I took it and read. It was a Cease and Desist order from the planning board of the Town of Colebury. “The automotive business operating at 2371 Granite Road is out of compliance with the property’s zoning designation as LDR-2, Low Density Residential.”
My father’s face was slack when I looked up again. Maybe he’d dulled the pain with some whiskey before showing this to me. Or maybe he’d been a drinker for so long that I could no longer find the new expressions on his face.
I held the letter out to him. “This happened before, right? When I was in junior high? That time, you got them to agree to an exception for ‘mixed use,’ right?”
He shrugged. “Sure. But here they come again. Takes money and brains to fight ’em off. Don’t have much of neither one.”
That was the most self-aware thing my father had said in years. How depressing. “Do you know anyone you could ask for advice?” But I already knew the likely answer. It wasn’t that my father had burned all his bridges. It’s just that he’d allowed them to wash downstream, board by board. Numbness and neglect were his habits.
After a bunch of talk therapy at rehab I was excellent at diagnosing other people’s problems.
“Maybe,” he said. Then he shuffled over to close the register. I wondered if he’d even respond to the letter or just turn up the volume on the TV and wait for the city to show up with a bulldozer.
Tomorrow I was supposed to paint this place, and now I couldn’t even remember why. My shoulders were as tight as boards, and my dirty fingers clenched into fists. At that moment, I would have smoked, drank, inhaled or injected any substance anyone might hand me.
Instead I went upstairs to my room to shower, because it was time to go to the Shipleys’ dinner.
Thank fuck.
Jude and Sophie are 18
Sophie’s birthday has come and gone, and Jude is leaning over the engine of his car, tinkering with the connections. But all he can think about is sex.
When he started up with Sophie a year ago, he gave up other girls. And therefore sex.
He knew what he was getting into. (Or not into, as the case had been.) He knew Sophie hadn’t had a boyfriend before, and he’d never rush her. And the wait would be totally worth it.
The rule he’d made about her eighteenth birthday was meant to help him stay strong—to make the moment less arbitrary. Without that line in the sand, they would have gotten carried away on any of the hundred occasions they got hot and heavy in his car or under a tree in the woods.
But now the deadline has passed, and every minute of the last ten days has felt heavy with yearning.
His phone buzzes in his back pocket.
Jude releases a breath of air, and it’s actually shaky. He’s vibrating with anticipation as he pulls out the phone to read the text. We’re at Tracy’s now. Come over.
He washes his hands carefully, making sure to get any motor oil off of them. He pats his other pocket to make sure his wallet is there. Inside that wallet are two condoms, brand new.
Hell. He’s actually a little nervous, which is ridiculous. He isn’t the virgin in this situation.
Later, he won’t remember the walk to Tracy’s house. Her parents are gone for the weekend, but Sophie’s dad doesn’t know that, and Sophie has arranged to stay over.
When he arrives at the pretty farmhouse on the edge of town, Sophie is alone in the living room. “Hi,” she says, looking shy, closing the door behind him.
“Hi yourself. Where’s…?” He doesn’t finish the question, because a loud, rhythmic thumping starts up just overhead. It’s the sound of a headboard hitting the wall. “Oh.”
“Yeah,” Sophie says, her cheekbones pinking up.
“Uh…uh…uh…unnngh. TRACE!” a male voice shouts.
Jude and Sophie stare at each other for a second before they both burst out laughing. Jude wraps her into a hug and their bellies shake against one another. “Let’s go into the den,” Sophie gasps between laughs.
He follows her through the kitchen and into a low, cozy room with sectional sofas and a TV. It’s the sort of room that happy families live in. Tracy’s younger brothers’ video games are arranged into denim-lined baskets, and the TV remotes are lined up like soldiers on the coffee table. A Christmas tree glows in the corner, beside a brick fireplace.
“You’ve got to see this,” Sophie says, grabbing one of the remotes off the table. She points it at the fireplace. With an airy whoosh, a gas fire jumps to life behind the fire screen. “Isn’t that silly?”
“Yeah.” Though the warm, flickering firelight is both beautiful and effortless. A high-functioning family home is like a foreign country that Jude stumbles on from time to time. He’s mostly learned the language but everything still seems a little unfamiliar.
Sophie sits in the corner of the sectional and he flops down beside her. “Should we watch a movie?” he asks. They haven’t been alone together like this in a week or so. But he isn’t about to jump on her like an animal.