Your mom says it’s ok. Nick Falso
The fixer. Mr. Falso was his ticket in. What was it to him if Mr. Falso had a thing going on with Francesca Cillo? It wasn’t Ben’s business. Besides, Mira hadn’t actually named Mr. Falso. He’d been dying to help Ben, so let him. His mother had told Mr. Falso where he was, probably orchestrated the whole thing as a goodwill gesture.
Ben typed:
I’d like to come. Please pick me up from the boat club.
Thank you.
He paused over the phone, realizing he would probably be fired for leaving before his shift began, with the pool opening and families starting to arrive. It didn’t matter: he didn’t need the money anymore anyway, and his mother obviously didn’t care if he had a job. Ben shot off a second text to his manager citing a vague “family emergency” (did it matter it wasn’t his family?) and hit Send.
Mr. Falso’s overlapping reply read:
On my way!
He lived on the other side of Powder Neck, which gave him approximately nine minutes to get there if he was coming from home, which Ben assumed he was.
Here!
Kid voices cheered, “Mr. F!”
In the frosted door window to the pool, Mr. Falso’s shadow flickered as he bent to give hugs and high fives. Ben quickly scooped the notes and stuffed them into his waistband. He tossed the empty nylon bag into the mouth of the trash can, wiped his hands down his shirt, and started toward the door, grimacing as the notes scraped him in sensitive places. The door’s bar latch squealed as it released him into the daylight.
Ben was dazzled. The sun off the sea behind Mr. Falso framed him and the children around him. His face was tan and his teeth shone, white and even, the crests of the ocean waves behind giving the scene a commercial quality. He wore shorts and loafers, and a lavender button-down shirt rolled at the sleeves and unbuttoned to underneath his gold chain, which ended in two charms: a dog tag and a black enameled cross. He’d held the charms under Ben’s nose once, telling him they symbolized faith’s many layers. Ben had thought it looked like something Piggy’s older brother wore clubbing.
Mr. Falso looked up. “Ben!” He stretched his arms wide, palms up, biceps peeking below his cuffs.
Ben rubbed the back of his neck and looked down. “Nah, Mr. F. You don’t want to hug me. I’m sweaty.” The kids snickered. Ben noticed they were mostly girls, and not that little. The hard edge of a note nudged his pubic bone.
“Don’t you have a sailing lesson?” Ben’s voice hitched as he spoke to the girls, and he hated himself for it.
“Don’t you have to pour Goldfish?” said one, all sass and short shorts.
“I’m here on a mission with my boy Ben,” Mr. Falso said. He pointed at Ben. “You set, big guy?”
A girl fixed on Mr. Falso and bounced, bending her knees. “Oh-wa! Why do you have to leave so soon? You just got here!” she whined.
Mr. Falso looked past the girls, scanning the parents filtering in, sleepy eyed behind sunglasses and under baseball hats. Most would come back hours later from dropping those same kids at the next activity, more awake, more put together, but for now, they looked weathered, and served to make Mr. Falso’s showered manliness more dazzling. He tipped his head toward the whining girl: “Come to youth group this Sunday if you need more Mr. F. time.” He cupped Ben’s shoulder and steered him toward the parking lot. From behind, Ben heard the girl call, “Buh-bye, Mr. Falso!” He kept his hand that way until they reached the exit gate, where Ben turned to face him.
“Thanks for thinking of me. I’d been meaning to go see Eddie, check on how he’s doing.”
Mr. Falso squinted, the sides of his eyes crinkling. “I’m not helping you break any rules, am I?”
“Nah. They don’t need me.” It occurred to Ben that he would have no job next summer. But who said he needed to be in Bismuth next summer? The thought invigorated him. Mira’s notes were sparking that same feeling of purpose, of moving toward an end point that she gave Ben when she was living. A gift. He squinted at the sky for a second, wondering if she was up there, watching him find her notes, cheering him on.
“It’s more important I go see Eddie,” Ben murmured.
They entered the parking lot, bare under the sun. Mr. Falso walked slower than Ben as he slipped on a pair of rose gold-rimmed aviators. “You know, I was really glad when your mom told me you’d be open to visiting Ed. Gives you some time to chat with old Nick here.”
“Yeah, well. Between you and me, I’m a little worried about him.” Ben turned and jammed his fists into his pockets, walking backward. Not exactly a lie. He was worried about Eddie. “And you’re the expert on this kind of stuff.”
“A real man knows when to ask for help.”
Eddie’s the one who needs help, far as you know, Ben thought. “Right, Mr. Falso.”
“Nick to you, Ben.”
They arrived at Mr. Falso’s car (small, red), in which he’d stuffed five seniors last May to drive down to Tennessee to build houses for families living in cardboard lean-tos. As Ben slid into the sunbaked seat, the smell of musk air freshener overcame him. He pressed his curved finger beneath his nose, pretending to scratch an itch.
“So, you’re just gonna talk to Eddie, or his parents, or…,” Ben started. He needed to know if he’d be alone in that house in the way that he needed to be.
“Let’s talk about you for a second. You’re a special kid, Ben. Your mother is worried about how you’re taking all of this.”
Ben cringed. Special. He hated that word more than he could hate the man who saddled him with it. Mr. Falso’s mention of his special status was a buzz kill. Ancient history that had no bearing. As he told his parents, and the police, and everyone who would listen, he didn’t even remember the old coach messing with him, and it was better that way. Mira, on the other hand. Mira was real to him, maybe more so in death. He fed on her notes like sugar: they kept him high until he crashed and needed more. His blood was abuzz with finding Mira’s next answer for him, and he would not be stopped.
“I am one hundred percent okay,” he replied.
Mr. Falso wrapped his hands around the steering wheel in a practiced way that popped his triceps. He smiled at the road ahead. “I gotta tell you, Ben. I have seen many things. But this”—he puffed his lips and blew staccato noises through them—“this was like nothing else. You can’t expect to recover from an event like this too quickly. Everything you hear, see, and do in the next year, maybe years, will be colored by this terrible event. But know in your heart, Ben, that everything happens for a reason, and where one door closes…”
“Another opens.”
“Right. Some good always comes.”
“God has a plan. We have to remember that, even when it doesn’t seem to make sense.”