Fixing Delilah (11 page)
Later, certain that Mom, Rachel, Patrick, and the rest of Red Falls is asleep, I tiptoe down the stairs and out the side door on bare feet, skipping the creaky third step. I walk down the street with Stephanie’s diary, away from Nana’s house, past Patrick’s house, all the way to the other end of the road. Under Maple Terrace’s only street lamp, I stretch my arms out and pretend that the light is a force field, illuminating me like a star-angel to keep the dark things out. When it’s everyone-else-is-in-bed quiet like this, the Vermont summer crickets outnumber me,
surround
me, getting louder and louder and louder with each breath until they’re all part of the heartbeat in my ears, the same soft thud, the same hum, the same low buzz of everything all at once that keeps the world spinning on its axis.
Sometimes I wonder if my whole life will pass by this way: me waiting in the shadows, waiting for something to happen. Waiting for someone else to
make
it happen. Something new or different or crazy and amazing. I’ve been there for so long, letting everyone else figure it out for me, floating along without much direction or conscious thought. Reacting. Attention-seeking, Mom calls it. Impulsive. Reckless.
I think about Finn and all those times at the creek. I think about Patrick. I think about Stephanie and Rachel and Mom and my dead newspaper dad and it squeezes my insides. It makes me want to leave, to run, to get on a plane with a little black notebook and wander in and out of cities and villages and people’s homes until I find out
exactly
how my father felt that day in Tuksar, looking down the barrel, pen pressed to paper, fate in the hands of a boy who wasn’t even old enough to grow a mustache.
I sit on the sidewalk beneath the light and open the diary over my knees.
Dear Diary,
It’s four a.m. and I’ve been awake for two days, my mind buzzing, my cells buzzing, everything around me buzzing. Mom is driving me INSANE and I need to leave. I need to get out of this town. I need to go somewhere. Anywhere. Else.
C promised me that he would take me away from here. That we could go soon and far and never look back. And when he said I promise you, I promise you, Stephie, you can have the whole world if you want it… I kissed him and I knew that he MEANT it and I told him that I would love him with everything I had in me until the very end of everything, and I meant it, too, and the old man selling popcorn from a cart on the wooden path near the shore smiled when he saw us kiss.
So how much longer? How much longer until we can walk the streets of some new place with new faces and see them smiling just to see us so in
love??
—Steph
Back home, when people see me with Finn, they don’t smile. They
stare
. And I get all wood-elf-princess-warrior like the first time I was with him, walking out of the woods at a creek party with leaves in my hair and one shoe missing and everyone whispering. Finn never asked me about secrets and mothers and the nature of friendship. He didn’t care. Being with him was about one thing. And I was
fearless
with him. Crazed. Alive. And a little bit
Oh yeah? Say it. I fucking
dare
you.
I bet Thomas Devlin was like that. It got him killed, but at least he
felt
something. I can tell from his stories—always from faraway places, always fast and breathtaking, words spilling out on the page like ninjas, sneaking up on the rest of us for the stealth attack. Was that his legacy for me? My genetic inheritance?
Crazed. Alive. And a little bit…
When I got home from that creek party after the first time with Finn, I found a renegade pine branch stuck in my hair. I saved it in a shoe box under my bed so that I’d never forget that moment; that instant when Finn looked at me across the bonfire, nodded almost imperceptibly toward the woods, and raised a single, questioning eyebrow.
Shall we?
Yes, let’s.
But that isn’t love—not the kind Aunt Stephanie had with Casey. What I have with Finn is more like what my parents had, which is surreal and gross to consider, but true. I’m not in love with him. I’m in love with the way he erases things. That’s why I saved the pine branch. I don’t remember that night out of longing or any sort of dreamy hope-chest wishes. I remember it to
forget
.
But now, when I try to lose my mind in the fog again, Patrick’s voice cuts through it, singing with his eyes closed. Instead of graying and vanishing, my thoughts multiply, intensify, run together like tributaries in a stream, meandering and braiding and ending up always in the same inevitable river—that
kiss
.
I close the diary and take a deep breath, holding the late-night Vermont air in my lungs as the crickets continue their low hum and I think about my aunt and wonder if she was okay while she lived and then… then I sing softly the words of Patrick’s songs, the ones I remember, over and over, rubbing my thumb on his guitar pick, safe in my sweatshirt pocket.
Forgetting is no longer an option.
“Tomorrow’s the Fourth,” Mom says, pouring a cup of coffee and plugging in her cell phone charger.
“Is it?” Last year, I spent the Fourth at Seven Mile Creek, all of us piled on blankets and chairs in the woods while Mom was on business in Chicago. We couldn’t even see the fireworks. No one cared.
“You guys should go to the Sugarbush Festival,” Mom says. “I’m sure they still do the carnival—remember? You’d eat too much cotton candy and get a stomachache on the Ferris wheel. Patrick always got stuck next to you.”
“Thanks for reminding me.”
“It’s true. And he stayed by your side, even when you were throwing up. Poor kid.”
A tremor passes just below the surface of my skin as I think about last night.
Don’t worry, Mom. I think he’s over it
.
“I remember that one,” Jack calls from the sunroom. I didn’t even realize he was here. “We had to throw out his T-shirt.”
“Awesome. Thanks for sharing,” I call back.
“Anytime, Delilah. Anytime.” The drill starts up and I have to shout for Mom to hear me.
“I’ll see if Patrick wants to check it out tomorrow,” I say.
“You should. All right, I have to get to work. Office is closed tomorrow for the holiday, but that just means twice as many e-mails on Wednesday. You all set for today?”
“I think I’m supposed to help Rachel with estate sale stuff,” I say. “Patrick’s coming over to work on the sunroom floor with Jack. They’re going to talk about—”
Bzzzz.
“Sorry, Del. Gotta take this upstairs where it’s quiet. But I really appreciate your help. We’re making excellent progress here.”
I don’t tell Rachel about the kiss exactly, but she’s going on about the Lovers tarot card she pulled when she asked the universe about me last night, and when the sound of Patrick’s voice sends me bolting for the basement, she doesn’t need a crystal ball to figure it out. She flashes me a conspiratorial smile as I pull open the cellar door and leave her to invent a good cover story.
Patrick is in and out all day, and with Rachel’s help, I manage to avoid being seen for most of the afternoon, ducking into the basement to rearrange boxes of trinkets whenever he gets too close to the house. But just before dinner, as I’m carrying up a box of random camping supplies, there he is, all amber-gold eyes and playful dimples, guiding me back to the bottom of the stairs, moving the box from my hands to the floor so there’s nothing between us but air and dust.
“I’ve been wondering about you all day,” he says, so close that his breath tickles my lips. “I was worried about you last night. I hope I didn’t freak you out.”
I shake my head, looking at the floor so that my hair falls in front of my smile.
“So we’re okay?” he asks.
“We’re good.”
“Glad to hear it.” He lifts my chin until our eyes meet and his lips brush over mine, soft at first, dandelion seeds blown against my mouth like a wish, and then… completely. Hungry. Suffocating and desperate and I don’t want it to stop. I’ve never been kissed like this before—not by Finn or the celebrity crushes in my head. Not even in my craziest dreams.
A door opens and closes upstairs, and Patrick pulls away, leaving me bewildered and shell-shocked, back against the wall to keep my body from evaporating in a long, hot sigh.
“Gotta run to the lumber yard with Dad,” he says, “but I’ll meet you tomorrow for the Sugarbush, okay?”
I can’t even speak anymore, so I just nod. I’ll probably have to devise some elaborate alternate communication method now, like writing in symbols in the dirt or tapping out letters in Morse code on my head, because I’ve obviously lost control of whatever brain parts are responsible for forming words.
“See you soon, Delilah.” Patrick smiles, picks up the box of camping stuff, and disappears up the stairs. I hear him talking to Rachel and Jack in the kitchen, chitchatting about the estate sale, blathering on about nails and drill bits, small-talking about the weather, and blah blah blah and ha ha ha and here I stand alone, unable to remember even how to say my own name, which at this point I can only say for sure begins with a
Dee
and ends with an
Uhh
.
The next day, Patrick meets me outside as promised, looking exactly as before, except for those eyes. They’re the same amber-gold, but somehow, they look deeper. Clearer. And when he sweeps them over my face and stops to gaze at my lips, my skin electrifies, buzzing for our entire walk into town.
“Where’s Em?” I ask, feeling her absence more acutely in the wake of whatever this new thing is between us.
“She and Megan are helping Luna with her booth,” he says. “They’re giving away frozen drink samples on the fairway, so it’s gonna be mobbed.”
“All day?”
Patrick laughs. “All night, too. Afraid to be alone with me, Hannaford?”
“No.”
Yes
. “Just wondering about Em.”
“She can’t save you,” he says, pulling me into another kiss as we slowly make our way to Main Street.
The annual Fourth of July parade and Sugarbush Festival is everything the banner in town foretold… and more. Log rollers in ceremonial flannels falling into the lake. Kids winding sticky fingers into the manes of brown-and-white ponies trotting in a circle. Baton-twirlers and trumpets and American flags waltzing together down Main Street. And all foods maple, including the world-famous drizzlers: vanilla ice cream cones drizzled with real maple syrup and topped with a piece of maple sugar candy in the shape of a leaf. Patrick makes the mistake of asking me to hold his while he throws baseballs at milk bottles stacked in weighted pyramids.
“
Aaaand
we have a
winnerrrrr
!” a man shouts into the mic in a singsong carnival voice as I lick the last of Patrick’s ice cream from my fingers. “Pick out a prize for the beautiful girl.”
“For you,” Patrick says, kneeling in front of me with a moose in his outstretched hands.
I pull the stuffed animal to my chest. “Thank you. I shall love him always. I shall call him Holden Caulfield.”
“From the book?”
“Yes, from the book. You were reading it when I saw you my first day here.”
“You remember that?”
“It’s one of my favorite books,” I say.
“You were totally checking me out.”
“Patrick! Not in front of Holden Caulfield!” I cover the moose’s floppy ears with my hands, hoping neither he nor Patrick sees the red flooding my cheeks.
“Come on.” Patrick puts his arm around me and leads us toward the giant Ferris wheel. “It’s got the best view,” he says. “You can see the whole lake—remember?”
The last time I rode a Ferris wheel was here, eight summers ago. Spinning around in a circle, hundreds of feet in the air, suspended over the pavement in a rickety metal box with no walls or seat belts or parachutes… it was just like Mom and Jack remembered.
“Delilah, are you all right?” Patrick tries to uncurl my fingers from the so-called safety bar pressing loosely on the tops of our legs.
“Fine. I’m fine.” What was it Rachel said about deep cleansing breaths?
In… two… three. Out… two… three.
Patrick gives up on my china-white fingers and puts his arm around me. “The thing about seeing the best view in Red Falls is that you kind of have to open your eyes to do it.”
I laugh, forgetting my fear for a second but not long enough to open my eyes.
“Look. If we fall from here, at this speed and distance, we’ll be dead for sure. We won’t even feel it.”
“Well, when you put it like that…”
“Trust me, okay? We’re fine. Look, Holden Caulfield isn’t worried.”
I open my eyes and let out a deep breath, concentrating on Patrick’s arm protectively over my shoulders. With his free hand, he holds up the moose so I can inspect its sewed-on smile.
“Check it out.” Patrick points in front of us as the wheel crests the summit, stopping to let other riders board. Below, a throng of people winds and stretches its way up and down the fairway like a giant snake. I hear them squealing on the rides that spin and twirl and defy gravity. There’s music everywhere, and the smell of barbecue as men swing strongman hammers and kids lick pink-and-blue cotton candy from their fingertips.
Farther out, past the main crush of the carnival, Red Falls Lake shimmers beneath the late-day sun. We can see the town volunteers checking the fireworks setup on a huge, flat boat in the middle of the lake. Up here, we’re giants, locked into our steel cage while the ants work below and the seagulls hover and dive all around them.
“I think I can get a cool shot of us,” Patrick says, reaching for his cell phone. “But you have to lean this way a little. And keep your eyes open. And smile.”
I do as he says, keeping my hands on the safety bar but leaning back into him. He flips open the phone and snaps just before the wheel starts moving again, whirring us around and around and around until I can’t tell the difference between the afternoon sky and Red Falls Lake, both equally blue and beautiful and bright, almost close enough to touch.
Suspended at the top of the world with Patrick’s hand on my knee and Holden Caulfield tucked under my arm, I look out across the fairway and pretend that I can see Mom and Rachel from here. That they’re walking with Nana, pushing Papa in his wheelchair and looking up at me to take my picture. Rachel’s eating baby blue cotton candy. Papa is dropping curly fries into his mouth like long spaghetti noodles and Mom snaps the picture, waving with her free hand while she laughs and laughs and laughs.
The wheel whirls; the imaginary Hannafords disappear. But Patrick’s still here, watching me, both hands moving to my face as he closes his eyes and kisses me, our lips warm and maple-sweet and tangled up entirely for the rest of our descent.
After we ride all of the regular rides and half of the kiddie ones, after I eat my way up and down the fairway six times, after we visit Luna’s booth and help Emily hand out free drinks, after I lose most of my money on the water gun game and Patrick commissions a caricature drawing of us with Holden Caulfield, the sky begins to darken and we find a good fireworks-watching place overlooking the lake. When the show starts, the children of Red Falls run between the blankets, twirling glow-in-the-dark necklaces and squealing as the sky cracks and whistles and explodes, white lights popping into weeping willow starbursts.
“Those are my favorite,” I say. “They remind me of the trees. Remember when we used to hide under them?”
“The weeping willows? Yeah,” Patrick says. “I still do that sometimes. Just lie there and stare up into the branches. It’s another world up there.”
“I have an idea.” I stand and tug at him to follow me. We duck behind the crowds, behind the carts selling light-up silk roses and hot dogs and fried dough and more maple drizzlers. We curve around to the side of the lake and climb up a low hill until I find the huge weeping willow grove I spotted during last week’s kayaking misadventure.
“Here,” I say, pointing at the biggest tree in the grove. Its branches touch the ground like a big, soft parachute, round and puffed out around the trunk. “For old times.”
Patrick smiles and parts the branches for me, holding them aside until I pass through. I have to duck to fit beneath the outer layers, but inside, the branches open into a wide velvet canopy, lush and full and welcoming. The tumble of leaves muffles the crowd beyond, but there’s enough light from the festivities and fireworks to cast both of us in a pale, green-blue haze. Beneath the branches, I sit back against the trunk.
“That’s not how you do it,” Patrick says. “Remember? You lie back, like this.” He lies in the grass, stretching out with his hands behind his head. I copy him, giggling when our elbows bump and his foot falls into mine at the other end of us.
We lie side by side for a long time, the willow’s branches cascading down around us like long, wavy hair in a gentle breeze. It’s not cold, but I give myself over to a shiver, a gentle rolling that starts in my head and rumbles down through my heart, out my hands and feet. Patrick feels it and moves closer, his leg warm against mine. I keep my face toward the willow branches, trying to see all the way to the very top where the squirrels climb and the birds fly and the bright green leaves stretch to touch the sky. I feel him shift onto his elbow to face me, his hand drifting lazily to my hair. His fingers brush through it, lightly tracing my jaw and neck as I try to keep breathing, knowing and wanting more than my own life what will come next.
Patrick’s hand continues to follow the lines of my face as I close my eyes, his fingers running through my hair and onto my shoulders and back again, brushing the soft edges of my ears, my eyebrows, my cheeks. Soon, his touch is warm on my neck and collarbone, and when his fingers float across my lips, I open my eyes. He has to kiss me. He has to kiss me right now or I will die a thousand deaths in a thousand little firecracker explosions under the biggest weeping willow in all of Vermont.
I tug on his arm until he folds and crashes into me, kissing me soft and hard at the same time, both hands in my hair. Outside, the grand finale blazes on, booming and popping and whiz-banging in the sky: a temporary, explosive celebration of whatever temporary, explosive thing we have. Both beautiful and breathtaking and full of the white-hot, double-dare summer intensity that’s meant not for a lifetime, but for a short and shimmering burst.
As the final fireworks pop and whistle and sizzle down to the lake, we slowly unglue and lie back under the tree, me nuzzled against his chest while his hand rests under the blanket of my hair and everyone outside cheers, as if for us.
