“What a racket, huh?” he said, tilting his head toward the funeral home.
Sylvie snorted with surprise.
“I mean, anyone who knew James Bruckson could tell you that his kindness and community-minded approach weren’t exactly his top attributes,” he said.
Sylvie laughed louder. “I think he might have written the script for the pastor.”
“I wouldn’t put it past him.” Graham’s smile was warm and inviting. “Why don’t we go to Hannigan’s and get a headstart on this death party everyone’s talking about?”
Sylvie admitted that she needed a drink.
But the idea of sitting at a bar across from Graham—at age forty instead of seventeen—made her want to hide herself away. She stumbled over her words, searching for a way out. But Graham touched her shoulder and said, “I won’t take no for an answer.”
Chapter Seven
April 2000
Despite the age-thirteen hand-holding on Graham’s couch during Indiana Jones, Graham and Sylvie didn’t go on their first official date till they were fifteen. By then, Graham had shot up to five-foot-seven (with far more inches to go till the end of high school), and Sylvie had lost her acne and baby fat and looked slightly more like the models in the magazines she sometimes read in the living room of The House on Nantucket. Slightly.
The date was Graham’s idea. He approached Sylvie after study hall, books tucked beneath his arm, looked her dead in the eye, and said, “Where have you been?”
Sylvie cocked her head. Although she wasn’t the pariah she’d been in middle school, it was still a rarity for anyone to approach her in the hallway like this. Oftentimes, she wore headphones, listened to music, and pretended the rest of the world didn’t exist. She tugged her headphones down so that they hung on herneck and waited for him to explain himself. When he didn’t, she said, “Where do you think I’ve been?”
Graham deflated slightly, adjusting his books so they pressed against his chest like a shield.Was he afraid of her?Sylvie wondered. But the truth was, she was pretending not to know what he meant when really it was obvious. Two years ago, they’d bonded in a profoundly human way, and since then, they’d hardly spoken. It was almost as though that sick day hadn’t ever happened. Almost.
But now, it seemed that Graham wanted to take back all that pretending. Why?
“I saw your poster board,” Graham said. “It’s cool.”
Sylvie realized he meant the poster she’d made for science class. On it, she’d illustrated the quickly dying oceans and seas, the ways that various industries had destroyed the wildlife therein, and what humanity needed to do if they were going to save their natural resources. They needed to act fast. Maybe they were already doomed. She’d gotten an A on the poster, and the teacher had hung it up as a model for other students.
“It’s useless,” Sylvie said now of the poster.
When Graham had nothing to say, Sylvie turned and shot down the hallway. Her pulse was going fast and wild.
She heard Graham’s footsteps tapping behind her, but she didn’t turn around till they were outside, and he said, “Sylvie, please. Stop.”
Sylvie was on the sidewalk under the big maple tree. She could feel fifty-plus pairs of eyes, other students catching buses or car rides with parents, watching Sylvie Bruckson and Graham Ellis. She could imagine what they were thinking: what is Graham doing with that loser, Sylvie? Sylvie flared her nostrils and turned around.
“You don’t have to be nice to me,” she said under her breath.
Graham’s eyes were electric. “I’m not being nice to you.”
Sylvie stiffened. “Good. I’m not being nice to you, either.”
What was she saying? It was as though she’d lost the plot of her life. For two years, she’d desperately wanted Graham to look at her, to take her hand again, to make a joke about Indiana Jones.
A passing group of juniors burst into giggles. Sylvie’s cheeks were burning.
Graham reached over to touch her shoulder. Sylvie flinched back, then cursed herself. She couldn’t remember the last time her father had hugged her. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d had any human contact. What did that do to a person? How was that damaging her heart? But she knew that Graham’s mother probably hugged him every day when he got home from school. She knew that he and his guy friends high-fived between shots on the basketball court. She knew that he was a part of the human experience, and she was not.
“I wondered if…” Graham began, then bit his lower lip.
“What?” Sylvie demanded. But her voice was like a string.
“I wondered if you could tell me a little bit more about your, um, research,” Graham said. “I’ve been having these crazy dreams. About the planet. About Nantucket.”
Sylvie softened. She searched Graham’s eyes for some sense that he was teasing her, that he wanted to make fun of her poster and her research. But she saw only genuine fear. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and remembered the piles and piles of notes she had back at home, notes she’d taken after multiple hours in the library.
