Where the Stars Still Shine (22 page)

He looks over his shoulder at me, his dark eyes so sad. He knows. Of course he knows. Who else would do such a thing? “What, um—” He clears his throat. “Do you know anything about this, Callie?”

Anger throbs under my skin like a pulse. I could tell him the truth. We could find her. Turn her over to the police. But it’s just a book. She could have broken all the windows or damaged something that might have hurt Tucker or Joe instead of just me. I shake my head and swallow all the words but one. “No.”

A tear tracks down my face. I pretend it’s not there as he asks again. “Are you sure?”

I nod. “I’m sure.”

“This was supposed to be for you.” He tucks all the torn pages back into the cover and stands. “So you would know—the only thing I’ve ever wanted is for you to feel at home.”

“I do.” He doesn’t know I’ve seen his note.

His face shows everything as he looks at me for a long time. The uneasy shift of his jaw, the lingering
sadness in his eyes, the confusion of his eyebrows as they pull together … there’s so much more he wants to say as we stand here in deadlock. The tear seeps into the corner of my mouth and I swear I can taste the sorrow.

“Do you?” Greg places the ruined book on the window seat and crosses the room.

He wraps his arms around me, and as I hear the steady, reassuring thump of his heartbeat beneath his T-shirt, I feel as if my own chest still might crack open and pour the truth at his feet.

“I wish—” The words come out as a sigh as Greg releases me. There’s one small damp spot on his shirt and I can’t look at it. “You can trust me with anything, Callie. I wish I could make you believe that.”

Even in the earliest of my memories, he’s been there. I
do
trust him.

Just not where my mother is concerned.

“So, do you, um—do you like your room?” There’s a snuffed-candle feeling between us and I can hear it in Greg’s voice.

The window seat doubles as a doorway to the balcony outside and I can picture myself here on a rainy day with a book in my hands. The skylights overhead drench the room in sunshine. And the wall-length bookcase will hold more books than I can even imagine owning. “It’s perfect.”

His smile lacks the deep creases that usually bracket his mouth like happy parentheses. “We’ll have to go pick out furniture soon. If you’re interested.”

“I am.”

I mean it, but I see the doubt in Greg’s eyes as he turns to lead me downstairs for the rest of the tour.

My cell phone vibrates in my jeans pocket as I ring up a wool sponge, a pair of sunglasses, and a pair of tickets for the nearly full two o’clock tour boat.

“Thanks,” I say, bagging up the purchases for a lady wearing a Wisconsin Badgers sweatshirt. As Theo predicted, the stream of tourists has grown as the holidays approach. Schools are out, so families are arriving, as well as the snowbirds, who will stay until spring. “And enjoy the tour.”

When she’s gone, I dig out my phone and find a text message from Alex.

On my way home. Even though we have plans for tomorrow, I’d really like to see you tonight
.

I catch myself smiling and glance around the shop to make sure Kat isn’t looking, but she’s busy talking a group of teenage girls into buying matching hemp bracelets so I type my reply.

Sounds good
.

Business is steady for the rest of the afternoon, and Kat and I take turns behind the register. It’s not my idea. If I had my way, I’d let her do all the selling, but Theo has us on a rotation schedule that forces me to interact with the customers. Talking to them hasn’t gotten any less difficult, but selling is easier now that it’s the holiday shopping season. And Kat’s suggestion of pairing a wool sponge with a bar of soap and calling it a “Greek bath set”—which earned her the Theo Seal of Approval—is the most popular seller of the day.

“So, are we still on for shopping?” She comes up beside me at the checkout counter and gives me a little hip check as I’m ringing the final sale. Theo has locked the side doors and is waiting at the front to let the last customers out. “I’ve been trying to come up with something really good for Nick, you know? Like maybe Devil Rays tickets or a Kennedy Space Center tour for his big present, but I was thinking tonight we could look for stocking-stuffer-type gifts. A DVD or a nice shirt or something.”

I hesitate as I slide the till closed, trying to come up with a good reason why I can’t go tonight.

“What?” Kat asks. “Do you not want to go now?”

It occurs to me that I could just tell her no, but she’s been talking about shopping all week and I don’t want to disappoint her.

“No, I mean—I do, but Greg decided we should do a family dinner and then go see the progress on the new house. It was kind of a last-minute thing.”

All I’ve been doing lately is lying, and I’m sick of myself for doing it, but it doesn’t stop me. I hold my breath, watching her face as she removes the contents of the till. Hoping she doesn’t know that Greg and I went to the house last night.

“Oh, that will be cool.” She stuffs the cash and credit-card receipts in a zipper bag. “Give the boys a hug from me, and take pictures of your new room, okay? I’m dying to see it.”

Her blessing only makes me feel worse.

Someone is speaking Greek in a low, hard voice as I approach Alex’s boat that night. I stop, hanging back beside a nearby tree, watching the two dark shapes standing on deck. The taller of them is Alex, the other barrel-chested and short. His father. I can’t understand the words Nikos is saying, but the anger is clear in the way he alternates between shaking his finger in Alex’s face and smacking the side of his son’s head with the flat of his hand. Alex’s voice is absent in the conversation. He doesn’t argue. Doesn’t deflect the blows. He just stands there—his shoulders folded forward and his head
lowered in defeat—absorbing the abuse. My fists curl into themselves and I stop myself from rushing to his defense, because this is Alex’s story—one he hasn’t told me—and I’ve come uninvited into the middle of it. I wonder if I should look away, give him his privacy, but I don’t. I watch, my heart aching for him.

It’s over when Nikos stalks off into the night. In his anger, he doesn’t see me, but Alex does. He steps off the boat and we sit together on the bench.

“So, how much of that did you see?” He looks at the boat, at the river beyond it, but not at me.

“Too much.”

“My mother never wanted me to work the boat.” He plays with one of my stray curls. “She wanted Phoebe and me to get college educations and not have to work so hard for so little. Then she got sick and what little college money there was—it’s gone and my pops had to take out a loan against the boat.”

He moves his hand to the back of my head, burrowing his fingers into my hair, sending shivers down the back of my neck as we sit in silence. I steal a glance at him. His eyes are closed, and there’s a ghost of a smile on his face.

“So,” Alex says finally. “I dropped out of high school to work the boat because Pops couldn’t stand the idea of putting Mom in a nursing home. No one forced me to do it. I volunteered.”

My eyebrows pull together. “But Phoebe thinks—”

“My sister believes what she’s meant to believe,” he says. “Trust me, I hate getting the shit beat out of me every week because I didn’t bring home enough sponges or because Orfanos down the dock got a better price than I did. But Pops has his pride, you know? He’s doesn’t want anyone to know there’s nothing left, or that the boat’s at stake. And if Phoebe found out, Greg would probably offer our pops money, which would embarrass him even more.”

I touch the fading bruise on his cheek from the last time his dad punched him. The one he claimed he got in a bar fight. His face carries a powdery trace of salt from sweat and the ocean. Alex reaches up and pulls my hand away, lacing his fingers through mine.

“And the most fucked-up thing is that when my mom dies, I’ll be free,” he says. “I can’t even look at her because I feel so guilty. I don’t
want
her to die, but I’m so damn tired.”

“It’s too much for one person to carry alone,” I say.

“Yeah, well …” Alex shrugs. “That’s just the way life works out sometimes.”

The words “your secret is safe with me” are on my tongue, but I feel as if saying them will take away their power. Instead, I lean in and brush the softest of kisses against his lips.
Of course, your secret is safe with me
. He
wraps his arms around my waist and shifts me onto his lap, kissing me until the world is a faraway place and the only reality is the two of us here on this bench.

“I missed you,” Alex whispers, his forehead touching mine, his fingers curled around the back of my neck beneath my hair, tracing tiny circles on my skin. “All week I’ve wanted just three things: hot wings, cold beer, and you.”

“That’s so weird. I’ve been wanting the same three things.”

“Yeah?”

“No, but I missed you, too.”

“You know, secrets don’t really stay secret if you make out on benches in the middle of the docks.”

I don’t have to turn around to recognize Kat’s voice. But I do. And she’s standing just a few feet behind the bench.

“What, um—what are you doing here?”

“I left my wallet at the shop.” She starts toward the store, her intended pace faster than her wedge-heeled sandals can carry her. “But don’t let me interrupt. I mean, it’s not like I’m anyone who matters.”

I stand. “I need to go talk to her.”

Alex nods and squeezes my hand. “I’ll be here.”

“Kat,” I say, hurrying to catch up with her. “Kat, please … I’m sorry.”

“It’s not really even that it’s Alex.” She doesn’t stop and she doesn’t look at me. “I mean, I get that. You’re gorgeous and clearly he doesn’t think of
you
as a little sister.” Kat fights with the lock on the front door. “But you could have at least
told
me. First Connor, now this. It’s like you have no idea how friendship works.”

She kicks the door with a cry of frustration and her hands to her sides, the key still sticking out.

“Kat, I’ve never had a friend before. Ever.” I give the key a gentle turn and the lock slides back. “It’s just been me and my mom for my whole life, and I’ve never stayed anywhere long enough to have one. Or,
be
one. I guess I’ve always known that I should have told you about Alex, but I didn’t want to upset you. Except—”

She sniffles. “Yeah, I was going to be upset either way, which is just stupid because Nick is so much better. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“I guess it’s just that I’d built Alex up in my imagination to be—I don’t even know. Like I had this dumb fantasy that one day he would realize how perfect I was for him.” There’s a note of embarrassment in her soft laugh. “And even though I know he’s so not right for me, the rejection still kind of hurts a little, you know?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

The shop is lit only by the crustacean Christmas tree
as we step inside and Kat goes to the back room for her wallet. She’s back in only a few moments. “So I was thinking that maybe I’ve been a little pushy. I mean, I just plopped down on your bench and made myself your best friend without thinking that maybe you didn’t want one.”

“I do.”

“Thanks.” She smiles. “So do you think now that it’s Christmas break and I don’t have school we could go shopping on Monday after work? And, you know, maybe talk?”

“Definitely.”

“No blowing me off for Alex?” Kat asks, as she relocks the front door.

I hold up three fingers, a holdout gesture from the days I pretended I was a Girl Scout and made badges for myself out of construction paper. Before I realized homeless girls aren’t scouts. “I promise.”

Greg is hunched over a bowl of cereal with a computer magazine when I come into the kitchen for breakfast the next morning. My hair is still damp from the shower and under my jeans and green plaid shirt I’m wearing the bikini Kat picked out for me. I could see my breath on my short trek across the yard, so I’m skeptical it’s going to be warm enough for the beach, but Alex insists the winter-morning chill will burn off by the afternoon. I take a bowl from the cupboard. “Where is everyone?”