Reality Check (2010) (4 page)

Cody worked fifty-nine hours the week before Clea came home, making $501.65 after deductions, the biggest check he'd ever had in his hands. He went into Main Street Jewelers--the only jewelry store in town--for the first time in his life, and almost backed out when he saw Tonya Redding working behind one of those glassed-in display boxes. Of course she spotted him right away.

"Hey, Cody," she said.
"Hey," said Cody, as the door swung shut behind him. He glanced around, saw no one else in the store. "What are you doing here?" he said.
"Right back at ya," said Tonya. She was wearing some kind of low-cut top, had bright blue fingernails.
"Well," said Cody. "Um."
Tonya laughed. She had a very loud laugh, a fact Cody was aware of for the first time. "I work here," she said. "That's my excuse--what's yours?"
"I was just . . ."
"Let me guess," Tonya said. "You're looking for a welcomeback present for Clea."
Cody nodded: Little Bend was a small town, where everyone knew everyone's goddamn business. At that moment a curtain opened, and an old white-haired man came out, wearing a weird magnifier in one eye.
"Everything all right, Tonya?" he said.
"Oh, yes, Mr. Wexler," Tonya said. "I'm just helping this gentleman find something nice for his girlfriend."
Mr. Wexler removed the magnifier, gave Cody a quick scan. "Show him the heart pendants," he said, and then withdrew behind the curtain. Tonya made a face.
"Heart jewelry?" Cody said.
Tonya moved a few steps along the display case and pointed. Cody walked over, saw a row of gold hearts ranging from tiny to small, each of them with a red stone in the middle.
"What are these?" he said.
"Pendants, Cody. You wear them on a chain around your neck, sold separately."
Cody bent over the display case, examined the heart pendants one at a time, took his time. He had no idea whether he liked them or not. What were you supposed to look for?
Tonya lowered her voice. "Want a tip?" she said. "The heart pendants--they're not her."
"No?"
"Not close."
"So, uh."
Tonya crooked a finger at him. He followed her down to the end of the case. "See these?" she said.
"Earrings."
"Yeah. Earrings. They're jade, done by a local woman who's really talented. And as a bonus, this jade comes from the Bridger Hills."
The Bridger Hills were twenty miles away. "We've got jade here?"
"Maybe not technically, but it's some of the best in the world. Asians are buying it all up as fast as they can."
Cody, a little confused, gazed at the jade earrings. They came in different shapes--round, square, rectangular, teardrop, and a few others he had no names for. Tonya went
tap-tap
on the glass with her bright blue fingernail. "Those?" he said, staring at a pair that seemed kind of oval with another smaller oval dangling down.
"She'll love them," Tonya said. "The coolest design, plus they'll remind her of home."
Cody bought the earrings--$299.95 plus tax--although it was more than he'd been planning to spend if he'd actually been planning, and although he had no idea why Clea would want to be reminded of home since she was going to be home when he gave them to her. But he paid for the earrings and felt good about it. Tonya put them in a velvet-lined box and wrapped it up in silver paper with a bright blue ribbon, same color as her nail polish. She walked him to the door, gave him a pat on the back, her hand possibly lingering a bit.

August 17 was a Sunday, a real stroke of luck since Cody didn't have to work. He washed and waxed his car, vacuumed the inside, buffed brightener on his new rims. Clea called on her way from the airport.

"Hi," she said.
"Hi." His heart beat faster, just knowing she was close. "Coming over?" she said.
"It's all right with, uh, everyone?"
"Yeah."
"Okay."
"We're going through Arapaho Junction," she said. He

heard excitement in her voice, even though Arapaho Junction was nothing but a gas station and a general store.
"Won't be long," Cody said.
Back to normal.
She spoke softly. "Can't wait."
At the last minute, Cody realized that flowers might be nice. On his way across town, he tried one convenience store, then another, finally finding a bouquet of pointy red and yellowish flowers. "What are these?" he asked the man at the cash register, who turned out not to speak much English. As Cody drove into the Heights and up Clea's street, flowers and earrings on the seat beside him, a black limo was going the other way. He turned into the circular driveway, parked in front of Cottonwood.
The door opened and Clea came flying out. She hurtled down the steps--how different she looked: hair, face, everything--and ran toward him. Cody had barely gotten out of the car, fumbling with the bouquet and the silver box, when Clea threw her arms around him. They squeezed each other tight. Clea made a little sound deep in her throat, a sound he could never describe but that said a lot. They kissed and hugged, then just held each other, quiet.
Clea pushed back a little, looked up at Cody. "You've grown so much."
"Almost an inch," Cody said. "Plus fifteen pounds."
She laughed, a laugh that got a little shaky, verged on tears. Then she noticed the flowers. "They're beautiful."
Cody held up the silver box from Main Street Jewelers. "Also there's this," he said.
Clea's eyes filled up. "There's something I have to tell you. I wanted to say it in person."
"What?" said Cody, thinking:
She has a Chinese boyfriend.
But it wasn't that. "They're sending me to Dover."
Cody made a baffled gesture with his hands, earring box in one, flowers in the other. "Dover?"
"It's a private school, Cody."
Cody had never heard of it.
"A boarding school," she said.
"Meaning you live there?"
Clea nodded. "It's in Vermont," she said.

Monday morning. "I won't be coming in today," he said. Mr. Beezon's niece Sue was the office manager. "You sick,
Cody?" she said.
"No," he said, realizing too late that this might be one of
those times when the truth was the wrong choice. "No, it's just,
um . . ."
After a moment or two of silence, Sue Beezon said, "You're
taking a personal day?"
"Yeah," said Cody, "a personal day."
"Then why didn't you just say so?" said Sue Beezon. "You
haven't missed a day all summer."
"Hey, thanks."
"See you Tuesday--bright and early."

Clea called a few minutes later.
"I thought you'd be sleeping in," he said. "Jet lag." "I'm up," she said. "When are you coming over?" Cody showered and drove to Clea's. She opened the door

the moment he knocked. "I love them," she said.
"What?" said Cody.
Clea turned her head, pointed out the earrings. She also

wore a long T-shirt, and maybe not much else. "It was so smart of you," she said.
"Yeah?" said Cody. "In what way?"
She laughed. "Because they match my eyes."
"Oh, right," Cody said. "Sure, yeah." Hadn't even occurred to him, of course. Had Tonya thought it out that far?
"Come on in," she said. "No one's home."
"You said that the last time."
She laughed again, pulled him inside. "Everyone's gone for the day."
"You said that, too."
Clea pushed the door shut with her bare foot. "Expecting lightning to strike twice?" she said.
"Always," said Cody.
Her expression changed. She tilted up her head and kissed him. It turned into a longer kiss. Clea made a little sound that meant open your eyes. He'd forgotten: She'd been gone for a long time. He opened his eyes. Other things about her had changed, but those eyes were still the same. That didn't mean he knew what she was thinking; he just knew what he was thinking: Vermont.
Soon they were upstairs, back in that bedroom with the silk comforter, and Clea was wearing just the earrings. Hair a lot different, voice a little different, even her body not quite the same--leaner yet somehow more womanly at the same time, if that made sense. But some things were exactly the same, and if not exactly, then even better, for sure.
They lay side by side, under the comforter.
"You've grown," she said.
Cody was about to go over it again, almost an inch, fifteen pounds, when he realized there'd been something in her tone--amused, or maybe teasing. He laughed. She rolled on top of him, kissed the tip of his nose. They stopped laughing. "Thanksgiving's not that far away," she said.
"No?"

Cody took Clea out to a late breakfast at the Big Chief Diner, best breakfast in Little Bend, with a view of the nicest part of Main Street, with all the old, solid-looking buildings. They had the Big Chief Diner pretty much to themselves. Cody ordered the huevos rancheros with sides of bacon and toast, plus OJ and coffee; Clea had the same, except for the coffee.

Cody nodded. Frank Pruitt was a big coffee drinker, always had a thermos in the truck, and he'd gotten into the habit.
When the food came, they demolished it all, ate like starving people, hardly talking. After, Clea burped and said, "That's the best meal I've had all summer."
"No way."
"It's true."
Cody stirred his coffee, stared at the tiny whirlpool he'd made. "Maybe tourists from Hong Kong will start coming here."
Under the table, her foot pressed against his.
"What was the conversation like?" he said.
"What conversation?"
"About this school, Darby or whatever the hell it is?"
"Dover," she said. "And didn't I already tell you?" Clea's eyes went a little vague. "I was so wiped out last night."
"Tell me again."
"My uncle Bill's friends with the headmaster. My dad called my uncle and he called the headmaster. Done deal." Clea shrugged.
"I meant the conversation with you," Cody said. "Convincing you to, you know, go."
"There was more than one conversation," Clea said. "My dad actually flew to Hong Kong just to talk to me."
"And?"
"And what?"
"How much of a fight did you put up?"
Her foot moved away. "I fought."
"How?"
"Argued. Yelled and screamed. What do you think?"
The waitress appeared. "Anything else, kids?"
They shook their heads. The waitress added up the check, handed it to Cody, and went away.
Clea leaned forward. "What would you have done?" she said.
"Me?" said Cody. Deep down, he knew he wasn't sure, couldn't really put himself in her place--Hong Kong, headmasters, investment banking, snorkling with dolphins. But he kept going, sure or not. "Refused," he said. "I'd have refused."
She sat back in her chair. Now her eyes seemed different, too, just like the rest of her. That made him angry, very angry, although he didn't really know why.
"Flat out refused," he said. "Flat out fucking refused."
Clea crossed her arms over her chest. "And then what?"
"What do you mean--and then what?"
"Exactly," said Clea. "What do you do when they say the choice is Vermont or Hong Kong?"
"Hong Kong?"
"Private school in Hong Kong, living with Uncle Bill-- that's an option. Or them buying a condo in Vermont, me going to Dover as a day student, dad and Fran flying back and forth--another option. The only nonoption was staying here and going back to County. What am I supposed to do? Run away to Mexico?"
Cody started to get it. And what was there to get? Basically it was pretty simple: They were sixteen. "And this is all because of me?" he said. "It's just to get us apart?"
Clea looked at him, and then away. "No," she said. "That was just . . . the catalyst, maybe."
Catalyst? What did the word mean, exactly? Cody remembered some story about an explosion in chem class, a class he'd get to senior year, if at all.
"It's more the whole scene," Clea said.
"What whole scene?"
"This place. Little Bend. He's got this idea in his head about Harvard or Yale or one of those, and a town like this just isn't the right kind of . . ." Her voice trailed off.
"He wants you to go to Harvard?"
"Or another, you know, top school. He's got a list." "And you can't get into them if you're from Little Bend?" "It's not that. It's more that I won't really be prepared."
"Prepared? You're the smartest kid in town. You've already done calc."
"And got a B," Clea said. "At a place like Dover there'll be a dozen kids with As in calc every semester. And they go on to multivariables and other things I don't even know about yet."
Cody was a little lost, but for some reason that
yet
stuck in his mind. "I think you want to go."
She reached across the table, laid her hand on his. "I love you," she said.
"But other than that?" he said.
"Other than that?
That
is the most important thing in my life."
Cody withdrew his hand. "But this is a big opportunity, right? That's what you think."
Clea was silent for a few moments. The morning light emphasized the green of her eyes, and Cody saw that the earrings didn't really match. "Harvard and those places take football pretty seriously, in their own way," she said.
"What are you saying?"
"They look for good players. Take Williams, for example. It's out in the country, really beautiful, and they play in a D-3 league. You could be the big star, easy."
Cody had never heard of Williams; and playing D-3? What was even the point? "I don't understand," he said.
Clea's foot moved under the table, found his, pressed against it once more. "I've been thinking."
"Thinking what?"
"These two years," she said. "Junior and senior--they're just going to fly by."
"And then?"
"Then? We could go to college together, you and me, get an apartment off campus, just really . . . live."
"Are you nuts? You think I could get into Harvard?"
"Maybe not Harvard. Some of the others on the list are easier to get into--I've done some checking. And they look for football players, I told you. As long as you do half decent in school, football gets you in."
"And who's going to pay?"
"These colleges are all loaded. They give out grants. You wouldn't have to pay a dime. And till then we have the summers, and all the holidays, and--and maybe you could even come and visit me once or twice."
"In Vermont?"
She nodded.
Did it all sound impossible? Not to Cody, not then.
"Still mad at me?" she said.
"No," Cody said. "And I wasn't mad."
She smiled. "Then let's go somewhere. I have to get back at four."
"Why?"
"That's when they're coming for Bud."
"You're selling him?"
"Sell Bud?" Clea said. "He's going, too."
"Going where?"
"To Dover. They've got an equestrian team. The coach thinks I'll be on varsity right away."
Although it made no sense, that was the moment--hearing the news about Bud--when Cody felt a first little twinge of impossibility.