The Sky Beneath My Feet - By Lisa Samson Page 0,41
couple of days and I really don’t miss him. The boys don’t either. They barely talk about him. But they’re afraid to bring anyone home, afraid their friends will find out.”
“Oh, Liz.” He puts his long arms around me and pulls my face into his chest. My shoulders heave, my cheeks burn wetly. I’m pumping tears into the fabric of his jacket. Letting go, drifting free. “Oh, Liz,” he’s saying, “oh, Liz, Liz, Liz,” over and over, a voice across the water calling me toward the distant shore. He holds me tight but I’m floating, my eyes prismed, floating off to the dissolving dark.
“Maybe,” he says, much later. “Maybe,” as we walk very slowly, side by side, pacing ourselves so we never make it home. “Maybe this isn’t about him.”
I wipe my hand over my face. I sniff. “What does that mean?”
“Maybe this isn’t his time, Liz. Maybe it’s yours.”
“My time to hear from God, you mean?” I give him a lopsided smile. “My time to find myself?”
“Is that so hard to believe?”
“I’m not into all that psychobabble. ‘Finding yourself.’ I never lost myself.”
“You didn’t? You could’ve fooled me.”
“Don’t talk,” I say. “You’re ruining the moment.”
“Sorry.” He gazes up at the whirling, faceted anarchy of the Smythes’ Victorian mansion, the moonlight shining dimly in the grimy leaded-glass windows. “Since I’ve already ruined it, I might as well say something else.”
“If you must.”
“You know that Eli’s smoking weed, right?”
“What?”
“I could smell it on him when he came in the house.”
chapter 8
Good Christian Lady
Definition of hypocrisy: this daydream I’m having, in which I slap a fat joint from Eli’s lips, snatch it in the air between my finger and thumb, and grind out the smoldering cherry in the middle of his peanut butter ice-cream cake.
Gregory drives, trying to munch down his McDonald’s hash browns before the grease melts through the bag. He doesn’t look over at me, knowing no good will come of it.
Shocking news plus a sleepless night plus an unwanted errand equals recipe for volcanic eruption.
If Gregory hadn’t arrived first thing, ringing the doorbell with his fast-food offering in hand, there would have been an eruption all right.
And where is his father? Cloistered away while his son puffs himself into a stupor. Is that where Eli goes every day after school? Is he being metaphorical when he calls it riding the trails? Is he laughing at me behind my back?
“You shouldn’t have told me,” I say.
“I gave you the red pill when you wanted the blue one. Or is it the other way around?”
“I’m serious.”
“What? It’s The Matrix. You don’t really think that ignorance is bliss. Anyway, you weren’t such a little teetotaler back in the day.”
“Neither were you.” Low blow. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No big deal. I can take it. Twelve years sober as of last month.”
“That’s great.”
“So you can understand why this means something to me, helping this girl.”
“I thought you liked the mom.”
“I do,” he says. “But it’s not just about the mom. Kind of hard to explain.”
“You don’t have to. I understand.”
“I’m not telling you to go easy on the kid. I wouldn’t. Nail him to the wall if that’s what it takes. Just wait until tomorrow. It’s his birthday, after all.”
“Do you think Jed knows?”
“I wouldn’t be surprised. You knew when it was me.”
“What if he wasn’t the one smoking it? Maybe he was just around people who were smoking.”
“Could be,” he says, doubt in his voice. We’re taking the Jones Falls Expressway into town. Speeding one minute, sitting still the next. He drops the last hash brown wrapper into the bag and crumbles it into a white, damp ball, sailing the ball over his shoulder into the backseat: “Two points.”
“Last night might have been the first time,” I say. “Just because he smelled of pot doesn’t mean he’s a stoner.” The more I think about this theory, the more I like it. “The other day he saw a bunch of war protesters and called them ‘hippie losers.’ You wouldn’t say that if you were smoking, would you?”
“Hippie losers? No way. You’d say, ‘Hail brother, well met.’ Absolutely.”
“You’re no help.”
“Hey, I grassed on him, what more do you want? Get it—grassed?”
“Not funny.”
“No, it’s not. And now I’m dragging you into this mess.”
This mess. It sounds like a mess all right.
“What’s the girl’s name, anyway?”
“Her name is Samantha McCone. Sam.”
“And what is Sam’s story?”
“It’s not a nice one. She ran away when she was in her early teens. Her parents were divorced, and her