Heart on a String

by Susan Soares

  “So.” He broke through my thoughts. “You need gas?”

  “Oh… yeah… I mean… yes, yes,” I stammered.

  He pointed to the tow truck as if to signal that’s where the gas was kept, and then he walked towards it. I checked my face in the rear view mirror to make sure there weren’t any excess mascara flakes around my eyes. Why was I so nervous? He seemed to be acting normal. Why couldn’t I?

  Brandon returned to my car with a red gas can. I tried not to stare at him as he walked to the back of my car.

  “Can you unlock your gas cap?” he yelled to me.

  “Oh, sure, sorry.” I want to go home.

  Brandon walked back over to my window. “Okay, it’s all filled up. Why don’t you try to start it?”

  My hands were sweating, and I had a hard time getting the key to turn. I half-smiled at him as I tried to turn the key in the ignition again. This time when I turned it, the engine just seemed to make a sputtering sound, but it wouldn’t start up.

  “What was that sound?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” He looked puzzled. “Maybe it’s from the sugar I put in your gas tank.”

  I stared at him, but he laughed back. “Just kidding. Try it again.”

  This time as I turned the key I crossed my fingers. Again the engine seemed to whine before it sputtered and died.

  “What’s happening?” I tried not to sound panicked, but I was.

  “Can you pop the hood?” He walked to the front of my car as I scrambled to find the switch that popped the hood. Unfortunately, I popped the trunk first.

  “Oops,” I said, feeling my face go scarlet.

  He smiled and closed my trunk, then he said, “How about the hood this time?”

  I gave a sheepish grin then found the correct latch for the hood.

  After several minutes, he closed the hood of my car back down and came over to my window. “I’m not sure what it is, so I’ll have to tow you back to the garage.

  “Tow me back, now?” Could he hear the panic in my voice?

  “Yup.”

  He just stood there. I just sat there. It was silent for at least a minute. Then he began to whistle. After another minute he stopped. “So, are you going to get out of the car or what?”

  “What?” Some weird instinct made me grasp my steering wheel.

  “You have to ride in the truck with me.”

  Oh please, no. “It’s okay. I’ll just stay here while you tow it.”

  He seemed to be holding back a laugh. Then I watched him take my door handle and open my door. I felt cemented to my seat. “It doesn’t work that way. You have to ride with me.” He made a gesture like he was a footman and I was a princess exiting my carriage. It took all the lower body strength I had to lift my legs out of my car and stand upright. I was afraid I couldn’t walk on my own since my legs were quivering so much.

  “Just hop on up and have a seat. I’ll hook your car up, and we’ll be outta here in a few.” He turned his back to me and began unhooking the clamp thing to attach to my car. I methodically walked my way over to the passenger side of the truck and hoisted myself up. As he worked on attaching my car, I sat in the truck and closed my eyes. Please let this go well.

  For the first five minutes of the ride, I was silent. Brandon had called the garage to let them know he was bringing my car in, and he didn’t know what was wrong with it. I stifled a laugh when he tried to imitate the sounds my car was making when I tried to start it. Then he whistled for a few minutes as I sat there… stoic.

  “So,” he began. “This is kind of messed up, isn’t it?”

  I looked at his hands. He held the steering wheel loosely, letting his hands just barely touch it as he turned the wheel. His manner was gentle. “Totally messed up.” I cleared my throat, “Brandon, I—”

  “Do you know the story of that place?” he asked while pointing to a restaurant called The Grand View as we sat at a stop light.

  “Yeah. Isn’t there a ghost or something that haunts it?”

  He looked at me. “I’m impressed, Marissa.” My name sounded like chocolate melting on his tongue, warm and gooey. “The original owner’s wife died while cooking in the kitchen. And they say at every dinner service she’s still there, making sure everything runs perfectly. Her specialty is the crepes suzette. The rumor is that whichever chef makes them, they always leave out the cinnamon from her recipe. But then almost every customer who tastes them always comments on the amazing cinnamon flavor.” His voice fluctuated high then low, in an animated way.

  “So they think the ghost is putting ghostly cinnamon in the crepes?” Why did he know this?

  “That’s what they say.”

  I felt my heart palpitate, and I shifted my gaze out my window. He went back to whistling, and that was how we spent the next ten minutes until we got to the garage.

  Brandon introduced me to the mechanic who would be looking at my car. Brandon wasn’t a mechanic, he just helped out with odds and ends here at his uncle’s shop: C.A.R.S. — Customer Automotive Repairs Specialized. Not catchy, but cute, I suppose. I stood awkwardly in the middle of the garage while Brandon talked more with the mechanic about my car. Other men in coveralls were bustling about with tools in hand and grease on their faces. Standing there, I felt completely awkward and totally out of place, and I wished I had an invisibility potion to drink. No wait! A transport potion to take me straight home.

  “You don’t have to wait here. It may take a while. I’ll bring you over to the office area,” Brandon said.

  I followed behind him. His long stride doubled my own pace. He led me to a small office with a sign that read “Carl” on the front door. “Is that your secret identity?” I pointed to the name.

  The corners of his mouth rose up halfway. “You’re kinda funny. You know that?”

  My face instantly turned fuchsia. “Carl’s my uncle. I always hang out in here if I need to do homework or something when things are slow.” I watched him get two tiny cups of water from the dispenser, and he handed me one.

  “Do you work a lot?” I found a chair near the desk and sat down, spilling some of my water on my pants.

  “Just a few days a week. It helps my mom out a bit. Expenses and stuff.” He gulped his water like a shot and refilled it.

  “Oh,” I said lamely. What did he mean by helping out with expenses? I scanned the desk and saw a stack of schoolbooks. Amidst the collection of standard biology and algebra, there was a large book titled Complete Tales & Poems of Edgar Allan Poe. I sipped my water. “Do you have to read that for English or something?”

  “What?” He looked to the stack of books I was pointing to. “Poe? Nah, that’s my copy.”

  Somehow my body forgot how to swallow, and I choked a bit on my water. “What do you mean?” My voice sounded hoarse, and my eyes were welling with tears. Stupid water!

  “Are you all right?” He raised an eyebrow at me. I nodded my head and took another small sip of water. “Poe is kind of one of my things, I guess.” My face must have looked like it was covered in question marks. “Like, I’m really into Poe.” I could feel my eyebrows scrunching together. “Like, I’m part of a Poe lover’s group. Wow, I can’t believe I just said that. That sounded asinine.” He plopped himself down on the desk chair across from me.

  A few things now were blowing my mind about this guy. One: that he said the word asinine. What teenager says that? And two: that Edgar Allan Poe was one of his passions. Since I was about ten — that’s when I got heavily into poetry — Poe has been one of my top favorite poets. My all-time favorite poem is written by Poe. And now, Brandon Carter was telling me that Poe is “one of his things.” My mouth was gaping again, and I couldn’t make the muscles in my face close it for some reason.

  “You’re looking at me like I’m an idiot.”

  I remembered how to function again. “No, it’s just… Poe is one of my favorites too.”

  He moved forward in his chair. “Seriously?”

  I no
dded.

  “Favorite short story?” he asked.

  “Mesmeric Revelation.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Wow, impressive. See I would have known you were lying if you said The Raven.”

  “Because The Raven is a poem, not a short story.”

  “Exactly, but to say Mesmeric Revelation, now I know you’re a Poe Head.”

  “A what?”

  “Sorry, that’s what we sometimes call ourselves on the forums.”

  “The forums?”

  “Yeah, just an online community. Moving on.” He shifted in his seat like he had said too much. “Favorite poem?”

  I looked down. It was silent for a moment before he spoke. “Too many to choose from?”

  “No, it’s not that. I just kind of want to keep it for myself.”

  He tilted his head back in agreement. “I get that. So tell me—” There was a knock at the door, and it was the mechanic who had been working on my car.

  “Hey, your car is gonna need the transmission fluid flushed out,” he said while wiping black gunk off his hands onto a rag that I could only guess at one time was white.

  “And that’s going to cost me how much?” I picked at a hangnail.

  “Eighty-five.”

  I wondered if my gulp was audible. “Eighty-five?”

  “Yup. But then she should be good.” Did he mean “she” as in the car or me? I gave him my debit card and felt myself cringe a bit when he swiped it. Bye-bye paycheck.

  “Hey Brandon, why don’t you come help me?” he said just as Brandon was getting another cup of water.

  “Now?” Brandon’s said.

  “We’ll get her out of here quicker if you help.” The mechanic took a cup of water for himself. Brandon looked at me just briefly, and my toes curled inside my shoes.

  “Sure thing,” he said to the mechanic. Before he left the room, he grabbed the Poe book and handed it to me.

  “Feel free to dog ear the corner of the page your favorite poem is on.”

  Fifty-five minutes, four short stories, and twelve Poe poems later, Brandon popped back into the office. “You’re all set.” He handed me my keys, which felt a little grimy.

  “Great, thanks.” I stood up, and we both stood there not knowing what to do next. I felt weird for a moment, like I knew too much about him, even though I knew very little. Just knowing that his younger brother died, he helped his mom with expenses, he worked a few days a week helping at his uncle’s shop, he loved Edgar Allan Poe — I felt like a secret detective gaining all these clues about him but he knew nothing about me. But that’s how I wanted it to be. Kind of. Sort of.

  “I’ll walk you to your car,” he finally said.

  “Oh, okay.” I followed behind him again.

  “You know, it’d be better if you walk beside me instead of behind me.”

  “Oh, okay,” I said again as I moved up beside him, but far enough away that there was a distance. Always a distance. We arrived at my car, and I thanked him again.

  “Listen, this is kind of weird.” He looked to the ground. “I should’ve asked this before, like, on the car ride or something because now I feel rushed, and that’s just weird,” He kicked some pebbles, and they scattered around my foot. “See my brother, Nicholas, the one who wrote the letter…” My heart skipped, and I looked to the ground. “He wants to meet you.”

  “He what?” My voice rang through the air.

  “Yeah. I told him about what happened.”

  “Everything?” I hadn’t even told Brandon everything.

  “We kind of have this rule in my house. Complete disclosure, my mom calls it. Anyway, I told him what happened to the balloon and the letter, and how you got it back for us, and… he wants to meet you.”

  I felt like a snowman on a seventy-degree day. “I don’t know.”

  “Listen, I know it’s a bit weird, but I mean, the kid’s been through a lot. We all have.” We met each other’s eyes when he spoke the last sentence. “He just wants to thank you. Would you consider coming over for dinner? My mom makes great lasagna.”

  Before I could even think, I spoke. “Okay.”

  After I responded, I don’t know what Brandon said next. There was a goodbye in there somewhere, but that’s all. I got in my car, and I looked back into the garage in my rear view mirror. Carelessly, I tossed my purse into the backseat, causing it to spill. As I twisted myself to retrieve some of its contents, I saw a cord sticking out from under the passenger seat. I pulled on it to reveal my car cell phone charger. Of course it’s there!

  After I plugged the charger into my phone, I watched the little battery icon come on and begin charging. I sent a text to Zoe.

  Will call u in a little while. U wont believe what happened 2 me 2nite.

  Chapter Ten

  “So you, like, owe me then,” Zoe said, and even over the phone I could hear the smugness in her voice.

  I readjusted myself on my bed. “How do I owe you?”

  “If I had put gas in your car, you would’ve driven home and never gotten to hook up with Brandon and be invited over to his house. So it’s pretty cool of me, and it was subconscious.” She snapped her gum, and it made my eardrum hurt.

  “You mean unconscious. And I don’t think I want to go to his house for dinner. I mean, Zoe, what am I going to say? How am I supposed to act?” I buried my face in my pillow.

  “Just, be cool.”

  “Thanks, you’re so helpful,” I mumbled, my face still partly in the pillow.

  “You get all rambly when you like someone, so just, you know, don’t do that.” She popped her gum.

  Like someone? “What do you mean? I don’t like him.” A strange huff sound came out of me.

  “Ha! Liar. Tell me what color are his eyes?”

  “Soft hazel,” I replied way too quickly.

  Zoe laughed. “Yup, you like him.”

  Okay, so maybe Brandon did have this unpretentious, manly, magnetically attractive thing going on. So what? I mean we couldn’t, like, get involved. What an inappropriate way to start a relationship. I intruded on his life. Me being in his inner circle was never supposed to happen. If I had just been paying attention that morning on my run, I never would have even seen the stupid balloon stuck in the tree. But I did. And now, I was invited over to his house, the house that was grieving the loss of Bobby Carter. Not to mention the people that lived inside it that were doing the same.

  “It’s just not supposed to happen,” I tried to say confidently.

  Zoe snapped her gum. “Yeah, okay, you keep telling yourself that as you’re looking into his soft hazel eyes.”

  As we said goodbye I heard her laughing on the other end. Why did I agree to meet his family?

  ****

  It was Sunday night, and I was staring at the eucalyptus wreath that hung on the white front door of 16 Chatum Lane. Brandon’s house. He had texted me mid-morning to inform me that every Sunday was lasagna night and to ask if it would be possible for me to come tonight. I figured it was better to get this over sooner than later, so I agreed.

  I tugged on my purple scarf that now felt like it was choking me. It had probably only been a minute or two, but it felt like I had been standing in front of that door for days. Every muscle in my body tensed as I began to knock quietly on the door. Almost instantly, Brandon swung the door open.

  “Hey.” He was wearing weathered blue jeans and a green shirt with a local sports team logo on it.

  I exhaled softly, relieved that it was he who answered the door, and not his mother or younger brother. “Hey.” I walked over the threshold and felt like I was somehow leaving my old secure life behind for some new unknown one.

  “Do you want me to take your coat?” He held out his hands to me.

  “Are you sure you’re a teenager?”

  He smirked. “My grandmother taught me good manners. Is that a crime?” His voice was playful.

  I let him help me off with my coat. “Not at all. I’m just not used to tha
t type of thing, I guess.” I must have sounded so stupid.

  “I see.” He hung my brown suede coat up on a hook near the front door. “So you were raised in a barn then I take it?”

  Before I could respond, a woman’s voice lilted into the room from the kitchen. “Brandon? Are you going to bring her back here, or do I have to come get her?”

  Brandon put his hand on my lower back and steered me toward the voice. “Just relax,” he whispered.

  Somehow the way he was with me, the way he seemed to already know things about me, made me even more nervous. We walked into the kitchen, and I saw the back of his mother. She was slicing up some garlic bread that smelled heavenly.

  “Mom,” Brandon said, and she turned around. Her eyes locked straight on me, and I couldn’t help but look at the floor.

  She crossed over, stopping in front of me. “I usually don’t forewarn people but,” she stopped and looked me straight in the eyes. “I’m a hugger.” Then she wrapped her arms around me and gave me a little squeeze, the type only mothers know how to give. “Thank you for what you did. Whatever made you do it, I’m grateful,” she whispered to me, and the smell of her vanilla perfume touched upon something visceral inside me and it made me want to cry.

  “It’s fine. I mean, you’re welcome.” My voice sounded weak and far off.

  When she unwrapped herself from me, I was able to look at her more closely. Her eyes were a mix of hazel and brown. She had thin lips that were coated in a soft pink gloss. Frosted blond hair fell neatly at her shoulders, and her side-swept bangs almost covered one of her eyes. She was beautiful.

  “Well,” she began, “everything’s ready, so why don’t we move into the dining room? Brandon, honey, grab the bread please, and don’t eat any on the way from here to the table.” She shooed him over to the bread. “He always sneaks a piece,” she said to me while we walked to the dining room.

  She retreated back into the kitchen, and I stood near the table unsure of where to sit. In my house, if anyone sat in Marc’s chair, he’d throw a fit. I didn’t want that to happen here, so I stood awkwardly near one of the table ends. Brandon’s mother came into the room carrying a large salad.