It was nice, this driving and chatting. This quiet passing of time without pause for recrimination and regret. If he were honest with himself, Frank would admit that this was what he hoped for. That he and Tom could sidestep the past and connect on a new level: as men approaching their fifties rather than men who’d somehow hurt one another and then refused to discuss it.
He had decided almost twenty years ago that he might never understand what he had done wrong, aside from kissing his best friend. He had also decided to let it go.
Obviously he hadn’t.
Frank did draw some comfort from the notion that Tom had yet to let go either. But they were moving past it now, and he was enjoying this. Being a passenger on a journey through the streets of memory. He’d hardly taken note of his surroundings yesterday. He’d been too tired in the morning and too lost in the afternoon. Now, he let the roller skating rink and tiny public elementary school press the small buttons recessed into the corners of his mind, each accessing a memory he could term as fond. By the time Tom found them a parking spot along Sarah Street, two blocks from Main Street, a happy bubble of contentment encompassed most of Frank’s thoughts.
“So, where should we eat?” he asked over the roof of the car while Tom checked his pockets again for phone and wallet. Seemed to be a habit of his. “Annabelle took me to a fairly bland café yesterday for coffee. Her boycott of Starbucks is still in effect.”
“I can’t even remember why she stopped drinking it.”
“Neither can I. Do you need money for the meter?”
“Not on a Sunday.”
Tom cocked his head and Frank listened for the sound that had caught his attention. A voice amplified by a megaphone. And was that music? Frank glanced around at the cars lining the road and the handfuls of pedestrians all making their way toward the County Courthouse.
“I think there’s a festival going,” Tom said. “Want to see what’s on offer?”
“As long as it’s not a hot dog. Spanky’s was closer to home and emergency resources.”
“They’ll have paramedics stationed somewhere along Main Street.” Tom grinned.
Frank fell into step beside him, leaning in closer as they avoided a couple walking the other way. Their shoulders touched, and Tom didn’t flinch away. When Frank remained close, their arms and hands almost brushing, Tom didn’t widen the gap and . . . it was strange. Personal space had always been his thing. Many of Frank’s most cherished memories of their shared childhood were the moments when Tom had relented, allowing Frank’s affection. By the time they’d been teenagers, it had happened more often.
Had he been wrong to assume Tom might have reverted to his old self in Frank’s absence? Or would it be wrong to assume he was responsible for Tom’s relaxed attitude now?
“I can smell the fire, you know,” Tom said.
“Oh? What are they burning?”
Chuckling, Tom reached up and pushed the side of Frank’s head. “Inside your head, Frankie. You’re thinking up a forest fire in there.”
Frank quelled the urge to grab Tom’s hand on the way down, lace their fingers together. He did smile.
They turned a corner and the street fair was upon them, banners slung across 7th Street announcing the celebration as the Pocono Raceway Festival. There were people everywhere. Adults and children. So many children. Frank tried not to flinch as he sidestepped small humans. He didn’t have a particular aversion to kids; he was more worried by the idea he might trip over one. Or step on one of the very little ones. Also, children made a lot of noise—nonmusical noise.
A band was set up on the pavement in front of the courthouse. Pavilions lined the streets to either side, forming a rough circle around the war memorial. Striped and plain awnings continued down 7th toward Main Street. Frank couldn’t see farther than that. Once past the band, or far enough past they could hear themselves think, Tom paused in front of a climbing wall covered with dangling children and pointed out a few likely food vendors. “Jock N’ Jill’s do a good burger, so does Siamsa. Marita’s do burgers too. And good burritos.”
“I’m sensing you like burgers.”
Tom shrugged. “Hard to fuck up a burger.”
“We’ll have to agree to disagree on that one.”
“What are your thoughts on wings?”
“As in the hot variety?” Probably as much a risk as a hot dog, but surely more fun on the eating end of things, particularly if they were good wings.
“Sarah Street Grill has the best wings. Let’s get some of those.”
Though Frank preferred linen-tablecloth dining, there was something fun about being in the midst of a festival. Nearly every face bore a smile and the band was lively. He wasn’t vain enough to imagine the festivities were for him, but seeing his old hometown bedecked and celebratory was a much nicer welcome than the storm he’d driven through on Friday night. The tension was practically rolling off his shoulders as he wove his way after Tom, heading toward the spicy unknown.
The stand Tom had picked had quite a line, which spoke to the quality of the wings. While they waited, Frank noted the activities placed around the center park, his thoughts already straying toward how best to describe each if he were to write up the event. Except for the rock wall, everything was raceway themed—shirts, hats, posters, pinwheels—with a bright orange car as the center attraction. Dressed in a jumpsuit bearing as many sponsorship logos as his vehicle, the driver posed for pictures and gave out autographs, never losing his smile.
Set a small way back from the actual car was a cutaway that kids could climb all over. Another photographic opportunity, and parents were taking full advantage, calling out instructions for this one and that to hold the wheel and stop climbing over their sister. And to smile. Always smile.
Frank turned to comment and saw Tom had his cell phone out and was taking pictures of everything. He wore a faint version of the same smile decorating every face.
When he lowered his phone, he blushed. “Sorry. The kids look so damn cute. And the light is great.”
“It is a lovely morning,” Frank acknowledged. “And I don’t see why you should apologize, unless you’re planning to abduct one of the children.”
The person in line ahead of them turned around, frowning.
Tom’s face reddened further. “What would I do with a kid?” A wistful expression caught him. “It’s nice to see them having fun. I do the school photos for Stroud Township and getting those kids to smile is pretty much half the day. Here, they don’t even have to try.”
“What do you do with photos like the ones you just took?”
Tom shrugged. “Not much. If there’s a good one of the car and driver, or the festival in general, I might sell it to the paper or one of the local magazines.”
“The photo on the website, for the lodge. That’s one of yours, isn’t it?”
“Oh, man, that one is old, from maybe nine years ago? Took me forever to set it up and the clouds kept threatening all day. I had maybe five minutes of late-afternoon sunshine to work with. I think I got about a hundred shots off in those five minutes and only a handful I could use. That one was the best. Everything just about perfect.”
“It’s a beautiful photograph.” Frank shut his mouth before he asked why Tom hadn’t put it on his other website, the one Frank visited from time to time. The website Frank had ordered several prints from. He’d have bought the one of the lodge without a moment’s hesitation. Or . . . he thought he would have. Today he would.
Tom shrugged again and stepped forward. It was their turn to place an order.
“Tom!” A hand shot out from beneath the pavilion to grip Tom’s, and one of those complicated shakes ensued. Up, down, fist bump, back of the hands together, and done. “How’s your mom?”
“Doing good. I visited her yesterday. How’s Evelyn?”
“Still in the kitchen. She’s got a stand somewhere down 7th. All cakes and stuff.”
“We’ll make a point of visiting, then. Gerry, this is Frank. Robert’s nephew.”
The hand extended again, and Frank could now see the man beneath the pavilion. Everything about him was round—his bald head, his cheeks, his shoulders, and most notably, the belly pushing his striped apron out. “Frank . . .” he said thoughtfully. His narrow-eyed gaze had a slightly possessive edge to it, as though he was sizing up competition for . . . Tom? Frank glanced at Tom only to find him obliviously perusing the menu. “You’re Matty’s little brother!” Gerry finally said. His eyes had un-narrowed.
“That would be me,” Frank said, accepting a handshake. No fist bump for him.
“Is he still out west somewhere?”
“Seattle.”
“Where the real mountains are.” Gerry laughed. “So what can I get for you guys?”
They walked away with an order of everything, compliments of the tent. Gerry had spent the entire five minutes it had taken him to load up two cardboard trays reminiscing with Tom. The possessive vibe had surfaced now and again, but Frank hadn’t been able to tell if it had been because Gerry had been around when Frank had not, or if Gerry was secretly pining after a completely unaware Tom. What he did find out was that Gerry’s parents used to own the diner where Tom’s mom had worked, which meant Gerry probably knew about as much as he did about Tom’s mother.
Wendy Benjamin had baffled him as a kid. She’d never acted the way Frank had supposed a mom should, smoking, drinking, and drifting into increasingly harder habits the older Tom had gotten. Tom seemed to have spent most of his childhood on his own recognizance.
“I neglected to ask after your mother,” Frank said now. “We got started on the wrong foot. I don’t know why things have been so awkward, except . . .”
“I’m the one who made it awkward. I always did. And not answering any of your letters . . .” Tom gave one of his characteristic shrugs.
“It was a long time ago.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“Can we start again? Should we? Can you be friends with someone you haven’t seen for thirty years?”
Tom smiled and the earnestness of it—the way he ducked his chin a little—took Frank back through the decades to the time when he’d played for that smile. When he’d clowned and joked and would have done just about anything to make Tom happy.
Holding up his platter of wings, Tom said, “You might regret it in the morning.”
Frank laughed. “If only.”
The wings were good, both the sweet and the spicy. The hot ones weren’t so intense he forgot he was eating something, let alone the fact that he had taste buds. They remained in place, not screaming as he savored the hints of smoked pepper and honey. The sweet wings had a sharp, plummy flavor, which went well with the sticky, chewy texture of the skin. And the chicken beneath wasn’t dry and leathery.
Frank was sucking the tips of his fingers, quite unconcerned with the display he made, when Tom returned from a neighboring stand with two plastic cups of liquid the color of urine.
“That’s not Mello Yello is it?”
Tom just grinned and held his cup up. “Chill. It’s lemonade. No one sells Mello Yello outside of a can, and I can’t get it in the stores around here. I have to order it from Amazon.”
Frank struggled with the concept of ordering soda from an online retailer for a moment before confirming the facts. “You order it.”
“I have a subscription.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
Tom pressed his cup into Frank’s, making a slightly squishy toast. “Drink up, I enrolled us in the zucchini derby. We’ve got half an hour to carve our squash before our race begins.”
Obviously the wings had been hotter than Frank anticipated. He was in the grip of a chili fever. Or they’d been laced with an illegal substance. “Carve our squash?”
“Finish sucking your fingers and c’mon.”
Frank followed, a bright ball of something forming behind his breastbone. He’d just sucked down sauce that would sear an unapologetic path through his gut and would likely follow it with an afternoon of bad carbs. And now he was off to carve squash.
They weren’t the only adults lining up for oversized zucchini, plastic knives, and a small container of toothpicks. Seated at a table, Frank examined his squash, end to end. “I’ve never seen one so large.”
Next to him, Tom started giggling. “That’s what he said.”
Frank glanced over in time to see familiar mischief lighting Tom’s dark eyes. Without thinking too hard on it, he circled his thumb and forefinger around the zucchini and stroked downward. He got caught halfway, the sheer girth of the vegetable separating his fingers. “Oh my.”
Tom opened his mouth into an O and poked his tongue around.
The woman seated across from him snort-giggled and Frank laughed. “Dare you do put it in your mouth,” he whispered.
Tom glanced left and right, then put the end of his zucchini between his lips. He seemed to be working on a more lascivious expression than surprise when his eyes widened and he pulled the vegetable back out.
Frank nearly groaned. “Tease.”
“I’m getting odd looks from the other end of the table.”
From another pair of men, both dressed in Pocono plaid—summer version. They were eyeing Frank and Tom with open suspicion. Frank gave the cuter one—as if he could ever find a man dressed in deer stalking camouflage in anyway attractive—a suggestive eyebrow raise.
Tom elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop, they’ve probably got a shotgun between the seats of their pickup.”
“Of course they do.” How Tom had managed not to end up a statistical smear on the sidewalk sometime over the past thirty years wasn’t exactly a mystery. He didn’t wear his otherness quite the same way as Frank did. Still . . .
Frank turned back to his zucchini. “Okay, tell me what to do.”
There was little point in attempting to make their zucchini any more aerodynamic than nature intended. Instead, they spent their time making wheels—out of zucchini—and attaching them with toothpicks. Tom fashioned a complicated axle arrangement while Frank carved numbers in the side of their dark-green vehicle. When they were done, Frank eyed their zucchini with a mixture of pride and embarrassment. How could he explain this to anyone outside of Pennsylvania? Would he even want to?
Tom took a few pictures, and they assembled by the top of the truncated skateboard ramp that formed the raceway. They would be competing against the deer stalkers. Not optimal, but preferable to having their asses kicked by the little girl whose father had actually tried to shave some sleekness into their vehicle.
Frank had the job of racer as Tom wanted to photograph the event. He posed with the zucchini, gesturing like Vanna White as he demonstrated the features of their vegetable: “Wheels. Toothpicks. A motivating motif of mesmerizing lines.”
“Nice alliteration.”
“It will be the secret to our success,” Frank replied.
“Racers ready!”
Frank placed his zucchini behind the starting line, aiming it toward the bottom of the ramp while trying to take into consideration the possible drag of their not-quite-even wheels.
“And go!”
He let go.
Their racer made it halfway down the ramp before losing a wheel, causing it to careen sideways, narrowly missing their opponent’s vehicle, which moved out of range on rotating disks of greased lightning. Frank watched sadly as their zucchini tottered toward the edge and fell into oblivion.
He turned to face Tom, forming a mask of dejection for the camera.
Tom was waving him toward the ramp. “Pick it up, pick it up!”
That was allowed?
Frank picked up their racer, stuck the wheel back on and launched it from the derailing point. It wobbled down the ramp after the other zucchini, finally crossing the finish line and landing end to end with its mate, delivering a vigorous bump.
“Oh look, they’re making friends.”
Thankfully, the deer stalkers didn’t hear him.
Because there were no losers in the zucchini derby, each of them was handed a plastic medal announcing their second-place win. Frank held his hand up for a high five, and Tom slapped their palms together. Then, as he would have done when they were kids, Tom cuffed the side of Frank’s head, squeezed the bottom of his ear, and circled his neck with an elbow, dragging his head in close.
Tom seemed as surprised as Frank as their foreheads met, the faces coming together so much older than the ones that used to share such happy and exuberant grins. His grin only widened, though, and he gave Frank’s neck and shoulders another squeeze before letting go.
And Frank stood there, clutching his big zucchini and dinky little medal, wondering when he’d last felt so light and bright.