“She’s got a lot of people who love her,” says Ben, not taking his eyes off me.This fucking guy,I’m thinking, but at the same time I already like him, like his directness. His care for Zoe.
Zoe laughs, an edge of nervousness to it. “It’s probably like, four people, grand total,” she says. “Three if I don’t count my mother, and today she called and asked me if I’d mind her throwing out my christening gown, so I’m pretty sure she—”
“Zo,” I say, and as soon as it comes out of my mouth I know I’ve done that shit on purpose.This is whatIcall her,I’m saying. I curl a hand around her elbow and squeeze gently, a brief touch that’s friendlier than how I feel right now, which is—I don’t know what. Possessive. A little angry. Half of me wants to be touching her like Ben touches Kit—like she’s mine, like I do it every day. The other half of me is pissed that I want to, and that I can’t. We don’t do that here; we decided. Here, I’m the guy she’s invited because of courtesy, or maybe because of her friends’ curiosity. “It’s all right,” I tell her, before I look up at Ben and give him a short nod. “Iknow she does.”
Ben’s got a calm, friendly face, something open about his expression that I don’t know if I’ve ever seen in myself in the mirror. Still, though—he looks at me long enough that the silence feels noticeable, a few seconds shy of truly uncomfortable. “Can I get you a beer?”
The look on Zoe’s face when he asks is pure relief, so plain and honest that I touch her again, my palm at her shoulder, a brief, calming circle that Ben and Kit both notice. It’s the kind of touch that doesn’t have anything to do with “this camp thing,” and for a second it feels like Zoe and I are the only two people in the room.
It’s only a quick moment of peace and quiet, though, because the place is full up, more people coming in behind me, and Zoe gets pulled into conversation after conversation. For a while, I stay with her, nursing a beer and letting her introduce me to each group of people she says hello to. “This is my friend Aiden,” she says. “He saved me from a face full of driveway a month ago.” It’s so simple, the way she puts it, and aside from the face full of driveway part, I wish I had met her in circumstances so simple. I shake hands, nod, answer what questions I’m asked, and feel as if I’m stretching muscles I haven’tused in months.
I know I’m meeting Ben’s father even before Zoe tells me his name. The guy looks like Ben coming out of a time machine, and he’s got the same easy smile.
“O’Leary,” he repeats, when Zoe introduces me, a searching look as he shakes my hand. “Your mother’s Kathleen?”
“Uh, yeah,” I say, taken aback.
“I sold her a Gorham brush and mirror set about ten years ago, I think...1959, silver detail like you wouldn’t believe.”
Beside me, Zoe drops back, joins another conversation that’s in progress behind us, and I know that’s on purpose. It’s the same at camp: any mention of my family, and she goes quiet. “Must be quite a memory you’ve got.”
“Almost forgot to put on underwear today,” he says, laughing. “I only remember the stuff that doesn’t matter.”
“I think she bought that set for my cousin’s sixteenth birthday. So it matters to someone, anyway.”
Henry smiles, claps me on the shoulder. “I like you,” he says, and I feel a choking, painful longing for my own dad, whose shoulder-clapping was pretty much the only brand of affection he had on offer, but he didn’t spare it. “Your mom still around town?”
“She and my pop moved to Florida a few months back.”
Henry nods, looks around the room to where Ben stands, now laughing with Ahmed. Fast friends, those two, and I try not to feel an illogical sense of jealousy about Med’s easy nature, his ability to do with Zoe’s friends what I can’t. “Good to have my kid back in town,” he says, more to himself than to me. This sentiment kicks me right where it hurts too. When I’d decided to move here, I’d wondered fleetingly if my parents might change their minds about Florida and stick around. I was back, after all, their only surviving son, and that had to mean something. But the truth is, our family doesn’t make sense without Aaron.Idon’t make sense without Aaron. I’m just a remainder, a great big shadow left by the bomb blast of his death, and neither of my parents look at me the way Henry looks at Ben.
Suddenly this party feels like a colossal mistake, a reminder of why Zoe and I need to keep it at camp, and a reminder of why I’ve kept things so close since I’ve been home. I’m not suited for any of this right now—I feel like I’m in a room of salt pillars, rubbing all my open wounds up against them as I go. With as much friendliness as I can manage, I disentangle myself from the conversation with Henry, take advantage of Zoe’s distraction and duck into the kitchen where I can rinse out my beer bottle. I’ll tell Ahmed the night’s over for me. He can stay if he wants, Uber it home, whatever. But me, I’ve got to get out of here.
“Hello,” says a soft voice from behind me, and it’s just—fuck. I don’t feel like talking to anyone. But when I turn I’m staring down into the big blue eyes of Zoe’s friend Greer, who’s holding a plate of appetizers out to me like she’s on server duty. “I thought you might want some food.”
Jesus Christ. I do not want some food. I want to get the fuck out of here. But something stops me, some hope that I can make a good impression. I take the plate and manage a polite thank-you. It’s quieter back here, a bit distant from the crowd, and it feels like she’s cornered me on purpose. I take a bite of a stuffed mushroom, not really hungry but eager to have something to do with my hands, my mouth. In some ways, Greer seems tougher than Kit is—there’s no caution or suspicion in her eyes, but instead something deep and knowing, ready to see right through any ofyour bullshit.
As soon as I swallow she speaks, timing it perfectly so I can’t weasel out of responding without being obvious about it.
“We miss Zoe around here on the weekends,” she says, leaning against the counter, skipping all the preliminaries. What she needs to know about me, Zoe’s probably already told her. “We have routines, the three of us.”
“Brunch,” I say, wiping my mouth with the small napkin she’d tucked under my plate.“She told me.”
Greer nods, seeming pleased that I’d know, or maybe that I’d remember. “She—well. She’s sort of our center point. The one we take our cues from, in some ways. Everything’s quieter without her.”
Ain’t that the truthis the first thing that comes to mind, because everythingisquieter without her. Even when she’s right next to me, if she’s not talking, it somehow feels like the loudest quiet I’ve ever heard. “Three more weeks,” I say, but I don’t know if I’m really talking to her or to myself.
Greer looks up at me, a small wrinkle in her brow as she tilts her head slightly. “Sometimes I wonder if she’ll still be a little quieter, oncethe time’s up.”
Before I have time to think it through—to wonder if this is just an observation or a warning or maybe some kind of revelation about Zoe’s feelings toward me, I hear Zoe call out Greer’s name from the other room. I look over my shoulder to see her weaving her way toward the kitchen. “Are you trying to see Aiden’s chest hair?” she calls, loud enough that a few people nearby laugh.
Greer’s face has gone all pink beneath her freckles, and she rushes out a quick, “Oh, she’s joking about—some…thing Isaid one time?”
Zoe sidles up beside me, nudges my shoulder with her own. “Just on my way out back,” she says, nodding her head toward the door. “We need to bring in another cooler. Greer, Sharon’s looking for you.” She levels her friend with a look, something secret communicated between them. Greer’s curving smile looks gentle, approving—and I feel a strange thread of guilt. Here I am, with the people who mean the most to Zoe, people who mean more to her than I ever will. And I can’t even admit her existence tomy own mother.
“Thanks for the food,” I tell Greer before she heads off, and she gives me a casual wave, as though she fully expects to see meagain sometime.
Once we clear the door, I feel a clutching relief, not just at the big inhale of fresh air I take, but at being alone with Zoe for the first time tonight. “Hot inthere,” I say.
