"That was Clay?!" Tia mouthed to me as I pulled into her driveway. I hadn't even taken the keys out of the ignition before she was pounding on my window, begging for answers.
On the way, I had mentally mulled over what had went down at the pool and decided that I would just wait and see what had even happened to that little boy before determining whether I was to blame or congratulate myself. After a few deep breaths I opened the door and greeted Tia with her thousands of questions.
"Can I just get a shower?" I laughed as we came through the door, to Mrs. Das's surprise.
"You girls are usually gone for much longer than that," she said, taking a seat behind the island.
I looked at Tia, who was always quick to come up with an explanation. As usual, she pulled through. "Just a really bummy crowd," she said. "No one was even there to see my new suit!" I realized I hadn't even taken note of the new purple and blue number Tia was wearing and observed it as she twirled through the living room into the kitchen.
"It looks absolutely ravishing, darling," Mrs. Das remarked, using a banana as a microphone and looking over her glasses at Tia with cartoon astonishment. "Who is it that you're wearing?"
"That Mexican guy from the plaza in the hotel!" Tia squealed into the microphone, striking a pose. I laughed along with them, like I was part of their family instead of an outsider. I often felt more like part of the family in the Das house instead of my house, which was understandable when comparing Mrs. Das to my own mom. One was warm, welcoming and eager to talk while the other was warm and welcome to the idea to you getting out of her house if it was one of the short periods of time in which she was actually in it. Take a while guess at who's who.
"Are you girls hungry?" Mrs. Das asked, taking me back to reality. Though Tia and I were 17 going onto our senior year, we were never a pair to turn down some of Tia's mom's sandwiches and homemade lemonade. My mouth was watering at the thought of it, and at my stomach growling I realized that I hadn't eaten anything but my daily cereal earlier this morning, and it was now well after noon.
Tia, seeing the hunger in my eyes asked her mom if she could maybe make us something, to which her mom happily agreed and set to work, pulling some bread out of the drawer. Tia led me upstairs and continued to pester me with questions through the bathroom door as I got undressed and showered. I continued to feed her minimal answers, eventually telling her that if she left me alone while I showered and ate that I'd spill everything afterwards. She made me pinky-promise her in the middle of my shower.
Since she didn't need to shower, Tia was rushing me all while I got dressed and while we ate, scarfing down her food and making me uncomfortable by staring at me until I sped up my pace too and hurried me up the stairs as I yelled a thank you to Mrs. Das for the lunch.
"S-p-i-l-l," Tia spelled out, flopping down on the bed, eager to listen.
"What do you even want to know about?" I asked, trying not to laugh as I pretended I hadn't ignored everything she had said for the past several hours. "Okay, okay.
"His name's Clay Walker and he has big brown eyes and black hair and I think he'd be about as pale as the moon in the winter but is tan right now and he likes to ride his bike but then he almost crashed it into Clover--"
"Wait," Tia cut me off. "First of all, slow down. Second of all, he almost crashed into Clover?!" She held her hand over her heart. Every once in awhile I wished Mrs. Das was my own mother, but Tia pretended that Clover was her child. She had a problem.
After calming her down from what was, for lack of a better term, a meltdown over her poor baby Clover, I debriefed Tia on the whole Clay situation in full. About how he had almost killed Clover, and how he had lowkey stolen the Tree from me, and how he invited me to the housewarming, and how his dad was sick and his mom had left and the colored dixie cups and everything else through him stopping by at the pool. Tia nodded, contemplating this new information.
"Diagnosis, doctor?" I laughed.
"Based on the symptoms, I'd say he's lovesick!" Tia squealed, pushing my shoulder. "I call being a bridesmaid. No, who am I kidding, I get maid of honor! And the colors will be gold and rose and white, and oh! it can be at the Tree if you want! And we'll have a string quartet during the ceremony, and a kickass DJ for the reception..."
I let Tia continue on her spiel before she wound herself down. "You done?"
"Oh and my kids can be the ring bearer and flower girl!" I raised an eyebrow. "Okay, now I'm done."
"I was hoping so," I said.
Tia and I continued talking on and on, much of which was spent reviewing her vacation and some guy named Brock, whose name simply made me roll my eyes and throw up in my mouth a bit. She mentioned something about her getting tipsy on less than half of her dad's beer she took before he could see, which I didn't have the heart to tell her that it was probably (read: totally) placebo, and didn't want to after I heard about her dancing on a chair and was about to move to the table before her mom pulled her down and scolded her in front of James, another guy that she apparently met. Though I loved Tia dearly, I worried about her on the college scene, and I hoped she didn't follow suit with Matt.
Conversation kept up in a solid flow for the rest of the night, as it always did when I was with Tia, but the difference was that I was scared for it to stop, for what thoughts might creep in when it did.
And sure enough, when we went finally had laughed ourselves to sore stomachs and exhaustion and turned out the lights, those creeping thoughts of doubt crawled out of the corners of my mind where I had told myself I would shove them until I learned different.
It wasn't abnormal for me to almost constantly doubt myself in the decisions I was making about the clocks, which sounded melodramatic, but it was true. It was like I was "gifted" (read: cursed) with the power to watch over everyone's lives, something I'd never asked for, and I felt like it was my responsibility to keep everything straight. To make sure that I said hi to Mr. Mansey every time I passed his corner flower shop on Saturday afternoons because it added a minute to his clock ritually, and to wave and blow a kiss to little Maudie that lived down the street from us every day after school because it added three minutes to her clock. And I couldn't possibly forget about Mr. and Mrs. Ransfield whose house was adjacent ours, for when I waved to them through the kitchen window both their clocks would gain five minutes each.
My spinning head drew back to reality when I heard Tia snoring softly next to me, pulling all the covers to herself. I let her, rolling over to my back and staring at the ceiling, still swimming in my own thoughts. But what about last Sunday when you forgot to ask that lady how her thirteen year old cat was doing? And what about last Thursday when you didn't smile at Maudie because you were too busy scrolling through your feed? And two weeks ago, you didn't even bother to look at Ms. Burns, who you always dance with on the porch on Tuesdays at 6:30 when you're on the way home from the grocery store picking up everything Matt forgot on Sunday and you realized on Monday night?
Heat continued to rise in my face and beads of sweat started forming on my hairline as I continued through the possibilities. And Joseph from the EMT squad, you forgot to hand him his daily coffee from when you make your run in the morning today because you were too distracted with Clay, and maybe if he'd gotten it he could've gotten to that boy quicker and--
My thoughts were interrupted by my phone buzzing. I looked at Tia's alarm clock, which read 2:18 A.M. My roaring popularity has attracted many guests at this hour, I thought to myself as I picked up my phone, quoting Clay from the night before. It was a text from an unknown number which read:
From 555-2877-3242
Hi Eva, this is Shannon Freeman, Jacob's mom. That probably doesn't even ring a bell for you, but Jacob is the boy that you save...
My home screen wasn't big enough to accommodate the entire text, so after trying and failing with my thumbprint I hurriedly typed in my password, failing twice more before finally accessing the rest of the text, the rest of which said:
...saved at the pool earlier. I know you might not want to take credit, but I saw you go after him practically even before he dove in, and I just had to thank you. I don't know how you did it, but thank you. Jacob's still having some tests done, but they determined he experienced a seizure that was followed by cardiac arrest, which is scary for us, but I'm so thankful someone was there to get to him quickly. And I know this is odd because you only got him to the edge of the pool a few seconds quicker than the rest of the guards would've, but for some reason I feel like those few seconds mattered to Jacob, so thank you.
My heart fluttered. After 17 years, someone had finally recognized the few seconds I had saved them. After 17 years, I wasn't alone in thinking that those few seconds even mattered. After 17 years, I finally had some affirmation in what was basically the entire purpose of my life. I sat with my phone on my chest, my heart beating slowly and calmly, a new sense of peace found within me. It was as if all the questions that had filled me moments later melted away in that one text message. Another one came through, stranger than the first:
From 555-2877-3242
Also, I'm not a stalker... Got your number from that new boy Clay Walker :-) Hope I didn't wake you, by the way. Thank you again, Eva.
I considered texting back, but not wanting her to think I was some psycho that was up at this hour, I figured it could wait until morning. My mind, now a peaceful pond after hours of a hurricane, was ready for a rest, and before I could even think about it, I drifted off to sleep, for once without a thought in my mind about Mr. Mansey or Maudie or Mr. and Mrs. Ransfield or the thirteen-year-old-cat lady or Ms. Burns or Joseph. The only words that rang in the back of my mind as I slipped off into dreamland were Edith's. You don't have to be looking for anything.