Later that evening Leo and I are standing outside Teddy’s apartment.
“You know this is pretty much the last place I want to be right now, right?” I say, and Leo gives me an exasperated look.
“We have to make sure he’s okay.”
I frown at him. “We were in the same boat, you know. Literally.”
“I’m not talking about the boat,” he says as he lifts a hand to knock, and when Teddy opens the door he looks about as pleased as I am to find us there.
“What’re you guys doing here?”
“We knew it was taco night,” Leo says, waving to Katherine, who is slicing a tomato in the kitchen. She’s wearing her scrubs, and I know she’ll have to leave for work soon, which is just as well, since I’m still annoyed at Teddy for leaving me with the boat today and I don’t want to have it out with him while his mom is here.
“Perfect. I’m just making seconds before I go, since this one never stops eating,” Katherine says, nodding at Teddy. “So there’s plenty for everyone.”
Leo beams at her, and Teddy grudgingly steps aside to let us in, though he still refuses to meet my eye. We head over to the kitchen, grabbing extra plates and napkins, making ourselves busy so that we don’t have to talk about anything else.
I notice a pile of newspaper clippings on the counter, tucked beneath the napkin holder. The one on top shows Teddy’s smiling face under a headline that reads DREAMS REALLY DO COME TRUE. A speck of salsa has landed on his chin.
“I’m glad to see you dried out okay,” Katherine says to me, glancing up from the cutting board. “That was a tough race.”
Teddy doesn’t say anything and neither do I.
“If it was a race to the bottom of the pool, you guys would’ve killed it,” Leo says, but nobody laughs.
When she finishes refilling bowls of tomatoes and lettuce and cheese, Katherine wipes her hands on her scrubs and looks at each of us in turn. “You two are taking this way too hard,” she says. “It was a cardboard boat. What did you expect?”
“Maybe some help getting it out of the pool,” I say under my breath, and Teddy narrows his eyes at me.
“I came back for it. But what’s-his-face seemed to be doing just fine on his own.”
I glare at him. “That’s because you left me all alone in the water.”
“Oh, come on, it’s not like you were drowning.”
“Would you have noticed if I was?”
“I was pissed off, okay?” he says. “I just had to get out of there. We completely tanked in front of the whole school.”
“I know,” I say, practically spitting the words. “I was there too. Remember?”
Leo pops a tortilla chip into his mouth, looking half-amused by all of this. But Katherine claps her hands hard, and the noise of it startles us into silence.
“Okay,” she says firmly. “I think it’s time to change the subject.”
“Yeah,” Leo says with a grin. “That ship has definitely sailed.”
I give him a withering look.
“Leo,” Katherine says, spinning in his direction. “How was Michigan?”
All at once the smile slips from his face, replaced by the same blank expression he’s adopted whenever anyone has asked him about this since he got back.
“Fine,” he says.
Katherine tilts her head, waiting for more, and when it doesn’t come she pushes on. “It must’ve been nice to see Max.”
“Yup,” he says, suddenly intent on fishing a fallen chip out of the bowl of salsa.
“Okay, I have to get going,” she says, apparently giving up on us. She walks over and stands on her tiptoes beside Teddy, who bends so she can give him a kiss on the temple. “Last night shift.”
He smiles. “I’ve been telling you about this whole sleeping-when-it’s-dark-out thing for years,” he tells her. “I highly recommend it.”
“Thanks,” she says, laughing, then turns to me. “And thank you.”
The words are so full of gratitude that I blush. “Of course. I’m so happy for you.”
“It’s a big night,” she says as she picks up her bag. Then she fixes a stern gaze on Teddy. “Don’t stay up too late. And no wild parties. And don’t you dare buy anything bigger than a breadbox.” She rolls her eyes at Leo and me. “Did you guys see the ice cream maker? And the jukebox? I’m going to have nowhere to sleep if he doesn’t stop.”
“Mom,” Teddy groans.
“And listen,” she says, her voice more serious now. “Whatever went on with your father at the race today—”
“I already told you,” he says quickly. “It wasn’t that. He promised.”
Katherine sighs. “Teddy, your dad—he’s not a bad guy. But he’s also not the most—look, I get that you want to believe the best in him. I do. But I honestly don’t know if his promises are worth all that much.”
“This time is different,” Teddy insists.
“Maybe,” she says. “But I’m not sure he’s the best influence for you anyway. He’s a lot of fun to have around when there’s money falling from the sky, but…”
“Mom,” Teddy says. “It’s fine.”
Katherine nods, but she still doesn’t look convinced. “Well, if he does come by, just…I don’t know. Be careful, okay?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Just use good judgment. I know you love him. But don’t forget he can be really charming. A little too charming. And that makes it easy to lose sight of what he really wants, okay? So call if you need me.”
Teddy nods.
“I love you,” she says fondly, and he leans down to give her a hug.
“Love you too.”
When she’s gone he turns to us, clearly eager to move on. “Let’s eat before it gets cold,” he says, so we follow him over to the table, passing bowls of toppings in silence until the landline in the kitchen starts to ring. After a few seconds, the answering machine—which is ancient and hopelessly out-of-date—clicks on. If I didn’t know the reason, I’d be surprised Teddy hadn’t upgraded it yet. But there’s an old message on there from his dad, calling from Vegas a couple nights before everything fell apart to wish him luck in a basketball game. Once, when he thought I was asleep, I heard him play it from the next room and it just about killed me.
“Hi there, Mr. McAvoy,” says a nasally voice, “this is Errol Mitchell with Peak Performance Investments. I’m calling because I heard about your recent good fortune, and I’ve got some inside information about an opportunity that might be very interesting to you, but we’ve got to move fast. So give me a call and we’ll talk about your financial future. Congratulations!”
When it ends I look over at Teddy, who shrugs. “Happens all the time.”
“I thought you changed your number.”
“I did,” he says. “Twice.”
“And you still get calls?”
“Ten or twelve a day. More on my cell.”
Leo whistles. “Wow.”
“Yup,” Teddy says, carrying his plate over to the kitchen to get more food. As he walks by he punches a button to delete the message.
On the table Leo’s phone begins to jitter, and when he picks it up he freezes. I crane my neck to see the name on the screen: Max. When I look up again our eyes meet, and then Leo grabs the phone and scrapes back his chair.
“Be right back,” he mumbles, heading for Teddy’s bedroom. A minute later we hear the sound of the door clicking shut.
“Max?” Teddy asks from the kitchen.
I nod. “I don’t think they’ve talked since…”
“That’s a good sign, then,” Teddy says, walking over to the table. Outside it’s fully dark now, and I can see his reflection in the window. He’s wearing the same shirt he had on the morning after his birthday, the one with the lucky shamrock, and his hair is sticking up in the back the way it always does.
When he sits down across from me, his face is serious. “I’m sorry,” he says. “About today. And about our grade.”
I nod. It’s a relief to hear him say it—and even more than that, to know that he means it. “Thank you,” I tell him, and I mean that too. “It’ll be fine. I can’t imagine they’ll pull my acceptances on account of some soggy cardboard.”
He nods. “I really am sorry for leaving like that. I just needed to get out of there.”
“I know.”
“It was a lot, with my dad and the guys, then the boat too….It sort of felt like the whole place was laughing at me.”
“At us,” I correct, but he shakes his head.
“No, it was definitely me.” He puts his head in his hands and rakes his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know what’s happening. It felt like more than just razzing. It felt like they really hated me.” He looks lost right now, like all it took was a single afternoon to rattle so much of what he knows to be true. “How can they already hate me? I haven’t even done anything yet except give them stuff.”
I press my lips together, not sure what to say. Teddy’s always been insecure about money, and it’s obvious he assumed this windfall would change all that. But having too much money comes with its own set of problems.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he says, lowering his chin. “It just happened to me. So how could they possibly—”
“It’s because you’re different now.”
“What? No, I’m not.”
“You are,” I say. “Or you will be.”
“But nothing’s changed,” Teddy insists, his voice breaking on the last word. “Nothing important, anyway.”
“What happened to you…it makes you separate from them in a way.” I pause, chewing on my lip. “It happened to me after my mom died too, when we were still out in San Francisco.”
Teddy looks up sharply, surprised to be invited into this part of my life.
“One day I was like all my friends,” I say, trying to keep my voice even. “And the next I was the girl with the dead mother. Everyone tiptoed around me for a while, then they just kind of stopped playing with me. I’d come home crying every day and my dad thought it was because of my mom, which is it was, partly, but it was also because of what was happening at school, and I couldn’t tell him that, because it seemed so small in comparison, you know?”
He nods.
“But I kind of get it now. Everything was different, and they didn’t know how to act around me anymore.”
“That’s awful,” Teddy says darkly.
“Maybe. But that’s just how people are. It’s not really about you. It’s about them. So don’t let it get to you, okay?”
Teddy clears his throat. “I’m sorry your friends did that to you.”
“I was in third grade,” I say, waving this away. “I barely remember their names.”
“Yeah,” he says. “But still.”
After a moment I nod. “Still.”
He leans back in the chair, suddenly looking very tired. “I didn’t think it would be like this. I thought it would be more…”
“Fun?”
He nods.
“It was,” I say. “For a while. But there were always gonna be hard parts too.”
“See, I wish someone had told me that earlier,” he says with a wry smile. “Here I was thinking it was just gonna be bags of money and dreams coming true.”
“Money doesn’t fix everything.”
“I know,” he says, nodding, and then some of the light comes back into his eyes. “But it can fix some things.”
“Like what?”
“Well, it can be used for stuff like plane tickets and hotel rooms and—”
“Are you skipping town again?”
“Actually, yes,” he says with a grin. “And so are you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We’re going to San Francisco. Or, to be more accurate, we’re going to Palo Alto. To see Stanford.”
“You’re joking,” I say, staring at him hard, but he shakes his head.
“I’m not.”
“You’re serious?”
“I am.”
“You and me?”
“Me and you.”
“No way,” I say, letting out a laugh, half-surprised and half-confused.
Teddy’s eyes are dancing. “Look, I know you think I’ve gone a little too crazy with the money, and maybe you’re right. But I want to spend it on things I care about. On people I care about. And that means you. So hopefully this is okay.”
I’m not sure what to say. “Teddy—”
“You’ve had your heart set on Stanford forever, but you haven’t actually been there in a million years, and I really think you should see it again before you decide.”
I nod, slightly overwhelmed. The full impact of this is just starting to sink in, not only Teddy’s thoughtfulness but what it means to be going back to California after all this time, to return to a place with so many memories, so many ghosts.
“I was worried it might be too hard,” Teddy continues, speaking more carefully now, his forehead knit with concern. “Going back. But I figure you’ll have to do it at some point, and wouldn’t it be better if you had someone with you?”
“Much better,” I say gratefully, and he looks relieved.
“I already talked to Sofia and Jake, and they thought it was a great idea,” he says; then he pauses and the tips of his ears go red. “They just wanted to make sure we’d have separate hotel rooms, which we do. Really, really nice ones.”
I feel my face flush, so I ask the first question that comes to mind, eager to move on. “When are we going?”
“This weekend. You busy?”
“I am now,” I say, unable to stop smiling, because I can’t believe this is actually happening, that after all these years I’m finally going back to San Francisco, the city that still has such a grip on me—and not just that but I’ll be going with Teddy, the two of us alone together for an entire weekend. “What about Leo?”
“He knows too,” Teddy says, waving an arm toward the back of the apartment, where Leo is presumably still on the phone with Max. “He tried to weasel his way into it with some nonsense about wanting to see Alcatraz, but I promised I’d take him somewhere else once school’s out. This one is just you and me.” He hesitates, looking less certain. “Is that okay?”
“Yes,” I manage to say. “Of course. I don’t know how to thank you.”
“How about you promise to hate Stanford so you won’t be so far away next year?”
I laugh. “How about something else?”
“How about you let me give you a million bucks?”
“Try again.”
“How about you refill the salsa bowl?”
“You drive a hard bargain, McAvoy,” I say with a grin. “But you’ve got yourself a deal.”