When I get back from seeing Rebecca at lunch, Neel has his earbuds in and is absentmindedly hauling plastic pots full of plants and trees from one side of the massive warehouse to the other, occasionally doing little dance moves that look kinda familiar but also not.
“What are you listening to?” I ask after he takes a bud out.
“Irving Berlin.” He grins and does a quick soft-shoe ending with the tip of an invisible hat. “He scored some of the greatest musicals of the early twentieth century.”
“Never heard of him.”
Neel lets his knees slightly buckle as though I’ve wounded him. “Here.” He presses the bud into my hand. “Listen to ‘The Best Things Happen When You’re Dancing’ and tell me you don’t feel a little bit like Danny Kaye.”
I shake my head again. “Who?”
“Amazing dancer and comedian.” He hurries my hand to my ear and then waits with barely suppressed excitement for my reaction.
My nod and half shrug don’t deflate him when I hand the bud back. “Yeah, it sounds like some of the movies my grandmother watches. Not exactly my thing.”
Neel snaps a finger and points it at me. “Rebecca used to say the same thing and now she loves Old Hollywood nearly as much as I do. I’ll start you with a playlist then give you a couple of movies to watch. You, my friend, are about to be singing a much better tune.”
If Rebecca’s as into it as he says then it can’t be that bad. “Sure, I’ll check it out.”
Neel grins. “Good man. Now go grab a plant and check the clipboard, will you? Eddie said to start hauling, but I don’t know how we’re supposed to be sorting them.” Then he’s off spinning with a potted tree and dipping it like it’s his dance partner.
I hesitate at the chart on a clipboard showing how we’re supposed to organize everything then glance up the stairs to where my grandparents have their respective offices. Through the big, windowed walls I can see my grandmother pacing with a phone clamped between her ear and shoulder while she frantically digs through a mess of papers on her desk. In contrast, my grandfather is sitting almost perfectly still at a drafting table, his hand moving a pencil in sure, steady motions across a sheet of tracing paper, flipping it back and down again as he compares it to another page beneath it.
I wonder if he’s designing anything like his backyard. I squint, but all I see are basic shapes. I could go up there and ask about the plant sorting Neel and I are supposed to be doing in order to get a closer look at his design, maybe even watch him working on it up close for a minute, but I can’t bring myself to take a step. We’ve barely spoken since I found out they hid my mom checking herself out of rehab—like I’m still a little kid—and I’m not in a hurry to change that no matter how curious I am.
So not only do I ignore the chart and start setting up groupings of my own, I get Neel to follow my instructions, passing them off as my grandfather’s.
Waxy leaves brush against my cheeks as I lower a poufy bush to the ground, careful not to crush any of its tiny golden flowers, and pull out my phone to text Rebecca.
Me:
Are we meeting by the pool tonight and then going somewhere?
She responds right away.
Rebecca:
Is that your way of asking what you should wear?
Me:
I don’t know...yes?
Rebecca:
All black and a ski mask.
I laugh a little too loudly.
“Hey.” Eddie snaps his fingers in front of my face, drawing my gaze away from my phone screen. “I’m not paying you to make phone calls.”
“Not paying him, Eddie,” Neel calls, grunting as he drops his pot. “You work here, same as us.”
“Shut up, Neel.” I get a surge of satisfaction when Eddie’s voice rises an uncontrolled octave before he can bring it back down again. “I can write you both up.”
I raise an eyebrow at Neel. “Can he?”
“Nope.” Neel’s voice echoes around the warehouse.
Eddie turns all kinds of red as his lips tighten over his teeth before barking out a pointless command to get back to work.
I take pity on the guy and wait till he’s gone before laughing.
My phone buzzes with another text from Rebecca.
Rebecca:
Come on, you knew that was a joke.
Rebecca:
Fine, I’m wearing a swimsuit. You should too. We can cool off and be suitably attired for my plan and your calls.
Even that indirect mention of my mom acts like a firing shot at a race and instantly my brain is off, churning up image after image of my mom on the stained carpet of our apartment because I wasn’t there to stop her when I should have been, and reshaping the memory so that she’s crumpled up on a new floor and this time no one comes, no one finds her, no one saves her and I have to watch helplessly as her breathing gets slower and slower until—
“No,” I breathe out, blinking hard and panting as hot fists pound against the inside of my ribs. I force my gaze to my phone, rereading Rebecca’s texts and urging new thoughts to chase away the old. Cool water, Rebecca in the pool, droplets clinging to her skin and the way her lips lift in a soul-warming smile at the sight of me.
It’s like I can feel it now.
My expression must shift from torment and fear to something more open and happy because Neel comes to a stop beside me.
“That’s what I need.” He gestures at my phone with his chin. “Is that your girl?”
“Just a friend.” I give Rebecca’s text one last glance, before repocketing my phone.
“Rebecca?”
That brings my head up.
Neel just shrugs. “You just got here. How many friends could you have?”
He’s got me there. I pretend to start counting on my fingers. “Well, there’s Eddie...”
Neel laughs.
Thinking our conversation is over, I bend down to lift the yellow-flowered bush again and head back to my last cluster only Neel walks with me.
“But you guys were close before?”
“Me and Rebecca?” I almost snort but hold it back. I can’t remember a single day here that she didn’t fill in one way or another. “Yeah, we were close.”
“But that was years ago. You were kids, right?”
I halt in the process of setting the pot next to a tall spindly tree. “Yeah. Kids.”
He nods. “Okay, just checking.” And then he turns, heading back to haul more plants.
It had been on the tip of my tongue to ask why he was so concerned, but I’m not an idiot—dumb but not an idiot, at least not about that. There’s definitely something going on there, or at least there was. So he likes her. Why shouldn’t he? Yeah, sure, things in her life are different now, she’s different, but not in a way that dims any of those vital parts of her, at least not that I can see. Can I blame Neel for seeing that too?
I glance over at Neel again, trying to imagine what Rebecca might see. Tall, with thick dark hair and matching deep-set eyes, slim and just this side of lanky but not an awkward bone in his body—even dancing with a plant he seems completely at ease in his own skin.
I’m not at ease with anything. And it’s not like I can offer her much. It’s the same as when we were kids and we both knew I could be gone at a moment’s notice. Except it’s almost worse this time because we’re both actively working toward me going away as soon as we can. Knowing I’d be leaving Rebecca was always the worst part of coming here, a phantom pain that promised to swoop in and nearly smother whatever happiness I felt from being reunited with my mom. It hasn’t even been a week and I already know this time is going to kill.
None of this makes Neel’s interest in Rebecca feel awesome.
“Who did this?”
I start at the sound of my grandfather’s voice and turn away from staring at the back of Neel’s head. His face is flushed as he walks through the stacks I’d arranged, jerking up a pot here and a pot there before realizing that nearly every one of them is misplaced.
Neel shoots me a sharp glance, and while I wouldn’t mind letting him share in the blame, my mouth has other ideas.
I wait for my grandfather’s stern expression to settle on my indifferent one and say, “That would be me.”