Chapter 29

CHAPTER 29

A fter school I went back to work in the shop, and just as I was opening the first box of junk, Mei came in.

"Can we talk?" Mei said, which was ridiculous, all we do is talk, but I nodded and took her to the other side of the shop so we could sit on the stairs up to Oz's apartment.

She sat down, looking miserable, and I sat down, too, not sure if this was going to be another conversation about my gap year because if so, I was going to lose a friend.

"Marley broke up with me," she said . "I feel horrible; I know it had to be done, but I didn't think he'd dump me ."

Oh.

I nodded, not sure what to say.

"He wants to be a mechanic, " she said, outrage in her voice. "I tried to be understanding, but I just don't get it."

Actually, a mechanic is a damn good thing to be, and I was pretty sure Marley was going to be the smartest and most interesting mechanic ever, but I just nodded.

"Tell me what a bitch I am," she said, her voice wavering.

"Wait." I frowned at her. "How did we get to you being a bitch?"

"Because it shouldn't matter that he's going to be a mechanic, he's a wonderful guy, but . . ." She bit her lip, almost crying now, so I just waited. "It would never work. I'm getting out of this town and never coming back. I don't know why my mother has never left, she hates it here, and I'm kind of glad she didn't because of you and the others, but now I'm ready to fly. I need to go, you know? And he's always going to be here, working on cars and smoking dope with his brother. I had decided to wait until after prom to tell him, but we were talking, and I told him what I thought, and he said we should end it now." She looked at me, heartbroken and enraged. "He dumped me. "

I nodded, trying to think of the right thing to say. "Actually, you dumped him when you told him it was not going to work. He just established the time and place. So you were still in control."

"Did I do the right thing?" she said, tears in her eyes.

I took a deep breath. "How would I know? I just ended it with Darius, and it's like you said, it was the right thing to do, but it's still hard. Really hard."

"You really did dump Darius?" Mei said.

"I'm staying in Rocky Start," I told her. "No more AP classes, no more college crap. He couldn't handle that."

Mei nodded, still thoughtful, Mei back to being Mei. "Actually, that could be good. I'd like to have been the one who called it quits after prom, but . . ." She looked me in the eye. "So Darius doesn't have a date for prom now?"

I laughed, suddenly relieved. Why, I wasn't sure, but that was so Mei. Always playing the angles and planning ahead. "Nope, he's dateless last I heard. Go for it."

She was still serious. "Only if you promise to ask Marley. I don't want some horrible girl messing with him on the rebound. You'll take care of him."

See, that's the difference between me and Mei, well, one of many. I'd be fine if Darius ended up with some girl who didn't listen to him so he'd know what it was like. There was about zero chance of that, girls hung on his every word.

"Let's see what Marley wants."

"No, you have to tell him," Mei said.

"No, he has to decide himself," I said, "but if he asks, I'll say yes."

"Thank you," she said, and it was heartfelt.

"Mei, I'm not doing you a favor. I like Marley." Then I saw her blink back tears. "Forget it, you're not okay with that, I'm not going anywhere with him."

"No, no, it's good." She sniffed. "He's just really a nice guy."

My sympathy turned into exasperation. "Well, then why?—"

"He's a mechanic, " she said. "And I'm going to be the next Ruth Bader Ginsberg."

"Ruth wouldn't have cared that he was a mechanic."

"Ruth was married to a tax attorney," Mei said. "I know what will work in my life."

"Yes, you do," I said. "I apologize. You can have Darius; he's going to be on the Supreme Court with you."

"That is better," Mei said, thoughtful now, tears gone. "You really don't care?"

"I care a lot." I swallowed. "But it's like you said. It's never going to work out. He can't compromise and neither can I. So what am I going to do, tell him he can never see other girls and he can't have me? We're done and he's free."

"So," Mei said, and we just looked at each other. "Is this going to mess with our friendship?" she said finally.

"No." Then I took a deep breath. "But you're going away and I'm staying here, and that will probably mess with it."

"Yeah," Mei said.

And we both just sat there thinking that change sucked.

"It will be interesting," Mei said finally, "to see what you become. I mean, I know where I'm going, but you could be anything, anywhere. Your possibilities are endless."

"I'm pretty sure I'm staying here," I told her.

"Even if you stay here, you're going to be something amazing." There were tears in her eyes again. "I can't wait to see who you're going to be."

I hugged her then. That kind of friendship, you gotta hug.

"We're both going to be amazing," I told her.

"Yes, we are," she said firmly. "And nothing is going to happen to this friendship, either. Just promise me you'll take care of Marley."

"I promise," I said.

And tried not to care that she'd probably be going to prom with Darius.

* * *

Half an hour later, Marley came in to move books, and I didn't say anything about Mei and neither did he, although he didn't look happy. An hour after that, we had all the book boxes into the upstairs living room where Mom wanted to go through all of them, and I had that back room of the shop—the library—empty of everything I couldn't sell there so I could fix it up. I was happy.

So we were standing in the archway leading to the library, sweaty but feeling virtuous because of all the hard work, surveying the situation.

"I want at least two armchairs and a table there so people can look through the books," I said, mostly to myself.

He heard me and nodded. "Sounds good," he said politely.

I frowned at him. "Don't do that. What do you really think?"

He raised an eyebrow, pretty much laughing at me. "How much foot traffic do you think you're going to get?"

"Doesn't matter," I said shortly. "I want it to look this way." I was ready to snarl if I had to. I did not need another person telling me I was wrong.

"Okay," Marley said.

" Damn it ?—"

" I said okay, " he said, just as sharply as me. "This is your place; you get to do whatever you want with it."

"But you think it's stupid ."

"I did not say that." He was glaring at me now. "Do not put words in my mouth."

"You looked like you thought it was stupid." I was trying not to sulk because I was well aware I was being stupid.

"You want me to apologize for my looks?" he said, and Max came to the archway, looking awful, like he should be in bed.

"Problem here?" he said.

"Nope," Marley said, not taking his eyes off me. "We're just having a fight. That's new for us, so when we're done, we'll go to Coral's and get something to eat."

"The hell we will." The last thing I needed was another guy thinking he knew what was best for me.

"Okay, no food," Marley said.

"Whatever you do," Max said, "don't tell her to relax."

Marley snorted. "I'm not that dumb."

Max looked uncertain, then nodded and left.

When Max was gone, Marley said, "I'm just trying to figure out what you're doing here. You're not going to get any foot traffic besides the locals, so if you're hoping people will start stopping by, you're not thinking this through. But if this is just what you want, for you, then knock yourself out." I opened my mouth and he added, "You can knock me out, too. I'll help. You do interesting things." He looked around as if seeing the place for the first time. "So what do you want this to be?"

"I don't know," I said, taken aback. "I . . . just . . ."

He waited, but I couldn't finish. So eventually he said, "There are secondhand furniture places all around here. They call them antique stores, but they're not. We can go look at some of them. I've got my truck, so if we find chairs you like, we can load them up and have that part of this done."

That was going to take some time. "Don't you have someplace to be?"

He grinned at me, that lazy Marley grin that said Don't worry, be happy, even if it was a little strained right now. "Yeah. But Mei just dumped me, so now I'm trying to figure out what I want for my future, just like you, and I think better when I'm driving. So, I'll drive you around to junk stores and think about what just happened to my life, and you can look at chairs and think, and maybe we can figure out what we want. Because standing here sniping at each other is not getting us anywhere."

"I apologize for sniping," I said. I didn't think I'd sniped, but I'd definitely snapped.

"I apologize for sniping," he said, and I almost said "You didn't," but he'd snapped, too.

"So let's go get some chairs," he said, and I exhaled.

I hadn't even realized I was holding my breath.

"Breathing is good," he said, and I followed him out to his truck.

* * *

We were back in time for dinner, still hot and now sweatier with an octagon table with shelves underneath (expensive for used stuff but practical; it'll hold a lot of books, maybe some tea things for Mom), three chairs, and bags of weird books with great covers for Mom's art stuff. We'd found two big armchairs that were a little beat-up but still comfortable, so they were a great deal that Mom would know how to re-cover—my mother knows everything—and one beat-up Gothic armchair that looked like something Dracula would plot in.

"I love it, but it's not going to be comfortable, so no," I'd told Marley when he pointed to the chair in the used furniture barn. " Look at that," he'd said. "It's not going to be in the shop long enough for anybody to sit in it. You'll do your magic and the first person through the door after you put it out will buy it."

The woman running the place heard him laughing and came over to ask if she could help us. I said, "Yes, we want that chair," and Marley laughed again.

When we got everything unloaded into Oddities, I said, "You know, I never thought I'd like doing what Ozzie did, driving around looking for stuff, but today was great. If you ever want to do this again, I'm in."

"Yeah, me, too," he said, but he wasn't laughing anymore.

"We don't have to," I said, not wanting to take any more of his time. "I know you have other stuff . . ."

"It's not that," he said, and suddenly I knew what he meant.

"We're not cheating ," I said. "This is friend stuff." Because we weren't cheating.

Marley shook his head . "I don't know how I feel about this. It's confusing. I mean, I know I love Mei, but she's right, as always, we'll never work in the long term. I don't want what she wants. It didn't matter before, but she's planning ahead and . . ." He shook his head. "We have nothing in common anymore. She's all about her college plans now and I just want to work with motors. She dumped me, by the way."

I didn't know what to say. "Her loss. You're wonderful."

"Yes, I am." He grinned at me, but it was weak, which was just not Marley. "Just not wonderful for her."

"And I just dragged you through a dusty barn when I should have been?—"

"I liked the dusty barn." He tried again. "It's just confusing. Being happy and miserable at the same time."

"Oh," I said. "Yeah, I'll be having a good time and then remember Darius and I are done, and it hurts all over again.."

"Then why did you do it?" Marley said, sounding actually curious.

"Because he tried to make me fit his life instead of letting me live my own." It really was that simple.

"See, and Mei didn't do that," Marley said. "She just said, ‘We're not long-term,' and I said, ‘You're right. Let's be done now.' And she said I was right and kissed me goodbye and went off to AP Bio. And I went back down to the shop. It was pretty logical." He took a breath. "And painful."

"Oh. Darius kept trying to tell me I was wrong."

"You weren't."

"I know." I took a deep breath. "So you want to work with motors. That's a good profession. Motors aren't going anywhere." I stopped. "You know what I mean, people will always need people to work on motors."

"Well, they're changing pretty fast, too, but yeah, I want to work with mechanical stuff." He paused. "And here. I like what you're doing here."

I blinked.

He tried again. "I want to help with this. Look, you still love Darius, broken up or not, which I get. Because I'm not over Mei. We're friends, like always. But today, I just wanted to be here. It's quiet here, and you have ideas." He frowned at me. "Pike's upset and Reggie's going full bore 24/7 with the art stuff, and . . . I'm really confused right now."

"Right there with you," I said. "Max is leaving, and Mom's trying to pretend she doesn't care, and somebody killed Melissa and Sid, and Darius and I are done, and I can't sleep at night because of the nightmares. I don't know what the hell is happening."

"Yeah, but it's quiet here," Marley said, looking around the shop. "No pressure. It'll get done when it gets done. It's a good place to be right now." He looked at me. "Unless that's putting more pressure on you, along with everything else. You're going through a lot. I can stay away if that's better."

I shook my head. "No, don't stay away. It's good. Having you here." I nodded again, feeling like an idiot, anxious to change the subject. "You know, I'd like it to be just a cool place to come. For anyone, not just us. Fun. The same junk for sale, but kind of an experience."

"Experience." He looked puzzled.

"Like Mom arranged the teacups in order of color, so now when people come into the shop, the first thing they see is a rainbow. It's happy-making. And she's going to fix the Maltese Falcon with kintsugi, so that'll be fun, especially if I put some damaged mystery books with it. There's this really cool old paperback series called Mapbacks , and I thought about framing some of those back covers and . . ."

"I have no clue what kintsugi is, but I get the idea." He thought for a minute. "You should build the experience. Like you start out with the rainbow and everything light in the front of the shop and then you end in the library with the Falcon and the mysteries. So maybe it grows darker and deeper as they walk through the rooms."

I nodded. "I like that. What about the front room on the other side, the middle room? I'll move all the china in there to the first room with the teacups—that's mostly what people buy anyway—and all the books to the back, but the middle room . . ." I shook my head. "I know I want everything to be fun. I think I can do a kintsugi teapot for the china room—we have three broken pots so that's not a problem—and hang it so it looks like it's pouring out something, probably a tea-colored ribbon. That could go at the back of the first room, the china room; it would be the second thing they see after they come in and see the rainbow, but?—"

"There was that big ugly teapot back at the barn. We could rig that to pour." He was staring into space now, thinking. "It would just have to tip, right? Rig a pulley so that it tips forward every hour, keeping the time, and then it straightens and . . . how do we get the ribbon to go back inside each time?" He shook his head. "Never mind, I'll figure it out."

And I knew he would.

"You know, we should put a dragon in the middle room," he said .

"A dragon would be excellent," I said. "I would love a dragon."

Marley looked at me. "We don't have to. I was just thinking out loud."

"Keep doing that," I said. "We need to make a plan."

I went to get my notebook. My life might have gone to hell, but I could plan a shop.

And a dragon.