Along for the Ride Page 16

  Maggie smiled as he dropped the dogs back into the bag, twisting it shut. ‘It’s been a long time since the last hotdog party,’ she said. ‘What’s the occasion?’

  ‘The housewarming party we forgot to have two months ago when we moved in,’ he said. ‘Plus, it’s been a while, you know? It just seemed like maybe it was time.’

  ‘Is Eli coming?’ Esther asked.

  ‘He’s invited,’ Adam said. ‘So we’ll see.’

  Maggie turned to me, saying, ‘The hot-dog party was one of Abe’s big traditions. He used to have them every Saturday at Eli’s and his place. Hot dogs, baked beans…’

  ‘… potato chips for the vegetable,’ Leah said.

  ‘And Popsicles for dessert. He called it the perfect summer meal.’ Maggie reached up, twisting one of her curls around her finger. ‘He and Eli always bought all the stuff in bulk at Park Mart, so they could have one at a moment’s notice.’

  ‘IHDP,’ Esther said. When I raised my eyebrows, she added, ‘Impromptu Hot-Dog Party.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. My knees were starting to hurt, so I stopped the elevator, shifting Thisbe across my right arm. Adam came closer, making a googly face at her.

  ‘You might be too young for an HDP,’ he said, poking her tummy before turning toward the door. ‘As for the rest of you, I expect to see you with condiments, at Wallace’s, after closing. No excuses.’

  ‘You know,’ Leah said, ‘I liked you better when you were selling candy bars.’

  ‘See you later!’ he replied. This time, he got the door right, disappearing out onto the boardwalk as the chime sounded overhead.

  Leah looked at Maggie. ‘Great,’ she muttered. ‘He’s got the hots for you, and now we all have to eat wieners because of it.’

  ‘He does not have the hots for me,’ Maggie said, walking over to the earring display and adjusting a couple of pairs.

  ‘Well, I’m not going,’ Leah said, pushing a button on the register. The drawer slid open, and she picked up some bills, straightening them. ‘The summer is almost half over, and the only guys I’ve hung out with are the ones I’ve known since grade school. This is getting ridiculous.’

  ‘There might be new boys at the hot-dog party,’ Esther suggested.

  ‘Oh, please,’ Leah said.

  ‘Hey, they have tofu dogs. Anything is possible.’

  But it wasn’t new boys I was interested in as I sat in the office for the next hour, my foot locked around the back wheels of Thisbe’s stroller, pushing her back and forth as I paged through the day’s receipts. It was just one boy, that same boy I always started to think about more and more as the hours passed.

  Despite my best efforts, it was hard, as the hour got later, not to look ahead, wondering what the night might hold for me and Eli. This was something I’d missed out on thus far, the sense of expectation when it came to someone else. So while a hot-dog party sounded fun and all – and might even have qualified for part of my quest, actually – if Eli wasn’t going to be there, I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be, either. Even if there were tofu dogs.

  At around eight thirty, my dad and Heidi showed up to pick up the baby. Their arrival was heralded by a burst of squealing from the sales floor.

  ‘Oh, my God, you look so good!’ Maggie said. ‘You’re super skinny already!’

  ‘Please,’ Heidi said. ‘I could not wear a single thing in this store right now. Not even the ponchos.’

  ‘Stop it,’ Esther told her. ‘You’re gorgeous.’

  ‘And so is Thisbe,’ Leah added. ‘We love her name, by the way.’

  ‘See?’ I heard my dad say. ‘I told you. It’s a powerful name! It has presence.’

  ‘Although,’ Maggie said, ‘the story of Thisbe is kind of tragic, really. Dying for her lover, and her soul blooming in the mulberry tree.’

  Even with the door shut between us, and no visual on this interaction, I could literally feel how impressed my dad was as he said, ‘You know the story of Thisbe?’

  ‘We read it in my classics class, when we were studying myth and women,’ Maggie replied.

  ‘I thought it was from Shakespeare,’ Heidi said.

  ‘It was reprised in Shakespeare, in a farcical way,’ my dad told her. ‘But this young lady is right. The true story is actually quite sad.’

  ‘That’s our Maggie,’ Leah said. ‘Expert on all things tragic.’

  ‘Is Auden in back?’ I heard Heidi say. A moment later, she tapped on the door, sticking her head in. When she saw Thisbe, dozing in the stroller, she smiled. ‘Look at that. And here I was worried she was screaming her head off the entire time.’

  ‘Not the entire time,’ I said. ‘How was dinner?’

  ‘Lovely,’ she said. Then she yawned, putting her hand over her mouth. ‘It was good that we went and celebrated. This is a great accomplishment for your father. He’s worked so hard these last few weeks.’

  I looked down at Thisbe. ‘So have you,’ I said.

  ‘Oh, well.’ She waved this off, then stepped forward, easing the stroller out the door. ‘I can’t thank you enough, Auden, really. I can’t remember the last time we got out alone, together.’

  ‘It was no problem,’ I said.

  ‘Still. I appreciate it.’ She glanced out at the sales floor. ‘I’d better get your father out of here while he’s still cheerful. He claims this place gives him a headache. Too much pink. Can you even imagine?’

  I could. But I didn’t say anything, instead just nodding as she wheeled Thisbe down the hallway, waving to me over her shoulder.

  For the next two hours, I focused on my work, taking only passing notice of the customers that came and went (there was a run on flip-flops), the nine o’clock dance (Elvis this time, from his rockabilly days), and the ongoing debate about attending the hot-dog party (Maggie was in, Leah out, Esther on the fence). At ten on the dot, I locked the safe, shut the door, and went out to join them as they headed out onto the boardwalk, still in discussion. All of this was part of my routine now, as was what came next: making my excuses, and going to find Eli.

  ‘We could just go for a little while,’ Maggie was saying. ‘To make an appearance.’

  Leah turned to me. ‘What about you, Auden? Are you in or out?’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Actually, I think I’m going to just…’

  I was going to use one of my standards, like ‘go home’, or ‘go run some errands’, but just then, I looked over Maggie’s shoulder to the bike shop, and there was Eli, sitting on the bench, the shop locked up and dark behind him. No searching for once, so simple. Or it would have been, except that he wasn’t alone.

  Belissa Norwood was standing in front of him, her hair blowing around her face, hands in her pockets. She wasn’t dressed up like she’d been at the party, now wearing just jeans and a simple blue sleeveless shirt, a sweater tied around her waist, and I was struck, immediately, by how much prettier she looked. Less is more, indeed.

  She was saying something to Eli, who wasn’t looking at her, instead just leaning forward on the bench, his head propped in his hands. Then she said something else, and he looked up at her and nodded. I just stood there, staring, as she slid down to sit beside him, her knee resting against his. After a moment, she leaned her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes.

  ‘Auden?’ Leah said. Seeing my face, she turned, looking behind her, just as a group of big-shouldered guys in tracksuits came out of the adjacent Jumbo Smoothie shop, blocking everything behind them. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m in.’

  Wallace’s apartment was the lower level of a green house two streets back from the beach. The yard was mostly dirt with a few clumps of grass; there was a washing machine on the side porch, and a sign hanging over the garage read, inexplicably, SENTIMENTAL JOURNEY.

  ‘Interesting name choice,’ I said as I followed Maggie and Esther up the driveway, the bag of condiments we’d bought at the Gas/Gro – ketchup, mustard, mayo, and chocolate sauce �
�� in my hand. Leah was lagging behind, her phone to her ear, still networking in hopes of finding a better destination.

  ‘It wasn’t up to the guys,’ Maggie explained over her shoulder. ‘The landlords picked it. It’s a beach thing, you know, naming houses. The last place Wallace lived was called GULL’S CRY.’

  ‘Which was a terrible name,’ Esther said. ‘Hey, Mags, remember when Eli and Abe were living over in that dump on Fourth Street? What was that –’

  ‘SUMMER LOVIN’,’ Maggie finished for her as we climbed the front steps. ‘And there was nothing to love about it, let me tell you. Such a dump.’

  Just as she said this, Adam appeared in the open door, an oven mitt on one hand. ‘Hey,’ he said, holding it over his heart, offended. ‘You haven’t even come inside yet!’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about this place,’ Maggie told him as he stepped aside, letting us in. ‘This is… very nice.’

  Which was kind of an overstatement. The living room was small, crowded with worn, mismatched furniture: plaid couch, striped recliner, very beat-up coffee table, stained with rings upon rings upon rings. Clearly, though, someone had taken steps to spruce it up, as was evident by the bowl of nuts on the table and what looked like a brand-new scented candle burning on the bar that led to the kitchen.

  ‘Decor,’ Adam said, having caught me noticing this. ‘It really makes a difference, don’t you think?’

  ‘Still stinks like beer,’ Leah informed him as she came in, dropping her phone in her purse.

  ‘Does that mean you don’t want one?’ Wallace yelled from the kitchen.

  ‘No,’ Leah said.

  ‘Didn’t think so,’ he replied, emerging with a twelve-pack of cans. He moved down the line, handing them off. I was going to pass but ended up taking one anyway, if only to be polite.

  ‘There are coasters to your left,’ Adam said to Leah as she popped her can.

  ‘Coasters?’ she said. ‘On this coffee table? It’s already covered with rings.’

  He glanced at it, then at her. ‘Just because something’s damaged doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be treated with respect.’

  ‘Ad,’ Wallace said, ‘it’s a coffee table, not an orphan.’

  Esther snickered. But Maggie, true to form, reached over and set a coaster on the table before putting her beer down. As she did, Adam reached behind him to the island, grabbing a camera sitting there. ‘Our first hot-dog party,’ he said, raising it to his eye. ‘I have to get a shot of this.’

  The reaction in the room was swift, and unanimous: every single person except me raised their hands at once to cover their faces. The accompanying utterances, though, were varied. I heard everything from ‘Please no’ (Maggie), to ‘Jesus Christ’ (Wallace), to ‘Stop it or die’ (I’m assuming it’s obvious).

  Adam sighed, lowering the camera. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘can you guys not allow one shot, once in a while?’

  ‘Because that was the deal,’ Wallace replied, his face muffled by his fingers, which were still over his mouth.

  ‘The deal?’ I asked.

  Maggie separated her thumb and forefinger, then said through them, ‘Adam was yearbook editor for the last two years. He was relentless with the camera.’

  ‘I only had one person on staff!’ Adam protested. ‘I had no choice. Somebody had to take pictures.’

  ‘So we told him,’ Wallace continued, around his palm, ‘that we would tolerate it until the yearbook was done. But after that…’

  ‘No more pictures,’ Maggie said.

  ‘Ever,’ Leah added.

  Adam put the camera back on the island, a glum expression on his face. ‘Fine,’ he said, and everyone dropped their hands. ‘But years from now, when you’re feeling nostalgic about this summer and yet can’t really reminisce because of a lack of documentation, don’t blame me.’

  ‘We’ve been fully documented,’ Maggie told him. ‘The yearbook candids were of nothing but us.’

  ‘Which is great, because you’ll never forget anything,’ he told her. ‘But that’s already history. This is now.’

  ‘The now in which we are spared being photographed.’ Leah picked up her beer – no coaster – and took a sip, then said, ‘So who else is coming to this shindig?’

  ‘You know, the usual suspects,’ Wallace replied, sitting down in the armchair, which sagged noticeably beneath him. ‘The guys from the shop, some of the locals from the bike park, that cute girl from Jumbo Smoothie, and –’

  This thought was interrupted by the sound of someone banging up the steps. ‘Yo!’ a voice bellowed. ‘You guys better have some beer, because I am ready to get –’

  Jake Stock – in a form-fitting black tee and a deeper tan than ever – stopped talking and walking the minute he came through the door and saw me and Maggie, side by side on the couch. Talk about a buzz kill.

  ‘Get what?’ Leah asked him, sipping her beer.

  Jake looked at her, then at Wallace, who shrugged. ‘Lovely to see you as always,’ he said to Leah, then walked past her and us, heading to the kitchen. I glanced sideways at Maggie, but she was staring straight ahead at her beer on its coaster, her expression unreadable.

  ‘It’s not too late to hit the clubs,’ Leah said to her. ‘New boys, new chances.’

  ‘Grill’s on!’ Adam hollered from the back door. ‘Who wants the first dog?’

  Maggie stood, picking up her beer. ‘Me,’ she called back, walking past Jake, who was leaning against the bar, sniffing the candle. ‘I do.’

  An hour later, I’d had one beer, two tofu dogs, and, despite my efforts to keep up with the party and conversation around me, entirely too much time to run over what I’d seen on the boardwalk with Eli and Belissa. I looked at my watch: it was almost midnight. This time the night before, Eli and I had just been leaving Clyde’s, where he’d done a load of whites and we’d shared a piece of butter-scotch almond tart. I looked down at the bowl of nuts, untouched on the table in front of me, and took another sip of my beer.

  Really, it had been stupid to expect anything anyway. A few late nights does not a habit, or a relationship, make.

  Just then, my phone rang, and I felt stupid by how quickly I jumped to answer it, thinking it might be Eli. Who, I realized a beat later, did not have my phone number. I flipped it open, only to see the number of another man who always seemed to keep me wondering: my brother.

  ‘Aud!’ he said as soon as I answered. ‘It’s me! Guess where I am?’

  As we’d played this game before, and I’d always lost, I just said, ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Home!’

  At first, I thought he’d said Rome. It wasn’t until I asked him to repeat himself, and he did, that I realized he was two hundred miles away instead of however many thousand.

  ‘Home?’ I said. ‘Since when?’

  ‘About two hours ago.’ He laughed. ‘I am jet-lagging like crazy, let me tell you. I have no freaking idea what time it is. Where are you?’

  ‘At a party,’ I said, standing up and walking to the front door, pushing it open.

  ‘A party? Really?’

  He sounded so shocked I probably should have been offended. Then again, a few weeks earlier, I would have been surprised, too. ‘Yeah,’ I said, walking down to sit on the bottom step. ‘So… what brings you back?’

  There was a pause. For dramatic purposes, as it turned out. ‘Not what,’ he said. ‘Who.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Aud.’ Another pause. Then, ‘I’m in love.’

  As he said this, I was looking up at a streetlight, bright and buzzing overhead. A few bugs were circling it, tiny specks up high. ‘You are?’ I said.

  ‘Yeah.’ He laughed. ‘It’s crazy, I know. But I’m sick with it. So sick I cut the trip short and jumped a plane to follow her back here.’

  The trip had been going on for a couple of years, which I wouldn’t exactly have called short. But with Hollis, it was always about the bigger picture. ‘So,’ I said, ‘who is she?’

  ‘H
er name,’ he said, ‘is Laura. She’s amazing! I met her at a youth hostel in Seville. I was there for this big three-day festival-slash-rave…’

  I rolled my eyes at no one, there in the dark.

  ‘… and she was there for some genetic conference. She’s a scientist, Aud! Doing grad work at the U, of all places. She was studying in the library where I was sleeping. Said my snoring was disturbing her research and I needed to get up and get out. Crazy, right? It’s the story we’ll tell our grandchildren!’

  ‘Hollis,’ I said, ‘you’re messing with me right now, aren’t you? You’re in Paris, or somewhere, and just –’

  ‘What?’ he replied. ‘No! God, no. This is the real deal. Here, I’ll prove it.’

  There was a muffled noise, followed by some static. Then, I heard my mother recite, at a distance, in her most droll, flat tone, ‘Yes. It is true. Your brother is in love and in my kitchen.’

  ‘Hear that?’ Hollis asked, even as I sat there, startled at her voice. ‘It’s no joke!’

  ‘So…’ I said, still grappling, ‘how long are you home for, then?’

  ‘As long as Laura will have me. We’re looking for an apartment, and I’m going to sign up for fall classes. Might even hit up the English department, you never know.’ He laughed. ‘But seriously, before then I want to come down, visit you and Dad and Heidi and the munchkin, introduce my girl around. So let them know, okay?’

  ‘All right,’ I said slowly. ‘I’m glad you’re back, Hollis.’

  ‘Me, too. See you soon!’

  I hung up, then looked out at the quiet street, the ocean somewhere in the dark beyond. It was so early and yet, between what I’d seen with Eli and my brother’s strange homecoming, I felt, for the first time in a long while, like all I wanted to do was go crawl into bed. Pull the covers over my head, finding my own dark, and wake up when this night was over.

  Thinking this, I went inside to say my good-byes, but the living room was empty, stereo still playing, beer cans scattered – mostly uncoastered – across the coffee table. I picked up my purse, then walked through the kitchen to the back door. Through it, I could see everyone gathered on the back deck: Adam at the grill with Maggie beside him, Leah and Esther sitting side by side on the rail. Wallace was opening a can of baked beans while Jake looked on from a nearby rusted lawn chair.