Remember My Name (19 page)

I stretch my arm across the
open space next to me, to where Ben slept while we shared this space. It’s
empty here without him. Drawing in another deep breath, I roll over to his side
of the bed. Wrapping the covers around myself like a cocoon, I clench my teeth
to stifle the ache inside.

Ben

The house is steeped in
darkness when I get home, so I’m careful making my way up the stairs. Stopping
first at the bathroom, I brush my teeth and take a piss before tiptoeing across
the creaking hardwood to my room. Brushing my hand up the wall, I trip the
switch about halfway up and the space is bathed in light.

The blue color I picked out
for the room glistens from every wall. Running my eyes along the seams between
the walls and the ceiling and around the windows, I realize how meticulous the
work was.

Why the hell did he paint my
whole room? Is it really cold, aloof Jackson that did this? Part of him is
clearly reaching out for connection, but if he’s going to ignore or insult me
the majority of my time here, then I don’t want whatever he’s selling.

I’m not sure if it’s because
he painted my room – doing a damn good job of it at that – or just
because it’s sucked so much hardly spending even ten minutes with him in the
last few weeks, but it strikes me how much I miss him right now.

Turning the light back off,
I strip down to my boxers and climb into bed. Ignoring the memories of Jackson,
I focus on the last few hours. Katie lives on a few acres outside of town, just
like Dad and Jackson. Between the sun plodding across the sky and the light
breeze, the evening felt perfect. Then she suggested we go for a walk, and I
realized how much better it could get. The stalks of the wild grasses bending
into the wind alongside the path, she took me all the way out to the edge of
their property. Unlike everywhere else growing corn or wheat or something else
equally boring, they just let the wild grasses grow on their land.

I kept expecting something
to happen. I guess in a way it did. We just… talked. She told me about growing
up in rural Minnesota and about her first boyfriend. Her fingers sliding lazily
along a blade of grass, she told me about her love for all things that grow.
Then she asked about me, and whatever she asked, I answered. My life in L.A. with
Mom came out first, but quickly I found myself telling her about living with
Dad and Jackson. Getting to know the Dad I’d forgotten about, and the brother
who’d forgotten about me. Unreachable Jackson, my other half, living a life I
know almost nothing about.

It didn’t feel right to
share what I’d most recently learned about Jackson, but I did share the way he
made me feel. Somewhere between explaining my feelings of rejection and the
building anger becoming ever harder to ignore, I felt her hand slip into mine.

Darkness around me once
more, I bite down on my cheek, working through the emotions that the memory
conjures up within me. Katie is beautiful, smart, and she’s into me. It’s not
that I’m not interested, because I definitely am. Or was, I guess. I don’t
know. When she touched me, I got the sudden feeling that I wasn’t paying
attention to the right things. To the thing that really mattered. Like I was
mowing the lawn while the house burned down behind me.

My unease grows as I
remember what happened next. Those moments of hesitation, my eyes reluctantly
rising to hers. The look in my face that she must have interpreted as
nervousness. For a few seconds, she tried to take me to somewhere else.
Somewhere far away from everything dragging me down. She tasted like lavender
and the ocean, but it was wrong. All wrong. I shouldn’t have been there at all.
I should have been here, accepting my brother’s help to paint my room.

Ben

My knees digging into the
moist dirt, my hands are wrapped around the supports of one of the tables in
the greenhouse. The whole goddamn thing collapsed while I was watering this
morning. It took me a half hour to get all the plants off it before I could
even try to start fixing the table itself. Now I’m trying to reattach the
supports from underneath, but it’s messy work.

Dad wasn’t lying when he
said I wouldn’t have to work for him all summer, but after so many days stuck
at home with only Jackson and the daily strain between us, I asked Dad if I
could start coming to work with him. He was more than happy to oblige, and I’m
even getting paid now, so that’s a plus. If I’m completely honest with myself,
deciding to continue working for Dad isn’t all about Jackson. I actually like
getting into the dirt and feeling like I’m taking care of something alive.
Being able to fill my days this way and get some money on the side are merely
perks.

I’ve just shoved the steel
pole into the slot and tightened the lock nut when a familiar voice calls out
from behind me. “Hard at work, it looks like.” Her usual warmth is lacking, and
her voice sounds tired.

Glancing back at her, I give
a nod. “Morning, Cherie,” I say, just starting to wipe my hands on my pants
when she pulls me into a hug that I have no say in. Arms pressed to my sides,
she squeezes me tightly. She’s apparently unconcerned with how dirty I am, even
though she’s wearing white pants and a peach blouse.

Finally she lets go. “It’s
good to see you, Ben.”

My eyes pause at the new
smudges of dirt on her top. “How are the snapdragons doing?”

Smiling, the wrinkles in her
cheeks move aside to make room for her dimples. “They’re wonderful.”

“And how are
you
doing?”

“I’m still alive and on my
feet,” she says. “So it could be worse. My doctor is amazed I’m still able to
move around, but I think he wrote me off ages ago, so I don’t pay much
attention to what surprises him anymore.”

I can’t believe she’s
sharing this with me. I hold my breath to ward away my own emotions and reach
out to give her shoulder a squeeze. My hand leaves more dirt on her. “I’m so
sorry, Cherie. Is there anything I can do?”

Waving her hand
dismissively, she says, “Not really–” She stops, seeming to reconsider.
“You know, my raspberries are quite overrun. Would you like to stop by later
today to help?”

I can feel my stomach
tighten and my face grow warm. “Like, over to your house?” My second thought is
surprise that she can still do garden work. Conversely, maybe she
can’t
and that’s why she wants help.

Cherie is watching me
intently. “I bake the best cookies, so you won’t go hungry.” Her expression
makes it really hard to say no – everything from the wrinkles lining her
face to the shimmering eyes that defy her age. “I could really use the help.”

“Um, sure.” I think it’s
pointless to be weeding a garden if you’re weeks or months from death, but if
that’s what Cherie wants, she’s going to have the best damn raspberry patch in
town.

Her mouth breaks into a wide
smile. “How about this afternoon?”

“I’ll have to run it past
Dad, but I think it’ll be fine. Two o’clock?”

“Perfect.” She smiles one
last time before doddering unstably toward the front. I follow her at a
distance to make sure she makes it. I agree with that doctor of hers –
it’s a wonder she’s still mobile.

“Hey you,” Katie’s silky
sweet voice calls across the parking lot. I’m grinning before I’ve even turned
around.

“You’re late.”

Shrinking the distance
between us, she stops a few feet from me with raised eyebrows. “You are a rude
boy.”

“Nope, not that,” I say with
a smile. I’ve backed off ever since that first and only night we kissed, but
sometimes it’s hard not to flirt.

Rolling her eyes, she turns
back toward the greenhouse. “You’re such a guy, Ben.”

“What’s that supposed to
mean?” I follow her, suspicious that my voice sounds whiny.

“You know what I mean. So
what’s on the agenda for today?”

“Well…” I say, getting a
dirty look thrown my way. “Okay, okay.” I finally ditch my grin. “I think we
should check all the tables in the greenhouse to make sure they won’t
collapse.”

She stops, tilting her head
to the side. “You’re serious?”

“Completely. One went down
earlier while I was watering. I figure we should make sure the rest aren’t at
risk.”

Snickering, she resumes
walking. “So that’s why you’re covered in dirt?”

An hour later and we’ve
checked the supports on almost all the tables – indeed finding a few that
needed tightening – when Katie asks, “So are you going to Austin’s Fourth
party this Friday?”

“Fourth party?”

“You know, the Fourth of
July.”

“Oh, right.” That’s two days
from now. It’s been exactly six weeks since I got on the plane that brought me
from L.A. Only six weeks? Already six weeks? I’m not sure which is more
accurate.

“So you
are
going?”

“Um,” I say, pulling my gaze
away from the far end of the greenhouse, “I didn’t know there was anything happening.”

Her eyes narrow. “Jackson
didn’t tell you?”

“No. Does that surprise
you?”

“I guess not.”

“Do you think maybe Jackson
just doesn’t know about this thing on Friday?” I watch Katie to see how she
answers, to see how sure she is.

Her expression is sympathetic.
“He definitely knows. Pretty much everyone from our graduating class is going.”

It’s weird to think that
besides her and Matt, I haven’t met anyone else from their school. It’s not
like Jackson invites me along whenever he disappears.

“Forget about him. You can’t
keep letting him get to you,” Katie says, resting her hand lightly on the back
of my neck. “You can come with me.” Our eyes meet, and the pressure on my neck
disappears the same moment. “So how about we start teaching you the scientific
names of everything,” she changes the subject with a grin.

“Yeah, right. It’s hard
enough to remember all this crap as it is.” I sweep my arm toward the numerous
rows of pots. She doesn’t answer though, and it’s by unspoken agreement that we
don’t talk anymore as we finish tightening the rest of the tables.

*     *     *    
*

Kicking at a rock lying on
the sidewalk, I watch it bounce along before it skids off into the grassy
boulevard. I sigh, checking the street signs to make sure I haven’t gone too far.
Cherie is cool, but how I got roped into this is a mystery to me. Does she
normally invite young neighborhood guys over for some manual labor and cookies?
Twenty minutes ago I gleefully strode into Dad’s office, reminding him that
he’d have to let me take his truck. Turns out she only lives like ten blocks
away.

 Coming to a stop on the
sidewalk in front of the house number Dad gave me, I take in the view. The
house is a small rambler painted pale green. In the front, the lawn is full of
flowerbeds, exquisitely tended into flowing washes of color. Reds, violets,
yellows, floating in a sea of green. From the beds in front of the house, vines
creep up trellises toward a gently sloping roof.

At night this place probably
looks like a Thomas Kinkade painting. If it were anyone else’s house I would
call bullshit, but I can see Cherie actually enjoying creating this. Just like
the warmth in her personality, this garden feels authentic, not staged or
contrived.

Taking a deep breath, I
knock on the door.

*     *     *    
*

However I managed to
exchange working in the dirt at Dad’s greenhouse for working in the dirt at
Cherie’s, I’m not really sure. But it’s not all that bad, especially because
I’ve more or less given up pretending that I don’t enjoy this kind of work. I
never would have imagined it, but it’s fun to get into the dirt.

Kneeling at the edge of a
row of raspberries, I pluck out weed after weed and toss them into the bucket.
The first hour was fine, but the sun is starting to get to me. I’m becoming suspicious
whether raspberries need weeding at all, because they seem tougher than
anything else out here. Although if I consider the rest of her manicured lawn
and garden, maybe it makes sense that she wants to abolish every last weed from
her yard.

All the while, Cherie has
been sitting beside me in a folding chair, but she hasn’t really been doing
anything besides talking about her late ex-husband. She’s also safe from the
sun, comfortably basking in the shade provided by an expansive sun hat. What is
it with old ladies and wearing white?

As I dispose of a
particularly aggressive dandelion for whose taproot I needed the trowel, she
catches my hand lightly around the wrist.

“You bite your fingernails,”
she says.

“I’m trying to stop.”

“Hm.” She lets go of my
hand. “So why don’t you?”

I shrug, sitting back on my
heels. “I do it whenever I’m nervous. Or hungry. Or bored. So, all the time I
guess.”

She gives me a long look,
like an art dealer would assess a painting that might be a forgery. “If you
want something, you can’t just wait for it to happen. Life will go on without
you.”

Is she still talking about
my fingernails? I can’t really tell. “Um, all right.”

She smiles, and I get the
feeling she knows a lot more about what’s happening around her than she lets on.
“Enough staring,” she says. “There are more weeds to pull.”

I turn back to the
raspberries.

Eventually she decides I’ve
worked long enough and ushers me back inside to wash my hands and have a
“little snack” with her. Sitting at the kitchen table with a glass of lemonade
and a plate of homemade cookies in front of me, I wait for her to take a seat,
which is apparently quite the process. She has to brace herself on the table
and line up the chair just right before attempting a landing.

I take a polite sip of
lemonade. It’s too sweet and too sour at the same time. How that’s even
possible, I’m not sure. Maybe it’s a Minnesota thing.

“How is Jackson?” she asks,
crossing her legs at the knees.

With no idea where to start,
I just sigh, staring at the plate of cookies and horrible lemonade on the
table.

“That good, huh?”

“Pretty much. I feel like I
don’t even know him anymore. Even the most basic parts of him seem to be
nothing like I remember.” I mull over how far I really want to dig into this
with Cherie. She’s old, so she might not be able to handle it. “I always
believed that Jackson and I were on the same page, but we’re just… not.”

“What do you mean?”

My voice rises in pitch as I
speak, finally getting the opportunity to let out this frustration. “Take this
girl at work that I like. I tried to ask Jackson if he was into anyone, only to
find out…” I bite my lip, afraid I’ve said too much.

“Only to find out,” Cherie
echoes me, raising her eyebrows. “That he went in a different direction.”

“Wait, you… know about
that?”

Taking a drink of lemonade,
she looks at me with blatant understanding. “I always guessed, but what kind of
person would I be if I asked whether he liked boys or not? Besides, old ladies
like me are supposed to pretend that boys never have sex with other boys.”

I drop my eyes, as if that
will conceal my blushing. “Everyone seems to see into him so easily. Not that
he’s gay necessarily, but just understanding him in general. You, Dad, the girl
Katie from work, hell even that asshole Matt – no one has a problem. Why
am I the only one who can’t figure him out?”

“Because you love him the
most.” Her words come quickly, but I wouldn’t have been ready for them if I’d
had an hour to prepare.

As I look dumbly at her, she
takes another sip of her lemonade in defiance of its repulsive taste. I let her
words roll around in my head. “Even if that’s true, Jackson definitely doesn’t
think so.”

Cherie’s weathered features
stare me down. “So why haven’t you told him?”

*     *     *    
*

Later that night I ask Dad
if I can go out on Friday. He mutes the TV and looks at me until my fingers
start to fidget with the cell phone in my pocket. “I don’t suppose I can tell
you no, but I know what goes on at these parties. Drinking, probably some drugs
too.”

Should I admit that he’s
right or just feign innocence? Luckily, he continues talking and saves me from
my indecision.

“Being young is about making
mistakes, but I just want you to keep a good head on your shoulders. Don’t do
something that makes you uncomfortable, regardless of what everyone else is
doing, and if you need a ride home, feel free to call, no matter how late.”