by Cyn Balog
He nods. “It is. My stepfather was.”
“Was?”
“Oh, yes. He’s passed. Mama, too.”
“Oh.” I can’t say he seems very upset by it, but I add, “I’m sorry.”
“It was a long time ago.”
Time. That’s it. He’s not acting like he’s from another place; he’s acting like he’s from another time. Another century. I look down at my feet, his feet. I point at his spats. “I didn’t realize that those things were making a comeback.”
He smiles at me. “They’re quite comfortable. And, Julia, I’m sorry if I gave you reason to be suspicious of me.”
“I’m not suspicious.” Crazily uncomfortable, yes. Suspicious, no. Well, maybe a little. Okay, I’m so suspicious I’m practically itching.
“You don’t seem the type to ask just anyone his life story.”
I blush, then cross my arms. “Well, sorry. But you’ve just coincidentally shown up in my life three times in the past couple of days, first saying you have a message for me, then saying you want to protect me. You don’t even know me. And then you go and order Griffin’s favorite drink, so I’m just freaking out a little here.” I realize I’m babbling and clamp my mouth closed.
He doesn’t speak for a moment. Then he says, “I’m sorry, but I do understand. I see how it would all seem rather coincidental, but that is all it is. Even the fact that your beloved and I share an affinity for egg creams.”
I look up. “My … beloved?”
I spend the rest of my five-hour shift trying to convince myself that everything about Eron DeMarchelle is normal, that anything wrong with him is just a product of my overactive imagination, much like those feelings that Griffin is haunting me are. Though even my overactive imagination can’t seem to figure out how this guy knew that Griffin was my boyfriend. Er, beloved. Whatever.
Since the mall is like a morgue again, I can’t throw myself into my work. So I stack cups. This time, I make a sort of Eiffel Tower. Eron hums around like a busy bee, cleaning every surface with a wet rag. Then he finds a mop and bucket in the back. The floor of Sweetie Pi’s is so sticky it probably hasn’t seen that mop in a decade. Then he gets on a ladder and starts to clean a year’s worth of dust from the top of the freezer. He’s, like, Robo-Employee.
After the Eiffel Tower has collapsed, I sit down and start to yawn, just watching him. “You are making me look bad,” I mutter.
He smiles as he wrings out a rag in the sink. “It’s been quite a while since I’ve worked so hard I could feel it in my bones. I enjoy that feeling. Makes me feel … alive.”
I notice he’s blushing again. “Ooohkay,” I say, thinking that if I worked that hard, the last thing I’d be feeling is alive.
At the end of the shift, he helps me untie my apron. His fingers tickle the back of my neck. I shiver as he slides the apron from my body and folds it neatly, but I blame it on the air-conditioning and the chocolate milk shake I just slurped down. When he walks me outside to my mom’s car, we don’t speak much. I don’t have anything to say to him that isn’t a question, and I know I’ve asked more than the polite share of those.
He holds the mall door open, and just as I’m thinking, Oh, how sweet, he extends the crook of his elbow to me. I stand there for a moment, wondering if he’s just trying to check the time on his wristwatch, but then I realize he isn’t wearing one. Tentatively, I put my hand on his forearm, and he clasps his hand over it, just like in those old-time movies. We’re strolling. People stare at us. My heart starts to thud madly under my camisole when he turns and smiles at me. “It has been a pleasure, Julia,” he says, taking my hand in his. I know it’s all sticky with chocolate syrup, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Those eyes never leaving mine, he bends slightly and delivers a kiss to the top of my hand.
CHAPTER 20
Eron
Mama used to have a saying: “You get what you get.” I’ll admit she wasn’t the most poetic of women, but at the time, she was raising eight children who weren’t her own while barely able to speak their language. I think that was the first full sentence she learned to say in English, because the DeMarchelle children were always asking for more. More pasta, more space on the mattress, more everything. She’d curse at them in Italian, her native language, and then at my father, for dying and leaving her alone, and then she’d just smile at me and slip me an extra slice of warm pane.
It’s been almost a hundred years and I can still taste that bread, feel it toasting up my palms. It was one of the few things that made life in the DeMarchelle household happy.
I’d come to Ellis Island with little more than my name, Geronimo Bianco, and then I lost even that, not two days after we’d set foot on American soil. Mr. DeMarchelle, my stepfather, helped Mama make the arrangements for Papa’s casket, and probably pretended to be charming and gentlemanly only because Mama was a handsome woman and he could see a great opportunity. After all, he was recently widowed and had more children than he knew what to do with. And Mama couldn’t speak a lick of English; she’d expected that Papa would handle all that. When Mr. DeMarchelle took her in front of a judge a day later, she was thinking it was just another step toward becoming an American citizen. She didn’t expect to become Maria DeMarchelle, any more than I expected to become Eron DeMarchelle.
What other choice was there? My father had been the man with the plans, the aspirations to move to America and start his own business. Mama had wanted to stay back home with her family.
“You get what you get,” I mutter under my breath, wringing out my one and only undershirt in a sink coated with dried toothpaste and pink mildew. Luckily, it is a warm night. I spread the material out, next to my undershorts and shirt, on an old towel in the window, hoping the night air will dry them by tomorrow.
Tomorrow, when I continue to make a fool of myself at the soda fountain.
I sigh, thinking of Julia. I’ve barely spent more than ten hours with her, and she’s already suspicious of me. I’d expected not to fit in right away, but I hadn’t anticipated that the truth would be exposed in mere days.
I pull the pair of shorts Harmon lent me over my hips; they’re much too big, but they’ll have to do for now. I’m thankful to have something to wear while my only outfit is laundered. At the very least, I’m grateful I can stay inside, as this attire certainly isn’t suitable for the street. I went a hundred years without laundering that suit; Sandmen don’t have to worry about such things, so I almost forgot how quickly the human world could wear on a piece of clothing. Though I’m still human only half the time, the suit is already dingy. The ice cream shop won’t pay me until Friday, and most of Harmon’s clothing is ill-fitting rags, so I have no other choice.
You get what you get.
I sink into the beaten couch, remembering my first days in the DeMarchelle home. In truth, Harmon’s home is heaven compared to where I once lived on earth. The couch is lumpy and old, yes, but it will be pleasant compared to wrestling on a stained mattress with the eight DeMarchelle demoniettos, as Mama called them. There were Alfred, the eldest, and Clementine, the youngest, who was nearly my age, and in between, a gaggle of others who hated Mama for moving in and replacing their dead mother. Since I was her only son, they hated me, and because I was younger than all of them, I was an easy target. Not a day would go by when I wasn’t nursing one bruise or another. I lean my head back on my arm, staring up at the ceiling fan. Paradise, no, but things could be worse.
I’m startled from my reverie when I hear glass crashing to the floor of the kitchen. It’s Mr. Harmon; from the little I know of him, I have been able to determine that he always leaves a trail of wreckage in his wake. He stumbles into the doorway and stands there, a disheveled heap, holding a beer bottle to his lips. “Look who it is. My guest.” The voice is dripping with sarcasm; “uninvited guest” is what he wanted to say.
“Hello,” I say as cordially as I can. I sit up. “I’ve gotten a job. I should be able to help with your rent this month.”
<
br /> He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “Oh yeah?” He catches a glimpse of the apron I set out on the back of the sofa. “Serving ice cream?”
I nod.
He breaks into laughter.
“Is something funny?”
“You used to spend the night in the bedrooms of beautiful women. That was your job. Dishing out rocky road for snot-nosed kids is a real step up.”
“It’s a human job,” I counter.
“And what about being human is so great?” he asks, shaking his head. “Look around you. Everyone you loved, everyone who ever loved you … they’re fertilizer.”
I’m not interested in listening to this drunk fool’s rantings. It’s true that Julia regarded me with caution during most of our time together this afternoon, but eventually, she … and others … will warm to me. Eventually, I will become one of them. “Yes, but in time …”
He laughs again. “You go back upstairs and ask an Original how many of us humans actually make it once we return to earth. How many go on to be happy, have good lives.”
“Why don’t you just tell me?” I say, prompting him, since it is obvious he is itching to.
He shrugs. “Okay. Nobody. We all end up either killing ourselves or drinking ourselves to oblivion or spending the rest of our days wanting death. That’s a little secret the Originals don’t let you in on when they ask you to join them. If humans knew the odds, trust me, they’d rather die.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say, though as I sit here, I realize I don’t have any facts to base that opinion on. “We’re all put here to complete our unfinished business.”
He howls again with laughter. “Unfinished business? Oh, right. They’re still feeding Sandmen that line of bull?”
I don’t know how to answer. I don’t know any other former Sandmen. I feel a twinge in the muscles of my back.
He takes another swig from his bottle; his dirty bathrobe falls open. “You’re fading again.”
I inspect my hands. So I am. At that moment, I remember I’m clad only in shorts. As I’m trying to slide my undershirt over my head—it’s still quite damp—it slips through my fingers and I know I am once again a Sandman. I see Harmon speaking to the air—“Have a nice trip”—but I know he can no longer see me. I pass through the door, out to the street. Red and blue lights are flashing across the street, and a crowd is gathering there, but I don’t stop. I am too busy regarding with disdain my bare chest and legs in the moonlight. I didn’t expect this. How shameful it will be to confront Chimere half naked like this. But I must. She will say that Harmon is a fool, and I will have no choice but to believe her, but I must confront her.
I’ve never climbed the tree outside Julia’s house barefoot. The branches scrape my legs as I climb to where Mr. Colburn is resting. “Where is Chimere?” I ask him.
He turns and grins at me. “Forgetting something?”
“I changed back into a Sandman while I was in the middle of dressing,” I grumble. “Where is Chimere?”
He shrugs. “She was looking for you, too.”
“She was?” Frustrated, I wave him off. No doubt she’s upset about how I interfered with Mr. Anderson. I press my bare back against the trunk of the tree and turn to the open window. It’s dark; Julia has not yet returned home.
“So you gave Bret what he had coming to him?”
I nod and whisper, “Indeed I did.”
I’m watching the darkened window, wondering what Chimere’s punishment will be for me. Wondering if what Harmon said is the truth. Wondering when the inevitable question will escape Mr. Colburn’s lips. It comes not a moment later: “So he’s dead?”
I shake my head. “He is very much alive.”
His face falls. “But you said—”
“I said I would take care of it. Bret Anderson is not the monster you make him out to be. Nothing about him even comes close to that creature that nearly murdered Julia when she was a child. Yes, his dreams may be somewhat inappropriate, but he’s just a normal, hot-blooded boy, who loves her.” I clench my fists. “It is not criminal to want her, but it is criminal for you to stand in the way by ending his life.”
I can see the heat simmering under his white collar. “You want me to tell the elders—”
“I do not, but would you really hurt Chimere that way? Your mentor? You are not so cold.”
He chews on his bottom lip. “If Bret so much as—”
“He will not. I assure you.”
He sighs, opens his mouth, but closes it a moment later. For the first time since I met him, he has been silenced.
I walk away then, without another word. Triumphant. Perhaps my student can be taught after all.
CHAPTER 21
Julia
Hart Avenue isn’t exactly the kind of place where you’d want to hang out after hours. Actually, I don’t think I’d want to hang out here before or during hours, either.
But then again, I’m not really sure what I’m thinking.
“Hon,” my mom says as we pass a bag lady meandering down the street with a shopping cart filled with trash bags for the fifteenth time. “What are we doing?”
“Uh,” I say, trying to remember the excuse I came up with during my Sweetie Pi’s shift. “This is a good street to practice parallel parking on.”
And really, it is. It’s one of the few streets in town with parallel parking and meters; plus there are so many cars and people and garbage cans and other obstacles everywhere that I imagine if I can park my mom’s RAV4 here, I’ll be able to park anywhere.
“Oh,” she says. I make a turn and head down the next street, preparing to go around the block and cruise down Hart again. Just as I’m beginning to think she bought the excuse, she says, “But why do I feel like we’re casing the joint?”
I wonder what mobster movie my lily-white mom got that saying from and shrug. “I’m looking for a parking space.”
“We passed a bunch.” We turn onto Hart again, and she points out the window. “What about that one?”
“Um, too narrow.”
We pass another. “And that one?”
“Those cars I’d be parking between are black! It’s too hard to see them in the dark.”
“Hon, are you nervous? Don’t be. Parallel parking is simple.”
I’m not, really—about that, anyway. My dad has put the cones on the street outside our house so often that I could probably park anywhere in my sleep. I’m as ready as I’ll ever be for my driver’s test in a couple of days. But I wanted to find out more about Mr. Geronimo DeMarchelle. Even though I’m positive I would remember a guy like him if I’d ever met him before, I still have the strangest sense of déjà vu around him, like we not only knew each other once before … but we knew each other well. And there were things that didn’t add up. How did he know where to find Bret and me that night at the party? How did he know that Griffin was my boyfriend? That’s why I performed a dozen games of twenty questions on him, trying to knock something loose from his past, some common bond. But there was nothing. Our lives are so different that he might as well have arrived in a time machine. So when he walked me to my mother’s car at the end of our shift, I couldn’t help wanting to know more.
The kicker came right before we parted, when he kissed my hand. After that, he nodded respectfully to my mother, placed his hat on his head, and sauntered away, whistling. He put the hat on like it was something he’d done every day of his life. Griffin would have done something like that as a joke, as part of an act, and would have looked utterly ridiculous. But Eron seemed comfortable with it, and when he kissed my hand, his eyes bored into me so that immediately my wrist went limp. Then shivers traveled up my arm, down my body to my knees, so I had to grab on to the car door to stop from toppling over on the curb.
And now, even though all that happened nearly an hour ago, I can still feel the imprint of his lips on my hand. Griffin used to kiss me deeply on the mouth, like they do in the movies, and I never felt as much. Okay, I felt
more than with Bret, yes. Maybe a quickening of the pulse, a little fire. Sometimes it wouldn’t even feel all that wonderful, like something was nibbling off little pieces of my flesh. Griffin was the first guy I’d ever kissed, so I assumed it would always be like that, with anyone. So now all I can think of is what it would be like to kiss a guy who could practically set my hand ablaze with a G-rated, gentlemanly gesture. I’m the Ice Princess. Things like that can’t happen to me.
I search the street again and there’s no sign of a guy in spats and a white dress shirt. This is ridiculous, anyway. What would I say to him if I saw him? Hey, you forgot your apron. It’s not like I can test out my kissing theories on him in the middle of the street, surrounded by a bunch of drug dealers and homeless people, while my mom waits in the car. This plan has failure written all over it. And he said he’d be working at Sweetie Pi’s tomorrow, so I am not sure why I have this burning feeling that if I don’t see him right now, I’ll go crazy.
There’s a guy walking down the street, and though he’s too short and his white bald head shines in the streetlight, I slam on the brakes beside him. A car horn blares behind me. My mom grabs the door handle for support. I catch a glimpse of myself in the side mirror. I look like a madwoman. Like I’m obsessed. And over what? What I really need right now is to go home and get some sleep.
Sighing, I slow in front of a parking space I saw the past three times we drove by. “I guess I’ll just do this one,” I say. I line my front bumper up with the parked minivan’s front bumper and throw the car into reverse. Then I check my rearview mirror, turn the wheel all the way to the right, and slowly back into the parking spot.
As I’m straightening the wheel, my mom beams at me. “Bravo!” she says, clapping. “I don’t think I could have done any better.”
She opens the car door to check and I can see the curb—six inches. It’s perfect. “Thanks,” I mutter, too embarrassed with myself to properly celebrate the victory. I check my rearview mirror again to make sure no traffic is coming before I pull out.
