Winnie was thrilled to accompany Marcus on even the smallest errand; standing in line at the post office to get stamps with him was a delight. But this-going with him in the morning to call his editor and turn down the book deal-was monumental. Marcus was so nervous about the prospect of contacting this man, Zachary Celtic, that he said he wouldn’t come to Winnie’s room at all that night, even though she begged him to as they sat on the deck looking at the stars. She reminded him that their nights together were dwindling in number.
“I can’t,” he said. “My guts are bound up about this call tomorrow. I just want tomorrow to come so I can do it.”
“What are you going to say?” Winnie asked.
“I’ll just tell him I’m not writing it. I’ll tell him I’ll return the five hundred bucks.”
Even though Marcus and Winnie were in love, there were certain things she was afraid to ask. Like where he was going to get that kind of money.
“And what about your mother?” Winnie said.
“What about her?”
“Will you go see her when you get home?”
He squeezed her hand so tightly she nearly cried out in pain. “I don’t know what to do about my mother,” he said.
In the morning, they rode their bikes into town and called Za-chary Celtic from a phone booth. Marcus had brought the telegram along with him. He dialed the number, then pumped the payphone full of quarters; his pockets were heavy with them. Winnie stood at Marcus’s back, outside of the booth. She was afraid she wouldn’t be able to hear the conversation, and for a moment she wondered why he’d invited her along when clearly this was something he wanted to do by himself. She looked up and down the street at the people walking their dogs, drinking coffee, waiting for the shops to open. A man on a bench nearby read the Wall Street Journal and talked on his cell phone about the upcoming football season. Marcus had two fingers plugged in his ear and his head bent forward. Winnie heard him say, “Zachary Celtic, please. True crime. It’s Marcus Tyler calling.” His voice was strange. Winnie wanted to touch him in some reassuring way, but she was scared to. The man on the bench blabbed into his cell phone, bragging now about the dinner reservations he’d managed to “score” at the Pearl and American Seasons. Winnie nearly shushed him. Marcus pumped more change into the phone. He turned around and smiled weakly at her, saying, “They’re seeing if he’s available.”
“Do you have enough money?” Winnie asked.
He patted his pockets for confirmation, then he yanked Winnie into the booth with him. She was relieved. The two of them wedged themselves on either side of the telephone, and Marcus managed to squeeze the door shut. He held the receiver in one hand and Winnie’s wrist with the other. Then he swallowed, and when he spoke, his voice sounded like that of a nine-year-old boy.
“Mr. Celtic?Yeah, this is Marcus Tyler?Yes, I got it yesterday. Listen, I have some bad news.”
Winnie squeezed his fingers.
“No, more time isn’t going to help. When you first asked this spring, I thought I could write it. I definitely wanted the money, and I understand it was, like, a huge leap of faith to offer that kind of cash to a kid. But I tried all summer, and I can’t seem to get any decent sentences on paper. At first I thought it was writer’s block, but then, I don’t know…” Marcus took a huge breath, sucking all of the remaining oxygen out of the phone booth, then said in his normal voice, “I don’t want to write it.”
There was silence, then the frantic, faraway voice of Za-chary Celtic talking. Marcus listened with his eyes squeezed shut, like he was enduring some awful pain. He took a breath to speak, but was shut out. Winnie hated to see him like this- trying to say his piece, but failing. She felt as badly as she would have at a racial slur-standing with Marcus on Second Avenue, say, while cab after cab passed by Marcus’s outstretched hand.
“Mr. Celtic?” Marcus finally said. It sounded like he was interrupting. “I’ll pay you back the five hundred dollars. No, really, I want to. And I’ll pay you back whatever it cost you to take me to lunch that day. Just please don’t say anything bad about me to Ms. Marchese because I need her to write me a college recommendation, you know?” He paused for a minute then dove back in. “Except, see, I don’t think I’m going to change my mind. What’s done is done. Angela and Candy are dead, my mother is in prison for the rest of her life, my uncle only has half a brain, and I don’t have any explanations for that. I’ve made up excuses on my mother’s behalf, I’ve tried to justify her actions, I’ve tried to understand every possible reason why she killed two people but I don’t have the answers. I’m not even sure my mother has the answers. But it doesn’t matter. I’mnot going to write this book.” Marcus hung up the phone on Zachary Celtic, saying, “I’ll send you that money, sir.”
The receiver hit the cradle so hard there was a residual metallic ring. Marcus stared at himself in the front of the phone.
“Well,” he said.
“You did a good job. You said all the right things.”
“Think so?” Marcus asked. He touched the receiver as though he wanted to call back and start over. “He said in true crime hot topics go cold real quick, but that he thought my mother’s story would always have appeal, in case I ever changed my mind.” Marcus wiped sweat off his forehead. “I’m not going to change my mind.”
“I know you won’t,” Winnie said.
“I’m determined to pay the guy back, even though he said I should hold on to the five hundred bucks. He said that was money he was willing to gamble with. But I don’t take money for nothing.”
“Do you feel better?” Winnie asked. “Now that it’s over?”
Now that its over. Marcus feared that this thing with his mother would never be over; it would be a part of him for the rest of his life. However, the dread about the phone call was gone, leaving Marcus feeling empty, in a clean way, like a vessel that had been washed out. “Yes,” he said. “I guess I do.” He took Winnie in his arms and hugged her, and then they opened the door and stepped out into the fresh air.
Piper scheduled her first ultrasound appointment before Garrett left because she wanted him to come with her.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” he said.
They were sitting side by side on Horizon’s deck in upright chairs like an elderly couple-not sunbathing, not reading-just staring at the ocean and thinking. They still hung out together in the afternoons, though evening dates were over; Piper was too tired and Garrett had no desire to pursue her. He figured his reluctance to go to the appointment would just be one more thing that pissed her off, but instead she took both his hands and looked him dead in the eye. “I know there’s a person inside you who wants to do the right thing.”
But how, he wondered, was going to the ultrasound appointment the right thing?It wasn’t a baby he was ever going to know.
“Right now this baby is in our care,” Piper said. “It’s our responsibility to make sure it enters the world healthy.”
The appointment was the following day at two. Garrett drove Piper to the hospital. They sat in the waiting room watching the action in the adjoining ER-a man had fallen off his moped and done something unnatural to his arm, followed minutes later by a little girl who had been stung by a jellyfish-until Piper’s name was called.
A nurse led them down the white hallway to the X-ray room. Garrett’s heart was thudding like a bowling ball hitting the gutter. He thought of that first walk on the beach with Piper, then the bonfire where he met her awful friend Kyle, then buying the box of condoms, the first time they made love, then the Fourth of July, the long stretch of days while she was at Rosie’s, the summer evenings they spent parked at the beach. It all seemed like it happened eons ago, with another person.