Nonetheless, I’ve learned that although hatred is good for some things, it won’t make you a lot of friends. I turn away from Sarah and the girl who has since been introduced as Piper. Piper. I roll it around in my head. It’s a pointless name, a meaningless name (unless you count pipe player as a meaning and that thought makes me laugh, because well, you know, pipe player), a name for someone like her. As I walk toward the dining room, I’m not at all confused about why I have no friends.
Despite the presence of Sarah and Piper, dinner is fun again. We, okay, they talk about college applications, building the homecoming float, drama auditions and how drastically the tax laws are changing. That last one is courtesy of Mr. Leighton who is a CPA. I kind of tune out at that point because the intricacies of tax law are a little outside of my sphere of comprehension, but then the conversation starts turning toward debate.
“We’ve got a tournament two Saturdays from now,” Drew tells his parents.
“What are you arguing?” his Dad asks, refilling his wine glass. Mrs. Leighton stares at it like she’d like to rip it out of his hand but I guess she’s not allowed. Pregnancy puts a crimp in the whole wine-drinking thing. I can’t blame her, though. I’d kind of like to rip it out of his hand, too.
“I’m not sure exactly. Something centering on the importance of the conservation of fabric.” He looks in my direction, focusing on my clothes, or lack thereof, while he bullshits them. “Mr. Trent assigned Nastya to help me with the research so I wanted to pick something she was passionate about.”
At that point Sarah chokes on whatever she has in her mouth. Mr. Leighton continues swirling his wine around in his glass as if he’s actually giving credence to what Drew said and considering the relevant arguments on the topic. Piper doesn’t even seem to have gotten the joke. I watch Josh’s jaw twitch out of the corner of my eye, the only sign at all that he’s sitting at the same table with the rest of us, listening to this conversation. I’m still watching him struggle to remain stoic and unaffected when I hear the sound of Mrs. Leighton’s shoe connecting with Drew’s shin.
CHAPTER 17
Josh
My father started teaching me how to build after my mother and sister died when I was eight. I don’t know if he necessarily wanted to, or if he had no choice because I just kept following him. He holed up in the garage all the time and if I wanted to see him I had to come out here. He never really talked, but I took what I could get. In the beginning, I mostly watched him. I picked up on a lot just by paying attention, but once I got the tools in my hands, I realized how little I knew. The first thing I built was a lopsided birdfeeder. I ended up making four of them before I got it right. I’ve been at this for almost ten years and some days I still feel like I don’t know shit.
I wonder how much Nastya picks up on. She watches everything that goes on in shop, though she hasn’t touched so much as a nail since the hammer incident. She’s been watching me here at night for the past two weeks. I haven’t been successful in getting her to leave so I’ve given up. Last night I tried being outright rude. I figured if telling her to get the f**k out didn’t do the trick, nothing would, so that’s what I told her. She didn’t get the f**k out, at least not until she felt like it an hour later.
She’s sitting in her normal spot on the counter again, watching me right now, so I guess that’s my answer. Her legs are ceaselessly swinging back and forth, taunting me as if to say, Ha, ha, we’re here and you can’t make us leave—so suck it. I think they’re using a mocking, sing-song, playground voice when they do it. I want to tell them to shut up. I’m pulling the battery off of my drill and putting it on the charger and trying to figure—
“Why do you have so many saws?”
You would think I would spin around at this moment in some sort of shocked frenzy, but it’s almost like I’ve been expecting her to talk to me since the day we met and I’ve just been wondering what she was going to say. I can tell you that I’ve run through more than a couple scenarios in my mind and in not one of them did she ask me about the number of saws I own. I do turn around because I need to see her right now but it’s a lot slower and more controlled than even I planned.
“They’re all designed for a different purpose, for different jobs, for different kinds of wood. It’s complicated. It would take me hours to go through them all.” OK, it’s not really complicated. It would just take a very lengthy, tedious, boring explanation and right now I don’t want to think about saws. I can’t believe this is what we’re talking about. The word surreal does not suffice.
“I don’t think I want anything, but I’ll leave if you want me to.” It takes me a minute to switch gears and realize that she’s answering the question that I asked her over a week ago. Is she calling my bluff? I look around the floor for the gauntlet she’s thrown down because she’s obviously waiting to see if I’ll pick it up. I have to decide if I really do want her gone, because if I tell her to leave this time, I have no doubt that she’ll take my word for it.
I should say yes. Hell, yes. I’ve been trying to get rid of you since you showed up, but that’s a lie and we both know it. I’m not ready to give her an answer yet, so I answer her with another question. She’s talking; I want to keep it that way. Part of me knows that there’s a very real possibility that when she walks out of here tonight, she may not come back no matter what I tell her and I may never hear her speak again. It hits me, once more, just how much she reminds me of a ghost and how at any moment she might just fade away.
“Who else knows you talk?” I ask, and not just to keep her talking, but because I really do want to know. Does Drew know and he hasn’t told me? Does she talk to her family? Drew said she lived with an aunt—actually he said a hot aunt—but that’s all I really know.
“No one.”
“Did you ever talk? Before now?”
“Yes.”
“Are you going to tell me why you’ve taken this vow of silence?”
“No,” she says, looking right into my eyes. Neither of us will break eye-contact. “And you’re never going to ask. Ever.”
“OK. I’m never going to ask. Check,” I say matter-of-factly. “And why have I agreed to this?”
“You haven’t.”