Page 15

Chapter 15

Everett

Every bone in my body told me to run after Grace when she sprinted away from me, but it was as if she had used her industrial hot glue gun to cement my feet to the floor before leaving.

Don’t follow me.

I had to respect that. I didn’t want to, but I had to. We would untangle the knot that was our friendship—to see if it could actually be something more—later. That’s what I told myself every time her Subaru backed out of my driveway after a night of babysitting and TV. She always flicked her headlights as a final goodbye, and I waved back.

It’s not in my head, I couldn’t help but think. I’m not making something out of nothing.

Then the muscles in my shoulders tensed. Kissing Grace hadn’t been a mistake, but we wouldn’t be able to sweep it under the rug. At least I wouldn’t. Me playing with her curls when she dozed during an episode of The Office ? Yes.

This?

Not a chance.

Although, I thought as I started walking in the opposite direction of where she’d run. Maybe she will.

I didn’t go looking for another exhibit; in fact, I wanted to free myself from the museum, whose walls seemed to be closing in on me. My T-shirt clung to my skin, now sticky with sweat, and in the highly unlikely scenario that someone introduced themselves to me and offered me their hand to shake, they’d regret it. My palms were slick.

The Asian wing wasn’t getting much traffic, so I slumped down against a wall and closed my eyes. Above me, the air-conditioning rumbled through the vent. “Excuse me,” someone said when my heart rate had almost returned to normal. It spiked again. “For safety reasons, we discourage visitors from sitting on the floor.”

I opened my eyes to see a museum docent with severe eyeliner and a choppy haircut. It reminded me of the times Grace and Isa had played “hair salon” with their American Girl dolls back in the day. They hadn’t touched Molly or Samantha, but poor Julie.

“Sorry,” I blurted. “I’m sorry.”

The docent gave me a nod, then gestured toward the benches in the center of the gallery. “If you would like torest…”

No, I did not want to rest; I wanted to have a meltdown.

Because, upon seeing how empty this exhibit was, I realized I had no one to talk to about this. The extraordinary but exasperating ache that was Grace Barbour, the ache that I believed was worth it above all else…but one that aggravated me enough that a guy needed some support every now and again. A guy needed his best friend.

It was too bad I didn’t have one anymore.

What I did next was a little risky, but I didn’t care. I felt the docent’s raccoon eyes follow me all the way to the outdoor courtyard, and when the glass-paned door shut behind me, I FaceID’d into my phone and went to my favorite contacts.

She knew I wasn’t in school, after all. Grace said Mrs. Flamporis had called her for parental permission before calling me to the front office.

“Everett!” Mom answered after two rings. Her voice was bright, but I sensed exhaustion. “Honey, how are you?”

“Hey, Mom,” I said. “I’m fine.”

She laughed. “Fine? You win an MLB contest and all I get is fine ?”

I sighed. “Mom, it’s not like I’m at Citi Field with Francisco Lindor and the guys. I’m in the land of red-and-white pinstripes.”

“Have they given you a jersey?” she asked.

“Not yet,” I answered, because if I lied, it would lock us into buying one later today.

That may be a nice touch, I mused. A Phillies jersey would really sell it.

“But if they do give me one,” I continued, “we can hold a ceremonial burning later. After dinner, I’ll build a fire out back, okay?”

Mom was quiet, so quiet that I thought the call had dropped for a moment. “We’re not going to burn a gift, Everett,” she said softly. “The Phillies were your dad’s team.”

The tips of my ears warmed. I knew where she was going with this.

My mother believed in signs, signs that Dad was still with us. There was a cardinal who consistently dined at our kitchen window’s birdfeeder. “Cardinals appear when angels are near,” she recited after the first red bird sighting, a little light returning to her eyes. Ever since then, whenever the cardinal visited, Abigail would shout, “Look! There’s Daddy!”

Mom also teared up and laughed whenever a niche art magazine randomly came in the mail, too. Our family never subscribed, yet the addressee was Jesse Adler. The first issue arrived a year after he died.

Mr.Barbour even had a sign: spotting a Ferrari on the road. “I always said the only acceptable Ferraris were red, yellow, or silver,” he told me. “So whenever I see one in some other color, I know it’s him fucking with me.”

Margot didn’t embrace these signs, but she continued to make friendship bracelets at a rate where you’d think she was running a cottage industry out of her bedroom. “It’s a Taylor Swift thing,” she explained. “Remember ‘You’re on Your Own, Kid’ from Midnights ?”

I’d nodded. Man, did I ever. It was my anthem. With none of Isa and without all of Grace, I felt so alone. And kind of hopeless.

Per the lyric about friendship bracelets, Margot claimed she made hers to trade with other Swifties, but I knew the truth. They were her way of mourning Dad; she’d made him bracelets summer after summer after summer. The rest of the year, our father was never without a few on his wrist.

I really couldn’t comment on whether or not I believed in those signs. I definitely pictured Dad somewhere, in one of his usual rugby shirts with their fraying cuffs and khaki shorts with a pair of Adidas Sambas. He probably sipped a Miller Lite every now and again, or a martini with his own dad. “Stoli up with an olive!” I’d memorized his drink before learning what the phrase even meant.

But I couldn’t hear him laugh or feel him shake my shoulders anymore. I couldn’t ask him anything. Sometimes it flashed through my mind— I’ll ask Dad tonight —and it killed me when I realized I couldn’t. When my sisters and I were younger, Mom recorded a bunch of home movies of us and Dad on her old iPad. It now sat in my bottom desk drawer. If I wanted, I could charge the iPad and watch them. If I really wanted, I could hear that laugh and see him smile.

Doing that would sink me.

“Grief has no timeline, Everett,” my therapist emphasized, but it’d been two years and I didn’t see things getting any easier. I wasn’t a train wreck every day; at least I could say that.

“Honey,” Mom said now, gently, “I want you to enjoy the rest of your visit, but I think later we should rediscuss your new med—”

“Why won’t Isa stop shutting me out, Mom?” I cut her off, the question coming out of nowhere. “I keep trying, but nothing works.”

As far as I knew, Mom was the only one of the parents who realized Isa’s and my friendship was now a performance piece. She had a sixth sense. “That’s not our Isa,” she once commented while we were loading the dishwasher after hosting a dinner party.

“I know I broke up with her,” I started rambling. “But that was ages ago.” The corners of my eyes prickled. “She couldn’t even put it aside for Dad, Mom. She was there for Dad, for you, for Margot and Abigail—just, everyone except me. The reason why I ended things in the first place was because…”

“I know why you ended things, Everett,” she said when I trailed off. “But does Isa? Does she truly know? Have you ever told her?”

I swallowed the lump in my throat. She already knew the answer.

“You pulled away, too,” she added. “Don’t forget that. She reached out, but you chose to ignore her.” She hesitated. “You could’ve been kinder.”

Again, she was right. I remembered Isa calling me—we’d always preferred talking to texting—several times to ask how I was doing after Dad died and if I wanted to grab water ice together. Those calls had lasted a minute max. I’d felt so broken that I barely spoke. And while I’d mumbled thanks to her invitations, I never accepted them.

“The two of you need to talk,” Mom said. “You should’ve talked a long time ago, especially because Isa did try. Remember that, okay?” She sighed. “I’m sorry, but I should go. Abigail’s chicken soup is on the stove. I had to pick her up from school this morning. Like Grace, she has a bug.”

“Wait, no,” I said. “Really?”

“Yes, she got sick all over her math textbook,” Mom said, chuckling. “Please prepare yourself to watch National Treasure 2 later.”

I was so glad I decided to steal the Declaration of Independence.

“I texted Grace earlier to check in,” Mom continued. “But she hasn’t responded, so I assume she’s napping.”

Hmm, I thought. Grace hadn’t mentioned a text.

“Yeah, probably,” I mumbled, a warning bell going off in my head. I wouldn’t put it past Mom to show up at Grace’s house with soup.

“What’s next on your agenda?” she asked.

“Uh…” I fumbled. “Lunch. Lunch in the executive dining room.”

“Ooh, swanky,” she said, and then right after we said goodbye but before hanging up: “Everett, one more thing.”

“Yes?” I asked.

I heard her hesitate. “Isa is going to need you,” she said softly. “I have a feeling she is going to want her friends soon, and even if you two still aren’t on the same page, you should be there for her.”

“I will be,” I told her. “I promise.”

Because again, my mother had a sixth sense.

And it wasn’t just about Isa and me.