“Mira would say the same thing. You do something to one of us, you do it to all.”
“Connie, listen. It’s way hot, and it’s probably time we headed back.”
“I thought, I mean, if you did like me, too, we might…”
“Connie!” Ben’s tone was louder than he meant it to be, and his cheeks burned. “Please stop.” He checked to see if the others had heard, but the silhouettes had moved away. Even Piggy didn’t care if Ben was making the moves on Connie, hangdog now around the eyes and mouth. “Hey, don’t sit here by yourself. Come up with me. I’ll help you.”
Connie shook her head.
“You gotta go up to get out, anyway. Come.”
Connie squinted past Ben’s legs, as if into the sun, though it was the wrong direction. “I’m gonna lie here alone for a while. You go.”
“You sure?”
She nodded hard.
“Your way then.” Ben turned and climbed, hand over hand, having trouble feeling for the notches that he knew by heart.
Connie called up to him softly. “She wouldn’t have drowned. She’s protected, by her gifts.”
Ben let Connie’s words float away over the lake. When he reached the altar rock, he saw Francesca seated like a queen with a towel draped around her neck, Mira at her feet. He hoisted himself up and collapsed on the bare rock. Mira sprang up and ran to him, planting her hands on both sides of his chest, hovering over his face as though she might kiss him. Ben had no way of knowing her expression: she had eclipsed the sun. If he hadn’t known better, he would have sworn she was going to mount him.
“Whoa!” He laughed. Instantly, everything was better. Everything was amazing. This was Mira’s gift, he wanted to yell to Connie, dumb, dramatic Connie.
“That dive was sick!” Mira gasped, damp hair spilling onto his chest, light shining through a hundred shades of butter gold, the smell of tropical flowers and coconut. Instinctively, he reached up and touched it; it was sunlight on his fingers.
Louis crawled over, a wicked smile across his face. He leaned and whispered in Ben’s ear. “I thought, Benny. I just thought, if you did like me, too, we might … you and I might, you know, right here on the ledge…” His imitation of Connie was loud enough for Mira to overhear, but it hadn’t mattered; nothing mattered. Ben had touched sunlight. All bets were off: Mira would be his.
Ben looked up at the sun. The morning was passing fast. He wasn’t here to remember: the memories would only drive him mad. Mira had given him one last job to do. He scanned the ledge. Pockets of trash—cans, Johnny’s Foodmaster bags, condoms—were stuffed into crevices. A knot of panic poked the back of his throat. Where would someone leave a note where no one would find it unless they were looking? Where?
Ben took a deep breath and stuck his head back over the side of the ledge where Connie had sat. Behind a weeks-old sapling flashed white. Mira’s note, weighted with a rock. The knot in Ben’s chest loosened. Ben scrambled down to the shallow ledge and snatched it up. The ledge was skinny and seemed less stable than it was a year ago, when it had held Connie and him, or maybe he was becoming a wimp. He jammed the note in his pocket and pulled himself onto the altar, crab-walking backward, spraying tiny stones.
Ben unfolded the note. When he saw the first word, he let out an anguished groan.
Francesca wakes every morning with hair soaked
from tears. She cries all night over him and the things
he does to her. She makes excuses, says he can’t help himself.
Only I know better.
Ben swore and threw the note to the ground. Why was Mira wasting her notes to him on her sister’s love life? Everyone knew Francesca Cillo had a crush on Mr. Falso. It made sense, the guys rationalized, for her to fall for a dude who was unreachable when she wasn’t allowed to date anybody anyway. He was lean, had shoulders that looked good in shirts, and actual dimples. His skin stayed dark in January when everyone else looked like dishwater. Rumor was he spray-tanned. His eyebrows dipped in the middle, making him look angry when he wasn’t smiling, which wasn’t often. Mr. Falso (“Call me Nick!”) didn’t shake hands: he hugged. It didn’t matter if it was a girl or a guy, he grabbed your shoulders and looked you in the eyes.
Then: “How are you doing?”
Followed by the Meaningful Pause.
Worst thing was, Ben wanted to dismiss Mr. Falso’s touchy-feeliness as hokey, but he liked it. Many times Ben had gone to Mr. Falso to talk about games that went south and grade troubles, and once, the fights between his mom and dad. You’d text Mr. Falso, and he’d be in his office waiting for you to arrive. He’d let you talk, then tell his own thinly related stories, always with a reference to the time he lost the big game, or the girl, or some tale that included a lesson learned. You knew his story didn’t match up: the shame of missing a three-pointer two decades ago couldn’t sting the same as attempting a behind-the-back fake and having the ball fall out of your pocket last spring. Not the same sting at all. But no one cared. Mr. Falso knew sports, liked girls, and seemed to have a life outside the church. He was never exhausted by the problems of teenagers in his congregation; he got energy from them. More importantly, he fixed things. When Kyle didn’t pass the state trooper exam, Mr. Falso was the one who suggested EMT training, then hooked Kyle up with the right people. Mr. Falso was the one who sat with Eddie in the days after Connie died, dispensing lots of advice, mostly centered around helping his mother re-enter reality. Technically, his job wasn’t far off from a camp counselor, herding kids onto yellow buses for spiritual retreats, to build houses in the deep South, and to Bible camp in the summer. Also technically, his job was to “counsel the youngest parishioners, particularly about spiritual matters.” Since his arrival last fall, Mr. Falso had found fans among the mothers and fathers, too, and as a single young guy, was invited for lasagna dinners and beers with the dads at Black Rock Tavern five nights out of seven.
Mira had to be talking about Mr. Falso in her note. Right?
Whatever. He cared so little about Francesca. A tear welled in the corner of his eye, and he brushed it away roughly. There was a special cruelty that Mira would feed his lust for her voice with words about Francesca. The notes were like a drug: he needed the next one, and the next one. And Ben knew where the next one was, because after he had touched Mira’s hair on the ledge, it was officially on.
He needed to get to Eddie’s house. Soon. He’d text him later, ask him to shoot hoops like old times. Make an excuse to go to the bathroom like he had that day last summer, and find the next note, a note that had to say something more about Mira. In a cramped hallway, under the Villelas’ spoon rack, half-blind from the sun. Mira had let him know.