“Mine and Dad’s.”
My assumptions about John Winters did not include someone who played dress-up. It turns out Davey is not rummaging around after all. He’s working from a specific list, searching from bin to bin, taking required items and filling a duffel at his feet. I do not interrupt again, imagining all the people he has been in this room: Captain America, d’Artagnan, a banana—that’s the only thing the costume in the far corner could be.
He sees my expression of wonder and misreads it as judgment. “I’m a dork,” he says.
“This, my friend, is something far beyond dork.” Before I can add, It’s amazing, he flashes a hurt expression. “I mean, I knew you were into this from the costume party, but I didn’t know you had an actual Bat Cave.”
“Dad calls it my Bunker of Personalities.”
“I see why.”
“Did he do this with you?”
He scowls and grabs an item. “The only costume Dad wears is skin. He pretends to be human. The only reason he tolerates this obsession is because I’m good at it.”
“When you say good at it, what do you mean?”
“Well, I’ve won the LaserCon contest the last five years.”
I spend a long minute examining Bat Cave Davey, realizing he has not only given up Thom to be in Otters Holt with his mom, he has given up other precious things. This is his garage. And it explains why he’s decent at eyeliner when I still cannot manage a straight line.
“Gerry said LaserCon is coming up.”
“Yeah. I don’t have any chance of winning this year, but I can’t show up naked.”
He’s painting a picture of himself. A champion who doesn’t have to win to enjoy something. I admire this. And simultaneously know that John Winters would not admire anything about this sentiment. I’ve only met him once, but his thorns were showing.
Davey shoulders the bag, flips the light off, and says, “I was thinking about you in that dress today. It felt like my closet. Like a costume rather than an outfit. It might showcase a piece of you, but not all of you.”
My tongue presses against the back of my teeth in thought. Yes, he is right.
We are up the steps and in the kitchen sneaking bottled water when we hear the back door open, the security system dinging that John Winters is home. He strides into the kitchen, trapping us. Davey has his long face and high cheekbones and forehead. His dad has worn khakis, button-downs, and sweater vests for so long that if he died, the clothes would go to work the next day without him. His keys rattle in a catch-all ceramic bowl. His voice does not rattle. “I told you,” he begins.
“I know,” Davey says.
What he has told him is unclear. Not to come here? Not to bring anyone over? I want to slip out the front door, but I don’t leave. John Winters is the kind of man who makes you straighten your back. I straighten my back and pretend I am welcome.
“You’re the pallbearer,” he says at me rather than to me.
I’ll admit, the smear is so judgmental; my shoulders fall a centimeter or two.
“We’re leaving, Dad,” Davey says.
For a moment, I believe John Winters will cave. His face, well, it looks like it wants to say things his pride will not allow. I do not doubt he loves Davey. I do doubt he has ever shown that to his son. And as if to prove my theory correct, he says, “If you want your stuff, you have to come home. I told you that when you left with Mom.”
Davey is still except for his fingers. They flex, knuckles white and knobby, around the straps of the duffel. I am still as well, trying hard to avoid blinking so I won’t miss a single nuance. While I am watching his hands, Davey drops the bag on the granite floor. Drops. Not flings. Not slams. Just a single uncurling that says he is letting go of something far more important than the contents of the duffel.
He fights so quietly.
We leave.
Music in the Camaro cranks loudly from the speakers when he turns the engine. We reach the power knob at the same time, our index fingers on top of each other’s, and I say, “I’ll build you a costume. Any costume you want,” and he says, “Thank you,” but we don’t look at each other. So I don’t know if he’s crying, but I am.
I want what any child wants: for my father to be proud of me. For Dad to look into me, and say, “You are good,” rather than to look at me and say, “You are not good enough.”
The Corn Dolly decision, my wavering feelings on Janie Lee: I will either play the game and miss finding out the truth—or I will explore the truth and lose the game. Only it’s not a game. Because games go back in boxes and get stacked away with other games. This nomination, this competition, has real stakes.
I know the cost. It’s the same price Davey paid just four months ago: a town, a house, a parent, a move, a hobby, friends.
19
We while away thirty minutes, driving through parks and subdivisions and trafficked streets. He shows me Waylan Academy. Its warm redbrick walls and avenue of Bradford pear trees leading from one section of campus to another, ending at a sports complex that’s worth millions and millions of donations. It looks like a small college campus, which is about what I’d worked out in my head before the tour.
Text messages are pinging his phone every few seconds; Gerry and Thom are starving, Gerry is finally off work, Thom is picking her up. They’ll meet us in five minutes at Pizza Pans, because, as Gerry puts it, “My stomach is snacking on my small intestine.”
I have my own set of messages. Mom’s Will you be home for supper? Nope. Dad’s I thought y’all were community servicing after school, even though he knows Janie Lee and Woods practice on Tuesday evenings and it’s the one night we took off. Nope. There are messages from Janie Lee and Woods. Practice night usually means, We’re on Mars, leave a message, but me wearing a polyester blend dress was either a sign of my declining emotional state or a massive victory.
Janie Lee: You looked amazing today.
Me: Thanks.
Janie Lee: Don’t take this the wrong way.
Me: I won’t.
Janie Lee: I think I still like you better in jeans.
Me: Good.
The dream comes storming into my thoughts. We’re fine, I tell myself. She said it the other night: Just friends is better. But I still stop a moment and pray. I haven’t prayed much since that morning of watercolor light on Mash’s floor; the morning after Big T died and it felt like God himself was spilling into the room, just so we wouldn’t have to be alone in our grief. There are people who do not pray, and I understand why. It’s a strange thing to talk to someone you can’t see if you’ve never tried it. But for me it’s really a very nice and safe feeling. Like putting your toes in warm sand at the beach or stepping into the shower after a long day.
But here, in the recesses of my heart, I am honest. Three words I repeat without speaking:
I am afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid. God, I am very afraid.
This is my deepest well, and I have dropped a coin to the very bottom.