How Sweet It is Read online

  “I won’t take your money,” Candy said. “I don’t want it.”

  There was nothing else to say. Candy was a kid, and he didn’t know a thing about kids. What he did know was that she needed the money and he had it to give. He tossed a five-dollar bill onto the counter and made for the exit.

  “Hey! You forgot your bag,” Candy called after him.

  “It’s your bag.” He was five steps from the door.

  “I’m going to throw it off a cliff,” she called. “Into a gorge.”

  Four, three, two, one…

  “I don’t want your stupid money! I only came here to tell you to leave me alone or I’ll call the cops—”

  The closing door cut off the rest of her words. He was outside in the crisp fall day and he could breathe again.

  A woman in a blue jacket searched her pockets for change for the meter. A fit, determined mother pushed an oversize baby carriage past. Two college students in Galton U. sweatshirts walked together, ignoring each other while they texted.

  Tay’s red truck waited by the curb, his sheltie, Dune, in the driver’s seat. His cat, White, was curled up in the sunspot on the dash.

  Well, the cat wasn’t exactly his.

  The beast had inexplicably taken a liking to him and Dune at a rest stop off Route 81, or was it Route 79? The roads had become a blur. Or rather, since he drove so slowly after the accident, a never-ending asphalt river of curses from angry drivers or offers of mechanical assistance from kinder, curious ones.

  The cat didn’t mind his slow driving.

  But Tay minded the cat. He’d expected the creature to be gone somewhere around Binghamton. Instead, it refused to leave, and to Tay’s dismay, he had developed a maddening superstition around the animal—that she’d leave when his debt was paid off. It was ridiculous, he knew. Just another sign that he was losing his grip, trying to find meaning where there was just a mangy, flea-bitten cat just as he was trying to find meaning in four women at the end of a diner counter, or in a terrible, inexplicable tragedy on a dry road at four on a sunny afternoon almost a year ago to the day.

  He wished he could give it a rest. Go back to his old life taking care of the two apartment buildings he used to own in Queens. But it ate at him like a cancer, from the inside out.

  Anyway, what was left of his property was gone. Or rather, after the sale and paying off the mortgage and lawyers and expenses, then giving a hefty sum away to charities, causes, vagrants, and unsuspecting people who caught his eye, what was left of his livelihood was on the shiny floor of the diner in a duffel bag. He’d saved his whole life to buy those properties, had hoped soon to buy the building next door. But then the accident happened, and he lost his taste for business, for expansion, for success—for any kind of happiness. His easy success with women, with business, with life in general suddenly seemed wrong. It was impossible to enjoy anything anymore without a blackness rising in him that canceled out any pleasure.

  “Go.” He held the driver’s door open for the cat. “I gave her the money, so scram.”

  Dune looked stricken.

  “No, not you.” He scratched Dune between the ears. “You’re stuck with me, buddy. Oh, don’t look at me that way. You’re the one who should have chased her off in the first place.” Dune was a herding dog, and instead of chasing White, he seemed determined to keep her close. Talk about natural-born enemies behaving badly.

  White stared at him, refusing to budge. So Tay cursed and climbed in, chiding himself for believing in signs, in wishes, in some kind of control, when he knew deep down that life was what was hurled at you at seventy miles an hour when you let your guard down for a split second. It was his job to deal with the consequences, to make things right.

  It was his job to stop talking out loud to animals.

  Especially rogue cats.

  Dune hopped dutifully to the passenger side and Tay nudged White to her spot in the middle of the bench, no easy feat. He pulled out his keys, fired up the old truck, and cursed again.

  He shut down the engine.

  In front of him was a store window stuffed with Galton University paraphernalia. T-shirts, hats, and a bumper sticker that read, “Galton Is Gorges.”

  Gorges? The slogan was printed on T-shirts, hats, even maroon boxers.

  I’m going to throw it off a cliff… into a gorge.

  This town was famous for cliffs?

  Had Candy been serious?

  She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She needed that money more than a kid her age could understand. The newspaper article had reported that her father was “absent” and that her mother had left behind piles of debt. But what was debt to a kid until she was kicked out of school or her car was repossessed by some stranger on a cold winter night?

  Galton is gorges.

  She’s a kid. Doesn’t know a thing about real life.

  He raced back to the diner, but a quick glance through the plate-glass window told him that she and the money were gone. The waitress was still behind the counter, reading from her letter, her head down, looking so sad he had to force himself not to bust into the diner and offer whatever help she needed.

  Lizzie and Paige Carpenter, 47 Pine Tree Road…

  He drove his truck slowly up and down the steep streets of the gray town crawling with identical students like a Where’s Waldo? picture book. Where’s Candy? Jeans, T-shirts, long black hair…

  It was as if she had thrown herself into a gorge.

  Great, now he was getting morbid. He felt sick. He had to keep his head on straight.

  He had thought giving Candy the money would make him feel at least a little better.

  But it didn’t. He gave her the money, and not a damn thing had changed.

  How did a person know when he was forgiven?

  When he could taste his coffee again?

  When he could sleep through the night?

  When the cat left?

  He looked down at White. The light ahead changed to yellow and he rolled to a gentle stop. The car behind honked angrily, skidding to a stop behind him, just touching his rear bumper. He rolled down the window and said to the cat, “Out. For your own good.”

  White looked up at him, then went back to sleep.

  He rolled up the window, put his truck in gear, and kept searching for Candy, stupid cat dozing as if everything were going just according to plan.

  Twenty minutes later, he spotted Candy on campus, heading toward a big stone building. He jammed the truck to the curb, slammed on the emergency brake, and jumped out, the door hanging open behind him. “Candy! Please! Just one minute more. I swear.”

  She looked back at him and smiled. It was the first time he’d ever seen her smile and it knocked him backward.

  The coldest smile he’d ever experienced.

  “Done. It’s fish food. At the bottom of a gorge.” She held her hands out to show him the bag was gone. “Now, I never, ever want to see you again.”

  And with that, she walked into the building and disappeared.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Why had she made that wish?

  Lizzie stroked red paint onto the roof of the bird feeder that she’d set on a bed of newspaper on the dining room table. It was almost midnight, but Lizzie couldn’t sleep, thinking about what it meant that she had wished for a man to come and help her impress another man. It was infuriating that she still wished for a Prince Charming to come to her rescue. Especially after fourteen years of making it on her own, not relying on anyone. What did it mean that such a wimpy wish had popped out of her mouth at a critical time like this?

  Paige’s footsteps on the stairs startled her from her thoughts. She had thought Paige had been asleep for hours.

  Paige came into the room, her eyes glued to her cell phone, texting as she walked. Somehow, she didn’t bonk into the doorframes or trip on the edge of the rug. Paige could walk across a four-lane highway, texting the whole time with four different people, and not even feel the breeze of the cars
zipping by her. “Geneva is in Switzerland,” Paige said.

  Lizzie had sometimes considered wearing a clown wig around the house, just to see how long it took Paige to look away from whatever screen her eyes were fixed on. But one good thing about Paige’s distraction was that it let Lizzie study her daughter’s face closely. She had caught herself doing this with an obsessive intensity since Ethan’s letter had come, as if it were possible to soak up as much of the girl as she could now, before it was too late and Paige left for the bigger things her father and Geneva might be able to offer. Her daughter’s beauty, her flawless skin, her shiny, pin-straight hair, the just-forming sophistication of her bone structure—it all took Lizzie’s breath away. And yet she said, “Shouldn’t you be in bed?”

  Paige didn’t need to know that her mother was coming undone.

  “It’s Friday night. No one’s in bed,” Paige said, glancing up, teenage exasperation flashing in her eyes. Lizzie forced her own eyes to the feeder. She didn’t want to get caught staring at Paige. She was desperately afraid she’d let on how hard it was for her to think about Ethan’s sweeping back into their lives. She wanted to appear in control. So she inspected the tiny house. It was a gingerbread cottage, its windows opening onto feeding trays, but its porch a clever mechanism that shut the windows tight if a heavier squirrel tried to visit.

  Too bad they didn’t make one of those mechanisms for shutting out would-be fathers.

  “Switzerland, Mom.”

  “Yep.”

  Paige’s eyes went back to her phone, and she slumped into a chair without looking behind her. How did she do that without crashing to the ground? “The Alps are in Switzerland. Geena’s been to Europe. She knows.” Tap tap tap on the tiny keyboard.

  Lizzie knew where this was heading. Her stomach was already in a knot. She concentrated on painting the roof of the little birdseed house because she could make it right, perfect even. The original fire-engine-red roof had faded from the summer sun to a pale pink, and she was fixing it. This, she could fix. Ethan, not so much. Paige, who knew?

  “So I can go there with Dad and really learn to board? On real mountains? Not these pathetic New York anthills?”

  It had been less than a week, and Paige had already switched from “Ratbastard” to “Dad.” That word was like a knife to Lizzie’s gut, the first sign of Paige’s pulling away, moving on, growing up.

  But Paige wasn’t grown up. Not really. And that was the problem. She thought that she could ride her snowboard to fame and fortune. Lizzie had caught her just last night practicing Mountain Dew commercials into the mirror. Do the Dew.

  Do the bachelor’s degree just didn’t have the same ring.

  “Sure. After college.” Lizzie put down her paintbrush, willing Paige to put down her phone. Look at me and tell me that you’ll stay here and not run off with Ratbastard and ruin your life. I mean, with Dad.

  No such luck. “Forget college. That’ll be too late. I’ll be too old. This is the chance of a lifetime, Mom. It’s like it’s meant to be. What are the chances my father would live near awesome mountains?”

  “Fifty-fifty? Sixty-forty? At worst, maybe seventy-thirty.” Lizzie hated that she sounded so glib, but it was only to cover the panic that was gathering like a storm, pressing against her skull. Don’t leave me, Paige. Don’t choose him.

  “Mo-om!”

  “He hasn’t invited you yet, Paige,” she said, sounding exactly like every awful mother in existence.

  Paige, naturally, started texting, her thumbs flying over the tiny keyboard furiously.

  What Lizzie wanted to say to Paige was even worse. He might be a criminal. Or, worse, he might already have a perfect daughter. Several. Heck, based on what little Lizzie knew of him, the guy could have hundreds. But that wasn’t the kind of thing she could say to her fourteen-year-old. Lizzie hoped that Paige was smart enough to realize how many possibilities stretched out before her. But she refused to be the one to dash her daughter’s dreams against the sharp edges of all those ugly scenarios by suggesting them out loud. Being the messenger would only get her blamed for the message.

  “Details,” Paige insisted.

  Lizzie leaned across the table and snatched Paige’s phone. She needed Paige’s full attention on this one.

  “Hey!” Paige refused to look at Lizzie. She stalked to the window to peer into the blackness outside. “You care more about those stupid birds than you do about me. At least you fix their houses. Our house is a mess. My dad’s going to fly across the ocean, drive five hours from New York City, take one look at our house, know we’re losers, and get out of here as fast as he can.” She leaned her nose against the window as if she were watching her father’s car do a U-turn in their driveway, screeching away into the night.

  Was that why Lizzie had made her wish? Had she imagined the same scenario?

  Paige went on. “Those birds get to have nice houses and then they get to split this town and do something with their lives. Unlike me. Or you.”

  Now Lizzie was glad Paige was looking elsewhere. She composed her face, erasing the pain the accusing words inflicted. She thought, What’s so wrong with here? But she said, “Men don’t fly in on magic carpets to fix things, Paige. You don’t need anyone’s help to make something of your life. All you need is here. Good schools. Good friends. Time and space to grow up.”

  Paige rolled her eyes. “Honestly, Mom. I’m going to barf.” With that, Paige turned, shot Lizzie her patented preteen look of death, and dashed up the stairs.

  Leaving Lizzie with her phone.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Lizzie didn’t plan to read Paige’s text messages.

  Not that there was anything wrong with doing that.

  After all, they had an agreement that since Lizzie paid the bills, she got to monitor the phone.

  It was the responsible, upright, good-parenting thing to do. She’d read that in more than one parenting book, so it must be true.

  It wasn’t exactly snooping. She was keeping tabs.

  But as soon as she decoded the annoying patois of the first message, she was sorry she’d begun.

  Help! Cnt go w/ D & lv M 1lone. 2sad 2live.

  Lizzie bristled. She wasn’t alone. She had family, friends. Okay, so not a man. But who cared? That did not qualify as too sad to live.

  Geena responded: Go! Follow heart. (The heart was a symbol, which throbbed.)

  Lizzie had never liked Geena much.

  Paige typed: & Lv M 1lone? Can’t.

  Geena typed: Find her BF.

  Paige had replied eight seconds later: Not possible.

  Lizzie looked at the perfect little house on her table. She put down the phone.

  2sad 2live? Not possible for her to find a boyfriend?

  She went to where Paige had stood at the window and looked out at the nighttime street. The walk outside was softly lit by the glow of the light by the gate, and she could see the falling-down fence, the hanging gate. Was Paige right, that Ethan would be so unimpressed by their lives that he wouldn’t help Paige? Would Paige stay because it was too sad to leave her mother alone?

  Wait.

  She could see the fence, the gate?

  The light was on?

  That light hadn’t worked for over a year. It had gone dead the night before Paige’s first day of seventh grade, something wrong with the wiring. Lizzie looked closer. She went to the switch by the front door. She flicked the light off, then on.

  How strange.

  It felt like a sign.

  It felt like hope.

  Like she was on to something.

  But what?

  Lizzie closed her eyes. Just this once, couldn’t she believe in something besides hard work, frugal living, and saving every spare penny for Paige’s college? Couldn’t she for just one second believe in magic? The universe listening?

  If she wished for what she truly wanted, what would it be?

  Don’t let Paige leave me.

  Oh, hell
. She was 2sad 2live. That wish was pathetic. A coward’s wish.

  She looked out over the yard of the house where she’d lived her entire life. It had been her childhood home. Now it was her and Paige’s home. Ethan had known exactly where to send that letter. He’d known they’d still be here.

  Disgust flooded her. How could she wish this small life on Paige who wanted bigger things? How could she be so selfish? What if the universe was listening, and it answered, and Paige ended up never leaving? Was that really what she wanted for her daughter? For her to live here out of a sense of duty to her mother? For Paige to give up her huge, crazy dreams just because they were huge and crazy?

  Wasn’t that what Lizzie had done? Given up her own huge, crazy dreams to take care of Paige? She wouldn’t have had it any other way. But Paige wasn’t in her situation, pregnant senior year of high school. Paige still had a future that could go anywhere. Ethan’s coming might be a huge disappointment—or it might be the chance of a lifetime.

  Lizzie closed her eyes again. The panic that was pushing at the back of her eyeballs became painful, but she took a deep breath and forced the words out. “Let Ethan be a good man who can give Paige what she wants,” she whispered. The unjustness hit her hard, and she couldn’t swallow the hurt that flooded her. The sense of betrayal almost choked her, as if it were a thing being forced down her throat. It was unfair that Ethan would get to be Paige’s hero, when it was Lizzie who had done all the work. But that was life, wasn’t it? It wasn’t about fairness; it was about moving on. Getting somewhere. Taking advantage of the doors that opened, no matter who opened them. The only way to move forward was to quit looking back.

  If Ethan was a decent man, Lizzie would do everything in her power to help Paige get whatever she wanted out of him.

  Step one: Fix the house so Paige will feel worthy.

  Step two: Find a temporary but suitable man, so Paige will be able to wave her happy, well-loved and cared-for mother good-bye.