After Hello (16 page)

I opened the door wider and gestured for Rebecca to come in. She had changed out of the blue and gray uniform she’d worn when I’d first met her at Piper’s place and into a dark purple sundress and strappy sandals that looked easy and comfortable.

She glanced at my phone. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, just . . . family stuff. Sorry.” I looked down and away. I didn’t want to cry in front of Rebecca.

“Sam thought you might need these.” She placed a pair of folded, dark blue jeans on the counter. “He wanted me to make sure you knew they were clean.”

I smiled, touched by his thoughtfulness.

“How’s your knee?”

I straightened my leg out in front of me. The bandage was a little ragged around the edges where I had picked at it, and some blood had seeped through the gauze and dried, creating a dark red bull’s-eye marking the epicenter of my wound.

“Does it hurt?”

I shook my head. “Sam did a good job.”

“He always does.” Rebecca opened the medicine cabinet above the sink and rummaged through the boxes and bottles. “It’s about the only thing he has in common with Paul.”

“Aren’t they brothers?”

“Sure, but they’re nothing alike.” Rebecca pointed for me to sit on the edge of the bathtub, which I did. She tossed me a box of bandages and then turned on the sink faucet and ran a washcloth under the water. “Paul is seven years older than Sam, did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t.” I wasn’t even sure I knew how old Sam was. He had to be at least sixteen if he’d been driving the car that night . . . I forced my thoughts away. I wasn’t sure I could process everything he’d told me about Alice and his friends, and now wasn’t the time to try. I remembered that Daniel had said that he’d known Sam at least eighteen months. Could it be we were the same age? Then why did Sam seem older than I was?

Rebecca handed me the damp cloth and leaned against the sink. “Paul is nice, don’t get me wrong, but he’s so . . . focused, you know? Single-minded. Give him a goal and then get out of his way.”

I picked at the torn corner of the bandage until I could peel the whole thing off. I winced as the gauze pulled away from the wound. “Sam can be pretty focused.” I thought about how he sometimes looked at me like he was trying to figure out where I belonged in the world. I was starting to wonder that myself.

“Sure, but Sam has a different kind of focus. He’d rather make other people happy instead of himself.”

“You don’t think Sam is happy?”

She lifted her shoulders in a gesture that was both an answer and a dismissal at the same time. “Sam is who he is.” She glanced down at my leg. “That’s a pretty bad scrape. You might need to use two bandages.”

I followed her advice and dabbed at my knee with the washcloth. “Why are you being so nice to me?” I asked as I fixed the new bandages to my leg. “I mean, you lost your job because of me. You and Paul and Will.”

Rebecca shrugged, leaning closer to the mirror to check her lipstick. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to be around someone like that all day, every day? It drains the life right out of you.”

“So why does Paul want to work for her?”

“Are you kidding? Paul and Piper are made for each other. They both like things to be perfect. He likes things to be organized and then he likes to keep them that way. He had a gift for making all of Piper’s problems go away—and then keeping them away. She doesn’t know what she lost today.”

“Do you . . . do you think Paul would go back to her? If I got him his job back, I mean?”

“Oh, sweetie, that’s nice of you to think you could change Piper’s mind, but you’re way out of your league. I’ve worked for her for almost two years, and as far as I know, she’s never rehired anyone to her staff.”

My heart sank. So even if I completed Piper’s quest for the perfect piece of art, she might not care. It might not matter. It might already be too late.

“I have to try,” I said quietly, firmly.

Rebecca smiled kindly and patted me on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, kid. You didn’t know; it’s not your fault.” She reached for the doorknob. “Change your clothes and come on back, okay?”

She breezed out the door, closing it behind her.

I kicked off my shoes and picked up the pair of jeans she’d left on the counter. Slipping them on, I looked down at the cuffs puddling around my feet. I hadn’t thought I was that much shorter than Sam.

I sighed. Maybe I wasn’t who I thought I was at all.

Chapter 24

Sam

Sam looked up as Rebecca returned to the living room, picking up her plate from the kitchen on her way. He glanced back to the bathroom door. Still closed.

“She’s fine,” Rebecca said over her shoulder, a smile on her face. She sat on the couch next to Jen and kicked off her sandals. “You can stop worrying.”

“I—” Sam’s chopsticks clattered together as he fumbled and dropped a bite of food.

Rebecca and Jen exchanged a look and a small laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Will asked.

“Boys,” Rebecca said, and Jen rolled her eyes in agreement.

A few minutes later, Sara emerged from the bathroom, the cuffs of her jeans rolled up to her ankles. She tugged at the hem of her shirt as she took her place on the couch again.

“Thanks,” she said to Sam in a low voice. She flicked a glance at Paul, who was in the kitchen scooping up another serving of chicken and rice. “What did I miss?”

Sam shook his head. “I told him what had happened with Piper—and how—and why—and we came to an understanding.”

“What kind of understanding?”

“He won’t bring it up if you don’t.”

Sara zipped her finger and thumb across her lips. “Consider it not brought up, then.”

Sam reached for her plate of food. “Are you still hungry? I can warm this up for you if you want.”

She waved it off. “No, thanks.”

“So, Jen,” Will said, scraping together the last bite of curry on his plate. “What’s your story?”

“Will!” Rebecca said, glaring at him.

“What?” He blinked in innocent surprise. “A girl as pretty as Jen has got to have an interesting story.” He grinned. “What can I say? I’m interested.”

Rebecca nudged Jen with her elbow. “Feel free to ignore him.”

Jen adjusted her glasses. “I’m afraid my story isn’t that interesting. Becca and I went to school together back in Ohio. She convinced me to move here and even helped me find a place to stay. Paul and Sam helped me move in last month.”

“No wonder we haven’t met yet,” Will said. “Though I’m a little surprised Paul didn’t tell me he had a beautiful new neighbor. I thought we were better friends,” he called over his shoulder to Paul, who rolled his eyes.

Jen blushed and cleared her throat. “Becca’s told me a little about Piper. She sounds like a terrible person.”

At the sound of Piper’s name, Paul dropped the serving spoon with a clatter. Everyone turned to look at him, but he reserved his glare for Sara.

“It wasn’t me,” she whispered to Sam. “I didn’t bring it up. You heard me not bring it up.”

Sam cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s attention away from Paul. And Sara. “Jen, did you know Will is a huge soccer fan?”

She sat up a little straighter. “Really?”

“Never miss a match,” Will boasted.

Rebecca groaned. “Count me out of this conversation.” She took her plate into the kitchen and started helping Paul put away the leftovers.

Will seized the opening and took her place on the couch. “A girl who likes green curry
and
soccer? Where have you been my whole life?”

Jen laughed and looked down. But she didn’t move away when Will stretched his arm across the back of the couch and leaned closer.

Sam tapped Sara’s leg and gestured for her to follow him. Edging away from Will and Jen, and giving Paul and Rebecca an equally wide berth, they ended up by the still-open window.

The sun had mostly set and the sky was cooling into lavender and blue. The air was warm and comfortable.

Sara leaned toward the window, a soft breeze stirring her hair.

“Would you like to go outside?” he asked, nodding to the fire-escape landing that was on the other side of the window.

“Can we?”

In answer, he opened the window a little wider and stepped out.

She grinned and climbed out after him. She gripped the rail and turned her face to the sky. The sound of cars and people and music blended together and rose up to meet them, surrounding them with an almost tangible energy.

He leaned back against the slanted fire-escape ladder and watched her watch the city.

“I love it here,” she said with a sigh.

“I can tell.”

“You are so lucky to be able to live here.”

“Most days, it doesn’t feel like luck.”

She tilted her head at him, jutting out her hip. “What about today?”

He liked how she looked, standing there in her dark red T-shirt and borrowed jeans. She looked like she was on the prow of a ship, ready to sail away, ready to face anything. She wore the same look on her face as she had when he’d first seen her outside the bookstore—had it only been that morning? it felt like a lifetime ago—but now he knew what it meant.

Sara was ready for an adventure.

“Today?” he said, watching her face. “Today feels like luck.”

Her smile lit up her eyes, and he felt a matching spark of light come to life inside of him.

“You know,” she said, turning around and leaning her elbows against the railing, “you still owe me a story.”

“I do?”

“The long-promised-but-never-delivered story of Vanessa and the pirate map. You said you’d tell it to me over dinner, remember?”

Sam leaned his head back. “Ah, yes, I remember. But”—he shrugged—“dinner is over. Guess you missed your chance.”

“That’s not fair!” she protested with a laugh.

He laughed with her, and the spark of light grew a little warmer. “Hang on, I’ll tell it. We made a deal, and I always keep my word.”

She settled back, attentive and eager. “So, you said Vanessa had a pirate map . . .” she prompted.

“Actually, Vanessa
didn’t
have the pirate map. But she
did
have something to trade.” Sam sat on a step of the ladder, hooking his heels over the edge of the step below him. “I’d had my eye on this item for a long time, but Vanessa had never been willing to let it go. Until now.”

“What was it?”

“A ticket stub from when the Beatles played at City Park Stadium in New Orleans in 1964.”

Her eyes opened wide. “Wow.”

“I know. After my friend told me Vanessa was ready to trade, I headed to her studio as fast as I could. I had a necklace I knew she wanted, so we made a deal. I left, ticket in hand. From there, I headed straight to the law offices of Durham and Little, where Mr. Little himself traded me his pirate map in exchange for the Beatles ticket.”

“You got a
pirate
map from a
lawyer?
” Sara threw back her head and laughed, her happiness moving along the smooth column of her throat.

“Ironic, I know.”

“Where did he get the map?”

“I didn’t ask. Besides, you know you can’t trust lawyers. Some people say they’re almost as bad as pirates.”

Sara laughed again, a bright, happy sound; Sam had to look away.

“So Vanessa traded away a priceless piece of Beatlemania for a necklace? That doesn’t seem like a fair trade.”

“It may not seem fair to you, but it doesn’t have to. It only has to be fair to the person doing the trading. It’s about what you’re willing to give up in order to get what you want. For Vanessa, the necklace was more important to her than some old piece of paper with the Beatles’ name printed on it.” Sam shrugged and tucked his hands into his pockets. “And sometimes it’s about sacrifice. Giving up more so that the other person can get what they need. Vanessa knew I needed that ticket in order to get the map. And I needed the map to finish the job. She traded with me, in part, to help me.”

Sara swallowed hard and the laugh lines along her mouth and throat disappeared. She turned away from Sam and looked back up at the night sky.

He watched a ripple of tension move through her body, down her neck, through her shoulders, past her hips and legs. Clearly something he’d said had struck a nerve. He wondered if he should ask her what was wrong; he wondered what she would say if he did.

Chapter 25

Sara

Sacrifice. Sam’s words echoed in my head.
Giving up more so that the other person can get what they need.

I had been trying hard not to think of that night when my mom left, but after my conversation with my dad, I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about it. Now another memory surfaced—my mom’s voice saying, “I feel like I’m the only one giving anything in this relationship. Why couldn’t you at least meet me halfway?”

What had my mom needed that my dad hadn’t been able to give? Was that why she had left? Was that why he’d let her go? If they’d been able to meet halfway, would they still be together?

I shuddered again, gathering up those dark thoughts and shoving them away.

“Sara?” Sam’s voice was close to my ear, and I turned quickly to see him standing next to me at the railing. I hadn’t heard him move. But then, he was good at that.

“That’s an awesome story,” I said. “Thanks.”

Concern furrowed his forehead as his eyes searched mine, as though he could trace the path of pain that wound throughout me. His lips parted, a question ready to come to life on his breath. I knew what he was going to ask, and I didn’t want to go there. Not right now.

“Vanessa sounds like a cool lady.” I shifted away from Sam. A shiver took me, but I chalked it up to the night air and nothing else. I didn’t want it to be anything else.

He tapped his fingers on the rail between us. “She is. You’d like her. I think you guys would have a lot in common.”

“Because my life is full of zombies and dark magic, right?” I offered up a lopsided smile, but he didn’t take the bait.

“Because you’ve both left behind something you love.”