Tyler and I had planned to go out for a drink as we always did on closing nights, but I couldn’t leave it at that. Once I locked the front door, while Tyler counted the register, I opened the back door to let the rest of the staff in – including my father and mother, who were making their first trip to the store since his heart attacks. When Tyler came back to the office, the surprise stunned him. But when he saw my father, his eyes rimmed with tears and they held each other for nearly a minute.
“I was going to come by before I headed off,” Tyler said to him.
“You can still come by. But I wasn’t going to miss this.”
We drank champagne and ate flourless chocolate cake and strawberries while Tyler detailed his plans for taking on Manhattan. He outlined what he hoped to accomplish in his first eighteen months at work, the sights he planned to see with Sarah, and the various clubs and concert halls he intended to visit. It was an ambitious agenda, and from anyone else I would have simply rolled my eyes. But I’d come to expect that Tyler was capable of accomplishing what he set out to do. It was unlikely that these tasks would be any more daunting to him than any previous ones.
About a half hour after everyone got there, my father told me that he wanted to “see what you’ve done with the place.” We left Tyler to entertain the rest of the staff and walked out of the office. My father
stopped almost as soon as we set foot on the new carpet, examining the repair work.
“They did a good job back here,” he said.
“Eventually, yes.”
“You used Cullins, right?”
“That was who you had listed in your book.”
“His people always do a good job.”
“I’m glad you like it. The repairmen almost earned residency status while they were doing it.”
We moved from station to station so I could show him the new merchandise, the display cases, the adjusted racks. The iPod wasn’t on and I decided not to bring up the subject. He wrinkled his nose at the HuggaGhouls, but ran his fingers over the leather diaries.
He stood by the front door and looked out at the entire store. His eyes landed on the display of cards at the front counter and he picked one up to examine it.
“Remade this place in your own image,” he said.
“Not really. Just a few touches. Helped pass the time.”
He put the card down and appraised me. “I should have done some of this stuff years ago.”
“You put a lot of thought into this store.”
“The goal is to keep thinking. I’m not surprised that business has picked up.”
I realized at that point that I’d been expecting him to like the changes. I hadn’t made any of them with the notion that I might offend his sensibilities (except, perhaps, with the music) or that I was altering the spirit of the store. I was simply expanding on his original vision. Still, I was pleased that it pleased him. I was pleased that he didn’t feel I’d corrupted the
place. I was pleased that he was even standing here.
“Come on,” he said, patting me on the shoulder, “let’s get back to the party.”
People were making plans to go out together when we returned. The three people I’d recently hired, who obviously had much less of a connection to Tyler, left for a bar a few minutes later. The others stuck around a little longer and then left in groups. I was surprised when Carl, the quiet stock boy who I’d barely spoken with in the past few months, hugged Tyler and made him promise to stay in touch. He then shook my father’s hand and told him how much he’d missed him and how glad he was that he was beginning to feel better. These were literally more words than I’d heard him say the entire time I’d known him.
A short while later, my father patted my mother on the leg and said, “What do you think, Anna, a quick drink at the Cornwall before we head home?”
“You aren’t supposed to drink,” she said lightly.
“But that doesn’t mean I can’t get you drunk,” he said with a grin I’d never seen on his face before. They stood up and Tyler came over and squeezed both of them, saying that he’d stop by in the morning before he left.
When they were gone, I poured the rest of the champagne for us.
“He liked it?” Tyler said, motioning toward the front of the store.
“I think so.”
“That’s gotta make you feel good.”
“Yeah, it does.” I clinked glasses with him and took a drink.
“I’m glad he appreciates it. You have really made some serious improvements.”
“Thanks.”
“Ever think you should change your mind about selling?”
I looked out toward the store and then back down at my glass. “No, not really. It’s still this place, you know?”
Tyler nodded. “Yeah, I think I get it.” He took another drink and we sat quietly for a little while. “My last night here,” he said. “I sorta figured it would get to me, but I’m having a little trouble with the idea of actually leaving.”
“You’ve been here a long time. You’ve invested yourself. That’s so impressive to me. But keep in mind that this was a way station for you. Monday you head off on the real journey.”
“I guess.” He smiled. “Hope I don’t lose my luggage.” He looked around the room again. It was hard to believe that he was getting nostalgic about this back office, but it certainly seemed that way.
“You think that guy is going to come up with the offer you’re looking for?” he said.
“Howard is skittish, which is like saying Howard
is
, but I have a feeling he will.”
“And then?”
“Then?”
“Where do you go for
your
real journey?”
I shrugged. “Someplace.”
“You thinking about New Mexico again?”
“New Mexico. New Guinea. Someplace new.”
“You really think it’s over with you and Iris?”
“Over as in we’ll never see each other again? No.
I think it’ll be weird for a little while and then once things are finished over here, we’ll have some version of a friendship long-distance.”
“You can send her a card every now and then.”
“I’ll have to remember to stock up before I leave.”
Tyler finished his champagne, reached for the bottle, saw it was empty, and sat back.
“It really isn’t ‘better to have loved and lost,’ huh?” he said.
“Sure doesn’t seem that way.”
A few more minutes passed silently. This was processing time, something we’d used effectively on drink nights in the past. I wondered if there would be any more of these in our future and I realized how unfortunate it would be if this were truly the last.
Tyler stood up and looked around one more time, sticking his head out into the store, though the lights were now off. “I should probably get going. Sarah’s brother is coming with his truck at eight tomorrow.”
I got up with him and we left through the back door. I threw my arm around his shoulders and walked him to his car.
“I’m gonna miss you, you know?”
“Hey, I’ve got a few feet of floor space in a studio closet over on Eleventh Avenue whenever you need it.”
“I’ll take you up on that.”
“I’m counting on it.”
When we got to his car, I looked back at the store and then reached out to shake his hand. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “You made this a lot easier.”
“You made it easier yourself,” he said, hugging me before he opened his door. He got in and rolled down
his window, reaching out his hand one more time. “I’ll give you a call next week and let you know how my master plan is going. Call me before then if anything happens with the store.”
I nodded and he drove off.
I got in my car and thought for a moment about seeing if my parents were still at the Cornwall. I started the engine and decided to head back to the house instead.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
That’s Really All That’s Important, Isn’t It?
A few days later, I turned the store’s date book to August. Since the book showed only a week per spread, I wasn’t recreating the act that brought my relationship with Iris to a head, but of course that was the first thing that came to mind. Soon, Chase would have been dead for exactly a decade. I’d long ago stopped expecting to hear his voice when I walked into the house, but I knew I would never stop hearing his voice in my mind. There was something very arbitrary about noting a landmark anniversary. It was, of course, just another day along the line. Still, I knew that the next few weeks were likely to bring a wide range of emotional storms from which I had only a modicum of protection.
I hadn’t heard from Iris since before Tyler’s party. I had no idea what the rhythm of our friendship would be going forward, but I had a strong conviction that I needed to let her make that determination. I didn’t want to force myself upon her by calling. The only way I could show her that I meant what I said the last time we spoke was by allowing her to make
the first gesture toward whatever future we would have.
At the same time, I wondered how she would handle the melancholy that would surely come in the next few days. She had handled the other anniversaries without me, though by her own admission not particularly well. And that was before we had returned to each other’s lives. Of the four people who were most affected by Chase’s death, three of them would be together to nurse each other through the memories. But I suspected that the fourth would choose to deal with it alone. This saddened me not only for what she was losing, but for what I was losing as well.
I was in the back office paying some bills when there was a knock on the door. A guy in his early twenties poked his head in.
“I was looking for Richard Penders and the girl up front told me to come back here.”
“Richard’s not here. I’m his son. Can I help you?”
“You were Chase Penders’s brother?”
“Yeah, I’m Chase’s brother. Who are you?”
“I’m with the
Amber Advisor
and I’m doing a piece about his death ten years ago.”
I turned my chair around to face the man, shaking my head at the same time. “You guys really don’t have enough to write about, do you?”
The reporter held up his hands. He clutched a notebook in one of them. I was sure that real reporters were using a more high-tech method for note taking by now but, as I was well aware, real reporters didn’t work for the
Amber Advisor
.
“It isn’t the Middle East Summit, I know, but as
far as local stories go, this one definitely deserves a follow-up. Your father is a prominent area merchant. Your brother was something of a local celebrity. And this kind of suicide doesn’t exactly happen in our sleepy little town every day.”
I edged forward in my seat. “What did you say?”
“I don’t mean to be flip. It’s just that this was an unusual event in Amber.”
“Why did you say ‘suicide’?”
The reporter’s face blanked. “I’m sorry; this must still be difficult for you.”
“Suicide? My brother’s car drove off the Pine River Bridge. He was drunk, if you’re looking for an angle. But he sure as hell didn’t kill himself.”
The reporter took a step backward and seemed uncomfortable now. He clearly hadn’t been doing this for very long. “I don’t know; maybe I jumped to conclusions here. It’s just that there were always those questions in the paper and then when I talked to someone in the police department, he told me that there was no way that someone could have driven off the Pine River Bridge without planning to do so – even if they were very drunk.”
“There were questions in the paper?” I’d of course never read the coverage of the accident. “That flyer you work for actually asked questions about my brother’s intent? You mean the
Advisor
led our neighbors in this ‘sleepy little town’ to speculate over their morning coffee about the death of the son of one of their ‘prominent merchants?’ And you want to bring this speculation back to the surface after all this time?”
I had raised my voice and I could tell that the
reporter was concerned about the fact that he’d closed the door behind him when he entered.
“If you see it a different way, I’ll be happy to include your thoughts in the piece,” he said.
While my mind reeled, I had enough composure to realize that I had come to a crossroads. I could leap out of my chair, physically accost a person for the first time in my life, and toss his fourth-rate newspaper out on the street after him. Or I could realize that this guy probably had no idea what he was getting into when he walked through the door.
I sat back, turned the chair around, and said, “Get out of here.”
“Is there a good time for me to reach Richard Penders?”
I nearly turned around then, but willed myself to keep my composure. “Trust me, there’s no good time to talk to my father about this.”
The reporter left without another word and I tried to force our encounter out of my mind. I paid some bills, went up front to help Jenna with a rush, and talked to Carl about what I wanted in the back-to-school display. But it was ludicrous to think that I could operate as though nothing had happened after that reporter attacked my brother’s memory in such a way.
I thought about going to my aunt’s house to read the articles written in the
Advisor
about Chase’s death. Did they openly speculate about him killing himself? Or did they simply make a few allusions to allow their readers to speculate for themselves? The entire thing seemed so utterly absurd to me. There was no chance that the Chase I knew would ever commit
suicide, no matter what might have been going on in his life. That anyone could even suggest it was so deeply unsettling that I wanted to lash out.
As the afternoon stretched on, I found myself returning to the reporter’s mention of a conversation with someone in the police department. I’d never read the police report on the accident, either. Now it seemed like it was essential that I do so, if for no other reason than to prove to myself that the reporter had led the cop he interviewed to his theory about what happened that night. I left the store a few minutes later.