The Truth About Fragile Things Read online

  But she didn’t struggle. She pulled me in with equal force, taking small hops that threw us off balance into Phillip who caught us both.

  “You were brilliant,” I shouted.

  “I thought you lost your voice.” Taylor’s skeptical glare didn’t faze me.

  “I feel so much better,” I announced triumphantly. I released Charlotte at last and pushed her toward Phillip. “Take her to collect all the glory. Don’t let her miss any,” I commanded.

  Phillip kissed the top of my head and ushered her through the crowd to the hallway. I fingered the spot where his kiss landed, wondering why it was so easy for him. I sat down on a black, wooden box, warmly accepting the hands on my shoulders of actors and crew who said they had missed me and wished me well. As backstage started to empty and the noise outside grew, I retreated into the deep folds of the curtain, feeling the velvet against my face when Schatz found me.

  “Well?” Her mouth was crooked, her eyebrows twisted, her expression as wonderful and complex as she.

  “Thank you.” I stood up and embraced her. Not in excitement. Not fast and hard and funny the way she hugged me after a performance. This one was real.

  It wiped her face clean, softened her hard lines and large hands. She looked around us, and assured that there were no ears near enough to hear she put a hand on my shoulder, her blue eyes glistening. “You are one of my favorite people on this rolling blue ball. Okay?”

  The warmth of her words expanded in my chest, like a spotlight on my heart. “Okay.” I watched her walk away, briskly wiping her eye before she emerged into the busy multitude of parents and students.

  I imagined Doctor Dave handing Charlotte a bouquet of daisies and Lauren throwing her arms around her. I imagined Melissa shaking my mother’s hand, her touch tentative and gentle. And in the quiet clatter of the last few footsteps of people organizing props I imagined Braden in the sound room, slowly turning off the lights until all was black and still.

  CHAPTER 35

  It was only when Phillip came to collect me, his makeup rubbed off and his street clothes back on, that I wandered into the nearly empty foyer. “It snowed?” I asked, looking to the white dust scattered on the ground on the other side of the glass doors.

  “It still is,” Charlotte corrected. “Where exactly are we going?”

  “It’s a surprise,” Phillip insisted and held the door open, the cold air swirling in and tumbling white snow into the entryway. He took us to his car and held open the front door for Charlotte while I settled myself into the back. He told us to relax because it would be more than thirty minutes before we got where we were going. We slipped through the quiet night, down I-435, all the way to the point that interstate 70 bisects the city and onto a highway I didn’t recognize.

  “Can we have a clue?” I asked as the white flakes whipped silently past the windows.

  “Just that it’s for the list.”

  “Did you find a cathedral or something?” Charlotte asked.

  “You’ll see.” The highway turned to a road, and then a street. The car slowed down as Phillip studied the roadside, searching for his destination. He pulled in and parked in front of a large iron gate that sealed off a sprawling cemetery.

  I was too frightened to speak. I looked at Charlotte and her face confirmed her surprise. And recognition. “It’s locked,” she whispered.

  “The fence is three feet tall. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Phillip!” He couldn’t seriously think I would break into a graveyard at ten o’clock at night. “What if there’s a guard?”

  Phillip pressed hard on the horn, and the wind made it look like the falling snowflakes skipped to the side, frightened by the sharp noise. I covered my ears. Charlotte flinched. After the second loud honk I pushed on his shoulder. “What are you doing?”

  “What?” he asked. “If there’s a guard I’ll ask him to open the gate. If no one comes then we don’t need to worry about them. It’s not like I’m disturbing the residents.”

  Charlotte’s lips looked white in the glow of the dash lights. We waited, our eyes scanning the darkness. “Okay, then,” Phillip finally said and opened his door. “We’re going in.”

  Charlotte looked to me for direction and there seemed to be only one thing to do. I got out. “Phillip, there’s nothing about this on the list. It’s not what any of us added.”

  “I beg to differ,” he said as he scouted out the best spot to hop the black iron fence. “Come on.” He locked his fingers together and waited to see which of us would step up first. Charlotte walked slowly but obliged. She landed on the other side, alone in the land of the dead while Phillip and I stared through the ornate black bars of the iron fence.

  “Now you, Megan,” Phillip ordered. I looked around again, expecting police lights at any moment. I stepped gingerly, reached for Charlotte’s hand as she helped me over. The snow was cold through my shoes.

  “If we all get arrested who is going to perform tomorrow night?” I asked as Phillip climbed over. “Parker will be thrilled but we don’t have an understudy for my understudy.”

  “No one is arresting us,” Phillip said. “This is where Charlotte’s dad is. She has the right to come here whenever she wants.” My heart stuttered. In all the years I’d never thought to visit Bryon’s grave. Phil turned to Charlotte. “I know you told me it’s been years. Do you remember the way?”

  White flakes collected on her soft hair and the shoulders of her brown coat. She looked around uncertainly. “I think so.”

  She led us carefully to the pathway that curved around the sinking hillside. Statues glistened in white relief off the black night, sightless faces watching our progression among the graves. The worst moments were when my feet found uneven ground, slipped on the small sinkholes left by settling dirt. I shivered, pressed myself closer to Phillip, but he offered no reassuring arm. The trees were terrible sentinels, blacker than the night itself, tangled arms reaching like doom over our heads. I tried not to look at them.

  “That’s the bench,” Charlotte said, pointing to a long cement bench where the statue of a woman sat with her head eternally bowed. “He’s that way.”

  The silence of the snow turned everything to a whisper; only our feet and the rustle of our clothes made noise as we followed her. I tiptoed past the praying statue, trying not to disturb her grief.

  “Which row?” Phillip asked and put a hand on Charlotte’s shoulder to stop her steps.

  “That one,” she said. “By that tree.” We had paused in the pool of light spilling from a street lamp, the snow streaked down like bright, wandering stars. Charlotte pointed to the middle of the row, the darkest spot where the lights couldn’t reach.

  Phillip gently took her arm and slipped it inside his, their elbows locked. “Charlotte,” his voice deepened and grew more deliberate. He had practiced these words. “I know this isn’t what your dad had in mind when he wrote his list, but I think this aisle is beautiful, too. I want to walk you down it so you can tell him what you did tonight.”

  My mouth opened in surprise, but Phillip straightened his shoulders and asked the same question Schatz asked me just an hour earlier. “Okay?”

  Her eyes widened, glistened, and reflected the falling snow. She looked down the row of flat headstones to where the night sat dark on the ground. “You’re going to walk me down the aisle?” She asked him in disbelief. He nodded and put his other hand over hers. When he stepped forward she followed, their footsteps sinking into the dust of snow and breaking the frozen blades of grass. They walked in silence and I only followed when the shadows closed over their heads and left me alone in the light. By the time I reached them they were stopped at a headstone. Phillip reached down with his bare hand and scraped aside the snow until I could read the name. Bryon Exby. Beneath the dates was one sentence.

  Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

  The cold air caught in my throat, crystallized my words. “I didn’
t know it said that,” I whispered.

  Charlotte was immobile, her face a cipher I couldn’t break. She never took her eyes from the gray, polished stone.

  “Bryon,” Phillip’s voice was low and awkward. “We’ve been doing something for you and we wanted you to know.” He nudged Charlotte and her eyes shot to him in confusion. “Tell him.”

  “I feel stupid,” she mumbled.

  “Charlotte,” I said softly. “Tell him. We all will,” I promised.

  “Dad,” her face was red with embarrassment, but she didn’t give up. “Mom found your list of things to do. And I decided to do them. Phillip and Megan are helping me. She’s the one you saved.” The words were stiff, spoken to a rock and nothing more.

  Phillip advanced closer, showed her how to do it. “Bryon…” Phillip’s voice was so honest I almost looked up to see where my rescuer stood. “We’re finishing your list. We backpacked without a tent and slept in hammocks and saw the best meteor shower you could imagine and we got Charlotte up in front of—”

  She held her hand in front of his mouth, stopped the words. “Wait, I want to tell him.” She lowered herself onto her knees, surely feeling the cold of the snow through her jeans. She rested her hand on the B of his name. “I got up in front of six hundred people tonight and performed on a stage. In a leading role. And they gave us a standing ovation.” Her head turned to me for a long moment. “Megan gave me her part. She let me go in her place.” Her head fell forward, hanging inches over his headstone, as if she needed to whisper something into his ear. “I wish I knew who you were. I wish we weren’t strangers.”

  “You forgot one,” I said, pressing my own knees into against the frozen earth beside her. “Charlotte went skinny dipping. I didn’t let Phillip peek.” She turned her bright smile toward me. “I guess it’s my turn to tell him,” I said and cleared my throat, flexing my toes against the cold. “All my life I thought of how much you gave me. I thought of how good you must have been to love someone you didn’t even know. Then I met Charlotte. And your wife.” The tears were hot on my frigid face. “I didn’t know anything. I had no idea how good you were. I didn’t know how much you really gave up.” My nose was running. I pressed my sleeve to my mouth, felt my own hot breath gathering through the material. “I hope you’re not sorry. I hope you didn’t make the wrong choice.”

  I don’t know if I put my head on Charlotte’s shoulder or if she pulled it there. I just found myself resting, sinking from the weight of it all, cold beneath the drifting blanket of snow, but warm against her soft neck.

  Phillip’s hands braced under my arms, lifting me tenderly to my feet. He folded me under one strong arm and spoke to Bryon again. “Megan came to say she is sorry. And Charlotte came to say that she loves you. I came to say thank you.” I buried my eyes into his coat, let the world grow black beneath his voice. “Megan has been my best friend since I was twelve. We didn’t know it until high school, but she was. So thank you for letting us keep her. And Charlotte is the funniest, craziest person I ever met. So thank you for making her.” He gently extricated himself from my clutch and turned to her. I waited for him to speak again, but instead he gathered her up in his arms, the snow and puffs of their breath filling the small space between them, and pressed his lips to hers. When he pulled away her startled eyes were two question marks, brighter than the stars. And then he leaned forward and did it again, gentler. Shorter. More certain.

  “Two?” I whispered to myself, remembering his confession as we swayed in our hammocks.

  Without looking away from Charlotte he shook his head. “Three.”

  There would have been moments to speak, explanations to give, if a stake of red light had not sliced over the quiet field, followed by a flash of blue. The garish, spinning colors clashed with the sacred stillness and made the snowflakes glow in technicolor against the black night. My cold knees shook, threatened to buckle.

  “That’s a police car,” I told them in a panicked whisper. We couldn’t see it on the other side of the hill, but the siren lights whipped through the air.

  Charlotte lunged toward the closest tree. “What do we do?” she asked, already scoping out an escape route. Phillip caught the hem of her coat and pulled her back.

  “We walk back. Don’t do anything stupid. It will be fine.” His Adam’s apple slid down his neck, betraying his fear.

  “Why don’t you two listen to me? Breaking into a graveyard is not okay. I knew it.” Sweat beaded cold against my palm. I was halfway with Charlotte; maybe it would be best to hide.

  “Charlotte,” Phillip’s voice sped up with urgency as he led us back toward the paved path. “Emergency addition to the bucket list. I vote that we add to have a run-in with the police.”

  “Are you crazy?” I squealed. “Phillip don’t do anything stupid. I mean it.”

  “I’m not. I just think we’re about to have our first run-in with the police and we might as well not waste it.” His grimace was thin, braver than he felt.

  “I second it.” Charlotte’s words wobbled, but she threw her shoulders back in determination.

  “Will this actually go on our record?” I wasn’t sure I had the strength to walk any farther.

  “All in favor?” Phillip asked under his breath.

  “Aye.” They agreed in unison and both turned to me.

  “Your lips are blue, Megan,” Phillip said. “Just breathe. Every adult loves you. Policemen included. We’ll just tell them the truth.”

  I sucked in a breath of cold air and tried to make my head nod. “Aye,” I whispered.

  When we crested the hill there was a police officer standing by the front gate, sweeping his flashlight across the cemetery and speaking into his radio.

  “Don’t call for backup,” I uttered while visions of swat teams descending on us filled my mind.

  His flashlight slashed across our faces and froze. We all winced and stopped walking.

  “Raise your hands,” he called out. We all complied instantly as he approached.

  “He doesn’t sound mean,” Charlotte whispered.

  “What are you kids doing here?” He came close enough for me to the see the lines of his fatherly face. His eyebrows were stern, but flexible. I could imagine his face contorting from fierce to friendly in moments. “This is a closed graveyard and you are trespassing.”

  His radio screeched unintelligible words next to his ear and he responded by giving a fast description of us. “You can put your hands down now,” he instructed us, but I noticed he followed Phillip’s every movement.

  “This isn’t anything bad,” Charlotte told him. “My dad is buried here and I had to tell him something. These are my best friends.”

  The officer’s face warred between sympathy and suspicion. “What’s your name?”

  “Charlotte Exby. My father was Bryon Exby. His grave is on the other side of the hill. You can go look.”

  “We honked to see if anyone could open the gate for us,” Phillip explained. “We weren’t trying to do anything wrong.”

  “Come back to my cruiser,” the officer said as another police car pulled up behind Phillip’s parked car.

  I closed my eyes and took a few faltering steps. I worried I might throw up. Because the gate was still locked we had to climb the short fence again. It would have been funny to watch the policemen grunt as he followed us if there was any cell of my brain that could spare a spot for humor. There wasn’t. The two officers spoke to each other for a minute before the first one opened his notepad and asked for our names, parent’s names, and phone numbers.

  Tears slipped down my face when I told him my parents were Michael and Elizabeth Riddick. Just hearing their names while the lights flashed across our faces and passing cars slowed to stare made composure impossible. “I’m so sorry,” I told him. “We really didn’t hurt anything.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” he said, giving me a gentle look. “There are no charges. I just need to call your parents and make sure the stories
square.” I hung my head in despair and leaned against Phillip’s car for support.

  He called Phillip’s home first. From the shape of Phillip’s mouth he was biting the inside of his lips and regretting his grand, romantic plan. The officer explained the situation, listened for several minutes and then passed the phone to Phillip, who nodded at whatever his parents said, unable to make words. There are moments when all bravado drains out. Eleven o’clock at night by a squad car is one of them.

  It was Charlotte’s turn next. I wished I could hear anything but I had a feeling Dave and Melissa took it better than Phillip’s parents. Charlotte even managed a tiny grin by the end. And then it was my turn. I listened as the officer asked for my parents, heard him identify himself and for a terrible moment I knew my parents thought I was dead or dying. What else can a parent think when a policemen calls? I wanted to shout, “Mom, I’m fine. I’m right here.” I sagged in relief when he told them what was really wrong. He explained how he found our car outside the cemetery gate and that we had jumped the fence after hours. My hand shook from cold and terror as I took the phone.

  “I’m sorry,” I cried before they could say anything. My sobs broke the words into pieces. “I am so sorry. We were trying to do the list. We just wanted to tell Bryon that Charlotte was in the play tonight.”

  “Megan, Megan,” My father kept trying to interrupt but I didn’t stop. Finally he waited for my explanation to drain out of me. “Megan,” he tried again, his voice coaxing, “it’s okay. You’re not in trouble. Just come home.”

  I think I scared the officer by the way I broke down. He put a tentative hand on my shoulder. “There’s no harm done,” he assured me. “You’re all good kids. We just had to be sure you weren’t vandalizing or running away. You can go home now. Straight home. Next time come back when it’s open.”

  I nodded, thanking him profusely, my eyes glued to the cold steel of his handcuffs hanging from his belt.