I drop the hose and wipe my hand. And then I shake her hand. What else am I supposed to do? I don’t know. She was my first girlfriend. And now she’s my first breakup.
“So we can see other people?” I ask.
“Of course we can.” Mandi looks back at the workers. I can tell she’s thinking. Plotting. “I like having a boyfriend.”
“Just not me.”
She tilts her head. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“It’s fine. I was going to break up with you anyway,” I say.
“Of course.” She shrugs. “Mandi and Oscar don’t belong together.”
“Everyone knows that,” I say. I’m starting to wonder how—why—everyone knows that.
She takes a step back and looks at the bug specks. “Before you go, get the rest off. Those things are disgusting.”
I realize I’m still holding the hose. Water is dribbling from the end, making a puddle around my feet.
Mandi takes a few steps away. But then she turns to look at me. “I mean, please can you do that?”
I can’t help laughing. Watching the Messages jerk her around has been interesting. “Since you said ‘please.’”
“You weren’t so bad.” Her smile relaxes into something more real, until it’s almost gone. “I hope you’ll be happy.”
Then I’m left hosing dead lovebugs off a car, for my ex-girlfriend, in soppy Florida heat. Am I being nice because I feel guilty? Or sad?
Or is it because the Messages are making me?
It’s been a river that’s been running through my brain for days. Mandi and I don’t belong together. I have to break up with Mandi. I thought it was because of Nia. Because I was sick of pretending.
But now I wonder. Did my father decide this for me?
I blast the rest of the black bodies off the grille. Even hose off the hubcaps, too. It’s satisfying. I’m doing this because I want to, I decide.
And from now on, I’ll be sure. Everything I’m doing will be what I want.
Starting with Nia.
DATING IS DIFFERENT in Candor.
At least I think it is. I never had a date anywhere else. But I know it has to be … sexier, in the real world. Or at least more fun. Otherwise nobody would reproduce.
Most kids go to the movies. I guess that’s like other places. But here, we share a cardboard boat of carrot sticks. Popcorn could kill you: greasy, salty, and let’s not think about the choking risk.
Everyone gets their own cartons of milk. It’s not sanitary to share drinks. We all know that.
The movies are always G-rated. The armrests don’t slide up, and they’re half a foot wide. Plenty of room to balance your carrot sticks. And an SAT review book with a flashlight, if you’re Mandi.
You can take your date other places, too. There’s the ice-cream parlor, which should be called the fat-free-sugar-free-yogurt parlor. Everyone sits and acts like everyone else.
Or you can go for a walk. One foot apart at all times, of course. Respectful space in every place.
I don’t want those kinds of dates with Nia.
I want our first date to be special. Something to make her see that I’m different. That she’s different. We don’t have to be like everyone else in Candor.
At first I thought we’d go to a museum. An art museum, with old paintings and things made by dead people. She’d love it.
There’s a big museum in Sarasota, where Mom took me before the Messages told her not to. I’ll drive us there. We’d eat french fries and chocolate shakes and I’d kiss Nia again.
We would be back by night. Before Dad noticed.
But the Messages stopped me.
Everything you need is in Candor.
Stay close to Candor.
They flooded my brain, covering Sarasota and chocolate shakes. The only people who don’t get treated to those Messages are the kids headed for college. There’s probably a whole special Message pack to keep them in line.
The rest of us tend not to leave much. No vacations. No stolen afternoons at an art museum.
If it’s this hard for me, it would be worse for Nia. She definitely wouldn’t want to go.
So I made plans for a secret date, right here in Candor.
She’s coming to the shed late. Sneaking out. Taking risks, like me.
It’s worth it.
I zigzag twine across the ceiling of the shed. Then I reach for the stack of papers and a clothespin.
My first selection is a painting of a girl holding a string. A bird is attached to the other end. It’s trying to fly away. But the girl just laughs.
The girl’s not nice. But I like her anyway. Maybe it’s her pink lips, or her full cheeks. She’s beautiful, like Nia.
I pull another sheet from the pile and clip it to the twine. The ripped edges of the paper feel soft, like feathers.
The box was in the garage. It was moldy. Nobody had touched it since Mom left.
ART BOOKS. It was written on top in pink marker. Mom’s handwriting.
I picked the one from the museum in Sarasota. It was full of glossy pictures—paintings, sculptures, ancient copper necklaces. I ripped every single picture out.
I pin up another picture. Another. The zigzags fill with paper. It hangs straight down. Every time I move to hang one up, they flutter. It’s the only sound in the shed.
But there will be music. My music, with the special Messages. I pull open the pegboard and slide the CD into my player. It’s classical music. Pianos and violins.
There are a few new Messages. Things about staying. Never telling on someone you love. It’s insurance. I won’t get caught and neither of us will be lonely.
There’s a knock. A pause. Three fast knocks.
It’s Nia.
I open the door a crack and push my hand through. “Close your eyes,” I whisper. Her hand is soft. I feel the delicate bones under her skin when I tug her inside.
Her hair is in braids twisted on her head. She’s wearing little sparkly earrings and jeans that look glued to her hips. I step close and smell lilacs, warm, like summer.
“Open.” I’m still whispering, even though the door is closed and locked.
Her eyes get big, bigger. She steps forward and touches one of the pages dangling from the twine. “It’s a museum,” she says.
I can’t help grinning. “Exactly.”
I watch as she slides away from me. She looks. No, more than that. Drinks. Her eyes drink in the art like she’s been in a desert.
She ducks under a row of paper and steps to the next one. “Rubens!” she says. “And Cairo! Cairo’s Judith! How did you know?”
She’s holding a picture of a girl who’s wearing a turban. The girl has a sword stuck through a man’s head.
“I guess it’s nice,” I say. If you like homicidal maniacs.
“She’s so pale.” Nia sighs and her hand drops. “It’s a perfect contrast. Look at the shadows.”
“You’re better,” I say. “You could paint that.”
I mean it. But again she laughs. “Go find your favorite,” she says. “Stop telling me such lies.”
“This is for you. Not me.”
“I thought you said it was a date?” Her smile makes my mouth dry.
“It’s our first date.”
“Then leave me alone and look for yourself. You don’t just follow someone around a museum, not even on a date.” She gives me a smile and a small shove. “Even if you are cute.”
I stagger back and slap my hand over my chest. “You wound me.”
She just laughs and waves me away. “Be gone, Picasso.”
Tuesday afternoons used to be museum day, in Chicago. Winston had Boy Scouts. So Mom and I picked a different museum every week. It was just her and me.
She made looking at art into a game. “Find a dog,” she’d say. “Find a picture of a train.”
I ran from room to room. When I found something, I grabbed her hand and dragged her there. She laughed, even when the guards stared at us. We w
eren’t supposed to make noise. But we didn’t care.
“Did you find something good?” Nia asks.
“Not yet.” I start down another zigzag row. There’s a lion, staring. A lot of fat angels with wings.
One makes me want to look more. It’s a bridge arched high over water. There’s a tiny man walking across, leading a donkey. The full moon lights his way. “I wonder where they’re going,” I say.
Nia comes over to look. “He’s running away.”
“Or going home.”
“It’s whatever you want it to be,” she says. “That’s why I like art. Nobody’s wrong.”
He’s stuck there forever. Three inches away from somewhere else. The picture looks darker now. Like the moon is going under a cloud.
“There’s a better one,” I tell her.
She follows me to the middle of the room, where all the pieces of twine cross. Like a nest.
“It’s different from the others,” I say. A pencil drawing, hanging from the very center. Not glossy. Not ripped from a book.
She brushes it with one fingertip. Her eyes flit to the other ones. “My drawing?”
“It belongs here.”
She gives her head a tiny shake. “I wish you could see my oil portraits. Or the watercolors I did last year.”
“The museum would be proud to display more of your work,” I say. “We accept donations at all times.”
“It’s all gone.” Nia wraps her arms around herself.
I slide one arm around her shoulders. She doesn’t step away and I feel a warm flush. A girl who wants me to touch her, all on her own. “What happened?”
She sighs. “It all looked so ugly. All I could think was, Art is useless. It went through my head over and over.”
One of my father’s Messages. My teeth are clenched so tight, my temples hurt.
“So I threw them out. It filled up the entire trash can.” A sad half smile is on her face. “My parents helped. It made them happy, and I still did it.”
“When?”
“Last week.” She pulls in a shuddering breath and looks around. “I wish I’d kept them.”
“It’s okay,” I tell her. Even though it’s not. Even though I want to hurt my father for hurting her. For taking away what she loved the most. “You’ll make new ones.”
Even with my Messages, she’s changing. I need more time—time for her to listen to my music, not his. I’ll play music whenever we’re together. I’ll give her new CDs, ones with stronger Messages.
“Let’s talk about something else.” She taps another painting.
It’s a couple. His face is turned away to face his girl. I can tell he’s staring. Like he can’t ever see enough. Her arm is draped around his shoulder and she’s saying something. Pointing. Like she’s explaining something.
“It’s us,” she says.
“You’re prettier.”
She snorts. “I’m not even as pretty as the flower on her hat.”
“Do you like it?” I ask.
I mean the room. The music. Being with me. But she tugs the paper free. “I love it.”
Then she folds it into halves, quarters, halves again. Sticks it in her pocket.
“You’re an art thief,” I say.
“Well, there’s no gift shop. Besides, I know the guard.” She steps close.
The rest is so easy. We kiss. She slides her hand through my hair. I wrap my arm around her waist. It feels too small.
I’ve kissed other girls in the shed—new ones that I knew would be leaving soon. But not like this. Not like it mattered.
Her lips are soft. I slide a thumb over her cheek. Her skin is even softer. I want to touch it more. And more. But I feel like I’ll ruin it, ruin her, somehow. I only want to do things that make her better.
The Messages trickle in. Weak at first. Then hard to ignore. Pounding against my defenses. Looking for the breaking point. The same ones that are always warning me.
Respectful space in every place.
Avoid physical contact.
I push them away. You don’t own me, I tell them. I do what I want.
But then Nia yanks her head back. She wipes her mouth with her fingers and makes a face, like I taste bad. “Only husbands and wives kiss,” she gasps.
It feels like she punched me. I know it’s not fair. She doesn’t know her thoughts don’t belong to her. And she lasted a long time.
I want to explain. Remind her about the Messages. But what if she believes me this time? Nia’s impossible to predict. But I’m sure she’d be furious. She hates anything or anyone who tries to control her.
What I don’t know is whether she’d tell. Who she’d talk to. What damage she’d leave behind.
My father would feel compelled to fix things.
Then I’d lose her before I even had a chance with her.
Besides, there’s a new Message playing. One to make her forget the truth about the Messages. To keep us both safe.
So I point at the bowl of M&M’s by the chairs. “The museum has a snack bar.”
It’s my special stash, from two clients ago. I’ve been saving it for a special occasion.
“You remembered?” Nia holds one up and inspects it. “Are these real?”
I take a handful and pop them in my mouth. “They’re real.”
“Only eat nutritious food.” But she doesn’t put it down.
“Just eat one. Because you want to.”
She slides the single M&M onto her tongue. Her lips close. Then her eyes. She lets out a big sigh.
“Better than nutritious,” I say.
“Keep it this way,” she says. “Forever. I want to come here every night and look at art and eat chocolate.”
And be together, I want her to say. But she just eats another M&M.
Tonight we can pretend. “I’ll name it the Nia Museum and charge admission,” I tell her.
Her hand hovers over the bowl. She picks a green one. “That’s three. I’ll save it for later.”
“Eat it and take more.”
“I shouldn’t. I can’t.” She looks at her watch. “It’s so late.”
“Just one more minute.”
She stays. I sit on the chair. Nia sits on my lap. Not crazy, like a lap dancer. Just light, sideways, like she could hop away any second.
The Messages pound in my head. But I kiss her anyway.
Nia pulls away, then presses close again.
One minute becomes five. Fifteen.
The sprinklers switch on outside. Nia jumps off.
I stand up. “You have to go.”
She looks around the room. Then she shuts her eyes. Her eyes are full of tears when she looks at me again. “I memorized it,” she says. “So I can remember forever.”
“We can remember tomorrow,” I tell her. “Together.”
But the door is already closed behind her.
TODAY’S BRICK DAY. The new families get their engraved brick near the flagpole. They clap. They cry. They feel like they finally belong.
It’s different for me. Brick Day is a reminder of how Dad and I are different. That we’re missing half of what made us a family.
“Tarp’s almost too small.” Dad nudges the green plastic tarp over the bricks with his freshly polished loafer. “We’ll need a new one next year. Be sure to tell Calvin.”
“I already did,” I tell him. It won’t be cheap: a custom-made tarp with the Candor seal in the middle, cut through on one side so two people—always Dad and me—can pull it away. But cost doesn’t matter to Dad when it comes to public shows.
“Good man. We’re the same, aren’t we?” Dad swings one arm over my shoulder and pulls me close, just for a second.
He’s being nicer than usual, with nobody watching. I wonder if he feels what I’m feeling. The urge to remember her today.
I want this over as soon as possible.
You get a brick when you move to Candor. It’s engraved with whatever you want. Most people put the names of their family and th
e year they moved here. A few get cute with a little saying or a pun.
But you don’t keep the brick. Dad’s people store them in the Milton model’s garage. Then, once a year, they pull up some of the blank bricks in the patio around the town flagpole. The engraved ones are installed. The people who have lived here the longest are closest to the pole. The newest ones are at the edge. It’s like tree rings.
“They look good,” Dad says. “People should be pleased.”
“Always strive to satisfy the customer,” I parrot back. It doesn’t have to be a Message. I’ve heard him say it so many times it has its own spot engraved in my brain.
The ceremony is the same every year. Dad will make a speech. Then we’ll pull the tarp off. Slow and dramatic.
People will clap.
Someone always cries.
Helping him has always been my job. Maybe it would have been Mom’s. But she was gone a long time before the first Brick Day.
Even though she kind of invented it.
I push the thought away. Not this year. I won’t even look. I’ll be wrecked for the day. The week, even. Drinking sparkling apple cider in the dark shed and listening to her favorite music—old coffeehouse crap—until two in the morning.
Not this year. I will not give in to any of it this time.
It’s not even eleven, but thick clouds are climbing over our heads. Lucky for me. “Maybe we should start early,” I tell Dad. “A storm’s coming.”
“We’ll wait until everyone is here,” he says.
Wouldn’t want a single person to miss Dad’s golden words.
The first family drives up in their shiny new NEV. Every family drives Neighborhood Electric Vehicles here. Better for the environment. And they’re gosh-darn cute, like golf carts but curvier, painted any way the owner wants.
The adults go up to Dad. Their kid comes up to me. He’s ten, maybe, with a fresh haircut. “You’re Oscar Banks.”
I give him a wave. Try to smile nice. “Superior citizen at your service.”
“Someday I’m going to be just like you.” He studies me like he’s memorizing something.
“It’s too hard. Maybe try being an astronaut. Or a racecar driver,” I tell him. Haircut shakes his head. Giggles. Runs back to his parents.
More people come. Dad does adult duty and I handle the kids. A couple come close to kissing my hand, I swear. I tell them all about the exciting spread at the community center afterward: carrot juice and bran bars.