Page 79 of Second Alarm
I do it for two seconds too long. Three, maybe.
I don't kiss her wrist. I don't hold it. I wipe barbecue sauce off the pulse point on the inside of her wrist with a paper napkin for two or three seconds too long, with my face composed and my other hand flat on the table.
I let go.
I look up.
Rodriguez, across the lot, turns to look at Big Jim's grill. Big Jim, at his grill, is looking at the coals. Riley, to my left, has turned completely around.
And in the line of three adults chewing hot dogs between me and the volleyball net, I catch the eye of the one person who saw and isn't either pretending or politely not looking. He's staring straight at me.
It's Mateo — Chief Rodriguez's oldest son, twenty-two, home from college, helping with the dunk tank. He has neither the tact nor the community standing to let it go. I watch him look at Hanna, then at me, then at Cal across the lot laughing with Aiden. I watch a decision settle onto his face.
He turns. Starts toward Cal.
Riley, without hesitation, sets her plate down and intercepts.
I don't know what Riley says. She says it in about five seconds. Mateo blinks, nods, walks back to the dunk tank. Riley returns to her spot at the table.
"What did you say to him?"
"Tell you later."
"Riley — "
"Later, Ty."
Hanna, who's watched all of it, sits very still beside me. Her coffee is empty, turtleneck intact, sunglasses on. Her right wrist, the inside, has a faint smudge of barbecue sauce I didn't quite reach in those two or three seconds.
"Ty?"
"Yeah?"
"We're telling him tomorrow."
I don'tOkayher. I don't ask for details. I look at the grill, where Derek is flipping a burger with Roger the beanie chicken presiding from the side table, and I pick up my iced tea.
"Okay."
"Tomorrow."
"Okay."
"I don't know how."
"I know."
"I need your help."
"Yeah."
She reaches under the lip of the picnic table and takes my hand for one second. Then she lets it go.
In the parking lot, on a warm afternoon, a Station 7 community barbecue unfolds: children in the bounce house, Derek's whiteboard disappearing into the equipment bay, Big Jim in his apron, Chief Rodriguez eating her hot dog, Cal Larsen — my best friend, my brother, the last loud person in Copper Ridge who hasn't been read in — telling the Academy Story to a new audience by the grill.
I watch Cal laugh. I watch him wipe his eyes. I watch him clap the new probie on the back.
Tomorrow.
