The Stargazers (22 page)

“So, are you ready to go? I just have to clock out.”

She nodded.

“Awesome. I’ll meet you out front with the car.” He dashed inside and tangled his feet on the same chair Aster had been sitting in this morning when she waited for him. After righting himself, he flashed a thumbs-up and continued into the back. A few minutes later, she heard the rumble of his big blue car coming down the alley. When he stopped, she went right for the door before he could get out and open it for her again.

“You like music?” he asked.

Aster nodded. She loved going to the market square
pavilion back home
to watch the various performers. Of course, she always had to go alone, so she considered music to be a solitary enjoyment of hers, like her drawing
,
a
nd anything else she liked to do, really.

“Well you’re gonna love this,” he said. He picked up a tiny rectangular device from the seat between them and pressed some buttons with his thumb. A second later, Aster heard the strumming of a guitar followed by the pounding of some drums and somebody singing.
Watch out, you might get what you’re after…
It had a quirky beat, interspersed with other instruments she had never heard before. The rest of the lyrics were nonsensical, but they spoke to her nonetheless. The song was, in a way, foreboding.

“This is good. But why do you suppose he’s burning down a house?” she asked.

Bryon laughed, but it had a friendly nature about it. “That’s kind
of
the thing about this song. Almost none of it makes sense. Even the guys who wrote it, they were just throwing out random lines in the middle of a jam session. But in it
s own way, it has a
story. I think that’s why I like i
t. Everybody can have an
interpretation and be right about it”

Aster was reminded of her conversation with Mama Iris earlier.
You got to go your own way.
  It didn’t seem so far
f
rom burning down the house. When the song ended, another one came on that was both softer and melodic. “Heart of Gold. Classic Neil Young,” said Bryon, turning up
the volume a little. “People ga
ve me crap at school all the time for acting like an old man, but
I am what I am. I just can’t get into Lady Gaga no matter how hard I try
.”

She had never heard of any of those people, but she liked the music Bryon picked, and if it was considered old-fashioned, she supposed
they were a good match that way
. “Where I come from, this music would be considered almost alien.”

He glanced at her with a grin before turning back to the road. “Where do you come from anyway? I mean really?”

“Let’s just say my people are a little, um, primitive.”

“Like the Amish? Hey, if you’re a Pennsylvania Dutch runaway, I won’t tell.”

Aster decided to humor him. “I’d really appreciate that.”

“At least that makes some sense now. I’ll try not to overwhelm you with all kinds of technology or pop culture stuff then.”

They rode in a comfortable silence the rest of the way to Bryon’s house, which was a small brick structure surrounded by dozens that looked exactly like it. Aster wondered how anyone could find their way home in such a neighborhood. After pulling into the driveway, he killed the engine. “Dad’s not gonna be home for a little bit. We never really talked about rules for things like this, but I don’t think he’ll mind.
I’m eighteen now. That has to count for something, right?
”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, well… I mean, I’ve never had a girl over before.”

She put her hand on his. “This is the first time I’ve ever been over to a boy’s house, so I guess we’re kind of in the same boat.”

He gave her hand a squeeze. “How about we go inside, then?”

They walked up to the door and Bryon let them inside. The house was small inside, but very cozy, with big overstuffed furniture that looked older but comfortable. Framed pictures of cars bedecked the walls, below which sat shelves filled with dozens of books.
She was amazed by how much paper this world had. Books in Ellemire were plentiful but precious. There were more volumes here than Aster had handled in her whole life.
“You and your dad like to read a lot?”

“Yeah. We don’t have a TV, but we listen to ballgames on the radio in the garage when we’re working on cars or whatever. Dad says a television is wasted time. I do have a computer, though, but only for homework and listening to music. Want something to drink?”

She followed him into the kitchen and watched as he poured them glasses of iced tea. The cubes clinked against the glass as she brought it to her lips. “I like your house. Reminds me a little of where I used to live.”

He laughed. “Does this mean I get to be inducted into the Amish Club someday?”

“What does your dad do?”

“He assembles cars at the GM plant. Taught me everything I know about them. He wanted me to get a summer job working with him, but I turned it down. I love my dad and all, but I kinda want to do my own thing. I feel like, if I went there, I’d be sucked right in and I’d never see NASA.”

“Yeah, being sucked into doing what your family wants is something I know all about.”

He took a drink of his tea. “I think it’s all part of being a teenager. Then one day, we get to have kids and do the same thing to them.”

“Round and around it goes.” In light of all the new information she’d learned from Mama Iris, Aster wondered if she would ever have a family. Of if she’d even see her next birthday. There wasn’t anyone to continue her family line, so the Stargazer name would die with her.
What a depressing thought.

Bryon waved a hand in front of her face. “You still there?” he asked.

“Yeah, I guess I was gathering some wool.”

“Well whatever it is, don’t let it get you down. We have steak to look forward to.” He stepped up to her and took her hands. She noticed how long and slender his fingers were. They were also calloused and dirty from his work, but she kind of liked that

He brushed away a piece of hair from her forehead before giving her a kiss. His soft lips took away the rest of her worry, and for those few precious moments, she lost herself in his warmth and forgot about all the dark clouds hanging over her head. S
econds after they broke apart
, flushed and dazed, Aster heard an engine out front.

“Act natural,” he said. They walked out to the living room
to
meet Bryon’s father.

The tall and lanky man who greeted them could have been a perfect composite of what Bryon would look like in an
other twenty or so years. H
is curly hair was streaked with a healthy amount of gray, and he had a pair of round glasses perched on his nose. A scruff of auburn beard also covered his face.

“Aster, this is my dad Nick. Dad, this is Aster.”

Nick stepped across the room with his hand stretched out. “Hi Aster. I’ve waited a long time for this boy of mine to bring home a date.”

Bryon rolled his eyes. “All right, Dad.”

Aster took Nick’s hand and shook it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mister Kettering.”

“You’re real polite, but you just keep right on calling me Nick.” He turned to Bryon. “Boy, why don’t you go take a shower and put on a clean shirt for cryin’ out loud? You look like you just climbed out of a pit and you definitely smell like it. Sorry, Aster, we’re a couple of grease monkeys that don’t have any women around to remind us when we smell like ass. We’ll fire up the grill in a bit. I’m hungry enough to gnaw on a wrench.”

After the two of them went off to clean up, Aster went into the living room to browse around. Many of the books on the shelves dealt with nature, especially space. She selected one called
Cosmos
and flipped through the glossy pages for a few minutes. On
the
wall behind the living room door, she spied a series of family pictures with Bryon ranging in age from newborn to what must have been just before Bryon’s mother died, judging by the woman’s hollow cheek bones and the pink scarf she wore around her head. Her eyes were both sad and brave, like she had accepted her fate but was determined to live as normally as possible
until the end
, yearly family portraits included.

“She died a month after that was taken.”

Aster turned around to see Bryon standing there in a green t-shirt and a pair of shorts. His hair was still wet. She had never seen him outside his work uniform, and it was nice. “Was she in a lot of pain?”

“Sometimes, yeah. But the last few days, she was on a lot of morphine and that pretty much made her sleep through most of it.”

She didn’t know whether that was better or worse. In Ellemire, most people died of old age or magical accidents. She wondered why so many people wasted away over here and then died young.

Soon, Nick joined them again and set about cooking dinner. Nick went out to light the grill while Aster offered to shuck the corn and prepare the steaks. “I’d really like to, if you wouldn’t mind. Preparing a meal is a simple pleasure I haven’t had in awhile.”

“If you’d really like to, then I’ll let you,” Nick said. “Maddie was always the cook, and
she insisted that I
take lessons from a local cooking club before she passed. She never would have settled for us living off of Chinese takeout and pizza every night.”

She grinned. “Well, I grew up in a house full of women and I live in another one right now, so this is a nice change for me.”

“That’s one thing I wanted to ask you about. Why you’re at Oasis.” Nick’s voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “You’re not in any kind of trouble, are you? Nothing that could get my boy into any heat? Because I can’t have that.”  His open and friendly face turned serious, and Aster found it difficult to look away from his eyes.

“I’m not in any trouble,” she said. “My family is just…difficult. I had to go away for awhile, but they know I’m here and that I’m safe.”

“Miss Ivy does a good job at that house. If I didn’t believe that, I would have told my boy he could just forget about bringing you home
,
b
ut my son means everything to me. He’s all I got left after his ma died, and seeing him happy has raised my spirits a lot.”

Aster saw the emotion in the man’s face and
she
decided right then that she would find another way to fulfill her duties that didn’t involve using Nick’s son.

After Bryon came in from lighting the grill, Aster had him sit with his dad at the table while she seasoned the meat and put the corn on to boil. Then she set about making a green salad with veggies she dug out of the refrigerator drawer. They were wilted and wrinkled, but she revived them with the new trick she’d learned earlier. Next, she dug in the pantry and found some bags of flour and sugar pushed way in the
back, along with a box of
soda
powder
. She decided to make a batch of biscuits. The steaks went on the grill last.

The two men sat and watched her with wide-eyed
amazement
as she whirled around the kitchen like a dervish, her instincts pointing her toward the proper drawers and cabinets with little error. As far as Aster was concerned, a kitchen was a kitchen, and this one was well organized.

With steaming meat, fresh vegetables, and
warm biscuits
at the table, they dug in. Aster took slow bites, but the men gobbled everything down until there was nothing left but a few biscuit crumbs on the serving plate.

Nick sat back and patted his belly. “I don’t think I’ve had such a great meal since Maddie died.” He looked at Aster. “You’re a real gem, kiddo.”

Aster smiled and looked down at her own plate, from which she’d eaten little. “I’m happy to help.” It had only been a few days since she’d left Ellemire, but it felt like it had been a year since she’d cooked a meal. The act brought her contentment amid the storm of emotions she’d been experiencing lately. She imagined how much simpler and happier her life could be if it were just like this.

This time it was their turn to tell her to sit still while they cleaned up. Her whole life, she’d been taught that men couldn’t do anything by themselves unless it was manual labor in service of women. And helping to make babies, of course. But as she watched Bryon and his dad work in a house they had managed to hold together all on their own for two years without the help of a woman, Aster realized that the women back home weren’t right about everything.

They were
also
wrong about her.

-19-

The sun was a squished orange blob on the horizon when Bryon drove her to the outskirts of town toward Carpenter’s field, not far at all from where Aster had met Mama Iris earlier that day. The telescope’s big black suitcase lay in the backseat nestled on the blankets they’d plan
ned
to sit on while they waited for the stars to show themselves. She saw a house set back far from the road as Bryon pulled the car over and shut off the engine.