as a zombie,” Lucy said.
“Not an option,” Evan replied.
“I’d let you be a zombie, Lucy,” Gram said.
“Thank you,” Lucy said with her best manners. “I motion to remove Evan from the game.”
Winter Town Page 6
