Chapter 6
Later, when the dishes were under control in the kitchen and Ava was sprawled on the floor by the Christmas tree dictating a Christmas list to her older cousin Laura, Jo headed out to the garage. Although Tommy had moved out years ago, he still kept his classic Mustang there, and Mum and Pops didn’t seem to mind at all. “A restoration in progress,” Tommy liked to say.
“Hey.” She stepped into the cooler garage and noticed the string of colored lights over the workbench. The front of the car was up on blocks, and a light beamed out from under it. A radio played James Taylor’s version of “Winter Wonderland.”
“Okay if I enter the Man Cave?” she asked.
“You’re safe to enter,” Tommy said with a wry grin. “I keep the naked hula dancers down at the shop.”
“Now you tell me,” came another male voice from under the car. “I’m in the wrong garage.”
Jo squinted at the car. Was that one of her brothers?
“Just find where the oil leak is coming from, okay?” Tommy answered.
“Really, Tommy.” Jo folded her arms across her chest. “It’s a wonder you have any employees left down at the shop when you talk to them that way.”
“Yeah, Tommy.” This time the voice under the car was clearly not one of her brothers’. “Show some respect.”
“You got your turkey dinner, buddy. Time to sing for your supper.”
Jo laughed. “Harsh, Tommy. But I came to check on my sign. Did you fix it yet?”
“Well, I did and I didn’t.” He picked up the sign leaning against the wall. It glistened with a new coat of polyurethane, though the letters underneath were blurred at the edges. “Some of the paint bled when I tried to waterproof it.”
Jo frowned. “Ooh, that’s not going to work. We’re going to need a new sign.”
“Yeah.” Tommy hitched back his Red Sox cap and sighed. “I can cut the wood for you, but I’m no good with the painting.”
“I can make you a sign,” said the man under the car.
“Who’s down there?” Jo asked.
Tommy’s brows rose. “Sam Norwood from high school. Do you remember him?”
Hands on her hips, Jo stared down at the car. “Are you kidding me?” Sam Norwood had been Shane’s best friend, the two of them inseparable.
“He’s back from Afghanistan,” Tommy added.
“Can’t be the Sam Norwood I know,” she said, digging her hands into the pockets of her jeans. “The guy I used to hang out with would never come back to town without calling me.”
Tommy winced, scratching his chin.
“Someone has a pretty high opinion of herself.” Sam’s voice rose from under the car. “It’s not like we were best friends.”
“Nah, not best friends, but good friends,” Jo said. “So I’m thinking this isn’t the same Sam.”
“It is indeed,” Tommy said. “We were in the same grade in school.”
“I’ll believe it when I see his face,” Jo said. She was going to order the soldier out from under the car, but her brother’s frantic arm motions gave her pause. “What?”
Tommy shook his head and mouthed something. When he mimed his face being cut, she realized he was saying,
he was hurt
.
Oh. So was she supposed to be nicer to him? Of course she’d be nice to him ... after the kidding.
“So what’s the deal, Sam? You come back to town and don’t pick up a phone?”
“I figured you’d be busy, and apparently you are with the shop and all. You always did have your hands full. Prom queen, snow bunny on the alpine team, and class president rolled into one.”
“Yeah, all those school activities taught me about the real world. They prepared me to be a single parent and a working girl. How about you?”
“Eh. There isn’t a lot of skiing in Afghanistan,” he said.
Sam had been an excellent skier, training for the Olympics alongside Shane, though he’d withdrawn after Shane got killed. A great skier; but she remembered Sam as so much more. Agile and athletic, he was one of the few guys able to keep up with Shane.
But while Shane was flash and smiles, Sam was like one of those faceted stones that you could stare into for hours. He was artistic back in the days when it wasn’t cool to illustrate or sculpt. His sculpture of a bobcat still stood in front of the high school, never defaced because it was so darned good.
And his illustrations could mirror life in a beautiful way. He could sketch a face, then make it whimsical or sad. And when he put color on a canvas, Sam could open up the world as quick as you’d crack a walnut. Yeah, Sam had the ability to make a wonderful sign for the shop.
But having grown up with three brothers, she knew that a guy like Sam didn’t want to hear about his great qualities. So, instead, she said, “There’s one of your achievements I’ll never forget, Sam. Weren’t you the guy who had twenty pizzas delivered the day of graduation practice?”
“That was you?” Tommy spun around. “Nobody told me that.”
“You know, that may have been my ten minutes of fame.” Sam snorted. “My ma was pissed when the principal sent her the bill. Two hundred bucks, but it could’ve been two million back then.”
Just then the garage went dark and the radio died.
“Lights out,” Sam said.
“Must be the wind,” Tommy said as he scuffled in the pitch black.
From inside the house came the dramatic screams of children, followed by the laughter of adults.
“You’d think we never had a power outage before,” Jo said.
As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she sensed her brother moving at the workbench. A moment later, the beam of a flashlight shot to the far wall of the garage. “We got two flashlights here. You guys take one and I’ll go inside and help them get the lanterns lit.”
Jo took the flashlight from him and turned to the Mustang as her brother ducked through the door to the house.
“You okay down there? You should probably take this light.”
“Nah. I’m just going to stay put right here where it’s safe and quiet,” he said. “If you want to go back inside, I understand.”
“Did you hear the screams in there? I’m with you, sticking in here where it’s safe and quiet.” She moved to the side of the workbench, closer to the jacked-up front of the car. The floor gleamed under the beam of the flashlight, so clean you could eat off it. But then, Tommy had a reputation for being finicky clean about his stuff. “So ... how long you been back?” she asked.
“Not too long. Just a few days.”
“Shame on you for not calling.”
“I didn’t think I’d be sticking around, but now it looks like I am. When I ran into Tommy at the grocery store, he told me to head down to help him with the ’stang after dinner. Didn’t know he’d smuggle a turkey dinner into the garage for me.”
“Tommy’s good that way.” She felt like a teenager playing a stupid game, blindfolded and trying to come up with lame questions. She wished he would come out from under there.
“So ... when did you get back on the ski patrol at Dare?” he asked.
“I’m not.” What would make him think that?
She flashed to the other night on the mountain ... the ski patrol jacket ... the closed trail ... the masked skier.
“Oh, come on! You were the guy with the mask?”
“What? I didn’t say that ...”
She turned to the front of the car and grabbed the fender. “Sam Norwood, I ought to knock this car right off its blocks ... and right now I’m so freakin’ mad at you, believe me, I’ve got the supercharged adrenaline strength to do it!”
“Calm down. Let’s not get crazy there.” Wheels whirred as the dolly slid out from under the car, but he had moved to the driver’s side, away from her.
“Do you have any idea how unnerving that was? I thought you were a dead man, going down that ridge ...”
“I know. I’m sorry. It was a jackass move.”
“Grrr!” She slammed a palm on the hood of the car and turned away. “You totally spooked me! It was my first time back on skis, and I looked up and I thought you were Shane!”
“Aw, Jo, I’m sorry. I didn’t expect to see you there.”
“Well, I sure as hell wasn’t expecting Shane—or you!”
The door squeaked open and Tommy appeared, lantern in hand. “What drama queens!”
Jo felt caught in her flare of anger until she realized her brother was talking about the family inside.
“The power might be out awhile, and the house doesn’t have a backup ‘genny,’ so Mum and Pop figured it’s a good time to go caroling down the street. The Barrettos are here for the week, and Karen always has homemade cookies for the kids. I told Pops I’d come along.”
“Okay, then.” Jo could hear the telltale emotion in her voice, but hoped Tommy wouldn’t notice.
He held the lantern up for a second. “You guys’ll be okay in here, then?”
“Ay-yeah.” She held up a hand, as if to ward off the light, though truth be told, she didn’t want him to see the fury on her face. “We’re good.”
“Okay. We’ll be back shortly.” And Tommy was gone again.
Jo drew in a long, calming breath. “If I promise not to kill you, will you come out from under there and talk to me?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Tommy said you got hurt. I’m sorry about that, but the truth is, I can’t see much of anything in here. I promise to keep the flashlight low if you’ll just come out and sit. I don’t like talking to a car. It’s just too weird.”
Silence. Then he groaned. “Yeah, okay. But you stay put and turn the flashlight off.”
“Let me get situated.” She turned an empty crate on its side by the workbench and sat down. “Aren’t you afraid of walking into something? Falling over an engine block?”
“I know the dark.”
She killed the light and sat, hugging her arms across her chest as he moved closer. For the first time, she wondered what terrible thing had happened to him in Afghanistan that made him so ashamed to be seen, and a pang of sorrow pinched her heart. Sam used to be a hot-tie; she couldn’t imagine him without those proud, high cheekbones and that sexy square chin. Yeah, back in high school, she’d noticed. Even crazy in love with Shane, she’d still had eyes and a brain.
Concern for Sam mixed with anger as she felt the air stir beside her. She pulled her knees in, not wanting him to trip over them.
“You’re okay,” he said, and now the soft moonlight from the garage windows cast enough light to see raw forms in the darkness.
He stood over her, turned away from her, then slumped down beside her, his back against the workbench. “So what happened in Afghanistan?” she asked.
“There was an IED. My buddy got killed, and I got all messed up.”
“I’m sorry about your friend. Are you in pain?”
“Not anymore.”
“And you still ski like a champion.”
“Yeah, but I look like a monster.”
“I’m not going to argue with you, because that just doesn’t seem right. What do I know? I can’t see you.” Jo wasn’t one to offer false cheer or cling to denial. “But I do know that beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. So maybe you don’t look so bad to other people.”
“Mmm.”
“What does your mum think?”
“She’s just glad I survived, but you can’t count on a mother for objectivity.”
“True.” Jo took a deep breath and let the cool air and familiar smell of engine oil calm her. “I gotta tell you, Sam, I was ready to strangle you a few minutes ago. I can’t believe it was you impersonating Shane that night on the mountain.”
“I wasn’t trying to be him. Just trying to make some kind of peace with him.”
“Really? Why would you need to do that? You guys were tight. Shane loved you. He didn’t have a bad word to say about you.”
“Ay-yeah. He had my back. The problem was, I didn’t have his that night, and I’ve always known it was my fault. I’m responsible for Shane’s death.”
“Cut it out.” She tapped his arm with the back of her hand. “Everyone knows what drove him up to the top of Dare Mountain. He didn’t want to be a father. He was freaking out over the responsibility, sure his future was going down the tubes. He didn’t want to end up without two nickels to rub together, and he saw fatherhood as his ticket to poverty.”
“You’re way too philosophical. It wasn’t his problems that drove him up the mountain that night. It was me. I knew where Les kept the keys to the cable car. I knew how to run it, from working the damned thing through high school.”
“Sam, everyone knows that part. You helped Shane on his mission, but you didn’t kill him.”
“Taking a totally wrecked man to the top of a mountain on an icy night?”
“You didn’t pour the whiskey down his throat, either.”
Sam bowed his head and raked his hair back in frustration. When he lifted his head, she could make out the angles of his face: the high cheekbones, the strong jaw, the plane of his forehead. In this light, from this angle, he looked perfect. Handsome. Noble.