CHAPTER 21
REID
I learned more about Dori in fifteen minutes of eavesdropping on her conversation with the math geek than I’ve found out about her the whole time we’ve been working together. Not only is her father is a pastor, but her sister is a doctor, her mother is a nurse working with low-income pregnant women, and Dori intends to become a social worker. She must have been bred to this service-to-society mentality from birth. She’s like the reverse of me.
For about two seconds I want to go home and hug my parents.
Then Dori’s ears did their pink transformation. Up to that point, I’d just been observing that Trevor guy flirting with her.
It was humorous until her ears started glowing. Shit. Now I’m territorial over making her ears change color? What the hel .
After tossing my trash, I scan the yard for Dori and spot her walking in a tight circle, talking on her cel . I grab a couple of water bottles and head over to the shelving boards, which need a second coat of paint.
“No, I mean, of course I stil want to see you.” Her voice carries the few feet between us. “Can we not do this now?” She stops her circular pacing. “No, there’s nothing you’re doing wrong.”
She’s silent for another couple of minutes, restarting her pacing after glancing at me. I busy myself setting up the paint sprayer, pretending I can’t hear her.
“Nick, I don’t know if I’m even capable…” Eyes tightly closed, she makes a fist and bumps herself in the forehead three times. “I don’t know why. There’s obviously something wrong with me. Something missing.” Opening her eyes, she swipes the back of her hand across her cheek. She’s breaking up with the guy? It’s like a gruesome col ision. I can’t look away.
“We’re going to different col eges, and you’l find someone who’l be everything you want and deserve. I’m just… not that girl. I never have been.” She searches her empty pockets, looking for a tissue, I think. She turns to go into the house, and I can’t fol ow without being really damned obvious.
When she comes back out, I’m painting the boards. Her eyes are red, but not repulsively so. “Oh,” she says, smiling, though barely. “You got started already. Thanks.” I shrug one shoulder. “No problem.” I turn the motor off on the sprayer and examine her for a couple of seconds.
“Wanna talk about it?” I ask. She shakes her head, and I nod, hand her the water bottle. “What’s next, boss?” She swal ows half the bottle of water, and then says,
“Did you know that ‘boss’ is what guys in jail cal the guards and deputies?”
As a matter of fact I do know that, but I raise my eyebrows in mock surprise. “You don’t say.” She rol s her eyes, sighing, her smile growing wider.
“Why don’t you finish painting, you reprobate, and I’l go inside and start getting the closets ready to be shelved.” I turn the sprayer back on. “I’ve been cal ed worse, you know.”
She laughs, which is incongruous with her tear-stained face but somehow attractive at the same time. “You don’t say,” she mocks, and I have to laugh.
*** *** ***
Dori
“I have a question,” he says, just before we leave for the day.
We’re moving the painted boards inside so we can start instal ing the shelves in the morning. I know him wel enough by now to know he’l insist on using the dril tomorrow—
something I understand. The first time Dad agreed to let me wield a power tool, I jumped up and down. Reid’s not as enthusiastic as that… but he’s close.
“Yeah?”
“Why social work and not music?”
This is far afield from the subject of power tools, so my brain has to redirect. “What?”
“You told Trevor you’re going to Berkeley, right?” he asks, and I nod. “So, why, with your voice, are you studying social work instead of music?”
While I thought he was doing nothing more than regaling the others with corrupt Hol ywood tales, he was listening to my conversation with Trevor. Before I can compose an answer, he adds, “Seems like a waste of time.” What? “Is that how you feel about this project, after three weeks of working here? Can’t you see that these families need what we do for them?”
He holds his hands up. “Yeah, sure. But you seem to feel some guilt complex for being born smarter, or having a better life. And you’re planning to spend your life beating your head against a wal trying to help people who don’t bother to help themselves.”
I do feel accountable for my blessings—but he seems to feel nothing but entitlement. “These people didn’t do anything to deserve being born into poverty, any more than I deserved to be born into a family that can afford to give me food, decent health care, or an education.” He stacks the final board against the others. “Why does it have to be about deserving something? So it’s luck of the draw, and granted, their hand sucks. I mean sure, there are things you can do—and here you are, doing them. But there’s only so much. Why live your life feeling guilty?”
“It isn’t guilt—it’s a social conscience.” I try to suppress my defensiveness. “I can’t just stand by and do nothing.
Because my life is easy in comparison, and that isn’t fair.”
“Don’t, you know, fly off the handle or anything—but doesn’t the fact that you think it isn’t fair make you distrustful of the idea of a ‘higher power’ orchestrating everything?”
“No.” His eyebrows rise at my quick reply, and I can’t let him know how close to my doubts he’s come. “Because people like my Dad exist. Because faith is part of who I am, and a measure of faith is being wil ing to do what’s needed.
I just want to make a difference. I have to believe I have a purpose. Maybe you don’t understand that, but that’s how I feel.”
He’s quiet for a minute, and I’m thinking I’ve wasted my breath and gotten worked up for nothing. “You’re right, I don’t understand,” he says. He tilts his head like Esther does when I talk to her and I use words outside of her canine experience. “Your principles seem real, though.
Usual y there’s something deceptive about people who throw words like faith around. Like they’re using it to mask ulterior motives or baser desires…” He smiles a wicked little smile and my heart flips over. “The sorts of values I do understand.”