“So do you not live in the dorms anymore?”
“Stop trying to get to know me,” he snaps. He works his jaw for a minute, staring at the TV, then he says, “I share an apartment with like three other people. Still student housing.”
After the coffee pot is full of hot water, I pour some in a noodle cup. “It’s pretty cool, you know, going to Columbia. Pretty sure you’re the first person from Port Leyden to go there.” I hand him the cup and a plastic fork. “Sorry about the plastic.”
He cuts his black-lined eyes over to me and takes the food. “Don’t be a wiseass.”
“I’m not. I really am sorry.” I pour the hot water into another noodle cup and sit at the table. “You know, I guess I don’t really ever think about that stuff.” I stir the noodles around and cover it to let it sit for a minute. “Plastics and whatever. I know it’s bad and all. Guess I got other things on my mind.”
Ethan’s watching an episode ofThe Flintstones,the picture flickering in and out. He blows on a forkful of noodles. “Like what?”
I’m surprised—and thrown off—by his question. “Um…I don’t know. Mikayla, I guess. Taking care of her. And my job. Bills. Grown-up shit like that, I guess.”
He glances over at me for a second, then back at the TV. “Your little girl’s name is Mikayla?”
“Yeah. Gina liked it. I picked her middle name. Nicole. After my mom.”
“Do you see your mom?”
“No. She wouldn’t recognize me.”
He looks over at me again, a softness in his eyes. “Is she still…in that place?”
I scratch an itch on the back of my neck. “The home, yeah.”
He eats some more. “What’s your, um…what’s your job?”
“You remember Mr. Putnam? His nephew has a deck and patio business. I work for him.”
Ethan watches Wilma lecture Fred for a couple minutes. “So, you like build stuff now?”
“Yeah, pretty much. We do deck cleaning and painting. Pour concrete for patios. Build pool decks. Stuff like that.” I take a bite. “I’m also pretty sure it’s not environmentally friendly. I mean, maybe wood is, I don’t know.”
I can only see Ethan’s face in profile, but there’s a tiny grin on his lips.
We finish eating asThe Flintstonesends andThe Jetsonscome on. I spot the envelope with the pictures, still unopened, on the table near Ethan’s cigarettes. I pick it up and move from the table to sit next to him on the edge of the bed. He flinches a little, but he doesn’t move.
I hand him the envelope. “I wanted you to have these.”
He looks down at it.
“They’re pictures of Everett. And of you.”
He takes the envelop and stares at it. “Did you ever enter them in that contest?”
“No. I never got the chance to.”
He slowly opens the envelope and takes out the photos. The first couple are of Everett running track. Then there are the onesI took of him. At parks. On the front porch of the Sawyer house. Out by the river. He looks through them slowly and carefully, and I feel strangely vulnerable. It’s obvious—at least to me—in some of these pics how intimate it felt. The close-ups of Ethan’s face. His hands. The moments I caught him looking at me with those sad puppy adoring eyes. Those days seem so far away now. This Ethan I used to know is all grown-up. If I had to give him a name now, I’d call him Melancholy Ethan. Jaded Ethan.
Dark Ethan.
He looks at the pictures I took of him and then puts everything back in the envelope. He sits there for a moment with an expression on his face that I can’t quite read.
I place one of my hands over his. “I missed doing all that stuff with you. I missed being alone with you.”
He gets up suddenly and goes over to the table to put on his coat and get his cigarettes. He goes outside. I sigh and watch Rosie fuss at Judy Jetson.
I’m probably going about this all wrong. Everything I do just keeps upsetting him. But I don’t know what else to do. I never expected any of my old friends to just up and die this young. And out of all of them, why did it have to be Everett Sawyer? I think about the last email he sent me, just a few months ago, sitting there unread in my inbox. I don’t know what he would’ve had to say to me after years of nothing. I’m still afraid to find out what, but I know when I get back I’ll need to read it. Especially since I probably won’t ever see Ethan again.
