In Honor (16 page)

Celia was about to say something else but noticed me and crossed the kitchen in about two steps, then stood looking me over, shaking her head. “Oh, Honor darlin’, look at you all grown. You’re every bit as beautiful as your mama was.”

I looked down at my toes on the wood floor, a mix of self-conscious and happy at the comparison. “Thank you, ma’am,” I said, looking up into her hazel eyes. “You look just the same as I remember you.” And she did, with her long curly hair and olive skin that made her look more like she could be Rusty’s sister than his mother.

She waved a dismissive hand, then smiled as she brought it to my arm. “Aw, sweetie, I’m just happy you’re here. Happy Rus went down there after you. I knew it would work out for the best.” My eyes went straight to Rusty, but he didn’t meet them, and Celia’s sentence hung there in the space between us.

She gave my arm a pat, then turned her attention to the pan on the stove, which was starting to smoke. “Oh, lord!” she said, hurrying over to it.

Went down there after me?

Rusty still wouldn’t meet my eyes. I looked to Celia, about to ask her what she meant, but she was too busy fussing over the pan that was now filling the room with putrid-smelling smoke.
Went down there after me . . .
For what? And how did she know that? And why wouldn’t Rusty even look at me?

The contents of the pan crackled, then ignited. Celia jumped back with a shriek. Rusty was on his feet and across the kitchen in one quick motion. He grabbed the handle of the pan, threw it in the sink, and spun the faucet on, sending a hiss of steam up like a rocket. I sat glued to my chair in the little swirl of chaos, absorbed by question after question and the unsettling feeling that everyone here knew more than me about something.

Just then, Bru stepped into the kitchen all showered up and smelling like patchouli oil. Enough to compete with the pungent burning smell that now blanketed the room. He took the situation in like it was nothing out of the ordinary, grabbed a set of keys hanging on the hook by the door, and said simply, “I’ll go get the pizza, then. Combo okay for everybody?”

I nodded, eyeing Rusty across the kitchen. He smiled at Bru. “That’ll be fine.”

Celia blew a loose curl off her forehead, smoothed her dress, then smiled a thank-you at him. “You’re the best, baby. I don’t know what went wrong that time, but one of these days I’ll get this whole cooking thing, I will,” she said, wiping her hands with a dish towel.

Bru walked over and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. “Hopefully I’ll live to see it.” He put his hat on and looked from me to Rusty. “Anybody need anything else while I’m out?”

We were all quiet.

“Okay, then. I’ll be back in time for the star show.”

17

The “star show,” as Bru called it, was enough to make me forget everything else the moment I looked at the sky. When he got home with the pizza, he herded us all out onto the deck. It jutted out over the side of the mountain and left the impression we were floating between the valley and the stars. We settled around a circular wooden table lit by a single candle so we’d have enough light to see, but not so much that it drowned out the light of the falling stars that streaked fast across the sky every few seconds.

“They’re called the Perseids,” Bru said through a mouthful of pizza. “Because they all look like they come from Perseus up there.” I remembered Perseus from English. He was the one who killed Medusa and saved Andromeda and tamed Pegasus—all these impossible things that made him the kind of legend that got his own constellation. Another faint tail of light skimmed over the mountaintops, and I tried to trace its path back to the bigger-than-life hero in the sky.

“All these shooting stars come from the same place?” I asked, searching for the next one.

“Yes and no,” Bru answered. He set his slice of pizza down. “They’re not really stars, but they do come from the same place. It’s a big ol’ cloud of comet dust. Little bits of rock and ice no bigger’n the grains of sand on the beach.”

I considered this as two more, fainter than the ones before, etched barely visible lines across the black of the sky. It didn’t seem possible that something so tiny could make light that we could see all the way down here.

“Just beautiful,” Celia whispered.

Rusty leaned forward, elbows on the table, and said exactly what I was thinking. “I don’t understand.”

Bru thought about it for a second, then turned to face us. “Without gettin’ too tricky, it’s like this. Every August, the earth’s orbit crosses this cloud of debris left behind by a comet that swung by years ago. When those little bits hit our atmosphere and burn up, they put on quite a light show.”

I glanced at Rusty and wondered if that’s what we were—the little bits left behind to burn up and fall after the bright streak of a comet had come and gone. We’d definitely put on a show the last two days.

We sat eating in silence for a little while, watching the pieces of comet dust flare up and rain down delicate white light. When the box was empty but for one last slice, Bru leaned back in his chair, patting his round little belly. “Somebody’s got to finish that off, and it shouldn’t be me. Honor . . . Cece?”

“No, thank you,” I said. Celia shook her head.

“Rusty?”

“Nah, I’m full.” He stretched his arms above his head and yawned. “And I gotta go to bed soon. I wanna be up early to work on the car.” He glanced over at me. “We’re on a deadline here.”

Bru leaned forward and grabbed the piece of pizza. “I can help you out with it after I get back from my a.m. tour. I’ll be back early. Some crazy tourist lady booked a
sunrise
Vortex tour. Which means I gotta get up at four to get the jeep ready.”

“Bru does jeep tours around the mountains here,” Celia explained. She reached around the table for our empty paper plates and unused packets of parmesan cheese and pepper flakes. “The Vortex tours are his most popular ones.”

“Vortex?” I asked.

Rusty leaned his head back on the chair and put his face to the sky. “Oh, damn, here we go. Thought we already had our cosmic lesson for the night.”

Bru turned his attention to me, ignoring him. “A vortex,” he began in his teacherly kind of tone, “is basically a spot where you can feel the energy the earth gives off,” he said, crunching his last bite of pizza crust. “But amplified. For reasons we don’t really know about. The Indian tribes around here found ’em and used ’em for all their spiritual ceremonies. And now people visit them for all different reasons—meditation, peace, clarity . . . what have you.”

He wiped his mouth with a napkin but missed a few crumbs that fell to his beard, and I tried not to watch them move up and down as he talked. “The spots affect everyone different, just depends on what you’re there for and how open you are to it.” Rusty snorted, but Bru went on unfazed. “They’re all over around here, around the whole world, actually, but you gotta know how to find ’em, and that’s where I come in.”

“So, you take people up to these spots . . . and then what?” I asked. He said it all so matter of factly, I was genuinely curious. Men who wore turquoise jewelry and talked about the earth’s energy weren’t exactly common in Big Lake, where oil and football were at the top of the accepted list of conversation topics.

“And then they pay him a lot of money and say they’re enlightened,” Rusty answered.

Bru chuckled. “I don’t know about
a
lot
of money, but some of ’em do come back with the insight they were looking for.”

I nodded like I understood, but I was still a little hazy on how it was supposed to work. Bru waved his hand. “Anyway, that’s just work stuff. When I’m done with that, we’ll get to work on your car, so don’t you worry about it.” He stood and patted me firmly on the shoulder. “We’ll get her all fixed up tomorrow, and you can be on your way.”

“Thank you,” I said. “I appreciate it.” And I really did. He had a calm about the way he spoke that was reassuring all on its own.

“Sure thing,” Bru said with a wink. “See y’all in the mornin’.” He pushed himself out of his chair with a grunt, then leaned down and gave Celia another kiss on the cheek and shuffled back into the house, leaving the three of us out there in the cool night air with comet dust falling all around.

After a moment when we were all quiet, I turned to Celia. “Have you gone to one of those places? The vortexes?”

She smiled a warm, soft smile. “I have. They’ve helped me work through a lot of things in my life. Met Bru at one of them, as a matter of fact. That’s a story for another night, though.” She leaned her head back and sighed. Then, after a long moment, said, “We should probably all be getting to bed soon. You two must’ve had a long day. Probably could use the rest.” Neither of us said anything, and I wondered if it had seemed as long to Rusty as it had to me. Watching the sunrise with Wyatt, the fight with Rusty afterward, the monsoon and the car crash, all of it felt like years packed into the space of a day.

Celia lay a soft hand over mine, and I could see out the corner of my eye she put her other one on Rusty’s. She breathed in deep and closed her eyes, chin lifted up to the starry sky, and the glow from the candle made her long, soft curls shine gold. “I think that car breaking down on you is a sign,” she said dreamily. Rusty shifted in his seat, but she kept her hand on his. “I mean it. I think the two of you are supposed to be here together right now, sharing this.”

I glanced over at Rusty, curious if he thought it was crazy, what she’d just said. And also kind of wondering if I was a little crazy for liking that she’d said it.

“Don’t get started with all your New Age crap,” he said, drawing his hand away. “We’re supposed to be to the California state line by now.”

Celia sat up. “I’m sorry, honey. It just came out.” She turned to me. “Rus doesn’t like it when I talk like that. Doesn’t believe in his own mama’s intuition. But I tell you what—some things are so true you can feel ’em right here.” She put her hand to her chest. “And that’s one of ’em. You two are meant to be in this together. Here.”

She nodded to herself, then her hand went from her chest to my arm. “Which reminds me, Honor, I think it’s just perfect that you’re taking those tickets Finn gave you and going to see Kyra Kelley. I’m sure he would’ve wanted you to.”

I shot a
thanks a lot
look over at Rusty, but Celia didn’t seem to notice. She was too excited right then, her hands all aflutter as she spoke. “Have you been reading about what she’s going through, with her boyfriend cheatin’ on her and her manager stealing from her and all? That is a girl who needs someone genuine in her life right now!” I looked from Celia to Rusty, who was leaned back into the shadows, trying to hide a smirk. Celia hopped up from her chair. “Matter of fact, I just read an article about her that you need to read for yourself—it was all about how she’s at this complete crossroads in her life right now, you know, looking for the right path to take. A lot like you, probably, and . . . I’ll just go and get it.” Without waiting for a response, she disappeared through the sliding glass door into the house.

I sighed at Rusty, who still hadn’t said anything from across the table. “You
told
her about Kyra Kelley?”

“What was I supposed to say we were doin’ here?”

“I don’t know,” I shot back. “Apparently we’re
supposed
to be here. Earlier, she seemed to think you went home to get me.” I looked at him straight on. “Is that true?”

Rusty stayed quiet, and out of nowhere something in me felt close to breaking down. I looked to the sky for the next shooting star, hoping it might quiet the confusion in my head, but nothing came, and my eyes landed right back on Rusty.

“I don’t understand,” I said. “I don’t understand why she’s acting like you came home to get me, or why you would in the first place, because . . .” I paused to breathe, a last grasp at composure before I went on and said what had been in the back of my mind since he showed up in my driveway. “Because the day Finn enlisted, you were so mad at him, and hurt. And I understood. You guys . . . you had it all laid out in front of you—football and college, and you lost all that when he changed his mind. But . . .”—I fumbled with the words on the tip of my tongue before I finally got them out—“but you seemed like you hated
me
for what he decided, like it was
my
fault, and I . . .” I dropped my eyes to a crack in the wood of the table. “I never understood that. At all.”

Silence stretched out heavy and hung in the air above us a long time before Rusty spoke. “I never hated you, H.” The words were there, but there wasn’t a whole lot of reassurance behind them.

I traced the crack in the table, afraid if I looked at him, I’d cry. He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “I’ve been here since my mom showed up at practice a couple weeks ago and told me Finn was dead. We’ve been talkin’ about a lot of things, and you were one of them.”

I felt his eyes on me and met them for a second before looking away again.

“My dad called her with the news about Finn, and she drove over and found me at practice,” he said. “As soon as I saw her there I knew it was something. And when she said the words, I just left, just walked off the field and came down here with her to stay awhile.” I watched out the corner of my eye as he chewed on his lip for a second and said more to the table than me, “I didn’t wanna go back home at first. Didn’t wanna go to his funeral, you know? ’Cuz that would mean it was true—that he was really gone, and I . . .”