True Colors (41 page)

“They wouldn’t let us go in. You have to be eighteen or have an adult with you.”

“Oh.”

“But I want to try again. I know he’ll want to see me.”

Vivi Ann heard every nuance of emotion in her son’s voice—bravado, fear, anger, and worst of all: hope. She hated to see Noah take that path, but how could she advise her child against hope?

“And I’m sorry about tonight. I should have told you about Cissy. It was just so cool to keep it to ourselves.”

Vivi Ann knew that feeling. She was the last person to deny someone the right to be in love. Such emotion was too rare to handle it roughly.

Vivi Ann reached out and touched Noah’s hair, moving her fingers through it. “I understand why you did what you did. Maybe I even have a little responsibility for it. And I noticed that you didn’t lose your temper tonight. That’s good.”

“But I fucked up.”

She gave him the bad-language look. “You lied to me and Mark and Aunt Win. You took advantage of my trust in you. Worst of all, you just showed Mark that he was right to believe the worst of you.”

“What do I do to fix it?”

“You were smart enough to come up with your master prison plan. I’m sure if you try, you can come up with a redemption plan.”

“I will.”

“And while you’re figuring it out, factor in that you have to do it without leaving home, because you’re on restriction until school starts. You can leave this ranch to go to church and to see Mrs. Ivers, but for no other reason.”

“Aw, Mom . . .”

“Believe me, there’s a price to be paid for love. You might as well learn that now.”

When I was little, we had this old mare named Clementine’s Blue Ribbon. Mom used to put me up in the saddle while she was pulling weeds and Clem would just stand there with me on her back. She followed me around like a puppy in the fields and sometimes at night, she’d trot up as close to my window as she could and whinny. Mom said it was horse talk for goodnight special boy. And then one day Mom told me Clem had gone to Heaven. I went out to her stall and it was empty
.

That was when I learned you could lose what you loved
.

That’s how I feel now. Ever since I wrote to my dad, I’ve been—I don’t even know what word to use anymore. Not sad, not even pissed off. Empty maybe. I go to the mailbox every day and nothing ever comes
.

Cissy hasn’t called or emailed or texted me either. It’s like she fell off the planet. I know what happened. My mom was right. She picked her dad’s side. I even understand it. But it hurts so much that sometimes I don’t want to turn on the light in my room or get out of bed
.

She’s all I think about. I remember how she came up with the plan, saying no one has a right to keep you away from your own dad. She held my hand on the bus rides to the prison and back. All the way home she was saying how cool it would be to actually talk to him someday
.

She knew how much I needed that
.

Maybe That’s who I am, Mrs. Ivers, a guy who needs things he can’t get. I need Cissy to love me again and I need to talk to my dad
.

Which pretty much means I’m screwed
.

Today I registered for high school. Mrs. Ivers told mom I passed Language Arts with flying colors. Whatever the hell that means. It made my mom happy, and me too, I guess. It means I’ll see Cissy on Wednesday when school starts
.

How will I look at her without being a total dork? I know Erik Jr. will glom onto her. She’s so smoking hot he’ll want her to be his girlfriend. If I see that how will I keep from going postal?

Maybe I’ll pretend to be sick all year
.

I was going to quit writing in this book Mrs. Ivers gave me, but today was so amazing I don’t want to forget a single thing
.

So there I was, standing out by the flag like a total loser while everyone else yelled and screamed about how cool it was to see each other. Being alone in a crowd is the worst, I think. Everyone belongs somewhere except you. Last year that would have pissed me off. I would have looked around and seen all those smiling kids and I would have hated them. If someone had looked at me sideways I would have flipped him off. There are different ways to start a fight. I guess I know that now
.

Anyway I was standing there, wishing I’d worn my old favorite Vans instead of these dorky Nikes my mom made me buy, when I saw Cissy. She was with Principal Jeevers. They were next to the blue metal doors and the principal was yakking on. There were kids everywhere. Laughing, talking, playing hackey sack, listening to their iPods, talking on the phone. All the usual first day of school shit
.

Still she saw me right away
.

I waited for her to smile. When she didn’t, I walked away, went over to this alley between the gym and the auditorium, where it was quiet and dark
.

I was there, with my eyes closed, leaning against the warm brick wall when I heard her say my name. I wanted to ask her what she wanted in a voice that made me sound tough, as if I didn’t care, but I couldn’t do it
.

I missed you she said
.

I don’t even remember what I said. All I know is one minute I was in the shade by myself and the next minute she was there with me
.

SHE STILL LOVES ME!!!!

I can’t believe I doubted it. She says it hurt her feelings that I gave up so easily and I don’t know what to say to that. I guess when your dad’s in prison you learn to give up easily. My mom is the same way I think. But I won’t be like that anymore. From now on I’m gonna be a believer. Cissy says all I have to do is choose to be one and it’ll happen
.

That was when she gave me this copy of Seattle magazine
.

I knew right away it was going to cause trouble
.

Winona stood in the small avocado-colored bathroom, peering between a pair of geometric-patterned curtains. From here, she could see most of the beach house’s backyard—brown now from the heat of August and early September—and dashes of the highway beyond the trees.

She saw Cissy at the end of the driveway next door, waiting. When the yellow school bus drove up and stopped, the girl went up the steps and disappeared inside.

Winona backed out of the bathroom, put on the slippers by her bed, and went next door. Upstairs, she found Mark in bed.

“You’re late,” he said, putting his newspaper down.

“I’m fat. I can only run so fast. You could always come to my house, you know.” She flicked off her slippers and climbed into bed with him. Snuggling close, she began unbuttoning his pajama top and kissing the hairy chest beneath.

In moments they had taken their clothes off and started to make love.

It was their new Monday morning routine, and Winona looked forward to it all week. After the fiasco with Noah and Cissy, she’d been afraid that Mark would leave her. He’d even tried, although that attempt wasn’t something they brought up. After two lonely weeks, he’d come back and now they were better than ever. They just didn’t talk about their families. Instead, they created a bubble world where they alone existed. Saturday nights, Monday mornings, Thursday afternoons; these were their times. Winona hoped like hell that Cissy tried out for soccer.

They lay entwined after sex. She kissed the curl of his shoulder and closed her eyes, almost falling asleep.

“It’s a long time until Thursday,” he said.

“You made the rules,” she murmured. “I say we tell Cissy we’re still together. All this sneaking around is ridiculous.”

“You haven’t seen her lately. She’s like some walking zombie. She’s never stayed mad at me this long. Not even when I was a drunk.”

“I hear Noah is pretty much the same way.”

“Don’t mention that kid’s name to me. Cissy asked my mom last week if she was totally sure she saw Dallas that night. Mom was so upset she had to take a pill to sleep.”

“Young love. It’s a durable thing, I guess.”

“Love. Christ. They’re fourteen years old. They’re too young to know what the hell love is.” He threw the covers back and got out of bed. “I need to go to work.”

When he left, she lay there for a few more moments, staring out the windows at the sunlit Canal. Finally, she got out of bed herself, slipped her nightgown and slippers back on, and followed him to the bathroom.

He put down his electric razor. “We know better than to talk about that.”

“I know. See you Thursday?”

“You bet.”

For the next seven hours, she focused on work. Clients came to her office, one after another, complaining mostly about each other and counting on her to sort through all their confused emotions and find a common ground.

Her last scheduled appointment concluded at just past four o’clock, and she kicked off her pumps, took off her navy blazer, and reached for her mayoral debate file. The town meeting was currently set for early November, and she intended to blow her competition out of the water with her well-reasoned, perfectly considered plan for running this town. She was adding thoughts to her speech file when her intercom buzzed.

“Winona?” Lisa said through the small black speakers. “Your nephew, Noah Raintree, is here to see you.”

“Send him in.”

Noah walked into her office and smiled at her. A ragged backpack hung negligently from one shoulder. He’d changed so much this summer that sometimes she was caught off guard by his appearance, even going so far as to be proud of him until she remembered how he’d lied to her. “Have a seat, Noah.”

He sat down across from her, let his backpack slump to the floor. “I need to hire a lawyer.”

“What did you do?”

“Jeez, Aunt Winona. Way to think the worst of me.”

“I did trust you, remember? You made me look like an idiot in front of my boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well. Your boyfriend is a dick.”

“And God knows your high opinion of him is so important to me. Why do you need a lawyer?”

“If I hire you, everything we say is confidential, right?”

“Have you been studying law in social studies?”

“When I was on restriction, I watched a lot of TV.
Law and Order
is awesome.”

“Okay, yes. Our communications are confidential.”

“And if you take my case, you have to do your best, right?”

“I would hardly do less. But you’d have to pay me a retainer, of course. Two thousand dollars is standard for me.”

He pulled a one-dollar bill out of his pocket and set it on her desk. “There’s a family discount, I hope.”

She glanced down at the wrinkled, wadded-up dollar, and then up at Noah. Whatever this was about, he took it seriously. She knew she should send him on his way, but her curiosity was piqued. There were few things she hated more than unanswered questions. So she took the dollar bill and put it in her desk drawer. “Okay, Perry Mason. Hit me with your best shot.”

He leaned sideways and pulled a magazine out of his back-pack. He put it on her desk and shoved it toward her.

She saw the lead article’s headline.
Seattle’s Best Lawyers
. It was
Seattle
magazine’s yearly listing of the state’s top legal eagles. “Is this your subtle way of telling me that I’m not universally lauded by my peers? Because believe me, Noah, when a lawyer opens up shop in Oyster Shores, she pretty much knows her place on the food chain. And
P.S
., it’s near the bottom.”

“Turn to page ninety.”

She did. Beside an ad for one of the city’s newest high-rises, she saw a gloomy photograph of a man standing in front of a prison guard tower. The headline read:
Innocence Project Northwest Works to Exonerate the Wrongly Accused
.

“It’s about DNA testing,” he said.

“Noah,” she said gently, “that’s all water under the bridge with your dad. It’s over.”

“It’s not,” he said, stubbornly jutting out his chin. “They never tested his DNA. Mom told me.”

“Yes, they did.”

“No, they didn’t.”

She thought about that, scrolled through the facts she could recall. “Oh. That’s right. The sample was too small.”