“You were a kid,” Simon says.
Charlie makes a derisive sound and changes the channel. It’s acommercial for a truck that somehow looks like it’s going to eat all the other vehicles on the road.
“Is there anyone you want to see while you’re in town?” Simon asks. “I can keep myself busy.”
“God, no.”
“Your mother doesn’t still live here?” Simon isn’t sure if this is a dangerous topic, but Charlie’s brought his mother up a few times today.
“She’s in Provo. Has a kid in first grade.”
Simon’s brothers are twelve and fourteen years older than him. They considered the age gap mortifying; Simon considered it solid proof that he was the midlife accident of a couple already well on the way to divorce court. A twenty-year gap is something else entirely.
“Was she very young when she had you?” Simon asks, with the feeling of stepping out onto thinner and thinner ice.
“Yup,” Charlie says, no elaboration.
Simon might not have anything like social skills and he might not even be nice, but even he can tell that Charlie has practically handed him an annotated autobiography. There’s a too-young mother. There’s some time—more than once—in the foster system. There’s a much older stepfather who didn’t let Charlie eat his fucking food. There’s no mention whatsoever of grandparents or a father or anybody else.
This is the fourth or fifth time today that Simon’s had to come up with a non-asshole response when presented with some tragic detail of Charlie’s childhood, and it isn’t getting any easier. He rolls over so they’re facing one another across the gap between the beds and just says, “Charlie.”
“Yeah.” Charlie’s looking back at him, his expression serious. Simon doesn’t know how he’s supposed to look away.
Something on the television must catch Charlie’s attention, because he sits up and leans in. Simon, curious, does the same.
It’s the sort of homemade-looking commercial Simon hasn’t seen in years. A pair of kids are eating corn dogs in front of a sky blue convertible that looks like it’s from the fifties. Then there’s a map of Arizona with a dot roughly in the center and text reading Classic Car Show, along with the dates for this coming weekend—tomorrow and the next day.
“I’m an idiot,” Charlie says. “He goes every year. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”
“Because there’s no reason in the world for you to commit the dates of car shows to memory?” Simon suggests. “And also because cell phones still work at car shows? I mean, I’ll be the first person to admit that I’m not familiar with the customs of the old car community, but I think you’re still allowed to make contact with the outside world.”
Charlie doesn’t even rise to the bait. “It’s five o’clock. I could be there by eight. Where are my shoes?”
Simon hears theIand doesn’t know what to make of it, just that he doesn’t like it. He also doesn’t like the idea of Charlie getting behind the wheel of a car after spending an entire day alternately driving and panicking. “Or we could leave first thing in the morning, be there by ten, and you’ll be able to search the place in daylight. But. If you want to leave tonight, I’m driving.”
“I can’t—”
“Bullshit.”
“But—”
“It’s final.”
Simon doesn’t know what it means that they’ve gotten so good at arguing that they can do a speedrun through a fight.
Charlie takes out his phone and—presumably—tries to call his stepfather again. He hangs up after ten seconds.
“Room service,” Simon suggests. “Then sleep.”
But Charlie’s on his feet now, pacing as much as he can in a room that contains two beds.
“I didn’t mean to steamroll you. Look, if you need to get on the road now,” Simon says, “then that’s what we’ll do.”
“No, you’re right. There’s no point going tonight. But that doesn’t mean I can be normal about it.” Charlie rubs a hand over his jaw. “I’m going downstairs to see how bad the gym is.”
“Good idea.”
“Want to come?”
