Most Likely to Succeed

I stopped as Sawyer himself appeared between my parents. He took my mother’s plate, then Dad’s. “How was everything?” he asked in his personable waiter voice.

“Delicious,” Dad said. He ordered dessert.

My mother glared. Sawyer noticed and smiled at her. Oh, Sawyer.

As soon as he’d disappeared into the kitchen again, she told me, “I meant to scare the life out of him. I don’t want that boy anywhere around you, after what I just found out about his father. Did you know—”

“Sylvia, don’t,” Dad said.

My mother spoke over him. “—his father grew up here in town and actually robbed a bank branch right down the road in Clearwater? That hits a little too close to home. Seth said it wasn’t one of my branches, but—”

“Seth,” I repeated. The only Seth I knew was Aidan’s dad, who worked as an assistant district attorney for the county. “Did you call Aidan’s dad right here from the restaurant so you could convince me how terrible Sawyer is? You made him look up that case on a Saturday night?”

“He didn’t have to look it up,” my mother said ominously. “He’s the one who put that man in jail.”

I could not believe this. Granted, Mr. De Luca sounded like a shadier and shadier character as my mother transformed his crimes from vague rumors into stark, brutal reality. But that only increased my growing respect for Sawyer.

I looked to Dad for help. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose like he was counting to ten. Barrett reached over to my plate and stole another of my shrimp. I was on my own.

I told my mother, “This is a logical fallacy, guilt by association. You damning Sawyer for what his dad did is like me damning you for what your—”

“Kaye,” Dad said sternly.

My mother always sounded stern. Dad never did. His use of that tone was so surprising that I was shocked out of what I was going to say.

Which was exactly what he’d intended. And it was probably for the best. Because I’d been about to point out that my mother’s brother had been murdered while selling heroin in the neighborhood where they grew up. She’d been sixteen years old.

As Sawyer set a slice of chocolate cake down in front of Dad, he looked cautiously around the table at our angry faces.

“I’m sure it’s delicious,” Dad told Sawyer, “but I’ve changed my mind. Could I get this boxed up to go?”

8

THE NEXT MORNING MY MOTHER cooked a big breakfast, and Dad congratulated me on making it all the way through the meal without flouncing away. He must have talked my mother down. She didn’t say another word about Sawyer or his jailbird father. And I was in a better mood because I had something to look forward to: seeing Sawyer again.

Right after my parents left to take Barrett to the airport, I drove downtown. The Crab Lab was my first stop. I hadn’t counted on running straight into their two-for-one brunch special. Sawyer grinned brilliantly at me when I came in, but so many customers flagged him down that I stood by the door for five minutes before he even made it over to me. He said he couldn’t talk just then, and I understood why. I would embark on my mission by myself.

I’d strolled the brick sidewalks of our historic downtown countless times, but I saw the buildings with new eyes now that I was looking for something specific. The Crab Lab owned a restored warehouse for events. It stood to reason that, somewhere among these buildings, there was another space large enough to throw a homecoming dance. I just had to find it.

I spent hours walking into every storefront and asking the people behind the counter whether they owned such a space or knew of one. Most of them said no. Tia’s sister Violet, who worked in an antiques shop, said she did have a space like that on the second floor, but we couldn’t hold our dance there because it was full of dead bodies. Skeptical, I walked up the rickety stairs myself, straight into the store’s antique taxidermy collection.

But Violet said the gay burlesque club might be an option. Their second story was an open dance floor practically made for homecoming. Dubious about my chances of convincing the owner to say yes, I walked in anyway—drawing arch looks from the men bellied up to the bar—and quickly told the bartender what I wanted.

“Well, I’m the owner,” he said, “and of course you can use the second floor. In fact, I’ll close down the whole place for the night so we don’t have the barflies drinking among you tender innocents.”

“You would do that for us?” It didn’t seem real.

“I’m a graduate of your fine institution,” he explained. “It’s the least I can do for homecoming. Fight, Pelicans, fight!”

I drove home feeling lighter than I had since Friday. I rolled down the windows and enjoyed the hot wind scented with flowers. When I stopped at the intersection next to Aidan’s house, I didn’t even look to see whether he was home.

I should have stayed away from my own house a few more hours.

My parents had returned. My dad was probably upstairs on his porch, but my mother actually came out of her office to confront me.

I braced myself for another fight, but I was so, so weary.

She opened her arms.

I stiffened, resistant. Then, partly to prevent myself from crying in front of her, I walked into her embrace.

She hugged me tightly for a moment. Loosening her hold, she rubbed my back. She told me to sit down at the kitchen bar and served me two of Barrett’s leftover cookies, even though they would probably spoil my dinner.