Candor (13 page)

“I shouldn’t. I can’t.” She looks at her watch. “It’s so late.”

“Just one more minute.”

She stays. I sit on the chair. Nia sits on my lap. Not crazy, like a lap dancer. Just light, sideways, like she could hop away any second.

The Messages pound in my head. But I kiss her anyway.

Nia pulls away, then presses close again.

One minute becomes five. Fifteen.

The sprinklers switch on outside. Nia jumps off.

I stand up. “You have to go.”

She looks around the room. Then she shuts her eyes. Her eyes are full of tears when she looks at me again. “I memorized it,” she says. “So I can remember forever.”

“We can remember tomorrow,” I tell her. “Together.”

But the door is already closed behind her.

TODAY’S BRICK DAY. The new families get their engraved brick near the flagpole. They clap. They cry. They feel like they finally belong.

It’s different for me. Brick Day is a reminder of how Dad and I are different. That we’re missing half of what made us a family.

“Tarp’s almost too small.” Dad nudges the green plastic tarp over the bricks with his freshly polished loafer. “We’ll need a new one next year. Be sure to tell Calvin.”

“I already did,” I tell him. It won’t be cheap: a custom-made tarp with the Candor seal in the middle, cut through on one side so two people—always Dad and me—can pull it away. But cost doesn’t matter to Dad when it comes to public shows.

“Good man. We’re the same, aren’t we?” Dad swings one arm over my shoulder and pulls me close, just for a second.

He’s being nicer than usual, with nobody watching. I wonder if he feels what I’m feeling. The urge to remember her today.

I want this over as soon as possible.

You get a brick when you move to Candor. It’s engraved with whatever you want. Most people put the names of their family and the year they moved here. A few get cute with a little saying or a pun.

But you don’t keep the brick. Dad’s people store them in the Milton model’s garage. Then, once a year, they pull up some of the blank bricks in the patio around the town flagpole. The engraved ones are installed. The people who have lived here the longest are closest to the pole. The newest ones are at the edge. It’s like tree rings.

“They look good,” Dad says. “People should be pleased.”

“Always strive to satisfy the customer,” I parrot back. It doesn’t have to be a Message. I’ve heard him say it so many times it has its own spot engraved in my brain.

The ceremony is the same every year. Dad will make a speech. Then we’ll pull the tarp off. Slow and dramatic.

People will clap.

Someone always cries.

Helping him has always been my job. Maybe it would have been Mom’s. But she was gone a long time before the first Brick Day.

Even though she kind of invented it.

I push the thought away. Not this year. I won’t even look. I’ll be wrecked for the day. The week, even. Drinking sparkling apple cider in the dark shed and listening to her favorite music—old coffeehouse crap—until two in the morning.

Not this year. I will not give in to any of it this time.

It’s not even eleven, but thick clouds are climbing over our heads. Lucky for me. “Maybe we should start early,” I tell Dad. “A storm’s coming.”

“We’ll wait until everyone is here,” he says.

Wouldn’t want a single person to miss Dad’s golden words.

The first family drives up in their shiny new NEV. Every family drives Neighborhood Electric Vehicles here. Better for the environment. And they’re gosh-darn cute, like golf carts but curvier, painted any way the owner wants.

The adults go up to Dad. Their kid comes up to me. He’s ten, maybe, with a fresh haircut. “You’re Oscar Banks.”

I give him a wave. Try to smile nice. “Superior citizen at your service.”

“Someday I’m going to be just like you.” He studies me like he’s memorizing something.

“It’s too hard. Maybe try being an astronaut. Or a racecar driver,” I tell him. Haircut shakes his head. Giggles. Runs back to his parents.

More people come. Dad does adult duty and I handle the kids. A couple come close to kissing my hand, I swear. I tell them all about the exciting spread at the community center afterward: carrot juice and bran bars.

There’s a miraculous break. Nobody’s talking to me. Then Nia’s in front of me.

Her hair is brushed into a smooth ponytail, like the other girls. But her jeans are so tight, I don’t know how she sits. And she’s wearing these tall rainbow flip-flop things that look like a definite safety hazard when running.

She only half passes. It’s too dangerous. I need to help her blend. But how do I do that without explaining everything?

“I don’t get the bricks,” she says.

“Everybody loves something with their name on it.” I tell her. “You’ll cry when you see yours.”

“Only if it gets dropped on my foot.”

“They’re already in here. Stuck forever.” I point at the tarp. “Want to peek?”

“I can stand the suspense.” She rolls her eyes. It makes me look around, worried. What if Dad notices her attitude? He might take bigger steps to fix her. Or blame me. Either would be bad.

“How long will this take?” she asks.

“Not long. It’s not awful.” I feel like I need to defend it, suddenly. Loyal Brick Boy. Why?

Nia leans close to whisper. “I was in the middle of drawing something. I don’t want my fingers to forget where they were going.” Then she traces one long finger over the back of my hand.

It feels good. Too good. Too public. I pull my hand back fast, like she’s a hot stove. “People might see,” I say.

“If that’s how you want it, Picasso.” Her eyes look mad—squinty and small.

“I want to be with you. Just … not here. Somewhere private.”

She looks down at her feet, then back up. “The woods, then,” she says. “Ten o’clock.”

Dangerous. There’s no music in the woods. And there are animals. Big ones. I wasn’t lying to Sherman about the boars.

“How about the golf course?” I ask.

“The woods. Or nowhere.”

I don’t want to sit at home tonight. Think about what I missed. I nod. “Ten o’clock. Meet you at the boardwalk behind the school.”

“I can’t wait.” Nia looks back at her parents. “We could go now.”

“I have to be here,” I tell her.

“Have it your way.” Nia purses her lips. “I’ll just go hang with my generous sponsors.” And then she struts over to her parents. I regret it right away, although the back view is a don’t-miss.

I feel someone staring. I look around.

Sherman is here. He’s standing just behind a woman who must be his mother, close enough that their bodies must be touching. There’s a movement near her hip. I realize Sherman is holding his mother’s hand.

Then she looks at him and cups her other hand on his cheek. I can’t hear what she says, but she smiles. All proud, like he’s such a prize.

What kind of freak teenage boy holds his mother’s hand, especially in public? What kind of mother encourages that? Even brainwashed, he’s an impossible dork.

I know I should go over there and make nice, like a truly superior citizen would. But I think I’d vomit all over his green Candor polo. So I just look away before they start making out.

It’s getting windier. The tarp ripples as the wind moves across it, makes loud snapping noises. Dad’s staring up at the sky. Then he looks at me. Like he’s asking a question.

It makes me feel proud for a second. Like we’re partners. I give him a nod.

Let’s get this going
, it says.

Dad raises up his arms. “Folks,” he says. “We’re getting started!”

The crowd gets quiet. We gather in a circle around the tarp. Then we all hold hands without being told to. That happens every year. And Messages have nothing to do with it. People are just feeling all gooey-gushy.

Dad’s on one side of me. A woman with sweaty hands is on the other side. Her hand moves inside mine every time she shifts.

He makes some jokes about the clouds coming to see the bricks, too. People laugh like he’s a Vegas headliner. Then it’s the standard speech.

But I’m not listening, really. Nia is standing right across from me. She’s holding hands, too. Her mother is on one side, nodding to everything Dad says. Her father is on the other side. He’s tall like Nia, with her curly hair.

She won’t look at me. So I get lost staring at her lips. Blood-red today. Never smiling. Another way she’s out of sync.

What will we do in the woods tonight? How many rules can we break?

I almost miss my cue to remove the tarp. But Dad drops my hand, and that tells me. It’s time for Brick Boy to do his job.

We walk away from each other, around the circle. People ripple back to let us pass with the tarp. Then they move forward again.

All the bricks are revealed. At first the crowd stands on the edge, not stepping on the bricks. Craning their necks to find theirs.

But soon they aren’t shy. They walk on the bricks and dodge around each other. Desperate, I think, to find theirs.

Proof that they belong.

Soon flashes from tiny digital cameras are going off. A couple of proud-Dad types in jean shorts point their video cameras toward the brick. One even has a fancy TV-style light that illuminates everything in front of him like a floodlight. “The family brick,” he says in a deep voice. “Installed today, here forever.”

Dad is helping people find their bricks. He never has to ask what their name is. I know I should do it, too; at least, I always have.

But I feel that one brick pulling me in. So I step away, away, until I’m off the patio and on the grass.

Nia. I’ll watch her. She’ll keep me in the present.

That doesn’t last long. She says something to her parents. Her mother’s face tightens, but then she shakes her head. Like she’s saying, Fine, do what you want.

Nia turns and walks away from the crowd. Three steps over perfect green grass. Then she stops and looks over her shoulder.

Our eyes meet. She beckons with one finger.

Come. Come right now. Away from this, with me
.

The invitation I wanted, the day she drew me at the park. I look at my father. Wonder what would happen if I followed her.

By the time I look back, she’s walking away. It seems too late to go with her.

There’s a loud boom. All the Florida newbies jump. One woman screams, like we don’t get thunderstorms every day.

“Don’t forget the reception at the community center,” Dad calls out. “There are lots of tasty, healthy treats!”

They hurry to their NEVs. The new people don’t live close enough to the town center to walk to the bricks. All the new houses get built along the edges. Like the bricks.

All we have to do is walk two blocks home.

But Dad steps closer to the flagpole.

“It’s not safe,” I say. “There’s lightning.”

“Just for a minute,” he says.

If he’s looking, I have to. I walk over. We face each other, the brick between us.

Campbell, Lucy, and Oscar: proud first citizens of Candor

Her name, trapped with us forever. It’s the closest thing we have to a tombstone for her. I wonder if it’s why he didn’t try to make me forget like with Winston: there’s proof.

It makes me feel ten years old again. Remembering one of the last happy days.

But I don’t like to remember. It reminds me of how different things are now.

Ours was the first brick, of course. Mom made us come here together. She brought a bottle of sparkling apple cider. It was so hot outside.

She opened the bottle and dripped some of the liquid on the bricks. It fizzed and boiled away. “We are officially official,” she said. Her voice was lighter than it had been for a long time. Almost like the weight of Winston being dead was gone.

“Great. Now it’ll get ants,” Dad said.

But Mom laughed—she never took him seriously. At least, not until she was mad enough to leave. “Ceremony is important. Isn’t it, Oscar?”

Her wink made me feel like I was enough. Me and apple cider on a brick.

I nodded.

And Dad smiled. “Maybe you’re right. We should do a ceremony for everyone.”

“What an outstanding idea,” she said. “We’ll get everyone drunk on apple cider and expensive real estate.”

But of course she never made it to a single ceremony. It was just strangers clumped around Dad and me. They were like ants drinking our fake sweetness. Not knowing the difference.

When we walked home that last happy day, Mom was in the middle. I held one arm, like I was escorting her to a ball. Dad held the other.

She showed us how to be happy.

And we forgot after she left.

“It hasn’t changed at all,” Dad says. “It looks like it was installed yesterday.”

The image of Nia leaving flashes in my mind. The beckoning finger. An invitation to be different.

It makes me brave enough to say what I’ve always wanted to.

“Why didn’t you ever change the brick?”

Dad keeps his eyes on the ground. “We never change the bricks.”

“But—you’re you. And she’s gone. You could change it.”

Dad passes one hand over his face, wiping the rain away. It’s getting heavier now. Soon the skies will open. “Your mother was here at the start.”