All of us, I repeat silently to myself, breathing through the thrill of that inclusion. “So,” I say, keeping my voice casual, free of the eager curiosity that’s tapping me on the shoulder. “We’re not going this weekend?”
There’s a pause on the other end, some hitch where I guess Aiden decides how to play this change. “Lorraine still wants everyone up there. Says we can help clean up from Friday’s wedding, have a more laid-back weekend.” I let out a quiet breath of relief. It’s only the sex I’d miss, I tell myself. “But if you want to pass, I’ll think of something to say why you’re not there.”
“I don’t want to pass.” I grimace at the quickness of my response.
“Good.” In his voice I hear something I feel all the way down to those glossy red soles. I know what he’s thinking, know about what’s good between us. Suddenly I’m hyperaware of everything I have on underneath my clothes—the thigh-high stockings, the nude thong and matching lace-trimmed bra, everything designed to fit exactly right beneath workwear, so different from anything I wear at the campground. I wonder if he would like it, if I should pack something like this for the weekend. Ridiculous, I scold myself. It’s not a lovers’ getaway. I step out of my shoes, feel nothing but the cold, hard wood floor beneath me.
“My friend Kit’s invited you to a party,” I blurt. “Tomorrow. If you have to work, that’s fine.”
“I’m off tomorrow, once I’m home from this shift. What kind of party?”
“It’s a welcome back party, for her boyfriend. He’s moving here. Ahmed and Charlie are welcome too.”
I hear him take a deep breath, and I know the move that accompanies that too. I know he’s probably rubbed his hand over his hair, back to front, and I know that within a minute, he’ll reach up and see whether he’s mussed it too much. I should’ve told Kit this was a bad idea. Aiden barely socializes with the people he chooses to have in his life. Why would he want to come to this?
“All right,” he says, and I realize I must’ve had my mouth open, ready to take it back, because now it snaps shut with a click. “Should I pick you up?”
I almost laugh, almost offer up a quick Oh God no, a reminder to myself more than to him that this isn’t a date. It can’t be a date. It’s bad enough we’re not keeping it at camp, that I’d stayed up all night worrying over him last night, that I’m on the phone with him at 12:15 in the morning with a blush of pleasure on my cheeks. This is beyond not keeping my distance.
I manage to control my reaction enough to tell him that it’s better if we meet there, that I’ll have to get there early to set up. Once I’ve given him the address for Henry’s, though, once it’s time to hang up, we’re both quiet for a few seconds. If this were a night in our cabin, we’d likely be asleep by now—there’s not much to do once we’re in for the night, and until last Saturday, when we’d broken every rule we’d never officially set, we’d mostly been lights out by ten. If this were a night in our cabin, I’d be in my bunk, hearing the sound of the woods outside, hearing the sound of Aiden’s steady breathing and every time he shifts in his sleep.
“Been thinking about you, Zo,” he says, in that low voice, and I have to bite my lip from letting my sigh of relief and arousal out into the phone.
“Same,” I manage, but in my effort to sound unaffected I sound kind of—business-y. Aiden chuckles on the other end, gentle and knowing.
I hear an alarm trip in the background. “Gotta go,” he says. “See you tomorrow.”
I’m not sure he hears me say goodbye.
When I slide into bed that night, I may not be worrying anymore, may not be obsessing over whether Aiden’s doing the right thing. But it’s still his voice, dark and rough, I imagine hearing in my ear.
Chapter 12
Aiden
The office I set up in my parents’ house—my house, I keep having to remind myself—is in my old bedroom, the one I slept in until I left for college, the one I slept in every time I’d come home for a break. As close as we were, Aaron and I never shared a room. From almost the time we were brought home from the hospital, Aaron needed special dehumidifiers, fans, nighttime nebulizer treatments that made my mom anxious and bleary eyed. When I’d moved back here, I’d done some pretty inconvenient gymnastics to justify avoiding Aaron’s room. It’d been the most natural choice for an office—his last year, he’d had his own place, a shitty apartment on the east end, and he’d moved most of his furniture over there, even his old twin bed, which my parents had eventually donated to charity along with everything else.
But I’d been unable to face it. I keep the door closed, avoid looking at it when I pass by to get to this office. Come Christmas, I’ll have to think of a new plan; if my parents come home, I’ll need to get a bed in there so we all have a place to sleep.
I press my palms to my eyes, shake my head in an effort to clear it from distraction. My laptop’s gone to sleep again, because I’m stuck, stuck trying to tell this story about Aaron and my plans for the camp, the story that’s supposed to accompany my tour presentation. It’s four thirty in the afternoon, a time when my brain is sluggish anyway, and I’d only managed an hour of sleep after my post-shift shower. But I’ve been opening the same document since Sunday evening when I’d gotten back from Stanton Valley, and so I know I can’t blame my sluggish brain and erratic sleep schedule for the block.
I just don’t know how to tell this story.
I run the tip of my index finger across the mouse pad, see the screen come to life, bright white and mostly blank, a blinking cursor at the end of the one sentence I’ve managed to keep: My brother was more than just his addiction.
It’s more important than ever, I’ve decided, to get this right. My assertion to Zoe—I want this to work—had been echoing in my mind since I dropped her off, and sometime halfway through my sleepless night I’d made a decision. If I want it to work, the story’s just the beginning. It’s like Zoe said: I’ve got to be all in. When I’d gotten her text last night, I’d called her back, thinking: I’m going to tell her. But somewhere along the line I’d realized I want to tell her in person, when I can read her best, when her voice isn’t separate from her body.
I think I can read almost everything from Zoe’s body.
From the tinny speakers on my laptop comes a blurting ring, and I snap to attention as if I’ve been caught out by a teacher, doing homework for another class when I should be paying attention. I click the dialog box that’s popped up and wait for my mother’s face to fill the screen.
“Hey, Mom.”
“Hi, honey.” She looks good these days, or at least better than she did. At the new condo in Florida, she’s got a small garden plot out back, which she fills with pots of succulents that bloom with bright, desert-like flowers she likes to photograph. She’s got color in her cheeks, and her hair seems thicker, a brighter, cleaner white than it was when she’d left here. “How was work last night?”
“Not too bad. Only a few calls.” She looks better, is doing better, but the fact that she knows my work schedule so completely is one of the many remnants of Aaron’s addiction in her life. Growing up I’d felt lucky to be one of those kids who didn’t constantly have to check in at home, who had the trust of my parents to go where I wanted so long as I made curfew, kept up with my chores. But now, my mom asks me to email her my work schedule every week. She knows which day I usually go to the grocery. I know that at least once before, she’s called the neighbor to ask whether it seems like I’m having trouble keeping up with the property.
“You’re working too hard, this plus what you’re doing on the weekends.”
I swallow, look at my own face on the screen, rather than hers. I wonder if it has a guilty look about it. “I’m all right,” I say, trying not to sound impatient.
I catch her purse her lips, her physical effort not to press me about the camp. Not long after I’d made my plans with Zoe, I’d told my mom it’d be better if she backed off about it, that I’d fill her in when the six we
eks were up, that it helped me focus not to talk about it too much. But she’s as desperate as I am to feel like that money’s doing some good out there, that we’ve managed to do more with Aaron’s settlement than shipping my parents to a place that doesn’t have any bad memories.
“Did you see the email I sent you on Monday?” she asks, her voice hopeful.
“Yeah,” I say, shifting in my chair. “It’s like I said, Mom. Those groups aren’t really my thing.”
A few months back my mom started going to group grief counseling sessions. Since then, it seems as though she’s kept her own pain in enough check to try watching over mine too. She sends me articles about addicts’ brain chemistry, about twin loss, about meetings in the area for people who are grieving.
None of it appeals.
“I’m doing good,” I add, and I realize that it’s not even entirely a lie. When I wake up in the mornings, I don’t feel so disoriented anymore. For a while there, it felt like every time I’d open my eyes, I’d have to provide myself with a recap in order to prepare myself for the shock of another day in this life. You’re back home. Your parents moved away. Aaron is dead. But now I wake up to reality, and I get on with the day. Sometimes—Fridays, mostly—I even look forward to it. “I’m going out with some friends tonight.”
Her face brightens immediately. “Really? What friends? Do I know them?”
A hot prickle of shame blooms on my neck, at the backs of my arms. Yeah, Mom, I imagine saying, It’s the lawyer. The blonde, the one you said was made of stone. The one who slid a packet of papers across the table at you, the one who looked you straight in the eye when she asked you to sign. “No,” I say. “No one you know.”
“Well, I’m so glad you’re getting out there.” Jesus. She sounds so much like my mom again. So much like the woman who used to cheer our most minuscule achievements at the breakfast table. I feel an answering tug of hope inside me. “Is Pop around?”
But it’s too much to hope for. Her face falls, though she tries to hide it. “He’s not up for talking much today, Aiden.”
I know what that means. He’s either sleeping or crying, or staring at the television, unseeing. I turn my head from the screen, pretend to look out the window. “I’d better get going. Lots to do before I head out tonight.”
She smiles through the screen, nodding proudly. “Have a good time. You deserve to have a great time.”
When we log off, I stare again at the nearly blank page on my screen, Mom’s words echoing around me. What would she think, knowing that the promise of a good time tonight lives entirely in Zoe Ferris? It’s not even about the possibility of sleeping with her again—we only do that in the cabin, away from all this. It’s that Zoe is a good time, even when she’s not, even when she’s pissing me off or calling me on my shit, there’s something about her that gets me right out of myself.
I reach a hand out, shut off the monitor, and watch the screen fade to black.
Maybe I’ll be able to tell the story tomorrow.
Never is the difference between me and Ahmed more clear than when we go to a party for someone neither of us knows. When we walk up to Henry Tucker’s house, Ahmed is loose and easy, telling me about some buddy of his who grew up nearby, asking whether I’ve ever been to the salvage yard Tucker apparently owns. I barely hear any of it, because I’ve gone tense all over, silent and sweaty underneath my button-up. In the past three and a half weeks I’ve done more socializing than I have in the entire year and a half since Aaron died, and while this afternoon I’d been congratulating myself about getting a little better, I find that now, in the face of the damn thing, I’m rattled by the thought of a houseful of people I hardly know.
It’s Kit who I see first, petite and smiling near the front door, but I don’t miss the way that smile changes when her dark eyes fall on me. She’s kind but wary, same as she was the first time I met her at Betty’s, and back then, it hadn’t much bothered me. If I thought anything about it at all, it was probably some kind of surprise at Zoe having such loyal, protective friends. But now, I feel a fresh wave of nerves as I look down at her, five feet two of You’d better not fuck with my friend. It doesn’t matter what Zoe and I have agreed on in the dark, our mouths melded together and our hands all over each other. I’m here at this party, with her friends, and that doesn’t feel like just sex. It feels like I’m trying to make a good impression.
“Ahmed, good to see you again,” she says, ushering him farther in, and laughing as she accepts the giant hug he gives her, a move he pulls off more naturally than I ever could. “Aiden, thanks for coming,” she says, choosing a more measured handshake.
“Sure, thanks for the invite. Looks like you’ve put together a nice welcome.” The small house is crowded, full of laughing conversation.
“Yeah, it turned out well. Your friend Charlie’s not coming?”
“She’s in D.C.,” I say. “Went up to see her wife.”
“Oh, I’m glad for her,” she says, smiling. Kit seems like a nice person, a genuine person, which somehow makes it all the worse that she’s got a more guarded opinion about me.
“Hi,” comes a voice from beside me, and there she is, those gold-brown eyes looking at me expectantly, and I forget all about Kit only seeming half-glad to see me. Zoe looks glad. Glad and also fucking gorgeous. Her hair’s pulled back, but already some of those silky-straight strands have fallen around her face, and her cheeks are flushed from the warm room, the crush of people. Her dress looks to me like a long men’s shirt, dark blue, but she’s got it belted at the waist, a pair of boots that come up to her knees, and in between those and the hem of the dress is the skin that I felt against my hips last weekend, the skin I stroked while I moved inside her.
“Hey,” I say to her. I barely notice that Ahmed’s already moved into the living room, shaking hands and looking like he’s been here dozens of times before.
“I wanted to introduce you to Ben,” she says, turning her eyes up to a tall, smiling guy I hadn’t even registered as a presence. “This party is for him.”
“Hey, man,” I say, practically tearing my eyeballs from her. “Good to meet you.”
“Yeah, you too.” He shakes my hand firmly before wrapping an arm around Kit, pulling her close to his side.
“Welcome home. Bet you’re glad to be back.”
“You have no idea.” But he’s not looking at me when he says it. He’s looking down at Kit, his eyes soft on her in a way that makes me slide my gaze over to Zoe, who seems to have developed a real interest in scrutinizing the contents of her plastic cup. When Ben looks back up at me, though, something’s shifted in his expression. “I know you’ve got Z doing this camp thing with you,” he says, abruptly, and Zoe’s head snaps up. “Ben,” she says, her voice low in warning.
“She’s got a lot of people who love her,” says Ben, not taking his eyes off me. This fucking guy, I’m thinking, but at the same time I already like him, like his directness. His care for Zoe.
Zoe laughs, an edge of nervousness to it. “It’s probably like, four people, grand total,” she says. “Three if I don’t count my mother, and today she called and asked me if I’d mind her throwing out my christening gown, so I’m pretty sure she—”
“Zo,” I say, and as soon as it comes out of my mouth I know I’ve done that shit on purpose. This is what I call her, I’m saying. I curl a hand around her elbow and squeeze gently, a brief touch that’s friendlier than how I feel right now, which is—I don’t know what. Possessive. A little angry. Half of me wants to be touching her like Ben touches Kit—like she’s mine, like I do it every day. The other half of me is pissed that I want to, and that I can’t. We don’t do that here; we decided. Here, I’m the guy she’s invited because of courtesy, or maybe because of her friends’ curiosity. “It’s all right,” I tell her, before I look up at Ben and give him a short nod. “I know she does.”
Ben’s got a calm, friendly face, something open about his expression that I don’t know if I’ve
ever seen in myself in the mirror. Still, though—he looks at me long enough that the silence feels noticeable, a few seconds shy of truly uncomfortable. “Can I get you a beer?”
The look on Zoe’s face when he asks is pure relief, so plain and honest that I touch her again, my palm at her shoulder, a brief, calming circle that Ben and Kit both notice. It’s the kind of touch that doesn’t have anything to do with “this camp thing,” and for a second it feels like Zoe and I are the only two people in the room.
It’s only a quick moment of peace and quiet, though, because the place is full up, more people coming in behind me, and Zoe gets pulled into conversation after conversation. For a while, I stay with her, nursing a beer and letting her introduce me to each group of people she says hello to. “This is my friend Aiden,” she says. “He saved me from a face full of driveway a month ago.” It’s so simple, the way she puts it, and aside from the face full of driveway part, I wish I had met her in circumstances so simple. I shake hands, nod, answer what questions I’m asked, and feel as if I’m stretching muscles I haven’t used in months.
I know I’m meeting Ben’s father even before Zoe tells me his name. The guy looks like Ben coming out of a time machine, and he’s got the same easy smile.
“O’Leary,” he repeats, when Zoe introduces me, a searching look as he shakes my hand. “Your mother’s Kathleen?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say, taken aback.
“I sold her a Gorham brush and mirror set about ten years ago, I think…1959, silver detail like you wouldn’t believe.”
Beside me, Zoe drops back, joins another conversation that’s in progress behind us, and I know that’s on purpose. It’s the same at camp: any mention of my family, and she goes quiet. “Must be quite a memory you’ve got.”
“Almost forgot to put on underwear today,” he says, laughing. “I only remember the stuff that doesn’t matter.”
“I think she bought that set for my cousin’s sixteenth birthday. So it matters to someone, anyway.”
Luck of the Draw Page 17
