Walk Me Home (10 page)

“Actually,” Jerry DeVries said, “we’re trying to get Dean’s dad
not
to go.”

“I don’t get it,” Carly said.

Another rush of crowd noise. Clapping and cheering. Carly glanced down at the cigarette in the half-light, vaguely surprised to see it still burning in her hand.

“Oh,” she said. “Guess you want this back.”

“Naw, it’s fine,” Dean said. “Keep it.” He shook another out of the pack and lit it with an expensive-looking silver lighter. “Usually he won’t let us go up to the cabin without adult supervision. We’re on a crusade to convince him we’re mature enough.”

He shifted back slightly, which brought his face into better light. Into a slat of stadium lights, filtering in from between the tiers. His eyes locked on her, burning their way in. It lit up that spot in her gut again. A weird mix of excitement and fear.

“You should come,” he said. Suddenly and enthusiastically. As if he had only that moment thought of it. But, for some unknown reason, Carly didn’t feel that was the case. “You should totally come.”

“Not sure if my mom would let me.”

“Tell her there’ll be parents there.”

“I could try.”

“It’s gonna be great. Three guys and two girls so far. See? We need you to make it perfect. It’s up in the Sierras. Not even that far a drive, but it’s like another world. It’s right by this little lake. It might even be snowing up there. We might need to take my dad’s four-wheel drive. Ever seen snow before?”

She had. But not for a long time. Not since her last grandparent died. She never answered the question.

“When?”

“Day after tomorrow. We’ll be back the day before Christmas Eve.”

“I could ask Teddy. Maybe he’d back me up with my mom. He’s really cool.”

“Ask him,” Dean said. “And then call me. I’m in the book.”

Carly sat still a moment longer, not sure if that meant she should go ask Teddy right now. No one said a word.

“OK,” she said, pulling to her feet. “I’ll go ask him.”

It wasn’t until she’d picked her way back out into the light from the stadium that Carly realized she was still holding the cigarette high in the crook of her first two fingers. She looked up to see Teddy watching her. She dropped the cigarette into the dirt and ground it under her heel.

She climbed back up to where he was sitting. The crowd exploded into shrieking and applause again, nearly deafening her. She craned her neck to see what Jen, or Jen’s team, had done. But it was too late. The play was over.

She plunked herself down next to Teddy. So close that her hip accidentally bumped up against his.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” he said.

“I don’t.”

He leaned in close and sniffed her breath but said nothing.

She opened her mouth to ask him about the lake, the cabin, then lost her nerve. She would seem too anxious, it would seem too important, if she asked him now. She should wait until later and bring it up almost as an afterthought. As if it were so minor she’d let it slip her mind.

As if it were nothing, really. Almost nothing at all.

“I call shotgun!” Jen shouted on the way to the car.

And it was already too late.

Carly turned her best pleading gaze on Teddy. “Seriously? You’re going to make me sit in the back?”

“Come on. You drove on the way here. Besides. She called it.”

He opened the driver’s side door and folded the seat forward. Carly climbed in with a theatrical sigh.

“I was good,” Jen said, fastening her seat belt.

“You were amazing,” Teddy said.

Carly only stared out the window as the car pulled out of the dirt lot. She saw Dean on the corner and ducked her head down. So he wouldn’t see her sitting in the back.

“I’m starving,” Jen said. “What time is it?”

Teddy looked at his watch. He wore it on his right arm because he was left-handed.

“Little after seven thirty.”

“That explains it. Let’s stop for pizza,” Jen said.

“Nope.”

“
Teddy
…”

“I made my world-famous spaghetti and meatballs. Well. I mean…I didn’t make the spaghetti yet. But I made the sauce from scratch. And the meatballs. So that’s what we’re having.”

Carly’s eyes shifted away from the dark streets and found the back of Teddy’s head. Something was coming together in her brain.

“Mom’s favorite,” she said.

“Yup.”

“She’ll be bummed she has to work late.”

“Maybe she can get away.”

Then it all clicked.

“Oh, my God!” Carly said. “I know what day this is. This is your anniversary.”

“Of what?” Jen shot back. “They’re not married.”

“Tell her, Teddy.”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s not nothing. It’s the anniversary of when you moved in with us. Two years.”

“It’s not a big deal.”

“It
is
a big deal. It’s, like, two or three times longer than any of those other losers lasted. And you’re the first one who’s not a loser. It’s a
very
big deal. Does she know you’re making spaghetti and meatballs? With extra Parmesan?”

Carly’s mother liked lots of Parmesan.

First no answer. For a long time.

Then Teddy said, “Yeah.”

He made the word sound short. Even more so than it normally would.

“We should go by the bar. Tell her to get somebody to cover her shift.”

“She’ll come home if she can.”

“We should go get her.”

“Look. Carly. With my back giving me trouble again, and all the work I’ve missed, she’s doing everybody a favor picking up extra shifts. We need the money.”

“But—”

“Drop it, Carly.”

It made something burn in Carly’s stomach and behind her eyes. Teddy almost never snapped at her.

She decided to talk over it.

“You think Mom would let me go up to a cabin on a lake, up in the Sierras, with some friends from school? There’ll be parents there.”

“Boy-type friends?”

“Both. Besides, what difference does it make? There’ll be parents there.”

“And what difference does it make if I think she will or not? How does my opinion on the matter help you with her?”

“You could put in a good word for me.”

He glanced halfway over his shoulder at her, then back at the road.

“Carly…you’re a smart girl. You can’t possibly think I can make your mom do anything she doesn’t want to do. If I could, we wouldn’t be eating spaghetti and meatballs without her tonight.”

And that shut down the conversation. And it stayed shut. All the way home.

Carly sat in front of a steaming plate of spaghetti and meatballs. There were flowers on the table, clusters of little miniature pink roses and a spray of fuchsia, both from their front yard. And two long white candles in their late grand-mother’s antique silver candle-holders. It struck Carly as almost unbearably sad.

Jen plunked down hard into her chair and grabbed up her fork. Without even waiting for Teddy, who was serving up his own dinner at the stove.

“I am
so
starved,” Jen said.

Then she stuffed her mouth with the equivalent of about three bites’ worth.

“Well, don’t wait for me,” Teddy said. “Just dig right in.”

The sarcasm sailed well over Jen’s head. She just nodded, her mouth too full to answer.

When she’d managed to swallow, Jen said, “This is better than pizza, Teddy. I’m sorry I gave you a hard time about pizza.”

Carly watched Teddy’s reaction, the look on his face, nursing an unpleasant and uncomfortable feeling that she had never made Teddy as happy as Jen just had.

She wound spaghetti around her fork and took a bite.

“You’re a good cook, Teddy,” she said, her mouth still full.

Teddy smiled as he sat down. But it still couldn’t hold a candle to what Jen had said. Nothing Carly said ever did.

Carly opened her mouth to say, I can’t believe Mom didn’t come home for this. She actually almost said that. But she stopped herself just in time. The last thing she wanted was for Teddy to snap at her again.

They ate in silence for what seemed like a long time.

Then Teddy said, “I’d be willing to tell her I met the boy and he seems like a good kid. Even though it’s a slight exaggeration.”

Carly looked up at him, but his eyes remained trained on his plate.

“You’re the best, Teddy,” she said. And she had never meant it more sincerely.

“I’m not even in the top forty percent,” he said.

They finished dinner in silence, Carly’s eyes fastened to the flowers and the candles. An idea formed, almost without Carly needing to think it through. It just sort of bypassed her brain and came together on its own.

By the time she set her fork down, it was fully formed. Definite. Done. There was no getting around it.

“I’m going for a walk,” Carly said, jumping to her feet.

Both Teddy and Jen looked up at her. A little strangely. Because Carly wasn’t the “I’m going for a walk” type. She waited for one of them to put their thoughts into words. They never did.

Carly grabbed a warm jacket on her way out the door.

It was fifteen blocks from their house to her mom’s work.

Only trouble was, she could walk there, but she couldn’t go in.

She paused under the neon sign. It was supposed to say Leopard Lounge. But the big
L
and the little
g
were burned out. So it read more like “eopard Loun e.”

Carly pressed her fingers to the glass of the front window, forgetting for the moment that her mom would yell at her for doing so. It was her mom who had to clean any stray fingerprints off the glass. In between serving drinks.

Her mom was not serving drinks.

She was sitting at a table with that guy. Wade, his name was.

Carly watched the way they leaned in close to each other. Not completely overt. They weren’t hugging and kissing. But there was an intensity about the exchange. Like a short, live wire connected their eyes and faces. Transmitting something impossible to ignore.

Desdemona, the other cocktail waitress, was on duty and serving drinks.

Desdemona looked up and waved at Carly through the window. Carly quickly took her fingertips off the glass.

She stuck her hands in her pockets and waited while Desdemona tapped her mother on the shoulder, breaking the transmission between her and Wade. Carly’s mom spun around to see Carly standing at the window.

She did not look pleased.

Carly reflexively took two steps back as her mom stormed toward the door. She looked back in at Wade, whose face looked dark. Wade had a darkness to him, an edge. Like all the guys her mom went for. Except, of course, Teddy. Sweet, sweet Teddy.

Carly’s mom burst out into the cool valley night, wearing only a strappy, low-cut sleeveless top.

“Want to tell me what you’re doing here?”

She was tall, which could have been part of why Carly found her intimidating. But there was more. If indeed height factored in at all. Her hair was a different color every month. Right now it was a sort of mahogany. Nothing quite like the color of hair a woman might actually grow on her own. Her eyelashes were long
and thick, clumping with mascara. She wore a lot of makeup. Too much, Carly thought, but she knew better than to say so out loud.

“Thought you had to work late,” Carly said.

It was brave. And she knew it. But it was something Teddy couldn’t say. Or anyway, didn’t feel he could. So Carly was going to do it for him.

Carly’s mom rocked her head back a little. A defiant gesture. She crossed her arms across her impressive chest.

“I’m here,” she said.

“But you’re not working. Desdemona’s working.”

“We’re both working.”

“But you never both work at the same time. Besides. You’re not working. You’re just sitting there. Flirting with that guy I hate so much.”

Carly’s mom’s hand came up, and Carly flinched and pulled back, expecting a slap. Instead, a long fingernail just pointed at her. Close to her nose.

“You’re on thin ice with me, young lady. I’d move along if I were you.”

But Carly couldn’t stop. She could use more caution, but she couldn’t leave things where they were. It was too late for that.

“It’s your anniversary.”

“Of what? I’m not married.”

“It was two years ago today that Teddy moved in with us. Did you know that?”

“That’s not really an anniversary.”

“It is to him. Did you know that?”

“I’ll be home when I can.”

“He made your favorite dinner. Spaghetti and meatballs with extra Parmesan. And he picked flowers for the table. And he put white candles in Grandma’s silver holders. And then you called and said you had to work. And you’re not even working.”

“I’m on a break.”

If she felt anywhere near as guilty as Carly meant her to, she hid it well.

“Maybe Desdemona would cover for you.”

“Thin ice, Carly. You got your nose where only my nose is supposed to be. Now you get on home. And don’t ever come back here again when I’m working. Not ever. I don’t need a spy in the family. And don’t say a word to Ted, or you’ll have me to answer to.”

Carly just stood a moment, feeling slightly dizzy. Probably a fear reaction brought on by what she was about to do. She was about to say something brave. Something that might get her hit. Or grounded. Or some worse punishment, some torment she didn’t even know existed.

Before she could, her mom spun on one high heel and stamped back into the club. Carly watched as she sat down with Wade. She seemed able to pick up right where they’d left off.

Carly had no idea how she could do that. Or why she’d want to.

She walked home, surprised by how much longer each block seemed now.

When Carly let herself into the living room, Teddy and Jen were sitting on the couch together, watching an old black-and-white movie about a mummy. Except Jen wasn’t watching. She was fast asleep, tucked under the comfort of Teddy’s left arm.

It made Carly feel left out, in a deep place in her gut.

The feeling must have shown on her face because Teddy said, “I’ve got another one on this side.”

He lifted his right arm. Carly dove in and sat under it, feeling him wrap her up in warmth. She didn’t even bother to take off her jacket first.