by Gail Giles
“Bad rubbish?”
Jessica leaned forward and gave me what Dave used to call the “loaded potato” look.
“Wade, you can’t be friends with her and date me, too. She’s a skank.”
I couldn’t match Jessica’s version of Sam with the Sam I knew.
“I’m sorry to hear that, Jessica.” I paid for my coffee and stood. Jessica appeared stunned. Then her expression reminded me of Dave as he explained why he could no longer be my friend. I headed for the stairs.
Sam was helping Carrie sort a box of used paperbacks.
“Hey, kiddo, we’re just about done,” Carrie said. “Five minutes and then we can go. Finish flirting with the barista. Sam and I can handle this.”
I flopped into a threadbare upholstered chair. “There’s nothing I’d rather do than watch women work.”
“Don’t get used to it,” Carrie warned.
I watched and listened as Sam worked and chattered with Carrie. Nothing. I knew she had heard Jessica, but aside from that slight straightening of the back, you wouldn’t have known a thing.
I drove us back home and Sam sat in back, but I didn’t think that was much to go on. When we pulled into the driveway, we all got out; Carrie headed for the house and Sam leaned against the car.
“So now you know,” she said.
“I don’t know what I know,” I said. I leaned against the car next to her.
“Didn’t Jessica tell you that I was a drunk and I had any kind of sex with anybody offering a bottle?”
“More or less,” I said.
We didn’t say anything. I stared at my feet and shuffled the crushed shells of the driveway. Sam watched the waves.
“Is she telling the truth?”
“Does it matter?” Sam asked.
I thought about that. Did it?
Who was I to judge anyone?
I turned to her and shrugged. “Actually, no. It doesn’t. I’m asking because it doesn’t fit. Like an outfit you’d never wear.”
She looked up at me, surprise evident on her face. Maybe I was a “whole new kind of fish” for her. Some of the tension seemed to leak out of her.
“It’s true. Or it used to be. Most of it. The sex stuff is exaggerated.” She rubbed the back of her neck. “Like it matters if it was two guys or twenty — the reason you give your body is what makes it right or makes it shameful, and only you can decide that.”
She watched the waves again.
“She said you were in rehab?”
“Yup. Twice. Didn’t take the first time. Came out thinking I had it made, walked down the beach to a party to prove it to myself and everyone else. Got drunk on my butt. My dad drove me back to rehab while I was still hungover.”
“Compulsive recidivism.”
Sam shot a quick look at me.
“Sounds like you were scared to leave rehab and worked your way back,” I said.
“That’s therapy-speak. Groupthink. You’ve been in, haven’t you?”
Shit.
“Had problems when my mom died.”
She searched my face and I looked away. “Okay, something tells me you’re lying, but nobody has to talk about their therapy if they don’t want to.”
She waited but I didn’t answer.
Sam pushed away from the car. “You’re damaged goods, Wade Madison.”
She didn’t say it accusingly. Just a statement of fact. But there was something else in there, too. Something I’d never encountered before.
I didn’t get a chance to figure it out or come up with a clever response to her observation before she went on.
“Just so you know, I lied, too, so you’re off the hook.”
“I’m relieved.” Yeah, there was the clever part. Sam looked at me. I think she wanted me to ask. “What did you lie about?”
“I don’t have a boyfriend. I tell people that to . . . I don’t know, seal myself off or something. Now, I think that’s enough info for you to process right now. More later.” She pushed her hair back and laser-locked my eyes. “Or not.”
She turned to go, but I reached out and touched her shoulder. Sam stopped and stood still. I kept my fin-gers on her shoulder as I circled around to face her. I pulled her against me in a long hug, my face buried in her hair. Her body leaned into mine and one hand slid up to rest against my cheek. No words, just shared warmth.
Body language.
The best kind.
As I held her I remembered that Sam had said when we sailed that I’d get a feel for the wind, the water, and the boat. That I wouldn’t have to watch the sails; I’d just know when it was right to pull the sheets in tight or let them loose. I didn’t know yet about the boat, but I knew it was time to end the hug.
I eased back. She caught my gaze and stepped back without breaking eye contact, her head up, her back straight, her body at ease.
We didn’t speak.
She didn’t smile.
She sort of assessed me with a look just south of surprise. She blinked her eyes slow, like a cat that signals its trust, and something told me I had finally done something right.
She took another long step back while still staring at me, then turned and walked away. I waited until she climbed the long stairs to her porch and closed the door behind her. She never looked back.
It rained for the next three days. Fierce, wild storms that Carrie called Texas thunder boomers. The thunder sounded like the world was cracking in half, and lightning split the sky like a flicking tongue. The rain pounding on the roof competed with the roaring waves. I was a cocoon of peace inside all the wildness. I studied. I cooked and cleaned for Carrie and Dad.
I knew not to go to Sam.
Chapter 25
ONE LONG SPOON?
Carrie got in my face over breakfast. “Wade, what’s up with you and Jessica?”
“Nothing. She doesn’t want to date me anymore, that’s all.”
“I’ve noticed if I mention your name at the shop, the coffee turns to Frappuccino. I’m getting the big chill from her mother, too.”
“Sorry. I didn’t do anything. She just doesn’t like me.”
“Wade.”
I looked up.
“You didn’t . . . tell her, even hint at —”
“No. It happened when Sam came with me to the shop. She has an old grudge against her. Some girl thing. She wanted me to choose between being Sam’s friend or hers. So I did. Relax, Carrie. I’m not going to tell.”
But the time was coming soon when I would need to tell.
Sam came to me in a school-bus yellow raincoat on the third day.
The wind practically shoved her into the house. She shucked the raincoat and hung it by the door. We already had towels under the rack.
She shoved her damp hair away from her face. Sighed. Did that shoulder-straightening thing. “I need you to know it all. The whole story.”
“Unless you have some confessional compulsion, I don’t need to know. And you need to know I’m in no position to judge anyone. So, it doesn’t matter.”
“It might. You never know how you’ll react until you hear it all. And I won’t keep secrets if this . . . we . . . are going to start.”
We. There might be a “we.” While my heart pounded, so did my head. How could there be a “we”? If Sam opened up her life, how could I keep mine a secret? That would be even worse than stealing friendship. But I promised Carrie and Dad that I wouldn’t tell anyone my story. How could I deflect this?
I pointed to the living room. “Want something to drink?”
“Do you have coffee?”
“Left from this morning. No promises about quality.”
Sam nodded. She curled into the corner of the couch, her feet tucked underneath her body.
I poured the last of the coffee from the pot and brought it to her. “I’m really fine with what you’ve told me. There’s no need to put yourself through . . .”
“It’s important to me,” Sam said as she took the mug. I sat in the chair o
pposite the coffee table. If this had to happen maybe we needed some physical distance. And I wanted to watch her face. Maybe she needed to watch mine.
“It was spring break when I was in eighth grade,” she started. She took a sip from the mug. “I wasn’t quite fourteen. My best friend, Roxanne, was spending the weekend with me, and Friday night we told my parents that we were going to the movies with her sister. My first big lie to my parents. They trusted me and went to dinner with some church friends.”
“Fourteen’s pretty old for a first big lie,” I said. I still wanted to head this off or . . . something. Sam stared at me over the rim of her cup. I leaned back into the chair. “It’s just that I did worse, younger.”
Sam lowered the mug. “Roxanne practically dragged me down the beach. There were three beach houses in a row filled with high school kids. Dozens of people I didn’t know milled around fires burning in sandpits, beer in their hands. The music and the people were loud.
“At the first house, a guy turned around and spotted me. He said, ‘Lawd, I must be drunk. I’ve never seen anybody this pretty at school.’ I didn’t know how to handle a compliment so I blushed and ducked my head.
“He called over to his buddies, ‘Does anybody know this little piece of gorgeous? Is that the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? Who are you, darlin’?’ he asked me.
“I told him my name and he couldn’t believe it, at first. ‘Sam Kirksey? Isn’t your dad the preacher of that voodoo Baptist church that’s down the road?’
“I kind of laughed and told him it was evangelical, not voodoo. Either way, he didn’t care. It was a turn-on for him.
“‘Sam, Sam, Sam. A PK. This is my lucky day.’
“He went on and on about it. Then he looped one arm around my neck. The hand that held the go cup was next to my ear. I don’t think I’d ever been that close to a beer before. Honest. It smelled like heaven. That kind of smell that makes you want to close your eyes and hold your breath to keep it in, like when you smell bread baking.”
Sam broke off, almost as if just the mention of beer made her have to collect herself. As if to wash away the memory of the smell, she took another sip of coffee. Instinctively I took a sip of my own. Maybe to signal that I was with her.
“Anyway, he asked me to walk along the beach with him. I hesitated, but he reassured me. He said he wouldn’t hurt me.”
Sam almost grinned. “He said he wasn’t ‘Lester the Molester.’” She shook her head and made a face. I guess it was a gee-I-was-such-a-stupid-kid face.
“He even said that Roxanne could watch the whole time if I wanted. He just wanted to talk. Roxanne waved me off and I walked away with him. I didn’t even know his name.
“We wandered toward the water and then he stopped, and turned, and put his forehead against mine. The moon wasn’t out, but it didn’t matter. I was moonstruck. I thought it was all so romantic. He said, ‘Pretty, pretty Sam. I want you to give me a graduation present.’
My stomach clutched.
“I must have flinched,” Sam said, “not knowing what he meant, because then he pulled back and put one finger against my lips and said, ‘Ssssshh. I know you’ve certainly been kissed before, but I want you to pretend you haven’t. I want to believe you’ve never, ever been kissed.’
“Well, I never had been kissed. I was thirteen and a PK. But I wasn’t going to tell him that. He asked me, so sweet, whispering in my ear, ‘Would you let me let me kiss you, Pretty Sam the Preacher’s Daughter? Wouldn’t that be the greatest graduation present ever?’”
Now it was my turn to collect myself. Kissing Sam. I wanted it. For some reason just her talking about it made me flush. But she was wrapped up in her story and, thankfully, didn’t notice.
“I nodded and waited. He put one finger under my chin and lifted my face and lowered his. He kissed me. Soft. He pulled back and smiled. Then slid his hand along my face and leaned back in and kissed me for a long, deep kiss. . . .” Sam broke off, realizing that these details were ones she didn’t need to share with a guy. “But what surprised me the most was that the best part of his kiss was that it tasted of beer. Yeasty, not sweet or bitter. I loved the taste — of the kiss and the beer.
“When he pulled back, I took his go cup. ‘Corrupt the PK a little bit more,’ I said. ‘Give me my first drink.’ I sipped the beer. It was so cold and foamy and . . . fresh. I smiled and drank. ‘Let’s go get you another cup,’ I said. ‘This one’s mine now.’
“I drank a lot of beer that night, too much beer. So did Roxanne. Thank God my first-kiss boy was a decent guy. He held my hair back when I threw up and he held Roxanne’s head and mine under the outside cold-water tap until we were slightly less drunk. Then he walked us both back to my house and helped us up the outside stairs.
“I didn’t expect to hear from him again. I wouldn’t have known how to talk to him if I had. But somehow my first kiss and my first drink are intertwined, and it was easier to find the beer than track down a senior guy.
“So there it was. I had my first all-consuming crush. With the beer. And it just grew from there. It wasn’t long before it turned into a full-blown love affair with wine, then hard liquor, but right then — it was a giddy school-girl’s crush and it was the only thing I thought about.”
Sam stopped talking and drank her coffee.
Sam’s big secret was that she was a drunk by the time she was fourteen. I knew from my reaction to her first kiss that I didn’t want to hear about the sex part, exaggerated or not. But alcohol and sex — well, if she felt so . . . bad about that, she could never handle my secret.
“Isn’t your coffee cold?” I asked.
“Getting close, but it’s fine,” she said. “I love coffee. Any way, anytime. When I go to bed, I think that I need to hurry up and sleep so I can wake up and have my coffee.”
I laughed. “Addict.”
“Yes.”
No humor in Sam’s face or voice.
“Sorry, that was a lame joke. I didn’t mean. Look, I used to drink, too.”
“Used to drink?”
“Yes, last year. And it made some problems for me so I know —”
“And you stopped. You just stopped drinking?” Sam asked.
“Well, yeah, I —”
“Then pardon me, you don’t know shit about addiction. You can’t just stop when you have an addictive personality. When there’s something I like, I go at it full tilt. When I was little I had to be the good kid and I had to be the goodest of the good. Then I wanted liquor. Next I went after those high school credits like they were bottles of bourbon.”
As Sam talked, her irritation eased a little. I decided to shut up and listen.
“I think AA works because drinkers trade their addiction to alcohol for addiction to meetings. An addiction that’s not harmful substituted for a harmful one, you know?” She sighed. “My mom can’t keep chocolate in the house. I can’t eat just some and leave the rest. And then there’s coffee. And even sailing.”
I waited a second, then asked, “Should I make more coffee?”
So much for the shutting up.
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“No,” I said. “Yes.” I opened my hands, palms up. “Hell, I don’t know what to say to you. I open my mouth and all the wrong words seem to fall out.”
Sam put her mug on the table and stood. “I thought I had a handle on this, Wade. Thought I had gotten through it. But I can’t sit here and look you in the face and tell you the worst part of it. The really bad stuff.”
“Don’t,” I said. “Please don’t go. I didn’t mean to make fun of you. I’m an asshole. I’m sorry. I was just trying to make it easier.” I reached out and grabbed her arm.
And she became a Sam I had never seen. Tears glazed her eyes, but she whirled, snatched her arm back, and then raised it as if she would hit me. “Don’t!” Her voice was a low, feral growl. “Don’t ever grab me!”
She bolted, grabbed her yellow raincoat, and ran out the door a
nd down the stairs.
She didn’t take time to put the raincoat on. I could see the rain soaking through her clothes before she reached her front door.
How could I be so stupid? How? I grabbed her coffee cup and hurled it at the door. It smashed into jagged shards. Waiting for me to cut myself when I picked them up.
When I got myself under control, I measured some more coffee, dumped it into the new filter, added water, and while I watched the dark liquid fill the pot, I went over the whole thing.
Sam drank. Like I hadn’t? In shrink-speak it sounded like her drinking was straight-on addiction and mine was situational. I hadn’t touched alcohol since the night of my self-destruction in Indiana. Hadn’t even thought about it. But it sounded like Sam sniffed the air for the fumes all the time. I guess that ease of self she projected was just a mask she wore. A lot like a fake name.
This time I knew I had to go to her.
Chapter 26
ONLY ONE BOWL OF TRUTH
Sam’s Dad met me at the door.
“Get inside, son, and dry off.” He chucked a towel at me. I pulled off my poncho, hung it, and dried my face. “I know you came to speak to Sam, but you’ll be chatting with me first.”
I’d met Sam’s parents soon after we moved in. Sam got her facial features from her mom, but the long, lean DNA was inherited from her dad. He wore jeans and a plaid shirt and, with the exception of his glasses, looked more like a ranch hand than a preacher. I’d bet he could pitch me like a bale of hay. His usually friendly demeanor seemed on vacation at the moment.
What did he think? That Sam had come to me for alcohol and I . . .
“Reverend . . .”
“Wade, I know exactly why Sam went to talk to you and what she told you.” He took the towel from my hands, tossed it over my poncho, and pointed me toward his study.
He sat behind a plain desk and I sat in an upholstered chair that was comfortable but looked secondhand. Their home was small, their things old and used, but it was cheerful, neat.
