Touching Stars (19 page)

“Me? Why me?”

“Dillon says you need a pet.”

“I don’t.” But Noah was getting closer to the parakeet and peering in the cage. “Was she mistreating him?”

“I doubt it. The cage is clean, and he had plenty of food and water. She hung him in the shade at the sale.”

“But she was going to let him go.”

“I think she knew a couple of suckers when she saw them. She just gave us an extra nudge.”

“Still…” Noah stuck his finger into the cage and wiggled it. The little blue parakeet ran back and forth on his perch, as if considering whether to play that game or not. He chattered wildly.

“I didn’t want to take a chance,” Eric said. “Do you think you could give him a trial? If you decide you’re not interested, we can advertise or see if any of the teachers at the elementary school would like to keep him in their classroom next year.”

Noah looked up. “You’ve given this a lot of thought, considering you practically just picked him up on the side of the road.”

“I think fast on my feet.”

Noah smiled. Gayle thought it might be the first time he’d really smiled at his father in her presence. “Buddy?”

“You could change his name.”

“No, that’s okay. Does he talk?”

Dillon answered. “She said he does.”

“Maybe he knows his name.” Noah made a chirping sound. “Buddy. Buddy.”

The little parakeet ran back and forth excitedly.

Noah straightened. “I guess I could try him out.”

Gayle caught Eric’s eye. He looked as if he’d just scooped CBS.

“Why don’t you take him over to your room and settle him in?” Eric said. “She gave us what food she had. Maybe tomorrow you and I can go into town and load up on whatever you think you’ll need.”

Noah stepped back. “I’m not done here. I’ve still got stuff to do for Mom.”

“I’ll take over for you,” Eric said. “Gayle, is that okay?”

Gayle imagined her ex slicing cantaloupe and making the yogurt dip to go with the fruit. “You can give it a try. Go on, Noah. Settle Buddy in your room.”

The two boys took off together, carrying the cage as if it held precious cargo.

“Wow,” she said when she and Eric were alone in the kitchen. “What a coup. You’re sure you didn’t hop on the interstate and find a pet store when you and Dillon were supposed to be swimming?”

“Nope, it happened just the way I said.”

“I bet that was your very first garage sale.”

“Me? I got used to open-air bargaining in the Mideast. I could have gotten a real deal if she’d tried to sell me a rug.”

She had to laugh. “Feel like cutting cantaloupe?”

Eric washed his hands at the sink, then dove right into the job. She gave one quick glance; then, satisfied that he was following Noah’s example, she took the dressing for the pasta salad from the refrigerator and started assembling the rest of the ingredients.

“Am I imagining this, or did Dillon look happy? Was that from finding Buddy or something else?”

“No, the lesson went okay. The pool was perfect. Nice and shallow. We just relaxed in the water. He practiced blowing bubbles.”

“He actually let you teach him something that elementary?”

“Trust me, it wasn’t easy. But we made a little progress.” He paused. “And we had fun.”

She was glad to hear it. She was also aware that she’d felt an unexpected pang of jealousy at the words.

“The boys need me to help them be men,” he said. “I dropped that ball.”

“They’ve had men in their life.” She thought of Travis, who had served as confidant and role model.

“That’s great, but a father is unique.”

“What about yours?”

He pulled the trash can closer and dumped handfuls of cantaloupe rind into it. “I’d like to be closer. But I didn’t live up to his expectations. I don’t want my own sons to feel that way.”

This time she thought her feelings were entirely appropriate. He looked up and caught her eye. She stepped over and gave him a quick hug. “This is going to take some getting used to, I guess. But you’re on the right track.”

When she tried to return to the counter, he held her back. “Getting used to? Because you don’t believe I’m really trying to change?”

“No, because I’m used to being the
real
parent, and sharing means giving that up.”

He searched her eyes. They were standing close, and she was all too aware of it. There were boundaries they needed to observe, places they really shouldn’t go. She realized they were teetering too close to one right now.

“I left you with too much to deal with,” Eric said. “I asked you to make the boys your whole life, to fill in for my absence. It wasn’t fair, and now, after all that, I’m changing the rules.”

“No, it’s a good change. It might take some getting used to, but I want you to be closer to them.”

He dropped his hand. “That means I might be around more often. You’re okay with that?”

She really didn’t know. But she nodded anyway, as if she were completely composed. As if some part of her wasn’t wondering what it would be like to take two pieces of a family and rejoin them after a dozen years had passed.

As if she wasn’t wondering if she could fall back in love with a new, changed Eric, this time once and for all.

“I want what’s best for our sons,” she said.

He smiled, not the way he did on camera, but the way he had always smiled when they were alone together.

“So do I,” he said. “Let’s work on that.”

J
ared got dressed quickly. Brandy took longer. She was proud of her body and not at all modest. She walked from her bedroom into the connecting bathroom as if she had no idea he would find that disconcerting. He heard the shower go on and off; then she came back in as he was fastening his belt. Turning her nearly naked back to him, she made it clear that she wanted him to fasten her wisp of a bra. He found the clasp no easier under these circumstances than he had when he’d tried to unfasten it on their third date.

Brandy pulled her hair to the top of her head with one hand to make his job easier. “Do you like my room?”

Jared hadn’t paid the slightest attention. Now he gave the smallish bedroom a cursory glance. Lavender walls, frilly white curtains, stuffed animals. “Uh-huh. Nice.”

“I’ll probably do something different with it now. More in line with the den-of-iniquity theme.”

He had to smile. Brandy often surprised him. At times like this, he thought she was probably smarter than she let on.

She turned and put her arms around his neck. “I love you, Jar-Jar. You’re the best.”

He kissed her. “Love you, too.”

“We’ll see.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, absence makes the heart grow fonder…for somebody else.”

“We can’t predict the future. Let’s just enjoy the summer, okay?”

“I
am
enjoying it.” She smiled, then bit her lip.

“What is it?”

“Nothing important. Just, well, I didn’t think we’d be doing this today. I thought…”

“What?”

“Well, like I’d have my period by now.”

His heart turned to ice. Maybe he was anything but a man about town, but he knew what this meant. “You’re late?”

She manufactured a pretty pout. “Don’t get all bothered about it. I’m late a lot.”

“We’ve been using condoms.”

“Yeah, but the ones we used that first time were, like, old. Lisa gave them to me, and I think maybe they were some Cray got from somebody. I threw them away and got some new ones last week, just in case.”

He put his hands on her shoulders and stepped back. “Now you’re telling me?”

“I didn’t know! Not until I told her I was late.”

Jared could have kicked himself for letting Brandy take care of that part of things. He’d had the sex-education classes, read the books. Of course the condoms had been wrapped, but apparently not new, as in “right off the shelf.”

She let her hair fall down her back again. “I’m not pregnant. I’m not feeling sick or anything. This just happens sometimes. But if I was, would it be a big deal?”

“Big deal? What do you think? You’re still in high school!”

“I’m not going to worry, because I’m
not
pregnant. But you know, my parents would go insane if it happened. They have no idea who I am. I’m their pretty little girl. They think I do whatever they tell me. It would really shake them up.”

He tried to figure out if that would please her. She seemed to have no real opinion about it. She just seemed to find it interesting.

“This really happens sometimes?” he asked, hoping for reassurance.

“It really, really does. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“You’ll tell me the minute you get your period?”

“Oh yeah, you’ll be able to tell. I’ll eat you alive.”

He relaxed a little as she slipped into tight jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt. By the time she was selecting which sneakers to wear, he had nearly recovered.

Brandy was quiet most of the way to the campsite. He knew she was looking forward to being a counselor. The previous summer she’d flipped burgers during the day and babysat in the evenings. For her, babysitting had clearly been by far the better job.

Jared wasn’t as thrilled as she was. He liked kids okay, but he wished a more exciting job had been available. He had applied to Outward Bound, where he would have had the chance to really challenge himself, but after he’d learned his father would be spending the summer in Toms Brook, he had withdrawn the application.

They parked where a line of cars were already gathered and got out. Since they were a little late, a bunch of the middle schoolers had already arrived and received their name tags. Brandy found hers, pinned it on her shirt and went to look for the campers wearing the drawing of a pottery vase like the one on her name tag. Jared’s sported an arrowhead, but he wasn’t as eager to find his campers. He would be stuck with them long enough.

He found Cray with some of the other counselors who, like him, seemed to be gathering either strength or courage to start their jobs.

Cray pulled him off to one side. “Hey, listen, has Brandy talked to you about…” He didn’t seem to know where to go with the conversation.

“You mean that she’s late?”

Cray looked relieved that Jared knew. “It’s probably not anything.”

“How old
were
those condoms?”

“I didn’t know Lisa was going to start passing them around. This isn’t my fault.”

“How old?”

“I kind of borrowed them from my uncle. He doesn’t know, and I’m not about to ask. They were in his bathroom.” Cray paused. “But he, like, hasn’t had a girlfriend for a while. Not that I know about, anyway.”

“That was really stupid, man.”

“You’re telling me. Lisa pregnant isn’t something I want to see.” He noted Jared’s glare and quickly added, “Or Brandy. I just figured, you know, if they were still in the package they were okay.”

And they probably had been. Jared figured the odds were in his favor. But even good odds came with a flip side. One chance in a hundred was still a chance. It had to happen to somebody.

“You’ve got the arrowhead kids? I’ve got the bottles.” Cray held out his name tag, which had a drawing of an old amber medicine bottle. “We’re supposed to go find them. I’m going to knock a few heads together right at the start to let them know who’s boss.”

Jared knew Cray was just talking, probably to change the subject. He looked beyond his friend and saw that Brandy had already gathered her flock of five campers and had them sitting on the ground playing some kind of get-acquainted game. Since gathering middle schoolers into a cohesive group was like rounding up grasshoppers, Jared figured she had already worked a miracle.

Cray turned to see what he was looking at. “Brandy told Lisa all she really wants to do is be the best mom in the world to a herd of kids.”

Jared’s heart sank. “Let’s just hope she’s not getting an early start.”

Cray clapped him on the shoulder.

Gayle was gratified that her side dishes were wolfed down by everyone from students to adults. For the main course they roasted hot dogs on sticks, and then they finished up with flaming marshmallows and s’mores. The students sat quietly enough while Travis explained a little about what they would be doing and what they could expect during the two-week stretch. He handed out lists of what to bring during the second week, when they would be camping on his property, and what they would need to bring each day until then. They got tentative schedules, a list of interesting sites on the Internet and a field manual.

The sun was almost down and the air was redolent with citronella from candles in metal buckets around the perimeter and bug spray on bare skin. Bats flapped and soared overhead, and bullfrogs bellowed a welcome.

“He’s good.”

Gayle realized Eric had joined her at the edge of the campfire. She had already packed the car and was ready for the return journey, but Travis had asked her to stay for the next part.

“He is, isn’t he?” As always, she was impressed with the way Travis treated teenagers. He specialized in a mixture of respect, humor and high expectations, which was coupled with a dose of reality. He knew how to make them listen. Of course, it helped that there was an equal mixture of girls and boys, and the girls seemed inclined to follow orders, which at least at this point was keeping the boys in line.

“He asked me to stay, too,” Eric said. “Do you know what’s up?”

“I know Dillon and Caleb have been working with Travis on something. I bet it has to do with that.”

“I bet you’re right. Dillon wanted to know if I was planning to stay, too.”

“If nothing else, he’s learning a little self-control. A year ago he couldn’t have kept a secret to save his life.”

“He showed me a videotape of that play he won the prize for. He was good. He’s a natural ham.”

“I wonder where he gets it?”

He laughed.

Gayle advanced a theory. “I think the world he inhabits when he’s acting is less confusing than this one, and the characters’ personalities and motives are laid right out for him. It’s easier than trying to figure out who he is.”

“If that’s how he gets through adolescence, more power to him.”

The kids had been sitting on logs around the fire while Travis spoke to them. Now Gayle saw that they were all getting up and moving to another area, where more logs had been set up in a semicircle looking toward the site of the old house. Gayle had assumed Travis would be using this as a teaching area.

“Let’s see what they’re up to.” She started across the newly mown grass, and Eric joined her. They took seats toward the back. The kids had broken up into groups with their counselors and were sitting together in front of them. There was the requisite amount of shoving, giggling, primping, and offering of gum and breath mints while they waited. It was darker now, and even though she scanned the backs of heads, she couldn’t locate Dillon, although she saw Jared’s baseball cap, and Brandy’s dark hair twisted and pinned on top of her head.

Travis stepped up to the front, and the kids quieted again. “Archaeology is only one way to find out about our past. What are some of the other ways?”

Gayle listened as different students called out answers. Books. Science. The Bible. The list grew longer.

Travis encouraged them, and every answer received appropriate respect. Finally, when the students had finished, he elaborated.

“How many of you have older relatives who have told you stories about people in your family who died before you had a chance to meet them?”

Hands went up slowly. Gayle guessed that half the students had theirs in the air by the end.

“If somebody had asked that question when we were their age, more hands would have been up,” Eric said, so only Gayle would hear. “And our parents’ generation? I bet every one would have gone up. Before computers and television and air-conditioning kept us all indoors and away from each other.”

Travis said as much to the students. Then he went on. “I’m glad a lot of you have had that experience. Listening to stories of people who lived during years we didn’t is one way to gather information, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but is it always true?” one of the boys asked. Gayle thought his name was Frank, but she wasn’t certain.

“That’s a very good question. In fact, it’s a great question. How many of you have been told a story that you know
wasn’t
true? By somebody who swore it was?”

This time, after a few moments, every hand was waving. One kid yelled, “My dad still swears there’s a Santa Claus!”

“Okay then,” Travis said when they stopped laughing. “So you’ve seen it yourselves.” He waited as the kids nodded. “That’s why science is important, because we have stories, but we also have ways, although they can be limited, to prove whether the stories are true or not. Right?”

The kids were nodding again.

“Well, there’s a story that goes with the house that used to sit right over there.” Travis turned and gestured. “There are a lot of stories, as a matter of fact, but this one occurred just after the Civil War. Or I ought to say just after Lee surrendered at Appomattox and after Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater in Washington, D.C. Do any of you know the year?”

Gayle listened as the kids guessed. Eric leaned toward her as the answers flew thick and fast and, except for one boy’s, wrong.

Travis continued. “I knew somebody would get it right if we just kept at it long enough. 1865 is correct. I don’t think you need to memorize the date of every important thing that ever happened, but you do need some. Think of them as signposts through history. If you know the really important dates, you’ll be able to figure out a lot of the others, just using common sense. I’ll make sure you know them if you take my history classes in high school.”

“Is it a true story?” one of the boys asked. “The story about that house?”

“I don’t know,” Travis said. “I got it from a couple of different sources. It’s been passed down through a local family and some of their friends. But do I have proof? Not yet. I’m hoping we might find some on our dig, so we need to know about it as we work. But will it be easy?”

“Like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Eric told Gayle.

Travis told the kids the same thing in different words. “But here’s the thing,” he added. “If we didn’t know the story, we might see all the evidence and not know how to fit it together. So the story’s a starting point.”