Sam was slowly making his way across the lawn. I wondered if he’d ever seen a doctor. The cut on his forehead was a thin black line. I felt this wild rush of hope as he approached. I don’t know what I was hoping for, exactly. Unless maybe it was the insane fantasy that he’d swoop me into his arms and tell me that his life had been forever changed since that moment we’d first touched in the orange grove.
“Hi,” he said.
So much for the fantasy.
“Hi,” I said.
“I believe that would be my cue,” Izzy said. She grinned. “Hi.”
“You’re Izzy, right? French fourth period?”
She took off her sunglasses. “Yeah,” she said. “I’m surprised you remember. You’re not there much.”
He smiled, then fell serious. “I heard about your tumor.”
It was the word, so ugly and bare, that everyone else had been studiously avoiding. Izzy wasn’t fazed. “Yeah, well, I’d been meaning to get my hair cut, anyway.”
Sam laughed, but his eyes were pained. “Life has a way of sucking sometimes,” he said. “You having surgery?”
“Monday. Tests first.”
“That’s tough.”
We settled into an awkward silence. “I hear your bike got totaled,” Izzy said. “Speaking of tough.”
Sam reached into his jeans pocket and retrieved a five-dollar bill. “Here,” he said, looking at me for the first time. I felt my cheeks blaze. “What’s that?” I asked, frowning at the bill.
“For your shirt. A down payment,” Sam said.
“Please.” I laughed. “It was just an old T-shirt.”
He hesitated, then stuffed the bill back in his pocket.
“Well, anyway, thanks again for your help,” he said.
I listened for something to hang on to—a throaty catch in his voice, eye contact that lingered just a second too long—something, anything I could take as a sign he felt the same way I did. But Sam just turned back to Izzy and took off his sunglasses. “Good luck,” he said softly, and then he was limping away.
“Damn,” Izzy said. “I blew my big chance.”
I wondered if Izzy was serious, and if she was, what I would do about it. She was always talking that way about guys but rarely followed through. I think she felt as shy and inadequate as I did around them, which was crazy. She had a CosmoGirl! cover face, an IQ in the stratosphere, and she was even, as my grandmother liked to put it, amply endowed.
Most of the time, though, Izzy was so immersed in her own little world that she didn’t quite follow what was going on in the real one. A guy would flirt with her, and about four days later she’d realize it. Whereas I, on the other hand, was attuned to every nuance, every look, every word, every word implied between words. A guy would accidentally run into me in the hall and that evening I’d be picking out bridesmaids’ dresses.
Izzy sighed. “Did you sense anything there between us? A sort of fatalistic bond? Or was that just pity? Who cares, I’ll take what I can get. Maybe if I’m back in school in time for Valentine’s Day, I could ask him to the dance. Would that be tacky?”
“No,” I said, looking away. “It would be very feminist of you.”
“I’m halfway serious, you realize.”
“Plan on it, Iz. Definitely. It’d give you something to—”
“Don’t say ‘to live for.’ ”
“I … I was just going to say that it would give you something to look forward to, that’s all.”
“Maybe. We’ll see. Do you think he likes the gangly, bald, puking type?”
“You forgot brilliant.”
“If the radiation treatments make me nauseated, we can discuss quantum mechanics while I pray to the toilet.”
“Is this what they call gallows humor?”
“I’m getting on your nerves, right?”
I touched her shoulder. “I just want you to think positively, okay? For me?”
“I am.” Izzy jumped to her feet. “I’m thinking positively about the slinky black number I’ll be able to fit into for my big date, what with not being able to keep down food. How’s that?”
“It’s a start,” I said. I stood, brushed off my jeans, and grabbed my backpack. “Are you serious?” I asked—casually, I hoped. “About Sam?”
Izzy gave a short laugh. “What do you think?”
“I don’t know. You sounded—”
“Please, you know me. I talk the talk, but I can’t walk the walk. Or is it the other way around?” We fell into step together. “Besides, I’ve got other things to think about.” A look of weariness settled over her lovely face. “Explain to me again how this optimism stuff works.”
My heart was in my throat later that afternoon as I walked Izzy through the crowded halls to the lobby. Her parents were waiting stiffly in the car.
I pulled two crumpled packages out of my backpack.
“I should have known you’d make an event out of this,” Izzy groaned. She signaled to her parents and we sat on the wooden bench by the door. The vice-principal, Mr. Lutz, was standing at the entrance to the administrative offices, watching us. He’d already given Izzy a big pep talk— “The prayers of the school are with you,” “Don’t worry about falling behind,” that sort of thing.
Izzy tore the shiny paper off the first present and pulled out the pair of red pajamas. “Excellent,” she declared. “Although I’m sure the docs would have preferred a nice little teddy.”
“I read—” I stopped myself. For the last two days I’d pulled up every article about brain cancer I could find on my computer. One had mentioned that button pj’s were better for brain surgery patients—nothing to pull over your head.
“Read what?”
“Nothing. Open the envelope.”
Izzy slit open the manila envelope. “For your wall at the hospital,” I explained as she pulled out the Michelin street map of Paris.
She stared at the map, her index finger slowly tracing the P in Paris over and over.
I hugged her and we both started to cry. Izzy pulled away, scooping up the gifts, and ran out the door to her parents’ waiting car.
“It’ll be okay,” I called, but the door had already closed, and Mr. Lutz was the only one who heard me.
Chapter 4
I WAS FUMBLING with my locker combination the next morning when Sam emerged out of the river of students surging through the hall. “Hey,” he said. He had this low, reined-in voice that made you want to listen harder.
“Hey,” I said brilliantly, still struggling with my lock.
“I brought you this.” He passed me a rolled-up wad of gray fabric. It took me a second to realize it was a T-shirt. “I felt bad, you know, about your shirt. And I’m kind of strapped for cash until I get my bike fixed.”
I unrolled the shirt. It was huge and smelled of Tide.
“It’s almost new. I only wore it twice. And I washed it.” Sam shrugged. “Anyway … I just, you know, wanted to pay you back.”
I held the shirt by the shoulders. A guy’s shirt, Sam’s shirt. Preworn. I would wear it to bed until it was nothing but shreds, threads, subatomic particles of cotton.
Sam grimaced. “You’re right, what a jerk.” He grabbed the shirt away. “Man, what was I thinking?”
“No.” I grabbed it back. “I want it. Really.”
He relented. I rolled up the shirt and stuffed it in my backpack before he could change his mind.
“Thanks. Now you’ve more than paid me back.”
He hesitated. “You hear anything about your friend?”
“Izzy? She called me from her hotel last night. They’re doing lots of tests, then she gets admitted Sunday for surgery Monday. She’ll be fine.” I nodded, convincing myself. “Izzy’s tough.”
“I hope so.”
“Well,” I said, displaying more of my verbal virtuosity.
“I guess I’ll see you around, then.” He shrugged. It was a shy little-boy gesture, but his smile was more knowing. I sensed he was waiting for something, but wha
t?
Before I could decide, he was gone.
I opened my backpack and stared at the shirt. A shudder of guilt went through me. I was playing tug-of-war over a T-shirt while Izzy was lying in an exam room somewhere, being poked and prodded and scanned.
Suddenly I started to cry. I ran to the nearest bathroom and locked myself in a stall. It was stupid, my crying like that, stupid and self-indulgent, but it was all I could do for Izzy just then, and besides, I couldn’t stop even if I’d wanted to.
After a long while I took out Sam’s shirt. I breathed in the comforting scent of the soft gray fabric. Then, feeling like an incredible idiot, I wiped my eyes and headed for class.
The rest of the week it rained like crazy. The snowbirds down for a taste of Florida sun were devastated, but I liked it. It seemed right, under the circumstances.
Saturday afternoon I drove Sara to a friend’s. Traffic on the main drag moved in fits and starts, aggravated by lost tourists and senile locals. The windows were fogged up and the defroster didn’t work. We cracked the windows and the rain poured in, magnifying the wet-dog smell of the carpet.
We slowed to a creep. Bridge construction over Phillipi Creek. Sara cleared a window with her arm. “Look at that poor guy hitching,” she said. “Give it up, already. Who’s going to let you in their car, all soaked?”
Somehow I knew, even before I looked. It was Sam.
I concentrated on the I’M NOT A TOURIST—I LIVE HERE bumper sticker on the Honda in front of me. A huge, urgent hope filled me. It seemed to take up all the room in my body.
We came to another stop. He was ten feet up on the shoulder. Our eyes met. I closed mine and waved him in.
“What are you doing?” Sara demanded. “You can’t let him in the car. They’ll find us in little pieces in Oscar Scherer Park ten years from now.”
“I know him. He’s okay.” Understatement of the millennium.
Sam opened the back door and slid in. “You seem to have this habit of rescuing me.” He smiled at Sara. “I’m Sam Cody.” He extended his hand. She stared at it, surprised, then shook it.
“Sara,” she responded. “You know my sister?”
“Yes and no. Mostly no.”
“Take my advice, go with the no.”
Sam leaned forward, elbows on the back of the bench seat. He was so close. I felt impossibly dizzy. I clutched the wheel till my fingers ached.
“She saved my life,” Sam confided to Sara.
Sara eyed me with new respect. The clot of traffic broke, and I stepped on the gas.
“I more or less gave him a Band-Aid,” I clarified.
“She ripped off her T-shirt to bind my wounds,” Sam said.
Sara gasped softly.
I shrugged. “Well, I couldn’t just let him die.” I looked in the mirror and managed to return Sam’s smile. “Where are we going?”
“Kayla’s,” said Sara.
“No, I meant Sam.”
He hesitated. “Drop me as far north as you’re going.”
“It’s pouring. I might as well take you home, Sam.”
He shook his head. “No, really.”
“Let her take you home,” Sara advised. “Trust me. She has no life.”
I sent her my most withering look. She did not wither. She didn’t even shrivel up around the edges. “Savor your last few hours on earth,” I told her.
Sam leaned back. I checked the mirror. He was grinning. His T-shirt was a wet second skin. Very becoming. He winked at Sara. “Beneath that playful banter lies a deep sisterly bond, right?”
“Beneath that playful banter lies deep sisterly hatred,” Sara replied. “You have any sisters?”
“Two brothers, younger. One just right for you, actually.”
“Where do they go to school?”
Sam looked out the window, suddenly quiet. “They’re … somewhere else.”
“Where?” Sara persisted.
“Sara, where do I turn for Kayla’s?” I interrupted.
“Bahia Vista. Duh. You’ve only been there, like, ten thousand times.”
“I was hinting you should stop the inquisition. Duh.”
“I was just asking—”
“Stop asking.”
She turned around, arms crossed, sending me her own version of a withering look. A few minutes later I pulled into Kayla’s drive. Sara leapt out without a word, slamming the door. The window glass shuddered.
I smiled weakly. “Sibling rivalry, I guess.”
“It’ll pass.”
“You can sit up front, if you want. The seat’s premoistened.”
Sam joined me. I watched Sara slip into Kayla’s house. “I don’t know why she hates me so much.”
“It’s normal.”
“If my family’s normal, we’re all in trouble. Put on your seat belt, okay?”
“She’s probably intimidated.”
“Intimidated?” I asked, backing out of the drive.
“She’s got this smart, beautiful—” Sam began, then paused and fumbled with his seat belt. “Uh, sister. Sure, she’s going to feel intimidated.”
Beautiful was not a word I’d ever heard in connection with my person. My cheeks sizzled. I lowered the window a little more, soaking my left arm.
I savored the word. Sam, this beautiful guy sitting next to me in my smelly-dog station wagon, had just called me beautiful.
I realized I hadn’t spoken in a few aeons or so.
“Do you intimidate your brothers?” I asked quickly.
Sam laughed at some private joke. “No. No danger of that. They pretty much think I’m crazy.”
I shot him a glance. “Should that worry me?”
“Probably.”
I stopped at the corner. “So where to? And don’t say ‘wherever.’ It’s pouring and I’ll feel like a jerk if I just let you off by the side of the road so you get even more soaked. Besides, you heard my sister. I have no life.”
Sam tapped grease-stained fingers on the dash. “Okay, then. Out Clark Road, past the highway.”
I nodded. We drove in silence for a while, the rain hammering. “I didn’t see you yesterday at school,” I said to fill the quiet. “I mean, in study hall I noticed …”
“I was working. At Smitty’s. That garage on Route 41.” He held up his hands as evidence. “That’s where I was today. Trying to resuscitate a ’78 Dodge. In my free time, I’m working on my bike. A guy I work with helped me dig it out.”
“What about school, though?”
“What about it?”
“You know. How can you afford to miss?”
“I can’t afford not to.”
“But you’ll—” I looked at him, and he smiled vaguely.
“I’ll what?”
“Well, fall behind. Don’t you read the propaganda? Your GPA will drop. You’ll never graduate, your life will be over, and you’ll have to spend your days working as a—”
“Mechanic?”
“No, no.” I wanted to start over. “That’s not what I meant at all.”
I stole a glance at him. At that moment Sam looked older than I was by decades. I felt the way I had a few summers before, when all my friends had gone to camp and I’d stayed home. They’d come back changed—wiser, flushed with secrets I couldn’t know. Sam made me feel like that.
The rain was giving up. Sam gave me more directions, and I turned down a quiet two-lane road. We were far out in the country, a flat expanse dotted with the occasional trailer, small ranch house, or fruit stand.
He picked up a muddy folder on the floor. “ ‘Save the Manatees,’ ” he read. “Those big walrusy things?”
“This group I belong to is trying to get more sanctuaries set up.”
“To save this big slug?”
“Okay, they’re a little homely. But they’re on the verge of extinction. Manatees are kind of slow-moving, and they keep getting hit by motorboats. Man’s their only serious predator.”
“That’s all it takes.” Sam set the pamph
let aside. “I suppose some people would point out that species are always disappearing—they always have, they always will. It’s easy to be an idealist and lose sight of the big picture.”
“Actually, it’s not. Easy being an idealist, I mean.” I smiled. “Those meetings can be pretty dull. But I want to be a biologist, maybe work to protect endangered species or something.”
Sam crossed his arms. “You’re an interesting girl, Alison.”
“No, I’m not. I’m really pretty average.”
“You shouldn’t say that.”
“Why not? It’s true.”
“Because you might start believing it.” He motioned. “Turn here. You can stop by the mailbox.”
A battered black mailbox, tilting at a precarious angle, was perched under a scraggly pine. A hundred yards up a lumpy dirt road sat a silver trailer, smooth and round as a loaf of unbaked bread. A very old car, a dull red Cadillac convertible, sat nearby, listing slightly into a muddy ditch. Everything seemed askew. It was like looking at an off-center painting.
I felt Sam watching me. “So this is home?”
“No,” he said, “but it’s where I live.”
“I could drive you on up.”
“No,” Sam said quickly. Then, more casually, “There’s no place to turn around.” He fingered the pamphlet on the seat. “You know, I didn’t mean … There’s nothing wrong with having ideals.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m pretty sure I used to have one or two.”
“You should come to one of our meetings,” I suggested.
“I don’t do groups.”
“That’s what you said about horses. And you ended up riding.”
“Desperate times, desperate measures.” He stared at the pamphlet thoughtfully. A huge, blubbery manatee smiled benignly from the cover. “Maybe sometime …”
“What?” I tried not to sound too hopeful.
“I was just going to say that maybe sometime, you know, if you’re not busy, you could show me one. A real manatee. Could be the photo isn’t doing this guy justice.”
“I’d like that,” I said casually, in my very best imitation of a cool person.
Sam hesitated. His eyes flicked to the trailer. His jaw was clenched, as if he were trying to stop the flow of words. I gathered from his sudden frown that he was having second thoughts about our going out.
Sharing Sam Page 3
