The Next Best Thing

With that, she left, going back to her office, no doubt. All Honor did was work.

* * *

THAT NIGHT, AFTER FAITH had brought her stuff to the Old House and returned the rental car to Corning (Dad had said she could use Brown Betty, the aging Subaru wagon, while she was here), she climbed between the clean sheets in her grandparents’ guest room and waited for sleep.

Mom wasn’t the only one whose absence had been felt today. Faith still half expected to see Jeremy there, as well. He’d always loved her family dinners.

And at the moment, he was probably just down the road.

She’d been home seven times since her wedding day, and she hadn’t seen him. Not once. Granted, she’d only been home for a few days at a time. She’d been into town, to the bar owned by her best friends, Colleen and Connor O’Rourke, but Jeremy hadn’t shown up. He hadn’t stopped by her family’s house, though he did while she was away. People had gotten over the shock of his coming out, including her family (eventually). Jeremy had been a part of their lives, too, not to mention their doctor and next-door neighbor, though next door was a mile away.

But when she was home, he lay low.

For the first six weeks after their non-wedding, she and Jeremy had called each other every day, sometimes two or three times a day. Even with his stunning news, it was hard to believe they weren’t together anymore. From the moment she’d seen him by her bedside in the nurse’s office, for eight solid years, she’d loved him without one moment’s doubt. They were supposed to be married, have kids, have a wonderful long life together, and the fact that all those future decades were just whisked away...it was hard to wrap her heart around it.

He tried to explain why he’d let things go so far. That was the hardest part. She’d loved him so much, they’d been best friends...and he never even tried to bring it up.

He loved her, he said it repeatedly, and Faith knew it was true. Every day, every conversation, he apologized, sometimes crying. He was so, so sorry for hurting her. So sorry for not telling her, for not accepting what he knew in his heart.

One night six weeks after their wedding day, after they’d talked to each other in gentle voices for an hour, Faith had finally told Jeremy what they both already knew: they needed to truly break up. No more emails, no more calls, no more texts.

“I understand,” Jeremy had whispered.

“I’ll always love you,” Faith had said, her voice breaking.

“I’ll always love you, too.”

And then, after a long, long moment, Faith had pushed the button to end the call. Sat there on the edge of the bed, staring into space. The next day, she’d been offered a freelance job working with a well-known landscape designer at a new marina, and her post-Jeremy life began. Her father had come out to visit three times that year—unheard of if you were a farmer—and Pru and the kids had come once. They all had called and written and texted.

Forcing yourself out of love...it seemed impossible. Sometimes, she’d forget—someone asked her if she wanted kids, and her answer was, “We definitely do,” and then came the slap of remembering that there would be no beautiful, smiling, dark-haired kids running through the fields of the two vineyards.

And now, here in the Old House, it was impossible not to think of Jeremy. Memories of him were everywhere—he’d sat on the front porch, promising her father he’d take good care of her. He’d pushed Abby on the swing when she was little, took Ned for rides in his convertible, flirted with Pru and Honor, had beers with Jack. He’d helped her repaint this very room the same pale lilac it was now. They’d kissed right in that corner (lovely, chaste kisses, perhaps not what one would expect from one’s twenty-six-year-old fiancé) until Goggy had walked in on them and told them there was no kissing in her house, she didn’t care if they were engaged.

Faith had kept one photo of her and Jeremy, taken one weekend when they’d gone to the Outer Banks...the two of them in sweatshirts, hugging, the wind blowing her hair, Jeremy’s big smile. Every day, she forced herself to look at it, and a small, cruel part of her brain would tell her to get over it.

She hadn’t deserved him, anyway.

But for those eight years that they’d been together...it seemed that the universe had finally forgiven her for her dark secret, had presented Jeremy as a sign of absolution.

Seemed like the universe had the last laugh, and its agent had been Levi Cooper. Levi, who’d always judged her and found her ridiculous.

Levi, who had known and never said a word.

CHAPTER THREE

LEVI COOPER MET JEREMY  LYON just before senior year began. He never expected that they’d become friends. Economically, that wasn’t how things worked.

Manningsport sat at the edge of Keuka Lake. The town green was ringed with picturesque businesses: antiques stores, a bridal shop, O’Rourke’s Tavern, a little bookstore and Hugo’s, the French restaurant where Jessica Dunn waited tables. Then there was the Hill, rising up and away from the village, the land of the rich kids whose parents were bankers and lawyers and doctors, or whose parents owned the vineyards themselves: the Kleins, the Smithingtons, the Hollands. Busloads of tourists would come in from April to October to see the beautiful lake and countryside, taste the wine and leave with a case or two.

Farther away from the lake were the pristine Mennonite farms, stretching on the hills, dotted with clusters of black-and-white cows, men in dark clothes driving iron-wheeled tractors, women with bonnets and long skirts selling cheese and jam at the farmers market on the weekends.

And then there were the other places, the long stretches of in-between. Levi lived at the base of the wrong side of the vineyards, where the shadow of the Hill made night fall a little earlier. His part of town had the dump, a grimy grocery store and a Laundromat where, legend had it, drugs were sold.

In elementary school, the well-meaning rich parents would invite the entire class to the birthday parties, and Levi would go, along with Jessica Dunn and Tiffy Ames. They’d remember their manners and thank the mom for inviting them, hand over the gift that had strained the weekly budget. As for reciprocal invitations, no. You didn’t have the class over for your birthday when you lived in a trailer park. You might hang out in school when you were young, might meet up in the summer to jump off Meering Falls, but way too soon, the economic divide started to matter. The rich kids started talking about what clothes they wore or what kind of new car their folks drove and where they’d be going on vacation, and that time you went fishing off Henleys’ dock didn’t matter so much.

And so, Levi hung out with Jessica and Tiffy and Asswipe Jones, whose real name was Ashwick (the kid’s mother had been addicted to some British television show and clearly had zero clue about kids and names). Levi and his half sister grew up in West’s Trailer Park, in a cheap double-wide that leaked in two spots, no matter how many times he patched the roof. After his mom had Sarah when Levi was ten (and another man had moved out of the picture), it felt pretty cramped, but it was clean and happy. It wasn’t horrible, not by a long shot, but it wasn’t the Hill or the Village. Everyone understood the difference, and if you didn’t, you were either ignorant of real life or from out of town.

On the first day of football practice a month before senior year started, Coach introduced a new student. Jeremy Lyon was “someone who’s gonna teach you lazy-ass pussies how to play football,” Coach said, and Jeremy went around and shook hands with every damn member of the team. “Hey, I’m Jeremy, how’s it going? Nice to meet you. Jeremy Lyon, good to meet you, dude.”

Gay was the first word that came to Levi’s mind.

But no one else seemed to pick up on it—maybe because Jeremy could play. After an hour, it was obvious he was crazy good at football. He looked as if he’d been in the NFL for years—six-foot-three, rock-solid muscle and a frame that could withstand three linebackers trying to wrestle him to the ground. He could thread a needle with that football, could dodge and twist and slip into the end zone, using what Coach called “Notre Dame razzle-dazzle.”

Levi’s job as wide receiver was to get downfield as fast as possible and catch those beautiful passes. He was pretty good at football—which wasn’t going to translate into a scholarship no matter how much his mom hoped it would—but Jeremy was great. After four hours, the team started to speculate that they might have their first winning season in nine years.

On Friday of that first week, Jeremy invited everyone to his place for pizza. And quite the place it was; it was all modern and shit, windows everywhere, the kitchen floor so shiny that Levi took off his shoes. The living room furniture was white and sleek, like a movie set. Jeremy’s room had a king-size bed, a state-of-the-art Mac, a huge TV with a PlayStation and about fifty games. His parents introduced themselves as Ted and Elaine and made it seem like nothing could be more fun than having thirty-four high school boys over. The pizza was homemade (in the pizza oven, which was one of four ovens in the kitchen), and there were platters of massive sandwiches on that expensive bread with the Italian name. Every kind of pop—the fancy kind, not generic, like Levi’s mom bought. They had a wine cellar and a special wine fridge and beers from every microbrewery around. When Asswipe Jones asked for a beer, Mrs. Lyon just ruffled his hair and said she didn’t feel up for jail today, and Asswipe didn’t seem to mind one bit.

Levi walked through the house, carefully holding his bottle of Virgil’s root beer, and tried not to gape. Modern paintings and abstract sculptures, a fireplace that took up an entire wall, an outdoor fireplace on the deck, a fireplace in the rec room downstairs, where there was also a pool table, foosball, another huge TV and PlayStation and a fully stocked bar.

Then, abruptly, Jeremy was at his side. “Thanks for coming tonight, Levi.”

“Yeah, sure,” Levi said. “Nice place.”

“Thanks. My parents went a little nuts, I think. Like, do we really need a statue of Zeus?” He grinned and rolled his eyes.

“Right,” Levi said.

“Hey, you wanna hang out tomorrow? Maybe catch a movie or just stay here?”

Levi took a long drink of pop, then glanced at Jeremy. Yeah. Gay, he was almost sure. “Uh, listen, dude,” he said. “I have a girlfriend.” Well, he slept with Jessica once in a while, if that counted. But still. Message given: I’m straight.

“Cool. Well, you can both come if you don’t have anything better to do.” Jeremy paused. “I don’t know anybody yet, that’s all.”

It was a patent request, and why him, Levi didn’t know. Eventually, he supposed, Jeremy would be told by some other rich kid that the Coopers were white trash, give or take, that Levi didn’t own a car and worked two after-school jobs. But for now, a chance to hang out here, in this place, get a little peek at how the other half lived... “Sure. Thanks. I’ll see if she’s free. Her name’s Jessica.”

“Cool. Seven o’clock? My mom’s a great cook.”

“Thank you, baby,” his mom said, coming into the room with a tray of sandwiches. Seeing the two of them standing together, she froze. Her smile was suddenly just a stretch of the mouth.

“It’s the truth, Mom.” Jeremy put his arm around his petite mother and kissed her on the head, then snagged a sandwich. “She beats me if I say otherwise,” he added to Levi.

Mrs. Lyon was looking at Levi, a small frown between her eyes. “What’s your name again, dear?”

“Levi,” Jeremy answered for him. “He’s a wide receiver. We’re gonna hang out tomorrow, if that’s okay. His girlfriend’s coming, too.”

“Oh, you have a girlfriend!” The mom instantly relaxed. “How nice! Of course! Yes, yes, both of you should come over. It’d be lovely.”