CHAPTER 25
“Why don’t you call his teacher?” Cormac suggested. The waitress set a plate of nachos on the table, the cheese oozing down the mountain of tortilla chips like an orange mudslide.
“Good thinking. But aren’t the teachers gone for the summer?”
“Everyone’s reachable by e-mail.”
“Except me, apparently.”
“Jesus, Spin, why don’t you get a Gmail account or something? It couldn’t be easier.”
“Because I don’t want a fucking e-mail account, okay? I like my life spam-free.”
Cormac snorted a laugh. “You like your life complication-free.”
“Be honest. What guy doesn’t?”
Cormac took a long pull of his Sam Adams while he considered this. “Maybe most guys think they do, until they get to a certain age. Speaking of which . . . Chrissy?”
Sean lifted a shoulder dismissively.
“Hold the phone—Chrissy Stillman gets a shrug?”
Sean told him about Becky Bubble. Cormac wasn’t surprised. “I heard her say it once.”
“You’re kidding me. What’d you do?”
“Told her to knock it off. But what did she care? I wasn’t anyone she wanted to impress.”
“Why didn’t you say anything when I asked if I could bring her to dinner?”
“Because that was a lifetime ago, and hopefully she’s matured. Besides, what was I going to say—no? You’ve been in love with her your whole life.”
“Infatuated, maybe, not in love. I’ve never been in love with anyone.”
“Okay, tomato, tomahto. Whatever. You had it bad for her, and everyone knew it.”
Everyone including Becky, thought Sean. The realization stung, and he felt the shame of his thoughtlessness all over again.
“So that’s it?” asked Cormac. “Becky Bubble killed your crush?”
“I don’t know—I haven’t officially ended it or anything. But, I mean, Jesus. Becky Bubble? That’s pretty fucking cold.”
Cormac took another sip of his beer, but the smile on his lips made it hard for him to drink much. “Know what Barb said?”
“What?”
“She said, ‘If you go around telling people you’re an old soul—you aren’t.’ ”
Sean burst out laughing and clinked his bottle on Cormac’s. “Love that girl.”
“Back off,” said Cormac with a grin. “She’s all mine.”
* * *
The next day, Sean and Kevin were on the front porch playing five-card stud. Deirdre had taught Kevin the game, and it soon became clear that they’d played often enough for Kevin to get pretty good at it. Sean was happy to play, except it annoyed him that Deirdre had encouraged the use of a lot of wild cards. “I can barely keep track of what’s a real number and what could be any number!” he complained.
“Auntie Dee likes it. She says if you get dealt a bad hand, it gives you more of a shot.”
Sean was considering this when Chrissy pulled up. “Geez, she didn’t even call first.”
“Yeah, she did. You were in the bathroom.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I forgot. Plus I thought you’d be happy to see her.” Kevin gave a gooey look. “Like you always are.”
Sean flicked a card at him, and Kevin giggled. “Uh-huh,” he teased.
“Hey, there!” Chrissy called, strolling up the walk in a pair of tight jeans and a short T-shirt. “Couple of handsome gamblers up on the porch, I see.” Her straight white teeth gleamed.
“Hi, Chrissy,” said Sean.
“Hi,” said Kevin, with an equal lack of enthusiasm.
George picked up her head, ears cocked. She looked at Kevin, then back to Chrissy.
“And there’s my Georgie-girl. Come on over here and give me some lovin’, girlfriend.”
George stood, then looked at Kevin again, clearly confused about what to do. Sean stifled a smile, watching the world’s most cocksure dog have a moment of utter uncertainty. Kevin gave her a scratch behind the ears, and George lay her head on his lap.
“Look at that! She knows you’re in charge. Great job, Kevin,” said Chrissy, but her smile didn’t seem entirely genuine. “Want to go for a walk? I can give you some advanced tips.”
George looked at Kevin. Kevin looked at Sean. George started to whine. Kevin raised his eyebrows at Sean.
Sean nodded. “Why don’t you take George for a stroll by yourself?” Boy and dog rose as one and headed quickly off the porch.
Chrissy put her hand on her hip. “What’s this about, Sean?”
“Nothing,” he said. “I’m just not sure they need any more training.”
“I’m not dumb.” She gave the little head-wag eye-roll. “Something’s bothering you. Is it last week? Was I too forward?”
“No, not at all. I just . . . I don’t think we, uh . . . You’re great but . . .”
Oh, what the hell, he thought. “I heard something about you—something mean you said in high school. Repeatedly.”
“In high school? That was quite a while ago, Sean.”
“True. And yet it still really bothers me. Becky Feingold—you remember her.”
“No, I can’t say I do.”
“You called her Becky Bubble.”
Sean watched the realization dawn on her. “The shy girl with the face thing,” she said.
“Yeah, Chrissy, ‘the face thing.’ You teased her all through school about a congenital cranial defect. Even in high school, when you should’ve known better. You made her miserable.”
Chrissy’s eyes flicked back and forth, as if she were not only remembering, but seeing the misery. “I forgot about that,” she murmured. “It was pretty mean.”
“It was mean? That’s all you can say?”
“For godsake, Sean, I’m agreeing with you!” She was on the defensive now. “And I’m genuinely sorry—I wish I’d never said it. If anyone treated one of my girls like that, I’d go after them with a sand wedge. But it was twenty-five years ago! What’s the statute of limitations on name calling?”
She had a point, and Sean hesitated. How long can you hold someone accountable for something she did as a teenager? As he stared at her, pondering just exactly how much he could reasonably hate her, he watched her posture begin to slump, as if she were melting just a little.
Her body gave a sudden twitch. “God,” she muttered. Her eyes, utterly devoid of their signature perky gleam, flicked to Sean. “Do you ever get a glimpse of yourself—not the main part, but some horrible little corner—and you just feel sick?”
He wasn’t sure if he ever had. But her self-hatred, however momentary, softened the edges of his righteous anger.
“I was seriously bitchy sometimes,” she said. “But you have to believe I would never do anything like that now.”
“I’m sure you wouldn’t,” he conceded.
“We’ve all grown up, haven’t we?”
More or less, he thought.
“Can’t you give me another chance?”
How could he say no without seeming just as hard-hearted as she herself had once been? He nodded, and she came up on the porch to wait for Kevin to return. They talked, halting and careful at first, but then she made some little joke about her ex-husband and he found himself smiling, and the storm surge of his aversion to her began to recede a little.
Kevin and George rounded the curve of the street then, side by side, the leash slack between them, as if it were unnecessary, a mere accessory meant to make others feel more secure that the big shepherd-lab was under the control of a sensible human. Sean watched them, the loop of the leash hanging loosely from Kevin’s fingers, the dog stopping to sniff occasionally and then trotting to get back in stride with the skinny freckled boy.
A car went by. A man at the wheel. Thick neck and granite-gray hair, head turned toward the house. Sean’s glance shifted to him a nanosecond after the man turned away again. The car passed Kevin and George and continued up the road.