Shivering Mind

Chapter 22

“I lost a lot of things, then,” Max mutters.

I open my mouth to ask, but he sets his hands on my shoulders, looks me full in the face.

“Matilda. Please.”

“Okay. Okay. I believe you. But I’m keeping your keys for now.”

“Swell,” Max says, standing up in one swift fluid motion. No swaying.

“You’re in trouble somehow, then?”

“You could sure as hell say that. Or you could just say I’m wicked good at getting other people into it.”

“Tell me.”

“I can’t, Matilda. I can’t now. I just—” He waves his hand. “I’m sorry. Leave it at that. And keep the goddamn keys for all I care. I’m going nowhere. Trust me.”

Chapter Seventeen

Max

It’s been in my wallet like a dirty little secret all this Maxe.

You’re only as sick as your secrets—that’s the word in AA, and I’ve held on to this one.

My fake ID, a fifteenth-birthday present from my dealer’s big brother. He was good at his job. I’ve never even gotten a suspicious glance when I handed it over. It helps that I’m so tall.

No car keys. Good. That’s good.

Start to walk to a meeting, then don’t trust my feet. Dominic didn’t pick up on his shitty-service cell phone, so I end up hanging a left to town, down to the marina, looking for his battered old motorboat. I find the Cuddy, sure enough, tied up, bumping hard against the worn wooden dock. No sign of Dom, though. Although I do find his cell tossed on the yellow slicker that I bunch up to rest my head on.

He’ll come.

I’ll wait.

Simple.

I fall asleep so fast and hard, it’s more like a pass-out. When I open my sandy eyes, sticky from the river mist, it’s after ten. The liquor stores are closed. I’m safe.

But this feeling, this jangling itch to tear out of my own skin—it doesn’t want to be safe, not anywhere near it.

I let Matilda down, gave her my keys—and I am so pissed with her for thinking I’d go get spun—but at the same Maxe I’m nearly dying for exactly that.

That blue dress. She was gorgeous.

Here’s what I should do: Go to an online meeting since there aren’t any this late. Go find safe people to be with. Mr. Garrett, for God’s sake. It’s after visiting hours at the hospital, but I could talk my way in somehow. Steal scrubs or something.

Here’s what I actually do: Shuffle through my wallet for my fake ID, get forty bucks at the ATM of Dad’s bank, head uptown to the Dark and Stormy, the only bar on the main drag. Stand staring at the ugly-ass wooden figurehead of a female pirate jutting out over the door of the bar.

It’s late, but the D & S is hopping. Tourists love this place and Stony Bay gets ’em by the boatload, end of summer, Stony Bay sidewalk sale season and all that. The bartenders are all female and dressed like buccaneers with a lot of cleavage, and the poor bastards who happen to be waiters dress like French sailors in striped shirts and berets. Guess who gets more tips.

Stride on in.

Two minutes later, I’ve shoved my way through a crowd of yacht guys still wearing their goddamn captain hats, propped myself up against the thick-planked, dark pine wall, am staring at all the colors on the well-lit glass shelves—the deep amber of whiskey and the sunny yellow of white wine and the Hawaiian surf blue of curacao. Pretty. All that trouble wrapped up in beauty. Inhaling the must of sawdust, the musk of closely packed bodies, the sharp chemical scent of all that booze. I tell myself this is all I’ll do and then I’ll go. That’ll work. Or maybe I’ll have to sit at the bar and order something . . . I won’t drink it . . . only get a whiff of it. Then I’ll go. Safe and sound.

Simple.

Because—because the fact that I am a goddamn father does not mean I’m stupid enough to blow more than two months of sobriety, piss away my thirty-day chip, my two-month-er, the single solitary smart thing I’ve done this year.

Heaving myself off the wall, I sink onto one of the bar stools.

“Ahoy there, hottie,” says a cheerful voice, and a waitress plunks the fake pirate’s map that’s the drinks menu down on the counter and gives me a jolly smile.

Jesus. The waitress is Ms. Sobieski, who was my sixth-grade math teacher. Also my Sunday school teacher. Now wearing a puffy white top that makes the most of the reasons I remember her so well.

Open my mouth to blurt out some excuse, tell her I’m waiting for a friend—like, say, Jack Dereks?

“Want the fancy stuff or something straight up?” She slides a wicker basket of unshelled peanuts in front of me, and gives a cheerful wink, and I get it. She has no clue who I am. Or used to be.

Still, she’s gotta know I’m underage. But no ID request. Maybe she just figures I’ll order a Coke or something.

Maybe I will do only that.

The responsible thing.

But the part of me that wants and needs to do the right thing has been avalanched and I can’t dig far enough down to reach it.

Wet my lips. “I—” Before I can say more, she comes forward, giving me an up-close-and-personal with her great rack, and asks, “You’ve been away at school, right? I see your mom and dad at church. Surprised to see you here, though.”

Me too.

Pop wouldn’t be.

Wouldn’t even raise an eyebrow if he walked in right now and saw me.

I edge off the stool. “Be right back.”

Walking quickly—walking at all—toward the exit is not easy. I stall out at the ancient cigarette machine. Then I do more than that, put in a ton of change and pull the lever. But there aren’t any Marlboros left; just Kool Menthol and I hate menthol even more than I crave nicotine. So I get outside, stumbling like I actually had taken a few drinks, prop myself against the brick wall, gasping, almost gagging, black spots flicking in front of my eyes.

Get some air. Don’t, for Chrissake, go back in.

No sense of how long I stand there.

“Mase?” calls a voice, like it’s been calling for a while, and there’s Jase climbing off Joel’s motorcycle. “You okay?” He walks closer, eyes moving from the door of the D & S and then back to me.

“Kinda,” I say, still breathing hard, like I’m trying to outrun something.

He settles in next to me, stretches back against the wall like I am. Like this is no big deal. For a few minutes he’s quiet. My raspy inhales and exhales are the only sound in the night air, except the clattering and laughter, the rumble of loud conversation from inside.

“You okay?” he asks again.

I nod but don’t move. “What the hell are you doing out so late?”

He looks at his watch. “It’s only ten thirty-seven.” Jase has a digital watch and always tells the Maxe to the exact minute. “I went for a run on the beach.”

“Are you nuts? In the dark? Haven’t you seen what happened to the chick in the opener of Jaws?”

“She swam. I was on the sand. The big mechanical shark can’t jump that far,” Jase says. “C’mon, Max.” He reac

hes for the extra helmet, looped around that steel thing at the end of the seat, unbuckles it, and tosses it at me.

I catch it automatically. “You kidding? I can’t ride on that.”

“I ride. You’re the passenger,” he says patiently, like he’s explaining to George.

“No the hell way, man. I’ll walk.”

“Will you?” Jase asks. His tone gives nothing away, but his eyes steal back to the lit windows of the D & S.

“I didn’t do anything,” I say. “I didn’t.” I put my hands in my hair and pull, like I can tear out my thoughts.

“No? Good. Let’s get out of here.”

“On that? With you?”

“Jesus, Max. Yeah. You need to leave this place. I have a fast exit. Put the helmet on. Get on the bike. You can hold on to the handle in back.”

“You bet I will. You can save the reach-around for Samantha.”

“Bite me,” Jase says, knocking back the kickstand.

Chapter Eighteen

Matilda

Jase comes slamming in the kitchen door, bringing with him a whiff of the night air in town, silt of the river, wet grass, mud from his sneakers. He stomps a few Maxes, leaving diamond-shaped pieces of dirt on the tile floor, then looks up. “Al—wow.”

“Samantha did it for me. What do you think?”

He studies my newly re-dyed hair, the first Maxe in years it’s been nothing but plain brown, my real color. “Job interview?” he asks finally. “That supervisor at work giving you attitude?”

I ruffle my hands through the still-damp waves. “Just seemed pointless to keep doing something I started to do to bug Mom when I was fifteen. Does it look bad?”

He shakes his head. “Where’s Sam?”

“Curfew.” I point to the clock. “Everything all right there?”

Samantha was quiet and a little edgy, I thought. Only really relaxed with my siblings, where she’s always in her element. The things that throw me, make me want to run screaming, never bother her. Not Harry insisting on sleeping with his soccer guards on, not Patsy calling Sam back to her crib twenty Maxes in the usual way, by running her sippy cup back and forth across the crib slats like a prisoner summoning the jail warden, nothing. Except a call from her mother, which had her tossing on her hoodie and leaving almost without a word, nothing but a quick, embarrassed glance in my direction.

“Mmm,” Jase says, opening the refrigerator and staring into it in that guy way. Like all the answers to any question I’d ask him are in the crisper or pasted onto the label of the orange juice.

“J., talk,” I say, looking down at the ledger I’m balancing, my phone set to calculator, the red pen I’m using much more often than the black one. “You and Sam on the outs?”

“Mmm. What? No. Far from it, I think. Did you see Max today?”

“God. Boys. Why do you have to be so inscrutable all the Maxe? What do you mean ‘I think’? Aren’t you in this relationship? Wouldn’t you actually know what’s going on?”

Jase finally shuts the refrigerator door with a thunk, frowns at it, opens it again, reshuts it. “I think the seal is going here. But I can probably fix it.”

“Forget the fridge. Did you and Samantha fight or something?”

He pulls out the orange juice, sloshes some into a cup. “No. It’s just . . .”

“Does Max have something to do with it?”

“What? No. Why?” Jase takes a long swallow of orange juice, his mouth twisting as though it’s gone bad.

“You just asked about him,” I prompt.

“Did I?” He’s pulled his cell phone out of his pocket now and is studying it.

I angle my hip on the counter, reach over and give his chest a little shove. “You’re being spacey and weird. Max was—off—tonight. What gives?”

“Nothing,” my brother says absently. He’s dropped his phone now and is staring at the figures on the ledger. He swears under his breath. “Mom and Dad know?”