Walk a Mile

13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Now

One moment, we’re on the winding state highway; the next, we’re coming around the bend and there is our hometown: the high school on the left, a cluster of fast food restaurants on the right, a crumbling stone sign welcoming us to Amity.

We’re quiet as we drive down the main drag. I stare out the window, and even though it’s still early in the day, I’m emotionally exhausted. I don’t have the energy to fight off the memories that come to me as we pass the dentist, the dollar movie theater, the DMV. My heart rate picks up a bit when we pass the entrance to the strip mall where our families’ store was. The storefront isn’t visible from the road. I start to ask Theo what business operates there now, but the words jam in my throat, and I decide I’m not quite ready to know.

We enter the residential part of town, and Theo turns into a neighborhood of split-levels that were built when we were in middle school. As a kid, I thought that the people who lived in the new development must have been rich—and compared to my family, I suppose they were. But now I can see that the houses are close together, the yards are small, and subtle signs of disrepair—a missing shutter here, a crooked mailbox there—are beginning to mar the block.

Theo pulls into a driveway and cuts the engine. The grass is long, the front porch lined with overgrown shrubs. I wrack my brain, trying to remember who lives here, and come up empty.

Before I can ask, Theo has hopped out of the truck and started pulling things out of the back. Huffing, I leave my purse in the passenger seat and climb down unsteadily on my heels. A pair of work boots hits the pavement in front of me. I look up at Theo, squinting into the sun. “What are those?”

“Boots for you,” he says from the bed of the truck. He reaches up to curl the brim of his hat. “You can’t wear those deathtrap shoes while we work.”

I make a sound of disbelief. “I don’t work for you.”

Theo spreads his arms, gesturing to our surroundings. “What else do you have to do? You just gonna sit there and watch me?”

“That was the plan.”

The corner of his mouth ticks upward, and too late, I realize that I’ve unintentionally recalled our past—because Theo absolutely knows that my teenage sexual awakening was directly related to the sight of him stretching to put things on shelves, bending over to pick up boxes, and leaning against the register with that dumb smirk on his face.

Mercifully, he decides not to bring it up. I watch as he unloads a push lawnmower and weed eater and drops them in the front yard. Then he breezes past me, jerking his head toward the front door. “Let’s go.”

I trail behind him, taking my time climbing the front stairs. It’s bothering me that I don’t know who lives here. I haven’t spoken to anybody from Amity in ten years, and all I can hope is that it isn’t somebody who I knew well, somebody who might ask questions as to why my family left town so suddenly.

Theo raps on the front door twice. Almost instantly, a chorus of barking and movement sounds from inside.

“Hush, hush, hush. Lulu, get back!” comes a woman’s voice. It’s vaguely familiar, but I can’t recall who it belongs to until the door swings open and I’m greeted by a herd of corgis being shooed away by Mrs. Wilson, the owner of the town’s general store and a regular customer at Walk a Mile.

She’s a decade older than the last time I saw her, but the only difference I see is the more pronounced wrinkles at the corners of her eyes when she beams at Theo. “You’re early! I thought you were coming this evening, or I would’ve had the dogs put up.”

I cast Theo a sharp look, only to find him stifling a smile. “We were out and had some time.”

Mrs. Wilson steps onto the porch. After reaching back to nudge away a dog who tries to follow her, she pulls the door shut. “Well, no worries. I’m just glad you’re here. I feel like I’m singlehandedly bringing down the neighborhood property values with this yard.”

“Give us an hour and you’ll have the best curb appeal on the block,” Theo says.

I watch as she notices me for the first time. Her eyes travel from my shoes to my outfit to my face. I can see her trying to place me, but once again, the absence of my birthmark renders me a stranger to someone I grew up knowing.

Mrs. Wilson crosses her arms and turns on Theo. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”

He frowns, feigning confusion. “Introduce you? Who forgets Nina Sullivan?”

Mrs. Wilson’s eyes pop open wide, she gasps, and then her arms are around me and I’m staggering backward in surprise. “Nina Lynn! Oh my goodness. Where have you been?”

This is exactly why I didn’t want to come back to Amity: I don’t know how to begin to answer that question. My eyes meet Theo’s over her shoulder. He must see my desperation, because he jumps in to save me. “Frank got a job offer he couldn’t refuse, and then after high school she moved to New York. She’s just helping me out today.”

I give him a grateful look, and he bows his chin in acknowledgement.

“New York!” Mrs. Wilson draws back but holds onto me by the shoulders. “I bet you’ve got some stories to tell. But you’ve kept in touch with Theo?”

My throat constricts. “Of course,” I manage.

“Good, good. I—” She catches sight of my left hand, and we’re treated to another dramatic gasp. “You two have been holding out on me!”

Theo’s face goes white, and I feel my own stomach lurch. Mrs. Wilson doesn’t seem to notice as she snatches my hand, turning it so the diamond sparkles in the sunlight. “Oh, goodness gracious. Look at that diamond. Nina, did I see you at Dale’s service? It’s all such a blur. Were you two together then, or—”

“No,” Theo interrupts gently. He reaches between us and takes my hand out of Mrs. Wilson’s, looking at neither of us as he lowers it back to my side. “We’re not together. Nina still lives in New York with her fiancé.”

Mrs. Wilson’s face falls, and she looks uncharacteristically chastened. “Oh. Oh. Well, leave it to me to jump to conclusions.” She pastes a smile on her face. “Congratulations, Nina.”

“Thank you.”

A heavy silence envelops the three of us. Theo clears his throat. “We'll get to work.”

“Of course,” says Mrs. Wilson, although she eyes my outfit doubtfully. “I’ll go in and make some tea for y’all.”

“Appreciate it,” Theo says before turning away and tromping down the stairs.

I stay right where I am, though, as something that was said earlier registers in my brain. “Mrs. Wilson,” I say carefully. “Did you ask if I was at Mr. Wilson’s service?”

“I did. Were you? I’m sorry I can’t remember. He passed so suddenly, and I was such a wreck. I barely remember the funeral at all, to be honest with you.” A sad smile flits over her lips. “The thing I remember the most is how the church was overflowing. Some people had to watch the service on a laptop in the lobby.”

I didn’t know Mrs. Wilson’s husband as well as I knew her, but since they owned the general store, everybody in town could pick either one of them out of a crowd. In their store, he could be found stocking shelves, bagging groceries, and passing out free fruit to little kids. He was one of those people who was such a fixture, it seemed impossible to imagine a world in which they weren’t occupying the space that could only be filled by them.

“I wasn’t there, actually,” I tell her. “I didn’t realize he had passed away. But I’m—I’m so sorry.”

Against my will, my voice cracks a bit. It’s a show of vulnerability like I haven’t allowed myself in years, but when Mrs. Wilson’s face softens, I find that I don’t mind too much. “Thank you, Nina. That means a lot.”

She disappears inside, and I walk over to where Theo is slipping on work gloves. He looks at me, his expression unreadable, and I find myself asking, “When did Mr. Wilson die?”

“A little over two years ago. Heart attack.”

I glance at the house behind us. “Did they always live here?”

“No. They used to live out near the gas station, remember?”

“Oh, right.”

“She sold their house pretty quickly after the funeral, and she stopped working at the store. Her kids are running it now. She told my mom it was too hard to be there without him."

“I suppose I can understand that,” I say, thinking about how long I've spent trying to avoid any mention, any memory, of Theo.

His gaze bores into mine, and I know what he’s thinking before he says it.

Even so, I’m not prepared when he steps closer to me, leaving barely a foot of separation between us, and says, “Me too. It’s hell living in this town, Sass. I see you everywhere.”

I raise my chin toward him in challenge. “Then why do you?”

“Because,” he says, like it’s obvious. “I see you everywhere.”

His words are saturated with brutal honesty, his eyes unapologetic as they fix on me. Intensity crackles in the small space between us, and I find myself wondering how he’s done it. How he's managed to live here, bombarded by memories, and thrive anyway.

I couldn’t have.

That’s why I ran.

Theo seems to be waiting for me to say something, and when I don’t, he moves away. He stoops low to grab the weed eater off the ground. “You don’t have to help. It’ll be less than an hour. I’m sure Mrs. Wilson will let you sit inside.”

“No,” I say, surprising myself. I go back to the driveway and kick off my heels. My bare feet are met with hot asphalt, and that long-forgotten feeling spurs me on as I grab the work boots Theo left out. They’re way too big for me, but I can deal with it for an hour. I slide them on, then begin removing the hoops from my ears. “I’ll help.”

For a second, Theo stares at me. And then his face begins to split into a grin—not the cocky smirk, but the sincere, beaming smile that used to be the biggest ray of sunlight in my day.

“Great,” he says. “Let’s get to it.”

***

Later, when Mrs. Wilson’s lawn is mowed, her shrubs pruned, everything perfect down to the smallest leaf, I collapse in the passenger seat of Theo’s truck. My clothes are filthy, sweaty strands of hair frame a face full of smudged makeup, and my limbs ache. It’s been a long time since I did any physical activity more taxing than half-hour jogs on the treadmill in Daniel’s building.

It’s been even longer since I felt this exhilarated.

I watch through the windshield as Theo jogs down Mrs. Wilson’s steps, tucking a check in his back pocket. He crosses in front of the truck and grins at me, and it’s only then that I register the fact that I was grinning first.

“Damn,” Theo says, swinging himself up into the driver's seat and turning the key in the ignition. I stick my face in front of the nearest vent as cold air rushes out. “If only Queen Kelly could see you now.”

The mention of my mother does nothing to dampen my mood. She isn’t here. Neither is Daniel. In fact, every pressing matter in my real life seems far away from this situation where I feel both reborn and restored.

“She used to get so mad if I came home from school with dirty clothes.”

“I remember once, you realized on the way home that you had a big smudge of something on your knee, and you made me rub it out of the fabric with my spit."

"I think you volunteered." I say, laughing. “Disgusting.”

As my voice fades, the only reply is silence. When I look back at Theo, he’s just staring at me.

“What?” I ask, feeling myself shrink.

His swallow is visible in his throat. “That’s the first time you’ve laughed around me,” he says quietly. “Since you’ve been back, I mean.”

“Oh.” I look away, remembering how the forgotten sound of his laugh had rendered me speechless, too. “Maybe so.”

“No maybe about it.” Theo shakes himself from his haze and puts the truck in reverse. “I was starting to wonder if you were just going to stomp around and glare at me forever. Do you want to get lunch?”

I glance at the clock on the dashboard. I am hungry; it’s nearly one o’clock, and all I’ve had today is a coffee. Unfortunately, I’m also grimy and gross. “I can’t go out in public like this.”

We pull out of the driveway, and Theo starts back toward the main road. “Why don’t we go to my parents’ for a while?”

I balk. “What?”

“Dad is at work, but Mom will be there. You can take a shower and borrow some of her clothes. She’d probably make us something to eat, too.”

We come to a stop sign. A left would lead us back to town, and a right would take us toward our old neighborhood. I can see Theo’s hands fidgeting on the steering wheel as they itch to turn it toward me.

“I can’t show up at your parents’ house after ten years to use their shower and eat their food,” I protest.

“Mom knows you’re back in town. She wanted me to bring you by, but I said I didn’t think you’d come—you know, with the boundary and all.” I give him a flat look, and he snickers before turning serious again. “We don’t have to. But I promise, she would love to see you.”

Would she? Catching a glimpse of myself in the side mirror, I study my ruined but clearly expensive top, the face that cost tens of thousands of dollars to get. I remember the last time I heard Randi’s voice—stressed, upset, watching her livelihood slip away because of something my family had done.

I can’t think of a single reason Randi Hoyt would want me in her home.

But Theo seems sure of himself, and we’re a solid hour away from my mom’s house, and I really would like to take a shower. “Okay,” I say finally. “But will you at least text her and warn her?”

“Sure.” He grabs his phone from the cup holder, types something out with one thumb, and holds it up to me as proof. The message is concise: Be there in five minutes. I’m bringing Nina. As I’m reading it, her reply comes through: YAY!

I sigh, resigned to the fact that this is happening, and nod my assent.

Theo takes the right turn. I settle back in my seat and watch the houses go by on either side of us. We pass the park, our elementary school, the library. When I see the first cluster of older homes that mark the entrance to the neighborhood we grew up in, I breathe in sharply.

“You okay?” asks Theo.

“Yes."

The tension in my body coils tight as we approach, then pass, the turnoff for my childhood home. We turn the corner, and there is Randi, waving wildly from the end of her narrow driveway.

When we park, she rushes to my side of the truck. I climb out gingerly, my sore feet crammed into my heels once again, as she watches with her hands clasped over her mouth. I’m mentally grappling for what to say, but there’s no need: as soon as I find my balance, Randi ignores the complete mess of my clothes and pulls me into a hug. “Nina Lynn,” she sighs. “Oh, Nina, I’ve missed you, honey.”

“Hi,” I say weakly. My knees feel like jelly. Running into Theo that first day at the country club was enough of an emotional shock, but this entire day—coming back into Amity with him, seeing Mrs. Wilson again, having Randi welcome me with open arms despite what my family did to hers—has me feeling like I need to lie down.

She pulls away, grasping me by the shoulders, and looks at my face. She’s the first person from my old life to not act surprised at what she sees there. I can only assume that Cecil or Theo told her, and I try not to think about what words they might have used.

You don’t even look like yourself, Theo told me.

And in this moment, I can admit that he was right. I don’t look like the person I was when I left here, and I don’t feel like her, either.

At least…until today. Today, I feel like I’ve uncovered something inside me that I thought was gone forever.

“Sass went out on a job with me." Theo comes up to receive a hug from his mother. “She wasn’t really prepared, as you can see.”

“You never did let anything stand in your way,” Randi says, regarding me proudly.

“I told her she could get a shower here.” He takes his baseball cap off and uses his shirt sleeve to wipe sweat from his brow. “I might take one, too.”

“Oh, absolutely.” Randi ushers us up the driveway like a mother hen. “Nina, you can use the master bathroom. I have shampoo, conditioner, body wash, everything you could need.”

“Great.”

“And I’ll find some clothes for you, too. It won’t be anything as nice as what you’ve got on, but—”

“That’s okay,” I interrupt, becoming uncomfortably aware of the fact that my outfit may well have cost more than the mortgage on the Hoyts’ house. “Whatever you have would be perfect.”

We go inside the house, and I’m struck by how nothing has changed. There is the same oak table by front door, mail and keys strung across it; there is the navy-blue couch, pink throw blanket draped over the middle cushion. There is the family portrait above the fireplace, featuring a younger Cecil and Randi with a preschool-aged Theo. His toothy grin seems to jump straight out of the frame and into my chest, nestling in a dusty corner of my heart.

Theo heads to the guest shower, and Randi shows me to hers. I could stay under the warm stream all day, but I’m only comfortable being naked in the house I still think of as Theo’s for so long. I get out as soon as I’ve rinsed the drugstore-brand conditioner from my hair and the peony-scented body wash from my skin. Strangely, although I’ve grown used to long showers with a litany of high-end products, it’s the freshest I’ve felt in a long time.

After donning Randi’s shirt and joggers and combing out my hair, I wander back down the hallway. There’s movement in the kitchen, but the sound of Theo’s voice coming from inside his old bedroom makes me pause. I peek around the doorway, and he’s standing there with his back to me. One hand holds his phone to his ear and the other perches on his hip. My eyes drift from his bare feet to his clean sweatpants and fitted tee to the drops of water trickling down his neck .

Before I can think it all the way through, I’m walking into Theo’s room. He turns to me as I approach, his eyebrows hiking up as I brush past him and start looking around. The room looks untouched from what I remember. There’s the dresser under the window, the twin bed perpendicular to it, the old oak desk in the corner. On the bed is the same plaid bedspread he had in high school, and although I’m not so presumptuous as to peek in his closet, I’m reasonably certain that I would find a stack of cartoon-printed sheets on the shelf.

“Thanks,” Theo says. “Let me know how it goes.”

I turn around as he ends his call. “Who was that?”

“One of my shift leads. I'm going to stop by another job this afternoon, if you don't mind.”

"Sure."

His gaze drifts up my body, lingering on my makeup-free face. “Feel better?”

“Much.” I glance around the room. “You don’t still live here, right?”

“No,” he says with a short laugh, “but my house is out on the edge of town, so sometimes I just crash here instead of going all the way home.”

I find myself wondering about the space Theo has claimed for himself. I envision a cabin, deceptively compact on the outside but full of useful nooks and crannies on the inside, sitting on a couple of acres. I wonder if he keeps his lawn to the same standards as his clients’, or if he takes a more relaxed approach to his own property.

I step over to the desk. There isn’t much there: just a legal pad, a coffee mug full of pens, and a neat stack of books with the spines turned out. The one on top is called Economics for the Twenty-First Century . I pick it up and show it to Theo. “This looks like something Daniel would read.”

“Daniel would read the textbook from my introductory econ class?” Theo asks doubtfully. “He should probably already know that stuff.”

I send him an unamused look. “You know what I mean. He likes to read biographies and books about finance.”

“I like a good biography,” he says, and I resist the urge to respond, I remember . “Who’s he reading about now?”

I try to recall the last book I saw on Daniel’s nightstand. “Rockefeller, I think.”

Theo snorts. “Of course.”

“What’s the last biography you read?” I challenge.

“Amelia Earhart.”

I busy myself with putting the textbook back on the stack, taking an excessive amount of time to line the corners up exactly the way I found them. “Hmm.”

“What have you been reading?”

“Nothing,” I say, turning back to him. “You know I don’t read books.”

He shrugs, his arms crossed over his chest in a way that conforms his sleeves to his biceps. A drying lock of hair falls over his forehead. “If you’re willing to change your face for your fiancé, picking up a new hobby isn’t too much of a stretch.”

“If you must know,” I tell him, “I had the work done before I ever met Daniel.”

That seems to legitimately surprise him, which pleases me. “Really?”

I make a derisive sound. “Why do you think he looked at me in the first place?”

“Nina, don’t say shit like that,” Theo bristles.

“Well, I—” I cut myself off when my eyes snag on the corkboard above the desk. Dangling from a thumbtack is a black satin scrunchie—one I thought I lost a long time ago. Snatching it, I turn on Theo. His face immediately pinks, and I feel a perverse sort of pleasure. Finally, I have the upper hand. “Theodore Hoyt.”

“What?”

I let the scrunchie dangle from my index finger, trying not to sink too far into the memory of being pressed up against Theo, pulling the scrunchie from my messy hair after it had been ravaged by his hands. “Explain yourself.”

“Is that yours?” he asks, feigning innocence. “I was never sure where it came from.”

“Right.” I desperately want to hold the scrunchie to my nose, to see if it still smells like anything familiar—the woods, Theo, this house—but the desire to maintain my dignity wins out. “You never asked your other conquests if they left it behind?”

My intention is to tease him, but as soon as the words cross my lips, I regret them. It’s the first time I’ve given any thought to the existence of other women in Theo’s life. Of course he has been with others—he’s a young, attractive, successful business owner. I’ve certainly been with other men, am currently engaged to one, and shouldn’t care one way or the other.

Knowing that doesn’t wash away the sour taste in my mouth. I’m about to put the scrunchie back where I found it when Theo startles me by snatching it from my grasp. He leans in close, his fresh smell surrounding me. His eyes capture mine in an arresting gaze, and I find myself frozen in place, staring up at him.

“None of the rest of them matter,” he says, his voice low. “And you were never a conquest.”

And as I watch, Theo tucks the scrunchie in his back pocket and saunters out the door.