We while away thirty minutes, driving through parks and subdivisions and trafficked streets. He shows me Waylan Academy. Its warm redbrick walls and avenue of Bradford pear trees leading from one section of campus to another, ending at a sports complex that’s worth millions and millions of donations. It looks like a small college campus, which is about what I’d worked out in my head before the tour.
Text messages are pinging his phone every few seconds; Gerry and Thom are starving, Gerry is finally off work, Thom is picking her up. They’ll meet us in five minutes at Pizza Pans, because, as Gerry puts it, “My stomach is snacking on my small intestine.”
I have my own set of messages. Mom’s Will you be home for supper? Nope. Dad’s I thought y’all were community servicing after school, even though he knows Janie Lee and Woods practice on Tuesday evenings and it’s the one night we took off. Nope. There are messages from Janie Lee and Woods. Practice night usually means, We’re on Mars, leave a message, but me wearing a polyester blend dress was either a sign of my declining emotional state or a massive victory.
Janie Lee: You looked amazing today.
Me: Thanks.
Janie Lee: Don’t take this the wrong way.
Me: I won’t.
Janie Lee: I think I still like you better in jeans.
Me: Good.
The dream comes storming into my thoughts. We’re fine, I tell myself. She said it the other night: Just friends is better. But I still stop a moment and pray. I haven’t prayed much since that morning of watercolor light on Mash’s floor; the morning after Big T died and it felt like God himself was spilling into the room, just so we wouldn’t have to be alone in our grief. There are people who do not pray, and I understand why. It’s a strange thing to talk to someone you can’t see if you’ve never tried it. But for me it’s really a very nice and safe feeling. Like putting your toes in warm sand at the beach or stepping into the shower after a long day.
But here, in the recesses of my heart, I am honest. Three words I repeat without speaking:
I am afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid. I am afraid. God, I am very afraid.
This is my deepest well, and I have dropped a coin to the very bottom.
We leave Waylan for the restaurant. We are parked, and I am wrung out.
On our trip across the parking lot, Thom hugs everyone. He’s inclusive, always drawing people closer. He musses my hair and tells Davey, “This is the face of the next Corn Dolly champion of the world. You heard it here.”
“Tell her that a couple more times,” Davey replies.
“One, this is the face of the next Corn Dolly champion of the world. Two, this is . . .”
I shove him away, laughing.
I like being praised by Thom, and then Davey, in this small way. Perhaps there will come a time when I’ll think of Gerry and Thom as my friends rather than Davey’s friends. They are not people I would ever have met in Otters Holt.
Inside Pizza Pans, we order two pies with entire gardens buried under cheese. I’m picking off spinach when I see Thom take a hairpin from behind Gerry’s ear and fasten it to his folded napkin. Ceremoniously, he presents me with “Napkin Dolly, 2017” and says, “I hereby declare Billie McCaffrey to be deserving of this Napkin Dolly based purely upon . . .” He looks at Gerry. “What’s it based purely upon, my love?”
Gerry says, “Soul brightness,” and Thom is happy to insert this into his speech.
“Based purely upon soul brightness. Now mount this table”—he smacks it with his palm, rattling the dishes and splashing water from the glasses—“and give us all a speech.”
“Is he serious?” I ask Davey.
“Afraid so.”
I surreptitiously check to see how much everyone has eaten. We will be asked to leave Pizza Pans and I don’t want to leave Gerry hangry. Picking up Napkin Dolly, 2017, I climb from floor to chair to table, and plant my boots near the parmesan cheese shakers and the red pepper flakes. Gerry, Davey, and Thom bang their utensils in unison. “Speech, Speech, Speech.”
My head is almost lodged in a light fixture. Our waiter says, “Miss, miss, you can’t be up there. You have to—” when I open my mouth and sing one line from that Dirty Dancing song about having the time of my life. This is all the invitation Gerry needs. She’s on her chair. Thom and Davey follow. I lift the Napkin Dolly for the restaurant to see, and we sing—quite terribly—every word we know and don’t know.
Fifteen seconds of fame before the manager appears.
Money is exchanged—Thom to manager. We all land in the parking lot laughing our heads off. Thom tells me, “That was a lovely exit strategy, but I missed your acceptance speech.”
I hold the napkin, which is back in its former state as Gerry reclaimed her hairpin, and say, “I hereby accept this Napkin Dolly and all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto.”
Thom gives me a flourish. “Because . . .”
“Because you gave her to me,” I add.
“Because you are worthy,” he says.
“Based on soul brightness,” Davey says.
I’m chuffed. It’s silly, but being bestowed a Napkin Dolly touches me.
We are walking to our cars. Davey is with Thomas. Gerry has claimed me. We are looped together, our elbows hooked like chain-link fencing. Her doing. Not mine. They promise that they will come to Otters Holt soon. We swear we’ll be back.
Gerry says, “We’re all doing the LaserCon thing, yeah?”
Davey peers over his shoulder, eyebrows raised with questions. Can I do what I said? Did I mean it?
He senses my immediate willingness.
“Yesssssssssssss!” he yells at the shadow of the Batman building. There’s no time to be astonished. Gerry jumps, lifting me off the sidewalk. Suddenly we’re all jumping and yesssssing like lunatics.
I don’t really even know why. I just liked that first long yes from Davey, head bent nearly horizontal, and the top of his bandanna showing. Handsome and happy, dancing and spinning top-like through the street. Thom, who has slung his arm around Davey’s back, whispers something I cannot hear. Something that makes Davey howl at the moon.
“What do you know of them?” Gerry asks me, also in a whisper.
“Only that they love each other.”
And I wonder if she knows when I say love, that I mean the kind of love that probably excludes her. And me.
I’m still thinking of love when we’re in the Camaro and the city is behind us. “Will you tell me more about Thom? About you and Thom?” This seems a fair exchange. I told him about my sex dream. About Janie Lee. About kissing Woods.
But Davey bristles. Volcano Choir is on the radio. I’ve just told my parents I’ll be home by nine. It’s looking more like nine thirty, which I knew when I said nine. I’m remembering Thom’s words to me during dinner. Before the karaoke, when we were both still dazed from the afternoon. As Davey slunk lizard-like toward the men’s room, Thom said to me, “Keep a watch on our boy.”
What specifically was I to watch? He’d moved. Lost his grandfather. Lost his father. Been hurled into culture shock. Thom was clearly sharing Davey with me, but I thought maybe he assumed Davey had told me more than he had. I wanted to keep a watch, but there wasn’t time to ask, “For what?”
I began with what I knew, greasing the track. “He’s really great. Is it hard for you to see him with Gerry?”
“Billie. I think you’ve gotten this wrong.”
“I’m just saying, you can talk to me. I’ll still like them both.”
“Which costume should we build for LaserCon?” he asks.
I barrel forward with the previous conversation. “I get it. I promise I do. I mean . . . you know I do, what with Woods and Janie Lee. And I’ll bet you had a lot more freedom in Nashville than in Otters Holt.”
He knuckles the wheel. And then the gearshift. And then his thigh. “I’m thinking something classic. Maybe old Marvel. Or old Disney.”
“But even if you had freedom at Waylan, that doesn’t mean your parents are cool.” I am remembering Dad’s voice from the dinner table, and how Hattie needs to come to coffee with my mom because she’s upset. “Like I know I could come out in the Hexagon if I wanted to, but at home, that would never be an easy conversation. Never an easy life. If I followed that path into the future, my dad would never come to my wedding. Mom probably would. But Dad, never.”
“How do you feel about Iron Man?” Davey’s poker face is amazing. “Or Wolverine?”
“It’s hard to know the consequences in advance. Hard to have the freedom to still choose when you know how all the pieces in the game will behave if you do.”
He stays to his path. “Iron Man will probably be overdone. Disney is better. What if we did a duo? Would you think on an interesting duo? Something creative that will stand out?”
“I just needed to say that. To say, you can talk to me if you want.”
“Maybe Beauty and the Beast. Would you like that? If we win the money, you can have it all. It’s a thousand bucks.”
“I love Beauty and the Beast,” I say.
“Good talk,” he says.
I know he heard me.