See You at Harry's (23 page)

Our dad is standing on the porch with his arms crossed at his chest.

“You ready for this?” Sara asks as we pull into the driveway.

“Bring it.”

She laughs. “Fern, you are full of surprises.”

“I know,” I say. “Who would’ve thought?”

W
E OPEN OUR DOORS
at the same time and step into the cold. Mike has finally turned off the stupid flashing lights.

“Hey, Mr. Wallace. Found your truck-jackers here. You want me to arrest them?”

Boy, he’s funny.

“Where’s Holden?” my dad asks, ignoring Mike’s attempt to lighten the situation.

“Where do you think he is?” Sara asks, handing him the keys to the truck.

Faded Charlie smiles down at us with his giant ice-cream cone. He really does look like a ghost under that stupid paint job. But his eyes still shine in their happy way. His happiness has always been so catching, but I spent his whole short life trying to avoid it. Maybe I was jealous of not being able to be as happy as he was all the time. Why was I so miserable? I can’t remember why. Not now, when I know what real misery is. What real loss and pain are. And I’m not going to let my dad ruin Holden’s one happy night. And not mine, either.

“Dad,” Sara says. “You’ve got to get over whatever issue you’re having with Holden.”

“Don’t,” he says. “Don’t tell me what I have to do. I have a right to worry about my son.”

Mike clears his throat. “Uh, well, I’ll be going, then, Mr. Wallace. That is, unless you really do want to press charges?”

“No, no, Mike. Thanks. I appreciate you getting them home safely. Stop by the restaurant sometime and I’ll give you a meal on the house.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he says. “You girls behave yourselves from now on, all right?”

“Thanks for not arresting us, Mike,” Sara says. “Call me!”

It’s dark, but I’m sure he’s blushing like crazy. “Uh . . . sure. OK. Bye.” He rushes back to his car and drives away.

When we turn back to my dad, he’s standing in front of the truck, looking up at Charlie. His cheeks, wet with tears, sparkle in the outdoor lights shining on us.

“Dad,” Sara says quietly, putting a hand on his shoulder, “we didn’t mean to upset you. But we did what we thought was right.”

He looks so sad, it’s hard to be mad at him.

“I know that,” he says. “I know you think I’m horrible for talking to Holden like I did. But I . . . I just don’t think he’s ready to be in a relationship. He’s just a boy. How can he even know for sure this is what he wants? Who he is?”

“It’s who he is for now,” I say. “Can’t he be who he wants to be now instead of who he’s supposed to be in the future? Right now, he’s happy. You should have seen him tonight, Dad. He was with all these friends. And he belonged.” I picture Holden on the school bus with the Things pinging his ears, and then at the dance with his friends surrounding him in their protective circle. No one is going to ping him ever again.

My dad looks at me as if for the first time.

“My God,” he says. “Fern. You’re — You look beautiful!”

“Thanks,” I say.

“Oh, honey. I’m so sorry. I didn’t even ask if you were going. Damn it!” He pounds his fist on the truck just below Charlie’s faded face.

I am so used to being overlooked. And usually angry about it. But this time it doesn’t bother me. Because it all worked out. It really did. It was so much better to have fun.

“It’s OK, Dad. Really.”

“No. Nothing is OK.” He steps forward and stretches his hands out to support himself against the truck. He looks up and sees that his hands have landed on Charlie’s ice-cream cone. He stares at Charlie’s sweet face. “Oh, God,” he says, and starts to cry harder.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “Dad, it’s all right.”

“Oh, God,” he keeps saying.

I press harder on his shoulder. Charlie smiles at us. He just keeps smiling. Frozen. I want to look away, but I can’t. I want to help. But I can’t. I don’t want to see my dad like this. He’s supposed to be the strong one. But now that all of us seem to be . . . surviving, he seems like he has let go.

I think about the morning Charlie died. How that strange warmth spread all through me as I lay awake, unable to sleep. I wonder if anyone else felt it. I think part of me died at that moment, too. Maybe part of all of us died. That piece of Charlie that connected us all together unclasped. And now we’re all walking around with a missing piece. Maybe my dad’s piece is bigger. Maybe it’s growing.

“I miss him so much,” my dad says, not looking at either of us. “I miss him so much, I don’t think I can survive it sometimes.”

I look at Sara, fear rising in me. “We know, Dad,” she says soothingly. “Let’s all go inside.”

My dad wipes his eyes and nods. “I wish Holden would get back here,” he says.

“Holden is in good hands, Dad. Don’t worry.”

“He really is,” I say. “Promise.”

We follow him inside and find my mom in the living room, sipping a glass of wine.

“Where’s Holden?” she asks.

“He’s with Gray,” I say. “He’s fine.”

“Fern?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”

My mom puts her glass down and stands up. “Oh, honey. You look beautiful! Where did you get that dress?”

“Cassie’s sister.”

She puts her hand to her mouth so we can’t see it trembling. But then she starts to cry. “I’m so sorry, Fern. I didn’t even know you were going.”

When she says it, I realize I really should be mad at her. She’s my mom. She was supposed to help me get ready. She was supposed to take pictures of me. And Holden.

But I was supposed to tell her I was going in the first place. So what did I expect?

“It’s OK, Mom,” I say.

“You’re so beautiful,” she says again, looking at me. I mean really looking at me, and seeing me, as if for the first time in forever.

“Thanks,” I say. But I don’t think she realizes what for. Or maybe she does.

At around midnight, my parents are starting to freak out. But Sara convinces them to go to bed and promises we’ll wake them up when Holden gets home. Sara makes some popcorn and starts to put in a movie. But before it starts, I click pause.

“You know that stuff Dad said?” I ask. “About not knowing if he could survive?”

“Mm-hmmm.”

“Do you ever feel that way?”

She puts her arm around me. “Yes, I do. But at the same time, I know I will. I know we all will.”

“Mom put his ashes in his bedroom. Did you know that?”

“Yeah.”

“I think we should find a better place.”

Sara leans her head on my shoulder. “We will. It just takes time.”

We stay leaning against each other like that, with her arm around me. It doesn’t feel awkward or uncomfortable. It feels familiar.

I wake up on the couch with a start to Holden towering over us. Sara jumps, too.

“Hey,” he says, grinning. He twirls in a circle.

“Hey, Cinderella, what time is it?” Sara says.

“One thirty.”

“You don’t look like a pumpkin to me.”

“Cinderella doesn’t turn into a pumpkin, you dope. Her carriage does.”

“Oh, yeah.”

Holden sits down in the oversize chair and kicks off his shoes. He sighs happily.

“Well?” I ask.

“It was good,” he says. “Really good.”

“Where’d you go after the dance?” Sara asks. “How’d you get home?”

“There was a party at Scott Davies’s house. He’s a senior at the Academy. We hung out there and watched people get drunk and act stupid. Then this wasted girl threw up on Gray’s leg.”

“Ew,” I say.

“I know. So anyway, we had to wash Gray’s pants since we have to return the tuxes tomorrow. We hung out in the laundry room for, like, two hours. And we just talked and stuff. It was really . . . nice.”

“Just talked,” Sara says, grinning. “Right.”

“It’s true! We decided that we didn’t really like each other as boyfriends, and that it was stupid to date each other just because we’re the only gay guys we know. So now we’re going to try to find boyfriends for each other.”

“It’s like a real-life fairy tale,” Sara says. Then she cracks up. “Fairy. Get it?”

Holden shakes his head. “So not funny.”

“Oh, come on,” she fake-punches his arm.

“It kind of is,” I say.

“Hey, you’re supposed to be my trusty sidekick. Don’t go over to her side!”

“Fern’s no sidekick,” Sara says. “She’s a free woman.”

That makes me feel good. But I’m also glad that Holden still thinks of me that way.

“I’m too hyper to go to bed. Want to take the truck for a spin?” Holden gets up, as if he’s seriously ready to go.

“I think Dad swallowed the keys,” I say.

“Was it that bad?”

Sara shrugs. “He’ll get over it. You know he really is just worried about you.”

Holden shakes his head. “You know it’s more than that.”

“Maybe,” she says. “But it’s only because he loves you.”

“Whatever.”

“No,” I say. “It’s true.”

“You’ve got to cut him some slack. He’ll get over it. You know Dad. I think right now he’s just hurting so much, he doesn’t know how to handle anything.”

Holden falls back into the chair. “Do you think we’ll ever be OK? I mean, obviously I have these moments where I can feel happy. But then something will remind me of Charlie, and I get so overwhelmed. And Mom . . .”

We all look toward the stairs.

“She’ll get better,” Sara says. “It’s just going to take time.”

She looks over at me. I realize that Sara has been more of a mom to me in the past twenty-four hours — in the past few weeks, even — than my mom has since I can remember. She’s been a mom to Holden, too. It seems like she’s aged so much so fast. Like she was forced to. It doesn’t seem fair.

“Mom will be OK,” Sara says. “Dad, too. All of us. It’s like the minister said. We all grieve differently. We’ll all miss him in our own way.”

Her words make me think of my secret, and I know it’s not fair to keep it anymore. “There’s something I have to show you guys,” I say. I hadn’t been meaning to tell anyone, but suddenly the moment feels right. “Stay here.” I go upstairs and come back down with the answering machine.

“Klepto!” Holden says. “I wondered where that went.”

I set it on the coffee table. “I couldn’t change the message. I couldn’t bear to erase his voice.”

Holden reaches out to touch the machine.

“I want to save it,” I say. “I know Dad has the ‘See You at Harry’s’ ad on disc somewhere, or we could watch it on YouTube. But this is different. That day I helped Charlie make the message, well, I just remember it so clearly. It was a day I was nice to him.”

“You were always nice to him,” Sara says.

“No, I wasn’t. Anyway, I wanted you to know I have it. In case you ever need to hear him.”

“I don’t think I could bear listening,” Sara says. “But I’m glad you saved it, Fern. Really glad.”

“Me, too,” Holden says.

We all lean back and watch the answering machine as it sits there on the coffee table. Like it’s a treasure that holds a secret only the three of us will ever know. I guess that’s exactly what it is.

T
HE FOLLOWING
S
UNDAY
, we all go to the restaurant to help work the Sunday brunch. The restaurant is even more packed than usual. My mom pulls Sara and me aside and reminds us to watch for Silver Purses. This is her code word for the little old ladies who like to put the silverware in their purses. You would be surprised at how many sticky-fingered little old ladies there are in the world. Sometimes they even take the salt and pepper shakers. It’s been a family joke forever to come up with the best reason they steal the silverware. Holden’s theory is that they take the silverware to their church bazaars to sell and impress the priests. Sara thinks they hoard the utensils, and once they have a set, give them away as wedding gifts to their grandchildren. I think maybe there’s some silverware club where there’s a contest to see who can gather the most silverware, and you get different points for spoons, knives, and forks. There is a whole underground club throughout the country, and they have these big super-secret conventions where they display their goods. Charlie always liked my theory best. Unfortunately, he believed it. One day he actually caught a lady in the act and marched over to her.