The Truth About Forever (13 page)

"Okay," Wes said under his breath. "Watch and learn."

"Right," I said.

We were at the Lakeview Inn, finishing up appetizers for a retirement party, and Wes and I were in the coat closet, where he was teaching me the art of the gotcha. I'd been sent by a woman to hang up her wrap and found him there, perfectly positioned and silent, lying in wait.

"Wes?" I'd said, and he'd slid a finger to his lips, gesturing for me to come closer with his other hand. Which I'd done, unthinkingly, even as I felt that same fluttering in my stomach I always felt when I was around Wes. Even when we weren't in an enclosed, small space together. Goodness.

In the next room, I could hear the party: the clinking of forks against plates, voices trilling in laughter, strains of the piped-in violin music that the Lakeview Inn had played at my sister's wedding as well.

"Okay," Wes said, his voice so low I would have leaned closer to hear him if we weren't already about as close as we could get. "It's all in the timing."

An overcoat that smelled like perfume was hanging in my face: I pushed it aside as quietly as possible.

"Not now," Wes was whispering. "Not now… not now…"

Then I heard it: footsteps. Muttering. Had to be Bert.

"Okay…" he said, and then he was moving, standing up, going forward, "now.
Gotcha
!"

Bert's shriek, which was high pitched to the point of ear-splitting, was accompanied by him flailing backwards and losing his footing, then crashing into the wall behind him. "God!" he said, his face turning red, then redder as he saw me. I couldn't really blame him: there was no way to be splayed on the floor and still look dignified. He said, sputtering, "That was—"

"Number six," Wes finished for him. "By my count."

Bert got to his feet, glaring at us. "I'm going to get you so good," he said darkly, pointing a finger at Wes, then at me, then back at Wes. "Just you wait."

"Leave her out of it," Wes told him. "I was just demonstrating."

"Oh no," Bert said. "She's part of it now. She's one of us. No more coddling for you, Macy."

"Bert, you've already jumped out at her," Wes pointed out.

"It's on!" Bert shouted, ignoring this. Then he stalked down the hallway, again muttering, and disappeared into the main room, letting the door bang shut behind him. Wes watched him go, hardly bothered. In fact, he was smiling.

"Nice work," I told him, as we started down the hallway to the kitchen.

"It's nothing," he said. "With enough practice, you too can pull a good gotcha someday."

"Frankly," I said, "I'm a little curious about the derivation of all this."

"Derivation?"

"How it started."

"I know what it means," he said. For a second I was horri-fied, thinking I'd offended him, but he grinned at me. "It's just such an SAT word. I'm impressed."

"I'm working on my verbal," I explained.

"I can tell," he said, nodding at one of the Lakeview Inn valets as he passed. "Truthfully, it's just this dumb thing we started about a year ago. It pretty much came from us living alone in the house after my mom died. It was really quiet, so it was easy to sneak around."

I nodded as if I understood this, although I couldn't really picture myself leaping out at my mother from behind a door or potted plant, no matter how perfect the opportunity. "I see," I said.

"Plus," Wes continued, "there's just something fun, every once in a while, about getting the shit scared out of you. You know?"

This time I didn't nod or agree. I could do without scares, planned or unplanned, for awhile. "Must be a guy thing," I said.

He shrugged, pushing the kitchen door open for me. "Maybe," he said.

As we walked in, Delia was standing in the center of the room, hands pressed to her chest. Just by the look on her face, I knew something was wrong.

"Wait a second," she said. "Everyone freeze."

We did. Even Kristy, who normally ignored most directives, stopped what she was doing, a cheese biscuit dangling in midair over her tray.

"Where," Delia said slowly, taking a look around the room, "are the hams?"

Silence. Then Kristy said, her voice low, "Uh-oh."

"Don't say that!" Delia moved down the counter, hands suddenly flailing as she pulled all of the cardboard boxes we'd lugged in closer to her, peering into each of them. "They have to be here! They have to be! We have a
system
now!"

And we did. But it was new, only implemented since the night before, when, en route to a cocktail party, it became apparent that no one had packed the glasses. After doubling back and arriving late, Delia had used her current pregnancy insomnia to compile a set of checklists covering everything from appetizers to napkins. We were each given one, for which we were wholly responsible. I was in charge of utensils. If we were lacking tongs, it was all on me.

"This is not happening," Delia said now, plunging her hands into a small box on the kitchen island hardly big enough for half a ham, let alone the six we were missing. "I remember, they were in the garage, on the side table, all ready to go. I
saw
them."

On the other side of the kitchen door, I could hear voices rising: it was getting more crowded, which meant soon they'd be expecting dinner. Our menu was cheese biscuits and goat cheese toasts to start, followed by green bean casserole, rice pilaf, rosemary dill rolls, and ham. It was a special request. Apparently, these were pork people.

"Okay, okay, let's just calm down," Delia said, although rustling through the plastic bags full of uncooked rolls with a panicked expression, she seemed like the only one really close to losing it. "Let's retrace our steps. Who was on what?"

"I was on appetizers, and they're all here," Kristy said, as Bert came through the swinging door from the main room, an empty tray in his hand. "Bert. Were you on ham?"

"No. Paper products and serving platters," he said, holding the one in his hand up as proof. "Why? Are we missing something?"

"No," Delia said firmly. "We're not."

"Monica was on ice," Kristy said, continuing the count. "Macy was utensils, and Wes was glasses and champagne. Which means that the ham belonged to—" She stopped abruptly. "Oh. Delia."

"What?" Delia said, jerking her head out of a box filled with loaves of bread. "No, wait, I don't think so. I was on—"

We all waited. It was, after all, her system.

"Main course," she finished.

"Uh-oh," Bert said.

"Oh God!" Delia slapped a hand to her forehead. "I did have the hams on the side table, and I remember being worried that we might forget them, so while we were packing the van I put them—"

Again, we all waited.

"On the back of my car," Delia finished, placing her palm square in the middle of her forehead. "Oh, my God," she whispered, as if the truth, so horrible, might deafen us all, "they're still at the house. On my car."

"Uh-oh," Bert said again. He was right: it was a full thirty minutes away, and these people were expecting their ham in ten.

Delia leaned back against the stove. "This," she said, "is awful."

For a minute, no one said anything. It was a silence I'd grown to expect when things like this happened, the few seconds as we accepted, en masse, the crashing realization that we were, in fact, screwed.

Then, as always, Delia pushed on. "Okay," she said, "here's what we're going to do…"

So far, I'd done three jobs with Wish since that first one, including a cocktail, a brunch, and a fiftieth-anniversary party. At each, there was one moment—an old man pinching my butt as I passed with scones; the moment Kristy and I collided and her tray bonked me in the nose, showering salmon and crudites down my shirt; the time when Bert had hit me with another gotcha, jumping out from behind a coat rack and sending the stacks of plates I was carrying, as well as my blood pressure, skyrocketing—when I wondered what in the world I'd been thinking taking this on. At the end of the night, though, when it was all over, I felt something strange, a weird calmness. Almost a peace. It was like those few hours of craziness relaxed something held tight in me, if only for a little while.

Most of all, though, it was fun. Even if I was still learning things, like to duck when Kristy yelled, "Incoming!" meaning she had to get something—a pack of napkins, some tongs, a tray—across a room so quickly that only throwing it would suffice, or never to stand in front of swinging doors, ever, as Bert always pushed them open with too much gusto, without taking into consideration that there might be anything on the other side. I learned that Delia hummed when she was nervous, usually "American Pie," and that Monica never got nervous at all, was in fact capable of eating shrimp or crab cakes, hardly bothered, when the rest of us were in total panic mode. And I learned that I could always count on Wes for a raised eyebrow, an under-the-breath sarcastic remark, or just a sympathetic look when I found myself in a bind: no matter where I was in the room, or what was happening, I could look over at the bar and feel that someone, at least, was on my side. It was the total opposite of how I felt at the library, or how I felt anywhere else, for that matter. Which was probably why I liked it.

But then, after the job was over and the van packed up to go home, after we'd stood around while Delia got paid, everyone laughing and trading stories about grabbers and gobblers and grandmas, the buzz of rushing around would wear off. As I'd begin to remember that I had to be at the library the next morning, I could feel myself starting to cross back to my real life, bit by bit.

"Macy," Kristy would say, as we put the last of the night's supplies back in Delia's garage, "you coming out with us tonight?"

She always extended the invitation, even though I said no every time. Which I appreciated. It's nice to have options, even if you can't take them.

"I can't," I'd tell her. "I'm busy."

"Okay," she'd say, shrugging. "Maybe next time."

It went like that, our own little routine, until one night when she squinted at me, curious. "What do you do every night, anyway?" she'd asked.

"Just, you know, stuff for school," I'd told her.

"Donneven," Monica said, shaking her head.

"I'm prepping for the SATs," I said, "and I work another job in the mornings."

Kristy rolled her eyes. "It's
summertime"
she told me. "I mean, I know you're a smarty-pants, but don't you ever take a break? Life is long, you know."

Maybe, I thought. Or maybe not. Out loud I said, "I just really, you know, have a lot of work to do."

"Okay," she'd said. "Have fun. Study for me, while you're at it. God knows I need it."

So while at home I was still fine-just-fine Macy, wiping up sink splatters immediately and ironing my clothes as soon as they got out of the dryer, the nights when I arrived home from catering, I was someone else, a girl with her hair mussed, a stained shirt, smelling of whatever had been spilled or smeared on me. It was like Cinderella in reverse: if I was a princess for my daylight hours, at night I let myself and my composure go, just until the stroke of midnight, when I turned back to princess again, just in time.

The ham disaster was, like all the others, eventually averted. Wes ran to the gourmet grocery where Delia was owed a favor, and Kristy and I just kept walking through with more appetizers, deflecting all queries about when dinner was being served with a bat of the eyelashes and a smile (her idea, of course). When the ham was finally served—forty-five minutes late—it was a hit, and everyone went home happy.

It was ten-thirty by the time I finally pulled into Wildflower Ridge, my headlights swinging across the town common and into our cul-de-sac, where I saw my house, my mailbox, everything as usual, and then something else.

My dad's truck.

It was in the driveway, right where he'd always parked, in front of the garage, left-hand side. I pulled up behind it, sitting there for a second. It
was
his, no question: I would have known it anywhere. Same rusty bumper, same eat… sleep… fish bumper sticker, same chrome toolbox with the dent in the middle from where he'd dropped his chainsaw a few years earlier. I got out of my car and walked up to it, reaching out my finger to touch the license plate. For some reason I was surprised that it didn't just vanish, like a bubble bursting, the minute I made contact. That was the way ghosts were supposed to be, after all.

But the metal handle felt real as I pulled open the driver's side door, my heart beating fast in my chest. Immediately, I could smell that familiar mix of old leather, cigar smoke, and the lingering scent of ocean and sand you carry back with you from the beach that you always wish would last, but never does.

I loved that truck. It was the place my dad and I spent more time together than anywhere else, me on the passenger side, feet balanced on the dashboard, him with one elbow out the window, tapping the roof along with the beat on the radio. We went out early Saturday mornings to get biscuits and drive around checking on job sites, drove home from meets in the dark, me curled up in that perfect spot between the seat and window where I always fell asleep instantly. The air conditioner hadn't worked for as long as I'd been alive, and the heat cranked enough to dehydrate you within minutes, but it didn't matter. Like the beach house, the truck was dilapidated, familiar, with its own unique charm: it
was
my dad. And now it was back.

I eased the door shut, then went up to the front door of my house. It was unlocked, and as I stepped inside, kicking off my shoes as I always did, I could feel something beneath my feet. I crouched down, running my finger over the hardwood: it was sand.

"Hello?" I said, then listened to my voice bounce around our high ceilings back to me. Afterwards, nothing but silence.

My mother was at the sales office, had been there since five. I knew this because she'd left a message around ten on my cell phone, telling me. Which meant that either sometime in the last five hours my father's truck had driven itself from the coast, or there was another explanation.