Lock and Key(66)
Author: Sarah Dessen

“Nate?” I heard his dad call out from down a hallway. “What time is the Chambells’ pickup?”

“Eleven,” Nate said. “I’m leaving in ten minutes.”

“Make it five. You don’t know how backed up they’ll be. Do you have all the keys you need?”

“Yes.” Nate reached over to a drawer by the sink, pulling out a key ring and dropping it on the island, where it landed with a clank.

“Double-check,” Mr. Cross said. “I don’t want to have to come back here if you end up stuck somewhere.”

Nate nodded, making another note as a door slammed shut in another part of the house.

“He sounds stressed,” I said.

“It’s his first big holiday since we started the business,” he said. “He signed up a lot of new people just for today. But he’ll relax once we get out there and start getting things done.”

Maybe this was true. Still, I could hear Mr. Cross muttering to himself in the distance, the noise not unlike that my own mother would make, banging around before she reluctantly headed off to work. “So when, in the midst of all this, do you get to eat Thanksgiving dinner?”

“We don’t,” he said. “Unless hitting the drive-through at Double Burger with someone else’s turkey and potatoes in the backseat counts.”

“That,” I said, “is just plain sad.”

“I’m not much for holidays,” he said with a shrug.

“Really.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Why is that surprising?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess I just expected someone who was, you know, so friendly and social to be a big fan of the whole family-gathering thing. I mean, Jamie is.”

“Yeah? ”

I nodded. “In fact, I’m supposed to be making up my thankful list as we speak.”

“Your what?”

“Exactly,” I said, pointing at him. “Apparently, it’s a list of the things you’re thankful for, to be read aloud at dinner. Which is something we never did. Ever.”

He flipped through the pages again. “Neither did we. I mean, back when we were a we.”

I could hear Mr. Cross talking now, his voice bouncing down the hall. He sounded much more cheerful than before, and I figured he had to be talking to a customer. “When did your parents split, anyway?”

Nate nodded, picking up the key ring and flipping through it. “When I was ten. You?”

“Five,” I said as the oven beeped behind me. Instantly, I thought of Roscoe, huddling in my closet. “My dad’s pretty much been out of the picture ever since.”

“My mom lives in Phoenix,” he said, sliding a key off the ring. “I moved out there with her after the divorce. But then she got remarried and had my stepsisters, and it was too much to handle.”

“What was?”

“Me,” he said. “I was in middle school, mouthing off, a pain in her ass, and she just wanted to do the baby thing. So year before last, she kicked me out and sent me back here.” I must have looked surprised, because he said, “What? You’re not the only one with a checkered past, you know.”

“I just never imagined you checkered,” I told him. Which was a massive understatement, actually. “Not even close.”

“I hide it well,” he said easily. Then he smiled at me. “Don’t you need to put in those pies?”

“Oh. Right.”

I turned around, opening the oven and sliding them onto the rack, side by side. As I stood back up, he said, “So what’s on your thankful list?”

“I haven’t exactly gotten it down yet,” I said, easing the oven shut. “Though, actually, you being checkered might make the top five.”

“Really,” he said.

“Oh, yeah. I thought I was the only misfit in the neighborhood. ”

“Not by a long shot.” He leaned back against the counter behind him, crossing his arms over his chest. “What else?”

“Well,” I said slowly, picking up the key he’d taken off the ring, “to be honest, I have a lot to choose from. A lot of good things have happened since I came here.”

“I believe it,” he said.

“Like,” I said slowly, “I’m very thankful for heat and running water these days.”

“As we should all be.”

“And I’ve been really lucky with the people I’ve met,” I said. “I mean, Cora and Jamie, of course, for taking me in. Harriet, for giving me my job. And Olivia, for helping me out that day, and just, you know, being a friend.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “Uh-huh.”

“And,” I continued, shifting the key in my hand, “there’s always Gervais.”

“Gervais,” he repeated, his voice flat.

“He’s almost totally stopped burping. I mean, it’s like a miracle. And if I can’t be thankful for that, what can I be thankful for?”

“Gee,” Nate said, cocking his head to the side, “I don’t know.”

“There might be something else,” I said slowly, turning the key in my palm, end over end. “But it’s escaping me right now.”

He stepped closer to me, his arm brushing, then staying against mine as he reached out, taking the key from my palm and sliding it back onto the table. “Well,” he said, “maybe it’ll come to you later.”

“Maybe,” I said.

“Nate?” Mr. Cross called out. He was closer now, and Nate immediately stepped back, putting space between us just before he stuck his head around the corner. He glanced at me, giving a curt nod instead of a hello, then said, “What happened to five minutes?”

“I’m leaving right now,” Nate told him.

“Then let’s go,” Mr. Cross said, ducking back out. A nearby door slammed and I heard his car start up, the engine rumbling.

“I better hit it,” Nate said, grabbing up the stack of papers and the key ring. “Enjoy your dinner.”

“You, too,” I said. He squeezed my shoulder as he passed behind me, quickening his steps as he headed out into the hallway. Then the door banged behind him, and the house was quiet.

I checked on the pies again, then washed my hands and left the kitchen, turning off the light behind me. As I walked to the door that led out onto the patio, I saw another one at the end of the hallway. It was open just enough to make out a bed, the same USWIM sweatshirt Nate had lent me that day folded on top of it.