The Key to the Golden Firebird (23 page)

“Let's just forget it, okay?” Pete said. He got up, took a broom from the walkway, and started cleaning some leaves and dirt from a corner of the patio. “It was a bad idea.”

“What do you mean? What was a bad idea? Us? Dating?”

“Right. So it's over. Let's just forget it happened.”

“I don't think it was a bad idea,” May said quickly. “I think it was a really good idea.”

Pete didn't answer. He swept.

“If it makes you feel any better,” she added, trying to get a response, “Nell just got me fired.”

“Yeah, that makes me feel great.”

“I don't know. I thought it might.”

“Why would I be happy about that?” he asked, never once taking his eyes from his work. “Do you think it's my fault that
she got you fired? Do you think
I
told her to do it as part of my plan to screw you over?”

From the way he'd said the word
screw
, May could tell that her words had definitely not been forgotten.

“No,” she said.

“So what's your point?”

That corner of the patio had probably never been so clean.

May put her head down and told herself not to cry. This was not the time for that. This was the time to become a genius and say something amazing. Unfortunately, nothing was coming to mind.

“I don't know, Camper,” she said. “I didn't really have a plan. I wanted to explain, but I guess I don't have an explanation.”

“I guess you don't. Like I said, it was a bad idea. Can we drop it now?”

There was a swell of emotion building up in May. It was huge. It seemed to spread over every thought in her mind.

“Brooks didn't have these problems,” she said, mostly to herself. “Why is that not surprising?”

Pete stopped sweeping for a minute and leaned into the broom, looking down at the supremely clean bricks.

“I mean, he liked Brooks the most,” May went on. “Brooks was perfect. Palmer too. It was like they had a little club. Maybe if I played sports, it would all have been okay.”

Nothing like another little attack of Tourette's to spice up a conversation,
May thought. She really didn't seem to be in control of her own speaking voice anymore. Pete looked like he was about to say something (maybe call for help), but the patio
door opened and his mom came out. He moved on to another corner of the patio.

“May?” Mrs. Camp said, clearly surprised to see her and even more confused by the weird silence that lingered between her son and May.

“I was just on my way home from work,” May said. “I was giving Pete a message.”

“Oh. Right. Does your mom—”

“No, I know. It's fine. I'm going home now.”

“Okay.”

Mrs. Camp looked between the two of them, then went back inside. Pete stood there with his broom, not moving.

“I'm kind of in trouble,” May said. “It's a long story. I should probably go.”

He didn't say anything.

May got up and walked back through the covered passage toward the front lawn. She tripped over the Weedwacker in her haste. It didn't matter. There was no reason why she should try to be graceful. She just wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Pete coming through the walkway. He came halfway down the driveway and stopped a few feet away from her.

“I'm sorry you got fired,” he said.

“It's not so bad,” May replied, grabbing her bike. “I won't have to smell that cabbage stuff Nell eats anymore.”

Pete leaned against the Cutlass.

“Hey, Pete!” his mom called from the front doorway. “Can you start up the grill?”

“Um…yeah,” he said. “Just a second.”

His mom lingered by the door for a moment before disappearing back into the house. May could see her walking past the living room window. She was watching.

“You'd better go start the grill,” she said.

“I know.”

For the first time in the conversation, May saw a look on Pete's face that seemed somewhat familiar. He was staring off down the street, squinting just a little, wrinkling the top of his nose.

“Why'd you say all of that?” he asked.

“All of what?”

“That he didn't like you as much.”

“Because it's true.”

“No, it's not,” Pete said. “Your dad never shut up about you.”

“Trust me, okay?”

“How do you think I know all your grades and all your scores and stuff?”

“You do?” That was news to her.

“Yeah. He talked about Brooks and Palm sometimes, but it was usually about you.”

“He never talked to me, though. Not like he did to them.”

“Come on,” Pete said. “You always used to get those little jokes he'd put in your lunch in grade school. Or we'd come over to watch a game and he'd be quizzing you and we'd have to wait.”

“That's not the same,” May said. She had no idea why she was having this conversation with Pete at all. Stuff was just coming out of her mouth faster than she could keep up with it.

“What's your problem?” he said angrily. “You get mad at people a lot. You think they're doing things to you. You're pissed
at Brooks, at your dad, then you got pissed at me.”

“I already said I was sorry….”

She was crying, she noticed. There were tears running down her face. She wondered how long that had been going on before she became aware of it. Pete was just watching her now.

“Sorry,” she said, sniffing and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “I'm stupid. I'm going to go.”

She was about to swing her leg over the guy bar when another thought came into her mind. It flew out of her mouth in the next second, unchecked.

“Sometimes I feel like I've been waiting for someone to tell me when I can be normal again,” she said. “I keep thinking I'll get a letter or something. Or a call. When does it happen?”

Pete looked like he wanted to walk toward her, but then he fell back against the car. The staring contest between them went on for almost a minute, and finally Pete exhaled loudly.

“It's okay,” he said.

May could have been wrong, but it seemed—it
seemed
—like he was forgiving her.

She couldn't keep still any longer.

She ran up to him, stretched up onto the tips of her toes, and kissed him. It didn't matter to her that she looked gross, or that he might still be mad, or that his mom was clearly gawking out the living room window. At first he seemed startled. He stood up quickly. After a second or two, though, he wrapped his arms around her. May didn't know if it was a romantic embrace or just an attempt to keep her from losing her balance and falling backward onto the blacktop—and it didn't matter. Pete was holding her, and he was kissing her. She was getting his entire face wet in the process.

When they separated, the freckleless spot between Pete's eyes was bright red. Before anything else could be said or done, May grabbed her bike and hopped on. She waited until she was six houses down to turn and see if he was still standing in the driveway watching her.

He was.

She stopped for just a moment, and they caught each other's eyes. Then he slowly started walking backward toward the house. May couldn't see that well, considering that her eyes were still a little blurry and he was far away, but it looked like he was smiling.

 

May arrived home to find Brooks, Palmer, and their mom in the living room, freezing from the overfunctioning window air conditioner that shot out small pieces of ice along with cold breezes. Her mother was quietly crocheting a pale yellow baby blanket. Obviously a gift for someone. Crochet was a new thing for her mom. She had picked up the habit from some of her friends at the hospital. May thought it seemed like a weird activity for someone who used to go to clubs in outfits made of black trash bags, but it did seem to relax her.

“You're home early,” her mom said.

“It was dead at work,” May replied, trying to look as casual as possible.

“What's wrong with you?” Palmer said, looking May up and down. May was sweating profusely. Her shoes were covered in grass, her face was flushed, her eyes were red, and she was breathing a little too quickly—not things typically associated with a night spent at Presto.

“It's hot out.”

May sank down on the floor. She immediately felt her energy leaving her, like the final, dying flickers of a battery indicator light sending those last-gasp warnings before blinking off. She had spent all of her emotions, and now she was going to slump on the floor and think about nothing. If she tried to analyze the Pete thing now, she'd go insane. As for her job, she'd think about it tomorrow. She'd definitely have the time.

Brooks flicked through the channels, trying to find something remotely interesting. Palmer didn't seem to care. She sat on the floor with her legs stretched out, looking content with everything—CNN, golf, a documentary on the evolution of the battleship, a Spanish soap opera….

“Maybe we should get a movie,” Brooks said.

“We have plenty of stations,” her mom answered. “Find something to watch.”

Brooks sighed and clicked away.

So this was how it was going to be for the next few weeks, May thought. They would all be like Palmer now—dumbly staring at the television, never speaking. She focused on a commercial for some kind of wonder spatula. Usually infomercials entertained her. She liked the way they would always show people who were apparently so incompetent that they couldn't flip a burger without putting out an eye or roll their garden hose without an ambulance crew on standby. That was why they needed product XYZ—they had very serious problems.

They were just getting to the part where they offered to send two wonder spatulas for the price of one if May called right now when Palmer suddenly spoke.

“We took Dad's ashes,” she said. “Last night. We took them
to the field, to the pitcher's mound. That's what we were doing at Camden Yards.”

From the way she said it, you would have thought that Palmer was just mentioning what she'd eaten for lunch. It was a very stealth move. May swung her head around and saw the old maniac gleam in Palmer's eyes, even though they were still steadily focused on the television. May looked the other way to find Brooks backing up in her seat, looking like she wished the recliner would swallow her up.

The only thing that could be heard in the next minute was the Starks' infrared bug zapper along the back fence.

May slowly turned to see how her mother was taking this news. Her hands were frozen midway through a stitch, and she was looking right at May. Not at Palmer, not at Brooks. Just at May. And her expression said it all very clearly:
Tell me what the hell Palmer is talking about.

“We…”

That was as much as May could come up with. Palmer had just said it all. There was nothing to deny, nothing to add.

“We did it all together,” Palmer said, picking up from there. The light was still in her eye, but she was balling up her fists and releasing them over and over. She was afraid. “He's gone. We did it. All of him is there, right in the middle of the field.”

At the moment May expected the blowup or the violent outburst of Dutch, her mother simply stood up and left the room.

 

One in the morning and hot. Hot, hot, hot. A million percent humidity. A universe of hot soup. The clickity fan did nothing but push heat from side to side. On nights like this one, the
Gold sisters frequently camped out in the living room to bask in the air conditioning. But no one was down there tonight. They'd all scattered. Everyone was sweltering alone, in safety.

May had lived about three lifetimes in the last two days, so she wasn't too sure where she stood on Palmer's surprise announcement. On the one hand, she was glad not to have the secret hanging over her head. On the other, she was completely worn out. Brooks had freaked, completely. She'd screamed at Palmer. Palmer had just sat there and taken it. May had just wearily trudged up to her room in the middle of their fight.

For the last five hours she'd moved seashells around on her desk, stared at the wall, reorganized her bookshelf, and examined the cuts between her toes. She had nothing to get up in the morning for. Nothing to get ready for. Nothing to look forward to. She could stay in her room for the rest of the summer and count the ponies on the wall.

What she wanted to do was run out right now, in her boxer shorts and old T-shirt, and go to Pete's and sit on the glider. But she figured that she could only turn up at his house once a day looking scruffy and desperate.

This heat was going to kill her.

She needed something to drink. If she was quiet, she could go down to the kitchen without attracting any attention. Peeking out into the hall, she saw that all the doors were shut. There was no light coming from downstairs. She was safe. She crept along on her toes down the stairs and through the hall to the kitchen.

May was surprised to see her mother sitting at the table, looking strangely young in her bleach-stained scrub shirt and
her ruffled, spiky hair. She had both of her feet on the chair, and her knees were drawn up to her chest. May almost tried to back up and disappear, but her mother had seen her. She nodded toward an empty chair.

“Sit down,” she said.

May sat down. She was so stupid. She should have known better than to leave her room. Now she was going to go through this all over again.

“How did you get them?” her mom asked. She sounded exhausted, not angry, which was somewhat of a relief.

“Palmer found them.”

“Was it Palmer's idea to take them to Camden Yards?”

“She was upset,” May said, nodding. “She said she was going whether we went with her or not. So I drove there.”

“So she wouldn't go on her own?”