Katie
The following morning, twelve hours into our walkie-talkie sworn vow to take things slow, Tyler and I were back in town, grabbing coffees from a bakery we liked off Main Street. There were a few tables out front, but it was high season now, and downtown was swarmed, so we settled for the sidewalk’s curb instead.
Tyler’s knee was brushing against mine, and I was drawing little swirls on his skin, trying to talk him through the next sequence of Henry and Willa’s story. After all, it was Monday, and the past thirty-six hours did not change the fact that our deadline was only six weeks away. But I could not keep my mind on the fiction. I could not think about anything other than us—than him. Than how he’d moved through the world before this summer brought us back together and how he’d spent his Saturday nights all the years we’d been apart.
“Can I ask you something?” I said. Tyler nodded, and I glanced again at our connected knees. “If you don’t do this, how do you...?”
“Have sex?”
I shook the ice in my drink, suddenly aware it had been a stupid question to ask. The answer was to take one good look at him. The summer before his sophomore year of high school, a final growth spurt had left Tyler two perfect inches over six feet tall. But even if he’d been forced to live out his days at a completely average height,it would not have mattered. His cheekbones were chiseled, his smile was crooked, and his hair had always been a brooding mess.
You have to understand: Developing a crush on Tyler McNally was about the least original thing a girl in our town could do. In middle school, he’d stumble home with so many Valentine’s Day carnations shoved into his backpack my mother made floral arrangements for her open houses with them. By the time he was in tenth grade, two senior girls had gotten into such a massive fight over him that one had to switch schools. When the principal called him in to discuss the drama, Tyler wasn’t entirely sure which girl was which. And I cannot even begin to count the number of classmates who—from ages seven to sixteen—befriended me, begged for a sleepover, and then spent the entirety of our Saturday night parked in my living room, laughing a little too loud, hoping Tyler, who was upstairs doing god knows what with Mikey, might hear.
And I knew all that as I pushed my knee deeper against his, as he traced my free hand with his index finger, as we sat there, sweltering under the late July sun, our weekend still written all over our flushing skin. And so when he shrugged, toed a loose bit of gravel, and said nothing, I decided to let him off the hook.
“You don’t have to answer that,” I said. “I didn’t—”
“My dad,” he said, but in this strange and distant way. He was still kicking the ground, and his eyes were focused only on that. On whatever faraway place he must’ve imprinted onto those rocks. His response, of course, was not an answer to my question. Not to the one I’d actually asked. But I did not steer him back on track. “When I used to go see him, before...”
Nobody knew where Tyler’s father was. Sick or well, sober ordrunk, alive or dead. I was six when he disappeared for good, and I didn’t know anything about him other than he’d grown up in the same town as the rest of our parents but was a few years older. Other than what I’d pieced together from a few late-night conversations I was too young to completely comprehend, the kinds you stole from the top of a stairwell. Things like:Marcy’s picked up an extra shift, Tom hasn’t sent any money in months, so Tyler’s going to stay here a few nights a week. Can you move the extra mattress into Mikey’s room?AndWe’d better get a stocking for Tyler this year, honey. They can’t findTom,nobody’s heard from him since October. Marcy’s going to take the overtime at the hotel, or so she says, but I think she might have another boyfriend. She really can’t pick a good one, can she?AndI think the boys are doing drugs, Paul. My mother’s earrings—I can’t find them anywhere. I have this horrible feeling. Don’t you remember what it was like with Tom?
“He just...” Tyler had let go of my hand and, instead, had folded his arms around his elbows. His body was bent. “He used to take me to that diner in Dix Hills. You know, the one that looked like a railcar, right off the turnpike? And I remember the waitresses—well, the servers, he’d call them waitresses, sorry—they’d always think it was so cute. Some dad and his son on a breakfast date. Me eating a thousand silver dollar pancakes while he drank black coffee. They’d smile at him, and he’d smile back, and then he’d pay the check, and then we’d wait outside for my mom, who was always running late. And then, after a few minutes, he’d say he’d forgotten something at the table, and then my mom would finally pull up, and she’d say, ‘Where’s your father, Tyler?’ And I would pointinside, and there was my dad, that same server pinned up against a counter, laughing. My dad, already, touching her wrist, writing something down for her. And then my mom would close her eyes for a second, help me into the car, and say, as we drove away, ‘She’s lucky, you know. She’ll only have to deal with him once.’ And I would just shrug as if that was the kind of thing a six-year-old could understand.”
I frowned. Tyler stabbed an ice cube and then laughed, but it was not a real one. It was heavy. It was foolish, and it hurt. Him, I imagined, but also me. It all just hurt.
“My parents loved you,” I said. It was not even relevant. But I had to add something. I couldn’t let that story hang there, shrinking him. “You were like a son to them.”
He stabbed at an ice cube again.
“I know,” he said. “Trust me, I know.”
That night, when Tyler was out at his meeting, I decided to indulge in a little bit of girl time. I painted my nails pink. I listened to a few chapters of a very good Kennedy Ryan novel. I called Lola and told her absolutely everything. And then, around nine thirty, I wandered downstairs to make a cup of tea and set up my collage supplies on the breakfast table.
I was in the middle of pasting a picture of the Eiffel Tower to my poster board when Meredith walked into the kitchen. Pinot, as usual, was a half step behind her.
“Meredith, oh—hi!” I had not seen Meredith since the blueberry muffin nonconfrontation yesterday morning. It did not matterthat she’d been shipping Tyler and me for weeks and would probably buy us a lifetime supply of condoms if we asked nicely. She was still my boss, and I’d still lost my underwear in her pool. “How was the rest of your weekend? Did you get a chance to review our pages yet?”
She did not answer either of my questions. Instead, she took a few steps closer and put a hand to my collage. “This is lovely, Katie. Do you do this often?”
I nodded, returning to my default setting of yapping about arts and crafts. What did I think Meredith was going to do? Grill me about my sex life? “My roommate and I are pretty into it. We put on music, order pizza, drink wine. I like making something nobody’s ever made before. I know books are like that, but it takes so long. This is more like a poem. All mine, and done in a night.”
Meredith touched the poster again. “Like a poem. I quite like that.”
I smiled, cutting away a few big, chartreuse letters from a headline, still babbling. “I make them for my characters too—it helps me see them. I have one for Willa back in the city. She was extra fun because she has so many beautiful things, you know? All this Zimmermann stuff, all this Chloé. But then she’s really sad, so I added all these blacks and blues. It came out really nice. I have a picture of it on my phone. I could show you, if you wanted? I...”
Meredith just stood there there, tears streaming down her face.
“Meredith?” I put down my scissors. “Are you okay?”
For a moment, there was silence.
Long, thick silence.
And then, she spoke.
“I was a horrible mother, you know.”
I jolted. I glanced around, looking for a trigger. A framed picture of her daughter, maybe. A dumb piece of preschool art. Something. Anything. But there was only Pinot, in her arms, and half-asleep. All while the words she’d spoken hung there, sharp and irrefutable and heart-wrenchingly sure.
