CHAPTER 24
Nastya
When I get to his house at 7:40, Josh is in his driveway, leaning against the side of his truck. As soon as he sees me, he unlocks the doors and comes around to open mine.
“About time, Sunshine,” he says. “I was about to give up on you.”
“I didn’t know you had a field trip planned,” I reply once I’ve settled into the truck and shut the door.
“I have to get to Home Depot before they close.”
“You didn’t have to wait for me.” He really didn’t. It’s not like I was going to be sad to miss the weekly hardware store stock-up.
“No. But I knew you’d be showing up sooner or later and my garage would be closed and you’d feel abandoned and then I’d feel guilty and I hate feeling guilty. So it was just easier to wait.” One side of his mouth turns up.
“Your life is so hard,” I say dryly.
“You are the only person who would even think to say something like that to me.” He sounds weirdly pleased.
“Force field hasn’t kept me out yet.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
I give him a pointed look because I’m sure he can figure it out. He keeps staring at me, so finally I shrug and then throw in a sigh so he knows that I’m exasperated at having to explain this to him.
“At school, no one comes near you.
When I first saw you on the bench in the courtyard, I wondered if you were surrounded by some sort of force field. I kind of wanted to get one for myself. You can hide in plain sight. It’s pretty awesome.”
“Force field,” he repeats, somewhat amused. “Might as well be. People used to call it the dead zone,” he adds, but he doesn’t elaborate. “Maybe you have special
powers.”
I
assume
he’s
commenting on my ability to breach his force field, but I don’t respond.
I don’t have any special powers. I’m certain of that, because I’ve spent a lot of time lamenting my lack of them. I do have an uncanny capacity for bitterness and misdirected rage but I don’t think that counts. I feel a little misled. I spent crapload of time over the past couple years reading books and watching movies, and in all of them, when you die and they bring you back to life, supernatural abilities are just part of the deal. Sorry you didn’t win the grand prize of eternal peace, but you’re not walking away empty handed!
You may come back broken and wrong, but at least you get some cosmic consolation prize, like the ability to read minds or speak to the dead or smell lies. Something cool like that. I can’t even manipulate the elements.
Of course if I were to take the books at their word, I’d also have to believe that all teenage boys go around calling girls baby, because apparently that’s the express train to romance. He was an a*shole a minute ago but then he drops the baby on you and it’s all over. Uncontrollable swooning and relinquishment of all self-respect activated. Ooooh, he called me baby. My panties are wet and I luuuuuuuv him. Do real boys actually call girls baby?
I don’t have enough experience to know. I do know that if a guy ever called me baby, I’d probably laugh in his face. Or choke him.
I follow Josh down another aisle.
He’s almost as comfortable here as he is in his garage. It’s like he’s being pulled around by an invisible string that leads him to everything he’s looking for. He’s on autopilot, not even thinking. He must spend half his life in this store.
“I’ll get the wood next time,” he says.
“I don’t feel like dealing with it tonight.
Plus, I think we’re going to have to hit the lumber yard for what I need anyway.” The we’re part of that sentence sticks in my head.
“What are you making?” I ask, glancing down the aisle to make sure it’s empty before speaking.
“I have a job for one of the teachers at school. Then I have two Adirondack chairs to make.”
“You sell everything you build?”
“Some of it I give away. Some of it I sell. It’s how I pay for the wood and the tools.”
“Is that why you haven’t applied to college?”
“Huh?” he says, putting two more cans of finish in the cart.
“I heard Mrs. Leighton talking to you.
You haven’t applied yet. You don’t want to go?”
“I never really got into the whole school thing.”
“Did your parents want you to go?”
“I don’t know. We never really got that far.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“Probably the same thing I’m doing now. Just more of it.”
I get that. I used to think the exact same way, but he can actually do it.
“You can afford that?” I ask. We’re in front of a display of little drawers full of every size screw you can imagine and he’s pulling them out without even looking.
“I can afford just about anything I’m willing to pay for.” I’m not sure exactly what he means by that, but the way he says it is bitter, and if there’s something that makes him sound that way, I don’t want to get into it.
We get up to the self-checkout and I start taking things out of the cart and handing them to him one at a time as he runs them over the scanner. It strikes me how utterly domestic this all seems. He could have come without me because I really haven’t served any purpose here at all. I could have used the time to run which is probably what I should have been doing.
It’s what I would have done if I had shown up at his house and he wasn’t there. I would have run myself into exhaustion.
He’s right about one thing and I wonder if he knew just how right he was and if that’s why he waited. If I had gotten to his house and seen that closed garage, I would have felt abandoned and I may never have gone back.
***
When we get back to his house just after nine o’clock, I help him carry the bags into the garage and watch him put everything away. He is all grace and fluid in this place; there isn’t one wasted movement. Everything he does has purpose. I don’t feel uncomfortable about watching. He watches me, too. We have an unspoken agreement. I let him watch me.
He lets me watch him. We never call each other on it. It’s a gift we give one another.
No strings, no expectations, no reading between the lines. We’re like mysteries to one another. Maybe if I can solve him and he can solve me, we can explain each other. Maybe that’s what I need. Someone to explain me.
When everything has been put away, he closes the garage door and goes into the house, waiting for me to follow before he shuts the door.
“Did you eat?” he asks.
“Yeah, before I came over. You?”
“Yeah. I would have heated you up something if you were hungry. So, you actually cooked tonight?” He regards me skeptically.
I snort. Because snorting is attractive.
“No.”
“What’d you eat for dinner?”
“Peanut butter cookies.”
“I don’t need to ask if you’re serious, do I? I don’t know how you exercise so much with the way you eat.”
“Peanut butter has protein in it,” I say, full of false indignation. “Besides, I was messing with the recipe. I had to eat a bunch of them to see when I got it right.”
“Did you?” he asks, pulling a bottle of water out of the refrigerator and drinking half of it before handing it to me.
“I don’t know. I’ll bring you some and you can tell me.”
“I’ll eat your cookies, but you let me feed you real food first.”
“You’re going to cook for me?” I almost choke on the water before passing the bottle back.
“I
cook
anyway.
What’s
the
difference if you’re here?”
“Don’t put yourself out.”
“I won’t.” He smiles as I walk around the counter and pick up the mp3 player that’s sitting next to the phone.
“What are you listening to?” I ask, turning it on.
“Nothing. I took it out for you. It just sits here. I thought you might want to use it when you run.”
Oh. I flip it off without looking and put it back down. “That’s okay. I don’t need one, but thanks.”
“How come? You’re the only person I’ve ever seen running without music.
Doesn’t it get boring?” he asks. It’s a valid question, but it doesn’t get boring. It’s never quiet enough to get boring and I certainly don’t plan to stick shit in my ears like a written invitation for someone to jump me. I shrug, pushing it back further on the counter and turning away.
“Not really. I heard you and my aunt had a nice chat,” I say sarcastically, moving to the sofa. I kick my shoes off and tuck my feel underneath me.
“I was wondering if she’d mention that.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He shrugs. Between the two of us we do a lot of shrugging. Maybe that’s why I finally started talking to him. My shoulders just got tired.
“What did she say?” he asks, sinking down next to me.
“She said she wasn’t stupid and that I shouldn’t treat her like she is.”
“So are you not supposed to be here right now?”
“No. She’s okay. She just expects me to let her know where I am from now on.
As long as I text her it’s fine.” It’s true.
Margot did sit me down and lecture me.
She made sure I felt the full measure of my lack of consideration for her and that I understood that if anything happened to me, she would be the one dealing with the wrath of my mother; a five-foot three woman who could strike fear in a berserker. But God bless Margot, because she wasn’t going to force me into a corner with rules and ultimatums, either, which was good, because I would have ignored them. Not because I wanted to rebel against her or because I didn’t want anyone telling me what to do, but because I wasn’t going to give up sitting in that garage.
“Look Em,” she said, “I’m not na?ve.
I was young, too. I’m thirty-two years old and I still have a list of stories I will never tell my mother, and if Charlotte was my mother, that list would be even longer, so believe me, I understand. But you also need to understand that you are my responsibility and beyond that I love you.” I think I cringed at that part but she ignored me and kept going. “You’ll be eighteen years old soon and I know exactly how futile it will be to forbid you to do anything, but I need you to respect me enough to let me know where you are and who you’re with and what you’re doing. If you do, we’ll be fine. If you don’t, I will not hesitate to throw you under the bus with your mother.”
She made sure to tack on that she knew I was a smart girl and that smart girls often do the stupidest things and then she hugged me and told me I could tell her anything and she wouldn’t judge me. I think it was her version of a sex talk.
I hugged her back because it was my only way to say thank you to her for letting me keep him without a fight. She wasn’t going to make it difficult for me to see him and I desperately needed something in my life that wasn’t difficult.