“Wait. Why exactly are you here, Tim?”
Shrugging, he steps around me to pick up an empty cardboard box from the floor, tosses the wallet, then the sweatshirt and socks into it. Automatically assuming I’m kicking him to the curb right this second, late on a windy, rainy night.
Even I am not that cold.
Then I get it, sharp as a slap.
His parents were on that get-lost list. His own mom and dad kicked him out.
When Tim glances at me, he goes suddenly, stunningly red, wraps both arms around his middle. “What?”
“How . . .” I start; I’m not sure how to finish. I can’t even imagine. “Never mind. I’m making you tea and you’re going to tell me what happened,” I say.
“Or what? I might like my other options better. Spanking? Water torture? I can get the shower going in no time.”
Amazingly, there is tea. But of course no kettle. I fill a saucepan with water and cross my fingers that there are mugs. Ah yes, ugly black-and-yellow ones from Fitness Planet. Joel’s such a class act. I turn to the fridge to see if there’s actually milk too, and there, tacked to it, is a list. A long one, in various different colors of messy, boy-handwriting scrawls.
Tim Mason: The Boy Most Likely To . . .
Need a liver transplant
Find the liquor cabinet blindfolded
Drive his car into a house
I scan down the paper.
“Find the sugar,” I say to him. “Then tell me the rest.”
“I doubt there’s sugar,” he says, “but I see resistance is futile. Hey – it’s not a big deal. Turns out . . . I guess . . . my parents, my pop . . . quitting the senator gig? Final straw. Embarrassing, see – Grace Reed is a family friend, yada, yada – he’s done with me. I’m out the door – no need to turn up for Sunday dinner. Small upside, that. And I’ve got four months to turn it all around until I’m out a college fund, and probably stricken from the family Bible. End of story.”
Now I feel sick. “He couldn’t have been serious – I mean . . . he’s your dad.”
Tim looks down at his fingers, raising his eyebrows as though surprised not to find the cigarette still there. “He’s a serious guy, Pop.” His voice deepens. “Time to be a man, Tim. Maybe I should have read the fine print on ditching ol’ Gracie. That it meant” – he indicates the apartment – “this. But, I mean – he didn’t repo my car and yank my allowance or anything.” The smile that follows is tight, not his open, wicked one. “In his defense? He did offer me a scotch for the road.”
I inhale sharply and he reddens again, rubs his hands through his hair so some parts are sticking straight up. I turn to the cabinet again, searching for sugar, but no such luck. “You’re going to have to go without sugar.”
He nods. “Here’s where I tell you you’re sweet enough, right?”
“It’s definitely not. Move, so I can pour this without burning you.” I slosh the boiling liquid into one cup, then the other, nod toward the couch. “Keep talking.”
“While the Ilsa-the-She-Wolf-of-the-SS act is hot as hell, Alice, there’s really nothing more to say. It’s probably temporary anyway. If me not being office boy for Senator Grace is embarrassing for Pop, you can only imagine how he’d feel about me hanging around the steps of the building and loan with a tin cup.” Tim collapses onto the couch anyway, without bringing the mug along. ”Can we talk about something else? You? Your endless collection of bikinis? Your tan lines? I notice you don’t have any. Wanna show and tell?”
I carry both mugs from the kitchen, set his down in front of him.
“Look. Stay. I mean . . . I can wait. It’s only fair. Jase didn’t know I wanted it anyway. Four months is nothing. You can be here for four months and then . . .” I trail off.
Then what?
Troubled gray eyes search my face for a long time. Finally, he sighs, shakes his head. “Nah. I’ll find somewhere else. You deserve it. You’ve earned it.”
Like a home’s something you have to earn when you’re seventeen.
He’s a kid. Not a man, not on some deadline. But with his jaw set and raised – I know that face. The I’m going to push on through, no problem, I’ll deal. Moving right along. Nothing to see here face. Know it as well as my own. It is my own. And I picture the rest of the lines on that paper.
Tim Mason: The Boy Most Likely To . . .
Forget his own name even before we do
Turn down the hottest girl in the world for the coldest beer
Be six feet under by our fifth reunion
Don’t go that way, Tim. Such a stupid, stupid waste. “I mean it,” I say aloud. “Stay.”
Pause.
“I want you here,” I add, my cheeks flaring. He shifts on the couch and I’m hyper-aware of him next to me, the smell of soap and shampoo, the heat of him, the alive of him.
“Please, stay.”
My words fall into the silence, and something changes. Tim’s shoulders straighten. He stills, but not frozen, more like . . . more like . . . alert.
“Yeah? Then . . . I’ll be here,” he says quietly. “Since you asked so . . . nicely.”
“Look – if you stick around, there’ll be rules.”
“Always are,” Tim says immediately. “Helps if they’re clear.”
Like, posted on the refrigerator? But I don’t say it.
“Not that I’ll necessarily follow them, but –”
“The cigarettes go,” I say. “This place is not going to be a refuge if you burn it to the ground, and if I ever do get it to myself, I don’t want it smelling like an old-man bar.”
Unfolding himself from the couch, he brushes past me, wings the pack of Marlboros into the trash can under the sink, knots the bag tight, sets it next to the door. Collapses back down on the couch next to me, laces his hands behind his head, stretches.
“Sorry – again. Trying to kick ’em. I tossed a whole carton but . . . that pack was an impulse buy. Trying to control that, because my impulses suck.”
His eyes flick to my face, my lips, lower, back to my eyes.
Outside, it’s gone on raining, slashing sideways against the windows, the wind loud and constant. It’s warm in here. Overheated even.
Even though I’m laying out rules, Tim is not one of my brothers.
He glances at my lips again, and there’s the sound of a sharp inhale. His or mine?
I jolt up. “I have to get home.”
“I’m walking you out.” Tim gets quickly to his feet, grabs the green plastic garbage bag, steps in front of me. “Dangerous neighborhood and all that. There’s a raccoon under the woodshed the size of a puma.”
We keep our trash cans in a low shed near the stairs. When we reach it, Tim bends over to jettison the bag. “Don’t tell Jase about, about . . . the whole thing with my parents, ’kay?” His voice is muffled. “A man has his pride.”
I’m walking backward up the driveway, forcing a light laugh. “Of course not. I never kiss and –”
“I