Tin Lily (21 page)

“Nicky!” the boy doing most of the shoving says.

“Hey, Bret,” Nick says. “Take it easy, huh?”

“Yeah, sorry, man. Didn’t see you there.” Bret looks me up, down, up, smiling big. “Who’s this?”

Nick takes my hand and I hold on tight. “This is Lily. Lily, this is Bret,” Nick says and then starts pointing at the other kids in the group. “Paul, Devon, Arturo.”

I don’t like how they’re looking at me—eyes darting from my sneakers to my hair and everywhere in between.

“She’s hot, Nicky. Where’d you rustle this one up?” Devon says in a deep, raspy voice, which only deepens my chill.

Nick looks embarrassed and I want to disappear into the sidewalk. My face is burning. Nick’s hand over mine, his warmth and the heartbeat I feel in his palm, these are the things I focus on. I think
Nick
’
s heartbeat
and it’s enough. For now.

“Hey, see you guys later, okay?” Nick says. He turns, tugs me out of line and back toward his car. “Forgot my wallet, you believe that?”

I glance over my shoulder at the four boys in line. They’re all bobbing their heads in unison, hands waving good-bye.

“What are we doing?” I whisper as we walk fast toward Nick’s car.

“Sorry,” he mutters. He’s watching the sidewalk and I think maybe he’s embarrassed to be with me. I want to sniff my shirt to see if it’s the hi-pro glow boy all over again, but then remember it’s a new one. This is a Margie shirt, not a dog food shirt.

We get to Nick’s car and he opens the passenger door for me. He hurries to the other side and slips behind the wheel.

“Did I embarrass you?” I say.

He looks at me, his eyes wide. “Of course not.”

“Then what’s up?”

He leans his forehead against the steering wheel. “I’m sorry,” he says again. I don’t get the feeling he’s saying it to me, though, so I keep quiet.

Nick finally sits up, digs his keys out and starts his car. “There’s a park nearby. Would you mind if we went there instead?” He says this without looking at me.

“Sure.” I’m only a little worried about Margie getting mad if she finds out.

We’re at the park in a few minutes and Nick stops near a big jungle gym. There’s an old swing set a little ways away and when we get out of Nick’s car, we both head right for it. The swings are those old-timey rubber kind that make your butt mush up around you. They’re nice. They face west and all we do for a little while is swing and watch the city lights.

“Are you sure I didn’t embarrass you?” I say to Nick.

He shakes his head. “Why would you embarrass me?”

“I don’t know. You just wanted out of there so fast.”

Nick doesn’t say anything at first and then he points to the swing I’m in. “That’s where I spaced out after Mom died.”

I look around the park with new eyes, imagining Nick here, his mind far away, time passing without him knowing. “Good choice,” I say. “It’s a pretty park.” Except for a clearing where you can see the city lights, the whole place is packed full of trees.

Quiet settles between us while we swing and drag our sneakers in the grooved sand underneath the set. “So… who were those guys?” I finally ask.

Nick glances at me quick, then looks back down at the ground. “Some kids from school.”

He doesn’t seem like he’s going to say anymore, so I ask him another question. “Your friends?”

“No.” He looks at me and his eyes are full of hurt. “I used to be a different person, Lily.”

“Oh yeah? Are you in witness protection or something? Bet your name’s really Hornsby Generica.”

A slow grin. “How’d you know?”

“You sort of look like a Hornsby.”

“I don’t think that’s a compliment.”

“Probably not.”

Nick laughs a little, but the seriousness in him is too big and pretty soon he’s frowning again. “Can I tell you something? It’s not a good something.”

“Sure.”

“Those guys in line?”

“Yeah.”

“They make up about half the wrestling team at my school.”

“Okay.”

“And they did used to be my friends.”

“Far as I know it’s okay to have wrestlers for friends. Nothing in the constitution against it, I don’t think.”

Nicks smiles again and in his smile is a lot of sadness and regret, I’m pretty sure. “I used to hang out with them because I was afraid they’d target me otherwise.”

Something in my stomach knows what Nick’s talking about before my head does. It’s the same feeling I got around hi-pro glow boy and those girls who would pinch their noses closed when I walked by. “Target you?” I say.

“They’re bullies. And I don’t mean take-your-lunch-money bullies. I mean corner-you-after-school-and-beat-the-crap-out-of-you bullies.”

I stop swinging and stare hard at Nick. “You helped them beat people up?”

“No, but I picked on people. There was one girl in particular. If you wanted to be part of the inner circle, you did what they said. Arturo—the short one?”

Nod.

“He’s the one who told me about this girl Georgia. She was big, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” It was the same in the schools I went to—the big girls always got the worst of it.

Nick looks at his feet again. “I teased her.” He shakes his head. “Screw that. I tortured her. Day in and day out. You know what it took to make me stop?”

“No.”

“She showed up at my door with her mother. The way Georgia’s mom explained it, she’d found a suicide note in Georgia’s history book and made her say what was going on at school. My parents wanted to kill me. Seriously, I’ve never been grounded so long before or since.”

I don’t say anything, instead just wait for Nick to finish. My stomach’s settled down, but there’s something in me that sees Nick in a different way now. I wish there wasn’t.

“Anyway, I stopped hanging out with those guys and apologized to Georgia.”

“Is she okay?”

Nick nods. “She’s goes to a private school at the other end of town now. I hear she’s a lot happier.”

“Did the wrestlers start in on you?”

“No and that’s kinda the worst thing, you know?”

“You wanted to be punished.”

Nick tents his fingers and nods. “Yeah.”

“And you didn’t want to see the movie even though they don’t bug you?”

“The way they looked at you, it reminded me of…”

“Georgia.”

Nick shakes his head. “No, not like Georgia. Like the pretty girls they harass.”

I think Nick’s believing I’m pretty would feel better if I didn’t know about Georgia. All I can think is how I like a boy who almost pushed a girl to suicide.

“People change, Lilybeans.”

Mom always believed so. It’s how she explained Hank going from a real dad who taught me how to ride a bike to a mean dad who said I wasn’t good enough. I changed too, the second I saw Mom on the living room floor. I don’t remember how I was before, but I know I wasn’t empty or hearing bees or seeing not-Hanks. I think I was close to normal, especially when it was just me and Mom. People change. If I changed, if Hank changed, maybe Nick did too.

“I’m glad you don’t hurt people anymore,” I say. The words sound lame, but they’re all I can get out.

“Me too,” Nick says. “God, my parents were so disappointed. I never want to see that look in my dad’s eyes again.”

“Because he knows how it feels.”

“Yeah. We all do. Seattle’s more open than most places, but people all over have strong opinions.”

“I get it,” I say.

Nick looks at me from under his long eyelashes. “So do you totally hate me now?”

“Not totally,” I say and follow this up with a grin.

Nick swings in close until we’re almost nose to nose. “Listen, Spacey, I figure we’re even for the dinner party letdown now. Yeah?”

“I guess if you call trading a deep, dark secret for some unrealistic expectations an even swap.”

Nick plants a kiss on my cheek, a loud smacker that echoes in the fading light. “Unrealistic my ass.”

I can’t say anything right now because where Nick kissed me feels like it’s lit right up with sparks and tingles. A little circle of life. Nick is good. He did bad things, but now he’s good. This is how I will remember this moment.

There’s a rumbling across the park. I look up in time to see a black SUV with a painted-over logo on its door disappear around the corner. Maybe Hank’s decided I don’t get two days after all. I don’t know how I thought I could count on him telling me the truth. He’ll come—I know this for sure. But even if I choose to go with him, it isn’t about living anymore. It’s about dying.

Being here with Nick, listening to him talk about the ways he’s changed, hearing Margie’s words earlier about how she believes I’m strong, I think it’s time I make some choices too. I have a lot of stuff to work out and the bees are starting up, letting me know I better get to it.

“I need to go home,” I say.

Nick looks at his watch. “It’s only been—”

“Nick, please. I need to go home.” I get up off the swing and walk fast toward Nick’s car. I wait while he opens the door for me.

We’re silent all the way to Margie’s apartment and Nick looks hurt when I turn to say good night. I lean over and kiss him lightly on the cheek. “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m not feeling very well. Maybe it’s a cold or something. You understand?”

“And what? You’re giving it to me as a thank you for the park?” He grins, showing me he’s glad it’s not him I’m upset about.

“It’s the least I could do.”

I wave at Nick as he pulls away from the curb, then look up and down the street to see if Hank’s followed us back. No black SUV, no Hank. I walk fast toward Margie’s apartment anyway, trying to outrun the bees.

I almost head on into the quiet place when I’m through the front door, but then Binka scales me, sits on my shoulder and tells me with her nose in my ear how much she missed me when I was out with Nick. She drives the bees away. Margie’s curious about why I’m back early, but accepts my words about not feeling up to it after all.

The next morning I decide to look at Dr. Pratchett’s workbook to see if it can give me ideas for how to get the bees to disappear. If I can do that, if I can answer their buzzing, maybe I can stay and defend myself against Hank, try to have a new life with Margie, Sam, Nick and Binka.

I grab the workbook out of the canvas bag Dr. Pratchett gave me and set it on the table next to the sun chair, then press down on the binding so it’ll stay open on its own. I’ve put the picture Hank tucked behind the cover at the bottom of a drawer where Margie won’t find it.

Binka parks herself in the middle of the first page of my new workbook. She’s got her back to me and her head bowed, like she’s reading. She twists around to look at me and her ears are all the way forward and I can see she approves, that she thinks it’s a good idea I read this book. She wanders off to a fancy pink bed Sam brought over for her and settles in for a long nap.

I read through the introduction and heed the warning about not skipping ahead. Dr. Pratchett wasn’t kidding. The book is interesting and I can see why he wants me to go through it. The first thing the book wants me to do is make a list of self-soothing exercises. I like tethers and I like threads and I like bubble baths, so I write these down first. Next the book wants me to try one out. I don’t need a tether right now since the bees aren’t buzzing and I already have a thread with going through the workbook, so I decide on a bubble bath.

I get the water going, pour in some liquid bubbles Margie’s got lying around, then leave to find a towel. I’m fishing one out of the linen closet when the smell of the bubbles hits.

Mom pokes her head around my open bedroom door. “Lilybeans, you
’
re going to spill that water right out of the tub.”

“I like it full. I know just when to stop it.”

“
Okay, kiddo. Don
’
t forget, though.”

I wait for a little longer and finally grab up my book and towel and head toward the sound of the whooshing water. A new smell is filling up the bathroom, spilling out into the hall, pushing out the dog food. Vanilla. Lilac. “Did you put something in here?”

“A surprise! For my Lilybeans!”

A surprise because Mom
’
s trying to make up for Hank. Hank and his anger. Hank and his meanness. Hank and his control. She leaves “
happies,
” she calls them, and she hopes they
’
ll help scrub my memory. She hopes they
’
ll help me know how loved I am.

They do.

My legs go rubbery and I sit down hard in front of the linen closet. The rip that started with Mom’s letter explodes into a sob bigger than the world and I feel myself shatter into a million pieces. The sound from me is filling the apartment—my missing Mom flooding every part of me. I feel her fluffy hair on my fingertips and I smell pineapple and I hear the bells as she hangs a wreath on the front door for Christmas and I think about all the movies we watched on the threadbare couch with the pot of gold. I think about the pictures and the hikes and, oh god, all the tears and pain caused by Hank in those last years. The shame, the silence, the ghostly existence we led, the loneliness. And how, through it all, we had each other.

Binka hears me sobbing, comes running, jumps into my arms. She puts her nose under my chin, pressing hard. I hold her because if I don’t I’m not going to exist anymore. My tether—Binka. I rock back and forth, the smell of Mom’s bubbles taking over everything. All mixed up in me is my stuffed grief for Mom and my terrible guilt for not answering the phone. The buzzing is here and it’s so big. So loud. I can answer it or I can go where it’s quiet. These are my choices.

I want to go and almost do, but my phone starts playing a tune—the one Margie programmed for Nick’s number. It’s an old love song she likes, one I don’t know. Nick’s ring and Binka—my tethers. I don’t answer. I listen to the bees and, through them, Nick’s song that means he wants to talk to me.