The Promise of Amazing

by Robin Constantine

  Working at the Camelot had never been this fun. Period. With Grayson there, the night flew by. I found myself making excuses to be near him, all under the guise of helping him out, like showing him the best way to stack dirty dishes to get the most on a tray or the difference between the decaf and the regular pots of coffee—as if any of that took a degree in rocket science. He mastered it all, easily, and more than once I caught the guests flirting with him. I wasn’t the only one influenced by his stellar grin.

  “So now what?” he asked, coming up behind me after he’d finished taking the last tray of dirty dishes to the kitchen.

  “Just waiting until everyone leaves,” I said, peering out the windows in the double doors. “Then we can break down the room.”

  “And then what?” His voice was quiet, low.

  I spun to face him, aware of the short distance between us.

  “And then . . . we—”

  Eben joined us, peering out the door. “Are they ever going to leave?”

  “I know, right?” I said, dropping Grayson’s question without answering.

  And then what? My mouth went dry.

  “Hey, I’m starving. Want to hit Leaning Tower after this? You can tell me all about Brooke and your Thanksgiving drama,” Eben said.

  “Yes, that sounds great,” I answered, looking back at Gray.

  “Why don’t you join us?” Eben asked him. My heart froze, waiting for his response.

  “If Wren doesn’t consider it stalking, sure, I’ll go,” he said, eyes on mine.

  “Yeah, you should come.”

  “And they’re out,” Eben said, throwing open the door. The rest of us followed him, a black-and-white wave pulling tablecloths and stuffing them into giant laundry bags. I couldn’t finish the last task of the evening quickly enough, the thought of sitting across from Grayson propelling me at record speed. As I yanked the tablecloth off the last table, someone wrapped their very cold hands around my eyes.

  I jumped, peeling back frozen fingers. . . .

  “Mads!” I dropped the tablecloth at our feet.

  “Surprise!”

  “What are you doing here?” She was dressed in thigh-high black boots and a black micromini, which would have been obscene if she hadn’t been wearing black tights. Her bronze ski jacket gathered at her waist, and her short hair was tousled to pixie perfection. In my Camelot duds, I felt like a prime candidate for an ambush makeover.

  “Bringing you a present,” she said, motioning toward the front doors of the ballroom. Zach was there, posing in a lewd way next to Sir Gus, while another, taller boy took a picture with his phone. A present?

  “Mads?”

  “Before you say no, he’s Zach’s cousin from Baltimore, in for the weekend. If you don’t like him, you never have to see him again, and hey, if you do, Baltimore is, what, like three or four hours away? Win-win, Wren.”

  “Hey, you,” Eben said, coming up behind Maddie with an armload of tablecloths. “Come on, let me see this ensemble you’re rocking.”

  Mads pivoted gracefully on one foot and curtsied.

  “Gorgeous as always,” Eben said. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”

  “Eben, pretty, pretty, pretty please release Wren from her servitude for some fun!”

  Just then Zach entered the ballroom with a howl, lumbering across the dance floor toward us like an escapee from the zoo. For the life of me, I did not understand what Mads saw in him. She was artistic, smart, and cool. He was picking a college based on its Greek life. My “present” trailed behind, his head down, keeping his distance.

  “Mads, I sort of have plans,” I said, right before Zach engulfed her in a bear hug from behind.

  “Oh, Wren, please,” Eben said, waving me off. “Go. Have fun. You can—”

  “Grayson!” Maddie said, prying Zach’s hands off of her.

  “Hey, Maddie,” Grayson said, plopping a giant laundry bag in the center of our circle.

  “Since when are you working here?” Maddie asked, eyes darting between us. Once she and Grayson were talking, I got Eben’s attention.

  “I really want to go to Leaning Tower,” I said low, trying to motion behind me by tilting my head toward Grayson.

  Eben squinted a moment until a lightbulb finally came on. “Oh, wow. Wren . . .”

  “. . . so you see I’m not taking no for an answer . . .” Mads said, tugging on my arm to face a tall boy with chestnut hair. Whoa. This guy wasn’t one of Zach’s soccer dudes. I took a step back, suddenly self-conscious in my work clothes. He smiled, almost apologetically, and chuckled through his nose. His only apparent flaw? He wasn’t Grayson.

  “Caleb, this is Wren. Wren, Caleb,” Zach said. He and Maddie were beaming, as if Caleb and I were getting betrothed in front of them.

  “Hey,” we said together. Caleb pawed the dance floor with the tip of his Timberland. I turned to Grayson.

  “Go. We’ll hang another time,” he said.

  My heart deflated. For real? “Oh, um, okay. Sure you don’t mind if I skip out now?”

  “Baby, we got this,” Eben said, stuffing the rest of the tablecloths into the laundry bag. “Go!”

  Maddie linked her arm through mine, and we followed the boys to the lobby, where Zach continued to act like a five-year-old with Sir Gus. I fetched my coat and purse from the office.

  “Hey, why don’t we ask Grayson to hang out too?” I asked.

  Maddie frowned. “Wren,” she whispered, “it’s a party for four. And it’s Zach’s cousin. Please do this for me?”

  I shrugged on my coat and looked into the ballroom. Grayson was still there, giant laundry bag slung over his shoulder. He waved. I waved back, hoping the gesture would communicate . . . what? That I wanted to stay? That I was sorry Maddie showed up unexpectedly with a boy toy for me for the evening? Did he really mean we’d hang out another time?

  “Sure,” I said, committing to my decision. “But at least let me stop home to get changed first.”

  EIGHT

  GRAYSON

  “TIMBERLANDS,” I SAID. “THE UNIVERSAL SHOE choice of complete tools. Poor Wren.”

  “Jealous much?” Eben asked, stuffing the last of the tablecloths into the bag.

  “Jealous? Of what?” I asked, hoisting the laundry bag over my shoulder. At that moment Wren came into view. She caught me staring. I waved. Me. The village idiot with a nutsack-shaped thirty-pound bag of laundry on his back. Jealous couldn’t even describe what I felt when I watched the four of them disappear into the night.

  “That was more about Maddie,” Eben said. “You do realize that?”

  “Whatever.” What had I expected by taking this job? Of course she thought I was stalking her. Was I stalking her? No. Stalking was sinister, like I wanted to scalp her and make a sweater from her hair. I had something more, ah, mutually pleasurable in mind. I thought—well, she felt the same, didn’t she? We’d been getting along all night.

  I followed Eben to the loading-dock door and slammed the laundry down.

  “So we’re done?” I asked, wiping my hands off on my pants.

  “Still want to go to Leaning Tower?” he asked. “I can see that Wren’s leaving has your boxers in a bunch, and I’m as hungry as hell and don’t feel like eating alone.”

  “I could eat,” I offered.

  “Great, see ya there.”

  Eben was sitting in a front booth when I arrived. He had a couple of Corona longnecks in a bucket of ice and one opened in his hand. I slid into the cushy, red-booth seat across from him.

  “Can I grab one of those?” I asked, taking off my jacket.

  “They’ll card you,” he said, smiling.

  “No problem,” I answered, taking one and wiping off the excess water with my cuff. The waitress came over. An older chick, probably about Eben’s age. Cute.

  “I’m going to need some ID.”

  “Really? C’mon,” I said, leaning back. She stiffened. Eben shifted in his seat.

  “My manager is over th
ere, and if you want me to open this for you, you’re going to have to prove you can legally drink it.”

  “Sorry, just messing with you. No one’s asked for this since my birthday,” I said, reaching into my back pocket and pulling out my wallet. She grabbed my ID and held my gaze a moment before putting it up to the stained-glass lamp that hung over the table. Her light eyes scanned the important information. Satisfied, she handed it back to me.

  “Do you want a lime?” she asked, cracking the cap off with a bottle opener.

  “Nah,” I said. Her fingers grazed mine as she pulled away.

  “Don’t mess with me, Mike. I’m not in the mood.”

  I raised the beer to her before taking a sip.

  Eben sat bug-eyed across the table. “Mike?”

  “It’s the name on my ID.”

  “I get that, but I just witnessed you transform into a completely different person than you were back at the Camelot. It’s like the air around you changed,” he said, fanning his hand around.

  “C’mon,” I said.

  “So tell me this,” he said, leaning across the table. “Why should I be in your corner and not, say, the tool in the Timbos?”

  I almost snotted my beer. “What do you mean?”

  “Mike. Grayson. Whatever your name is, it’s plain to see you’re into Wren. You were heartbroken back—”

  “Whoa, dude, I don’t get heartbroken.”

  “Well, dude, you sure played the part back at the Camelot. And I’m right with you. Maddie means well, has been trying to hook Wren up since her jackwad of a boyfriend dumped her at the beach over the summer—but Wren’s not into it.”

  “Someone dumped Wren . . . at the beach?” I sat up straight, intrigued. “Continue.”

  “Then today . . . there’s something different about her. I didn’t put two and two together until the end of the night, after I egged her on to go with Maddie, and she told me she wanted to hang with us. Or more correctly . . . you.”

  Hope bubbled in my chest. “She said that?”

  “Yes, but not so fast—I’m not sure you’re worthy of her either.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You appear out of nowhere. Mysterious, hair-flinging boy giving all his attention to my pretty little hothouse wallflower. My Spidey sense is up to begin with, and now this . . . Mike.”

  “Hothouse wallflower?”

  “Wren is all kinds of awesome; she just doesn’t know it. Being dumped really did a number on her pride. So she thinks it’s easier to hide out at the Camelot every weekend and call it work instead of putting herself out there. I want to make sure you’re not just playing her. Why are you interested?”

  A question I’d tossed around myself. Eben seemed like the kind of person who might understand or who would at least listen, and considering my friends were scarce these days, I had nothing to lose.

  “You know that saying, ‘One door closes, another door opens’?”

  “My bullshit meter is off the charts,” he said, taking a long sip from his beer.

  “Okay, Eben, I’m a total screwup. Got kicked out of school last year; my friends are gone. Any future I thought I had is on hold at the moment, and in walks Wren. . . .”

  “And?”

  “And I want to know her.”

  “Know her how?”

  Knowing Wren in every sense of the word had crossed my mind, but it wasn’t the first thing. And that was something I hadn’t experienced since, like, never. I dug the way I felt around her. I could be myself, but a new-and-improved version.

  “She’s . . . sweet. Smart. I feel good around her, like it’s okay to be myself. And I think she’s the kind of person who is, you know, naturally good. Not because it’s right or anything, just because that’s who she is, like a moral compass. I want her in my life, and if that’s just as friends, well, okay. I’m down for that.”

  “Well, I was hoping for something sexier than a moral compass, but okay. I like you for her,” he said, clinking his beer against mine. “But I smell an iota of bullshit and . . .”

  “And I leave the Camelot.”

  “Glad we understand each other,” he said.

  The waitress came back with our pizza and set it down on the stand between us. My stomach growled, but something else Eben had said bothered me. He took a plate, doled out a slice, and handed it to me.

  “Dude, do I really fling my hair?”

  Three beers and four slices later, I left Leaning Tower buzzing with something that felt like good cheer. The Chrysler was safe on a side street for the night, and I walked the ten blocks home, trying to stuff down thoughts of Wren and Caleb. Together. Somewhere warm. You told her to go, idiot.

  So much for good cheer.

  My house was dark, but I made no attempt to walk in quietly. Dad and Tiff were most likely out at some function, playing the part of the power sales couple. I went to the fridge, determined to reignite my buzz, and reached for a can of whatever beer my father chose to stock. I popped the lid, walked over to the great room, and screamed like a second grader when I saw a shadowy figure sitting on the sectional.

  “Pop, what the hell?”

  His throaty “Gotcha” cackle made me smile in spite of my heart, which was ready to tear out of my chest. “That was a good one.”

  “Why are you sitting in the dark?”

  “Eh, don’t know. I’ve been sitting here awhile. It’s peaceful. Tiff’s out at a Black Friday blowout sale with her friends. Where’ve you been?”

  “I got a job. At the Camelot,” I said.

  “Really? Why?” he asked, tipping his nightly glass of Bushmills to his lips. I sat down on the opposite end of the sofa.

  “Don’t know. Seemed like a good thing to do. A way to keep busy,” I answered.

  “Guess it’s better than pounding those drums.”

  “Yeah, guess so.”

  “Your mom called.”

  I swallowed, hard, the cold beer burning the back of my throat. The taste of grease and cheese snaked its way up, not as good the second time around. Pop and Tiff had been out when I got in the night before and were still sleeping when I’d left in the morning. We hadn’t discussed Thanksgiving at all.

  “Why did you hightail it out of there before dessert?”

  I shrugged. “Watching my figure.”

  Pop took another sip of Bushmills. “Your mother told me about the lacrosse thing. Grayson, if it bothers you so much, there’s got to be some league you could play in.”

  “Pop, it doesn’t bother me,” I said, not wanting to get into a conversation about how I missed St. Gabe’s, which would just set him off into stories from his glory days. Today had been a good day, a day I’d forgotten about all that other crap.

  “Then why’d you leave? You know how much this stuff upsets your mother. You have to take one for the team now and again.”

  “What team? I’m definitely not an Easton.”

  He swirled the whiskey in his glass. “Grayson, you know, if the tables were turned and you agreed to live with her, there’d be no way I’d put up with your bullshit. They are your family. It’s about time you came ’round to it.”

  The day my mother left wasn’t monumental. My parents’ divorce was sickeningly amicable. That’s the word I heard them use when talking to friends. I remember looking it up. Peaceful. And on the surface, it was true. There were no shouting matches. No glasses thrown across the room. No heated debates over who got what. They simply woke up one day, decided they didn’t like the life they were living, and said, “Okay, done with this . . . next.” But the one thing they couldn’t split down the middle was me.

  My mother had wanted me to live in Connecticut with her and Laird. This was before I figured out they’d probably been together before she broke up with Pop. I was in sixth grade and didn’t want to leave my friends. That was natural, she’d said, but I’d make new friends. Have better opportunities. A whole new world. And a dog.

  I’d been groomed by Pop to go to St. Ga
be’s. The silver and crimson Crusaders. Sat and froze my butt off during every Turkey Day game with him telling me, “That’ll be you someday, kid.” And even though I had no interest in football, the way he took such pride in it, the way he talked about the good old days, made St. Gabe’s sound like the only place for me.

  But the dog . . . the dog was a tipping point. My mother had given me an out clause: If I completely hated it, I could come back and live with Pop. I would have weekends and holidays in Bayonne and summer vacations wherever he chose to take me. It would all work out great, she assured me. And I had decided as much. It was after school, on a Friday at dusk, when I’d padded down the stairs to tell him I’d give the Connecticut thing a try.

  He’d stood with his back to me by our sliding doors to the deck. We had this thing about scaring each other, and I was stoked, because damn, this was a good one. He’d been so deep in thought, he hadn’t even heard me walk across the living room floor. I was about parallel to him, ready to pounce, when I noticed he was crying. Not sobs, just quiet, wet streams on his face. He was holding his glass of Bushmills, swirling the ice in the glass. And in that instant, even at eleven, I knew that if I left, this was what his life would become. When he saw me, he staggered back and dropped the glass of whiskey. The moment became about mops and blotting and vacuuming the shards, and it all took a good ten minutes to clean up.

  We’d had a frozen Red Baron pepperoni pizza that night, and I’d told him I wanted to stay with him.

  My mother already had Mr. Motherfucking Home Wrecker and a wedding date and a house in Connecticut. Pop had me, Bushmills, and frozen pizza. Maybe it all would have gone down the same if I chose to live with my mother. Maybe Pop would have found Tiff, and his real-estate business would still have boomed. But maybe it wouldn’t have.

  “Screw them,” I said, standing up. Sick of the darkness, the beer, and the depressing direction this conversation had taken, I clicked on the lamp and squinted in pain. My father put his hand over his eyes.