Truest Page 8

  Dad probably isn’t even home, I told myself and leaned forward to the eyepiece.

  Even with this state-of-the-art telescope, Saturn was the size of a pencil eraser with one tiny ring decorating its golden body. Unexpected excitement welled up in me like devotion, like impetuosity. For a moment, I thought I might start to cry.

  “Oh my gosh!” I called out. “I can even see its ring!”

  “There are actually rings A through G, plus the Phoebe Ring, the Pallene Ring—” started Mr. Hart, but Silas said, “Dad, we know, we know,” from over by the fire.

  “How far away?” I breathed, still unable to tear myself away from the eyepiece.

  “About seven hundred and fifty million miles. It’s ten times the size of Earth.”

  I stared, wondering at something so otherworldly. I hadn’t known it would hit me like this. It’s like a baptism, I thought, remembering what Silas had said about it: identity, wonder, favor. All three were working me over. “Laurel, come look,” I said, my voice breathless.

  She seemed for a second as if she were going to argue, but instead she stood up, the blanket around her shoulders, and walked over to us and looked into the eyepiece.

  “Glen!” I heard Teresa yell up the stairwell. “My mom and dad are leaving! Come say bye!”

  He left, and it was the three of us.

  Laurel walked back to the fire pit, the bottom of her blanket dragging behind her like a royal robe. I followed and sat between her and Silas, who had finished poking at the logs and was strumming lightly on his guitar. When he noticed my goose bumps, he took off his sweatshirt and offered it to me.

  “I’m okay,” I said.

  “You’re freezing.”

  “It’s fine, really.”

  “Just take it, West.” His voice was kind, soft, powerful.

  I pulled it on over my head. It smelled like sandalwood and the bonfire, and it was huge on me and very warm. “Thanks,” I muttered, getting that lightheaded feeling again.

  “So?” I prompted, talking louder than necessary as I tried to clear my head from my Saturn high and rediscover my place in the universe. “What are you thinking about?” I probably sounded dorky, but I let it go.

  My question was for Laurel, but Silas answered. “I think of Genesis,” he said, strumming a sweet sequence of chords. “How a tight little compact sentence summarizes all this—‘In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.’ God chose that as his opening line? I like the New Testament line better: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ Now, that’s what I’d have led with.”

  If Dad talked about the Bible that way, maybe I’d pay more attention in church.

  Laurel said, “I think about death.”

  Silas and I both looked at Laurel, but she stared only at the flickering orange flame. “I’m seventeen. Seems like I only blinked and here I am. I’m speeding like a rocket toward death. I’m spiraling toward the end of now and the start of infinity. It’s a countdown. But to what? Can’t gift wrap eternity.”

  Who were these people?

  “What if I made up God?” Laurel whispered.

  Silas shifted in discomfort, frustrated. “Laurel, no.”

  “What if I did?” she persisted. “What if I invented the whole idea?” A tear formed at the corner of her left eye. “Just like I made up that stupid ballerina doll.” She bit the inside of her cheek.

  “What does the doll even matter?” Silas pressed her.

  Laurel exhaled—a rough, ragged breath—and said, “It’s a sort of test, I guess. It would be a touchstone.”

  “A touchstone?” I asked.

  “An anchor,” she said. “To what’s real. It would help me . . . to know.” She pressed her lips hard together. “What if I dreamed it all? What if I’m dreaming right now—of you two and the stars and this night? What if—”

  But Silas did the very last thing I would have expected him to do. His strumming changed; then he interrupted his sister and started to sing an old hymn.

  The song was like an answer and an argument in one.

  Laurel swallowed hard, and that tear finally fell. “You know it, don’t you, West?” Silas asked quietly after the first verse, his eyes looking serious, black pools of tar with tiny fires in them. I did. I swallowed and timidly joined him with the chorus.

  I’m not sure I’d have joined in except for the mix of everything: Saturn bearing down on us where we sat exposed to the whole universe; the clean, warm scent of sandalwood; and the crisper smell of those lemony blossoms soaking into my skin.

  And his eyes.

  A flush crept up my neck, and it made me feel guilty. And silly. Elliot. Beth.

  Laurel watched the flames as we sang, and when we were done, everything seemed terribly quiet, as if there were a hole in the night the shape of our voices. Laurel whispered, “Maybe I should just get some rest.”

  “Hey,” said Silas, and put two fingers over his heart. Laurel smiled softly as she left, the train of her blanket following her all the way to the door. I was alone with her brother, a minstrel whose songs sounded like sanity, like gravity.

  eleven

  I spent the last full week of June with the Hart twins, who were a combined repository of curious ideas and history. Silas had four cross-country meet records at his old high school. Laurel had spent the previous semester at home, taking classes online. They had memorized all these old Saturday Night Live skits that they would quote out of nowhere—Silas kicking things off, but Laurel always with the response. Silas knew his sister’s Facebook password and stealthily began adding interests to her profile such as “rash ointments” and “LARPing.” When Laurel found out, she changed his voice mail to say that he was busy rehearsing for his Mr. Princess pageant.

  It was anyone’s guess as to what mood Laurel would be in when she woke up—she had a permanent seat on an emotional roller coaster—and I held my breath every time I entered their house, nervous I’d break into another of her calamitous weeping sessions. I couldn’t see any logic behind what made a day “good” or “bad,” but Silas assured me it was there.

  Some days, Laurel seemed perfectly fine, and I marveled that I had ever been afraid of her. One afternoon the three of us made a blanket fort in their den. Using the ceiling fan as the pinnacle of our tent, we secured the ends of the blankets and sheets to the coffee table and entertainment center using two pagoda bookends and a few paperweights. Inside our fort, we sat on the den floor and watched old home videos—Silas as a toddler, covered in mud; Laurel on Santa’s lap, screaming in terror; the two of them in junior high, braces on both, Silas with chubby cheeks, Laurel with a boyish bowl cut. “Ugh, turn it off!” said Laurel, laughing. “I was such an ugly duckling.”

  Silas reached for the remote, turned off the video, and then we lay on our backs, staring up at the roof of our homemade castle, me in the middle, wondering how exactly friendships got to this point. A few weeks ago, I could have never imagined being here with these two.

  “Pick a major for West, Laurel,” instructed Silas. “Go.”

  I groaned good-naturedly. They’d started playing this game a few days earlier.

  “Harry Potter studies,” said Laurel, propping herself up on one elbow, facing me and her brother. “For sure. Or you could be very culturally savvy and choose a language—for instance, why not pig Latin?”

  “I personally think that she would be a prime candidate for a banjo performance program,” said Silas. “With a minor in spoons.” He moved his head to a phantom bluegrass beat.

  “And then would you come to my concerts?” I asked.

  “Of course we would!” said Laurel, pretending to be offended I had to ask. “We would be your groupies, West.”

  The game could have easily gone either way. The question of my major seemed to stand in for the larger uncertainty of what I’d do with my life, of the person I was and wanted to be, and I’d always hated thinking about my blurry outline. Yet this bizarre process comforted me—as if we were making
fun of the whole enterprise—and somehow Silas knew it. He was turning out to be frightfully good at discerning my reactions, and sometimes it made me feel a little shy.

  It was like I’d known him and Laurel for years and years instead of just weeks. How could we fall into such an easy routine before there had barely been time to create one?

  Silas ran every morning before the sun began to smolder. He carried his iPod with him and used the time to memorize poetry as he circled the lake. And while he and I detailed cars or ate lunch, we’d swap stories in an endless, fascinating conversation. Mine I learned from August Arms; I had no idea where his came from.

  Afternoons, Silas and I would watch WARegon Trail or—more often—read in their den. Laurel joined us about half the time—the other half, I’d hear her crying or listening to music as I walked past her bedroom door.

  In the evenings, we’d listen to August Arms on their roof, while the summer nights wrapped their arms around us. It would be late by the time I’d head home, but I’d still make sure to email Tru and give Elliot a call before I fell asleep.

  My summer had been boiled down to the bones, and those bones were the Hart twins.

  “Some Johns Hopkins astronomers determined the color of the universe is this off-white they call ‘cosmic latte,’” I told Elliot over the phone one night, “and Silas thinks it makes sense on a universal scale because if the rest of the universe is clean and untouched but then you add in Earth—and it’s so messed up but also small and insignificant in the cosmic scheme—then the darkness of Earth pollutes the rest of the universe’s purity. Just a smidge, you know? Cosmic latte. What do you think?”

  Elliot yawned audibly. “I think you haven’t quit talking about that kid since I answered my phone.”

  “Silas,” I said. “His name is Silas.”

  “Silas, whatever,” Elliot said, sounding so tired. “He’s not God, you know, West.”

  “I know that,” I snapped. “I never said that.”

  “You spend every frickin’ day with this kid, and then when I finally have a few minutes to talk to you, you upload his conversations to me. I want to hear about you.” Maybe it was the tone of his voice—it was tired, not hostile—that calmed me down. This was Elliot, after all.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Really.”

  “It’s okay. I’m just exhausted. We’ve got a few new calves, and one of them isn’t doing so hot. Wasn’t drinking from the mom, so I’ve been bottle-feeding her, but today her eyes went all milky white and blue and cloudy. Blind. Super weak. Dad wanted me to take the body away after chores, but I’ve heard before where this happened and the calf only had a fever and recovered fine later, so I’m just keeping my eye on her and hoping for the best.”

  “That’s so sad!”

  “Yeah, and she’s a sweetie too. I named her Stevie.”

  “As in Wonder?”

  “Yeah.”

  I chuckled lightly.

  “So tell me about you,” he asked again.

  But it was hard to describe my day without including the Harts, so I said, “It was good. Detailed cars. Listened to the radio.” My summer sounded limp when I described it this way; all the good parts—all the interesting and worthwhile parts—included my new friends. “When can I see you?”

  “Drive-in this Saturday night? Please say we can fog up the windows.”

  I laughed. “We haven’t done that for a while, huh?”

  “A man has needs, Westlin Beck,” he said in an exaggerated Cro-Magnon voice.

  “We can fog up the windows,” I promised.

  “Good,” he said in his regular voice. “I miss you.”

  “I miss you, too.”

  He was quiet for a few seconds, and I thought we were going to hang up, but then he said, “I don’t like you spending so much time with that kid.”

  “He’s my detailing partner, Elliot,” I said, as if I was talking to a child. “And my friend. Do you not trust me or something? He has a girlfriend.”

  “You have a boyfriend,” he said with emphasis.

  “I know that!”

  “Well, then why wasn’t that the first thing you said?”

  “It was!”

  “No, it wasn’t. You said, ‘Don’t you trust me? He has a girlfriend,’ like that’s the one thing stopping you—”

  “—stopping me from what, Elliot?”

  He sort of grumbled an unintelligible response.

  “From what, Elliot?” I challenged him. It was dark in my bedroom except for the glow of my cell phone, and I didn’t know why I was pushing him like this except that we were both exhausted.

  “Look, why are we fighting?” he asked, vocalizing my own thoughts. “We never fight, you and me. We talk through things.”

  “Well, you’re not around to talk through things,” I complained, still upset, though aware that I was whining while he talked actual sense.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, calm and sincere. Elliot. My loyal friend through the years. “I shouldn’t have agreed to work for Dad this summer, not our last summer before senior year. I got so damn worked up over buying a car—you know what Mom and Dad are like with that stupid van, treat it like it’s the Ark of the Covenant or some damn Bentley. I should have put us first.”

  “You’re fine,” I said, softening at his words. “I’m sorry. I miss you—I miss everyone—and it makes me moody and annoying.”

  “Naw. You’re great.”

  I’d clearly been spending too much time with Silas, since the moment he said “great,” I thought of a million better words. Stop it, I told myself—or Silas.

  “I’m glad you know about cars,” I said instead. “You know what a Maserati is, right?”

  “Huh?”

  “Nothing. Good night. Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not mad. See you Saturday.”

  “See you.”

  Feeling better after my conversation with Elliot and a good night’s sleep, I joined the Harts on Friday afternoon to read in their den. Silas lay on the floor, holding a book in his extended arm, making little envious groans every few minutes and finally declaring, “I wish this book were water, so I could take a bath in it. I want my toes pruny from it.” On the couch, I was making my way through Silas’s entire Billy Collins collection, having returned Gordon’s book to him the week before. Beside me, Laurel was shouldering through an existential crisis so that she could finish hers.

  “It just all seems unfair—do you know what I’m saying?” she asked. “Like, free will or not, humanity was set up for failure.”

  “Laurel, finish the book,” Silas said, his voice unenthused, not looking away from the page he was on. “We’re trying to read.”

  “It’s just—well, if we don’t have a choice, then we were made to screw up. But if we do have free will, then it’s like we’re allowed to make bad decisions.” Her voice was leaning into the frantic stages it traveled to so quickly. I wanted to remind her to breathe, remind her that nothing had changed from before she’d read the book till now.

  “Laurel,” Silas said, now sounding annoyed. “Five minutes, okay? I’m almost done with my chapter.”

  She chewed on the inside of her cheek and nodded. But only a moment later, she plodded on. “It scrambles me up, you know? I just—I feel just sick. I feel like—how could God set us up like that? How—”

  “Laurel,” Silas growled. “Calm. Down. If you don’t want to read the book, then don’t read the book.”

  “It’s not that,” she said. “Do you see what I’m saying? It feels like the ground opened up. Didn’t it feel like that to you when you read it?”

  Silas set his book aside, then closed his eyes there where he lay on the floor. He was gathering his patience, so I stayed quiet. He exhaled slowly then said, “I don’t know, Laur. I liked the book. It made me think. If you don’t want books to make you think, there are plenty out there.”

  “West?” she asked, suddenly turning to me, and I felt caught in the middle of an argument I
didn’t want to be part of.

  “Uh, what?” I asked.

  “Your dad’s the pastor. Have you ever thought about—”

  “I try not to think about anything my dad says from the pulpit,” I joked, offering a weak grin.

  Silas looked at me hard. Laurel stood up quickly and exited the room, making small, sad noises as she left.

  I looked at Silas. “Should we . . . help her?”

  “If you have a plan, I’d damn sure love to hear it.” His voice was hard, all sharp edges.

  Silas’s old CD player that we’d been using for background music was skipping in the corner, hissing out a repetitive ffftt . . . ffftt . . . ffftt in the otherwise-silent room. Silas stared at me for another few moments, then reached out and gave the player a little cuff. The music resumed its playing.

  “Let’s go swimming,” he said.

  twelve

  Silas drove Papa Arty’s pickup, which had seen its best days in the early nineties. We stopped by my house for my swimsuit, and then by the mini-mart for sunscreen since Silas swore he’d turn red as a stoplight without it. Whit’s car was in the parking lot, so I said, “Just stay in the car, okay? I’ll run in and get it.”

  “Why?”

  “Never mind. Be right back.”

  “But I’m the one who wants it.”

  “It’s okay. Just stay.”

  Inside, Pocket Swanson was at the till, talking the ear off a woman whose child grabbed at the items on the counter. Whit was stocking beef jerky. “Hey, do you have sunscreen?” I asked his back.

  “Hello to you, too,” he teased.

  I grinned. “Hey. Miss you.”

  “Ditto. Sunscreen’s back here,” he said, leading me into a different aisle. He lowered his voice. “Don’t tell Pocket I said so, but you really should get it at the Red Owl. You’ll pay with your firstborn here. Going swimming or something?”

  “You betcha,” said . . . Silas, who had ignored my request to stay in the truck and now approached us in the aisle. “That’s what you say in Minnesota, right?” He held out a hand to Whit. “Hey, man, I’m Silas Hart.”