Chris kept an eye on Vin the rest of the afternoon. He couldn’t say what he was looking for exactly, but it was the week anniversary of the attack, and anything could be going through Vin’s mind.He couldn’t exactly sit and stare at Vin without it being really obvious, especially since he couldn’t really see him around his computer monitor, so Chris kept track of him by watching his hands on his keyboard, which he could see under the monitor.
Sometimes Vin typed rapidly, sometimes his fingers just hovered there for what seemed like a longer time than was necessary. Every once in awhile he opened his bottle of water for a swallow. A few times he picked up the picture of his parents and held it awhile.
As the afternoon wore on though, Chris could see that Vin’s hands were trembling, and it only got worse as time passed. So he wasn’t surprised at all when an hour before the usual quitting time, Vin leaned around his computer to ask,
“Chris? Can we get out of here?” His voice shook as much as his hands.
“Sure. Let’s go.” Chris had been tying everything up for the last hour, intending to get Vin out of there if he didn’t ask first. He only had to shut off his computer and he was ready to go.
Vin didn’t have it quite so easy. His computer froze as he was shutting down, his chair wheel got tangled in the mouse cord, his bottle of water tipped and knocked his parents’ picture to the floor. When he picked it up in a white knuckled grip, Chris walked to the side of his desk.
“Let me get this.”
Vin didn’t look up at him, but seemed to be holding his breath.
“I can do it.” He answered after several seconds. He set the picture on the desk, rebooted his computer to shut it down again, and very precisely lifted the mouse back to its mouse pad.
“OK, let’s see if I can’t walk out of here without killing myself.”
Chris knew that was just an offhand remark, said out of frustration, so he didn’t call Vin on it. He let him go first out of the office, and shut and locked the door behind them. They got out to the truck without seeing anybody they didn’t want to see.
“You still want to go to your apartment?” Chris asked.
No. He knew that look on Vin’s face. That was the look he got when he knew he had to do something he didn’t want to do. He didn’t want to go to his apartment. But he had to.
“Yeah. I still want to go.”
+ + + + + + +
Ever since Buck had given him the description of the gutless wonders who attacked Vin, Chris took every step watching and looking at everybody, hoping to have his chance to kill them. He knew it didn’t get any less ugly than that: he wanted them dead, and dead by his hand. Nothing less would satisfy him.
“Hey, you remember the first time you and Mary came over to my apartment? My old apartment?” Vin asked, breaking Chris out of his murderous reverie. “I had that weird painting on the wall, hiding where the old tenant put an outlet six feet off the floor where it didn’t need to be. And Mary finally told me I had the stupid thing hanging upside down?” He gave a short laugh and shook his head. “I don’t know why I thought of that just now.”
“It just shows how much Mary likes you. She doesn’t usually spend that much energy trying not to hurt somebody’s feelings. That’s usually something she’d say as soon as she walked into the house, not take all night working up to it.”
“She’s always taken care of me,” Vin said, and it sounded like he’d only just realized it.
“She likes you,” Chris said, which was true. But there’d also been a big gaping hole in her life after Stephen died, and sometimes Vin seemed to fill that niche of little brother for her. She certainly was easier on Vin than she was on any of the rest of Chris’ friends.
“Does she know?” Vin asked quietly, and Chris realized he suddenly couldn’t breathe.
“She figured it out,” he managed to answer. And Vin didn’t say anything else and for the first time since they’d known each other, even including this last week, for the first time the silence between them as they drove to Vin’s apartment felt uncomfortable and awkward to Chris.
There was no parking open on the street, so Chris parked around behind the apartment building. Vin stepped out of the truck but asked Chris if he’d shut the door for him because his back hurt, and then they walked to the front door of his apartment building. Vin stopped there, staring down at the tiled threshold. Chris stopped with him.
“I was down mowing Nettie’s lawn,” Vin said. “I left work early so I could mow her lawn and still get down to the street fair. This is where Maria was – attacked.” He hesitated slightly on the word. “This is where we were all standing just a week ago. Just a stupid week ago.”
Chris didn’t know if Vin was headed for any kind of emotional breakdown, but if he was, Chris didn’t want it happening out here on the street. But just as he was starting to suggest they go inside, Vin went on.
“It just replays over and over in my head. You know? Every minute of it. If I hadn’t come home early, if I hadn’t mowed Nettie’s lawn. If I hadn’t moved to this neighborhood to start with, I wouldn’t be standing here, feeling like – this – now.”
“Some people think everything happens for a reason,” Chris said. He couldn’t think what else to say. Vin looked at him.
“Do you believe that?”
“I have to. If I didn’t, I’d go crazy.”
Vin just shook his head and led the way inside. He stopped first at his mailbox and pulled out two ads for long distance phone service and a Wal-Mart flyer. After he shut it again, he ran his finger over the typed name underneath, “V. Tanner.”
“Maria said my name, when I went to protect her. She called me Vin. I guess I’m the only ‘V’ here in the building. I figure that’s how they knew which apartment I was in.” He sighed and started up the stairs to his apartment.
Chris followed him up and waited while Vin unlocked his door, then went inside. Chris hadn’t been here since they cleaned up on Sunday. The apartment still smelled of new vinyl and Lestoil, and the air was stifling hot.
“We need to get you an air conditioner.”
“I don’t think the wiring could handle it,” Vin said. He had stopped just inside the door, and hadn’t moved in far enough yet to close it.
“We’ll get you a few more fans then. You want me to open up some windows?”
“Oh, yeah. Thanks. Sure.”
When Chris moved off to the front windows, Vin shut the door and turned all the locks. But he still stood there, looking around like he wanted to be anywhere else. His shoulders were high, and his arms were tight against his sides with his hands shoved in his jeans pockets.
“You don’t have to do this,” Chris said, though he couldn’t be sure exactly what Vin might be intending to do. Vin started walking though, towards the bathroom.
“When they broke in, I was in taking a shower. I keep wondering if it’d been different if I’d been dressed.” He stopped at the bathroom doorway and looked in. “If I’d had my jeans and my boots on, it wouldn’t have been so easy for them. If I’d been sitting in the front room, I could’ve called 911 while they were still breaking in. But I was taking a shower and when I turned the water off and pulled open the shower curtain, they were there. Here.” He gestured to the floor in front of himself.
Chris didn’t know what to say. He didn’t want to hear about the attack, but if Vin needed to talk about it, he couldn’t not listen. He’d told Vin that he could talk to him about anything about the attack.. He couldn’t not listen now.
“I didn’t know what to do. I knew who they were, my brain told me that. But I didn’t know – I just froze trying to think what I should do. But they grabbed me. All three of them grabbed me and pulled me out of the bathtub. I fought back. I tried to fight back but there was three of them and I didn’t stand a chance. I kept trying though.” Vin kept his eyes on the floor while he spoke.
“Even after two of them had – had –.” But he didn’t say that word. “I guess the third one was out in the front room, going through my stuff. I tried to get away, I thought if I could just get in my bedroom I could lock the door and push my dresser in front of it. But when I got to my feet, that’s when they slammed my head back into the mirror and my face into the towel bar. Then they shoved me back again against the sink then back down onto the floor. After that, it was just all pain. I guess they had to have kicked me or jumped on me to crack my vertebrae. And the third guy sure took his turn with me.”
He paused there, long enough that Chris felt he had to fill the silence.
“I’m surprised none of your neighbors heard anything.”
“Well Mrs. Stempniak, she lives below me, she’s near stone deaf anyway. Next to me is the Gradwells. They’re not so old but maybe they were out at the fair. I figure most of the building was down there. Just as well though. I didn’t want anybody to know what happened.” He turned and moved past Chris into the kitchen.
“You want some lemonade? I’m gonna make some lemonade.”
“Sounds good.” Chris turned to watch Vin, but he didn’t move out of the bathroom doorway. A week ago, almost exactly, counting down the minutes, a week ago Vin had been attacked. Here. Right here, right on this spot. Now he had a broken back, cracked ribs, post traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts.
Chris decided that if he ever found the criminals who did it, he wouldn’t kill them. He’d make them wish he’d kill them.
EIGHTY-FIVE
Take the can of lemonade concentrate out of the freezer.Take the plastic pitcher out of the cupboard.
Open the concentrate.
Vin kept his mind busy by silently reciting each step involved in making a pitcher of lemonade. It kept him from continuing to count down the minutes to when the attack happened, at least for a little while. He wanted to know the exact moment that the exact moment passed, but maybe it would be better if he didn't know. If maybe the moment passed unawares and he just ended up on the other side of it without paying attention to it. Maybe that would be better.
At first Chris stood in the bathroom doorway and watched him, then he walked into the front room. It sounded like he was fiddling with the fan. When the lemonade was done, Vin got two glasses and brought them to his little table. Chris sat at the table, across from him.
It felt like they should be talking about something, but Chris wasn't saying anything and Vin couldn't think of anything. So his mind went back a week to the horror and all the precise details. He'd come in from mowing Nettie's lawn. He shut his front door... did he even lock it? There'd been a couple of times since he moved into this apartment that he'd forgotten to turn the lock and didn't realize it until he was leaving the next morning.
He'd locked it last week hadn't he? He didn't leave it unlocked and just let them walk into his home the way he'd let them just...
No, there were marks on the door jamb. They'd had to jimmy the lock. At least he wasn't guilty of that.
Not guilty. He didn't mean guilty. He wasn't guilty.
After he shut... and locked - the door, he'd kicked off his sneakers gone into his bedroom to get undressed to take a shower.
If he hadn't been mowing Nettie's lawn, he wouldn't have needed to take a shower. If he hadn't been taking a shower when they broke in, they wouldn't have been able to surprise him like that. He would've been dressed and they wouldn't have been able to... to...
"How's your back?" Chris asked. The silence in Vin's mind after the question made him realize how hard his blood had been pounding in his ears.
"Hurts."
"Well, not that I particularly want to say this, but... maybe you should take another painkiller? I know you've trying to stay awake, but you look like you're in pain."
"That's not my back," Vin muttered, but he took the bottle of pills out of the shirt pocket anyway. There were three pills left. Mary had given him five; he'd taken one this morning at work, and another one about four hours ago. One at a time didn't put him to sleep at least, and seemed to be enough to manage the pain.
He opened the bottle and shook one pill out into his hand.
"I took them all," he said.
"You sure you got the dosage right?" Chris asked. "I don't think you should have gone through them that fast."
Vin knew that Chris was misunderstanding him. He knew that he could just say something that sounded like an agreement, say he'd talk to Nathan about it, and then let it go. He knew Chris was worried enough already that he might be suicidal. Hell, he was worried that he might be suicidal. No matter what Chris' reaction might be, Vin wanted to tell him.
"Last night," he said. He dropped the painkiller back into its bottle and put the cap on. "After what happened with Nettie, I was up in the room and I opened both bottles and poured them out in my hand and I took them all."
"What?" Chris took the bottle out of Vin's hand and opened it up to look inside, as though some answer would be found in there.
"I spit 'em out again just as soon as I took them," Vin explained. "Mary saw me. She took them away from me."
"Did you swallow any?" Chris asked. He sounded angry.
"No."
"What the hell were you thinking?"
"I was thinking that it would be easier to go to sleep and not have to worry about anything anymore," Vin spoke quietly. Could Chris really not understand that? "That I couldn't stand the pain anymore and that if I drove one more person away from me, there wouldn't be much to live for anyway."
That seemed to take the wind out of Chris' anger. He set the pill bottle on the table and stood up. He gestured like he was going to say something, wanted to say something, but nothing came out. He took a couple of paces between the dinette and kitchen space then took his seat again.
"Why didn't you tell me? I thought we agreed you'd talk to me about what's going on."
"That would imply I knew what to say."
"What about what you told me just now? You couldn't have mentioned it last night?"
"What the hell do you know anyway?" Vin snapped. He stood up and walked into the front room. "You have no idea what this is like. What any of this is like. You've got your perfect life and your perfect home and your perfect family. Nobody ever came in and ripped your life all to shreds so that you don't know what to do or where you belong or who you belong with. You don't know what it's like to look at the rest of your life stretching out in front of you and all you see is... some long line of broken bits and shards that'll never be whole again."
"If you think my life is perfect, we need to have a serious talk," Chris said.
"I think it's better than my life."
Chris sighed and stood up from the table to stand closer to Vin. "I won't argue that right now you're having a worse time of it. But don't think I haven't known sorrow." He was keeping his voice low which Vin wondered if either he was holding in a lot of anger, or expressing a lot of pain. He remembered what Buck said about Mary's brother dying, how hard it had been for Chris. He didn't say anything.
"Why didn't you tell me last night about the pills?" Chris asked again.
"I didn't want you to know."
"Why not?"
"Because I was ashamed. Do you know what that feels like?" He wanted to tell Chris all the little spikes of shame that he had to drag himself through everyday. From not being able to look at himself in the mirror in the morning, to not wanting to take his clothes off at night, every single moment of his day had some shame tacked onto it.
"I have to fight with myself every day just to keep living. It was easy, it would've been easy to just swallow all those pills last night and have done with it." His voice was starting to rise with agitation. "I spit 'em out, even before I knew Mary was there, I spit 'em out again, but it was so easy and it was so... it felt like... when I put them in my mouth I felt relieved that it was all going to be over. It felt so good it scared me. And I was ashamed."
Vin was yelling at Chris when he hadn't done anything but ask a question; he figured maybe he was really yelling at himself. He turned to sit on the couch, with his head in his hands. Chris followed him and sat in the recliner. Vin looked at the clock that sat on his bookshelf.
"This is it," he said. "This is when I figure it happened." Chris followed his line of sight to the little clock. Watching the sweep hand make the slow circuit around the clock face made Vin feel like his nerves were twisting up with each passing second. "I don't know how long it took. It was dark by the time I came to."
"You were unconscious that long?" Chris asked.
"No, just... stunned. In shock. Too scared to move. But the attack... I don't know. I have no way of knowing how long it... how long they were here. Half hour maybe, forty five minutes. Forty five minutes that'll haunt me the rest of my life."
Chris closed his eyes for a moment, weighing something maybe, deciding something. He could say anything he wanted to Vin, it wouldn't matter. All the things he'd said this whole past week had helped some, but not completely, not permanently. He could say any of that that he wanted to again, Vin had heard it all this past week, it wasn't going to change anything. But his words shocked Vin.
"Maybe we should look into getting you some help?" Chris said. His voice was barely above a whisper.
"You said I didn't have to."
"Maybe I was wrong."
"You said."
"Vin, you almost swallowed two whole bottles of pills."
"I know," Vin said, and he felt his face grow hot.
"Maybe we should think about getting you some help."
Vin didn't know what to say. He put his head into his hands.
"All right, I'll think about it."
EIGHTY-SIX
“Chris?”“Yeah?”
“Umm…”
At Vin’s hesitation, Chris opened one eye. He was in the recliner, not moving, trying not to die in the heat of the oven that was Vin’s apartment. He’d been trying to figure out some way of correcting that; the circa 40’s fan at the window sure didn’t make any dent. Vin was sitting on the couch, with his head resting on the back cushions. He looked worried.
“What?” Chris asked.
“I was thinking. Maybe I should. Try. Being alone in the apartment.”
“You getting rid of me?”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know.”
Chris sat forward in the recliner. “You don’t have to do it right now if you don’t want to.”
“It’s not gonna get easier is it? If I put it off today, I’ll put it off next time and the time after that and before you know it I’ll be paying apartment rent just to store my furniture here and living out of your spare bedroom. That’s not exactly the life I had in mind.”
“How far away do you want me to go? For how long?”
Vin looked at Chris like maybe it hadn’t occurred to him that to be alone Chris would have to leave the apartment.
“Where’re you gonna go?”
“I can walk down to the foot of the stairs and walk back,” Chris shrugged, “if that’s as much time as you want.”
“It may be just as long as it takes you to shut the door and step away before I’m shouting after you to come on back.”
“You don’t have to do this now.”
“Yeah, I do.”
+ + + + + + +
Chris walked down to the front sidewalk, and stood in sight of the windows of Vin’s apartment. He was supposed to stay out here fifteen minutes, or until Vin called him to come back in, whichever came first. He heard a whistle and turned to see Buck walking around the building, probably from the parking lot in back.
“Hey Chris. Where’s Vin?”
“Upstairs.” Chris gestured up to the apartment. “He wanted to see if he could be in the apartment alone for a little while.”
“Well that’s good. Show’s he’s getting back on his feet.”
“I wonder if it’s just -,” But Chris stopped himself. He didn’t want to give Buck a reason to say, ‘I told you so.’
“Just what?”
“Just – he doesn’t want to go for counseling and I told him I think maybe he should.” Buck stared at Chris with open concern, then reached out to feel his forehead. “Knock it off.” Chris batted his hand away. “I’m not delirious.”
Buck grinned, but then turned serious. “What happened? What made you change your mind?”
Chris decided not to tell Buck about the pills and Vin’s near overdose.
“He keeps talking about how much pain he’s in, how confused he feels about everything. And I’m afraid he might be suicidal against his will. And he doesn’t want to try counseling and I wonder if he’s seeing if he can be in his apartment alone to prove that he doesn’t need it.”
“How long are we out here for?” Buck asked.
“Fifteen minutes,” Chris told him, checking his watch. “Another 12 minutes now.”
He waited a moment, but it didn’t come.
“You gonna tell me ‘I told you so’ or not?”
“Aw now Chris. If I was to ever tell you ‘I told you so’, I’d be having to say it to you every darn day of my life.”
“Why do I put up with you?”
“Because you love me.\,” Buck said, giving Chris a nudge. Then he looked at Chris’ face. “You look like you don’t think he’ll be OK up there.”
“I know nothing’s going to happen to him. It’s just – I remember what it felt like the first time I walked into a garage after Stephen died. I know what that kind of fear can feel like.”
+ + + + + + +
Vin watched the closing door with something bordering on panic. He could do this. It was only fifteen minutes. He’d been known to spend four-day weekends in winter completely holed up in here, only stirring out for Sunday Mass and if one of the neighbors needed a hand. What was fifteen minutes? Fifteen minutes in his own home?
Fifteen minutes where they had used up forty five minutes of his life.
Vin started to walk toward the bathroom, intending to force himself to be alone in there even for a second. But the door was half closed and even though he knew it wasn’t so, he couldn’t help feeling that there was a grotesque demon of depravity lurking in the shadows behind the door, waiting for him to set even one foot into the room so it could devour him whole and then spit him out again to lie bare, drenched, and exposed on the too-clean floor.
It was in there, he knew against reason. Its breath was the warm vinyl and Lestoil scent that filled the apartment, and the soft clanging of the of the hot water pipes in the wall was the sound of its bones, readying themselves for the attack, and if Vin took even one more step closer to the bathroom or turned his back to flee the apartment, it would reach its claws around the door and swipe him where he stood.
And all the while Chris would be standing out on the front sidewalk, thinking everything was OK.
Vin stared at that bathroom door, almost willing the motion he was afraid of seeing there. There was nothing in there, he knew that. Nothing lurking behind the door or under the sink or in the bathtub. There was nothing in there. There was nothing in there.
When the phone rang, Vin almost jumped out of his skin, and his heart pounded like he’d run a mile. But it broke the spell of monsters in his closet and he walked the couple of steps to read the caller ID.
“Y’almost gave me a heart attack, you know that Buck,” was how he answered the phone.
“Just calling to see how you’re doing up there. I’m out here with Chris and he’s counting the minutes down. Figured I could keep you both distracted while we’re waiting.”
“You might as well come on up,” Vin told him.
“You okay?”
Aside from the demons in the doorway? Vin looked at the bathroom; the shadows were just shadows again. “Yeah. Just kinda boring up here.”
“Why don’t you come on down and I’ll treat us all to some ice cream.”
“Ice cream?” Vin had to ask.
“Yeah. I know you can’t have beer while you’re on pain meds, so – ice cream. C’mon down.”
“I – yeah – I…” Vin looked around the apartment again. Though the unreal threat of monsters in his bathroom had dissipated, something of evil still echoed in the dull warm silence, and it would get even louder once he turned off the fan. “Would you guys come up anyway? I don’t want to be the last one out of here.”
“We’re on our way.”
EIGHTY-SEVEN
Vin had barely hung up his phone when he heard footsteps on the stairs outside his door and Chris came into the apartment.“How’d it go?” he asked, and Vin couldn’t formulate a quick answer. “It’ll get better.” Chris added then in a low voice. “It’s bound to be scary the first time you try.”
“Yeah.”
Buck came in the open door behind Chris.
“C’mon, you ready to get some ice cream? There’s a new Dairy Queen over near your school I’ve been wanting to try.”
“Dairy Queen?” Chris asked.
“Peanut Buster Parfait.” Buck said, as though that should explain it. “Hey, I’m a kid at heart.”
“Just gimme a minute.” Vin said, and gestured to the bathroom. “I’m just gonna, I’ll just – gimme a minute.”
He walked to the half-open bathroom door and hesitated before reaching in to flick on the light before putting the rest of his body in there and shutting the door behind himself.
As he washed his hands a few minutes later, he dared a look into the mirror, first checking to make sure no monsters hovered behind him, then looking closely at his face. The bruises under his eyes were pretty much gone and he thought he looked as close to usual as maybe he was going to get anytime soon. He didn’t think he needed a shave, but they were going to be out in public, so he washed his face and combed his hair before rejoining Chris and Buck in his front room. He didn’t take off Chris’ shirt that he still wore over his own.
“I’m set.” He said. “I just have to turn the fan off.”
“I’ll get it.” Buck said, he was closer. He took the few steps and flipped the switch on the old fan. Vin closed his eyes as the apartment filled up with heavy silence.
“It’s so quiet.” He said.
“You’re used to Cowboy and Billy and three appliances going all the time at my house.” Chris told him.
“Yeah.”
“Are we ready?” Buck asked. “We got ice cream waiting for us.”
“Yeah, I’m ready.” Vin said. They left the apartment.
“And if you don’t want quiet,” Buck said. “You can drive with me and I’ll sing for you!”
Vin moved just a little bit closer to Chris.
+ + + + + + +
Nettie spent a good fifteen minutes trying to get her lawn mower out of her storage shed. The old door had swelled in last week’s rain and was still swollen and wouldn’t budge past the lump of tree root it normally cleared easily. She pushed and pulled and dragged and lifted and finally created enough of an opening to pull the mower shrieking from its resting place.
Well, maybe the door didn’t always open that easily. She hadn’t mowed her own lawn at all this year; Vin had done it for her, every Friday since spring. He never said the door was hard to open but he probably never would say it anyway. Maybe he went through this every Friday.
Once she got the mower out to her front lawn, it took another ten minutes of pulling and yanking on the rope to get the machine revved up and working, until she thought her shoulder would never be the same again. Was it always this hard to start? God bless Vin if it was. And on a day hot enough to melt stone too.
Maneuvering the mower around her front lawn was a lot harder than she remembered it being; the old machine was balky and sluggish and by the time she’d finished her lawn, Nettie was covered in sweat and ready to collapse where she stood.
She turned around to muscle the ornery, definitely non self-propelling mower to the side yard and her eyes automatically went to the front door of Vin’s apartment building. She looked for Vin there whenever she came outside. This time she was rewarded – and surprised – when Vin came out of his building, behind Chris and followed by Buck. None of them looked her way. Vin had his hands over his ears and from the look of it, because she couldn’t hear over the roar of the mower, Buck was belting out some song at the top of his lungs. They must be headed to the parking lot around back.
Vin didn’t even look her way.
Just as Nettie was about to cut the engine and leave the mower where it sat, Mrs. Millette came out onto her porch next door. Thinning bones and arthritis left her bowed and unsteady over her walker, but she smiled and waved when she saw Nettie with her mower.
Nettie returned the smile and wave but didn’t feel it.
”Damn. I forgot I have to mow her lawn too.’
+ + + + + + +
Buck led the way in his truck, and Chris and Vin followed behind in Larabee’s truck. The parking lot was crowded and the line was long to place an order.
“My treat.” Buck said. He took their requests and went to stand in the long line. Vin sat on the hood of Chris’ truck; Chris sat on the bench against the wall and put a foot up on his bumper.
“I’ve never been to this Dairy Queen, have you?” Vin asked.
“No, we generally go to the Tasty Freeze down on 93. I didn’t know Buck liked DQ ice cream that much.”
“Well, it won’t be the ‘Larabee Lush’ I know, or the ‘Wilmington Wonder’ but I guess it’ll just have to do.”
“At least the mess in the kitchen got Mary to stop ribbing me about my laundry skills.”
“Her mother gave her that bedspread Chris.” Vin said with a smile, and Chris had to smile too that Vin could be lighthearted now, today; back at his apartment he sure was depressed.
“And that’s going to be my epitaph too I bet.”
“Oh no – I’m sure you’ll screw up even worse before you die.”
“Gee thanks.”
Buck was back in not too long awhile.
“Here we go, Peanut Buster Parfait for you.” He handed one to Vin. “Another one for me, and a plain vanilla cone dipped in chocolate for Christopher ’I can’t take the chance the world will come to an end if I try anything new’ Larabee.”
“Why do I put up with you?” Chris asked again.
“Because you love me.” Buck answered him again. He took the seat on the bench next to Chris. Cars pulled in and out of the parking lot. “So – got any plans for tomorrow?” he asked Vin.
“Josiah’s faucet is still dripping. Chris and me were talking about fixing it. Other than that -.” He shrugged.
“Vin! What are you doing here?” A woman’s voice caught Vin off guard. He turned to where a car had just parked at the end of building, several cars away. It was Amanda, he recognized her this time. It still took him several seconds to answer. She walked up to him. “I didn’t know you came here.”
“Uh – well, this is the first time I’ve been here. Buck,” Vin gestured to him. “It was his idea. Uh – Buck. This is Amanda, she works on campus. And you met Chris before. I think.” He wondered if his face was as red as it felt. At least this time he didn’t need a shave.
“It’s nice to meet you.” Amanda said to Buck but immediately turned back to Vin. “I come here every Friday after work. What did you get?”
“Uh – Peanut Buster Parfait.” Vin nearly stumbled over the words.
“I’ve never had that, I usually get the Fudge Brownie Sundae. Can I join you when I get my ice cream?” She asked that of Vin, though there were three of them together.
“Sure, yeah, of course.” He said, surprised but happy.
“Great, I’ll be right back.” As she started to walk to the front of the ice cream stand, Buck said,
“Now Vin, it would be proper to escort the young lady so she doesn’t get lost.”
Vin’s first reaction was to look at Chris who was staring at Buck. Buck was smiling at Vin – and so was Amanda. She’d stopped walking and seemed to be smiling in pleasant expectation.
“Oh – yeah.” He slid off the truck and walked with her to the ordering window.
Chris continued to stare at Buck until he returned the look.
“What?”
“You just happen to stop by Vin’s apartment when you gave back the key and you just happen to invite us out for ice cream to a place where Amanda just happens to visit every Friday afternoon?”
Buck grinned.
“I do love it when a plan comes together.”
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