Each One a Nation, page 19
Each time she lands a nut in his cup, she reacts with a small celebration. It’s a rare occasion for him to see her as a child, unguarded and fun. He smiles each time he sees it, and she, seeing the smile, falls just a small amount more in love with him. The game ends with Bobby winning just as the pilot issues his declaration of descent over the intercom and the two are joined by Eric, who is spacy looking, slowly sipping from a plastic cup. He’d been advised by his lawyers to avoid flight crew at all costs but felt wrong having boarded an Astra flight for the first time without at least identifying himself.
When they land in Austin, they’re shuttled from airport to hotel where a block has been reserved for athletes and parents. In the lobby, a man with credentials hanging from his neck approaches them and says, “Eric Del Rio?”
Eric instantly understands what is happening but engages the man, having been advised not to act like a guilty man in public.
“Yes,” he says.
“I was wondering if I could have a word with you regarding the AstraOne incident?”
“I’m actually here for my daughter’s event, so…”
“I know you are, sir,” says the man, “and so does everyone else.”
Eric puts his arm over Devyn’s shoulder and begins to usher her away with the luggage cart. He hands Bobby his ID and says, “Can you get us checked in, Bob?” before turning to the reporter. “I’ll tell you what, here is my lawyer’s card, go ahead and talk to him.”
He hands the man the card and hustles Devyn toward the elevator.
“Eric,” the man says, “it’s going to get bad, you know? We know more than you think we do and it’s going to be a circus if you try to keep silent.”
Eric stares at the man, trying to either intimidate him or understand him, and is in the makings of deciding on something to say when the man adds, “You took three of ours. We aren’t going anywhere.”
The elevator closes and Eric selects a random floor from the panel. He and Devyn are silent until the door opens again and an old man in a floral smiles and steps in with them. Devyn stands silently with her hands clutched tightly to the backpack’s straps around her shoulders with not the sound but the context of what the man said pulsing like her heart in her head. AstraOne incident. AstraOne incident. She can see Eric staring at her while the elevator chimes at each passing floor. When the door opens again, Eric steps out without saying a word and Devyn follows silently. He opens his phone and chats with Bobby for a second until he hangs up and calls for the elevator again. The two step back on and ride until they reach the twentieth floor. There they wait until Bobby arrives and lets them in the room.
Eric and Bobby step into the hallway to discuss the situation while Devyn sits alone in the room. The man’s words continue to ring. AstraOne Incident. AstraOne Incident. The next thought she has, though she doesn’t know why, is to call Seth and tell him she knows what happened.
“Hello,” he answers. “How was your flight?”
“It was fine,” she says, sounding purposefully dismayed. “Do you have a minute to chat?”
“No, actually I don’t,” he replies. “I’m just about to pick up Mal. Can I call you tonight?”
The thought of him picking up Mallory, though she doesn’t know why, causes her discomfort to widen and as she sits in the room alone, she feels defeated before the event has even begun.
NINE
Back home in Latreuo, Sloane spends two hours preparing for a night out with Peyton, something he’d promised her, finally scheduling it for the night Devyn leaves for Austin. She stands before the mirror in her bathroom shining her teeth pearly and painting new borders onto her skin. Peyton lays in waiting on her bed, tossing a tennis ball to himself and wondering why it always takes her so long to get ready. The mirror tells many things to the young girl who consults it, and among them, often such lies are whispered to accents and descents, to break them or to bond them to a higher law. How she is, she has come to learn, has little to do with how she feels, and, having spent the greater part of her youth balancing small worlds that seem to keep appearing, she often feels quite bad. It is, though she doesn’t know it, duty that brings her along. A duty taught to her by the absence of her mother, a duty that points in only one direction and to only one thing and that has her convinced that the duty is not only necessary but that it ought to be enjoyable.
When she is ready, she walks out of the bathroom and presents herself to Peyton.
“Jesus,” he says, “look at all that.”
She smiles and blushes though she isn’t certain she’s actually been complimented.
“Let’s get going,” he says. “I’m hoping to get some sleep tonight.”
The two walk past Neal’s office where he is sitting in his chair admiring his blades.
“Leaving, Daddy!” shouts Sloane on her way by.
Neal, as if awoken from a dream stops them, saying, “Now hold on! Come in here just for a second.”
The two halt and present themselves to Neal.
“Baby,” he says to Sloane, “my God you are something. When the heavens made you, they felt it.”
He stops to look at Peyton.
“Ain’t that right?”
“Yessir,” says Peyton, acting automatically with words that are not his own. “Was a tough thing for them to give up I bet.”
Neal peers down his nose and through his glasses at Peyton, who he has a keen regard for but keeps at a father’s healthy distance. He believes the boy to be good in the way that prisoners who keep the library in prisons are good. Good in a sense that they aren’t the worst, but not good enough to consider them good altogether. What he enjoys doing more than anything else with the boy is reminding him of the grave sin Peyton committed in his home, and to make it painfully clear that he hasn’t forgotten.
“And where are we off to?” he asks, still glaring at Peyton.
“Twisty Whirl,” says Peyton, “for ice cream. Then maybe to the church to see the fall festival. If that’s all right.”
“The fall festival,” repeats Neal, rolling a pen on his desk. He folds his hands and pretends to ponder something for a moment, tucking his chin into his neck and staring at the cherrywood flooring.
“Yes, I think that’ll be all right. And y’all do have practice tomorrow, is that right.”
“Yessir,” says Peyton, “we won’t be too late, with that in mind.”
“Daddy,” says Sloane, tilting her head and beckoning towards the front door.
“Well,” says Neal, taking his time. “How about this, just go ahead and call me when y’all are on your way back. That’ll keep me informed and out of your hair.”
Peyton, believing genuinely that he has navigated troubled waters, grins a massive grin and says, “Yessir. Yessir, I will make sure to do that.”
Neal smiles.
“Go on,” he says, “and remember to call.”
Once out of the doorway’s view, the two take each other by the hand and exit the house leaving Neal alone in the quiet. He lingers for a moment in thought before returning to his blades. Outside, Peyton’s car pulls away.
Peyton holds her hand, rubbing his thumb against her skin and plays music that she likes. She feels so far away from all the times he has let her down. At Twisty Whirl, he parks and they join the line where, coincidentally, Mallory Barber is waiting with Seth McWhite.
“What up,” says Seth to Peyton.
“What are y’all doing here?” asks Peyton.
“Well, Peyton, it appears we are getting ice cream,” Mallory says.
“But just you two?” asks Peyton with scrutiny.
The two hang for a moment in discovery.
“Um, yeah,” says Seth, “is it just you two as well?”
“Don’t mind him,” says Sloane, “he’s a born paranoid, just like my daddy.”
Peyton watches the back of Seth’s head as he orders twice and pays once.
“We’ll be over here if y’all want to join us,” says Seth.
“Sure,” Peyton says.
“Honey,” says Sloane, “weren’t we on a date?”
“Well, yeah. But it would be silly not to sit with them if they’re here too. Wouldn’t it?”
Sloane, in silence, admits defeat, having anticipated for an entire day a night of sentiment in intimacy, only to see her anticipation debased. She cringes her face into a weak grin and agrees with her boyfriend.
“I guess so,” she says, “I guess that would be silly.”
“And we will go to the festival just us. I promise.”
At the table under an umbrella, the four suck on their dairies. Sloane is quiet and keeps looking to Peyton to say something that brightens her spirits, while Mallory is quiet and looks at nobody at all. The boys carry on, talking loudly without saying anything and volleying insults between themselves. It is only when the insults are exhausted and the girls have spent their stamina for laughing that the group loses its steam and the conversation devolves into gossip.
“So,” says Peyton, “I don’t know if we’ve taken the time yet to consider the fact that Devyn’s dad is a legit psychopath for not telling her what’s going on.”
“Peyton!” says Sloane, looking to him with look suggesting he stop talking.
“Well it’s true,” says Mallory, “the facts suggest that he murdered those people on the plane. And I’d want to know if my parent murdered somebody. Wouldn’t you?”
“Mal!” says Sloane.
“It’s true, Sloane,” says Peyton. “He killed them…plane…and simple.”
Mallory wants to laugh but does not. Sloane does not want to laugh but shutters a small giggle out of obligation. Seth, who figures his role in the situation is more intimate than the other friends, decides that the safest bet is to laugh along with them.
“Okay fine,” he says, “we can joke but I think we seriously should take it easy on Devyn.”
“Devyn didn’t kill anyone,” says Peyton.
“It doesn’t mean that she hasn’t been troubled by the fallout,” says Seth.
From across the table, Peyton sees Seth as a form that is growing and shrinking as he decides where he stands in the conversation.
“She also isn’t here,” says Sloane, “which means we shouldn’t be talking about it.”
“Well, no; I think we should,” Peyton says.
“We all know that Eric is awful and that he is willing to move past the truth to get what he wants. We don’t need to talk about it but it is definitely true,” Mallory says.
“Well, what are we going to talk about if we can’t talk about anybody?” asks Peyton.
Mallory feels shame at the question, knowing that she’d been sucked into something that she generally considers herself to be above, but in feeling herself go astray she feels more normal, more like her friends, and it’s this that lightens the blow and allows her to admit to herself that she wishes for the conversation to continue. Peyton stands, however, and announces further plans with Sloane for the night and that the two ought to be going. When the other two stand and say goodbye, Mallory becomes keenly aware of Peyton’s and Sloane’s hands and their proximities to each other. Knowing what his hands feel like, and having thought of them often, she’s affected by how they fit into the curves and tangles of Sloane’s and begins to feel the ice cream melt in her stomach.
“We’re going to the festival,” Peyton says.
“We should go, Seth!” Mallory blurts out.
She isn’t sure why she’d said it, and only after her words settle on the skin of her friends and she sees them react: Sloane, obviously taken aback, Seth, indifferent, and Peyton reacting as though he’d been stabbed, does she realize that she had said it, and that she should not have.
“Well,” says Peyton, looking at Sloane, “I guess that could be fun.”
Sloanes snaps her head to him, shooting him a glance to indicate she has very nearly had enough, but being a person of friendship and honor she will not say exactly what she needs to say.
“Yeah, why not?” says Seth, driving a nail into a coffin that he didn’t know existed.
And so all of them pile into Peyton’s car on their way downtown to the church where a sketchy Ferris wheel rumbles roundwise and a few hastily constructed local vendor shops operate in its massive shadow. The real attractions of the fall festival are its Christmas-style light structures which span the length of closed off Main Street. Peyton and Seth sit in the front, blasting music and yelling indiscriminate teen male things to each other, while Mallory and Sloane sit in the back with a standard of concrete between them. They arrive at a parking lot authority in a neon vest that asks them for money. Nobody has cash but Sloane, who pays only after making it obvious to everyone else that she isn’t happy and that the rest of the car has, in fact, ruined a night that she had so meticulously fantasized about. When she is this way, Peyton’s immediate response is, and always has been, to push back, to make her feel bad about showing herself as displeased. He does this by making fun of her publicly. He is sure to take time after each look or sigh to call it out, to discredit it and to make her feel as though she is unusual for feeling that way.
When they enter the park and begin to follow the paths and trails lit from above, Seth picks up on the tension and splits the group in two, believing that taking Sloane off with him will be both a service to Sloane herself, and his friend Peyton. He puts an arm around her shoulder and guides her away from Peyton at a fork in the path. The two disappear and leave Mallory to walk with Peyton down the rival path, which is bright with orange and white lights and alive with the sounds of children. Mallory, having spent meaningful energy for the better part of a year avoiding Peyton, walks with her arms crossed and her eyes to the lights around her. Peyton knows that she has been avoiding him and has been searching for a time to talk with her.
“Sorry she’s being like that,” he says.
“She’s being like that because you lied to her,” says Mallory.
“Lied to her?”
“You told her you would take her out tonight.”
“Do you not consider this out?” he says, extending his arms to show the environment.
“If you had a brain in your body it would be easy to understand that you aren’t even with her right now,” she says, “and that you’re with me instead.”
“Doesn’t that sound like a dream?” he says, laughing.
Mallory stops in her tracks.
“Peyton,” she says, “sometimes I wish you just didn’t exist. I don’t wish you would die, but that you just were never born.”
“But if I didn’t exist,” he says, closing in on her and putting his hands on her hips, “then you’d have nobody to worry about.”
“Stop,” she says, snapping her hands down to remove his. “Not out here.”
“Then where?” he asks. “We could go any number of places right now and be back before anybody notices.”
“Peyton.”
Peyton stays close to her, putting himself into her space with enough gravity to stop her from going anywhere. Mallory, feeling overpowered, can only look around and hope that the path taken by Seth and Sloane has taken them somewhere far from them.
“Fine,” Peyton says, “but can I hold your hand?”
…
Down a separate path, Sloane walks with Seth who keeps a healthy distance between the two of them. He asks her what’s wrong and listens to her answers, and she begins to lighten her heart and to see the colors of the lights around her. With Seth she feels harbored and with Peyton she feels invaded.
He looks almost handsome to her in the lights as he listens to her and volleys back answers that confirm he’d actually been listening. But as awful as Peyton had been to her, it’s guilt she feels as she finds herself drifting closer to Seth, cutting down the space between them and beginning to feel his gravity. She realizes that it’s warmth that she’s seeking, and not only the kind that Peyton can provide, but the kind that sustains and does not quit with the seasons.
“It’s just that, I’m beginning to feel, after all this time, that maybe I need to reassess things, you know? Like if I don’t, I’m just going to be left behind.”
“Left behind?” asks Seth, keeping his hands to his pockets and his eyes to Sloane’s shoes.
“Well, you’ll be off at school and having a great time. Devyn is literally competing at Nationals in two days. Peyton will be at Nationals next year and will have a scholarship before long. Mallory is Mallory. And what do I have, Seth? I just have Peyton. And if all I have is Peyton and Peyton moves past me, then what am I? I’m just what I was three years ago when I met him in a world where everybody else is three years further down the road.”
“You’ll go to college too, though.”
“Sure I’ll go to college. But who doesn’t go to college?”
“Plenty of people,” he says.
“But not plenty that we know.”
“You’ll meet new people when you get there.”
“But it isn’t about meeting people, it’s about who I am when I’m forced to meet new people. If I get the chance to meet new people and all I can think to tell them about myself is where my boyfriend goes to school, I’m not going to feel good, Seth. You know? I’m going to feel like an accessory, a subject to an object and I can’t think of a way where living like that works for me.”
Seth feels the rationale but knows how college works, and although he understands the fears of his friend, he also understands that explaining this to her will do very little to calm her fears, and that time only will do anything for her.
