Chapter 13
My mother called me on a Friday.
The amount of relief I felt hearing her voice was only slightly minimized when she asked for money.
“Just a little bit to get me through the end of the month.”
It was jarring, but at least she was here. Which meant I had to keep going to the Inheritance Committee meetings.
And in the middle of October, when Carter confessed that he hadn’t planned anything for Halloween yet, it meant I had to help.
Time will always try to correct itself.
Time was an untrustworthy bitch that forced me to suggest the hedge maze at Montreat Pumpkin Patch. It was easy to organize because I’d done it before.
“That maze is like a mile from the parking lot. You expect people to hike all the way there?” Max had pointed out.
“You just need a truck to take them. One with a flatbed. Put a few bales of hay on it and you can call it a hayride.”
“We don’t have a truck.”
“Grandee does.” As soon as I said it, I knew I’d made a mistake.
Carter had loved the idea of a party in the hedge maze. And Grandee had agreed to let us borrow her truck on one condition: Everyone had to come for dinner.
Which is how I find myself stuffed in a car with three boys, driving to Grandee’s. Without Linden, who claimed she had a test.
Benji drives, with Carter in the front and me in the back with Max. It feels like my head is going to explode as they discuss the nuances of the Matrix movies, until finally we pull down the long driveway and Grandee’s house comes into view.
She’s already standing on the porch with the sheep scattered around her. Her silver braid is pulled over her shoulder, and she’s wearing a purple crocheted cardigan and a black T-shirt with loose jeans and her gardening clogs.
“My girl,” she says, pulling me into a hug as soon as I get out of the car.
“This is Benji, Carter, and Max.”
“Yes,” she tells me, looking at them. “I know.”
The sheep move around our guests, and Lorelai bumps into Max, who takes a step toward me.
I smile. “Are you afraid of sheep?”
“No.” But Max never takes his eyes off them, as if they could attack at any moment.
“Well, come in,” Grandee says, sweeping her hand to the side. “Dinner’s almost ready, and you can tell me about this hayride you want to use my truck for.”
Inside, all three boys look around the space, and suddenly, I feel self-conscious.
Sitting on top of an ancient piano are photographs.
Ones I’ve seen and some I haven’t are spread out in different frames.
One of my mother wearing overalls covered in paint and a smile I don’t recognize shines back from the center.
“That’s been my favorite version of her,” Grandee says, walking past.
A version of her. As if it’s something silly we can change.
“There’s a lot of yarn here.” Carter looks at a bookshelf with baskets and bobbles of roving. He smiles and winks at me. Like we’re sharing an inside joke at my family’s expense.
Benji finds an ancient typewriter in the corner and hits the keys gently. They make a clacking sound, and he smiles. “I would have loved to have used something like this.”
I could see Benji writing poetry on an old typewriter, surrounded by scattered pages and with ink stains on his fingers.
“You grew up here?” Max asks as he stares down at the worn woven rugs that pile on top of each other against the dark hardwood floors.
I nod.
“With the sheep?”
“Yeah,” I answer, but there’s an edge to my voice. Because there isn’t one in his. “With the sheep.”
“Oh my god!” Benji calls from the other room. “Look at this!”
We follow him into the living room and see what he’s excitedly standing next to.
My grandmother’s antique bar cart.
“This is a Macallan 25. And this, and oh my god … There is a shit ton of money on this cart.”
“Is this your grandfather’s?” Carter asks.
“It’s mine,” Grandee says from the doorway. “There is no Mr. Grandee. Did you want some?”
Benji’s eyes widen as she approaches him, and I know whatever my grandmother gives him is going to be wasted.
“That one’s a bit peaty. Maybe this?” She holds up an Irish whiskey, Redbreast. “The Irish do whiskey the right way. Distilled three times. Smooth.”
She pours Benji a finger, and he frowns down at it, realizing he’s in over his head. “I’m still learning about whiskey,” he confesses, and my grandmother gives him an honest smile as she pats his shoulder.
She takes the glass from him. “That’s fine, dear. Expensive or cheap, they’re all decent shots.” And then she drains the cup in one gulp.
Benji looks like he might be sick or might be in love, which is fair. My grandmother has that effect on everyone.
Grandee motions to Carter and me. “You two set the table. Max and Benji, help me with the food.”
We’ve all been given our orders, so Carter follows me into the dining room, and I pull the silverware and plates from the credenza. “You guys don’t keep this stuff in the kitchen?” he asks, looking at the indigo velvet–lined silverware drawer.
I shrug. “Grandee’s old-school.”
“I can see that.” He says it under his breath. Carter, my Carter, loved Grandee. Or at least I thought he did.
We set the forks and knives on each side of plates with tiny blue flowers dotted around the rim. I get the gray embroidered napkins from the cupboard and set them in the center of each plate.
“My family uses paper towels,” Carter says, a little surprised.
I smile because I remember his mother pulling a roll off the stand to set in the middle of the table as we ate greasy pizza from the box. But it had felt almost false. Like someone trying to prove they were just like me and not so wealthy that five of Grandee’s house could fit on their first floor.
“See,” Carter says when he clocks my smile. “You do think I’m funny.”
The way he looks at me, a little proud and a little shy, makes my heart ache in a hundred different places.
It makes me miss him. Not the man standing in front of me but the one who knew all the reasons why I would never eat a brussels sprout no matter what a chef did to them.
The one who knew that it took at least twenty minutes for me to wake up in the morning.
The one who remembered the time we got into a fight at the movies and the manager had to come over and ask us to leave but then slipped on nacho cheese sauce as he walked away.
I miss the Carter I knew, and secretly I wonder if I spend enough time with this one, would it make up for all the things I don’t have?
Because my Carter is gone.
“Oh my god, Nieve.” Carter looks sick. “It was a joke. I’m sorry. Really.”
At first, I’m confused until I realize there are tears on my face. My hand reaches up and I’m …
“What happened?” Max stands in the doorway, a heaping bowl of mashed potatoes in his hands, and he looks pissed.
“I … I don’t know.” Carter holds up his hands in front of him in surrender. “I made a joke—”
“About what?” Max snaps.
“I don’t know! I was just being—”
“I’m fine.” I try to keep the wobble out of my voice.
Max sets the potatoes on the table and walks over to me, his arm coming around my shoulders like he’s going to guide me out of the room.
“I got it.” Grandee stands at the doorway, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Come on, my little ray of sunshine.”
It’s what she always called me when I was having a bad day.
I follow her into the kitchen, and she hands me a basket of rolls.
“Different yarn?” she asks.
At first, I’m confused, but then I realize she’s talking about how time is different, not just the yarn. “Yeah.”
“Just take deep breaths, my love. Sometimes we think we want something new, but we forget how that means our old life is gone.”
Hearing this truth in Grandee’s voice breaks something inside me, but I don’t cry.
She kisses the top of my head. “When you’ve righted the ship in your mind, come join us.”
I count to ten and then go into the dining room.
Grandee tells stories that have Benji and Carter laughing.
Even Max is smiling. She has a way of making all the light turn toward her but knowing when to reflect it back on someone else.
She makes Carter feel smart, Benji feel seen, and Max feel understood all in a two-hour dinner.
After we finish, Carter and Benji help with the dishes, and I find Max in the living room by the fire.
“Everything okay?”
His chest inflates, and he turns to me. “Yeah, I just have … the strongest sense of déjà vu.” He shakes his head. “Sorry, that sounds weird.”
Those are the least weird words to be spoken in this house, but I don’t tell him that. “Do you want to talk about it?”
But before he can say anything else, Grandee comes in asking for a plan about the truck. It’s decided that Max will drive it, so Carter and Benji head back to campus, and Grandee insists I stay with the vehicle since it’s my responsibility.
Grandee shows me where all the papers are and explains to Max that sometimes the truck is finicky.
She hands Max the keys and when we slide into the cab, she goes over the breaks and the gears that happen to be on the steering wheel and not on a stick shift.
“Can you drive a manual?” I ask.
Max gives me a long glare. “Yes, Nieve. I can drive a manual. Can you?”
I glare back at him. He knows I can’t. I said so earlier when it was suggested I drive on Halloween.
Grandee kisses me on my forehead and pulls out a piece of purple yarn and ties it to my wrist. She doesn’t bother to tell me what it’s for.
It doesn’t matter anyway. She’s been known to lie about meaning in the past. But she moves to Max’s side of the car and takes his wrist, also tying a purple cord around it.
I expect him to ask questions, but instead, he just says, “Thank you.”
Grandee pats his cheek, and we drive off.
I text Linden as soon as we are on the road.
OMW
She sends back a thumbs-up, and I hate that I feel fragile with her. With everyone. Misunderstood.
Max has his hand on the wheel, and I stare at the purple tied around his wrist.
“That was nice of you.”
Max’s grip tightens, but he doesn’t say anything in return. We drive in silence for a long time. The stars that poke out of the inky sky follow us as we follow along the electric poles that line the country roads. And every so often I notice Max looking over at me.
“What?” I ask finally.
“Nothing.” He looks back at the road.
Maybe I was making noise without thinking about it. “Was I singing? I do that sometimes. Sorry.”
“Why didn’t—” He clears his throat.
“Why didn’t what?”
“Why didn’t you want to submit anything to the festival?”
It feels like I repeat this at least a million times a day. Between Linden and the other art majors and the committee members, everyone asks. “I just don’t want to. Are you—”
He cuts my question off. “Why didn’t you give Carter your number?”
“My number?” I feel my head tilt to the side. I’m not following this change in the topic.
“Carter. The other day. He asked you for your number, and … you said no. At the ice-cream place.”
“Yeah.” The word comes out like taffy, pulled slow and long.
“Why?”
I sit up straight. “Because I didn’t want to, and I don’t have to.” It’s more defensive than I mean it to sound.
We’re quiet for a while longer until I say, “Why did you ask about Carter?”
Max takes a breath. “Because everyone gives Carter their number.”
“What does that mean?” I ask.
He has the decency to look a little embarrassed. “Girls don’t typically tell him no. I was just surprised.”
“Girls don’t tell him no.” I repeat it. “You make it sound like there are a lot of girls.”
“There are.” Max sees the surprise on my face. “Not like a lot, but he likes a challenge.”
My eyebrows go up. “Challenge?” I feel the need to defend Carter. Defend myself. Which is irrational because there’s no need in this timeline. “You think he sees me as a challenge?”
“It’s not an insult, Nieve. You’re…” He trails off, and I feel myself getting even angrier.
Carter and I are different. We have a connection. I’m not just some girl he flirts with, but I can’t say that without sounding like I’m his stalker.
“I’m what?”
Max gives me a pleading look. “Nieve. Come on.”
I make a gesture like I want him to keep going.
“You’re a pretty girl. Of course he thinks you’re a challenge.”
The words find me slower than they are spoken. A pretty girl. Max thinks …
I blush. Since when does Max Emerson think I’m pretty?
“You know you’re pretty, Nieve.” He rolls his eyes.
“Why are you so mean to me?”
“Pretty girls like you always seem to think they are the exception to every rule.” Max shakes his head.
The memory from before is a reminder that pretty isn’t actually a compliment like it would be from someone else’s mouth.
Even in this timeline, Max is still Max.