The Infinite Moment of Us (20 page)

typing. Once she began, she typed quickly and urgently.

Charlie needed to know how sorry she was, and he needed

to know
now
, before he called or texted her again.

If he was ever planning to call or text her again, that is.

Fear made her light-headed.

I am so so SO sorry, she typed. About last night. I should

have answered when you called. I should have been . . .

better . . . when you sent all those texts.

I don’t know exactly what was up with me. All I wanted

was to see you. Be with you. And I sent that text, I think you know which one, and, Charlie, that was scary for me.

And then you disappeared. You were just *gone*.

I would love to see you today if you want to see me. So

call me, or text me, or whatever. I’ll be here.

She hesitated, then typed one last message.

I hope Dev’s okay.

c h a p t e r f o u r t e e n

Charlie had a long night. A miserable night. A

night of tossing and turning, although he finally crashed as

the sun was rising. When he woke up, it was almost noon.

Someone was banging on his door.

“Mom wants to know if you’re alive,” Dev said. He

wheeled his chair to Charlie’s bed. “Are you?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said groggily. He rubbed his eyes,

checked the clock on his bedside table, and pushed himself

up, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress. “Whoa.”

“Whoa what?” Dev said.

“It’s late.”

“No shit, it’s late. That’s why Mom sent me to check on

you.”

“Don’t say ‘shit.’ Pamela doesn’t like it.”

“Don’t call her Pamela. She likes that even less. And Dad

needs you in the shop. Something about the chairs for that

old lady with the nose ring.”

“Agnes,” Charlie said. “Right.”

Dev wheeled his chair closer and picked up a framed

photo of Charlie and Wren. Wren was laughing. Her arm

stuck out in that funny way of self-photos, and they were

squeezed together to fit in the frame. Wren was looking at

the camera; Charlie was looking at Wren.

When Wren had pulled the phone back and they looked

at the picture together, Charlie remembered, Wren had

groaned and claimed she looked goofy. She didn’t. She

looked luminous.

“
You
look adorable, though,” she had said, and Charlie, as a complete afterthought, glanced at the image of himself.

He was startled to see the softness captured in his eyes as

he gazed at Wren.

“You look so sweet,” she went on. “Like a little boy,

almost.”

“A little boy?” Charlie said, feeling heat creep up his

neck.

“Well, not a little boy, but just . . . sweet, that’s all. I bet that’s how you looked when you were a kid, playing with your Matchbox cars. Did you play with Matchbox cars,

Charlie Parker?”

Charlie had never owned a Matchbox car. There’d been

a toolbox in his mother’s garage, and during the intermi-

nable season he spent there, he’d lined up the hammer, the

screwdrivers, and the wrenches in different patterns on

the concrete floor, over and over again. He didn’t remem-

ber much about that time, but he remembered that.

“I did,” he said. “Did you?”

“Nope, for me it was stuffed animals all the way.”

She had looked at the picture of them one more time

before putting her phone in her pocket. She’d wrapped her

arms around Charlie’s neck and peppered him with tiny

kisses. Then she’d grabbed the back of his hair the way she

did and kissed him for real.

Two days later, Wren had given him a copy of the photo.

She’d printed it at Kmart and put it into a frame for him

and everything. These small things. No one had ever treated

him like this before.

Dev tapped the image of Wren, pulling Charlie back.

“Your girlfriend is
hot
,” he said.

“Yeah. Uh-huh. Put down the picture, Dev.”

“How many times have you kissed her?” Dev asked.

“Five times? Eight? More than a dozen?”

“None of your business,” Charlie said.

Dev grinned. Until Wren, Dev had never had much

material to tease his big brother about. But Dev liked

Wren, and Wren liked Dev. She knuckled his hair and

praised his elaborate LEGO constructions. He’d asked her

how to make his crush like him, and she’d said, “Just smile

at her and talk to her like a normal person. Dev, you’re a

catch.”

“You’re the catch,” Dev had said, waggling his eyebrows.

“If Charlie doesn’t ever treat you right, you know where

to find me.”

“Thank you, Dev. You’re very chivalrous,” Wren had

said. She looked fondly at Charlie. “But your brother knows

how to treat a girl. He takes amazing care of me.”

Charlie stood up from his bed and took the framed

photo from Dev. He put it back where it had been.

“Is there any breakfast left?” he asked.

“Fat chance,” Dev said. “And it was pancakes, so sucks

for you.”

Charlie pulled on a pair of jeans and a black T-shirt. To

Dev, who was blocking the path out of his room, he said,

“You gonna move or be moved?”

Dev hiked his chair onto its back wheels and spun to

face the door. “There might be one pancake left. Maybe

three. Or not.”

Charlie’s throat tightened. He predicted there’d be a

whole stack waiting for him, staying warm in the oven.

Even though it was noon.

“Hey. Dev.”

Dev glanced over his shoulder. “What?”

“About Pamela. Why I call her that, instead of . . .”

“Mom?” Dev supplied. “It’s not a hard word to say. It’s

only one syllable. Want to know another word with one

syllable? Dad.”

“Thanks, Dev. Thanks for that English lesson.”

“Always happy to help.”

Charlie frowned. He didn’t have to say any more. He

could quit now. But he pushed on, because it was impor-

tant. “Listen, Pamela and Chris are great. You know that,

and you know that I know that. I only call them Pamela and

Chris because . . .” He tried again. “The reason I don’t call

them what you call them . . .”

“Charlie, forget it. It’s okay.”

“I know,” Charlie said. “It’s just that sometimes, even

when you love somebody—” He broke off. He was hope-

less. Hopeless and worthless.

Dev was acutely uncomfortable with the conversation.

Charlie could see that, even if he couldn’t always see his

own emotions clearly.

He found a dark stain on the carpet to focus on and said,

“It’s nothing they’ve done wrong or anything. It’s just . . .

me.”

“I know,” Dev said.

“But I’m glad you do. Call them that.”

Dev nodded.

Charlie nodded back.

The chairs Chris wanted Charlie to work on had legs with

tapered tenons, and Chris wanted Charlie to sand the

grooves. This sort of detail work was best served by sand-

paper, not a sander, which was good, because power tools

required attention to the task at hand. Charlie’s thoughts

were very much elsewhere.

His phone lay on the table by the router, but he resisted

flipping it open to check for messages.
If
Wren had called or texted, that would be one thing, assuming her message

wasn’t
Screw you, I’m done, good riddance.
But if there were no messages, it would kill him all over again.

He was a mess.

He was angry at Wren for doing this to him. For playing

with his mind, for treating him like . . .

He didn’t want to go there, but maybe he had to step

into that dark place if he was to have any chance at figuring

out how he felt about last night.

Kneeling on the floor of the shop, he smoothed the

swelled cove on the leg of the first chair. Chris had done a

nice job. The chair’s leg narrowed and widened elegantly,

and Charlie thought of Wren. Her hips tapering inward to

her waist, her waist stretching into the swell of her breasts.

Dammit. He closed his eyes. He gave himself a moment,

then started up again. Work was work.

He sanded the chair leg and tried, for the first time

ever, to think about Wren from a distance. He added him-

self to the mix, too. He added in his past, his present, his

unknown future. He added the relationships he’d severed

and the relationships he continued to maintain.

Chris, Pamela, Dev. Solid. They’d had their bumps in

the road, but what he’d tried to tell Dev was true: Charlie

considered Dev and his foster parents his family, and Char-

lie’s inability to say so out loud was his failure alone.

Ammon? Also solid. Ammon was a good and loyal

friend. At the same time, Charlie doubted that he and

Ammon would keep in close touch when Ammon went

to Mercer in the fall. Their friendship was fine for what it

was, but it wasn’t more than what it was.

And then there was Starrla. A hot mess in miniskirts

and fishnets. A sad girl in sweats and oversize T-shirts. For

the most part casually cruel, and yet sometimes kind, like

last year when she’d picked up on the fact that Charlie was

having a shitty day. Starrla skipped class with him and drove

him to the mall. She bought him an Orange Julius despite

his protests, saying, “Just drink it, asshole.”

As for sex. Well. They were fourteen the first time they

“fucked,” and afterward, Charlie tried to tell her how pretty

she was. In his mind, back then, she was. Objectively, she

still was, beneath her black eyeliner and vampy outfits. But

that first time, tangled together in Starrla’s bed, Charlie

came fast and hard and then collapsed on top of her.

She laughed and shoved his torso. “You’re crushing me,”

she said. “Get off.”

He rolled sideways, dazed and spent and thankful, so

thankful. He was also worried that he’d hurt her. “Sorry,”

he said. “You okay?”

She looked at him as if he were nuts. Then a knowing

look altered her features. She smirked and said, “Is this you

being tender? In case you haven’t noticed, I don’t do ten-

der.”

He reached for her. She might be hard on the outside,

but it was a front. He knew it was. He ran the back of his

hand over her cheek. “Starrla . . . that was . . .”

She pushed his hand away and got out of bed. “Shut up

and get dressed. My mom’ll be back soon.”

Sometimes she wouldn’t have sex with him unless she’d

had a shot or three of whatever cheap liquor was stashed

above the fridge. On those occasions, she made a point

of telling him that’s what it took, given that Charlie was

Charlie. “I have to be drunk. No offense, right?”

The chair leg Charlie was working on was sanded to

perfection. He wiped the sweat from his forehead, rotated

the chair, and started on the next leg. The scratch of sand-

paper against wood comforted him. He felt the satisfaction

of it in his gums, way back in his mouth. Probably he’d

been grinding his teeth without realizing it.

The last time Charlie slept with Starrla was after their

eleventh-grade homecoming dance. Someone rented a

hotel suite. There was an after-party. Starrla got very, very

drunk and complained of being hot, so she fumbled for her

zipper and started to take off her short, shiny dress right in front of everyone.

“Starrla, no,” Charlie had said. He steered her to the

room with the bed while the others hooted and whistled.

“Have fun, kids!” one girl called.

It hadn’t been fun. Charlie had taken her to the bed-

room for the sake of her privacy, not to have sex with her.

But things happened, and he did have sex with her, or she

had sex with him. Ten sweaty minutes later, it was over.

“I’m not even your date,” Starrla had said, pushing

herself up. Her hair was mussed, and one blue high heel

dangled from her foot. Her dress was scrunched around

her waist.

“I asked you to be my date. You said no,” Charlie had

said. She’d sobered up slightly, and her eyes had a certain

glint in them that Charlie recognized. Anger. Desperation.

Defiance.

“I said no because I knew you didn’t want me to be. You

asked me out of pity. Duh.”

“Starrla . . .”

“But you still want me to be your slut, so here I am. Yay.

Happy?”

No, and neither was she. They made each other the

opposite of happy.

“Starrla. Just tell me what you want from me,” Charlie’d

said.

Starrla had fixed her dress, jamming her arms back

through the sleeves and tugging down the hem. “Nothing,

so don’t worry, pretty boy. You’re doing great.”

After that, no more sex. Charlie’s decision. Too much

wrongness and not enough rightness.

And now. With Wren.

Charlie knew it was right with Wren, or he thought he

knew, but last night had changed things.

He wanted to believe that he knew the real Wren, and

he wanted desperately to believe that the real Wren was

solid and cared about him as much as he cared about her.

He rocked back on his heels and put the sandpaper

down.

Did Wren treat me badly? he asked himself.

Yes—but he’d stopped texting with her to run to Star-

rla, goddammit, and he couldn’t help but believe that

Wren hadn’t
set out
to hurt him. It was an accident, wasn’t it? Maybe she’d been in a bad place herself?