“No. I mean, why are you trying to keep Chase around? It’s weird.”
T.J. sets down the clothes basket and walks over to me. “Hope, he can help us.”
“Help us what?”
“Look,” he says, like he’s explaining a tough algebra problem to me. “Chase is an insider. He’s going to know more than we do about your brother’s trial.”
“So?”
“So we can use him.” T.J. grins and touches his glasses. “Why else would I want to hang out with Chase Wells?”
I can think of a couple of reasons, like becoming popular by association, like being part of Chase’s crowd. But I keep my thoughts to myself.
T.J. puts his hands on my shoulders. “Hope, trust me. Okay?”
I take a breath of basement air filled with mildew and dust. If I can’t trust T.J., who can I trust? “Okay.”
He nods toward the stairs. “Go back up. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Chase is sitting exactly where I left him. I scoot into the booth. “T.J. will be right up.”
Neither of us says anything else until T.J. gets back. “You guys sure you’re not hungry?” He opens the fridge and takes out bologna, cheese, mustard, and bread. Who keeps bread in the fridge? “Bologna sandwich? I’m having one. Well, actually two.”
“No thanks.” Chase and I say this at the same time, exchange glances, then stare at the flowered tablecloth.
A sandwich in each hand, T.J. scoots in on my side, forcing me closer to Chase. The smell of bologna and mustard makes me think of Jeremy. “Jer likes bologna sandwiches,” I say, more to myself than to them. “Not as much as peanut butter.” I turn to Chase. “What do you think they’re feeding him in jail?”
“I don’t really know,” Chase says. “I can find out… if you want.”
Do I? Do I want to know? Chase could find out. Maybe this is what T.J. meant about Chase being able to help us. “All I know is that Jeremy has got to be going crazy locked up in a cell.” I glance up because I didn’t mean to say “crazy.”
“They have to take good care of him, Hope,” T.J. says. But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know Jeremy either, not really. He’s nice to Jer, but he never seems at ease around him. Most people are like that.
“Was Jeremy always like… like he is now?” Chase asks.
I frown at him and wonder if he really wants to know or if he’s trying to change the subject. Or if he’s working for his dad, the sheriff.
“Never mind,” he says quickly. “None of my business. I just… I don’t know. Seeing him in court every day, I wondered.”
“So why are you in court every day?” The question’s out before I can stop myself.
“You sound like my dad,” Chase says. “He’d just as soon I never set foot in the courthouse.”
“Yeah?” T.J. sounds surprised. “I thought he’d want you to be there. You know? So you two could talk over the case and how the trial’s going and everything?”
“Yeah, right,” Chase mutters. “I don’t know. I’ve never been to a trial before. There wasn’t anything else to do, so I went. I guess once I started going, I got hooked.” The whole time, he’s been staring at his fingernails. Now he looks up at me. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get personal, about Jeremy. You don’t have to talk about him if you don’t want to.”
But the thing is, I do want to talk about Jer. Pretty much every thought I have goes back to my brother, so talking about anything else feels like a lie. “Jeremy has always been special. I know people say special so they don’t have to say different. But for me, it means something wonderful, like full of wonder. That’s what Jer’s always been. My brother could sit for hours and listen to birds sing, but he couldn’t sit for two minutes in most of his classes.”
Chase smiles. “He likes birds?”
“He loves their songs. But I think what Jeremy loves most is when birds and man-made things get along.”
Chase narrows his eyes. “You lost me.”
“Like birds on telephone wires, the way crows and jays seem so comfortable on wire made by people. Or gulls hanging out at shopping malls in Cleveland because of those white stone roofs that look like a beach, but that it works out because people leave food for the birds.”
“Only birds?” Chase asks.
“He loves our cat,” T.J. says. Then, as if he’s just realized his cat’s not around, he says, “Speaking of which, I better see where Whiskers got off to.” He slides out of the booth and heads for the door. “Be right back.”
There’s a minute of awkward silence with T.J. gone. I hear him in the backyard calling his cat. Finally, Chase breaks the silence. “I like dogs. Mom’s husband number two had a cat when he moved in, and he got a dog for Trey and me the only Christmas we had with them. Trey was my stepbrother… for maybe a year. How about you? Any pets?”
I shake my head. “Jeremy and I begged Rita for a pet, but we’ve never had one, except a puppy I can barely remember. Rita said we called it Puppy. Apparently, we were exceptionally original and bright toddlers.” He makes a low laughing sound that helps me breathe easier. “Puppy ran away, or got run over, or maybe found a family who’d give him a better name. When we moved here, there was a cat in the house we’re renting, but Rita called animal control on it.”
T.J. stumbles into the kitchen with his cat draped across both arms. Whiskers weighs more than a poodle. “She was eating the neighbor’s dog food again.” He sets the cat down and slides back into the booth.
Chase’s cell rings. He checks the number. “It’s my dad.” He glances at T.J. and me. “Do you guys mind not talking for a minute?” He puts the phone to his ear. “Hey, Dad. What’s up?”
It’s impossible not to eavesdrop, although we can only hear Chase’s end of the conversation:
“Just hanging out with friends.”
…
“Yeah, I did.” He rolls his eyes. “Easy, Dad. Dial it down, okay? The way those reporters went after her, you should have given her a bodyguard. Somebody had to do something. I just-”
…
“Will you listen?” Chase’s eyes are dark slits. “I said I-”
…
“I can’t come home now.”
…
“Because I’m in the middle of something.” He holds the phone away from his ear.
I can hear his dad yelling, but I can’t make out the words. I don’t think I want to.
Chase puts the phone back to his ear. When he gets a word in, he doesn’t raise his voice, but I get the feeling it’s taking everything he has not to. “Sorry. You’re right, Dad. I should have told you.” He listens for half a minute, the only sound his heavy breathing as his chest rises and falls. “All right,” he says. He flips his cell shut and squeezes it so hard his knuckles turn white. Then, without taking his eyes off the phone, he whips it across the kitchen floor.
11
Whiskers darts out of the kitchen. I can’t blame her. T.J. and I exchange wide-eyed gazes. Neither of us says a word. Then T.J. gets up and retrieves the phone from across the room. “Still in one piece,” he offers.
Chase rubs the back of his neck and looks kind of sheepish. “Guess that’s one good thing, huh? Sorry about that. So now you’ve seen the famous Wells temper for yourselves. I’m really sorry… and embarrassed. It’s just… Sheriff Matthew Wells isn’t the easiest person in the world to live with, even for the summer.”
“Wish you’d stayed in Boston?” T.J. asks, sitting down again.
“Not really. There are a lot of things I like about Grain.”
“For instance?” I ask, glad the anger has gone back inside, where we can’t see it.
“I love hitching posts, for one thing. And the Amish buggies. Nobody back at Andover believed me when I told them about the hitching posts everywhere-at the post office, the dollar store, even the car wash.”
“Jeremy rolls down the car window whenever we pass a buggy, just so he can hear the clip-clop. I love it too. I really didn’t want to move to Ohio. But when I saw those buggies tied out behind the thrift store the first day we got here, I changed my mind.”
“Let’s see. What else? I like that Dalmatian statue in front of the firehouse,” Chase says. “No idea why.”