Tin Lily (18 page)

He leans forward and whispers conspiratorially. “Can I just say, Lily? You are gorgeous.”

I look down at the T-shirt and shorts I’m wearing, at Mom’s sweater over them.

Sam follows my gaze. “Okay, you could use some new clothes—”

“She has some,” Margie yells from the kitchen.

“Well, Marge, next time help the girl dress proper. You know better.” He winks at me while Margie makes a funny noise.

I feel the corners of my mouth tug up. “She tried,” I say.

“Girl didn’t try hard enough,” Sam says real loud.

Margie makes another noise that’s a little ruder than the first.

“Now, listen here, girl. I see you hiding yourself in those too-big clothes. It’s time you took your aunt up on some wardrobe advice. What do you say?”

I find myself nodding, agreeing right away. “Okay.”

Sam looks satisfied with himself. “Good. Now, tell me more. Tell me about that kitten you found, what, in a garbage can or some such?” His nose wrinkles up like he smells the old coffee grounds and banana peels.

I launch into every little thing Binka’s done and find talking about my kitten is easy. He’s nodding in all the right places and seems truly interested. Then he looks around the apartment with a perplexed expression on his face. “Where’re you hiding this freaky little Tasmanian Devil?”

“Away,” Margie calls from the kitchen. “She’s a menace to our dinner.”

Sam spends the next little while chiding Margie for her cruel ways. He even clucks his tongue at her. I almost laugh, but catch myself. I remind myself crying and laughing are right there together, and if I start one, the other might come along. Also, I don’t want the bees here now, don’t mind feeling like a regular person with everyday stuff to talk about.

“And what’s this about a boy you’ve invited over?” Sam asks when he’s finished teasing Margie.

“How’d you know?”

Sam waves his hand in the air. “Magic.” He grins and winks. “Margie and I have a terrible habit of texting each other everything. We could write a book with our ridiculous little notes. Tell me about him.”

“She doesn’t know a whole lot!” Margie calls from the kitchen.

Sam jumps a little and sticks his tongue out in her direction.

“I saw that!” Margie hollers.

“He’s nice,” I say.

“Told you!”

“Hush, girl,” Sam calls back. “Lily, there’s got to be more than ‘he’s nice.’”

“He’s good looking. Funny. Sarcastic.”

Sam looks exasperated. “What’s the boy’s name?”

“Nick.”

He cocks his head to one side, his eyes looking left, brow creased. “A good name,” he says slowly. I think he’s going to ask a question when the doorbell rings.

“They’re here,” Sam says in a dramatic, creepy voice. “To be continued.” He smiles at me, pats my hand and heads on over to the front door, opening it right up. He doesn’t look through the peephole, doesn’t know about real-Hank out there with his picture-taking, his waiting, his plans from his dead father. I cross the living room, ready to jump in front of him if it’s Hank. Sam’s blocking the doorway, his shoulders too broad for me to see around.

“Nicky?”

“Sam!”

Sam looks back at me with his mouth open. “
This
is your Nick?” He breaks into the biggest grin I’ve seen on him yet.

I stand on my tiptoes and look over Sam’s shoulder at Nick. “He’s not mine, but he is a Nick.”

Sam looks at Nick looking at me. “Oh, he’s yours, sweetie, you just don’t know it yet.” He pivots out of the way and ushers Nick into the apartment.

My head is spinning and I can’t figure out what’s going on. “How do you know each other?”

“Sam and Dad dated before I was born, before Dad met Preston—my other dad. They’re good friends still,” Nick says.

Sam waves his words away. “We were always more friends than anything else.”

“Not what I heard,” Margie sing-songs from the kitchen.

Nick sees I’m still confused. “How I know Sam—he and Dad have been doing this book club thing at my house since I can remember.”

“A book club?” I say. “That sounds interesting.”

“Boring, actually,” Nick says. “It’s all nonfiction, political junk.”

“You have to be involved to change the world, Nicky,” Sam says, but he’s got his usual big grin on.

Nick leans my way, rolls his eyes and whispers, “Dad’s words.”

“I thought you lived with your mom?” I say, still not catching up.

“We all live together, actually.” Nick smiles. “It’s a big apartment.”

Sam’s looking at Nick and there’s this—something—besides the fireflies in his eyes. Something that makes his mouth half-smile. I remember the same expression on Mom’s face after I got an A on a short story I wrote for English. She took that story to work and read it to all her friends over lunch. Pride. Pride is what I see in Sam’s expression.

Sam leans toward me, his whole face grinning. “Anyhoo, Nicky is great, Lily. You have my blessing.”

“As if she needs it,” Margie says from behind me.

Nick laughs, looks embarrassed and shuffles his feet. I feel bad for Nick, decide he could maybe use a rescue from Margie and Sam and their big assumptions. “Nick thinks we should be having lobster and entertaining a Seahawks guy,” I blurt. I decide I’m not good at this joking thing when Nick and Margie and Sam turn to stare at me. Then I decide maybe I am when Sam turns slowly back to Nick and slaps him on the arm.

“Cheeky monkey. I’m telling your dad.”

Nick shrugs and grins, but doesn’t look embarrassed anymore. “I thought it was the least Lily could do after I showed her around Pike’s.”

“You took this beautiful girl to that fish-infested hippy market and you want—” Sam looks to me again. “What did you say? Lobster and the Seahawks?”

“And he didn’t care about Binka.”

Mock horror. Sam doesn’t say anything, just shakes his head until Nick’s grinning so big all his teeth are showing. Sam finally turns around and shuffles off to the kitchen like someone’s told him the worst news ever, all slump-shouldered and muttering to himself.

Margie’s holding out a hand for Nick to shake. “It’s great to meet you, Nick.”

“You too,” he says.

Margie closes the front door and heads back to the kitchen, leaving me and Nick standing in the living room alone.

Nick opens his arms wide. “Do I get a hug?”

There’s something going on in my stomach, something like the hollowness I feel in my whole body most of the time. I want to step into Nick’s arms, to feel his heartbeat against my ear, but I can’t make myself do it. He’s waiting and his grin is slipping and pretty soon his arms slip too.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I can’t right now.”

Nick nods. “It’s okay. Don’t worry about it.” Like someone flipped a switch, he’s smiling again, letting his hurt feelings go. I wonder how he does it. “You look different.” He lets his eyes do the roving. “Your hair maybe?” Plops his hands on his hips, looking even closer. “Sweater’s the same. No nose job, weird implants or piercings. Guess it’s the hair.”

“It’s the hair,” I say. “Margie did it.”

“Very nice,” he says.

Nick and me, we watch each other awhile. The light and happiness are there, but he’s trying to figure me out too. If he was a cat, his ears and whiskers would be all the way forward. His eyes would be big, round and knowing. Nick sees down into the hollow without even looking hard. I don’t know why he wants to be here with an empty girl, especially when he’s got two dads, a mom, Sam, probably a bunch of other people. Nick’s all wrapped up in love.

“Want to see the rest of the apartment?” I say because right now I don’t want him trying to figure me out.

Before he can answer, Binka starts crying in my room. I hear Sam begging Margie to let him “fetch the poor little wretch.”

I lead Nick toward the kitchen. “You don’t know what a beast she is,” Margie’s saying when we get there. “You know she puts her food in our shoes? We let that gremlin out, you’ll have to tie down anything you want to keep, including dinner.”

Sam rolls his eyes. “Margie, Margie, Margie. The Drama. I know you can’t possibly think a baby kitten is a threat to your epicurean masterpiece—”

“Sweet talk won’t work,” Margie says. “She can join us after dinner.”

As if Binka’s heard the finality in Margie’s tone, she stops meowing. I imagine her curled up on my pillow, spreading her spaz fur all over the place.

Margie turns to Nick and me standing at the island now. “Nick, please excuse our chaos.” She throws a look over her shoulder at Sam sinking his teeth into one of Margie’s from-scratch loaves of French bread.

He turns around with an innocent expression and some bread crumbs down the front of his shirt. “What?” he says when Nick and Margie laugh.

With all the people here it’s worse than I thought. I don’t know what to say or how to act. Margie’s friends are drinking wine and laughing and I’m watching them closely. They’re all so normal and I think if I can mimic that more often, maybe I can stop Margie worrying. If I can just make my mouth smile and lift my arms in the air now and then for emphasis, maybe then the sad looks will stop.

I think you have to have something inside to pull it off, though. Like Sam has his fireflies and Margie’s best girlfriend Jenny has her twinkle when she looks at her boyfriend Derek. Margie’s all lit up inside too, so lifting her arms is second nature. Nick is happy, from his toes to his head. He joins in the conversation like he’s known everyone forever, joking and laughing and teasing.

I feel like nothing but a tin girl with a few tethers that keep me from ripping open and dissolving. Nothing but tin and hollow and I don’t remember how I was before. Hunted by Hank. Not normal anymore.

Mom always said I could see ahead of time how things will fit. I can’t see how I’m going to fit into this life. These new people with their happiness—no potato bugs in their lives. No dog food. No tin. No fragments or cracks or spells. Just people being people.

I shake my head, trying to loosen these tight thoughts, these beliefs that I’m nothing more than an empty person who’s sure enough getting filled up with not-Hanks and bees and pretty soon a big quiet that will leave me staring into space forever.

Nick touches my arm where he’s sitting next to me at the dinner table. “Want to watch the sun go down?” He points at the door leading out to the patio. We’re finished with Margie’s manicotti and the French bread she managed to keep Sam from eating before Jenny and Derek got here.

“Sure,” I say because maybe with just Nick I can say something besides nothing.

Margie smiles when I tell her where we’re going. “Come back for dessert in a little while?”

Nick and me, we stand side-by-side at the edge of Margie’s patio, leaning against the railing, looking out over the emerald city turning pink and red with the setting sun. Nick bumps my arm. “Your aunt’s a good cook.”

I keep watching the sun. “Here it comes,” I say.

“Here what comes?”

“There’s this moment of complete stillness at dusk,” I say. “Like the whole world rests for just that second.” Mom’s words in my throat because she taught me about the dusk.

Nick glances at me, then back to the sunset. “I never noticed.”

“My mom showed me. At the dog food house it was when the tops of these huge trees behind the factory lit up orange and red.”

Nick doesn’t say anything, just keeps watching the sun go down.

“First the sky behind the trees would go yellow. Gold I guess you could say.” My voice is a whisper because the stillness is almost here. “Pretty soon there was some orange and red mixed in. We’d get excited for the quiet like little kids on Christmas morning.”

“Where’s the moment here?” Nick asks. His voice is a whisper too, I think because he feels it coming. The stillness at dusk is big, unmistakable when you know about it.

“Here, it’s when the whole city goes orange.”

Nick reaches over and takes my hand. I squeeze it tight. Together we wait for the moment. “Here we go,” I whisper. The sun’s orange glow descends over the tall buildings first, down their sides, right across the earth like someone’s turned on a big lamp. Not an explosion of light, nothing so dramatic. A peaceful blanketing where everything’s lit, glowing, silent.

I’m here with Nick, but I’m thinking about Mom’s eyes and how they’d go extra bright when the trees behind the dog food factory would light up orange and red, how everything would stop for just that moment. At the dog food house I couldn’t hear the factory or the noisy kids down the block or even my own breath. At Margie’s I can’t hear the traffic or the wind or the next-door neighbor’s chimes.

Red and orange and stillness.

And then it’s gone.

I glance over at Nick. He’s staring at me with a lopsided grin on his face.

“What?” I say. “Now you think I’m a dork?”

He only shakes his head and keeps grinning.

His grin is infectious and pretty soon I’m smiling right back. “What?”

“I’m glad I came over tonight.”

“Even though there was no lobster?”

“I survived,” he says.

I point over my shoulder. “There’s dessert in there. Maybe that will make up for there not being a Seahawks guy here.”

“Maybe,” Nick says. He’s still grinning, staring, and pretty soon I’m feeling a little squirmy, like Nick’s realized something and he’s not telling me what it is. I want to ask him what he’s thinking again, but the door opens behind us before I can.

I let go of Nick’s hand and turn to see who it is. Sam’s standing there with Binka on his shoulder, his goofy grin plastered in place. “This baby was wasting away,” he says. He’s holding a little dish of ice cream and pretty soon he raises his spoon to share with Binka. She licks it daintily, but keeps her eyes on me.

“I know that look,” I say, pointing at my kitten. “She’s ready to go full spaz. We better get inside.”

We head back in where Margie’s dishing up ice cream and Derek and Jenny are sipping from big glasses of red wine. Nick and I stop at the kitchen island and wait for Margie to hand us some scoops.

Jenny comes up beside me, leans in close and asks me how I’m liking Seattle. I smell wine on her breath and flinch. The smell is up my nose. It’s filling my head and everything’s come back. All the nights of drinking. All the yelling. All the phone calls. All the old times, before things were good for a little while.