Bridge of Clay(29)

Their voices were never whispered there—just quiet, like friends, unthreatened—and now she confessed, “It was Matthew who told me.”

Clay felt it in his graze.

“You saw Matthew?”

She nodded, just slightly, against his neck, and went on to reassure him. “I was coming in Thursday night when he was taking out the garbage. It’s hard to avoid you Dunbar boys, you know.”

And Clay could have almost broken then:

The name Dunbar, and soon to be gone.

“It must have been pretty rough,” she said, “seeing—” She adjusted. “Seeing him.”

“There are rougher things.”

    Yes, there were, and they both knew it.

“Matthew said something about a bridge?”

She was right, I had. It was one of the more unsettling traits of Carey Novac; you seemed to tell her more than you should.

Silence again. One twirling moth.

Closer now when she spoke, he could feel the actual words, as if put there, on his throat. “Are you leaving to build a bridge, Clay?”

That moth wouldn’t go away.



* * *



—

“Why?” she’d asked; that long-ago front lawn. “Why are you sorry?”

The street had all gone dark.

“Oh, you know, I should’ve come over and helped you unpack the other day. I just sat there.”

“On the roof?”

He liked her already.

He liked her freckles.

Their positioning on her face.

You only saw them if you really looked.



* * *



—

Now Clay navigated, to a place well clear of our father.

“Hey,” he said, he looked over. “Can you finally show me your tips tonight?”

She curled in more intensely, but let him get away with it. “Don’t talk to me like that. Be a gentleman, for God’s sake.”

“Tips, I said, not…” His voice faded, and this was all part of it, each time at The Surrounds. It didn’t matter that Saturday night was the worst time to ask for betting advice, since all the big races had been run and won that afternoon. The other, less prestigious race day was Wednesday, but as I said, the question was only a ritual. “What are they saying down at trackwork?”

Carey half smiled now, happy to play. “Oh yeah, I got tips all right. I got tips you can’t even handle.” Her fingers touched his collarbone. “I got Matador in the fifth.”

He knew that despite being happy to say it, her eyes were close to tears then, and he held her that extra piece tighter—and Carey used the momentum, to slip down, to put her head upon his chest.

    His heart was out of its gate.

He wondered how hard she could hear it.



* * *



—

On the lawn, they’d talked on. She was getting onto statistics.

“How old are you?”

“Pretty much fifteen.”

“Yeah? I’m pretty much sixteen.”

She stepped closer then, and nodded, just slightly, toward the roof. “Why aren’t you up there tonight?”

He quickened—she’d always had him quickening, but not in a way he minded. “Matthew told me to take a day off. He yells at me about that a lot.”

“Matthew?”

“You might have seen him. He’s the oldest. He’s good at saying Jesus Christ.” And now Clay had smiled, and she took the opportunity.

“Why do you go up there, anyway?”

“Oh, you know.” He thought how best to explain it. “You can see a pretty long way.”

“Can I come up one day?”

It shocked him that she’d asked, but he couldn’t help starting to joke with her. “I don’t know. It’s not that easy to get up there.”

And Carey laughed; she bit the hook. “Bullshit. If you can climb it, I can, too.”

“Bullshit?”

They both half grinned.

“I won’t distract you, I promise.” But then she got the idea. “If you let me come up, I’ll bring binoculars.”

She seemed always to be thinking ahead.



* * *



—

When he was there with Carey, sometimes The Surrounds felt bigger.

The household junk stood like distant monuments.

The suburbs felt further away.

    That night, after Carey’s tips and Matador, she spoke evenly, about the stables. He asked if she was due for a run on race day, and not just trackwork and barrier trials. Carey answered that McAndrew had said nothing, but knew what he was doing. If she pestered him, it would set her back months.

The whole time, of course, her head lay on his chest, or up against his neck, his favorite of favorite things. In Carey Novac, Clay had found someone who knew him, who was him, in all but one life-defining way. He also knew that if she could have, she’d have traded anything to share that with him as well: The reason he carried the peg.

She’d have traded her jockey’s apprenticeship for it, or her first Group One winner, let alone a ride in a listed race. She’d even have traded a mount in the Race That Stops the Nation, I’m sure, or the race she loved even more: the Cox Plate.