The Heartbreak Messenger (17 page)

Abby heard me coming. She gave me a slow, absentminded glance, and then turned back around to stare at the stream.

“Hey, Quentin.”

Maybe the sun had blinded her, or maybe she was just lost in thought. Either way she didn't seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. I came up beside her, still keeping the goods out of sight. Somehow I felt like I was about to commit a felony.

“What you up to?” I asked.

“Just thinking.”

“About what?”

“Justin.”

“Oh.” My voice cracked a little.

She glanced at me again and I turned my body toward her to keep things out of sight. “Lately I've been so worried about him, about us,” she said. “He's been getting upset at the stupidest things. And I was sure it was my fault, you know? But today he was totally different. So happy. We had the best conversation at lunch.”

“Oh? What did you talk about?” For a moment I wondered if Justin had laid a few hints for her about what was hidden behind my back.

Abby laughed. “His pet turtle. He got a ball for his turtle to play with, but whenever Justin drops the ball into its cage, the turtle just pulls inside its shell. I told him he needed to get a dog instead.”

Their last conversation together and they talked about pet turtles. Justin was even more of a wimp than I thought.

“Anyway,” Abby said, “hopefully he's gotten over whatever's been bothering him and things will be back to normal.”

I didn't say anything. I couldn't. It was the perfect chance to jump in with, “Well, actually, Justin's definition of ‘normal' is a little different than yours.” Or at the very least I could have shaken my head sadly. But I just stood there, wide-eyed and tongue-tied.

She must have sensed something because she glanced at me and then did a double take. “What's the matter, Quentin?” She suddenly noticed the way I was standing. She craned her neck to see what was behind my back. There was a half smile on her lips, like she expected me to yell, “Surprise!”

“What's going on?”

I opened my mouth like a wooden puppet, but no sound came out. The words were wedged deep in my throat and refused to budge. They had come for Melissa and Carmen and Goat Girl and Duke the Ripper, but the one person that I really cared about, the one person I knew so well, I just couldn't say them to her.

I didn't have to. They were written on my face with black permanent marker. Abby's half smile faded. She took a step away from me. I let my hands fall to my sides, exposing the dreaded tokens of the Heartbreak Messenger. “Oh, no,” she whispered. She looked into my eyes, pleading so hard that it hurt, and I had to glance away.

“He wouldn't do that to me.”

“I'm sorry.” I croaked out the words.

“He wouldn't do that to me,” she whispered again.

And then, as though she'd just thought of something, her expression seemed to crumple with even more pain. Or maybe that was just my imagination. But the words she spoke were real. “
You
wouldn't do that to me.” Her eyes glistened with reluctant tears. One escaped and tore a wet line down her face.

“Abby, I…”

“My boyfriend
paid
my best friend to break up with me. Now who's shoulder am I supposed to cry on?” For a minute she looked like she was going to hit me, or try to toss me over the bridge. But she didn't. She turned, more tears blazing trails down her cheeks, and ran up the poplar path.

“Abby! Wait!” I hurried after her. There was so much to say. So much to explain. So much comfort I was supposed to be giving. I sprinted through the trees.

Abby stopped abruptly and whirled around. “You stay away from me, Quentin! I don't need you anymore.”

The words slapped my face, and then backhanded it again, just to be sure. I watched her run away, disappearing into the trees.

I couldn't breathe. I'd only run for a few seconds, but it felt like someone was sitting on my chest. The trees spun around me. I stumbled back toward the bridge.

I don't know how dirt feels. But if it feels the way I did at that moment, I don't know how it lives with itself. One thing I do know is this: In the end, the Messenger's heart got broken just like everyone else's.

 

Chapter 26

I stood at the bridge for a long time, staring into the water. At one point I must have opened up the package of chocolates and eaten some, because when I looked down later, only the ones with nuts were left. I pried my tired elbows off the bridge railing and made my way toward the garage in the twilight.

Mom was working on a Ford Taurus. Looked like a water pump problem. I laid the flowers on the air compressor next to the car as I walked past.

“Hi, Quentin.” She looked at the flowers. “Are these for me?”

“No,” I said as I pulled two microwavable pizzas out of the freezer. I stuck them both into the microwave, one on top of the other. I walked by again and laid the half-eaten chocolates next to the flowers. “Neither are these. But you can have them, too.”

She looked at them, then at me. “These aren't European, are they?”

I didn't answer. I walked to the garage bay door and stared out at the evening.

“Well, at least you left me the nuts.”

She wouldn't say anything else. She never did. She never pried.

When the pizzas were done, I sat down and waited for her to slide into the chair across from me.

“Your turn,” she said.

I took a bite of pizza. The cheese burned my mouth, but I kept chewing. The crust was thin and floppy. “Breaking up,” I said quietly.

Mom nodded, unfazed. “All right. You wanna start?”

Apparently I did. Because before I knew it, my whole story came out. I started with Marcus McFallen at his house, and how the Heartbreak Messenger name appeared from nowhere and just stuck to me. I told her the truth about the “bathroom sink” my face ran into. I told her about wanting to help out with the rent, about goats and the girl in the sweet Mustang, about digging with Rob through the stacks of scrap. (She found the dead rat and the dog poop incredibly funny.) I told her about all the messages in between. I even told her about Abby, about how I'd ruined her life and how she'd probably never speak to me again. I told her just about everything (except for Gunner's knife and the note from Marcus—some things you just don't tell your mom).

“Well,” she said after she'd finished her pizza and I'd hardly touched mine. “Sounds like you've been busy. And it sounds like you've been making bank. You've really been doing this just to help out with the rent?”

I nodded, and then stopped myself, knowing I couldn't lie to my mom, not tonight at least. “Well, I've been telling myself that over and over. And I do want to help with the rent. But to be honest, I probably would have done it even if I hadn't overheard your phone call. People respect the Heartbreak Messenger. He has power. I guess I've kinda liked that.”

Mom studied my face with a quiet smile. “I'm glad I wasn't the only motivation behind it. I hate to tell you, Quentin … well, no, I'm happy to tell you … we don't have rent problems. I make enough here at Mick's and that isn't going to change anytime soon.”

The events of the day were suddenly put on pause as I tried to understand her words. “But I heard you…”

“You heard part of a conversation I had with your Uncle Ethan.” She glanced over her shoulder. “I've been kicking around the idea of opening up my own garage. You know, starting my own business. I dragged Ethan into it just to get a second opinion. But the bottom line is that I'd never be able to get a loan big enough. Even if I could find a vacant building in a good location, the rent alone would shut us down. It was just an idea, so it's no big deal. But that's what I was discussing on the phone.”

I tried to rewind my memory and replay the overheard conversation in this new light. “You mean we don't have problems paying the rent?”

She shook her head. “Not even a microproblem.”

“What about the electric bill?”

“I'm terrible with remembering to pay bills on time. That certainly wasn't my first late notice.”

My mind whirled. I wasn't sure whether to be upset that I'd worried so much about that for nothing, or to be happy that I still had oodles of cash stored away that did
not
need to be used for rent.

Mom reached over and held my chin in her hand. “But I think it is so sweet that you have a roll of bills saved up in your sock drawer just to help us out. You're a good person, Quentin.”

I sighed. “Good people don't hurt their friends, especially not their best friends.” I looked into Mom's soft brown eyes. “Do you think I've ruined things? Do you think Abby will ever speak to me again?”

“Hmmm…” Mom leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. “How long have you two been friends?”

“Since the second grade.”

“And was it you or this Justin kid that was acting like a selfish coward?”

I hesitated. “Well, we both were, I guess. For different reasons.”

“Be sure to tell Abby that. A girl likes it when a guy admits he's been a jerk.”

“How do I tell her?” My experience, after all, wasn't in apology messages.

“Well, it might not be easy. But be sincere. Tell her what's in your heart. Can't go wrong with that. But, Quentin.” She leaned in close. “Here's a hint. One rose. No carnations. A nice rose. Doesn't matter the color, with a ribbon tied around the stem. Got it?”

I nodded slowly. “I think so.” For some reason I was suddenly hungry. I dug into my pizza.

She stared at me with those mom-eyes. We were quiet for a long time. Then as she looked out into the dark evening, she said, “You know, your father was quite the heartbreaker, too.”

I stopped chewing. I didn't move, waiting to see if she'd go on, but half-hoping she wouldn't. I didn't want to hear how I was a chip off the ol' Chinetti block.

Mom absentmindedly bit at her fingernail. “He'd love the girls and leave them. He was handsome, and rugged, and charming, and he left a long trail of broken hearts behind him. When I caught him on my hook I knew his heartbreaking days were over. I was going to be the one to tame him, to make him settle down. But I was young. Probably too young to know what I was getting into.”

“Do you wish you'd been older when you, you know, got involved with him?”

“I don't know.” She was still staring off into nothing, as though trying to recall an image from somewhere in the past. “My age may have made all the difference, or it may have made none. Somehow I think—always have, still do—that we were destined to be together, him and me. But that's the funny thing about destiny. The choices people make are the only things that can screw it up. Your dad was good at making people laugh, and at screwing things up.”

“How did he … break up with you?” I hardly knew how to phrase the question. I knew my dad had up and left when I was six, but I'd never heard how he'd actually done it. Now that I was an expert on the art of breaking hearts, however, I was suddenly very curious.

Mom studied my face, and then looked off into the night again. “He broke my heart just like he did all the others—without looking back. One night we went out to see a movie. It was some romance. I picked it. I should have known right then—he never let me pick the movie. We held hands, and kissed. Then I woke up the next morning and he was gone. His clothes were gone, his tools were gone, half the food in the cupboards was gone. On the kitchen table was a twenty-dollar bill and a note written on a paper napkin. ‘Sorry, baby, time to move on.'” Her eyes were starting to glisten in the fluorescent light of the garage bays. “Twenty dollars, and me with a six-year-old boy and no job.”

We sat there digesting that bit of family history and our processed frozen pizzas.

“At least he didn't leave you a dead rat,” I finally said.

Mom laughed. “Or a gift box full of dog crud,” she added. And then she was really laughing. Holding her sides, hand over her mouth, snorts and gasps of raw laughter. I laughed with her, mother and son. The laughter bounced off the walls of the garage and tumbled into the parking lot. And then suddenly I saw Mom was crying, too. The tears streamed down her cheeks as the laughter went on. And for the life of me I didn't know if she was crying for happy, or crying for sad, or just plain crying.

 

Chapter 27

I met up with Rob the next day at lunch. He pretended not to notice me, even after I said hello. I shrugged and sat down next to him. I unwrapped my peanut butter and jelly, not minding the silence. I knew I could hold on to it longer than he could, anyway.

As I popped the last bit of crust into my mouth, Rob, still looking straight ahead, said, “I think someone at this table owes me an apology.”

I looked down at the other end of the table where some kids were eating. “Yeah,” I said quietly, “but you know how pig-headed Ricky can be. You might be waiting awhile.”

Rob didn't look at me, but his mouth twitched as he fought down a smile.

I dug out my apple and crumpled up the empty brown paper bag. “I'm sorry, Rob. But you did get a whole box of Holey Doughs out of the deal. Even if I left you hanging, you can't complain too much about that.”

Rob seemed to consider that for a moment, and then nodded and dug into his lunch. “So where were you last night?” he said with his mouth full of potato chips.

“Busy with some things.”

“What kind of things?”

“Just things.”

“Messenger things?”

“Yeah. More or less.”

“Who was the victim this time?”

I sighed, thinking once again about what I'd done. “I don't wanna talk about it.”

“Oh, come on, give me a hint. Something I can guess at.”