Sharing Sam (4 page)

Izzy tore the shiny paper off the first present and pulled out
the pair of red pajamas. “Excellent,” she declared. “Although I’m sure the docs would have preferred a nice little teddy.”

“I read—” I stopped myself. For the last two days I’d pulled up every article about brain cancer I could find on my computer. One had mentioned that button pj’s were better for brain surgery patients—nothing to pull over your head.

“Read what?”

“Nothing. Open the envelope.”

Izzy slit open the manila envelope. “For your wall at the hospital,” I explained as she pulled out the Michelin street map of Paris.

She stared at the map, her index finger slowly tracing the
P
in Paris over and over.

I hugged her and we both started to cry. Izzy pulled away, scooping up the gifts, and ran out the door to her parents’ waiting car.

“It’ll be okay,” I called, but the door had already closed, and Mr. Lutz was the only one who heard me.

I
WAS FUMBLING
with my locker combination the next morning when Sam emerged out of the river of students surging through the hall. “Hey,” he said. He had this low, reined-in voice that made you want to listen harder.

“Hey,” I said brilliantly, still struggling with my lock.

“I brought you this.” He passed me a rolled-up wad of gray fabric. It took me a second to realize it was a T-shirt. “I felt bad, you know, about your shirt. And I’m kind of strapped for cash until I get my bike fixed.”

I unrolled the shirt. It was huge and smelled of Tide.

“It’s almost new. I only wore it twice. And I washed it.” Sam shrugged. “Anyway … I just, you know, wanted to pay you back.”

I held the shirt by the shoulders. A guy’s shirt,
Sam’s
shirt. Preworn. I would wear it to bed until it was nothing but shreds, threads, subatomic particles of cotton.

Sam grimaced. “You’re right, what a jerk.” He grabbed the shirt away. “Man, what was I thinking?”

“No.” I grabbed it back. “I want it. Really.”

He relented. I rolled up the shirt and stuffed it in my backpack before he could change his mind.

“Thanks. Now you’ve more than paid me back.”

He hesitated. “You hear anything about your friend?”

“Izzy? She called me from her hotel last night. They’re doing lots of tests, then she gets admitted Sunday for surgery Monday. She’ll be fine.” I nodded, convincing myself. “Izzy’s tough.”

“I hope so.”

“Well,” I said, displaying more of my verbal virtuosity.

“I guess I’ll see you around, then.” He shrugged. It was a shy little-boy gesture, but his smile was more knowing. I sensed he was waiting for something, but what?

Before I could decide, he was gone.

I opened my backpack and stared at the shirt. A shudder of guilt went through me. I was playing tug-of-war over a T-shirt while Izzy was lying in an exam room somewhere, being poked and prodded and scanned.

Suddenly I started to cry. I ran to the nearest bathroom and locked myself in a stall. It was stupid, my crying like that, stupid and self-indulgent, but it was all I could do for Izzy just then, and besides, I couldn’t stop even if I’d wanted to.

After a long while I took out Sam’s shirt. I breathed in the comforting scent of the soft gray fabric. Then, feeling like an incredible idiot, I wiped my eyes and headed for class.

The rest of the week it rained like crazy. The snowbirds down for a taste of Florida sun were devastated, but I liked it. It seemed right, under the circumstances.

Saturday afternoon I drove Sara to a friend’s. Traffic on the
main drag moved in fits and starts, aggravated by lost tourists and senile locals. The windows were fogged up and the defroster didn’t work. We cracked the windows and the rain poured in, magnifying the wet-dog smell of the carpet.

We slowed to a creep. Bridge construction over Phillipi Creek. Sara cleared a window with her arm. “Look at that poor guy hitching,” she said. “Give it up, already. Who’s going to let you in their car, all soaked?”

Somehow I knew, even before I looked. It was Sam.

I concentrated on the
I
’
M NOT A TOURIST—I LIVE HERE
bumper sticker on the Honda in front of me. A huge, urgent hope filled me. It seemed to take up all the room in my body.

We came to another stop. He was ten feet up on the shoulder. Our eyes met. I closed mine and waved him in.

“What are you doing?” Sara demanded. “You can’t let him in the car. They’ll find us in little pieces in Oscar Scherer Park ten years from now.”

“I know him. He’s okay.” Understatement of the millennium.

Sam opened the back door and slid in. “You seem to have this habit of rescuing me.” He smiled at Sara. “I’m Sam Cody.” He extended his hand. She stared at it, surprised, then shook it.

“Sara,” she responded. “You know my sister?”

“Yes and no. Mostly no.”

“Take my advice, go with the no.”

Sam leaned forward, elbows on the back of the bench seat. He was so close. I felt impossibly dizzy. I clutched the wheel till my fingers ached.

“She saved my life,” Sam confided to Sara.

Sara eyed me with new respect. The clot of traffic broke, and I stepped on the gas.

“I more or less gave him a Band-Aid,” I clarified.

“She ripped off her T-shirt to bind my wounds,” Sam said.

Sara gasped softly.

I shrugged. “Well, I couldn’t just let him die.” I looked in the mirror and managed to return Sam’s smile. “Where are we going?”

“Kayla’s,” said Sara.

“No, I meant Sam.”

He hesitated. “Drop me as far north as you’re going.”

“It’s pouring. I might as well take you home, Sam.”

He shook his head. “No, really.”

“Let her take you home,” Sara advised. “Trust me. She has no life.”

I sent her my most withering look. She did not wither. She didn’t even shrivel up around the edges. “Savor your last few hours on earth,” I told her.

Sam leaned back. I checked the mirror. He was grinning. His T-shirt was a wet second skin. Very becoming. He winked at Sara. “Beneath that playful banter lies a deep sisterly bond, right?”

“Beneath that playful banter lies deep sisterly hatred,” Sara replied. “You have any sisters?”

“Two brothers, younger. One just right for you, actually.”

“Where do they go to school?”

Sam looked out the window, suddenly quiet. “They’re … somewhere else.”

“Where?” Sara persisted.

“Sara, where do I turn for Kayla’s?” I interrupted.

“Bahia Vista. Duh. You’ve only been there, like, ten thousand times.”

“I was hinting you should stop the inquisition. Duh.”

“I was just asking—”

“Stop asking.”

She turned around, arms crossed, sending me her own version of a withering look. A few minutes later I pulled into Kayla’s drive. Sara leapt out without a word, slamming the door. The window glass shuddered.

I smiled weakly. “Sibling rivalry, I guess.”

“It’ll pass.”

“You can sit up front, if you want. The seat’s premoistened.”

Sam joined me. I watched Sara slip into Kayla’s house. “I don’t know why she hates me so much.”

“It’s normal.”

“If my family’s normal, we’re all in trouble. Put on your seat belt, okay?”

“She’s probably intimidated.”

“Intimidated?” I asked, backing out of the drive.

“She’s got this smart, beautiful—” Sam began, then paused and fumbled with his seat belt. “Uh, sister. Sure, she’s going to feel intimidated.”

Beautiful
was not a word I’d ever heard in connection with my person. My cheeks sizzled. I lowered the window a little more, soaking my left arm.

I savored the word. Sam, this beautiful guy sitting next to me in my smelly-dog station wagon, had just called
me
beautiful.

I realized I hadn’t spoken in a few aeons or so.

“Do you intimidate your brothers?” I asked quickly.

Sam laughed at some private joke. “No. No danger of that. They pretty much think I’m crazy.”

I shot him a glance. “Should that worry me?”

“Probably.”

I stopped at the corner. “So where to? And don’t say ‘wherever.’ It’s pouring and I’ll feel like a jerk if I just let you off by the side of the road so you get even more soaked. Besides, you heard my sister. I have no life.”

Sam tapped grease-stained fingers on the dash. “Okay, then. Out Clark Road, past the highway.”

I nodded. We drove in silence for a while, the rain hammering. “I didn’t see you yesterday at school,” I said to fill the quiet. “I mean, in study hall I noticed …”

“I was working. At Smitty’s. That garage on Route 41.” He held up his hands as evidence. “That’s where I was today. Trying to resuscitate a ’78 Dodge. In my free time, I’m working on my bike. A guy I work with helped me dig it out.”

“What about school, though?”

“What about it?”

“You know. How can you afford to miss?”

“I can’t afford not to.”

“But you’ll—” I looked at him, and he smiled vaguely.

“I’ll what?”

“Well, fall behind. Don’t you read the propaganda? Your GPA will drop. You’ll never graduate, your life will be over, and you’ll have to spend your days working as a—”

“Mechanic?”

“No, no.” I wanted to start over. “That’s not what I meant at all.”

I stole a glance at him. At that moment Sam looked older than I was by decades. I felt the way I had a few summers
before, when all my friends had gone to camp and I’d stayed home. They’d come back changed—wiser, flushed with secrets I couldn’t know. Sam made me feel like that.

The rain was giving up. Sam gave me more directions, and I turned down a quiet two-lane road. We were far out in the country, a flat expanse dotted with the occasional trailer, small ranch house, or fruit stand.

He picked up a muddy folder on the floor. “ ‘Save the Manatees,’ ” he read. “Those big walrusy things?”

“This group I belong to is trying to get more sanctuaries set up.”

“To save this big slug?”

“Okay, they’re a little homely. But they’re on the verge of extinction. Manatees are kind of slow-moving, and they keep getting hit by motorboats. Man’s their only serious predator.”

“That’s all it takes.” Sam set the pamphlet aside. “I suppose some people would point out that species are always disappearing—they always have, they always will. It’s easy to be an idealist and lose sight of the big picture.”

“Actually, it’s not. Easy being an idealist, I mean.” I smiled. “Those meetings can be pretty dull. But I want to be a biologist, maybe work to protect endangered species or something.”

Sam crossed his arms. “You’re an interesting girl, Alison.”

“No, I’m not. I’m really pretty average.”

“You shouldn’t say that.”

“Why not? It’s true.”

“Because you might start believing it.” He motioned. “Turn here. You can stop by the mailbox.”

A battered black mailbox, tilting at a precarious angle, was perched under a scraggly pine. A hundred yards up a lumpy
dirt road sat a silver trailer, smooth and round as a loaf of unbaked bread. A very old car, a dull red Cadillac convertible, sat nearby, listing slightly into a muddy ditch. Everything seemed askew. It was like looking at an off-center painting.

I felt Sam watching me. “So this is home?”

“No,” he said, “but it’s where I live.”

“I could drive you on up.”

“No,” Sam said quickly. Then, more casually, “There’s no place to turn around.” He fingered the pamphlet on the seat. “You know, I didn’t mean … There’s nothing wrong with having ideals.” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m pretty sure I used to have one or two.”

“You should come to one of our meetings,” I suggested.

“I don’t do groups.”

“That’s what you said about horses. And you ended up riding.”

“Desperate times, desperate measures.” He stared at the pamphlet thoughtfully. A huge, blubbery manatee smiled benignly from the cover. “Maybe sometime …”

“What?” I tried not to sound too hopeful.

“I was just going to say that maybe sometime, you know, if you’re not busy, you could show me one. A real manatee. Could be the photo isn’t doing this guy justice.”

“I’d like that,” I said casually, in my very best imitation of a cool person.

Sam hesitated. His eyes flicked to the trailer. His jaw was clenched, as if he were trying to stop the flow of words. I gathered from his sudden frown that he was having second thoughts about our going out.

I didn’t know what to say under the circumstances, so I just sat there, mute and fidgety, pretending it hadn’t happened.

“I don’t know, maybe that’s not such a good idea,” he said. He grabbed the door handle as if he couldn’t wait to escape.

It had to be a world record. I’d started a relationship and been dumped in the space of five seconds.

“Well, I should be going.” I said hastily, hanging on to what little dignity I had left.

“Scratch that,” Sam said, and I realized he wasn’t talking to me. He nodded firmly. He’d come to a decision, another one. “I can work something out,” he said. “How about next weekend?”

“Next weekend?” Already we were patching things up?

“Yeah. Unless I have to work. Or, you know”—he waved vaguely—“something comes up.”

“Sure.” This time I really sounded noncommittal. I’d been on this ride before, after all.

“So. Good. A manatee. I’d like to see one of those suckers.” He got out of the car. “Thanks again for the lift.”

When he grinned at me it was strangely intimate, maybe because he wasn’t that free with his smiles. His whole face changed, as if the other, intense Sam had been just a stand-in, a warm-up act for the real thing.

“Oh. Any word on Izzy?” he asked.

“Surgery day after tomorrow.” I clenched the wheel. “I’m sure she’ll be fine. I wish there were something I could do.”

I expected him to say that she’d be fine, not to sweat it, something like that. What I might have said in the same position. But he just stared at me—through me, almost.

“You do what you can,” he said, and then he strode up the muddy drive.

I watched him pick his way over the puddles. I felt a little annoyed and a lot giddy and very confused. What had just happened?
I tried to sort through his words and put them in neat little piles. He wanted to go out with me, but he had real doubts about the idea. He’d asked me out, but only sort of. He was interested in me, but he had serious reservations.