Candor (14 page)

Then he looks at me. “Do you miss her? Do you—?” A bitter smile twists his lips. “Do you need her?”

He has never asked me that question. Not once.

“Not anymore, I guess….” I swallow and give him the truth, for once. “I guess sometimes I still
want
her, though.”

Dad crosses his arms and nods once. He’s looking across the patio at the park now. Like he can see far away. “I’m sorry I couldn’t get her to stay.”

“You could have if you wanted to.”

Another boom of thunder. Lightning streaks behind him, turning the sky pink for a split second.

None of it is as scary as the sharp look he gives me. Like he sees what’s inside my head. He knows that I know. I’m sure of it, in that second.

“I mean, if you’d asked her to stay—” The words rush out of my mouth. Trying to fix what I said. Things need to be normal, safe, again.

He clears his throat. “I did everything I could.”

“I know. I’m sure. I’m sorry.” I sound desperate. It’s not an act.

More thunder. It seems to change him back to the man I know now. Dad straightens his body and squares his shoulders, like he’s putting on a new suit. “You are a young man with great advantages,” he says. His voice is heavy. A warning. “You should be grateful.”

“I am. I am always grateful for my circumstances.” I feed the Message to him fast.

“All this family needs is Candor.” Dad looks down at the brick one more time. “Nobody and nothing is missing.”

He turns and walks off the patio. But I stay for a minute. Watch all the names fill with water. I imagine it freezing. The bricks would break. All the history inside would be gone.

But nothing freezes in Florida except busted air conditioners. These bricks are here forever. And I have to deal with it—or forget they exist.

When I look up, Dad beckons with his finger. Just like Nia did.

But this time is different.

This time I obey.

WE MEET IN a dark corner of the boardwalk.

“I know a safe place in the woods,” I tell her. There are old platforms in the trees, where hunters used to sit. No boars. No prying eyes.

“Forget it,” she says. “We’re going to
my
place tonight.”

Relief. Her house is safe. But I did think tonight would be fun. The kind of fun I’m not supposed to have.

She starts jogging down the boardwalk. Away from her house.

“Wrong way,” I shout.

Nia doesn’t slow. Just looks behind to make sure I follow.

Which I do. Even if I have no idea where we’re going. Which is obviously
not
her place, unless we’re taking a five-mile detour through the swamp.

It’s a typical night: warm and humid. But the normal Candor sounds fade as we get deeper into the woods. No more air conditioners or hissing sprinklers. The shrill frogs get louder. Our footsteps echo on the hollow wooden floor of the boardwalk.

My heavy backpack moves up and down with every step. It’s got a boom box inside, with music. And a tasty beverage from my stash.

I run smack into the middle of a cobweb. “Can we slow down?” I call out, wiping the nastiness from my face.

“Almost there!” she answers.

About five minutes later, she stops. Looks up and around. Then nods.

“This is the place.” She swings over the waist-high fence that’s on either side of the boardwalk. Looks at me. Waiting for me to leap into the preserve, with the snakes and the boars and—

And the hot girl.

I jump. She slides her hands over my eyes.

“It’s a surprise,” she whispers.

We stumble through the undergrowth. I trip, once. But she grabs my shoulders to steady me. I open my eyes and look around, but it’s just woods. At least it’s a full moon. I can see the palm trees and vines.

“Close them.” She puts her hands back. Her palms are cool against my cheeks.

When she finally drops her hands, we’re still in the woods. But there’s something here, in the middle of the croaking frogs and spiderwebs. Something that doesn’t belong.

“Did you build this?” I ask.

“Yes.” Nia looks at me, a big smile on her face. “I wanted to have a special place, somewhere besides the shed. Something that belongs to us.”

She says “us” like it’s got a capital letter in it.

Nia built us a house. Well, more like a lean-to. It’s made of dead branches and topped with palm fronds. The tallest part of the roof is about four feet high, and it slopes to the ground from there. A lantern hangs under the roof. Inside, on the ground, there’s a red blanket topped with a picnic basket.

Someone could have found it.

She could have been caught.

But I know those aren’t the things I’m supposed to say. Besides, nobody comes out here except the boars and the snakes.

“We need music.” For our addicted brains—and hopefully to keep the wildlife away. I set down the boom box and hit the play button. Soft guitars. It doesn’t fit with the frogs, but it’s all I brought. And we can’t stay out here without it.

“That’s all?
We need music?
I got blisters building this thing.” Nia grabs my hand. “Come on, I’ll give you the grand tour.”

She lights the lantern. Shows me how she tied the branches together with rope.

“I even scratched our initials in it.” Nia takes my finger and rubs it over the highest part of the roof. I can feel the marks, even if I can’t read them.

If it was daylight, anyone could see them. Maybe guess at what they mean.

People know we’re together. But nobody knows why she’s been so slow to change. Or that I’m using Messages to keep her that way.

Not even Nia knows that part. Guilt closes my throat. I’ve almost told her a hundred times. But I’m afraid of what she’ll say.

She might not understand.

“Do you like it?” she asks. Her voice sounds like she really cares. Like I could hurt her with my answer.

I feel the scratched initials again. She made this for me. For us. If she didn’t love me, this place wouldn’t exist. It would still be a pile of dead sticks.

“It’s beautiful. And solid,” I tell her. “This thing could last forever.”

“Come inside. I want to show you something else.” She makes me sit on the blanket first, then sits across from me. It’s so tight under the roof that our knees touch.

Then she opens the picnic basket.

Pulls out a plastic tub full of cookies—homemade, it looks like. And then some brown teacups and a glass container full of liquid. “Iced tea,” she says.

“We’re having a tea party?” I ask. Surprised.

She giggles. It sounds different from her usual laugh. Lighter. Younger.

But nice.

“I thought you had some big bad plans,” I tell her.

The smile drops off her face. I’m a jerk. It wasn’t supposed to come out like that.

But I was looking forward to at least one of my fantasies coming true. Any of them. I’m not picky.

A tea party in the woods wasn’t on my list.

“This is special.” Nia fingers one of the cups.

“You’re right. I just—I never pictured you being a tea party kind of girl.”

“I used to have tea parties with my boyfriends all the time.”

That doesn’t fit the Nia Silva dossier in Dad’s files. I’m so confused, I just stare.

“Bubba Bear and Lolly the Giraffe were more polite than you. You eat more, too,” she says.

Then she leans over the basket. Our lips meet. I do my best to prove I beat Bubba Bear in the tea-party-date department. In all departments.

We take our time.

Forget my fantasies. This is good. This is very good.

She pulls away too soon. It’s always too soon. But I’ll take what I can get, anything I can get, from her.

“Your cup.” She hands me a brown cup with a stick attached to the side, like a handle. I hold it close to the lantern to get a better look.

“Is this bark?” I ask.

“Birch bark,” she answers.

“You made a lean-to and cups, too?”

“Not exactly. I made these when I was eight.” Nia examines her cup with a small smile. “I called them my fairy cups.”

“Do they work?”

She answers by pouring some tea in mine. “I made it sweet, like when I was little.”

I take a sip. The sugar from the tea coats my lips. But nothing leaks out of the cup.

Nia fills her cup, too. We’re quiet. I stare at her while I force the tea down. Her hair looks almost red under the lantern. And soft.

“I found the cups while I was unpacking. They gave me this whole idea,” she says.

“It was a good idea.” I take another tiny sip of tea. It’s nice out here. I could almost believe Candor didn’t exist—if it weren’t for my guitar music playing.

“The cookies taste better than the tea,” she says.

“No, the tea’s great,” I lie.

Little lies are fine—aren’t they? Ones that make her feel good?

But what about the big lies? The ones that protect her? Aren’t those okay, too?

She gulps the rest of her tea and takes my cup. “I’ll finish yours. Have a cookie.”

The cookie is bad in a very good way—like her. Packed with chocolate chips. Walnuts. So much butter my father would have a panic attack. Watch out, arteries.

“You made these?” I ask.

“All by myself.” She flutters her eyelashes.

Nia’s domestic. I never knew that.

And I love it. Maybe that makes me a typical pig guy. But who wouldn’t love a girl who feeds him chocolate—especially when his typical dessert is half a banana?

“Have more,” she says.

I take two.

“Don’t get used to this girlfriend-baking-you-cookies thing,” she says. “I quit baking a long time ago.”

Which is kind of a relief. My Nia is still inside the baking goddess.

“I can make you rye toast,” I tell her.

“Pass.” She grabs another cookie.

“What else did you do when you were eight?” I ask.

“All good things. Being eight was the best,” she says.

I nod. “When I was eight, I had a brother. And a mother.” Everything would change in two years. But I didn’t know it then.

What changes are coming now? What don’t I know about?

Nothing can be as bad as losing Mom and Winston.

“When I was eight, I hadn’t screwed anything up yet,” Nia says slowly.

“I was a Boy Scout. Big shock, huh?”

She answers me with a long kiss. I run my hands down her bare arms. Shoulders to elbows to wrists. She has goose bumps, even in the muggy Florida night.

Maybe that’s because of me.

Sometimes I forget she likes me the same way I like her. When we stop, Nia is smiling. “I was in Girl Scouts.”

“Sure you were. Was it a special troop with black uniforms?” She gives me a little shove. “No! And I earned a ton of badges.”

“For what?” I picture what she’d get them for now. Cutting class. Kissing with tongue. Making beautiful art.

“I got them for all kinds of things—camping, running a lemonade stand, helping old people.” Nia runs her finger across and down her front, like she’s touching a sash. “My favorite was the pet-care one, because it had a cat on it.”

“Did you have a pet?”

“Just the fish Mom bought me, so I could do the badge. It died. But they let me have the badge anyway.”

“Killing a fish sounds like a pretty major screwup,” I tease.

She’s staring off into space. Answers slowly. “No. I was a really good Girl Scout.”

“I can’t picture it.” All I can imagine is a miniature Nia. Long wild hair and ripped jeans, with baby army boots. And, I guess, a green sash.

“Then I started to change.” Nia lifts the container of tea. “More?”

Bravely, I nod.

She laughs. Dumps the rest outside of the lean-to.

“Why’d you stop being good?” I ask.

She’s told me what she’s done. But she never explains why it happened.

“Being good got less interesting.” She shrugs.

“I know what you mean.” I eye her tank top.

“But now …” Her voice trails off. I meet her eyes.

She looks down at the ground. Shy, suddenly.

“What?” I ask.

When she doesn’t answer, I take her hand. Gentle. But firm enough to let her know I’m there. Listening.

“You make me feel like I’m eight,” she says. “Like I want to be good again.”

What do I say? Do I tell her it’s not me? It’s the Messages?

Would she love me less?

Maybe even hate my guts?

“If someone like you loves me …” Her tongue stumbles a little over the L-word.

“Which I do.”

“Then I might be worth something. Even after all the stupid things I’ve done.” She lets out a shaky laugh. Uses her other hand to brush tears from her eyes.

How can she not see how amazing she is?

“You’re worth something. You’re worth everything,” I tell her. “I’d do anything for you.”

“Me, too.”

I’m holding both her hands now. Like we’re making vows to each other.

Now is the time to tell her everything.

Convince her the Messages are real—even though my own Messages have been telling her differently.

Confess to feeding her my own words. Helping her to fight. But not giving her a chance to do it herself.

We lean closer. Closer. Her lips move down my neck. Her tongue flicks, teases.