It’s tomorrow, and I still haven’t figured out how to make up the difference between what we’ve promised Eddie and what I have. Matt said he had a plan, but he’s disappeared on me, hasn’t answered any of my messages for days. I’ve got one more card to play, later on tonight. If that doesn’t work, I’m going to be at Eddie’s mercy.
I’m bobbing my head and nodding along to the story, ignoring Hazel watching me out of the corner of her eye. The waitress brings me more coffee and looks disappointed when I tell her I don’t want anything besides the mozzarella sticks. David’s story finally seems to be over, and the kid whose name I don’t remember crunches some ice from his drink and turns his attention to me.
“What’s going on with your boy Matt?” he asks.
“He’s working a lot this summer. We hang out sometimes.”
“I heard he’s got something going on with a much older woman.”
I shrug. “I don’t know.”
He looks over at David, who replies, “Sarah Jessup. Her dad was on the force.” David’s father is a police officer, although I think he’s on disability now.
“The famous one, right?” the kid asks.
David nods importantly into his drink. “The one in the picture.”
The guy who asked about the drugs is twisted around in his booth again, listening. “Are you telling me that Matt Simpson’s boning the daughter of the cop who’s carrying you in the picture?” he says to me.
The girl next to him and Hazel break into a chorus of giggles. I smile weakly and shrug.
The boy smirks and turns back to his table. Hazel and the no-name guy at our table are getting into something having to do with the sugar packets; one of them dumped sugar in the other’s coffee, and now they’re throwing the little packets back and forth across the table at each other and laughing. I wonder if they’re together, and for some reason, I feel a surge of desire for Hazel and jealousy of this guy. I could’ve gone out with her, and now I almost wish I did. Not taking her to prom felt like a matter of principle at the time, like I wasn’t going to settle for less than what I wanted, like I was going to stay loyal to my love for Viola, but the reality is that I was spooked. The only thing I was staying loyal to was my loneliness.
I turn from the window and look over at the counter. Almost all the stools are empty now; just one of the cooks from the back is taking a break and watching the TV that’s nestled in the corner by the ceiling. It didn’t used to be there. I scan the failed House and Senate bills covering the walls, looking for any new ones, letting the moments slip by . . .
One moment leads inexorably into another, and most of them go by unnoticed, but some of them hurt more than you’d think they could. They fall away just the same way, though, regardless of their significance. There wasn’t any change in camera angle at the moment my father died. Nothing went into slow motion. There wasn’t a close-up on anyone’s face; there wasn’t a soundtrack; there wasn’t anything to set it apart. It was just a moment that we were in together, and then there was another, without him in it with me.
A sugar packet strikes me right between the eyes. “Hewitt,” the nameless kid says. “Mission control, come in.” Hazel giggles and kicks him under the table.
I put my cup down. “What’s up?” I ask.
“I said, what’re you doing with yourself this summer?”
“I’m working at Finn’s and taking it easy. You know. Nothing much. Might go away or something.”
“You deferred, right?”
I nod. There isn’t much to say about it. I take another sip of coffee as the table lapses into an awkward silence. I look out the window, and there she is, coming out fifteen minutes earlier than I thought she would. I finish the coffee in one gulp and get up from the booth, grabbing my backpack. I take a twenty from my pocket and toss it on the table and say goodbye, and then I’m out the door and hustling across the street.
She’s wearing a black skirt and a matching jacket, a white blouse, and carrying a leather briefcase.
“Viola!”
She spins around. “Cole! What are you doing here?”
The horrible thought crosses my mind that she’s meeting someone else. I imagine Conrad pulling up in some uber-expensive German sports car.
“I was just over at the diner, trying to catch up on my writing. Getting off work?”
“I am.”
“You want a ride home?”
She looks me up and down. “I haven’t see you in a while.”
“Yeah, I’ve been super busy. So . . .” I nod toward my car, parked at the curb. I have this all planned out; I’ll drive her home, and when I pull up to her house, I’ll turn to her and ask her to meet me at the fairgrounds tomorrow at sunset.
“I was looking forward to walking. I’ve been inside all day.”
“I’ll walk with you.” I shoulder my backpack, and we set off down the street together.
“Where have you been?” she asks.
Where have I been? I’ve been writing. Reading and writing, writing and reading, barely stopping. Shut up in my room with a mountain of laundry, piles of dirty dishes, and about three dozen library books. That’s why writing at the diner seemed like an appealing way to wait for her this afternoon.
“Sorry,” I say. “I’ve been tied up. Lots of hours at Finn’s.”
“I’d say so.”
I’ve wanted to see her, for sure. But I want this poem to be perfect, the poem I’m planning to recite in the balloon. I’ve been reading the Romantics, Keats and Byron and Shelley, and Shakespeare’s sonnets. I was blocked for a while, totally stuck, but now I think I have something really good.
We walk on, leaving the downtown. The heat from earlier today has backed off a little bit, and the sidewalk here is covered in shade. Viola stops by a telephone pole and leans against it as she reaches down to adjust a shoe.
“Men are lucky, Cole. These things are killing me. I don’t understand shoes that aren’t made for walking.” She slides them off and stretches her toes.
“Let me carry your bag,” I say.
“It’s fine.”
“Are your feet okay? There are acorns. Here, wear mine.” Without thinking, I kick my sneakers off and push them toward her.
“I’m not going to wear your shoes, Cole. Are you saying I have big feet?”
“No, they’re too big—the shoes, I mean, not your feet—but, you know, they’re better than nothing. There might be broken glass.”
“I’m fine.” She continues on in bare feet. I scoop my shoes up and hurry to catch her.
“I love summer nights,” I say. “Have you ever been out in a boat on a summer night?”
“Not that I can think of. Well, I had a friend who had a boat. His family used to take us out on the Thames, and I guess sometimes it was in the summer.”
“I mean a little boat. Without a motor. So it’s quiet.”
“A rowboat?”
“Yeah.”
“I tried to row a boat in Hyde Park once, but the oars were so heavy. They don’t look like they are when someone strong is using them. I got out on the lake and couldn’t get back in. My father had to rent a second boat and row out himself and tow me in. It was embarrassing. He wasn’t happy.”
“Was this recent?”
“No, I must have been, I don’t know, maybe eleven or twelve.”
“My father used to row us. Out at the lake. There’s only one lifeguard boat there now, but when I was younger, there were two, and they used to let him take one of them. I guess they figured that the chances of two emergencies at once were pretty slim. It was like the one that’s there now, this big wooden thing, and we’d flip it and slide it into the water. He’d let me help, though I wasn’t really doing anything; it was so heavy. Then he’d row us up and down the lake, out into the middle. The oars were too heavy for me, too.”
“Hmm.” We’re into a residential area now. She speeds up without looking at me, a bit too fast to have a conversation. “How fa
r are you going to walk, Cole? Your car is back in town.”
“I don’t know. It’s a nice evening.”
“It is indeed.” She sighs and looks up at the sky. “It’s supposed to stay nice for a few days. Not too hot. I wish I was going to be here.”
“Where are you going?”
“Plans changed. My parents. They never think to tell me, you know? Conrad and his family came early. They came today. We’re flying up to Nantucket tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? You’re leaving tomorrow?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow.”
I stop walking.
“Cole?” She’s stopped and turned.
I realize that I’m scanning the ground alongside the sidewalk, looking for something I recognize, a name I know. Just a flower, a weed, anything.
“Cole? What’s the matter?”
“Don’t go.”
“What?”
“Don’t go to Nantucket.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Don’t go tomorrow, at least. I want you to . . . I want you to meet me.”
A pause, then, “Where do you want me to meet you, Cole?”
“Meet me at the fairground. You know the state fairgrounds? Meet me out there. Meet me at six thirty tomorrow night, just inside the gates . . .”
“Is there a, a fair or a carnival or something?”
“No.”
“Then . . .”
“Just meet me there. Please.”
“Cole . . .”
“I know, I know, it’s crazy. I know you’re supposed to go to Nantucket. I know Conrad has his plane, and your parents . . . I just, please. I want to show you something.”
“What am I supposed to do, Cole? Just, what, tell my parents to go without me?”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Why not?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“Why, Cole? How about that? You tell me that. Why should I?”
“Because I have a surprise for you.”
“Jesus Christ. You have a surprise for me?”
“Yes.”
“You know what would have been a surprise, Cole? If you’d returned one of my texts. That would have been a surprise. If you’d given me a ride home from Matt’s party, that would have been a surprise. If you’d sat with me and drunk a whole glass of lemonade, and maybe even read a poem or two, what a surprise that would have been!”
I stare at her, speechless. She goes on.
“I was surprised, Cole. I was surprised when you disappeared after you had been coming around, when it had seemed like you enjoyed spending time with me.”
“I did . . . I do enjoy spending time with you.”
“Then where have you been?”
I’ve been retreating.
“I’ve been writing a poem.”
“You’ve been writing a poem?”
“For you. It’s for you.”
She shakes her head wearily. “The summer’s over, Cole. I don’t want a poem. I think it’s too late for poems.”
“Don’t say that.”
“I don’t understand you. I don’t understand you at all. All summer long, you’ve been, I don’t know. You’ve been . . . hesitant.”
“I know.”
“I don’t know what you want.”
“I know.”
“And now . . . it’s the end of August, Cole. It’s time for me to go.”
“I know. I know. Just, please, tomorrow night.”
“You hurt me, Cole. I liked you. You’re someone special. I wanted you to be someone special for me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met. You . . . you know about flowers. Do you know, now when I walk Winnie, we always go down to that little stream we discovered?”
“You do?”
“We go and we look at the water, look at the flowers. I never knew that stream was there. All the times I walked by it.”
I nod.
She shakes her head and looks away. “Everyone else in my life is going somewhere. You were different, and I liked that.”
“You liked that I’m not going anywhere?”
“I liked that you are where you are now. You’re not someplace else.”
“So stay here with me. One more day. Meet me tomorrow night.”
She shakes her head again. “I don’t know.”
I’m not going to say “please” again.
“Please.”
“How do I know you’re even going to be there? How do I know you’re not going to be off somewhere, writing your damn poem?”
“The poem’s done.”
“I don’t believe you’ll be there.”
“I’ll be there,” I say. “Six thirty. No matter what. I’ll be there.”
“I don’t know how to tell my parents that I’m not going with them so that I can . . . what? Be surprised? Hear a poem?”
“You can get on that plane,” I tell her. “You can fly off to Nantucket and to the rest of your life, but I promise you, I promise you that I will be there tomorrow night. Even if you won’t. I will be there.”
“Fuck you, Cole. That’s not fair.”
“I will be there.”
“So, I get to fly away and think about you out on the fairgrounds, all by yourself? Fuck you.”
I shake my head. I’ve got nothing else. “I’ll be there. You don’t have to feel bad if you’re not. But I’ll be there.”
She turns away and continues on down the sidewalk, pausing to slip her shoes back on. She doesn’t look back. When she gets to the end of the block, she turns the corner and I lose sight of her.
I start back toward town, still in my socks. A breeze is picking up now, and I close my eyes and let it wash over my face and hair, realizing that I’m sweating. There’s a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. I finally stop when I pass a bench and sit to put my shoes back on. I’m not hurrying. I turn down a side street. My phone rings, and I snatch it from my pocket, wondering whether it might be Viola. It’s not.
“Cole, baby.”
“Hi, Mom.”
“Where are you?”
“Just out, walking. Are you all right?”
“Of course I’m all right. I was just checking in with you. I’m heading out for the evening with a friend and there’s nothing in the fridge for dinner, so you should grab something, or order in.”
“Sure. Sure I will. Who are you going out with?”
“I’ll leave some cash.”
“Okay. I’ll be fine. You’re doing all right?”
“I’m good, Cole. Love you, baby.”
“Love you, too.”
I hang up and keep walking. At least I won’t have to worry about her being at home, worrying about me.
I haven’t been down this way in a really long time. I recognize some of the houses, and then I pass one with a little garden in the corner of the yard. It has a small fountain, a statue of an angel holding a seashell with water rising out of it. I know what this is. It’s Susie Edwards’s old house, and that’s the fountain her mom put in after she died. It’s where she had those weird posthumous birthday parties. I study it, the water rising up and then arcing down, still caught in the basin perfectly after all these years.
I’m standing here in front of Susie’s old house, and something’s building up inside me, something I haven’t felt before. I don’t even have a word for it. It’s an anger, and a bitterness, and a need that I don’t know what to do with. This is what people are going to do with all those pills I’m giving Eddie, I think. All these people out there, feeling something like this. They’re going to use the pills to make this feeling go away.
I kick a golf ball–size stone that was sitting on the edge of the sidewalk. I used to play soccer. I wasn’t very good, but the stone sails straight and true, bending through the air, straight into the fountain. The angel’s head shatters, and a piece breaks off the seashell. The water is still coming out, but now it’s spraying at an angl
e, landing in the bushes alongside the garden. A dog in a nearby yard begins to bark. I look at the house, but the windows are dark. There’s no car in the driveway.
I step onto the lawn and examine the ruined fountain. There’s no way to set the head back on the angel. It barely matters, I think. This town sprouts memorials like mushrooms. Everywhere you look, there’s something. Still, this was just for Susie. I remember her mother’s face when she laid the cakes down here. I wonder whether she still comes out on Susie’s birthdays, by herself. I retreat to the sidewalk and continue on my way, telling myself that I’ll mail her some money or something, even though I know I won’t.
I get back to town without realizing it. I take a deep breath. My mind is clearing. My car is across the street, and I make my way over. It’s past six, things are mostly closed, but not the pharmacy over in Wynnewood. Maybe Viola will be there tomorrow night. Maybe she won’t. Most likely she’ll be up in the air with Conrad, flying along the coast, heading to Nantucket. The chances of everything lining up, Viola and Matt and Eddie, everything clicking into place, seem incredibly remote. Still, I know one thing: I’ll be there. I can’t stop now. I may fail, but it won’t be because I didn’t show up.
I start the car and pull away from the curb, into the evening traffic.
Fourteen
— Matt —
Sarah took me back after the argument at the ball field. We didn’t talk about it at all, just went on with what we had been doing. Meeting at her house, though I haven’t been spending the night, and I’m less and less careful about where I park and about sneaking in the back. This evening I walk to her house after work and go right in the front door.
“Sarah?”
“Down in a minute.”
I stroll into her empty, generic, undecorated living room. A moment later she comes down the stairs. “I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”
I shrug. She studies me in that way she does, like she’s weighing her options. She’s wearing jeans and a V-necked men’s undershirt. She looks great. We sit on the couch, close to each other but not touching. I feel like there’s nothing to talk about.
Every Moment After Page 21
