“How old were you?”
“I don’t know ... eighteen? It was the summer before I went to college. I just traveled around doing my thing, and by the time I got back everything had calmed down a little bit. And then I went off to college.”
“I wish I could go somewhere,” I said.
“I know what you mean. Sometimes, it just gets to be too much.” Then he added, “Did you tell Ashley you saw me?”
“Yeah.” I still had my mother on my mind, the house and the move and Europe all jumbled, and suddenly here Ashley was, the center of attention again. “I told her.”
“What’d she say?”
I looked at him, wondering what was at stake here, then said, “She didn’t say much. She’s got a lot on her mind now.”
“Oh, yeah.” He shrugged it off. “Well, sure. I just wondered if she remembered me, you know. If she ran screaming from the room at the mention of my name.”
“Nothing that dramatic,” I said. “She just ... she said to say hello if I saw you again.”
“Really?” He was surprised. “Wow.”
“I mean, it was casual and all,” I said quickly, worried that this little lie might carry more weight than I meant it to. I couldn’t tell him how she’d hardly blinked, hanging over the porch with her hair shielding her face. How it had barely jarred her mind from the wedding and Lewis and even the smallest thought she might have been thinking. No one wants to be inconsequential.
“Oh, I know,” he said. “I just wondered if she even remembered me.”
“She does,” I said as we came up on Little Feet, with sneakers bobbing on fishing line in the window and paper fish I’d made myself stuck to the wall behind them. “You’re not so forgettable.”
“Yeah, well. I don’t know about that.” He stopped at the door to the store, sweeping his arm. “And here we are.”
“Yeah.” I looked in to see my manager folding socks. When he saw me he took a not so subtle look at the clock, craning his long, rubbery neck. I hated my job. “You know you could always drop in at Dillard’s and see her. She works at the Vive cosmetics counter.”
He smiled. “I don’t think that’s such a great idea. There’s no telling what might happen when she saw me.”
My manager was watching me, folding sock over sock. “You could at least say hello. I mean, it wasn’t like you ever did anything to her.”
Sumner looked up. He stared at me as if my face was changing before him, and then said slowly, “Well, no. I guess not. Look, I better go, Haven. I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Me too.” I pulled out my name tag and put it on, fastening the clip. “Think about it, Sumner. It’s not like she ever hated you.” I didn’t know why this was so important to me; maybe I thought he could bring back the Ashley I liked so much, the one who liked me. Maybe Sumner’s magic could work on both of us again.
He started to back away, hands in his pockets. He looked smaller to me now, lost in the green of his uniform. “Yeah. I’ll see you later.”
I stood there and watched him walk away, still stalling for time while the second hand of the store clock jumped closer and closer to two o’clock. The mall was noisy and busy now, with people and voices and colors all jumbled together, another Saturday of shopping and families and bright red plastic Lakewood Mall bags. Still I kept my eye on Sumner as he waded through the throngs past the potted plants and swaying banners overhead. He’d been where I was, once; he understood. I watched him go until he was lost to me, another green in a sea of multicolors, shifting.
Chapter Eight
In the time that she’d been home, Casey had managed not only to be grounded for smoking, but also to get caught making hour-long interstate calls to Pennsylvania, drinking a beer behind the garden shed during a family barbecue, and disappearing for an entire day. Mrs. Melvin was exhausted and sick of Casey’s face, so she granted her a leave of two hours to come to see me, provided she called in every half hour and got home by six. She arrived two seconds after inviting herself over, breathless.
“My mom wants to kill me,” she said as we set out for a walk around the neighborhood and a chance to talk in private. “I heard her and my dad discussing my situation last night, on the back porch.”
“And she said she wanted to kill you?”
“No, she said she was beginning to think the only solution was to lock me in my room.” She pushed a mass of orange curls out of her face. “But then she lets me out today. I think she’s up to something.”
“You’re paranoid,” I told her.
“Last night when I called Rick he said he was getting it from his parents, too. He can’t call for a while.” She sighed, crossing her arms against her shirt, a long white polo ten sizes too big. I wondered if Rick had any clothes of his own left. I imagined him leaving 4-H camp naked, with Casey packing up everything he owned as a souvenir.