She laughs and nods. “Seven, five, three, one.”
Her password? She’s sharing it without a moment’s hesitation. I punch the numbers on the screen, then hit the button to retrieve the voice mail. She twists her dripping hair over her other shoulder and steps closer. As I extend the phone toward her, my hand grazes her cheek. She smiles at me.
As the message begins, she moves still closer. Another two inches and her head would be against my chest. I’m leaning in, my semi-wet shirt touching her dripping sleeve.
“Brighton? Baby?”
The voice that comes out of the phone is definitely not Amelia’s and I’m standing too close to pretend not to hear it.
It’s mom-aged, sentimental, and thick with alcohol. Brighton’s eyes go wide and she stiffens, her arm drawing away from mine.
“Auntie Joan just left. We were talking at dinner, and remember that Thanksgiving when you and your daddy decided to get up early and surprise everyone by putting the turkey in?”
I should give her privacy. I take a step back, so I’m holding the phone as close to her and as far from me as possible, but I can still hear the message. Bright’s eyes are closed now; her expression looks hurt, nervous.
“Only you put it in the pan upside down and forgot to take the giblets out before you put the stuffing in?” Her mother gives this sniffly laugh and blows her nose near the phone. “I miss him …”
Finally Brighton snaps out of her embarrassment trance and grabs the phone from my hand, but it slips through her wet fingers and falls to the ground. I back away to go wait by a bench. She reaches for it and fumbles, hitting speakerphone instead.
“Oh, baby girl—I wish you were home. Some of your tea and a chat would be so perfect right now … but Evy says you’re out—”
Finally she presses the right key and shuts the damn thing off.
I’m bracing for an awkward exchange, watching her take deep breaths and smooth her dress down with white-knuckled fists. Her face, when she finally lifts her chin, is blank. Even if she doesn’t look as giddy as she did three minutes ago, she looks serene. It’s got to be an act, but I’m not going to call her on it.
“Where should we go now?” she asks.
“What?” I’m still amazed she looks so calm. Maybe because she knows my parents are divorced too, it doesn’t bother her that I heard her mom blubber. “Didn’t you want to go home?”
“We can’t get in your car like this.” She wrings a handful of water out of her dress and squelches her good foot against her flip-flop. “We’ve got to dry off at least a little. And I doubt we’re really supposed to be in the park after sunset. Is there anywhere good to go for a walk or sit and get some coffee?”
My own sneakers spray water through the toes as I shift my weight from one foot to the other. “But what about—” I point to her phone, feeling like a jerk for bringing it up.
“Oh, good point, I should text Amelia and tell her I’m all set. You’ll take me home, right? Eventually?”
“Eventually,” I echo with a grin. If she can ignore the voice mail, then I’m sure as hell not going to worry about it. “Hamilton doesn’t do froufrou coffee houses—and even if they did, it’s after twelve. Nothing much is open. But no one is going to bother us about a park curfew. Jeff and I used to come here all the time when we were younger. That’s how I knew about the sprinklers.”
Her people-pleaser smile melds into her real one as she looks up from her text and asks, “Did you really just refer to Bean Haven as froufrou?”
“Maybe I did— Are you going to argue with me? I only went there once. It was so pink. I tried to order a small coffee and the worker said, ‘You mean a teensy.’”
She’s laughing as I lead her to the path toward the playground. The playground Felix and Jeff had graffitied at twelve. I’d been too scared to even be their lookout. Their favorite curse words are still painted in runny letters on the bottom of the slide for all to see. It’s so rundown and beat-up compared to the eco-friendly, native-plant-landscaped parks of Cross Pointe. I wonder if Brighton’s noticing the cracks in the concrete, the weeds, or the broken swing.
I’ve never noticed them before.
Yet it was Cross Pointe that brought out my own graffiti artist—the first week after the move I’d gone so far as to buy the paint and everything. But when I’d stood outside the perfect shops on perfect Main Street with the can in my hand, I’d become as chicken as I’d been at twelve. Maybe if I could’ve painted something with social commentary, like Banksy does, but to just scrawl sloppy letters across the storefronts? I couldn’t even think of what to write. A swear, like an eleven-year-old showing off his cool factor? “I hate this town”?
In the end I dropped the spray paint into one of the trash cans spread out in even intervals.