Page 73 of Pieces of Ash

As Noelle helped me prep for dinner today, cutting up vegetables for the soup and making a half decent piecrust under my tutelage, she talked about her brother, about how he more or less adopted her at the age of sixteen, becoming her guardian. He left behind the fun of college to live with her, to parent her, to make sure that she could finish high school in Vermont after they lost their father.

“He was in the Secret Service,” she added. “He even met the vice president.”

“Wow! Really?”

“Mm-hm. It was his lifelong dream. His bedroom was covered with pictures and decals he got in Washington whenever we went there on vacation. We must have watchedIn the Line of Firefive thousand times. I know that movie by heart.”

I haven’t watched many movies in the past few years, except a few times when I was home on break and watched one with Tig, but I think I’ll try to get a copy of this movie from Gus. I’d like to know what Julian loves so much about it.

“What happened?” I asked, wondering why he’d leave his dream job and return to Vermont. “Did he quit or…?”

She shrugged, her lips pursing like she was unhappy about something.

“I don’t mean to pry,” I said, sorry that my curiosity about her brother was making her uncomfortable.

“You’re not,” she said, rolling the dough out on the floured surface. “The answer is that I don’t know. I don’t know why he left…or how. I just know that one day he worked in Washington, and the next, he was moving up here. All he’s ever told me is that he broke protocol, but I’m not even sure what that means.”

Hmm. A mystery.

But I’m glad that Jock likes Julian. I wonder if Jock knows why Julian left the Secret Service, but I don’t feel it’s my business to ask about Julian behind his back. If I want to know what happened, the right person to ask would be Julian.

“Gus,” I ask, reaching for his hand and holding it in mine. “Would it be wrong? For me to…like him?”

“No, baby. It wouldn’t be wrong. You can’t help who you like.” Gus releases my hand, then reaches up to run his knuckles gently over my cheek.

“Itfeelsa little wrong,” I murmur.

“To like him?”

I shake my head no as my cheeks flush.

“Ah. Towanthim?” I nod and Gus sighs. “Listen up, li’l Ash. I loved your mama. But I don’t agree with how she raised you. The life we lived, me and Tig, was no place for a kid. I know the visitors Miss Tig had comin’ and goin’ every night. I know what you heard. I know what you saw. And then suddenly, out of the goddamned, ever-lovin’ blue, she marries a dirty old man and throws you into a church school that tries to make a nun out of you.”

“Oh, they didn’t?—”

Gus holds up a hand. “It’s chilly out here, and P.C.’s car is warm, so you let me finish, now.” He is wearing a pale pink pashmina over a white tennis shirt, and he swings the fringed end over his shoulder before continuing. “It was wrong the way your mama done it, with all those men parading in and out the door. But Ashley, listen to me now. If you were told by those nuns thatwantingsomeone, thatlikingsomeone, is wrong, well, baby, that’s crazy too. It’s not wrong to want someone. It’s not wrong to like them. And it’s not wrong to give yourself over to loving if the chance arises.” He glances at the car, where Jock patiently waits before searching my eyes. “Do you understand me? It’s not wrong. None of it. It’s just…human.”

I take a deep breath and exhale, letting many of my misgivings and fears hitch a ride on the cool air and float like cinders at a campfire, like fragments of ash, into the night sky.

“Thanks, Gus,” I somehow manage to whisper.

“Just…take precautions,” he says, leveling a no-nonsense look at me.

“What do you mean?”

“No glove, no love.”

“What in the?—”

“Sock that wang before you bang.”

“Gus, I don’t?—”

“For God’s sake!” Gus shakes his head with a thoroughly exasperated expression. “Use a condom if you decide to have sex!”

I gasp in surprise, covering my mouth as my cheeks flame with heat. “Gus-Gus!”

“I’m just sayin’,” he says. “Be smart.”