Saints of Augustine (8 page)

“Who?” Sam asked, his voice rattling with nervousness.

“Oh, come on, like I even have to say it.”

“Say it. Who?”

“Laura Vickers.”

“Who?”

“The editor-in-chief of the
Fountain
. That totally hot redhead you spend every afternoon with after school, laying out the paper. Dude, you've got such a hard-on for her, it isn't even funny.”

Sam heard himself exhale. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Yes, he spent a lot of time with Laura; she liked his work, and she was grooming him to be the next editor of the school paper. Not to mention the fact that the two of them often spent long hours picking up the slack for
other, lazy staff members so that each issue of the
Fountain
could make deadline. But Sam had spent absolutely zero time thinking about Laura Vickers—or any girl, for that matter—in a sexual way. “You're whacked,” he said nervously.

“Could be,” Charlie said. He unclasped his hands from behind his head and folded them over his stomach. “All I'm saying is, if you want it, you've got to at least
try
to go for it. Otherwise, you'll never know.”

“Maybe you're right,” Sam said.

After a while, Charlie announced that he was beat and was going to sleep and that Sam was welcome to crash in the tent if he wanted to. Charlie turned the lantern out, and its light was instantly replaced with the glow of the moon, which shone through the orange ceiling of the tent enough to outline every shape like an underexposed photograph. It was too hot to sleep inside the sleeping bag; Charlie stayed on top of it and eventually rolled over onto his side, facing Sam, and began to breathe audibly in his sleep.

Sam was stretched out on the vinyl floor beside
him, wide-awake. His heart was thumping. Charlie's words were playing like a tape loop in his brain:
…If you really like someone, if you really can't get 'em out of your head, you owe it to yourself to at least try…. If you're not bold, you'll never know what you're missing out on…. Maybe you just lean over one day and plant a kisson their lips.

His mind raced through all kinds of scenarios. The craziest one had Charlie realizing, at last, that he liked Sam more than as just a friend, that he liked him as much as Sam liked Charlie, and that he wanted to find out how incredible they could be together. The most tame scenario had Sam just kissing Charlie lightly on the lips, in his sleep, so that Charlie would be none the wiser and Sam could always know how it felt, at least, to kiss his friend. His thoughts were like a roller coaster without any brakes: one hill after the other. The whole time he thought about it, he was watching Charlie, who still lay on his side, facing Sam, breathing evenly through lips that were just slightly parted and barely visible in the dim light.

…Maybe you just lean over…

He did. His face was inches from Charlie's. Then less than an inch. His entire body was trembling and his lips were so close that he could feel the warmth of Charlie's breath against them.

Then he panicked and drew back, slamming his body onto the tent's floor.

When he glanced over a moment later, Charlie's eyes were open and gazing at him sleepily. “You look totally wired, dude.”

Sam muttered, “I'm fine.” His chest was heaving.

Charlie grinned. “You've got Laura Vickers on the brain.” He rolled over, turning his back to Sam.

You're crazy,
Sam told himself.
You have to get out of this tent
. He waited until he was sure Charlie had fallen asleep again and then crept outside as quietly as possible. He stuffed his feet back into his sneakers, crossed the yard to the gate, and retrieved his pillowcase of belongings from the bushes under Charlie's window.

When he was back home in his room, under the covers of his own bed, he stared up at the swirled plaster of the ceiling and got glassy-eyed, almost tearful, realizing how close he'd come to doing
something terrible. If Charlie had seen what Sam was about to do (or if Sam had actually done it!), he would have been furious. He would have pounded the shit out of Sam, or at the very least punched him and told him to get the hell out, and then he would have told who knows what to people at school. Or—what somehow felt even worse—Charlie might have
known
what had almost happened and been controlled enough not to blow up about it, in which case he might be lying in his tent right now thinking,
Sam's queer! He almost kissed me! How the hell can I face him tomorrow?

There wouldn't be any tomorrow, Sam had decided, lying in his bed. His eyes had gone damp enough to spill over onto his cheeks, but his heartbeat had begun to level off in its thumping, and the more he'd held the thought in his head, the more he'd begun to calm down.
No tomorrow. Not with Charlie. Cut your losses and move on….

Charlie walked a slow
circle around the Volkswagen, waving mosquitoes away from his face and glancing at his watch every few minutes. They'd picked a hell of a place to meet up. The little parking lot behind the Clam Shack was poorly lit, and there was a nasty smell coming out of the Dumpster. Nine fifteen, they'd said. On the dot. Well, it was almost nine thirty now and he was practically dizzy from having circled the car so many times.

He made a mental note to Armor All the tires this coming weekend. And it was probably time to wax
again; it might just be the dim light from the pole lamp, but the fenders were looking a little dull.
Sam would ride me if he saw how much attention I give this baby
, Charlie thought. Sam had always been something of a slob. His room looked like a clothes bomb had gone off in it. And he totally didn't get the keeping-your-good-sneakers-clean thing. “Man,” he'd said one afternoon, watching Charlie rub Armor All onto his basketball shoes, “if you ever get a car, you're gonna mother it to death.”

“No, I won't. It'll be the happiest car in the world. I'll go through a gallon of this stuff a week.”

“You're already doing that on your shoes!”

“Well, you should try it sometime. Your running shoes look like mud boots.”

Had Sam seen Charlie's fantastic car? Surely he must have run past Charlie's house at least once in the past year and seen it sitting in the driveway. He might have thought it belonged to Charlie's father. Or even his mother. Did Sam even know that Charlie's mother had died?

When he'd spotted Sam the other night in the food court, Charlie's first impulse had been to wave.
His second impulse had been to go over and harass Sam about whatever that thing was he'd been wearing on his head. But that was the kind of stuff friends did, and they weren't friends. It irritated Charlie that he had to keep reminding himself of that lately.

He licked a finger and rubbed a dirt smudge off the VW's front bumper.

Headlights rounded the back of the Clam Shack. It was the twins, in their mother's Cadillac. They pulled up alongside Charlie's car. “Anthony wants to be the man next year,” Troy said, as if announcing the eighth wonder of the world.

Charlie drew a complete blank in his mind. “Who's Anthony?”

“Arbizi,” Taylor said, getting out from behind the wheel. “That little punk with the buzz cut. He's gone completely delusional. He wants to be point.”

“Isn't that insane? I mean, it's true he's a shrimp, but he can't even keep his eye on the ball,” Troy said, opening the passenger door.

Charlie couldn't think of anything he cared about less, at the moment. “So, did you get the stuff?”

“Keep your shirt on, Perrin. We got your buzz. You owe us forty big ones.”

Charlie pulled the money out of his pocket. Troy took it and handed over a sandwich Baggie rolled up into a cylinder.

“Thanks, guys.”

“Our pleasure,” Taylor said.

“Yeah, our pleasure.” Troy threw a fake punch through the open window. His fist came inches from Charlie's face. “We love being errand boys. We're thinking of charging a fee.”

“A
double
fee,” Taylor said.

“Well…” Charlie looked down at the Baggie, then tucked it into his back pocket. He didn't want to prolong this, standing around some stinky parking lot with the twins. “Thanks again.” He started for his car.

“Wait, we have a message for you,” Troy said.

“Yeah. Derrick says hi, and he'll be talking to you soon.”

Charlie stopped in his tracks. He looked back. “You saw Derrick?”

“Hel-
lo
. Where do you think we got the buzz? We just came from his place.”

When he'd asked the twins if they could sell him some pot, it hadn't occurred to him that they'd be
getting it from Derrick Harding.
Idiot
, he told himself.
Where else would they get it? He's their dealer, too. They're the ones who hooked you up with Derrick in the first place.
He felt himself nodding stupidly, as if trying to say to himself and them that everything was cool. “What else did he say?”

“You want a transcript? He said a lot of stuff. We were there for over an hour. Us and him and…what's that jerk's name again?”

“Wayne,” Troy said.

“Wade,” Charlie corrected.

“That's him. Total loser. He wouldn't exhale if Derrick didn't tell him to.”

“What else did Derrick say?” Charlie asked.

“Nothing. Just hi, and that he'll be talking to you.”

I really wish you hadn't mentioned me
, Charlie thought. He could just picture Derrick's dark, thin eyebrows arching up when the twins told him that some of the pot they were buying was for Charlie. “I've got to go.”

“Wow,” Taylor said, glancing at Troy. “Guess we know when we're not wanted.”

“Yeah,” Troy said. “Guess we're only good for one thing.”

Not even that
, Charlie thought. “I've just got to get home, that's all. Thanks again, guys.”

“Anytime,” one of them said. “Not,” said the other, and then, “Be prepared for Anthony to be point. Coach Bobbit's good friends with his parents, so it's probably going to happen.”

“I'll do that,” Charlie said. He opened the driver's door of the VW and dropped behind the wheel. As he started the engine, one of the twins waved good-bye; the other one flipped him a bird.

 

He drove down San Marco Avenue for a few blocks, then pulled over in front of a strip mall that was dark and deserted at this hour. He opened the glove compartment and was fishing for his pipe when he remembered that he'd thrown it out the window to convince Kate he wasn't smoking pot anymore. She hadn't been herself around him after that argument. The evening they'd gone to the movie, she'd been quiet, and she'd seemed only half into it when they were making out in front of her house at the end of
the night.
I ought to give her a call, touch base
, he thought. He looked around and spotted a pay phone in front of one of the darkened stores.

“Hello?”

“Hi, Mrs. Bryant. It's Charlie.”

“Oh, Charlie! Hello. How have you been?”

“Great.”

“We haven't seen much of you lately. I know you and Kate have been spending time together, but you ought to come over now and then when Mr. Bryant and I are actually home. We'd like the chance to catch up with you.”

“That would be great. Is Kate there?”

“Yes, I'll get her for you. It's a little late to be calling, though, isn't it, Charlie? I hope everything is all right.”

“Everything's fine,” Charlie said. He pulled the receiver away from his ear for a moment and rolled his eyes. “Everything's great. I was just wondering if Kate was around.”

“I'm getting her for you. How's your father doing, by the way?”

“Fantastic.”

“We've been thinking about him.”

It suddenly felt to Charlie as if everyone knew his business, but they were too polite to come right out and say it. As if the walls of their house were made of clear glass. “He's okay,” Charlie said. “He's, you know, keeping busy.”

“That's good. It's very important to stay occupied. It keeps the heart young. Well, all right then, I'll expect to see you soon. Come for dinner one night. Bring your father.”

“I will,” Charlie said. He could never in a million years see
that
happening.

“Kate!” Mrs. Bryant called away from the phone. “Pick up. It's Charlie.”

A moment later, Kate picked up the extension. They heard the click when Mrs. Bryant hung up the phone; then Kate said, “
She's
certainly in a friendly mood.”

“Yeah, she was pumping me for information.”

“Did she ask about your dad?”

“Yeah,” Charlie said. “Why's the Bryant household suddenly so interested in him?”

“Easy,” Kate said. “My parents know…used to
know both your parents, remember? My mom brought it up this afternoon—not even in a nosy way, which says a lot, for her. She just wanted to know if you and your dad were doing okay.”

“Sorry,” Charlie said. “I guess I'm just kind of tired and edgy. So what are you up to?”

“Reading,” Kate said.

“The philosophy book?”

“No. I visit that one now and then. I'm rereading
Walden
.”

“Oh, yeah,” Charlie said. “Is that”—he searched his brain for the name—“Kant?” He pronounced it
Can't
, which he knew was wrong as soon as he said it, but he was glad to have come up with the name at all.

“No. It's Henry David Thoreau. You know, the guy who went off into the woods and built his own cabin?”

“Oh, that guy. He was pretty cool.”

“I wouldn't call him cool,” Kate said. “I'd call him brilliant. He's the guy who wrote
Civil Disobedience
. Where
are
you? It sounds like you're calling from a tunnel.”

“That's the traffic on San Marco. I'm at a pay phone.”

“Out prowling around?”

“I was working late at the Danforth place, but I'm heading home now.”

“Oh.”

Charlie couldn't tell whether or not she believed him. He said, “So, listen, the reason I called…I was thinking you and I should go out on a fancy date. Like, a nice dinner somewhere.”

There was a pause. “Really?”

“Yeah, really. To celebrate the start of our senior year. Someplace nice, where we have to dress up. Maybe the Vargo Steak House.”

“That place costs a fortune!”

“So what?”

“Well…okay,” Kate said. “I'd love to go. When?”

“How about tomorrow night?”

“You're on,” she said, and then added, “You aren't planning on luring me into one of those seedy motels afterward, are you?”

He heard the playfulness in her tone. She was coming back around. “It's been on my mind,” he
said. “I'm just trying to find the seediest one. Want to help me look?”

“You're crazy,” she laughed. “We'll start with the steaks, and see where it goes. What time?”

“Seven,” he said, “sharp.” She sounded like the old Kate again, even called him Charlie Horse before hanging up. He walked back to his car feeling like he'd accomplished something. What was Coach Bobbit's phrase, when they'd played a crappy game but still had a quarter to go?
Damage control.

 

That night, it was the same story from his father—the same lies about how he'd driven all over town that day. Charlie found himself more irritated than worried. On impulse the next morning, after he'd made breakfast for them both, he palmed an extra egg and placed it behind one of the back tires of his father's Buick.

At the Danforth house, he smashed cracked windowpanes with a hammer, carefully broke the old glazing compound away from the frames, and painted the wood with primer. With the window frames he'd already primed, he replaced the glass and
anchored new panes with tiny metal points that stuck to his fingers and vanished from sight if they were dropped. Then he laid in fresh glazing compound and smoothed it down with a putty knife dipped in linseed oil. It was meticulous work, and it was usually very good for clearing his head and getting lost from the world for a while. Today, though, he kept thinking about Kate, about the evening they were going to have together and where it might lead, and whether or not he could talk her into coming here, to the Danforth house. He also thought repeatedly about the Buick sitting in the carport. The egg behind the tire.

He didn't want to bother cooking dinner that evening because he wanted plenty of time to get ready, so he stopped on the way home and picked up a pizza.

When he got to the house and pulled into the driveway, he saw the egg, unbroken, behind the Buick's left rear tire.
Maybe he won't lie
, Charlie thought.
Maybe he'll say he hasn't done a damn thing all day.

His father was in the bathroom off the living room. Charlie heard the toilet flush, and a moment
later the bathroom door swung open and a figure lurched forward toward the recliner. His father reached for the back of the chair. If his hand hadn't caught it, he would have fallen.

“Dad!” Charlie said, dropping the pizza box onto the kitchen counter. He started into the living room. “Are you all right? You nearly fell.”

“No, I didn't,” his father said, sounding grumpy. His terry-cloth robe flapped open. The sash was caught under one slippered foot. He wore his pajamas underneath. “I didn't trip, I just—this carpet bunches up, right here. I've been meaning to fix it.”

Charlie took his father's elbow. “Been hitting the vodka already, Dad?”

His father jerked his arm away. “Oh, knock it off, Charlie! Stop parenting me! You barely walk in the door, and you start giving me a hard time. Do I give
you
a hard time?” The edges had been sanded off his words.

“I got us a pizza,” Charlie said, stepping back.

“What kind?”

“Huh?” Charlie asked, watching him. The man was practically teetering, holding on to the chair.

“What
kind
? Pepperoni? Sausage? I'm not speaking French, am I?”

“Pepperoni.”

“Let's eat,” his father said.

Charlie walked toward the kitchen as his father followed. A nearly empty bottle of red wine sat open on the counter next to the refrigerator. He got out plates and poured two glasses of water. They sat down at the table.

When his father bit into a slice, half of it fell down his chin. He all but growled as he swiped at his mouth with his free hand.

Charlie looked down at his plate. “So, did you go anywhere today, Dad?”