December Park(171)

“I’m glad you did. I haven’t seen anyone. Well, Mr. Mattingly came by yesterday.”

“You haven’t seen your friends?” she said. “The Goon Squad?”

“No. I guess they’re just . . .” I shrugged. “Busy, I guess.”

“I’m sure they’ll come around.”

“We’re gonna move,” I blurted out.

“Oh. Where?”

“I don’t know. We’ve got family in New York.”

“That’s far.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Listen,” she said. “I just wanted you to know that I was thinking of you. I’m sure this is really hard. That’s all.”

“That’s enough,” I said.

“I wish you weren’t moving.”

“Me, too,” I said.

Rachel’s mother honked the horn.

Rachel glanced at the car, then back at me. “She didn’t want me coming here.”

“I understand.”

“It’s not that. She didn’t want me bothering you.” She smiled softly, her cheeks dimpling. “But I wanted to.”

“Thanks, Rachel.” My heart was racing. “If I send you my address in New York, will you send me more poems?”

A brief sadness rippled across her otherwise happy face. Her eyes grew glassy. “Only if you send me stories.”

“Deal.”

Mrs. Lowrey honked the horn again.

“I gotta go,” Rachel said, backing down the porch.

“Wait.” When she paused, I said, “One, two, three, four, I declare a Kiss War,” and I leaned in and kissed her gently on the lips. Her fingers found mine and she held my hand. When I finally pulled away, I could see my heartbroken reflection swimming in her eyes.

“Good-bye, Angie,” she said and left.





Chapter Thirty-Six


The World beneath the World





My brother’s second funeral was held on August 22 after the US Army and the FBI finally surrendered his body to us. It was a private ceremony held far from Harting Farms. Time, date, and location were kept out of the newspapers. Aside from the police officer who drove us there in a shiny black car, no one else attended, which was exactly how it had to be. Charles’s body was interred in an unmarked plot far from the other graves. The day was bright and hot, and I perspired in my black suit and tie. It was a wool suit, the only one I owned.

The police officer who chauffeured us was the one who had been following me around town for the past several months. As we walked back to the car after the graveside service, he was standing beside it in full uniform, smoking a cigarette. When my grandparents approached, he opened the door for them. He caught my gaze lingering on him and nodded.

It had been my intention to mention this to my father once we arrived home, but as the policeman pulled into our driveway, I saw three familiar shapes sitting on the woodpile in the backyard. I opened the door before the car came to a complete stop, then jumped out and ran around the house.

Peter’s smile was as bright as his shock of red hair, his eyes greener than I had remembered. Michael’s hair was perfectly combed, and he had on a pair of Blues Brothers sunglasses. Scott had his Orioles cap on backward and was shuffling a deck of Uno cards. Leaning against the woodpile was the samurai sword.

“Will you look at this guy, all dressed up?” Michael said, peering at me over his sunglasses. “You look like a used car salesman.”

“Hey,” I said. I wanted to ask them where they’d been and what had kept them away for so long—I wanted to ask them a million things—but I found it impossible to organize even a single thought.

“We’ve been sittin’ out here for over an hour,” Scott said, still shuffling the cards. “We gonna play some Uno or what?”

“Or what,” Peter, Michael, and I responded in unison.

Then we all broke up, laughing.

We sat on the porch and played game after game of Uno. At one point, my grandmother brought us bologna sandwiches and Cokes, and we took a break while we ate and listened to the sounds of summer winding down. When Peter started in with his elephant jokes, we all groaned and Michael threw a pinecone at him, but inside I couldn’t have been more elated.

“Did you hear about Eric Falconette?” Scott said as he dealt a new hand.

I shook my head.

“Killed in a car crash in Baltimore. It was on the news. Denny Sallis was with him but he survived.”

“Was Keener with them?” I thought of his truck parked on Haven.

“News didn’t say anything about Keener,” Scott said.

We played another round of Uno, and I thought I wouldn’t ask them the question that was most on my mind. Ultimately, though, I was bested by curiosity. “What took you guys so long to come by?”

They glanced at one another, and Scott slowed down in his dealing of the cards.

When they offered no response, I provided one for them. “Did your parents not want you to come over?” I thought of Rachel and how she said her mother hadn’t wanted her to bother my family and me.

“Well, no,” Peter said evenly. “Not exactly.”

“Then what was it?”