Saints of Augustine (17 page)

When he was finished, Melissa said, “Thank you.”

Sam almost laughed. “For what? Dumping all my problems in your lap?”

“For telling me. I feel really honored that you trust me.”

“I've always trusted you, Melissa. I was just, I don't know, uncomfortable.”

“No reason to be,” she said. “Please, someday I'll tell you what's
really
going on in my head, and you'll find out what a major weirdo I am.”

“Like I don't already know that.”

“It's why we get along so well, I guess. So what are you going to do about Justin?”

“Crawl under a rock and die,” Sam said.

“That won't exactly fix the situation.”

“There's nothing to fix. Besides, I can't even think about it right now. I just wanted to catch you up on things.”

“I'm glad you did. Hey, does this mean I've been demoted? Has Charlie moved back up to your best-friend slot?”

“I think I can have more than one of those,” he said, suddenly feeling very lucky.

After they had said good-bye, Sam sat, thinking. He suddenly smelled the ocean in his room. It took him a minute to realize it was coming from
him
, from having rolled around in the salt water with Charlie. His hair, when he reached up and touched it, felt stiff and dry.

He took a long, hot shower. He thought about everything that had happened and everything that Charlie had told him. So much of what they had confided in each other still seemed up in the air, unresolved.

Back in his room, he got dressed and dialed Charlie's number, surprised that he still had it memorized.

Mr. Perrin answered.

“Hi, Mr. Perrin. It's Sam. Findley.”

“Sam Findley,” Mr. Perrin said, as if he'd never heard the name before. And then, “Sam! How are you, Sam? I can't remember the last time I laid eyes on you. It must be, what, at least a year.”

“Not since—” Sam stopped himself. Then, remembering what he'd talked about with Charlie, he said gently but deliberately, “Not since before
Mrs. Perrin passed away. I was really sorry to hear about that. I always liked her.”

“Well.” Mr. Perrin cleared his throat. “Well,” he said again. “Mrs. Perrin always liked you, too, Sam.”

“I'm sorry for your loss.” Sam had no idea what was the
right
way to talk about someone who had died. But he thought he shouldn't shy away from it with Mr. Perrin. “She always seemed so happy with you and Charlie. She was a happy person, I mean. Anybody would be lucky to have such a good family.”
Okay
, he told himself,
shut up now.

But Mr. Perrin said, “You know what, Sam? I think you're right. She
was
happy. Sometimes I forget to be glad about that.” There was a heavy sadness in his voice. But he sounded almost glad to be talking about his wife. “I wish she were here now, she'd love to hear your voice. She always said you and Charlie were the kind of friends who would know each other for a lifetime.”

“Well, we're working on that. Is Charlie there?”

“Oh, of course, hold on a second.” Mr. Perrin's voice moved away from the phone. “Charlie! It's Sam!”

A few moments later, Charlie came onto the line. Sam heard the click of Mr. Perrin hanging up his extension. “What's up?” Charlie asked. “Did you survive your mom's wrath?”

“Yeah. It wasn't that bad, actually.”

Charlie said, “Right.”

“Okay, it was horrible. But I'm not dead, so that's a good sign, right?”

“I guess so. You told her?”

“Well, I didn't exactly have to, did I?” He gave Charlie some of the highlights of the conversation with his mom, then told him about how Teddy was, at least for the moment, out of the picture.

“That's a saving grace,” Charlie said.

“I'm just glad he wasn't here when I got back this morning. Did you tell your dad about what happened to the car?”

“
No
. He hasn't been outside or even looked out the front window, though, so it hasn't come up.”

“Good.”

“He'll notice it tomorrow for sure, because I'll have to move the VW so we can get the Buick out. We're going to the cemetery to visit my mom's grave.”

“Really? How did you manage that?”

“I basically just told him we were going to do it. Isn't that weird? I said, ‘Let's drive out to the cemetery tomorrow,' and he said, ‘I don't think so, Charlie.' So I said, ‘
I
think so. I want to. I want to put some flowers on Mom's grave.' Then I said I'd go by myself if he didn't want to go with me. He got really quiet for a while. Then he said, ‘All right, let's go.' It was that easy. I felt like I was putting my foot down, but I'd never just
asked
him before. I kept waiting for him to ask me.”

“What are you going to tell him about your car?”

“That one I haven't figured out yet.”

“Well, if you want, we can ride out to the junkyard together and try to dig up some taillights. Only I can't do it till Saturday, because I'm grounded.”

“You got grounded? For making out with what's his name—Justin?”

“No! Strangely enough, it wasn't for that. It was for staying out all night.”

“Lucky you, I guess. My dad didn't even notice I wasn't here. He slept the whole night through.”

“Lucky
me
? I'd rather be in your shoes.” Sam
remembered, then, why he'd called. “Listen, remember that money you owe Derrick Harding?”

Charlie grunted into the phone. “Like I could forget it.”

“You're going to fight me on this, but I'm not going to take no for an answer. I have at least that much sitting in the bank.”

“So?”

“So take it! Get this creep off your back.”

“No,” Charlie said firmly. “I'll work this out on my own.”

“Save the macho act. It's me you're talking to. I've been working all summer, basically getting paid to be out of the house and away from Teddy—who isn't even around now. Seriously, I have more than enough socked away. What am I going to do with it? Buy three iPods? I don't need it right now, so you should take it.”

“No way.
Thanks
, but no way. I need to be responsible for my own actions.”

“Charlie, this makes complete sense. Who knows what this guy's going to do the next time he comes around for a payment? For all you know, he could
come back this afternoon. If you want, you can consider it a loan and pay me back over the next year. But really, if you do this, you'll erase Derrick Harding from your life in a heartbeat.”

“Sam, this isn't your problem.”

“I know that. And it won't be a problem for me to lend you the money, either.”

There was a long pause. Sam heard Charlie breathing through the phone line. Finally, Charlie said, “I'd want to pay you interest.”

“You're so macho. Fine. Pay me interest. Pay me whatever interest the bank would pay me, if I left it sitting there. How's that?”

“Well…thanks.”

“Don't thank me. Or if you
have
to thank me somehow, just so you can sleep at night, you can come over and clean my room once a week.”

“I'm not touching
that
pigsty.”

“How soon they lose their gratitude,” Sam said with an affected air. “Have you talked to Kate?”

“About what? She dumped me. I told you that.”

“I know. I was just wondering if you'd tried to do a little—”

“Damage control? I don't know if there's any hope of that at this point. She thinks I'm a total drug addict.”

“Well, you're not. And she's a smart person, right? Isn't she in, like, every brainiac club in the school?”

“Practically.”

“So she's smart enough to know you screwed up. Everybody screws up now and then. Tell her you've gotten your act together.”

“It would take more than that. I'd have to prove it to her. She's a mondorealist, and she'd want hard evidence.”

“So prove it. You can't do that?”

“Of course I can do that. The questions is, is she still even interested?”

“You won't know until you try.”

“You're a little bossy, you know that? I think this was easier when you were all insecure and crushin' on me and I was oblivious.”

“Those days are long gone, my friend.” Sam was on a roll. It was fun talking to Charlie like this. He felt like
he
was teaching him how to make a particular shot on the basketball court. “It's all about the
now. You line up for your best shot, and you take it. Nothing but net. Woosh.”

“Or swish, in your case.”

“The interest on your loan just went up.”

“Hey! I was kidding! Can't I kid you about this, or is it off limits?”

“You can kid me,” Sam said. “I may have to kick your ass at some point, but you can kid me.”

“Good luck with that one, Findley. So are you going to call this guy again, or what?”

“Who? Justin? I'm too mortified to even think about that.”

“You ought to call him. You're going to be seeing him in school in a couple of weeks, and think how weird
that's
going to be if you haven't talked since last night.”

“You and I managed not to say a word to each other at school for a whole year.”

“Yeah, and it wasn't exactly a joyride, was it? Not for me, anyway. Call him. I know you like this guy a lot.”

“Yeah. He's great. But I can't call him, Charlie. It's just too embarrassing.”

“So e-mail him. It's perfect: If he wants to respond, he'll respond. If he doesn't, then at least you'll know it's because he didn't want to.”

“Maybe.” Sam wanted to change the subject. “So—the junkyard on Saturday?”

“Sounds good.”

“It's great, you know, just talking to you. I'm actually glad all this crap happened, if it means we're friends again.”

“Same here,” Charlie said. “You make a rotten ex-friend.”

“Thanks. I'll take that as a compliment.”

After they hung up, Sam got dressed. He still felt tired from having been up all night, so he lay down on his bed to take a nap. But he couldn't fall asleep. His mind leapfrogged from Justin to Teddy, from Teddy to his mom, from his mom to Charlie, to his dad, to Melissa…to Justin. There was no harm in just sitting down at the computer, right? Click around on the keyboard, see what happened. Whatever he typed never had to leave the room.

He opened Justin's last e-mail and clicked reply.

So
, he typed,
I'm the biggest jerk on the planet.

He deleted this. He stared at the screen for a moment, then typed,
I know you probably think I'm the biggest jerk on the planet. If you'll do me the favor of just reading to the end of this e-mail, I'll be grateful no matter what you decide I am.

Better, he thought. Less pathetic, anyway. More direct. He rested his fingers on the keyboard and tried to relax his mind and focus on what he really wanted to say.

He deleted the word
it
and typed
being gay
.

He read it over three times. He changed a few words, but the message stayed the same. He might run it by Melissa, see what she thought. He could even run it by Charlie, if he felt like it, and the fact that both of these things were options made it seem as if the windows and the door to his room had all been thrown wide open—in a good way. It was a strange feeling. But what if Justin deleted it without even reading it? Wouldn't that just add more embarrassment to the situation? Wouldn't it be better just to cut his losses on this one, and move on?