Chapter 2

Alex

I was laughing to myself, a few hours later, thinking about that nutty girl in the coffee shop, when Steve walked in to check on me.

“What’s so funny?” he smiled back at me. “I haven’t heard you laugh like that in a while.”

“Nothing.” I shook my head and leaned back in my chair, and thought about her bumper sticker theory. That woman was off her rocker.“What’s up, Steve? I know you have better things to do than come and see me four times a day.”

“Four times a day? Is that what I do?”

“I could set my watch by you,” I told him. I thought of Cecilia again. “Remember that thing with Chris Farley, where he lived in a van down by the river?”

Steve looked a little puzzled. “Yeah, I guess. That’s what you’re laughing about?”

“No, I met someone who literally lives in a van, down by the river. The Detroit River.” Except now when I said it, it wasn’t so funny. That wasn’t a safe thing to do at all, and despite what she said about her sleeping bag, how warm could it be? She was so small.

But now Steve looked alarmed. “Wait a minute, where did you meet this person? Is this a homeless person?”

I blew out a deep breath. “I’m not having liaisons with strangers. I’m not putting myself into bad situations, ok? Boundaries, remember?”

He nodded slowly. “Boundaries.”

But after Steve left, I kept thinking about her. So instead of leaving at my usual time and heading to the Lodge freeway to go home, I left work early. Cecilia was already gone from the coffee shop, so I drove looking for a van, parked down by the river.

It wasn’t hard to find. A highlighter yellow van with a sunset painted on the side stood out pretty clearly, and she was still parked right where she had mentioned.

I parked too and walked over to her van/house. It was hideously ugly, to the point of hurting my eyes. As I approached, I heard thumping inside, and the side door flew open. Cecilia popped out, and both of us jumped when we saw each other.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “Alex, you startled me!” Then she beamed a bright, sunny smile at me.

I held up my hands. “I’m not stalking you, ok? I don’t want you to freak out.”

She was confused. “Why would I freak out? I’m so glad you decided to come see me! ”

This was not a good situation. Any woman who would be happy to see a guy she just met in a coffee shop appear at her doorstep—well, car door—should not be living alone like this. She clearly had no street smarts.

“So this is Nina?” I asked, gesturing at the decrepit van, and Cecilia patted it lovingly.

“Yep, here she is! We’ve been through a lot together. Once in North Carolina, we were in the outer bands of a hurricane, and her wipers broke. That was an adventure!” She grabbed a sweatshirt off the front seat. “I’m going to go for a walk before I move Nina for the night.” She pulled her curls back into a ponytail with a stretchy thing. “Want to come?”

“Uh, sure.” I waited as she hauled the door shut, and locked it with a big key.

She smiled at me again. “Let’s go!”

We walked in the weak March sunshine, and Cecilia tilted her face up to it. She had a cute little pointy chin. “It’s so nice to be outside, isn’t it?”

“I guess. Better than in my office.” I thought about the darkened room.

“What do you do in there?” she asked. “I bet something creative, right? You’re always drawing at the coffee shop.” She grinned at me. “Now I sound like a stalker!”

“Nothing creative,” I quickly said. She had seen me drawing? “As I said, it’s a real estate development firm. My brother’s company. I do some boring stuff, nothing interesting. What about you?” I asked, turning the spotlight off me. “How did you end up selling coffee? ”

She shrugged. “They had just opened and put out help wanted sign, and I needed a job! I planned to try to live a little farther north, but I like it here too. I’m probably only going to be in Detroit for a little while longer, and then I’m driving to California.”

I glanced back toward the van. “You’re going to drive that all the way to California?”

“Oh, she’ll make it,” she guaranteed. “I worked in a garage in Atlanta for a while that specialized in old cars, and I know how to fix her. But I need to save a little bit more so I can replace the exhaust manifolds.”

“Yourself?” I asked incredulously.

“Old cars are much easier than new cars,” she said, totally unconcerned. “I found a place that has the parts I need and I’ve almost saved enough. For the parts and for the trip.”

I had a terrible thought. “You don’t keep your money in the van, do you?”

Cecilia laughed. “Don’t be silly! It’s right here,” she said, patting her left breast. “I keep it in my bra.”

Jesus Christ. How had she survived so long on the streets? She was going to be mugged and murdered.

“Cecilia, where are your parents? Do you have any family?”

She looked away. “I’m very self-sufficient. I’m good on my own.”

Thinking of her alone in that crappy van made me grind my teeth. So she had no one to help her out at all? I thought of how Steve had come every day while I was in the hospital. How he checked up on me still. It was as annoying as shit, but I knew if I needed someone, he was there. I had Luke too, and my other cousins, especially Annie and Tucker. He was kind of a space cadet, but still. What would I have done with no one in my corner? And then suddenly, I heard myself say, “Cecilia, why don’t you stay with me?”

What the fuck was coming out of my mouth?

“Really? I can park at your house? You wouldn’t mind?” She was looking at me like I had given her a million dollars.

“I—” I groaned inwardly. “Yeah, you can park in my garage.” And now I was, in fact, arranging a liaison with a stranger, just what Steve had been afraid of.

“Oh, wow!” She stopped dead, a giant smile on her face. Then she threw her arms around me, hugging me in the middle of the pathway. Her head came up to my mid-chest. “I knew from the first time I saw you that you were going to be awesome!” she exclaimed. “If my mom’s friend Stella were here, she’d tell me that your aura is totally blue.”

I was standing frozen while she hugged me. She wasn’t letting go either.

Cecilia

I could tell that Alex wasn’t a hugger, but we could work on that. I sighed, and patted his back. With his arms at his sides, I could barely reach around him. “Thank you so much,” I said into his sternum. “It’s really a peaceful feeling to know I have somewhere safe to park tonight.”

He lifted his arms, breaking my hold, and stepped back. “ Sure. You’ve been worried about that?”

I stepped toward him. “Well, of course I’ve been worried about sleeping on the street! I’m not a ninny.”

“A—pardon me, a ninny?”

“I used to read a lot of old British books on the boat when I was a kid,” I explained. “I love to read.”

“The boat.” He shook his head. “Maybe later you can explain your childhood to me. It sounds…unusual.”

“For sure,” I said. “Most people think I’m a liar when I tell them.”

Judging by the look on his face, it seemed like he was getting sorry that he had offered me his garage. I needed to fix this. I held out my hand. “Should we walk back to the cars?”

He didn’t take my hand, but did turn to start walking back to the lot.

“What’s your name? Your full name?” Alex asked me.

“Cecilia Amalie Byrne. What about you?”

“Alexander John Whittaker.”

“Cecilia was my grandmother, and I was born in Charlotte Amalie, in St. Thomas,” I explained. “I guess my mom was inspired. How did you get your name?”

Alex shrugged. “John was my uncle who died pretty young. My brother Stephen is named after our dad. Alexander is probably another guy on my dad’s side, another uncle or cousin or something. ”

I slowed down. “You don’t know everyone in your family?”

“I have a big family, but I’m only know the immediate people, my brother and few of my aunts and uncles and cousins.” We kept walking.

“That’s a shame that you’re not close with more of your relatives,” I told him.

“Why?”

I was startled. “Well, wouldn’t that be so fun? It was always my dream, to have a big family.”

“Families are a blessing and a curse,” he said, like he had some experience with both sides of that.

“I’d still like a big family. Brothers and sisters, relatives everywhere. Like in Eight Cousins .”

“Is that a movie?”

“It’s a book, by Louisa May Alcott. Or like in All-of-a-Kind Family , or Cheaper by the Dozen or Belles on Their Toes ! I loved that one. Caddie Woodlawn . Five Little Peppers and How They Grew. The Saturdays. I could go on!”

“I’m not much of a reader.” His face was very somber.

“But, do you like books? Say if there was someone who enjoyed reading aloud, do you think would you like to listen?”

That made him smile again. “Would that someone be named Cecilia Amalie Byrne?”

We had arrived back at the cars. “She might be!” I told him. I had the urge to hug him again, but remembered to keep my arms to myself.

“Let me give you my address and you can put it in your phone.”

I held up my hands. “No smart phone! Really, I don’t have one,” I assured him, as he looked at me questioningly. I showed him my pre-paid cell. “I only have this one, in case of emergencies.”

“I’m assuming no GPS in that van, either.” Alex frowned, then pulled an old receipt and pen from his pocket. He wrote the address then sketched out the route to his house. “You can follow me, this is just in case you get lost.”

“I’ll stick to you like glue! Like a stamp to a letter. You know that song.”

He was shaking his head and backing away. Well, now I had his address, so he couldn’t really ditch me.

But he didn’t try to ditch me. Instead, he slowed down if a light was turning yellow instead of speeding through, and when we got on and off the freeway, I saw him checking his mirror to make sure that I was behind him. Nina didn’t have much in the way of acceleration, but he didn’t speed off, either. I channeled Mary Wells and sang all the way to his house. Nina didn’t have acceleration, but the acoustics were great!

We turned onto his street, and he opened the garage door from his Jeep and motioned out the window for me to pull in. Wow, this was where he lived? It was so nice!

That was what I told him when he walked up the sidewalk to meet me. “Thanks,” he said briefly.

“Do you have roommates?” I asked. I didn’t want to be kicking anyone out of their space in the garage.

“No, now that I’m almost thirty, I’m all done with roommates, thank god.”

He started to squeeze by Nina to get inside. “Thank you,” I said. “I’ll let myself out in the morning. Can I just leave the door open when I go or will you get robbed? I’ll leave pretty early, it will still be dark. Is that ok?”

Alex stopped. “It’s only five. What are you planning to do for the rest of the night?”

“I’m going to cook a little something, find somewhere to use the head. The, um, facilities. Read.”

“You cook in the van?”

“Yes, but it’s not an open flame, not really. Not too big, just a little camp stove. But I won’t if you’re afraid I’ll set your house on fire.”

Alex visibly jolted. “Look, why don’t you just come and eat inside? I also have ‘facilities,’ if you’re interested.”

At the moment, I was very interested. The problem with working in a coffee shop was all the beverages.

“Thank you!” I said again, and followed him squeezing past the van. I fit a lot better.

His house was very nice inside too. A lot more spacious than my house! “Um, where is the…?” I was bouncing a little bit, and he pointed me the way to the bathroom. What a relief.

When I came back out, he was sitting on the couch. I looked around again. There was really nothing much in there. No art, no books, not even a TV. “So, what do you do in here?”

Alex glanced around also. “Eat, sleep.”

“Are you hungry?” At his shrug, I went into the small kitchen and opened some cupboards. He had a set of dishes and glasses, mugs, a collection of pots and pans. It all looked brand new. “How long have you lived here?” I called.

“About seven years.”

Hmmm. I opened the refrigerator, and besides some orange juice and a box of baking soda, it was empty. The tall pantry cupboard had a bag of coffee and a box of crackers. That was it.

I walked back into the living room, where he still sat on the couch. “What were you planning on making for dinner?”

“Usually I eat out.”

“Is there a grocery store nearby?”

His brow furrowed. “Yeah, I guess. Don’t I have anything to eat?”

“Not really! I kind of feel like you might have starved here alone. Good thing you asked me in!”

“I can—we can go to the store, pick up some food.”

So he drove, and we went. He just picked up anything and put it in the cart when I told him what I needed. No coupons, and I could tell this was a really expensive grocery store. He didn’t even compare brands or look for sale stuff. It was a new experience, shopping with Alex! And he didn’t blink at the total at the register, which nearly gave me palpitations. We just picked up the bags and left .

I shooed him out of the kitchen after we put away the food, and I quickly got biscuits mixed up and into the oven. “It’s great to cook in here, you have everything!” I kind of yelled, then jumped when I saw him standing at the pass-through window to the living and dining room.

“What are you making?”

“I’m making a quick corn chowder, and biscuits are baking. Mmmmm, don’t they already smell good! I haven’t been able to bake in forever. What do you like to eat?”

“I’m not…I like fish a lot, I guess. Greek, Lebanese food.”

“I like fish too. I’m pretty good with it. Next time—” I stopped myself. I didn’t want to scare him by saying that next time I would cook him some fish. Maybe he wasn’t thinking quite as far ahead as I was! “I’ve never had Lebanese food. But I’ve had gyros, and that’s Greek, right? I had a Coney Island for the first time when I came to Detroit. I could eat one every day!”

“You and my brother,” he said, and smiled. “He loves them.”

“Does your brother look like you?”

He settled on a barstool. “Kind of, but a lot bigger.”

“He’s bigger than you? You’re huge!”

He laughed. “Anyone is huge, compared to you. I’m more than a foot taller.”

I huffed as if I was angry, but really it was so nice to hear him laugh, I couldn’t be mad about a short joke. “Did you two grow up here?”

His smile erased. “North of here. Another suburb. ”

“Didn’t you like it? You look so…sad, I guess.”

“I liked it fine. Can you cook and talk? Tell me about how you grew up. It sounds a lot more interesting.”

So I told him some of my story. Really, if I had gotten into the details, we would have been there all night! I started with my mom, how she had grown up sailing, and ended up buying a boat and deciding to live on the ocean when her parents died. Then I had come along, so then it was just the two of us on the Essex . We had sailed all over the Caribbean, the eastern coast of Mexico and Central America, stopping anywhere we wanted, visiting her friends and making new ones, without much of a direction or a care in the world. Except, you know, buying provisions, maintaining the boat, charting our course, finding ports and anchorages, stuff like that. It was better when I was old enough to handle that kind of mundane stuff because my mom’s mind totally didn’t run that way.

“Did you enjoy growing up like that?” Alex asked.

“I mean, what kid wouldn’t? I was like a pirate. Or like Swallows and Amazons . Do you know that book?” He shook his head. “But then, when I was fifteen, I thought I should really get a high school diploma. So my mom dropped me off in Miami, and I lived with her friend, Flavia.”

“You’ve been on your own since you were fifteen?”

“No, I lived with Flavia, except when she was touring with her drum circle, then I was on my own. Then when I graduated, I stayed in Florida for a while, working on boats, because that’s really what I knew. And I needed the money! I taught sailing in Ft. Lauderdale, and I was a deckhand on a catamaran tour boat in the Keys for a while. Then I thought I would come north, and I bought Nina in Jacksonville. She started breaking down so fast, I knew I had to figure out how to fix her myself or I’d be broke, so I went to a repair shop in Atlanta and told them I wanted to be an intern, just to learn. They let me hang around during the day and watch and help out, and I waitressed at night at a chain restaurant place, which was fun because I got to sing a lot. It was one of their hooks, like what they’re known for. Singing waiters. Anyway, I got hired at the garage eventually, then I wanted to keep going north, so I did,” I ended vaguely. I stirred the chowder and pulled out the biscuits. Perfect! “Maybe someday I’ll go back to college. I’d really like to. High school was really hard for me, because I had a lot to catch up on, so I didn’t do very well, except for in English I did ok. Once I figured out about how they wanted me to write stuff. But maybe I could go to college. Did you?”

Alex got off the barstool. “I went but I didn’t graduate.” He walked back into the living room, and I finished cooking the dinner in silence.

∞

I felt like I must have talked his ear off, so I tried to curb myself during dinner. He definitely wasn’t into small talk, or large or medium talk either, so we were a pretty quiet pair. But I was enjoying eating at a table, knowing that I was going to be locked up tight in his garage for the night. So I was content, to say the least!

“Thank you for dinner,” he said, as we were finishing.

“You’re welcome,” I answered, and almost hugged him again.

I went to the kitchen to start on the dishes, but Alex took the sponge out of my hand and loaded up the dishwasher. “Ok, then,” I told him. “Like I said, I’ll leave early, so can I leave the garage door open? ”

He picked up a dishtowel from the floor and stood up fast, then leaned on the counter, his hand over his eyes.

“You ok?” I asked quickly, putting my hand on his arm.

“Head rush,” he explained. “Where do you have to go so early?”

“I go swim at the Y downtown. That way I can get dressed and take a shower.”

“You can do that here,” Alex said.

“Really? Oh wow, thanks! Oh, I would really appreciate that! Ok, I’ll just stay out of your way in the morning so you can get dressed because I think we go in to work at the same time.”

“How do you know?”

Uh oh. I didn’t want him to think I had been spying. I felt my face get hot. “I think I saw you driving in one day.”

“I have two bathrooms. You can stay in the guest bedroom tonight, get ready whenever you want.”

I didn’t even know what to say. “Sleep inside here? Really?” I was hopping a little in happiness. A real bed! “Ok, I’ll go grab my stuff! Yay!”

When I got back upstairs, he was sitting on the couch, in the darkening room. The dishwasher was so quiet, you couldn’t even tell it was on. I felt like I should tiptoe!

“Alex?”

He opened his eyes, and I saw that he was holding his left hand in a grip with his right. “Yes? ”

“Um, I brought a book up. Do you want me to read a little?”

He looked at me for a moment, then nodded. So I started to read The Westing Game , hoping he would like it. It had always been one of my favorites, starting when I was just a kid.

He listened for a while, then closed his eyes, so I stopped, and started to get up.

“No,” he said, opening his eyes. “I mean, do you mind continuing?”

“I need a little more light,” I told him, and he reached around me and flipped on the table lamp. His arm brushed across me. Then he sat back, and I kept reading, until his steady breathing told me that he was asleep.

∞

Alex

I woke up to singing.

It was faint, but it sounded like Fontella Bass. I was totally confused for a moment, but then I remembered Cecilia.

And I was on the couch. Why was I on the couch?

I remembered her reading. Her voice sounded like her singing, like water running quietly in a river, sweet and gentle. I had listened as long as I could, and then given in to sleep, and apparently slept like a ton of bricks. And now I was covered with a blanket, and had my head on my pillow from my bedroom, which must have been Cecilia .

I sat up and listened for a moment, then went to my room. While I was getting dressed I heard the door to the garage stairs creek open and I quickly pulled on my t-shirt and went back out.

“Cecilia?”

She jumped a little and the door slammed shut. “Jeez, you’re quiet! Good morning, Alex. I started coffee for you in the kitchen. Thanks again for letting me sleep here.”

“Where are you planning on going tonight?”

She considered. “Well, sometimes I park at my friend Jason’s family’s house, but I hate to inconvenience them. I haven’t decided yet.” She opened the door again. “I’ll see you at the coffee shop later, maybe!”

“Why don’t you sleep here again?”

Her eyes got big. “Are you sure? You don’t mind? I’ll stay in the van so you can have your privacy.”

At that moment, I felt like I’d had enough of privacy. “No, you can stay here in the guest room. I’ll be home around six.”

All at once she ran across the room and threw her arms around me. “Thank you!” She let go before I could do anything but freeze again, and then she flew out the door and I heard her van rumble to life in my garage.

Again, what in the fuck was I doing?