“Keep him safe, ’kay?”
Chapter Thirty-two
TIM
I’m up to the door, in what, three steps, standing there in the shoes Alice gave me, hand upraised to rattle the screen, when she opens it before I can.
My brain freezes, because she’s in nothing but a short dark green towel, hair dripping, fresh out of the shower. She smells like baby shampoo and damp skin. Tanned and clean and wet.
As the silence lengthens, she stares back at me, eyebrows slowly climbing.
A trickle of water slides slowly down from her collarbone, disappearing into the cleavage just barely covered by the green terry cloth, which she adjusts, pulling the towel higher in the front but making it dip on the side.
Having trouble thinking in words.
“I just . . .”
“Happened to be in the neighborhood?”
“That’s it.”
“Come in.”
ALICE
In our kitchen now, dark except for the electric light above the stove and what spills in from the street. Quiet except for my music from the other room and a semi-insistent complaint from Jase’s cat, Mazda, because something must be done about that empty food dish.
Tim bends down to pet her and she batters herself against his calf, gets up immediately on her hind legs and begins kneading his thigh, butting against it. His hand looks big against her fur, and Mazda is not a small cat.
She attempts to clamber into his lap, but she’s too fat, so she does the disdainful-tail, you’re beneath me anyway cat thing and wanders off.
Tim looks up and smiles at me.
That same dazzled smile from the other day.
The glow from the streetlamp far down our driveway throws everything in the room into sharp relief, lighting Tim’s red hair and bringing out deeper, warmer tones.
He rubs a hand over his face. Yawns, says “Sorry,” blinks, smiles again.
“Look . . . do you want to . . . take a walk? I’ll throw on some clothes.”
Not go out in this towel, in case you were assuming that.
“Damn,” Tim says, but it sounds almost automatic, a reflex, like that’s what he thinks he’ll say, all I expect from him.
“I’ll just . . . get dressed.”
He nods, standing up. Walking to the table aimlessly. Picking up my tea mug, a smudge of red on the side, turning it around in his hands, setting it down. Selecting one of Joel’s left-behind drumsticks, tapping it against the corner of the table, setting it down.
When he opens the refrigerator, stares into it, shuts it again, I repeat, “I’ll put some clothes on . . . my body.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Tim says absently.
When I come back, having thrown on my favorite jeans and Jase’s football jersey, he’s at the kitchen table with his head down on his folded arms.
I touch his back and he startles, rubs his eyes, blinks up at me.
“I wasn’t gone that long,” I say, amused. “Sure you’re up for—anything?”
“Yeah. Hold on.” He turns on the tap, splashes water on his face, frowns at the coffeemaker, which still has about two inches of cold coffee in it from this morning, then actually tips the carafe to his lips and downs about half of it.
“No mug?”
“We want what we want when we want it, Alice, remember?” He wipes his lips with the back of his hand, smiles a little, the one dimple making a brief appearance. “So, where to?”
His car has mine boxed in, so we take that, drive along some bumpy unpaved roads in Maplewood to the Hollister Fairgrounds, all set up for the annual Fall Fair this weekend, but for now dark except for the parking lot floodlights.
The Ferris wheel is a ghostly-looking hoop against the sky, the Funhouse and the Balloon Burst and the Tilt-A-Whirl and Teacup still and mute.
“I haven’t been to this thing in years,” Tim says, sliding out of the car and peering up at the Ferris wheel. “Ma always does that jam contest. Ol’ Gracie Reed wins it every time. Drives Ma ballistic.”
“Grace probably pays off the judges.”
But not the bills. Tomorrow, I promise myself. Tomorrow I will find a way to fix this. Her. Two more fat bills in the mail today, stamped all over with TIME SENSITIVE and URGENT.
Tim shoots me a sharp look, but says a noncommittal, “Mmm.” I know he’s known Samantha’s mom all his life, but can he really have any sympathy for her now?
We’ve gotten close to the Ferris wheel, and one of the passenger cars is docked right next to the metal platform. I climb in. “C’mon.”
Tim reaches for my hand, his grip tightening as he slips into the car beside me. Then he doesn’t let go, looking down, his thumb pressing over my knuckles.
The night air wraps around us, dry leaves, someone’s smoky wood fire.
I break the silence. Poetically.
“Andy throws up on this thing. Every time. It’s a tradition.”
“Nan too,” he says. “Scared of heights. I used to bribe the operator to stop it when she was at the top, just to make it extra-humiliating for her. Of course, I usually barfed too, but that was too much beer or whatever.”
I kick my feet against the footrest and the car rocks slightly, a creak of metal.
“Since you were how old?”
He shrugs. “Twelve?”
A year older than Duff—whose idea of getting high is, literally, hitting the top of the Ferris wheel.
“Hey, Tim?”
“Uh-huh.” He’s got his head tipped back against the cracked plastic seat-back now, looking at the moon, an almost invisible horseshoe of silver. He stretches and the bottom of his T-shirt rides up to expose navy-blue boxers with little white anchor crests peeking out from his jeans.
He looks up after a moment, finds me staring, fixedly, at the elastic banding.
“Nice shorts,” I offer.
“Hot, right?” He pulls the waistband farther out, snaps it. “Complete with the Ellery Prep motto: ‘Live purely, seek righteousness.’”
I snicker and he grins at me, runs his hand over his face like earlier, yawns, then drapes his arm over my shoulder, warm fingers landing lightly near my elbow.
“There’s an innovative move,” I say.
“Again, a classic for a reason. Besides, we’re on a Ferris wheel. It’s like a reflex—practically Pavlovian.”
“You simply can’t help yourself,” I say. “The motto on your shorts, no deterrent.”
“Maybe you should take them off,” Tim suggests. “Since they’re obviously ineffective.”
I elbow him.
The car rocks back and forth with a loud squawk, finally settling, tilted back in an unnatural position, so our legs are raised.
“I wish this wheel were running,” Tim says. “Or we were at a drive-in movie. That would be a better atmosphere.”
“Than this, which is kind of like being in a dentist chair?” I tilt back, close my eyes, his arm solid behind me, his index finger moving slowly up, down, around the bend of my elbow. Should be lulling, relaxing. But my skin’s electrified. It’s a cloudless night with a bite of chill in the air, sharp-sweet as an apple. The moon’s just a slice and the stars look like a handful of glitter tossed across the black. I’m far away, floating in space, distant from everything and everyone except Tim.
His shoulders shift. His other hand reaches out, palm grazing across the back of my hand, fingers interlacing from above. Squeeze. Then nothing.
Just us.
His hand, my hand.
Should be innocent. Middle school moves.
But isn’t.
Here in the dark where I can see clearer . . . if it isn’t innocent, it is simple.
“The next move?” I say, a few minutes later. “I think it’s this one.” I pretend-shiver, press closer to his side. He makes a soft sound of surprise deep in his throat, then gathers me tighter.
I trace one finger lightly up and down his jeans, circle it around his kneecap, feel him shudder. He shuts his ey
es, a wince, like it’s the last thing he wants to do but he can’t help it.
“Cold?”
“Anything but. You?”
Shake my head as he drops his hand, so his knuckles graze my side, up-down, past the side seam of my bra, trailing over my rib cage, slow, slow, slow.
There’s a flash of light, sweeping past us, then back, pinning us both, a brusque voice. “Who is that? Who’s there?”
Tim swears under his breath, is up and out of the car, tugging me along before I’ve even inhaled, then we’re stumbling across the hilly grass, huddling behind a huge billboard advertising Hyman Orchards, The Apple of Connecticut’s Eye. I look back, see the flash of a white car with a blue stripe, lights twirling, turning the fairgrounds ruby-red, lightning-bright.
“The police?” I say incredulously. “No way.”
“Shhhh.” Tim plants two fingers on my lips.
“There weren’t any keep-out signs. We weren’t even doing anything!”
“If we’d had five more minutes we could have been.”
“Who the dickens is that?” bellows the voice, closer now.
“We can get arrested for this? Seriously?”
“Shhh,” he says again, holding up a hand. “Let’s not find out. The Stony Bay po-po are bored out of their skulls. They leap on this kind of shit. Trust me.”
“I know you’re out there,” the voice says implacably. “State your name and come out.”
Still pulling my hand, Tim crouches down and runs from behind the billboard into a patch of bushes. The flashlight beam zooms around wildly. Fizz of a walkie-talkie. “ATL suspect and/or suspects for trespass. Copy.”
Loud crackle of unintelligible response.
I start to stand up, brushing off my shirt, prepared to argue. Tim yanks me back to the scrubby grass.
“Let go. This is ridiculous.” I’m struggling against him, wriggling away. “Who do these guys think they are?”
“Alice,” he hisses. “Nothing else is going on here tonight, unless they need to rescue a cat in a tree. They will bring us in, for real. That would suck for Joel.”
For that I fall silent, stop moving. My police academy brother.
More crackling from the walkie-talkie. “UTL, repeat, UTL. Over.”
Slow loop of the light all around. I press my head to Tim’s chest, wriggle up to ensure my feet aren’t poking out of the bush like the dead Witch of the East’s, and then freeze, listening.
The shaft of light moves slowly, outlining the side of the billboard, up across the top, back down the side. What does this guy expect—that we’re scaling the Hyman Orchards sign? To do what? Hang from our knees and graffiti it upside down?
Crackle-crackle. “No sign of the perp. Repeat, negative as of this time. Over.”
“Perp? We didn’t perp anything!” I whisper. “There was no caution tape, there was no no-trespassing sign.”
“Alice. Be. Quiet.”
Finally, the crunch of footsteps moving away. I begin to slide off Tim and he traps my hips between his palms.
“Don’t move.”
“What? Is he still there? Is he trying to fake us out? Do you know this cop?”
“I know almost all of ’em. No, he’s gone. Don’t move. Except the wiggling. That was good.” Lips drag along my ear, his voice lowers, close to a whisper. “Alice. Kiss me.”
“Tim . . .”
“I’m right here.”
Me too, no honest way to pretend I’m not.
I squirm as if to roll off, but I have his sleeve, pulling him over with me until his face is above mine, the sliver of moon behind it.
I move my hands up slowly, inching, brush one dark eyebrow, then the other with the tip of my index finger. Along one high cheekbone, the dip in the middle of his top lip, the bottom line of the lower one.
See the gleam of his eyes in the dim light. Watching. His skin, warm in the cool night air.
I twist a little underneath the length of his body, look away.
Try to laugh but there’s hardly any air to breathe, he’s so firmly against me, so it comes out as a gasp. He smiles, lifts to plant his elbows on either side of my head, nudging my cheek lightly with the left one so I have to turn my own head, look him full in the face.
“Alice.”
Close my eyes. “You’re totally taking advantage of this situation.”
“Hell, yeah. You’re free to return the favor.” The tone is light, but his eyes are serious.
His hand slides across my neck, up behind my ear, thumb moving to the hollow of my throat where my pulse is knocking hard. I expect his lips, but instead I get his cheek, so lightly rested, it’s almost not touching.
Rise and fall of his chest against me, leg edging between mine. Then stillness.
For a breath.
One more.
When our mouths meet, there’s a suspended instant when Tim freezes, total tension in his shoulder and neck muscles, but then he dives into me.
I hear myself make this noise in my throat, and I’m pulling him tighter against me, sinking into him. I’m shivering, actually shaking and making sounds . . . I don’t know . . . they’d embarrass me if I could stop. But I can’t.
We pull apart for a moment, breathing hard.
“This could be a big mistake.” I slide my hands down to his hips and lock them closer, hard against my own.
“Nope. I’ve made mistakes. They don’t feel like this.”
“Gotcha,” says a loud voice. We both jerk our heads up, blinded by a flashlight. Tim swears under his breath. I hold my hands up to shield my eyes. Tim flips over to the side, in front of me, blocking me from the light.
“Stand up slowly,” calls a voice. “Palms to your sides. No sudden moves. Step apart.”
“Shhh,” Tim whispers, moving a foot away from me. “It’ll be fine. Just don’t say anything.”
“This is ridiculous,” I say. The two policemen are talking to each other, all low official tones, walkie-talkies still crackling away, so I don’t think they’ll hear, but one of them freezes, shields his eyes, and flicks his flashlight back up.
“Oh, hell. That’s my sister.”
TIM
In the end they have nothing to bring us in for, although Alice manages to make it a very close call.
“Since when have you been skulking around checking out bushes like the pervert security guard at SB High, Joel?”
“This is part of my ride-along, Al. Since when have you been rolling around in the bushes with random dudes?” Joel flicks his flashlight up. “Oh. Hi, Tim.”
I raise one hand. “Uh—hey, man.”
“What I do is none of your business,” Alice hisses. “And he’s not a random dude, so—”
“Okey-doke,” says Joel’s superior officer. “Save that for the playground, kids. Speaking of which, you two”—again with the flashlight flicking from Alice to me, in case he’ll need to ID us later in a lineup—“not smart to be around all that heavy equipment when the fair’s closed. Easy to get hurt. But we can’t arrest you for bad judgment.”
“Lucky for you, Alice.”
“Shut up, Joel,” Alice says. “You hardly know him.”
“Compared to you, guess not. He’s what, Jase’s age? When I said to relax and kick back, I didn’t mean by hooking up with Holden Caulfield.”
I shrug. Meh. Could be worse.
Alice, though, I expect her to flush, move away, put some distance between us. But instead, she edges closer, takes my hand. Moves a little bit in front, partially blocking me from Joel’s amused grin, my shield.
“You hardly know him,” she says again.
She stays close on the drive home too, scootching far over in the seat and up against me like she’s still making some kind of stand, a statement, even though there’s no one here but us. After I pull the car into the driveway, park it, I don’t know what to do with my hands.
The fairgrounds, what we did there came naturally. Now it’s like some movie moment, the motionle
ss car, the cool dark around us, the streetlight picking up the shine of her hair. I’ve seen this in movies. I’m looking at us from a distance—waiting for some sort of cue: Here is where you brush the hair away from her face, then you bend close and she makes that little sound of hers, halfway between a gasp and a hum of satisfaction. Then you kiss her and—
Yup, I’m thinking in the second person.
Alice is looking at me, head tilted. I wait for her to look annoyed or puzzled, but she doesn’t. I wait for her to take charge, climb into my lap, face me square on, lift the decision out of my hands and into her own. She doesn’t. She studies me for a second more, then drops her head onto my shoulder, rests it, breathes in sync with me, but not like she’s trying to. Just that she is.
No impatience rising off her, no confusion. It’s like this is all good, just as it’s meant to be. For some reason, I remember standing in the shower, the water streaming down—but not the times I’ve conjured up Alice there. Of being under the spray with Cal, him sucking on my nose. Me thinking that right in that moment, I had everything he needed, and he was giving me everything I needed right back, simply by being there.
ALICE
Resting my head against his shoulder. Something I’ve done without a second thought with my brothers. But never with any other guy. Tim would have no way of knowing that. But I do. When he tucks me nearer to his side, wraps a few strands of my hair around his fingers, lets them go, wraps them again, as though he can’t help but keep touching me once he starts, it’s then that I let it in. I’m most likely in love with him.
TIM
“This is the first time I’ve ever done this,” I say, a few minutes later.
Alice rests back against the door, her shoulders flat against the screen.
“This?”
She knows what I mean, but I say it anyway. “Walked someone to their door.”
Alice left the porch light on, but the kitchen’s dark. The house is quiet in a way the Garrett house is never quiet.
To my right there’s the long fence that separates the Garretts’ yard from what used to be the Reeds’.
Big maple tree, tossing boughs in the blowing air, with that shhh sound leaves start to make when they’re beginning to dry out. Clouds coming across the moon, wind swept in from down by the river, smells like riverweeds, mud, leaves, and drying grass, the kickoff of fall.