Twisted Fate(37)

He did take drugs for his ADHD and for the stuff he had gone through. I didn’t pressure him to tell me what had happened back in Virginia. But he told me most of it and I knew those were things I should keep to myself. He’d been hurt enough without everyone in Rockland finding out what happened. I knew he had different conversations with Syd than he had with me and I didn’t care. I knew she was interested in the drugs he was taking and the problems he’d had but I was interested in how things could be better for him. I believed in him and I believed in his art. And I liked being independent of Syd. I liked what knowing him was doing to me. How it was changing me.

We were at the pier and the ocean breeze was blowing my hair and my skirt. The salt air and ocean smell at once familiar and exotic. Graham put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him to keep me warm and we listened to the waves and to the stones clacking together as the sea washed over them “I had a dream about you last night,” he said. “I had a dream we were out in the Austin driving along these winding roads and I was filming you and your hair was whipping around in the wind and you were laughing. You were standing up on the seat with your arms stretched out. It was like you could fly.”

I nestled my head against his chest as we walked. “What else happened?”

I didn’t look up but could feel him smiling beside me. That way he had where he would go quiet and just grin. He was always some strange combination of shy and confident, I couldn’t quite explain.

“You said you wanted to go visit Eric, to meet Eric.”

I nodded. “I do want to visit Eric,” I said. “He sounds really cool.”

“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe we can. And then in the dream I pulled you back down into the seat and then suddenly we were out in this field of red flowers by this bridge and there was fog and smoke everywhere and we were kissing and . . . you know, we were, uh . . . it was . . .”

I knew what he meant. I’d had dreams like this about him too. I would never think to tell him about them though and I felt like he was really brave to bring it up, to even be able to talk like this.

“Did you have a girlfriend back in Virginia?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No. I mean, I had crushes on people, but really I spent all my time with Eric. I didn’t take things very seriously, I guess. I didn’t know how to ask a girl out. What about you? Did you ever have a boyfriend?”

I said, “Nobody all that important, I guess.”

“What about Declan?”

“What?” I asked. “Declan?” This was just weird. I mean I know he saw Declan probably coming and going from our house all the time but clearly he had to know who he was visiting.

“Declan is Syd’s friend,” I said.

Graham looked really uncomfortable to have even brought it up.

“I think he’s more than her friend,” he said. “Uh . . . so . . . you’ve never been interested in him?”

He started to sound a little jealous and I really couldn’t figure out why.

I said, “Declan? No. Of course not. I wouldn’t even think of it.”





Uh, hello? Can you tell me why we are sitting in the Laundromat?”

“Shh. Don’t be f*cking stupid. I’m trying to think. And can you come up with a better place to meet?”

“Um . . . ,” Becky said, “how about anywhere else?”

“Brilliant,” I said. “That’s a brilliant and creative suggestion.”

I went over to the vending machine and got a Coke and a bag of Fritos and then sat back in one of the rolling metal baskets and hung my legs over the side. And Becky did the same. She fiddled with her nose ring and then held her hand out for the Coke and I passed it to her.

“Remember when we put Declan in the dryer and turned it on?”

I laughed. A few years ago Declan was shorter than Becky and super skinny and we used to hang out in the Laundromat eating candy and taking turns going for a spin in the dryer. But once we got more into skateboarding and could drive we didn’t hang out there anymore. We’d get high and walk out to Friendly’s and eat ice cream and then skate in the parking lot until they kicked us out.

But I still liked the Laundromat; there was something about it that reminded me of simpler times and I liked to go there to just watch people or think. When I was little sometimes my parents weren’t home to make dinner because of work and I’d get change out of the big jar in the living room and walk down to the Laundromat and get lots of candy from the vending machine and sit there, watching people do their laundry. It was kinda comforting just watching people fold clothes as the sun was going down. I didn’t usually know them, they were just adults doing household stuff and it was nice to talk to them sometimes. Like we kept each other company. I remember one time my parents came home and couldn’t find me and I was at the Laundromat. After that Ally got all freaked-out about me going there and told me to stay home. Anyway. It was a place I came sometimes to clear my head a little when things got stressful or confusing.

“It’s so f*cked-up about Brian,” Becky said. She’d been really worried about the kid and I guess the whole town was and maybe that’s why we were back there eating junk food and sitting in the rolling baskets. Maybe it made the town feel normal and boring again. Or it would have felt normal and boring if there weren’t Missing posters with Brian’s picture on them hanging on the bulletin board. What had happened was starting to change us. Make us grow up a little I guess.