“I figured out how,” I answered. I had also figured out that she’d gone for years without filing, which had been another problem. “That was my first bookkeeping job.” I had handled all aspects of her money; someone needed to be responsible.
Levi said the same thing. “Very responsible of you. What?” he asked. “Why do you look so confused?”
“I don’t think I ever told anyone that before,” I said. “I never talked about my mother that much to anyone.”
“Is it private?”
“No, but it seems like I was keeping things secret. I wasn’t,” I added. “I guess that subject didn’t come up before, since it’s not very interesting.”
“Emerson, you’re always talking about forming bonds and relationships,” Levi reminded me. “This is how is how you do it. You have to have real conversations.”
“We have plenty of conversations,” I protested, but he shook his head.
“I don’t mean shooting the shit like when we go on walks, when I tell you about baseball and you discuss issues with your feral cat. To have a real bond, you have to go deeper.”
“Like discovering that someone spoke Spanish.”
He smiled. “Like how I told you about my book. The only other person who knows about it is my friend August.”
“Not even Ava?”
“She would insist on reading a draft and I know I can’t withstand her pressure. I’d buckle and let her, so I haven’t said anything yet. I’m not giving her the opportunity to intervene. Only two people know, and one is you.” He smiled again. “It’s nice to see you happy.”
He could tell that I was, since I was smiling back at him. “I’m glad you told me about it. It does feel like a bond.”
“Because it is. Talk to me more,” he encouraged.
“You want to hear more about me?” I thought. “Did I mention that I know how to make hard candy?”
“You need a special thermometer,” he said, so I guessed that I had already relayed that fact.
“There’s not much else.”
“There has to be. What were you like as a kid?” he wondered.
“I already told you. I was bad at reading but I could keep track of money. And I skied.”
“Because you like to be outside.” He sighed. “Right. Let’s get out of here, too. I’ll take you home.”
I got the feeling that I’d messed up, maybe badly. “Wait!” I said and he stopped walking.
“Yeah?”
“Um, there’s more.” What, though? I racked my brain and came up with something that Grant had thought was ridiculous. “I didn’t learn to ride a bike until I was twenty.”
“Why?” he asked as he sat back down.
“I guess it’s that I’m…well, Grant said that I was a…he used a word that I don’t like too much, and he said that I had to learn. I did.” I brushed my fingers over the top of my knee where I had a bumpy scar from some gravel I’d fallen on that day. But thestripes from the self-tanner were gone so it showed less, and that was optimism. “Um, also, I dislike my last name.”
“Mack?” he questioned. “I like it. It sounds tough.”
“No, it always makes people think of that rhyme, which I’m not going to say and I don’t want you to, either,” I added quickly as I saw his eyes light up. “My middle name is Olympe, after an eighteenth-century French feminist.”
“I’m Levi Wallace,” he answered, pointing to his chest. “Wallace was my grandfather’s name.”
“That’s nice to have a family name. I don’t share one with anybody, except for famous and semi-famous people who don’t relate to me at all.”
“You shared a last name with your mom,” he said, but I shook my head. “Mack is from your dad?”
