Chapter Thirty-Six #2
Jeremiah hesitated and then he looked at my mother, who nodded. He bounded up the stairs and a few minutes later, Conrad was with him. Conrad’s face was guarded, cautious.
“I’ll make you a deal,” Mr. Fisher said.
This was the old Mr. Fisher, power broker, negotiator.
He loved to make deals. He used to offer trades to us kids.
Like, he’d drive us to the go-kart track if we swept the sand out of the garage.
Or he’d take the boys fishing if they cleaned out all the tackle boxes.
Warily, Conrad said, “What do you want? My trust fund?”
Mr. Fisher’s jaw tightened. “No. I want you back at school tomorrow. I want you to finish your exams. If you do that, the house is yours. Yours and Jeremiah’s.”
Jeremiah whooped loudly. “Yes!” he shouted. He reached over and enveloped Mr. Fisher in a guy hug, and Mr. Fisher clapped him on the back.
“What’s the catch?” Conrad asked.
“No catch. But you have to make at least Cs. No Ds or Fs.” Mr. Fisher had always prided himself on driving the hard bargain. “Do we have a deal?”
Conrad hesitated. I knew right away what was wrong. Conrad didn’t want to owe his dad anything. Even though this was what he wanted, even though it was why he had come here. He didn’t want to take anything from his dad.
“I haven’t studied,” he said. “I might not pass.”
He was testing him. Conrad had never “not passed.” He’d never gotten anything below a B, and even Bs were rare.
“Then no deal,” Mr. Fisher said. “Those are the terms.”
Urgently, Jeremiah said, “Con, just say yes, man. We’ll help you study. Won’t we, Belly?”
Conrad looked at me, and I looked at my mother. “Can I, Mom?”
My mother nodded. “You can stay, but you have to be home tomorrow.”
“Take the deal,” I told Conrad.
“All right,” he said at last.
“Shake on it like a man, then,” Mr. Fisher said, holding out his hand.
Reluctantly, Conrad extended his arm and they shook. My mother caught my eye and she mouthed, Shake on it like a man, and I knew she was thinking how sexist Mr. Fisher was. But it didn’t matter. We had won.
“Thanks, Dad,” Jeremiah said. “Really, thanks.”
He hugged his dad again and Mr. Fisher hugged him back, saying, “I need to get back to the city.” Then he nodded at me. “Thanks for helping Conrad, Belly.”
I said, “You’re welcome.” But I didn’t know what I was saying “you’re welcome” for, because I hadn’t really done anything. My mother had helped Conrad more in half an hour than I had in all my time of knowing him.
After Mr. Fisher left, my mother got up and started rinsing dishes. I joined her and loaded them into the dishwasher. I rested my head on her shoulder for a second. I said, “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“You were a real badass, Mom.”
“Don’t cuss,” she said, the corners of her mouth turning up.
“You’re one to talk.”
Then we washed the dishes in silence, and my mother had that sad look on her face and I knew she was thinking of Susannah. And I wished there was something I could say to take that look away, but sometimes there just weren’t words.
The three of us walked her to the car. “You boys will get her home tomorrow?” she asked, throwing her bag onto the passenger seat.
“Definitely,” Jeremiah said.
Then Conrad said, “Laurel.” He hesitated. “You’re coming back, aren’t you?”
My mother turned to him, surprised. She was touched. “You want an old lady like me around?” she asked. “Sure, I’ll be back whenever you’ll have me.”
“When?” he asked. He looked so young, so vulnerable my heart ached a little.
I guessed my mother was feeling the same way, because she reached out and touched his cheek. My mother was not a cheek-touching kind of person. It just wasn’t her way. But it was Susannah’s. “Before the summer’s over, and I’ll come back to close the house up too.”
My mother got into the car then. She waved at us as she backed down the driveway, her sunglasses on, the window down. “See you soon,” she called out.
Jeremiah waved and Conrad said, “See you soon.”
My mother told me once that when Conrad was very young, he called her “his Laura.” “Where is my Laura?” he’d say, wandering around looking for her.
She said he followed her everywhere; he’d even follow her into the bathroom.
He called her his girlfriend and he would bring her sand crabs and seashells from the ocean and he would lay them at her feet.
When she told me about it, I thought, What I wouldn’t give to have Conrad Fisher call me his girlfriend and bring me shells.
“I’m sure he doesn’t remember,” she’d said, smiling faintly.
“Why don’t you ask him if he does?” I’d said. I loved hearing stories about when Conrad was little. I loved to tease him, because the opportunity to tease Conrad came up so rarely.
She’d said, “No, that would embarrass him,” and I’d said, “So what? Isn’t that the point?”
And she’d said, “Conrad is sensitive. He has a lot of pride. Let him have that.”
The way she said that, I could tell that she really got him. Understood him in a way that I didn’t. I was jealous of that, of both of them.
“What was I like?” I’d asked.
“You? You were my baby.”
“But what was I like?” I persisted.
“You used to chase after the boys. It was so cute the way you’d follow them around, trying to impress them.” My mother laughed. “They used to get you to dance around and do tricks.”
“Like a puppy?” I frowned at the thought.
She’d waved me off. “Oh, you were fine. You just liked to be included.”