Glory Road Page 22

  I followed him to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and gestured over his shoulder to the desk by the back door. “Check out your computer.”

  I inhaled. “You’re a lifesaver. Truly.” I opened the top and was greeted with a familiar screen and a box asking for my password. When I entered it, the screen blinked to life. All my file folders stood in a row, as they always did: Invoices, Shipments, Requests, Deliveries.

  “I’ll be honest.” He held out a Blue Moon he’d pulled from the fridge. He raised his eyebrows. I nodded and took it from him. “You’ll want to think about replacing it soon. You’ve gotten more life out of that laptop than most people do.”

  He grabbed a beer for himself, then handed me a package of paper plates. “Hope you don’t mind paper.”

  “Not at all. Less to clean up later.”

  “My parents’ dishwasher broke years ago and they never fixed it. Mom didn’t mind washing dishes by hand, but if I’m going to sell this place, it’ll need a working dishwasher.”

  “Is that your plan? To sell the house?”

  He grabbed a dish towel and pulled a pizza stone from the oven. On top was a bubbling thin-crust pizza covered in fluffy mounds of mozzarella, greens, and thinly sliced tomatoes. “I don’t know yet.” He set the stone on top of the oven. “Probably. It feels weird being back in this house again. Not bad, just . . . not me anymore. Then again, everything’s pretty up in the air these days. It’s hard to say anything definite right now.”

  Something in his voice shifted. He almost sounded annoyed. I was curious but didn’t press.

  After cutting the pizza and sliding slices onto our plates, we sat at the small kitchen table. Ben twisted the caps off our beers, then held his out to me. “To fixing broken things.”

  I smiled and clinked my bottle to his.

  While we ate, we talked about Mama’s upcoming appointment with the doctor and about Nick and Evan’s afternoon drive.

  He shook his head. “I let him have it for that. I think he just got a little bored, and honestly, I think he’s found a friend in Evan.” He shrugged. “They seem to be cut from the same cloth.”

  “I can see that. She thinks a lot of him. But then again, of course she does. He’s a cute boy and he’s older, therefore way cooler. I remember pretty clearly what seventeen-year-old boys were thinking about.”

  “Yeah, I bet you do. You had the entire football team at your beck and call back then.”

  I laughed. “How can you even say that? I was sitting out on that driveway almost every day, watching you mess around under the hood of your Jeep.”

  “I guess you’re right. But I don’t think Nick’s like most teenage guys. He really has a good head on his shoulders. He’ll look out for Evan when school starts.”

  When we finished eating, I grabbed our plates and tossed them in the trash. “Okay, boss, I’m ready to pay off my debt. Put me to work.”

  “Gladly.” He led me to his old bedroom at the end of the hall. “I’ve almost finished taping in here, but I didn’t get to that one window and around the baseboards. Why don’t you finish that up and I’ll go grab the paint from the garage?”

  His footsteps receded down the hall and the back door opened and then closed. I took a step toward the dresser to grab the roll of painter’s tape, and as I did, I noticed a partially unrolled poster sticking out of one of the drawers. Red and gold, along with a smidge of bright-green turf, peeked out from the roll, and I instantly knew what it was. I unrolled the poster, then sat back on my heels and took a deep breath.

  Scowling up from the poster was the entire Perry High School football team, circa 1997. Just in front of the team were the cheerleaders, our smiles bright and open, our hair smoothed and sprayed, the sequins on our uniforms sparkling in the sunshine.

  I remembered the moment like it was yesterday. The photographer took the photo in the morning, before first period. The turf was still damp with dew and most of the girls complained that their legs were getting wet. Each of us knelt in front of “our” football player, our pom-poms held at waist level, Carol Anne yelling at us to smile like we meant it. Behind me, Ben was singing under his breath, making me laugh, resulting in my eyes closed in laughter and Ben being captured with his mouth open, in mid-verse. It was such a picture of how we were with each other, it made my chest ache. Without thinking, I leaned down and touched my fingers to his face in the photo.

  “See anyone familiar?” I hadn’t heard him return and his voice startled me.

  “A whole bunch of kids is all I see.” I rolled up the poster, tighter this time, and stuck it back in the drawer.

  Ben poured paint—a creamy neutral khaki—into two trays and handed me a roller. We got to work, Ben on one wall, me on the other. All the furniture was lumped together in the center away from the walls, so all I could see of him was his head over the clutter between us.

  After just a few minutes, he stopped. “We need music.” He left the room and returned a moment later with an almost suitcase-sized stereo and something black tucked under his arm. He set the stereo down on the floor and plugged it in.

  I ran my hand across its dusty top. “I haven’t seen one of these in so long. Was it yours?”

  “Yeah. I can’t believe my parents kept it. It was out in the garage. But it’s perfect for these.” He set the black zippered case down.

  When he pulled his hand away, I saw the familiar black-and-white Case Logic logo at the bottom. “You still have it.”

  “Yep.” He zipped it open and handed it to me.

  I took it and rested my hand on the top. “What is it with all these old things? Your Jeep, the stereo, a case full of CDs. It’s like nothing’s changed with you.”

  I said it as a joke, but he only smiled, one side of his mouth pulling up slowly. “Maybe it hasn’t. Maybe I just found what I liked early on and stuck with it.” He nodded toward the case. “Go ahead. It’s a great trip down memory lane.”

  I flipped through the pages and breathed in all our old favorites. Blues Traveler, the Black Crowes, R.E.M., U2, Dave Matthews Band. I pulled out the liner notes of Remember Two Things and held them in front of my face. I tried to let my eyes slide out of focus. “Remember how we’d spend afternoons trying to see the 3-D image on the cover?”

  “I remember you trying. I had no problem. You were the one who could never see it. What about now?”

  I shook my head. “Still nothing.”

  I replaced it and flipped another page, then gasped. “August and Everything After. I thought you didn’t like Counting Crows.” I looked up at him. “You always made fun of my crush on Adam Duritz.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe I was jealous.”

  I reached over and punched his leg lightly. “Whatever.”

  “It’s a good thing you made me listen to them on repeat. I decided later on that they weren’t so bad.”

  “Not so bad?” I clutched my chest in mock horror, then pulled the CD out and handed it to him. “Play it straight through, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  We picked up our brushes again. The familiar verses and choruses swirled around me, mixing with the breeze from the fan above, the lingering scents of mozzarella and spicy tomato sauce, and the evening serenade of nighttime sounds outside the open window. As my arm reached and dipped, leaving clean swaths of fresh paint behind, I was finally able to let my mind relax. Being in Ben’s presence was comforting. Relaxing. It was the same way I felt on all those afternoons we spent together. It still felt good.

  Then I remembered Marissa. Did she feel a similar rush of calm when she was with Ben? I pushed the thought away. How they were together didn’t matter. In a way, knowing he was in a relationship with someone so important freed me to enjoy my time with him with no pressure or expectation.

  We finished the first coat quickly and moved into the master bedroom, where the mint green was in full effect.

  Before he dipped his roller in paint, he ducked out of the room and returned with two m
ore bottles of beer. When he held one out to me, I hesitated but then took it. By my estimation we’d still be working for a while, and anyway, I’d walked to his house. The walk home would clear any fuzziness. We picked up our rollers again.

  An hour and a half later, we were back in Ben’s bedroom, sitting on the floor with our backs against the dresser. While finishing the second coats on both rooms, we’d gone from Counting Crows to Tom Petty’s Wildflowers to Smashing Pumpkins and now were listening to U2’s The Joshua Tree.

  I settled against the dresser. “I’m so glad you still have all this music. It’s like a portal to high school.”

  “Back in your glory days?”

  I turned my head to face him. “Glory days? Funny. Not quite.”

  “Really? I would have figured those were your best years.”

  I let out a snort of laughter. The two beers had loosened me.

  “I’m sorry. That was . . . I didn’t mean that.” He rubbed the side of his face. “I just mean you seemed happy. You saw your face in that poster. You couldn’t hide that big, beaming smile if you tried.”

  “That was because you were singing like a goof behind me.”

  He smiled and stretched his legs out straight in front of him. He was wearing a dark-green T-shirt that clung to his chest. His blue jeans were frayed at the bottom edges and his feet were bare.

  “I think I’m happier than I used to be,” I continued. “I know more now.”

  “There’s something good about being blissfully ignorant though, right? For a little while, at least.”

  I thought about that a moment. There was plenty I wish I didn’t know, hadn’t experienced.

  When he spoke again, his voice was much quieter. “What happened with you and Chris? If you don’t mind me asking. I thought life with him was great.”

  “Who told you that?”

  He caught the hard edge in my voice and looked at me, then shrugged. “I guess I just assumed. Rich dentist, successful family. What’s not to love?”

  “Yep. That’s all you need. Money and influence, then it’s smooth sailing, right? Things just fall into place.”

  Thankfully he ignored my sarcasm. “So what went wrong?”

  I tilted my head to the side and sighed. “He got bored with me. So he moved on.”

  Ben exhaled and cursed quietly.

  I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. The details weren’t hard to dredge up. They were always there, just under the surface, ready to knock me back down anytime I thought I’d finally gotten past it.

  I took a deep breath. I hadn’t told anyone, not even Mama, all the details of the day I found out everything. It was so ugly and hurtful, I usually just gave the bare minimum, enough to get the point across, and left it at that. But the hushed privacy of the room, the dark night outside, and Ben’s steady warmth next to me made the words spill out. I told him everything—the hygienist with her hands in my mouth, her whispers, the realization that my marriage was broken and I was the last to know.

  When I finished, a beat of silence ticked by. I reached for the tray next to me, where paint had dried in little rivulets along the edges. I picked at the dried bits with my thumbnail. “It sounds bad, what he did. And it was. But I was to blame for part of it.”

  Ben ran his hand roughly through his hair. “How can you say that?”

  I flicked the dried paint onto the drop cloth. “I pretended to be someone I wasn’t.” I shrugged. “He liked that Jessie. She just wasn’t me. I guess I kind of set myself up for it all.”

  I was about to gather our supplies when he spoke again. “Jessie, I’m so sorry that happened to you. But nothing you did could possibly make his actions your fault. That’s on him, not you.”

  I shrugged again. “I was good at pretending though. You know that.”

  He bent his legs and leaned forward on his knees. “But you never pretended with me. From day one, when I made you drive my Jeep down the road, you were always different with me than you were at school.” He closed his eyes a moment. “It was like you let that other Jessie slide off your back and the real you came out.”

  “That’s how it felt to me too.”

  “Why did you let me in?”

  “I don’t know. You were . . .” I took a deep breath. “You were always the same.” I picked at a smudge of tan paint on my wrist and tried to explain. “My dad was infuriatingly consistent. It used to drive Mama crazy how he’d follow his same routines day after day: wake up, sing in the shower, shave in her sink, make a cup of instant coffee that she said smelled up her kitchen. At night, he’d shower again, put on his striped pajamas, and watch Law & Order. Always the same.”

  I smiled, remembering Daddy’s skinny ankles sticking out of those striped pajama pants. “But it was comforting that he never changed. It was the same with you. I always knew exactly what I’d get with you, and it was always something good. It made you feel . . . safe.”

  Ben was silent, and I had the distinct and sharp realization that I’d said too much. All of it, all evening. I sat up and leaned my arms over my knees to avoid his eyes. “Or maybe these two beers have just messed with my memories.”

  I gathered our paintbrushes and stood. He hesitated, then did the same, collecting buckets and rollers. By no spoken word, the evening had ended. It was time for me to go home.

  “I have a plastic sheet outside.” He pushed open the back door. “Just leave the brushes there and I’ll clean them off later.”

  We laid our brushes side by side, then he walked me around the side of the house to the front. The night air was still and warm but not uncomfortable. Down the road, an owl hooted, calling to a friend or maybe a mate.

  At the end of the driveway, we stopped. “Thank you for dinner. And the music. It was fun.”

  He started to say something but then stopped.

  “What is it?” I asked. The garage light behind him shone down the driveway but didn’t quite make it to the street. He was mostly a dark form in front of me, the curves of his shoulders just edges in the darkness.

  He crossed his arms in front of his chest and stared down at his feet. “I wished for so long that I could’ve been the one to go through it all with you. Marriage, kids, figuring out life together. I tried. I wanted to be the one.”

  A fist clenched in my chest, squeezing out all my air. I opened my mouth, but he went on. “It sounds crazy now, especially knowing everything that happened with the two of you, but back then, I was . . . It broke my heart to hear about you and Chris getting engaged.”

  He clamped both hands on the back of his neck, then let them fall. “You basically told me on the phone you were going to marry him, but I guess I’d still been holding out hope.” He crossed his arms again. “Stupid me, I’d been holding out hope since high school. Hearing it had actually happened just about killed me.”

  “But . . . you and Marissa . . .” I held up my hand, as if it were an antenna that would make everything clearer. “I heard about the two of you so soon after Chris proposed. You must have been together when—”

  He shook his head. “No, Marissa and I weren’t . . . We weren’t anything. We were just two hurting people who shared our hurts for a night.”

  “You were never together?”

  The crease between his eyes was deep and sad. “I met her at a party a few days after I heard your happy news. She was in a bad place in her life. I think she’d just broken up with someone and wanted a way to forget. Just like me.” He sighed. “I still hate that Nick’s life came out of that pain. Especially when she and I had no business being together in the first place. I’d never done anything like that before.”

  “So . . . ,” I began, trying to understand, then stopped. I put my fingers up to my lips.

  “I saw you and Nick outside talking tonight before you came in. Seeing the two of you together . . .” He looked up at the sky. “I couldn’t help but wonder what it would have been like if it had been you and me. If he were . . .”

  I swal
lowed hard. It felt like the ground beneath me had heaved, spitting me out in a place where I didn’t understand the language. “If you were still so . . . If you still wanted . . .” I held my hands up to the sides of my face, then let them drop. “I gave you a chance to tell me, but you didn’t. You told me you were happy for me.” My voice broke at the end, and I silently cursed myself for not holding it together.

  All this happened so long ago, it shouldn’t even matter, but standing there in the darkened street with Ben right in front of me—my Ben, although that was crazy because he was never truly my Ben—it did matter. It mattered almost more than anything, and my heart was on the verge of breaking all over again.

  “You—what are you talking about?”

  “When I called you, about me and Chris . . .”

  His eyebrows rose. “You mean when you told me you were dating him? That things were going great? You think that was a chance? Jessie, that was a joke. You made me and my feelings for you into a joke.”

  “What?” The word rang out across the silent street. “That is not what I was doing. You were never a joke. I called because I wanted . . .” His hurt was an almost tangible force in the air and my chest prickled with heat. He raised his eyebrows, but I couldn’t force the truth out. My hands trembled and I tightened my hands into balls.

  “What did you want?” he asked, each word a slow press.

  I took a step backward, then turned and paced a few feet. When I came back to him, his eyes were pleading. Tears stung at the back of my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. “I wanted you. I wanted you to still want me. To tell me not to marry Chris.” There. The words were out.

  “But you wanted to marry him, right? You sounded happy. Like you were just telling me the good news.”

  I shook my head. “I was happy, at first. Chris was exciting and came from this life I still thought I wanted to be a part of. It all happened so quickly and I . . . I lost myself in it.”

  My cheeks grew warm as I remembered Chris’s hand on my lower back as he led me through a sea of people at that party on the patio, my dress swishing around my calves, my feeling of belonging.