I smiled at that and curled up on the couch, resting my head on the decorative pillow that was scratchy against my cheek. It was so peaceful out here—the intermittent crackle of the dying fire, the dog’s breathing, interrupted by an occasional snort, the presence of my dad—that I had absolutely no desire to go back to my own room.
“Want to hear some of it?” my dad asked as he looked over the book at me. I nodded, trying to remember how many years it had been since someone had read to me. I’d always wanted my father to do it when I was little, even though most nights he wasn’t home until long past my bedtime. But when he was there, he was the only one I wanted to hear stories from—he added in details my mother didn’t, like the fact that Hansel and Gretel were guilty of trespassing and willful destruction of property, and that the Three Little Pigs could have pursued a harassment charge against the Big Bad Wolf. “Okay, here we go.” He cleared his throat and started to read in a voice that seemed somehow weaker than the big, booming baritone I’d always associated with him. I told myself it was just because he was trying to be quiet, and not wake the whole house. And I closed my eyes and let the words wash over me—about women talking of Michelangelo, and yellow fog, but mostly, a refrain about how there will be time, time for you and time for me. And these last words were echoing in my head as my eyes got heavier, and the last thing I remembered before falling asleep was my dad placing a blanket over me and turning out the light.
“I’m not sure what he got this time,” Warren said now as he looked back toward the driveway and the UPS truck. “Personally, I wouldn’t mind more steaks.”
“I hope it’s something as good as those chocolates,” I said, hearing my voice go up a little higher than normal, into the range of forced cheerfulness. “They were amazing.”
“They really were,” Warren said, and I noticed he had the same bright, high tone to his voice. He met my eye briefly before looking back at the water. We weren’t talking about the reason why our dad had suddenly turned slightly manic—or about the fact that he wasn’t eating many of the gourmet treats he was having flown to the Poconos from all over the world, and had started to get noticeably thinner.
I flipped a through a couple more pages of the magazine, but it no longer seemed particularly interesting, and I tossed it aside after a few minutes—but carefully, since it was one I’d borrowed from Lucy. Things had been better with us since our impromptu sleepover. We weren’t good friends again by any stretch of the imagination, but the atmosphere at work had gotten a lot more cordial. Elliot, upon hearing about Lucy’s breakup, had started dropping a lot more things when we were all working together, confirming what I’d begun to suspect—that he had a crush on her. But as far as I could tell, he hadn’t done anything about this except exponentially increase the amount of cologne he wore to work. I was worried that if he kept it up, customers might start to complain.
“So what’s going on with the Crosbys?” Warren asked, making me jump.
“What do you mean?” I asked, wondering why this simple question was making me so nervous. I hadn’t seen Henry since I so thoroughly embarrassed myself at Movies Under the Stars, but I’d been thinking about him—Henry now, and the Henry I’d known before—much more than I ever would have admitted.
“I mean that tent by their house,” Warren said, looking through the gap in the trees, where you could see a flash of Day-Glo orange vinyl. “It looks like they’re harboring vagrants.”
I shook my head and lay back down. “I seriously don’t think they are.”
“Well, I know that’s what you think, but statistically…” I let Warren drone on about the legal definition of squatting, which somehow turned into him telling me that “hobo” actually stood for “homeward bound,” and I was just beginning to be able to tune him out when I heard a familiar-sounding voice right above me.
“Hey there.” I opened my eyes and saw Henry standing on the dock, wearing a faded Borrowed Thyme T-shirt and surfer-style swim trunks, carrying a towel.
“Hi,” I stammered, sitting up and trying to fluff up my hair, which I had a feeling had gone limp with the heat.
Warren pushed himself up to standing and tilted his head to the side, then asked, “Henry?”
Henry nodded. “Hey, Warren,” he said. “It’s been a while.”
“I’ll say,” Warren said. “It’s nice to see you again.” He crossed to the end of the dock and held out his hand. After a tiny pause, Henry shifted his towel to the other arm and they shook. “I heard that you guys were next door to us now. How’ve you been?”
“Pretty good,” Henry said. He glanced over at me and met my eye for only a second, but it was enough to set my pulse racing. “How about you?”