In Broken Places

20




ALL THINGS CONSIDERED, life could have been a lot worse. My greatest problems, two days before opening night, were that Kate had a cold, Seth hadn’t slept in three days, Thomas still thought all the English accents stank, two of the auditorium’s spotlights were out, the wardrobe’s pulley system only worked once in every five attempts, Shayla had tried to walk out of the house wearing one of my bras that morning, and there was a cannonball where my stomach used to be. I was nervous. I was nervous enough that I’d forgotten to eat several times in the past few days. And forgetting to eat was a scary thing indeed for this ingestion addict.

This was very much the students’ play—and they’d earned every bit of praise they would receive for it—but it was also my directorial debut, and though I hoped I’d done things right, I wouldn’t be sure until the final blackout after our first performance.

Scott had come by my classroom earlier in the day to ask if Shayla and I would like to go out for an early dinner with him before the forty-eight-hour circus we knew was ahead. As I was in a particularly astute and intelligent mood at the time, I accepted, though I did disinvite Shayla, whose lack of sleep in recent days had transformed her into a human version of the Tasmanian Devil. Since she’d be sleeping at the Johnsons’ for the next three nights anyway because of the play, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to add one more evening of being spoiled by Bev to her vacation from me. I just hoped my daytime hours with her would compensate for our separation at night. The thought of not having her under my roof made me weepy.

Scott took me to the Café Inka that evening, a tiny family restaurant in the village of Ötlingen, where renovations in the late eighties had revealed paintings dating back to 1819. The owners had exposed and cleaned the valuable artwork and, as a preservation measure, had imposed a smoking ban on the café. This was probably the only restaurant in the area where smoking was not allowed. As accustomed as I’d become to the thick air of German restaurants and to the strong smell on my clothes when I got home, it felt wonderful to be in a smoke-free environment for the evening.

I ordered a slice of broccoli quiche and Scott got a pork steak. It was one of those evenings when I was acutely aware of the calm before the storm, and I felt an expectancy and eagerness that made it hard for me to sit still. I just wanted to get to opening night and find out if this play could fly.

Scott did his best to distract me from the tension, but my state of mind was undistractable.

“How’s your quiche?”

“Do you think the pulley system will work if we lay hands on it and pray really hard?”

“That’s a lot of vegetable for someone like you. Try not to have a health overdose.”

“I could just leap onto the stage and yank the doors open if they stick. A little directorial cameo. Bet they haven’t done that in a BFA play before!”

“Did I tell you I have a surprise for you?”

“A surprise?” Scott didn’t know how much I disliked them.

“Yup,” he said, and I could tell by the dancing lights in his eyes that it was a doozie.

“You’re scaring me. . . .”

He pointed with his chin toward the doorway behind me. “It’s right over there.”

I was concentrating so hard on looking for a wrapped present or a bouquet of flowers when I turned that I didn’t immediately see the blond guy with the silly, jet-lagged grin leaning against the doorframe.

I was about to turn back to Scott in frustration when the U of I shirt worn by the gentleman holding up the doorway registered in my mind. My breath caught.

“Trey?” He was too out of context, too unexpected to be real.

“Hey, Shell,” he said, sauntering over to my table with a goofy smile and pulling me out of my chair.

It wasn’t until I smelled his Drakkar Noir aftershave that I believed he was really there. If he’d been taller, I think I would have climbed him like a tree. He was Trey. Trey was here. My brother, Trey, was in Germany, in the same room as me and . . .

I turned on Scott. “You knew he was coming?” My voice was a little too loud for the environment, and every German head in the room turned to frown at the insensitive American making a scene.

“I did.” He was smiling with so much affection that I didn’t know whether to leap across the table and strangle him or leap across the table and hug the living daylights out of him.

“This is Trey,” I told him with all the love of thirty-five years of tandem survival.

Scott stepped forward and shook Trey’s hand. “Good to meet you, man.”

Trey shook back. “You too.”

“Well, sit, sit!” I forced Trey into a chair, mainly so I could sit too. My legs had been through a lot recently, what with performance jitters and first kisses and long-lost brothers showing up, and they weren’t doing a very consistent job of keeping me upright.

I just stared. I stared and grinned stupidly and occasionally opened my mouth to say something, but lost my train of thought before the first word was even out. I looked from Trey to Scott, from Scott to Trey, and just kind of beamed—like the Cheshire cat on crack. I was kind of happy.

“How was your flight?” Scott asked when it became clear that I wasn’t conversationally competent yet.

“No problems. Just a three-hour layover in Frankfurt before the flight to Basel. Gus drove up to the curb just as I walked out, and . . . here I am!”

I found my tongue. “When did you get here? Where are you staying? When did you decide to come? Who else knows about this? How did you get to Ötlingen?”

Scott and Trey exchanged glances, then did a kind of tandem shrug. It was the gesture of men who knew me well and found my weirdness endearing, so I allowed it.

“Well, 2 p.m., on your couch, three weeks ago, just Scott and the Johnsons, and . . . what was the last one?”

I smiled. I was going for the gold medal in smiling.

“Want something to eat?” It’s a good thing Scott was playing host, because my hosting skills were comatose.

Trey, my brother Trey, who was supposed to be in Illinois—that Trey—shook his head. “Maybe just coffee. I had something to eat at the Johnsons’.”

“Are you exhausted? Have you slept?” Me again—still slightly demented.

“Easy on the decibels, Shell. I took at nap at the Johnsons’ before coming out here, so I’m good to go. Bev told me I had to sleep because you were going to keep me awake all night, and she’s a pretty convincing woman.”

“She’s the best.”

There was something a little odd going on at the table. We were all being friendly, but there was an underlying vibe that was making me a little uncomfortable. Trey leaned over to give me a sideways hug, then turned his attention on Scott.

“So . . . you’re Scott.”

“Been practicing that opener all the way over here, Trey?” I smiled.

“I’ve heard a lot about you,” Scott said.

“Yeah? I’ve heard a little about you too.”

On a scale of one to ten, this conversation was scoring a twenty-three for lameness. It felt like a face-off—subtle, mind you, with no guns drawn, but something was definitely going on here.

Trey stared at Scott for a little too long and Scott returned the stare, unflinching.

“So what’s with the two of you?” Trey asked.

“Oh, great, Trey. Way to be smooth.” I was finding this comical—in an unfunny kind of way.

“I’m serious. I’m the brother. I’m supposed to know.”

“Shelby and I are . . . What are we, Shell? Dating?”

“You don’t have to answer him, Scott. He’s just playing King of the Sandbox with you.”

Scott turned his eyes on Trey, smiling. “We’re dating.”

“Cool. And . . . what are your intentions?”

“His intentions? His intentions! Maybe you should have taken a longer nap, Trey.”

Scott sat back in his chair and crossed his arms. “What do you want to know?”

“Are you treating her right?”

“I am.”

“Are you leading her on?”

I was outraged. “Trey!”

“No, I’m not.”

“Do you see this going somewhere?”

“Okay—earth to moron! Trey, stop it. You’re embarrassing yourself and you’re humiliating me.”

“I hope it’s going somewhere. I pray to God it’s going somewhere.” Scott was undeterred.

“And where would that be?”

“Hello?” I looked from one staring man to the other staring man. “Is anyone hearing me? ’Cause I’m pretty sure I’m talking, but I’m not getting a whole lot of response from either of you.”

Scott, still ignoring me, leaned his forearms on the table and assumed his most serious, responsible expression. “I love your sister,” he said, “and my ‘intentions’ are to be the kind of man she can love enough to want to marry.” There was a bit of a challenge in the smile he aimed at Trey. “And since you’re the brother who’s kept her sane all this time, I’m happy to answer any other questions you have.”

I thought of saying something witty about the “sane” thing, but the L word was messing with my zingers—not to mention the M word turning my cognitive skills to mush. Scott hadn’t ever told me that he loved me—not directly, anyway. He hadn’t been shy about expressing it in other ways, but hearing it so unexpectedly in a crowded café with my newly reunited brother sitting next to me awoke a cacophony of voices in my mind, each of them speaking from a different fragment of my heart.

“He’s lying,” said my daughterness.

“He’ll hurt you,” said my woundedness.

“He doesn’t know how warped you really are,” said my brokenness.

“You can’t afford to trust him,” said my betrayedness.

“Maybe . . . just maybe . . . ,” said my uncertain hopefulness, the part of me that wanted to cheer—and dance—and cry—and laugh—and beg all the other voices to be wrong.

I was too fragile to address Scott’s declaration at that moment. Too stunned. Too confused. Too terrified. So I stayed mute and hoped the two men whose lives were so entangled with mine wouldn’t notice my withdrawal. Scott reached across the table and squeezed my hand just as Trey reached to do the same. We all froze for a fraction of a second; then Trey withdrew his hand as Scott twined his fingers with mine. An invisible page turned with such finality that it grieved, frightened, and sobered me.

My brother just sat there looking at our hands, biting the inside of his lip like I’d seen him do a thousand times when he was thinking. His eyes met mine, and he smiled in a way that said he knew. He understood.

“Just so you know,” he said to Scott, “she’s stubborn.”

“Trey . . .”

“So is my sister,” Scott said. “I’ve had practice.”

“And she drags her feet like no one I’ve ever known.”

“Trey!” Consternation was quickly overtaking my confusion.

“I’ve noticed.” Scott smiled, bringing my hand to his lips.

“And she has a hang-up about the whole ‘love’ concept—never believes it’s for real.”

“And expects people to change their minds about it once they get to know her?”

“That’s Shelby.”

I slid down in my chair and covered my burning face with my hands. “I am so humiliated.”

“And,” Trey continued, raising a finger to punctuate his statement, “she can build some pretty thick walls around herself to keep people at arm’s length.”

“Any advice?”

“Oh—that’s right. You’ve been up against a couple of those, haven’t you.”

I groaned.

“Well,” Trey continued, ignoring me, “if you run into them again, my advice is to storm the barricades.”

“Storm them?”

“Blast ’em to smithereens.”

“Really.” Scott seemed to be warming to the concept.

“Don’t give her any wiggle room.”

“Thanks, man. That’s good advice.”

“I’m sitting right here, boys,” I said in a weary voice. “Sitting right here.”

The inquisition had apparently ended and Scott seemed relieved, though he had a purposeful look about him—like a warrior readying for an assault. My brain was suddenly exhausted from the surprise, the face-off, the L word, the M word, and the look on Scott’s face. We all let the loaded silence stretch for a while. A few moments later, Trey slapped Scott on the shoulder and settled back in his chair, relaxing for the first time since he’d arrived. Scott smiled and continued to hold my hand, idly toying with my fingers and leaning in to kiss my temple.

“So,” Trey said with enthusiasm, “how ’bout them Bulls?”

And they were off—a little awkwardly at first, what with the rather brutal introduction to the evening—but once they got going, it was like listening to childhood friends. I realized, about ten minutes into their conversation, that I was going to have to do some serious brushing up on my sports if the three of us were going to be spending any amount of time together.

Trey went inside ahead of me when we got home, and I was thankful for a few moments alone with Scott in his beat-up old Volkswagen.

“So that was painful,” I said.

“It was fun.”

“The beginning part, I mean.”

“It didn’t really surprise me.”

“He’s not usually that . . . forward.”

“He was just checking out the guy who’s been hanging out with his sister.”

“Hanging out, huh?”

“Sure. Hanging out.”

“Um . . . About that ‘love’ thing.”

He cocked an eyebrow.

“You know, the whole ‘I love your sister’ thing. . . .”

“Yes?” His grin told me he’d been expecting the topic to arise.

“Well . . . it’s just that I’ve never really heard you say the word before. I mean . . . not directly to me. So it kinda took me by surprise when you just blurted it to my brother.”

“What are you getting at?”

I sighed and weighed my words. “You’ve only known me a few months,” I said.

“Yes.”

“So . . . really, you don’t know me very well at all.”

He looked at me for a moment before responding. “I know you well enough.”

“It’s just that . . .”

“I’m sorry I blurted it out to your brother before having said it to you,” he said softly, running the back of a finger down my cheek. “I just wanted him to know that you were safe—that I wasn’t out to harm you.”

I nodded, unsure of what to say, of where to begin, of how to explain.

“I love you,” he said, and something in me softened a little with the words. Something resolute and hard. An armored vestige of my childhood’s pain.

“Do you remember the second part of what I told him?” Scott asked, breaking into my thoughts.

“The part about marriage?” I asked, my voice husky from the tears I was striving to restrain.

“Yeah.”

“I’ve been trying to forget that part.”

“Why’s that?”

“It gives me the heebie-jeebies,” I said with an unsteady giggle, emotions wreaking havoc on my poise.

“In a good way?” He was a little perplexed.

“In a heebie-jeebies kind of way.”

“I meant it, you know.”

I was trying to reach the point where I could consider “love” without breaking out in hives. Adding “marriage” to the mix was making me itch.

“Are you going to pull a Scarlett O’Hara on me again?”

I shook my head. I’d learned my lesson at the toy museum. Zingers at crucial moments were not worth the collateral damage. “Scott . . .” I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to put my thoughts in some order. He seemed so casual about the subject, and it made me a little leery. “Do you talk about marriage a lot?” I finally asked, opening my eyes to scan his face for sincerity. “Because it strikes me that if you’ve always been as casual about it as you were tonight, you should have been married a few times over by now.”

“I’ve seldom ever talked about it—or thought about it—except in theoretical terms.”

That gave me pause. “Why not?”

“My youth pastor when I was in ninth grade.”

My curiosity was fast overcoming my distress. “He made you take a vow of celibacy?”

He shook his head. “Sam Collier. A General Patton–esque man with all the people skills of Attila the Hun.”

“Sounds pleasant.”

“He was actually perfect for the job—imagine ten guys like me in the same youth group.” I crinkled my nose in sympathy. “He was former military, actually. And he had this really infuriating ability to predict just how stupid my next idea was going to be.”

“And he’s the reason you’re still single at age thirty-six?”

“Thirty-seven in a few weeks.” Scott leaned his head back on the headrest and seemed to be picturing the scene. “One of the guys in our group asked the colonel—that’s what we called him—what he thought about divorce, and he told us what he thought about marriage instead. He said, ‘Gentlemen, my best advice to you is never get married. Respect marriage. Fear marriage. And absolutely do not get married!’”

“What?”

“He had a point. There were so many marriages, even in my church, that were falling apart, that he told us we should only consider getting married if we were absolutely, fiercely determined to fight for it with all our worth for the rest of our lives. And if we didn’t have a kind of warrior’s zeal and compulsive commitment to give to it, we should run from it as fast as our scrawny legs could take us.”

“So he wasn’t an optimist, is what you’re saying.”

“He was a math guy—he knew the stats and they weren’t in our favor. And most of what I’ve seen since then has proved him right.”

“So you’ve followed his advice—been a good little boy?”

“I was a stupid teenager who did some really stupid things,” he said. “But after I grew up a little, I had a couple more serious girlfriends and gave his theory some thought.”

“Get very far?”

He shook his head. “Every time I stopped to wonder if I was willing to invest in a lifelong battle to keep the relationship alive, I decided I didn’t love her enough or I didn’t want marriage enough.”

I let the silence stretch, mostly because I had no idea how to fill it.

“And now?” I resisted the urge to clap my hands over my ears and sing loudly enough to drown out his response. I was a little nervous.

“And now,” he said, “I’ve reached the ripe old age of thirty-six . . .”

“Nearly thirty-seven.”

“. . . and I’m in a bit of a predicament.”

Here it was. “Predicament?”

“Having found someone I’m willing to go to war for.”

My stomach somersaulted. Not the confession I’d expected. “And that’s a predicament because . . . ?”

“Because I want it with all my might,” he said, his eyes lighting with intensity and determination, “but I don’t know yet if you’re up for the battle too.”

“I see.” The voices were rising in my mind again.

He sighed and leaned his head sideways on the headrest, staring at me. “Still no Scarlett?”

“I think she might be giving you the time to change your mind.”

“She can stop whenever she wants, you know.”

I nodded. “I’ve never been very good at battles, Scott. I’m the type who runs for the cellar, not the armory.”

“I’m in no hurry,” he said.

Years of cynicism streaked toxic stains across the genuineness of Scott’s gaze. I wanted to believe him—with every insurmountable scar of my past.

“I don’t know how to trust you,” I said. I saw his gaze cloud over and a muscle work in his jaw. “That’s not what I mean,” I rectified. “I know I can trust you. But it’s your . . . your . . .”

“Love?”

“Your love,” I said, and the word sounded foreign and unwieldy on my tongue. “It’s your love I have trouble with. And if I can’t believe that . . .”

He turned toward me in his seat and looked at me like the answer was written in hieroglyphics on my face. “What will it take?” he asked in a voice whose huskiness matched mine. “How can I convince you?”

I bit my lip and shook my head, begging him with my eyes not to hate me for my uncertainty. “I don’t know.”

There was a flicker of frustration in his gaze, quickly quelled and softened with a patience that humbled me. “I’ll keep trying until I get it right,” he said, and I knew from the edge in his voice that my hesitance was hurting him.

“I’m sorry, Scott.”

“There’s no need.”

His hand was gentle as he cupped my face. His smile held something deep-flowing and sure. “You should get some sleep,” he said. “You’ve got a couple big days coming up.” His voice was still a little tight, but his eyes were soft and ember-warm.

“You’re right,” I said, reluctant to leave him but relieved to defer the conversation. “And I’ve got an early morning tomorrow, so . . .” I looked into the serenity and depth of his smile, and I wondered what I’d done to earn his love. But Trey was waiting for me in my apartment, probably half-asleep on the couch by now. “I’d better go. Trey and I still have some catching up to do.”

“Glad he’s here?”

“I can’t even tell you.”

“I like him, Shell.”

“And all you’ve seen is his caveman side!” It felt good to smile.

“He loves you. That’s all I really need to know.”

“I’m so . . .” I paused. How could I explain to him the fullness of my heart? “I’m so very grateful to know you, Scott. To . . . to have you in my life. And Shayla’s. I just want you to know that. Whatever happens.” I reached up to touch his face and let my fingers drift over his features. What had I done to deserve this man who made me laugh and think and wish for an impossible future?

He took my fingers from his face and kissed my palm. “Good night, Shelby.”

“Good night, Scott.”