Along for the Ride (7 page)

‘This,’ he said, turning her so she was facing out (still screaming, of course), his hands wrapped around her midsection, legs dangling down and kicking wildly, ‘is the elevator.’ And then he bent his legs, easing down, and straightened them, then repeated it, once, twice, three times. By the fourth, she abruptly stopped her protests, a weird look of calm spreading over her face.

I just stood there, looking at him. Who
was
this guy? Sullen stranger? Trick biker? Baby whisperer? Or –

‘Eli!’ Heidi said, suddenly appearing behind him. ‘I thought that was you.’

The guy glanced at her, then flushed, but only barely, and briefly. ‘Hey,’ he said, stopping the elevator. Thisbe blinked, then burst into tears.

‘Oh, dear,’ Heidi said, reaching out to take her from him. To me she said, ‘Where’s your father?’

‘He got a table,’ I told her. ‘We were about to sit down when she started to freak out.’

‘She’s probably hungry,’ Heidi said, glancing at her watch. Thisbe wailed louder, over her shoulder, while I glanced at the guy – Eli – trying to process what I’d just seen. ‘What a day! You would not believe the mess I have to deal with at work. The checkbook is all out of order, somehow I missed a deposit or something, thank God the girls are so understanding. I mean, it’s not like their paychecks are for huge amounts, but still, they work hard, and…’

Between this soliloquy and the baby melting down, not to mention Eli witnessing it all, I could literally feel my temperature rising. Why did she have to make everything such a big deal?

‘I better get back to the shop,’ he said to Heidi. ‘Congratulations, by the way.’

‘Oh, Eli, you’re so sweet, thank you,’ she replied, jiggling the baby. ‘And I’m so glad you met Auden! She’s new here, hardly knows a soul, and I was hoping she’d find someone to introduce her around.’

I felt my face flush even hotter; of course she had to make it sound like I was desperate for company. Which was why I barely responded as Eli nodded at me before crossing the boardwalk and pushing the door open to the bike shop, disappearing inside.

‘Thisbe, sweetheart, it’s okay,’ Heidi was saying, oblivious to all this as she strapped the baby back into the stroller. To me she added, ‘It’s so great you and Eli are friends!’

‘We’re not,’ I said. ‘We don’t even really know each other.’

‘Oh.’ She looked over at the bike shop, as if it would confirm this, then back at me. ‘Well, he is really sweet. His brother, Jake, is about your age, I think. He went out with Maggie until just recently. Awful breakup, that was. She’s still reeling from it.’

His brother? I thought, my face flushing. How small
was
this freaking town, anyway? And Heidi was
still talking
.

‘Should we go back to the restaurant?’ she asked me. ‘Or maybe I should take Thisbe home, she’s so upset. What do you think? I mean, I’d love a dinner out, but I wonder –’

‘I don’t,’ I said, the words coming even as I knew I should bite them back, ‘I don’t know what you should do. Okay? All I know is that I’m hungry, and I want to go eat with my father. So that’s what
I’m
going to do, if it’s all right with you.’

I could see her draw in a breath as a hurt look spread across her face. ‘Oh,’ she said after a moment. ‘Well, sure. Of course.’

I knew I’d been mean. I knew it, and yet I still turned and walked away, leaving her and the baby, still crying, behind me. But I could have sworn the sound followed me, hanging on, filling my ears even through the crowd on the boardwalk, into the restaurant, all the way down the narrow aisle to the table where my dad was already eating. He took a look at my face, then pushed a menu over to me as I slid into the booth across from him.

‘Just relax,’ he said. ‘It’s Friday night.’

Right, I thought. Of course. And when the onion rings arrived a few minutes later, I tried to do just that. But for some reason, they didn’t taste the same this time. Still good. But not great like before.

I knew from experience when a fight was over and when it had only just begun. So I stayed gone after dinner, taking a walk on the beach and the longest way home. Not long enough, though: as I climbed the porch steps two hours later, I could hear them.

‘– understand what you want from me. You asked me to stop working and come to dinner. I did that. And you’re still not happy.’

‘I wanted us to all have dinner together!’

‘And we would have, if you hadn’t left to go to the store. That was your choice.’

I dropped my hand from the doorknob, stepping back out of the porch light. From the sound of it, this was happening just inside, and the last thing I wanted was to walk into the middle of it.

‘I just wish…’ Heidi said, her voice cracking.

Then, nothing. The silence was almost unbearable, broken only when my dad said, ‘You just wish what.’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just… I thought you’d want to spend more time with us.’

‘I’m here all the time, Heidi,’ my dad said, his voice flat.

‘Yes, but you’re in your office. You’re not with Thisbe, interacting with her. You don’t rock her or get up with her…’

‘We discussed this as soon as you got pregnant,’ my dad told her, his voice rising. ‘I told you I cannot function on broken sleep, that I have to get my nine hours. You knew that.’

‘Okay, but you could take her during the day, or in the morning so I could deal with work stuff. Or even –’

‘Have we not discussed,’ my dad said, ‘how important it is that I finish the book this summer? That I can’t do the work I need to do during the academic year, and this is my only chance to work uninterrupted?’

‘Yes, of course, but –’

‘Which is why,’ he continued, talking over her, ‘I said let’s hire a nanny. Or a babysitter. But you didn’t want to.’

‘I don’t need a nanny. I just need an hour here or there.’

‘So ask Auden! Isn’t that why you wanted her to come visit?’

I literally felt like I’d been slapped: my reaction was that visceral, blood rushing to my face.

‘I didn’t invite Auden so she’d babysit,’ she said.

‘Then why is she here?’

Another silence followed. This one I welcomed, though, as sometimes a question can hurt more than an answer. Finally Heidi said, ‘For the same reason I want you to spend time with the baby. Because she’s your daughter, and you should want to be with her.’

‘Oh, Jesus,’ my dad said. ‘Do you really think –’

There was more coming, of course there was. My dad never said a sentence when he could go on for a paragraph. But this time, I couldn’t stand to hear it. So I dug my keys out of my pocket and got into my car.

I stayed gone for three hours, driving up and down the streets of Colby, circling up to the college, down to the pier, then back again. It was too small a place to really get lost in, but I did my best. And when I pulled back into the driveway, I made sure all the lights were out in the house before I even thought about going inside.

It was quiet as I stepped into the foyer, shutting the door behind me. At least there was no sign of major disturbances: the stroller was parked by the stairs, a burp cloth folded over the banister, my dad’s keys sitting on the table by the door. The only thing different was the kitchen table, which was now piled with Heidi’s business checkbook, various stacks of paper, and a couple of legal pads. On one of them, she’d clearly been trying to figure out what had happened with accounts. ‘
WITHHOLDING
?’ she’d written, as well as ‘
DEPOSIT
6-11?’ and ‘
CHECK ALL DEBITS SINCE APRIL, ERRORS
?’ From the looks of it – messy, sort of desperate – she hadn’t gotten very far.

Looking down at the mess of papers, I had a flash of her hurt face after I’d snapped at her, as well as what she’d said later to my dad about me. It was so unexpected to have her in my corner, defending me. Even more shocking was how grateful I’d felt, if only fleetingly, to find her there.

I glanced at my watch: it was twelve fifteen, early by my clock, with a full night still ahead of me. And the coffeemaker was right there on the counter, already filled for the morning and ready to go. It wasn’t Ray’s, but it would do. So I turned, hitting the button, and as it began to brew, I sat down with Heidi’s checkbook, flipping it open, and went looking for what she’d lost.

      Chapter

      FIVE

‘Hey, Aud. It’s me! What’s going on?’

My brother’s voice, loud and cheerful, boomed through my cell phone, a loud bass beat behind it. I was sure that Hollis did spend some of his time in places other than bars, but he never seemed to call me from any of them.

‘Not much,’ I said, glancing at my watch. It was eight thirty
P.M.
my time, which meant well past midnight at his. ‘Just getting ready to go to work.’

‘Work?’ he said, saying the word like it was from another language. Which, to him, it sort of was. ‘I thought you were supposed to be having a lazy summer, just hanging out at the beach.’

I was sure it was no coincidence he’d put it like this, almost verbatim the way my mother had described it during our last conversation: if Hollis was able to spin my mom’s thinking any way he wanted, she had similar influence over his own. Their connection was almost eerie, really, a bond that was so strong you could almost feel it, like a tidal pull, when they were together. My mother claimed it was the result of all those nights they spent together when he was a baby, but I wondered if it was just that Hollis had a way with women, starting with the first one he’d ever known.

‘Well,’ I said now, as the music grew louder, then dropped off again behind him, ‘I didn’t plan on working, actually. It just sort of happened.’

‘That sucks!’ he said. ‘Drop your guard, and stuff like that will sneak up on you. You gotta stay vigilant, you know?’

I knew. In truth, though, this latest situation was no surprise. If anything, I’d walked right into it, eyes wide open. I had no one to blame but myself.

‘I can’t believe it!’ Heidi had said when I came down the day after I’d worked on her books. As always, she was in the kitchen, lying in wait, the baby strapped to her in the Baby-Björn. ‘When I went to bed last night, this was all such a mess, and then this morning, it’s… it’s fixed. You’re a miracle worker! How did you even know how to do all that?’

‘I worked for an accountant last summer for a little while,’ I told her, pulling the coffee out of the freezer. By the time I got up they’d long ago rinsed out the pot, so I always got a fresh one, all mine. ‘It was no big deal.’

‘I spent
two hours
last night going over this checkbook register,’ she said, picking it up and waving it at me. ‘And I could not find the problem. How did you even know to consider double withholding?’

I started the coffeemaker, wishing I could at least have a cup in me before having to converse with anyone. No chance of that, though.

‘The register indicated it happened last May,’ I told her. ‘So I just figured it might have again. And then when I went to look at the tax statements –’

‘Which were such a mess, too, I couldn’t find a thing in them!’ she said. ‘And now they’re all organized. You must have spent hours getting all this stuff in order.’

Four, I thought. Out loud I said, ‘No. I really didn’t.’

She just shook her head, watching me as the coffeemaker finally produced enough for a quarter of a cup, which I quickly poured into my mug. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’ve been needing to hire someone to help me with the books for months now, but I was hesitant, as it’s such a sensitive job. I didn’t want to give it to just anyone.’

Oh, dear Lord, I thought. Please just let me drink my coffee.

‘But if you were interested,’ she continued, ‘I’d make it worth your while. Seriously.’

I was still waiting for the caffeine to hit as I said, ‘Um, I wasn’t really planning to work this summer. And I’m not exactly a morning person…’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t have to be, though!’ she said. ‘The girls do the deposit every day, and that’s the only thing that has to be done by a certain time. The rest, like the books and the payroll and keeping track of the register take, you can do later in the day. It’s actually
better
if you wait, really.’

Of course it was. And now I was stuck, as clearly, no good deed went unpunished. The bigger issue, though, was what had inspired this sudden burst of Good Samaritan behavior on my part? Was it that hard to realize that it would never just stop with one thing, there would always be a next step expected, and then one beyond that?

‘That’s a really nice offer,’ I said to Heidi, ‘but –’

This thought was interrupted by the sound of footsteps behind me: a moment later, my dad rounded the corner, carrying an empty plate, a Diet Coke can balanced on top of it. When he saw Heidi, and she looked back at him, I knew instantly their argument from the night before had not been resolved. It wasn’t exactly a chill in the air as much as a deep freeze.

‘Well,’ he said to me, walking to the sink and putting his plate into it, ‘I see you’re finally awake. What time do you go to bed these days, anyway?’

‘Late,’ I told him. ‘Or early, depending on how you look at it.’

He nodded as he rinsed off the plate, sticking it in the dish rack. ‘Ah, the ease of youth. Up all night, not a care in the world. I envy you.’

Don’t, I thought. Heidi said, ‘Actually, Auden spent last night going over my books. She found the error that threw off my balance.’

‘Really,’ my dad said, glancing at me.

‘I’m trying to convince her to work for me,’ Heidi added. ‘Do a few hours a day in the office at the shop.’

‘Heidi,’ he said, rinsing off his hands, ‘Auden’s not here to work. Remember?’

It was just one comment but crafted for maximum impact. And it delivered: I watched as Heidi winced. ‘Of course not,’ she said. ‘I just thought that she might –’

‘She should be enjoying her time with her family,’ he told her. Then he smiled at me. ‘What do you say, Auden? How about you and me have dinner tonight?’

He was good, my dad. I had to give him that. And so what if this was all about getting back at Heidi for the night before? It was exactly what I wanted, just me and him, and that was all that mattered. Wasn’t it?

‘That sounds great,’ Heidi said. When I looked at her, she smiled at me, although it seemed a little forced. ‘And, look, don’t worry about the job thing. Your dad’s right, you should just be enjoying your summer.’

My dad was taking a last sip of his Diet Coke, watching her as she said this. It had been a while since I’d had to listen to my parents fight, but no matter. Same tension, same barbs. Same look on my dad’s face when he knew he’d won.

‘Actually,’ I said, speaking before I even really realized what I was doing, ‘I could use some extra money for school. As long as it wasn’t too many hours.’

Heidi looked surprised, then glanced at my dad – whose expression could best be described as annoyed – before saying, ‘Oh, it wouldn’t be! Just, like, fifteen a week. If that.’

‘Auden,’ my dad said. ‘Don’t feel obligated. You’re here as our guest.’

I knew that if I hadn’t heard their argument the night before, this entire exchange would have been different. But you can’t unlearn something, even if you want to. You know what you know.

Later that evening, my dad and I walked up the boardwalk to a place right on the pier, where we ordered a pound of steamed shrimp and sat looking over the water. I wasn’t sure if it was that I couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d said, or that he was still annoyed at me taking Heidi’s offer (and, in his mind at least, side), but at first it was a little stiff, awkward. After he had a beer and we both endured some very dull conversation, though, things loosened up, with him asking me about Defriese and my plans for my major. In turn, I got him to talk about his book (‘an intricate study of a man trying to escape his family’s past’) and the progress he was making (he’d had to tear out the middle, it just wasn’t working, but the new stuff was much, much better). It took a while, but somewhere between the second pound of shrimp and his detailed explanation about his character’s inner conflict, I was reminded of everything I loved about my dad: his passion for his work, and the way, when he was talking to you about it, it was like there was no one else in the room, or even the world.

‘I can’t wait to read it,’ I told him as the waitress dropped off our check. Between us there was a huge mound of shrimp shells, translucent and pink in the sunlight slanting through the window. ‘It sounds great.’

‘See,
you
understand how important all this is,’ he said, wiping his mouth. ‘You were there when
Narwhal
came out, and saw how its success changed our lives. This could do the same for me and the baby and Heidi. I just wish she could see that.’ He was studying his beer bottle as he said this, turning it in his hand.

‘Well, it could be she’s just emotional right now. Sleep deprivation and all that.’

‘Maybe.’ He took a sip. ‘But in truth, she doesn’t think like we do, Auden. Her strength is business, which is all about results, very calculating. It’s different with academics and writers. You know that.’

I did know that. But I also knew that my mother, who fit both of these categories, had felt the exact same way about his efforts with this exact same novel. Still, it was nice to know he felt like he could confide in me.

After dinner, we parted ways and I headed toward Clementine’s, where I’d told Heidi I’d look over the office and get my bearings before officially starting work the next day. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it, for any number of reasons, so I was actually grateful for once for the distraction that was my brother.

‘So,’ I said to him now as the music began to thump again, ‘Tara’s nice.’

‘Who?’

‘Tara,’ I repeated. ‘Your girlfriend?’

‘Oh, right.’ There was a pointed pause, which pretty much answered any lingering questions I might have asked. Then, ‘So you got your present, huh?’

I could see the picture frame, which was in my duffel bag, instantly in my mind, those words beneath his grinning face:
THE BEST OF TIMES
. ‘Yeah,’ I said to Hollis. ‘It’s great. I love it.’

He chuckled. ‘Come on, Aud. You do not.’

‘I do.’

‘No, you don’t. It’s totally tacky.’

‘Well,’ I said. ‘It’s –’

‘Horrible,’ he finished for me. ‘Cheap and ridiculous. Probably the stupidest graduation gift ever, which is exactly why I gave it to you.’ He laughed, that booming, Hollis guffaw that, despite myself, always made me want to laugh, too. ‘Look, I figured there was no way I could compete with all the money and savings bonds and new cars you’d be getting from everyone else. So I decided at least my offering should be memorable.’

‘It is that,’ I agreed.

‘You should have seen the others!’ Another laugh. ‘They had them with all kinds of sayings. One was
HELLO FRIEND!
in bright yellow. Also,
PARTY QUEEN
, in pink. And then there was the one that said, inexplicably, in green,
CRAZY PERSON
. Like anyone would want their picture in that.’

‘Only you,’ I said.

‘No kidding!’ He snorted. ‘Anyway, I figured the cool thing was that you could keep switching out the picture. Because you don’t want
THE BEST OF TIMES
to be just one thing, forever. You have to have a lot of bests of times, each one topping the last. You know?’

‘Yeah,’ I said. And just like that, he’d done it again: taken a thought he’d probably come to on the fly, under any number of influences, and somehow managed to make it deep enough to resonate. It was an art, what Hollis did. Never calculating, but it did have its charms. ‘I miss you,’ I said to him.

‘I miss you, too,’ he replied. ‘Hey, look, I’ll send a
CRAZY PERSON
frame. You can put that picture of me in it, set it next to you in
THE BEST OF TIMES
, and it’ll almost be like we’re together. What do you think?’

I smiled. ‘It’s a deal.’

‘Cool!’ There was a muffled noise, followed by loud voices. ‘Okay, Aud, I gotta run. Ramona and me are headed to a party. Talk soon, though, okay?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Let’s –’

But then he was gone, just like that. Before I could ask him who exactly Ramona was, or what had happened in Amsterdam. That was my brother, the living, breathing To Be Continued. Like my dad’s book, he was always in progress.

I shut my phone, then slid it back into my pocket. Hollis was a great distraction, but any regret I’d been feeling about taking the job came rushing back as soon as I opened the door to Clementine’s and saw Maggie standing at the register, Leah and Esther on either side of her. There is really nothing more intimidating than approaching a group of girls who have already made up their minds about you. It’s like walking a plank, no way to go but down.

‘Hello,’ Leah, the redhead, said as I came toward them. She was one of those tall, curvy types with milky white skin and was wearing a low-cut sundress and strappy heels. Her voice was neither kind nor unkind, just sort of level as she said, ‘What can we do for you?’

‘She’s going to be doing the books,’ Maggie told her, although her eyes were on me. When I looked back at her, though, she flushed, turning her gaze to some papers on the counter in front of her, shuffling them busily. ‘Heidi’s been looking for someone since the baby came, remember?’