Cherish Farrah, page 14
He looks directly from Cherish’s father to me, and his expression softens.
It’s like watching another face slide over the last. Like beneath his asymmetrical dreaded fringe, there’s been a polyhedron, and it can swivel and swap out one face for another, the same way mine can. Only Tariq has never seemed the type.
He can’t be. I wouldn’t have missed it all this time.
He gestures almost imperceptibly with his head, but I keep hold of Cherish’s hand and sit her down on the opposite side of the table before asking what she wants on her burger. I make both our plates and go back inside to retrieve ice for our drinks, making sure to keep the trip brief when Tariq unsubtly follows me to the kitchen.
When I take my seat beside Cherish again, and she’s taken a series of small bites that only serve to keep anyone from noticing the way she’s not eating much at all, Brianne is on the phone.
“Hey, Nicki,” she says, like it’s good to hear my mother’s voice, and she looks over at me. They all do. All three of the Whitmans cast their eyes on me like I’m Nichole Turner’s avatar. “Everything’s good. How are the two of you?”
It’s like choreographed silence. Knowing she’s on the other end of the call, we all pause in conversation and in eating, as though we don’t want her to know we’re here.
“The girls are good!” Brianne exclaims suddenly, beaming over at us. She’s seeing us at the top of the staircase again, I’m sure, our arms tangled around each other in a scene that doesn’t betray the tension of the moment before.
Suddenly Brianne is standing, edging between her seat and the table without scraping the patio with their movement.
“Sure, I’ll go check,” she says through a smile, and she winks at me before she carries on chatting to my mother while she wanders into the kitchen and farther into the house.
She’s going to look for me. Obviously. I was sitting directly across from her, an arm’s length away at most, and when my mother asked if I was there—the way I know she did—Brianne said she had to check.
That’s how well she knows me already. She’s been my best friend’s mom for most of my life, but it’s only been a few weeks that Brianne’s been like one to me, and she can already read me the way she can read Cherish.
I must have given some glint of hesitation. Communicated with a gaze the way my mother does sometimes that I don’t want to talk yet. I haven’t listened to the voicemail or responded to the text messages, and Brianne Whitman can’t have known that, but she must at least know how I feel. The way she knows all the other things that by rights she shouldn’t. The way she knows how to care for Cherish, and how to see the world—the real one—even though because of what she looks like, she doesn’t have to. She’s always doing the impossible. Reading my mind isn’t too great a feat to believe.
Jerry Whitman smiles at me before he takes his first bite of a gratuitously stacked double burger, and I giggle at how wide he has to open his mouth and the way Tariq has competitively crafted his own, and look at Cherish to share in my amusement. Instead I find her face blank.
She’s watching me, and for a moment it’s almost possible that she sees me.
“So?” Jerry begins, wiping his mouth before taking a swig of his drink to make room for words. “What do you kids have planned, now that summer is upon us? Tariq? I’m sure the judge’ll be taking some time off to spend time with you boys?”
Tariq nods big.
“Yeah, me and Dad are gonna sail.”
“That’s awesome. I know he’s been wanting to do that for a while,” Mr. Whitman replies, full of vicarious enthusiasm and boring follow-up questions about crew sizes and charts and whatever else people arrogant enough to take on the open ocean say.
“Doesn’t Kelly have his sea legs?” I ask at an appropriate opening in their exchange.
Tariq flexes his right hand, but I only notice because I always do. Everyone else just echoes the subtle smile he puts on.
“He wants to hang out with his little brothers this summer. It’s cool. We’ll catch up when Dad and I get back.”
“It’s great he makes time for them,” Jerry Whitman says, a bit more sober. “It’s gotta be a tough line to walk, being a big brother and a stand-in dad at the same time.”
“Yeah,” Tariq agrees. “If he didn’t take care of them, who would?”
“That’s because of your dad,” Jerry says, tipping the mouth of his bottle toward the young man like an invitation.
“I know.”
“If the judge hadn’t stepped in . . .” And he trails off like he’s quieted by the memory. Like he was in the courtroom the day Kelly came before Judge Leslie Campbell. Like he witnessed the moment of transformation that was in reality a much longer sequence of events, involving a still hard-shelled young Kelly continuously running away from their home. And the Whitmans would’ve witnessed at least some of that, as close friends of the family. They would’ve seen the hard moments and all the ones in between, the way Jerry Whitman’s friend made space in his family for a boy the system is set up to flay and forget, and the way the judge never blamed Kelly for the way he fought back.
Their conversation’s passed me by. Mr. Whitman and Tariq carry on, talking more about Judge Campbell than anyone else, and I keep seeing Kelly’s face the night he and Tariq fought.
Maybe Kelly isn’t going sailing because Judge Campbell’s finally come to his senses. Or if he’s still not ready to turn Kelly away, maybe Tariq’s hands are bruised because his father decided that at the very least Tariq should be able to defend himself.
The one thing I don’t understand is the grill gleaming inside Tariq’s mouth. I’m not convinced I can trust the new side of him that’s on display today—but I know who can explain it.
Beside me, Cherish reaches toward the oversized bowl of her mom’s fruit salad, and I grab the silver spoon and heap another serving on her plate before reapplying her store-bought coleslaw to my own.
“Yeah, you were right,” I say, before turning the spoon over in my mouth and pulling it out clean. “Literally cannot tell the difference.”
“Right?” she says, and even though it almost sounds timid and she’s only looking at me through the side of her eye, it’s something.
“Don’t tell Mom I said that.”
I’m crunching on the shredded carrots and cabbage that are a delicious mix of tart and sweet, but my peripheral vision is enough to see the slight expression drain from Cherish’s face.
“I am having another burger,” I announce as I stand a bit to reach the still smoldering pile at the center of the table.
“Good girl,” Jerry encourages. “You have a couple days’ worth of calories to make up for, at least.”
“Trust me,” I tell him, settling back in my seat and gathering the condiments to myself. “I plan to.”
IX
I never take that walk with Tariq. Everyone understands when I beg off to the bedroom to rest while they’re playing a card game a couple of hours after dinner. Cherish is back to her old self, by all accounts, and is laughing and conspiring with her mom when I slide her phone off the kitchen island and into the front of my shorts.
Behind the bedroom door, I unlock the device by swiping my finger in the pattern I’ve watched her perform a million times. She’s never changed it, and she’s never made any attempt to keep me or anyone else from figuring it out. It’s not horribly difficult anyway. The fact that the pattern starts off-center probably seemed unlikely enough for Cherish. No further security measures required.
I’m not betraying her confidence. We hand each other our phones all the time, swap devices to read texts and tweets and posts, and sometimes reply from the wrong one by accident. That’s just part of being as close as we are. The only reason I need it now is because I don’t have Kelly’s phone number. Obviously. And I need to find out if he did something to my boyfriend. If whatever he did has something to do with Cherish’s uncharacteristic boldness.
I’ll be able to tell immediately, whether Kelly lies or not. I just need to get him face-to-face.
Can I see you? I text him from Cherish’s phone.
I’m surprised to see that the last conversation between them is from before the night of the boys’ fight.
She really hasn’t spoken to him since then.
“That’s why you’re so upset,” I tell her, even though she’s not in earshot. It didn’t have anything to do with me, or something she’s “always noticed” I’m doing. She’s heartbroken and lashing out at the one person it’s safe to push away. Because she knows I’m not going anywhere.
He’s a lovesick pup. His response is immediate.
For real?! Of course, babe, thank God. Just tell me when and where.
I try to think of where they might have snuck off to before, if they have. I could scroll up and try to quickly find out, but I don’t know how much longer I can have her phone without being noticed. And anyway, I know Cherish. If she’s ever snuck out to see Kelly, she wouldn’t go far. She’d be timid, even though no one can tell that about her but me. And Kelly would be used to risk, so it wouldn’t bother him to come to her.
Somewhere on the Whitman property, then, far enough from the house to feel private, but close enough that she never really left home.
Gazebo. I text him. Late.
And then I delete the messages I’ve sent, and his replies, and I lock the device to sneak it back downstairs.
Toward the edge of the Whitmans’ property, their private park becomes a rolling hill that naturally bestows both whimsy and privacy from the twelfth hole of the golf course it overlooks. There’s a gazebo, with a lattice enclosure that stands waist-high, and simple, curved benches inside, and the structure marks the end of the line. After it, there’s indigenous foliage in a neat line—only the sculptable kind that flowers, of course, unless someone is responsible for the precision placement of the blossoms—and there’s wooden fencing discreetly woven between.
Someone like Kelly can figure out a dozen ways to trespass beneath the shingled roof either from the Whitmans’ place or from the country club, I’m sure.
I wait until Cherish is asleep, and the house is completely dark, even though if asked, I’ll just say I want to walk the grounds to clear my head, or my lungs. No one can watch me all the way to the gazebo; I’m not really all that concerned with secrecy except where Cherish is concerned.
Whatever the reason for her soul-crushing episode today, I don’t ever want it to happen again.
I can see a tall silhouette before I’ve started hiking the incline toward the gazebo, even though Kelly’s doing an okay job blending his form with one of the posts. He’s checking himself on all sides, obviously, but that means there’s a brief blind spot in every direction and he doesn’t see me approaching from the Whitman house as soon as he could’ve.
I know when he does because he straightens up, and then his posture recoils sharply, and he’s hunched again.
He’s fidgety after that, but he manages not to rush out of hiding and down the hill to me, instead waiting for me to get all the way there.
Of course, it isn’t me he’s waiting for.
“Cherish?”
I don’t answer at first. There’s no unnatural light in the structure; the ones at ground level encircling its perimeter are clearly for up-lighting and showcasing the gazebo itself, which is blocking much of what’s pouring down from the moon.
Kelly backs out of the gazebo toward the golf course so that the moonlight washes his brown skin in a pale shimmer, but it doesn’t help him see me any better.
“Cherish.”
This time it’s a command. Like it’ll break a spell and she’ll materialize in my place.
“I’m not,” I finally say. “Did you really think you deserved to ever hear from her again? After what we all saw you do?”
His face hardens, but when he tries to square his shoulders, he winces again.
I don’t let my brow furrow. I don’t acknowledge his pain.
“What, ’cause I threw some stuff? I’m supposed to be terrifying now?”
“You lunged at me, Kelly, or don’t you remember?”
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, but I can read his face. He’s looking for a way to blame me. He wants to say that it’s my fault the way it looked, but he can’t.
He doesn’t know that he can just ask me.
“You got her afraid of me,” he says instead.
“I’d say you did that on your own. But I’m not surprised you can’t take responsibility for your actions. You have no self-control.”
“Yeah?” he cranes his neck forward, but the rest of him stays behind. “Then why aren’t you scared?”
It’s too late to wince or startle now.
“I see you don’t need Tariq to hide behind when you trick me into meeting you in the middle of the night. You seem pretty confident right now.”
I run through a short list of possible replies, but they all fall apart on the slightest inspection. They rely on his obvious but unconfessed physical impairment, but I couldn’t have foreseen that, and he doesn’t seem to realize that I know.
“Man,” he mutters, waving me off and turning away. He’s heading back whichever way he came, and I have to say something to make him stop.
“How did Tariq learn to fight?”
He stops, bright light spilling down his back, his white shirt luminous. He’s got one arm wrapped around his own waist, except it’s a safe distance away. It isn’t resting against his abdomen, even though his fingers touch his side lightly, as though just enough to keep his arm in position.
Kelly looks at me over his shoulder before turning back around. He makes the effort to loosen his limbs, to let both arms hang at his sides, even though he can’t unwind his shoulders. It hardly lasts a second before one arm is crossing his abdomen again and the other fist is closed as though there’s no position of relief for that one.
He can’t keep a secret for the same reason so few other people can. He lacks control. He’s more concerned with his pain, with trying in vain to lessen it when it clearly isn’t possible. Or maybe he doesn’t think it’s dangerous to look weak in front of me.
“Did you teach him?” I ask, and I let my eyes drift down to the backs of his hands just to verify they’re unblemished. “He wasn’t very good, from what I could see. He couldn’t throw a punch. Not one with any impact anyway.”
I match Kelly’s cold stare after that. Whatever pieces don’t fit yet, I have to look like I’ve already put them in their proper place; otherwise he won’t talk. He’s not on par with me, but he’s not Cherish, either. There’s probably something to that cliché assumption of street smarts, especially for someone who’s been in police custody more times than he’s been charged with an actual crime.
There’s something else, though—another reason I wanted him here, to try to pick his brain like a lock, to see what information comes tumbling out when I do.
He’s the only one I can afford to play with. He’s the only subject—the only one who has something I want to know—with whom I don’t have to take it slow. The only opponent who can know we’re competing.
I can be completely honest with Kelly, because I don’t care about him. I don’t care why he’s hurt, and I don’t have to worry about what he might say when we’re done.
He’s damaged goods. Tarnished beyond repair. No one will trust him now. He isn’t even supposed to be here.
There’s nothing I can’t do.
“Who said Tariq learned to fight?” Kelly asks with a wince that might be born of physical pain or something else.
“He won your grill, didn’t he?” I ask, crossing my arms over my chest and coming to lean against the gazebo post closest to him. I step into the illuminating night easily, like I have nothing to hide from it, like Kelly and I are friends, or something like it, and I’m just being familiar, closing the space.
Maybe he’s convinced. His head tugs back for a second and he smirks, but not like someone catching on. Like someone who’s been caught.
“Yeah, well.” He shakes his head, sneers. “I guess I took something of his first, right?”
My face is bathed in what might as well be a spotlight. I have to answer soon.
Kelly took something of Tariq’s first, so Tariq got his grill. Only everything Kelly has is already from Judge Campbell and Tariq.
I see Cherish’s face at the patio table when I ate the coleslaw.
Maybe Kelly got too close to Tariq’s dad, and the son became jealous of the rescue.
Except Kelly doesn’t want Tariq’s father or anyone else’s. He hasn’t seemed to get any fulfillment from being Judge Campbell’s not-adopted adopted son. He enjoys the perks and privileges, but he doesn’t aim to please. He’s not even smart enough to fake it.
Kelly’s watching me, so I snort and shake my head.
“It’s his own fault,” I start, not knowing where I’ll end.
“How’s that?” he asks, like he’s ready. He thinks he can foresee my attacks now, the nature of them and the cause. He thinks he knows exactly what I’m going to say, even though I don’t. But it helps.
“For thinking you were better than that. He should’ve assumed you’d steal anything he didn’t nail down.”
His jaw tightens. “You can’t steal a girl, freeloader. I’m kinda surprised I have to tell you that.”
I can’t keep my mask from falling. My face goes slack, and the moon has spread its blinding light across it so there’s no way that Kelly doesn’t see.
That’s okay. I already knew what I was going to do. What I’ve never had the opportunity to do before tonight, because I have always had to be careful.
