My Life Next Door (20 page)

“Jase’s dad runs a goddamn hardware store, Samantha. I don’t know the difference between a screwdriver and a wrench. I’m not Mr. Handyman like lover boy.”

“I don’t think you’d have to fix anything, just sell the tools. It’s this building, right here.”

Tim skids into the driveway of campaign headquarters, where the lawn is plastered with huge red, white, and blue
GRACE REED: OUR TOWNS, OUR FAMILIES, OUR FUTURE
posters. In some of them she’s wearing a yellow Windbreaker and shaking hands with fisherman or other heroic, salt-of-the-earth types. In others she’s the mom I know, hair coiled high, in a suit, talking to other “movers and shakers.”

Tim hops out and walks up the sidewalk, yanking his tie straight. His fingers are trembling.

“You going to be all right?”

“Will ya quit asking that? It’s not like my answer’s gonna change. I feel like I’m about an eight point nine on the Richter scale.”

“So don’t do this.”

“I gotta do something or I’ll lose what’s left of my mind,” he snaps. Then, glancing at me, his voice softens. “Relax, kid. When not too blasted to pull it off, I’m the master of fakin’ it.”

I’m sitting in the lobby flipping through
People
magazine and wondering how long this interview will run when I get a call on my cell from Jase.

“Hey, baby.”

“Hey yourself. I’m still at Tim’s interview.”

“Dad said to swing by when you’re done if he wants to interview here. Bonus, the guy on staff kinda has a thing for you.”

“That so? And how is this guy on staff—is he running the four-minute mile in army boots on the shore yet?”

“Actually, no. Still coming up short. I think he was kind of distracted by the girl timing him, last few times he ran.”

“That so? He should probably work on his focus, then, shouldn’t he?”

“No way. He likes his focus right where it is, thanks. See you when you get here.”

I’m smiling into the phone when Tim stomps back out and shakes his head at me. “You two are fuckin’ nauseating.”

“How’d you know it was Jase?”

“Gimme a break, Samantha. I could see you quivering from across the room.”

I change the subject. “So how’d you go over with Mom’s campaign manager?”

“Who
is
that officious little dude? He definitely gives the words ‘pompous dickhead’ a new dimension. But I’m hired.”

Mom emerges from the back office and puts her hand on Tim’s shoulder, clenching tight.

“Our Timothy is an up-and-comer, Samantha. I’m so proud! You should spend more time with him. He really knows where he’s going.”

I nod icily while Tim smirks.

Once we’re out on the sidewalk I ask, “What exactly did you do to deserve that?”

Tim snorts. “Hell, Samantha. I would’ve been kicked out of Ellery years ago if I hadn’t learned how to suck up to the powers that be. I wrote a paper on the Reagan years last winter. In there”—he indicates the building behind us—“I just plagiarized a bunch of phrases from the Gipper. The little dude and your mom practically had orgasms—”

I hold up my hand. “I get the picture.”

“What’s
with
you and Nan? Damn, you two are uptight,” Tim says. He drives—too fast—for a few minutes, then says, “Sorry! I feel like I’m gonna jump out of my skin. All I really want to do is get spun.”

Hoping, ridiculously, that this will distract him, I tell him about Mr. Garrett’s offer.

“I’m desperate enough to fill my time to try this. But if I have to wear a frickin’ apron, there’s no way I’m taking this job.”

“No apron. And Alice drops in a lot.”

“Sold.” Tim lights up once again.

When we get to the store, Mr. Garrett and Jase are behind the counter. Jase has his back to us as we walk in the door. The way Mr. Garrett is leaning forward, resting his elbows on the countertop, is the same way Jase relaxes against the kitchen table at his house. He’s huskier than Jase, more like Joel. Will Jase look like him when he’s in his forties? Will I know him then?

Mr. Garrett glances up, spotting us. He smiles. “Tim Mason—from Cub Scouts. I was your troop leader, remember?”

Tim looks alarmed. “You fu—er—remember me and you’re willing to interview me anyhow?”

“Sure. Let’s go in the back office. You can take off the jacket and tie, though. No point being uncomfortable.”

Tim follows him down the corridor, looking uncomfortable anyway, sensing that plagiarizing Ronald Reagan won’t help in this situation.

“So, was your dad always a hard-ass?” Tim asks, driving us home an hour later.

I’m automatically defensive, but Jase seems unperturbed. “I thought you’d think so.”

I watch Jase’s profile in the passenger seat of the car, his hair flipping in the wind. I’m in the back. Tim’s again working his way through way too many cigarettes. I wave my hand in front of my face and open my window a little further.

“Helluva condition for employment.” Tim tips the sunshade down so the packet of Marlboros falls into his lap. “Not sure it’s worth it.”

“No skin off my back.” Jase shrugs. “But is it any worse than now? Can’t see how, really.”

“It’s not that it’s worse, asshole. It’s that it’s not a choice.”

“Like you’ve got so many,” Jase says. “Worth a try, I’d say, man.”

I feel as though they’re speaking in code. I have no idea what is going on. When I lean forward to look at his profile, he seems elusive, not that boy who kisses me good night so sweetly.

“Here you two are,” Tim says, pulling into the Garretts’ driveway. “Home again, home again, jiggety jig. Good night, young lovers.”

After we say bye to Tim, we’re left standing on the Garretts’ lawn. I glance over at my house to find, as expected, all the lights out. Mom’s not home yet. I pull at Jase’s wrist and check the time. 7:10. Must be another motivational meeting/civic function/town hall arena…or whatever.

“What’s going on with Tim?” I ask, flipping over his wrist to trace the faint blue lines of his veins with my index finger.

“Dad made ninety meetings in ninety days a condition of employment,” Jase says. “That’s what he says people need to not drink. I kinda knew he’d do that.” His mouth brushes gently against my collarbone.

“Ninety meetings with him?”

“Ninety AA meetings. Alcoholics Anonymous. Tim Mason isn’t the only one who ever screwed up. My dad was a major partier, a very heavy drinker, in his teens. I’ve never seen him have a drink, but I know the stories he tells. I had a hunch he’d figure Tim out.”

I raise my hand, touch Jase’s lips, tracing the full curve of
the lower one. “So what if Tim can’t handle it? What if he just messes up?”

“We all deserve a chance not to, right?” Jase says, and then he slips his hands up under the back of my T-shirt, closing his eyes.

“Jase…” I say. Or sigh.

“Get a room, you two,” suggests a voice. We look up to see Alice striding toward us, Brad trailing after her.

Jase takes a step back from me, running his hands through his hair, leaving it rumpled and even more appealing.

Alice shakes her head and walks past us.

Chapter Twenty-seven

Our house is buzzing with this strange energy on the Fourth of July.

The Fourth, you must understand, is
the
town holiday for Stony Bay. Early in the Revolutionary War, the British burned some ships in our harbor as a quick gesture on their way somewhere more significant, so Stony Bay has always felt personally invested in Independence Day. The parade starts at the cemetery behind town hall, goes up the hill to the Olde Baptist Church, where the veterans lay a wreath at the grave of the unknown soldier, then wends down the hill, running into tree-lined Main Street, past the houses painted regulation white and yellow and barn-red, neat and tidy as the boxes in a watercolor set, and finally to the harbor. Bands from all the local schools play patriotic songs. And since her election, Mom always gives the opening and closing speeches. The valedictorian of the middle school recites the Preamble to the Constitution, and another star student reads a paper about life, liberty, and the pursuit of justice.

This year, that student is Nan.

“I can’t believe it,” she says over and over again. “Can you? Last year it was Daniel and now me. I didn’t even think this
Four Freedoms one was my best paper! I thought the one for English on Huckleberry Finn’s and Holden Caulfield’s rebellion against life was much better.”

“But not exactly apt for the Fourth of July,” I point out. To be honest, I’m surprised too. Nan hates creative writing. She’s always been happier with memorizing than theorizing. And that’s not the only weird thing today.

Mom, Clay, Nan, and I are in the living room. Mom’s been listening to Nan practice her speech while Clay goes over the usual Fourth of July proceedings, trying to figure out how Mom, in his words, “can put some extra zing in this year.”

He’s lying on his stomach in front of the fireplace, press clippings and pieces of yellow-lined paper spread out in front of him, a highlighter in one hand. “Seems as though you’ve got your standard stump speech goin’ on here, Gracie. The curse of the ‘common weal.’” He looks up and winks at her, then at Nan and me. “This year we’re going to need fireworks.”

“We have them,” Mom says. “Every year Donati’s Dry Goods donates some—we get the permit lined up months in advance.”

Clay ducks his head. “Grace. Sugar. I mean figurative fireworks.” He slaps the press clippings with the back of his knuckles. “This is fine for the expected line from the local pol. But you can do better. And darlin’, if you’re going to win this year, you’ll
have
to.”

Pink washes across Mom’s cheekbones, the unmistakable flag of blond chagrin. She comes over next to him, rests a hand on his shoulder, bending to see what he’s highlighting. “Tell me how,” she says then, clicking her pen open and flipping to an empty page on her pad, Nan and me forgotten.

“Wow,” Nan says as we get on our bikes to ride to her house. “That was freaky. That Clay’s really pulling the strings with your mom, huh?”

“I guess,” I say. “It’s like that all the time lately. I can’t figure out…I mean…she’s obviously really into him, but…”

“Do you think it’s”—Nan lowers her voice—“the sex?”

“Yuck, Nan. I have no idea. I don’t want to think about either of them in that context.”

“Well, it’s either that or she’s had a frontal lobotomy,” Nan murmurs. “So what do you think I should wear? Do you think it has to be red, white, and blue?” She slips off the sidewalk onto the road so she can ride parallel with me. “Please say no. Maybe just blue. Or white? Is that too virginal?” She rolls her eyes. “Not that that’s not appropriate. Should I have Daniel film me reading the essay and sub that with my college application? Or would that be dorky?”

She keeps asking questions I don’t have answers to because I’m completely distracted.
What’s happening to my mother? When did Mom ever listen to anybody but Mom?

Tracy comes home for the Fourth of July command performance. She’s okay with that because, she tells me, “The Vineyard is
jammed
with tourists over this weekend.” There’s no point in asking her how a month or so of waiting tables at a Vineyard restaurant has separated her from the tourists. Tracy is Tracy.

Flip’s home too. He’s given Trace a tennis bracelet with a tiny gold racket dangling from it that has spawned lots of new Tracy hand-and-wrist flicking gestures designed to show it off. “The note that came with it said
I live to serve you
,” she
whispers to me the night she gets home. “Can you stand it?”

To me it sounds like one of the T-shirts Nan would sell at the B&T, but my sister’s eyes are shining.

“What happened to the long-distance love thing and how that wasn’t going to work?” I ask.
Call me Killjoy
.

“That’s September!” Tracy laughs. “Jeez, Samantha. Months away.” She pats me on the shoulder. “You’d understand if you’d ever been in love.”

Part of me so much wants to say, “Well, Trace, actually…”

But I’m so used to saying nothing now, so used to being the audience while Mom and Tracy are the ones with the stories. I just listen as she tells me about the Vineyard and the Harbor Fest and the Summer Solstice Celebration. What Flip Did and What Flip Said and what Tracy did then.

By the time the school bands assemble at eight in the morning on the Fourth, it’s already eighty-five degrees, and the sky is that searing summer slate-blue-gray that tells you it’s only going to get steamier. Despite this, Mom looks cool and poised in her white linen suit topped by a big blue straw hat with a red ribbon. Tracy, under protest, is wearing a navy sundress adorned with a white sash. I’m in a smocked white silk dress Mom loves, in which I feel about ten, tops.

Standing with Mom and Tracy as the parade marchers assemble, I can see Duff balancing his tuba, red in the face before the marching even begins, and Andy, squinting her eyes shut, tightening one of the strings on her violin. She looks up as she perches it on her shoulder, spots me, and gives me a broad grin, braces twinkling.

Garrett’s Hardware isn’t open today, but Jase and Mr. Garrett are selling little flags and bunting and streamers for bike wheels outside the store, with Harry next to them hawking lemonade in an aggressive fashion: “Hey you! Mister! You look thirsty. Twenty-five cents! Hey you! Lady!” Mrs. Garrett is somewhere lost in the throng with George and Patsy. I don’t think I ever realized before how everyone in town really does come to this parade.