How Sweet It Is - Alice J. Wisler [83]
“Is everything okay?” Robert poses the question to Zack.
“Darren needed his medication.”
“He asked for it?”
“Yeah. Two points for him, huh?”
“That’s a good sign.”
“An improvement over two weeks ago when he refused to take it at school and called the teacher a ‘spineless mutation with freakishly large elbows.’ ”
“That got him detention, I heard.”
Zack nods. “That mistake cost him a week.”
I never recall calling a teacher any name. I never had detention, either. I couldn’t; my mother would have disowned me and then fried me up at the annual barbeque. At least I had a mother who cared about me. And a father. Darren has never known his dad, and over the years, his mother has been charged with and imprisoned for child abuse and neglect. Darren has a good grandma, though. A senior saint.
Robert excuses himself and heads toward the restroom, and now Zack and I are alone.
I sigh and watch the embers glowing against my arms. I’ve taken off my jacket again, because by the fire—it’s warm. My scars don’t look as pronounced in the darkness; in fact the fire almost softens them. Maybe if I lived the rest of my life in the evening at campsites, I’d feel more comfortable with my body. Jeannie says when she goes out on dates, she likes to eat at restaurants with candlelight. “I have fewer wrinkles by candlelight,” she told me once, as I watched her put on makeup before her dentist-date arrived. Turning to me she said, “But you don’t have to worry about wrinkles now, Deena. Wait till you hit thirty-two.”
“Thirty-two? That’s not that old, Jeannie.”
I used to think that by age thirty-two, I’d be pregnant with my youngest child—that is, if Lucas and I stuck to our plan of having two children, two years apart. He wanted a boy first and I wanted a girl. Then I told him it didn’t matter which gender arrived first.
Suddenly I realize it has been a while since I’ve wondered what Lucas is doing. The good thing about being in North Carolina is that I can’t run into him like I could in Atlanta. I can shop at Ingle’s without worrying that as I decide how much chicken I need for dinner’s pot pie, he’ll be next to me, looking at steaks to grill.
“A cupcake for your thoughts.”
I look over at Zack, who is roasting a marshmallow on a large stick. Coming from anyone else, that line would sound corny. Coming from Zack, it just makes me feel content. I think of the chocolate cupcake Band-Aid on Jonas’s forehead and the identical bandage I placed on Charlotte’s finger. That was what caused Zack to realize that the woman who put the bandage on his brother was the same one who bandaged Charlotte. Then his mind put two and two together, and he knew all the things about Deirdre his brother had shared with him were really things about Deena at The Center. Which means, he knows so much about me. And I still know very little about him.
“Are you thinking of Atlanta?” Zack asks with a smile.
“How’d you guess?” I can’t tell him that I was actually thinking about him and Jonas.
“You have that city-lights glow to your face.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“The city is nice.”
“Have you ever lived in one?”
“Visited plenty of them. And once those trips were over, I was always glad to be back in the mountains.”
“So would you ever do a jigsaw puzzle of a city?”
Zack laughs lightly. “Jonas must have told you that I did a one-thousand-piece puzzle of Boston.”
I smile, nod. “He said it took you only six days. He is so proud of you.”
We are silent for a while as the crickets and cicadas sing in the woods around us—an orchestra of nature’s finest elegance. Instinctively, I listen for the owl. He must be too tired to join in tonight.
Zack leans toward the fire and whispers, “I like your face.”
It comes out so naturally, not forced, not asked for, just there, like a hostess offering hors d’oeuvres without any fanfare.
I’m glad it’s dark so he can’t see me blushing.
“It’s nicest when you smile.”
“Thanks.”
“You should do that more.”
It takes me a moment to come up with a response.