There’s a miraculous break. Nobody’s talking to me. Then Nia’s in front of me.
Her hair is brushed into a smooth ponytail, like the other girls. But her jeans are so tight, I don’t know how she sits. And she’s wearing these tall rainbow flip-flop things that look like a definite safety hazard when running.
She only half passes. It’s too dangerous. I need to help her blend. But how do I do that without explaining everything?
“I don’t get the bricks,” she says.
“Everybody loves something with their name on it.” I tell her. “You’ll cry when you see yours.”
“Only if it gets dropped on my foot.”
“They’re already in here. Stuck forever.” I point at the tarp. “Want to peek?”
“I can stand the suspense.” She rolls her eyes. It makes me look around, worried. What if Dad notices her attitude? He might take bigger steps to fix her. Or blame me. Either would be bad.
“How long will this take?” she asks.
“Not long. It’s not awful.” I feel like I need to defend it, suddenly. Loyal Brick Boy. Why?
Nia leans close to whisper. “I was in the middle of drawing something. I don’t want my fingers to forget where they were going.” Then she traces one long finger over the back of my hand.
It feels good. Too good. Too public. I pull my hand back fast, like she’s a hot stove. “People might see,” I say.
“If that’s how you want it, Picasso.” Her eyes look mad—squinty and small.
“I want to be with you. Just … not here. Somewhere private.”
She looks down at her feet, then back up. “The woods, then,” she says. “Ten o’clock.”
Dangerous. There’s no music in the woods. And there are animals. Big ones. I wasn’t lying to Sherman about the boars.
“How about the golf course?” I ask.
“The woods. Or nowhere.”
I don’t want to sit at home tonight. Think about what I missed. I nod. “Ten o’clock. Meet you at the boardwalk behind the school.”
“I can’t wait.” Nia looks back at her parents. “We could go now.”
“I have to be here,” I tell her.
“Have it your way.” Nia purses her lips. “I’ll just go hang with my generous sponsors.” And then she struts over to her parents. I regret it right away, although the back view is a don’t-miss.
I feel someone staring. I look around.
Sherman is here. He’s standing just behind a woman who must be his mother, close enough that their bodies must be touching. There’s a movement near her hip. I realize Sherman is holding his mother’s hand.
Then she looks at him and cups her other hand on his cheek. I can’t hear what she says, but she smiles. All proud, like he’s such a prize.
What kind of freak teenage boy holds his mother’s hand, especially in public? What kind of mother encourages that? Even brainwashed, he’s an impossible dork.
I know I should go over there and make nice, like a truly superior citizen would. But I think I’d vomit all over his green Candor polo. So I just look away before they start making out.
It’s getting windier. The tarp ripples as the wind moves across it, makes loud snapping noises. Dad’s staring up at the sky. Then he looks at me. Like he’s asking a question.
It makes me feel proud for a second. Like we’re partners. I give him a nod.
Let’s get this going, it says.
Dad raises up his arms. “Folks,” he says. “We’re getting started!”
The crowd gets quiet. We gather in a circle around the tarp. Then we all hold hands without being told to. That happens every year. And Messages have nothing to do with it. People are just feeling all gooey-gushy.
Dad’s on one side of me. A woman with sweaty hands is on the other side. Her hand moves inside mine every time she shifts.
He makes some jokes about the clouds coming to see the bricks, too. People laugh like he’s a Vegas headliner. Then it’s the standard speech.
But I’m not listening, really. Nia is standing right across from me. She’s holding hands, too. Her mother is on one side, nodding to everything Dad says. Her father is on the other side. He’s tall like Nia, with her curly hair.
She won’t look at me. So I get lost staring at her lips. Blood-red today. Never smiling. Another way she’s out of sync.
What will we do in the woods tonight? How many rules can we break?
I almost miss my cue to remove the tarp. But Dad drops my hand, and that tells me. It’s time for Brick Boy to do his job.
We walk away from each other, around the circle. People ripple back to let us pass with the tarp. Then they move forward again.
All the bricks are revealed. At first the crowd stands on the edge, not stepping on the bricks. Craning their necks to find theirs.
But soon they aren’t shy. They walk on the bricks and dodge around each other. Desperate, I think, to find theirs.
Proof that they belong.
Soon flashes from tiny digital cameras are going off. A couple of proud-Dad types in jean shorts point their video cameras toward the brick. One even has a fancy TV-style light that illuminates everything in front of him like a floodlight. “The family brick,” he says in a deep voice. “Installed today, here forever.”
Dad is helping people find their bricks. He never has to ask what their name is. I know I should do it, too; at least, I always have.
But I feel that one brick pulling me in. So I step away, away, until I’m off the patio and on the grass.
Nia. I’ll watch her. She’ll keep me in the present.
That doesn’t last long. She says something to her parents. Her mother’s face tightens, but then she shakes her head. Like she’s saying, Fine, do what you want.
Nia turns and walks away from the crowd. Three steps over perfect green grass. Then she stops and looks over her shoulder.
Our eyes meet. She beckons with one finger.
Come. Come right now. Away from this, with me.
The invitation I wanted, the day she drew me at the park. I look at my father. Wonder what would happen if I followed her.
By the time I look back, she’s walking away. It seems too late to go with her.
There’s a loud boom. All the Florida newbies jump. One woman screams, like we don’t get thunderstorms every day.
“Don’t forget the reception at the community center,” Dad calls out. “There are lots of tasty, healthy treats!”
They hurry to their NEVs. The new people don’t live close enough to the town center to walk to the bricks. All the new houses get built along the edges. Like the bricks.
All we have to do is walk two blocks home.
But Dad steps closer to the flagpole.
“It’s not safe,” I say. “There’s lightning.”
“Just for a minute,” he says.
If he’s looking, I have to. I walk over. We face each other, the brick between us.
Campbell, Lucy, and Oscar: proud first citizens of Candor
Her name, trapped with us forever. It’s the closest thing we have to a tombstone for her. I wonder if it’s why he didn’t try to make me forget like with Winston: there’s proof.
It makes me feel ten years old again. Remembering one of the last happy days.
But I don’t like to remember. It reminds me of how different things are now.
Ours was the first brick, of course. Mom made us come here together. She brought a bottle of sparkling apple cider. It was so hot outside.
She opened the bottle and dripped some of the liquid on the bricks. It fizzed and boiled away. “We are officially official,” she said. Her voice was lighter than it had been for a long time. Almost like the weight of Winston being dead was gone.
“Great. Now it’ll get ants,” Dad said.
But Mom laughed—she never took him seriously. At least, not until she was mad enough to leave. “Ceremony is important. Isn’t it, Oscar?”
Her wink made me feel like I
was enough. Me and apple cider on a brick.
I nodded.
And Dad smiled. “Maybe you’re right. We should do a ceremony for everyone.”
“What an outstanding idea,” she said. “We’ll get everyone drunk on apple cider and expensive real estate.”
But of course she never made it to a single ceremony. It was just strangers clumped around Dad and me. They were like ants drinking our fake sweetness. Not knowing the difference.
When we walked home that last happy day, Mom was in the middle. I held one arm, like I was escorting her to a ball. Dad held the other.
She showed us how to be happy.
And we forgot after she left.
“It hasn’t changed at all,” Dad says. “It looks like it was installed yesterday.”
The image of Nia leaving flashes in my mind. The beckoning finger. An invitation to be different.
It makes me brave enough to say what I’ve always wanted to.
“Why didn’t you ever change the brick?”
Dad keeps his eyes on the ground. “We never change the bricks.”
“But—you’re you. And she’s gone. You could change it.”
Dad passes one hand over his face, wiping the rain away. It’s getting heavier now. Soon the skies will open. “Your mother was here at the start.”
Then he looks at me. “Do you miss her? Do you—?” A bitter smile twists his lips. “Do you need her?”
He has never asked me that question. Not once.
“Not anymore, I guess….” I swallow and give him the truth, for once. “I guess sometimes I still want her, though.”
Dad crosses his arms and nods once. He’s looking across the patio at the park now. Like he can see far away. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get her to stay.”
“You could have if you wanted to.”
Another boom of thunder. Lightning streaks behind him, turning the sky pink for a split second.
None of it is as scary as the sharp look he gives me. Like he sees what’s inside my head. He knows that I know. I’m sure of it, in that second.
“I mean, if you’d asked her to stay—” The words rush out of my mouth. Trying to fix what I said. Things need to be normal, safe, again.
He clears his throat. “I did everything I could.”
“I know. I’m sure. I’m sorry.” I sound desperate. It’s not an act.
More thunder. It seems to change him back to the man I know now. Dad straightens his body and squares his shoulders, like he’s putting on a new suit. “You are a young man with great advantages,” he says. His voice is heavy. A warning. “You should be grateful.”
“I am. I am always grateful for my circumstances.” I feed the Message to him fast.
“All this family needs is Candor.” Dad looks down at the brick one more time. “Nobody and nothing is missing.”
He turns and walks off the patio. But I stay for a minute. Watch all the names fill with water. I imagine it freezing. The bricks would break. All the history inside would be gone.
But nothing freezes in Florida except busted air conditioners. These bricks are here forever. And I have to deal with it—or forget they exist.
When I look up, Dad beckons with his finger. Just like Nia did.
But this time is different.
This time I obey.
WE MEET IN a dark corner of the boardwalk.
“I know a safe place in the woods,” I tell her. There are old platforms in the trees, where hunters used to sit. No boars. No prying eyes.
“Forget it,” she says. “We’re going to my place tonight.”
Relief. Her house is safe. But I did think tonight would be fun. The kind of fun I’m not supposed to have.
She starts jogging down the boardwalk. Away from her house.
“Wrong way,” I shout.
Nia doesn’t slow. Just looks behind to make sure I follow.
Which I do. Even if I have no idea where we’re going. Which is obviously not her place, unless we’re taking a five-mile detour through the swamp.
It’s a typical night: warm and humid. But the normal Candor sounds fade as we get deeper into the woods. No more air conditioners or hissing sprinklers. The shrill frogs get louder. Our footsteps echo on the hollow wooden floor of the boardwalk.
My heavy backpack moves up and down with every step. It’s got a boom box inside, with music. And a tasty beverage from my stash.
I run smack into the middle of a cobweb. “Can we slow down?” I call out, wiping the nastiness from my face.
“Almost there!” she answers.
About five minutes later, she stops. Looks up and around. Then nods.
“This is the place.” She swings over the waist-high fence that’s on either side of the boardwalk. Looks at me. Waiting for me to leap into the preserve, with the snakes and the boars and—
And the hot girl.
I jump. She slides her hands over my eyes.
“It’s a surprise,” she whispers.
We stumble through the undergrowth. I trip, once. But she grabs my shoulders to steady me. I open my eyes and look around, but it’s just woods. At least it’s a full moon. I can see the palm trees and vines.
“Close them.” She puts her hands back. Her palms are cool against my cheeks.
When she finally drops her hands, we’re still in the woods. But there’s something here, in the middle of the croaking frogs and spiderwebs. Something that doesn’t belong.
“Did you build this?” I ask.
“Yes.” Nia looks at me, a big smile on her face. “I wanted to have a special place, somewhere besides the shed. Something that belongs to us.”
She says “us” like it’s got a capital letter in it.
Nia built us a house. Well, more like a lean-to. It’s made of dead branches and topped with palm fronds. The tallest part of the roof is about four feet high, and it slopes to the ground from there. A lantern hangs under the roof. Inside, on the ground, there’s a red blanket topped with a picnic basket.
Someone could have found it.
She could have been caught.
But I know those aren’t the things I’m supposed to say. Besides, nobody comes out here except the boars and the snakes.
“We need music.” For our addicted brains—and hopefully to keep the wildlife away. I set down the boom box and hit the play button. Soft guitars. It doesn’t fit with the frogs, but it’s all I brought. And we can’t stay out here without it.
“That’s all? We need music? I got blisters building this thing.” Nia grabs my hand. “Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”
She lights the lantern. Shows me how she tied the branches together with rope.
“I even scratched our initials in it.” Nia takes my finger and rubs it over the highest part of the roof. I can feel the marks, even if I can’t read them.
If it was daylight, anyone could see them. Maybe guess at what they mean.
People know we’re together. But nobody knows why she’s been so slow to change. Or that I’m using Messages to keep her that way.
Not even Nia knows that part. Guilt closes my throat. I’ve almost told her a hundred times. But I’m afraid of what she’ll say.
She might not understand.
“Do you like it?” she asks. Her voice sounds like she really cares. Like I could hurt her with my answer.
I feel the scratched initials again. She made this for me. For us. If she didn’t love me, this place wouldn’t exist. It would still be a pile of dead sticks.
“It’s beautiful. And solid,” I tell her. “This thing could last forever.”
“Come inside. I want to show you something else.” She makes me sit on the blanket first, then sits across from me. It’s so tight under the roof that our knees touch.
Then she opens the picnic basket.
Pulls out a plastic tub full of cookies—homemade, it looks like. And then some brown teacups and a glass container full of liquid. “Iced tea,” she says.
“W
e’re having a tea party?” I ask. Surprised.
She giggles. It sounds different from her usual laugh. Lighter. Younger.
But nice.
“I thought you had some big bad plans,” I tell her.
The smile drops off her face. I’m a jerk. It wasn’t supposed to come out like that.
But I was looking forward to at least one of my fantasies coming true. Any of them. I’m not picky.
A tea party in the woods wasn’t on my list.
“This is special.” Nia fingers one of the cups.
“You’re right. I just—I never pictured you being a tea party kind of girl.”
“I used to have tea parties with my boyfriends all the time.”
That doesn’t fit the Nia Silva dossier in Dad’s files. I’m so confused, I just stare.
“Bubba Bear and Lolly the Giraffe were more polite than you. You eat more, too,” she says.
Then she leans over the basket. Our lips meet. I do my best to prove I beat Bubba Bear in the tea-party-date department. In all departments.
We take our time.
Forget my fantasies. This is good. This is very good.
She pulls away too soon. It’s always too soon. But I’ll take what I can get, anything I can get, from her.
“Your cup.” She hands me a brown cup with a stick attached to the side, like a handle. I hold it close to the lantern to get a better look.
“Is this bark?” I ask.
“Birch bark,” she answers.
“You made a lean-to and cups, too?”
“Not exactly. I made these when I was eight.” Nia examines her cup with a small smile. “I called them my fairy cups.”
“Do they work?”
She answers by pouring some tea in mine. “I made it sweet, like when I was little.”
I take a sip. The sugar from the tea coats my lips. But nothing leaks out of the cup.
Nia fills her cup, too. We’re quiet. I stare at her while I force the tea down. Her hair looks almost red under the lantern. And soft.
“I found the cups while I was unpacking. They gave me this whole idea,” she says.
“It was a good idea.” I take another tiny sip of tea. It’s nice out here. I could almost believe Candor didn’t exist—if it weren’t for my guitar music playing.