Page 41 of Fade into You
I smile and clink my mug against hers and Brianne’s, feeling for once like the other shoe might not drop in the form of a kick right to my face.
BIRD
Boston. Boston. Boston. “I thinkhe’s in Boston.” That’s what Charlie said on the phone, and I haven’t been able to stop replaying those words all week. Boston. Over the summer, at the workshop, it was only an hour train ride from Providence to Boston. I was so close.
Charlie found a picture of him. He was researching at his college library and found it in the microfiche. A newspaper article from 1994. He printed it and mailed me a copy. I have the envelope in my bag, tucked into the front cover of my notebook next to the photo of me and Kat and Silas. Folded into thirds, a single sheet of paper containing a photocopied article, covering the opening ofNARDINO&BAKER’S: NORTH END’S NEWEST RESTAURANT, FIT FOR FOODIES AND… THE REST OF US, the headline read. But what I cared about most was the caption:Pictured below: restaurateurs and co-owners Seth Baker (left) and Chuck Nardino.
It’s a grainy black-and-white photo, made even grainier by the copy, of two men standing behind a fancy, old-looking bar.The one on the left is taller and leaner and smiling with a full mouth of teeth, small round glasses, and a pouf of light, wispy, unkempt hair sprouting from his head. The man on the right is shorter, darker-haired, with a less effusive smile, but a smile nonetheless, one that resembles Charlie’s, and eyes that resemble mine. There’s no mistaking—it’s him.
I’ve spent approximately thirty-six of the last forty-eight hours since I found the envelope in our mailbox looking at it. I’ve unfolded and refolded the piece of paper so many times the seams are getting worn and soft.
“You good?” Kayla’s asking me. When I look over, she’s staring at me from the driver’s seat of her car. We’re stopped.
“What?”
“I said, ‘We’re here.’ Like five times. In la-la land much?”
“Sorry, yeah, I guess.” I laugh as I unbuckle and we get out of the car.
“I don’t know why Dade insisted we do this tonight,” she complains, gazing up at the neon Skateopia sign.
“Come on, it’ll be fun,” I tell her, locking arms with her, and nearly forgetting this evening is really all subterfuge.
“Fiiine,” she groans, dragging her feet as we trudge through the parking lot toward the giant brick building. “The things we do for love, right?” she says with a giggle.
“Right,” I agree. She has no idea the things I’m doing for love—for her.
A bell dings when I walk through the door. Everything inside is subdued and murky at first: the sound of wheels against wood, muffled voices under the chimes and whistles of the arcade gamesand pinball machines that line the back wall, music pumping through the speakers, the vague aroma of some sick and comforting mixture of movie theater popcorn and floor cleaner. It all hits me, engulfs me. As soon as the door glides shut on the outside world, the memories rush in. This place is exactly as it was when I was a little kid.
Inside, everything sharpens, telescoping in the way it always did when I was little; coming here, walking through these same doors with my dad and Charlie. Kayla and I walk up to the skate rental counter and there’s a definite hot girl there, hunched over a clipboard, muttering to herself, a whittled-down pencil stuck behind her ear. She’s so absorbed in whatever’s on her clipboard that she doesn’t seem to notice us. I don’t see any other hot girls around.
“You see Dade anywhere yet?” I ask Kayla, loud enough to grab the girl’s attention.
Kayla looks out at the rink. We’re so early there are only a handful of people out there. “No, but Jessa’s always making him late.”
I open my mouth, immediately wanting to refute that statement, because I don’t think Jessa is the one making them late to everything. She’s too—
“Oh, hi. Sorry,” the hot girl says, interrupting my mental defense of Jessa. As she stands up straight, impossibly statuesque, I see that her name tag readsDAWN.
“What sizes?” she asks.
I wait there while she rolls over to the size sevens and picks a pair of skates for Kayla. She plops them on the carpeted counterand Kayla examines them closely, without touching them. “You don’t have any that are less… gross?” Kayla asks.
Dawn doesn’t say anything, just rolls back to the sevens and selects another pair.
“I’m gonna find a spot while you do this,” I tell Kayla.
“Uh-huh,” she murmurs, inspecting the new pair with even more disgust.
I keep walking, past the racks of identical skates, all tan and brown boots, brick-red wheels, and bright orange rubber toe stops.
With my eighth-grade Christmas skates’ laces knotted together and slung over my shoulder, I secure my ratty knockoff Chuck Taylors from Kmart and my bag—envelope and photograph safe inside—in an open mini locker. I tuck the little orange key deep into my pocket.
I sit down on one of those weird round mushroom-shaped carpeted benches and pull my socks on. It feels so good to be here in this place, lacing my skates up tight, knowing my dad was here. That I was happy here once, before things got so complicated and messy, before all these secrets we started hiding from each other.
The multicolored lights are flashing all around the darkened rink. And the DJ comes on over the sound system, officially commencing the skate session. “Hey, hey, people!” the disembodied voice echoes. “What are you waiting for? Get your butts out there!” He pumps up the volume, Montell Jordan’s “This Is How We Do It” inaugurating the night.
And, on cue, Dawn comes speeding out onto the rink, withher short skirt and fishnet tights and Skateopia T-shirt knotted in the front to show off her stomach. I look over toward the counter, Kayla still standing there with a selection of rental skates lined up in front of her.
