The Innocence Game Part 19

By the time I got home from Calvary, the skies had cleared and the day was beginning to heat up. Even better, Sarah Gold sat on my front steps.

"You're early," I said.

"It's my first parade. I'm excited."

"What do you got there?" I pointed to a white bag by her feet.

Sarah pulled out a handful of silver tubes. "What do you think?"

"What is it?"

"Face paint. Red, white, and blue."

"Not happening."

"It's the Fourth of July."

I shook my head. Sarah already had a tube of red open and a tube of blue. She smeared a couple of fingers worth down both sides of her face.

"I live here, Sarah."

"It will be fun." She handed me the tube of red. "Please?"

I squirted a little on my finger and wondered what I'd gotten myself into. Maybe it was just what I needed.

A half hour later, we were standing in front of a diner on Central called Prairie Joe's. They sat us at a table outside. Sarah ordered the huevos rancheros. I got scrambled eggs. Our orders were served with warm tortillas and coffee. By the time we finished, it was almost eleven, and the street was filling up with life. We walked for a bit and drank it in. Parents carrying cups of Starbucks and pus.h.i.+ng strollers. Kids in baseball caps. Ice cream. Balloons. Flags. And face paint. I'd agreed to turn myself into a red, white, and blue fool, but only once the parade actually started.

We stopped at an antiques shop where Sarah looked at an old set of silver and a wooden box of some sort. Then we walked next door to the Spice House. I'd never been in the Spice House and, apparently, with good reason. The moment I walked through the door, I started sneezing.

"You all right?"

I shook my head and retreated to a bench outside.

"What's in there?" I said.

"Spices."

"What kind of spices?"

"Well, the sign says they have eight different kinds of paprika."

"Great."

I stayed on the bench while Sarah perused the stores of paprika, pepper, and whatever else they ground up inside the G.o.d-awful place. She came out with a small bag she kept at a careful distance.

"Sorry about that," she said.

"What did you get?"

"c.u.min, red pepper, and chili powder. Good for tacos."

We walked some more. The sun was bright and hot now. A trombone had fired up somewhere, and the parade started. I bought us some ice cream. People smiled at us. Mostly because of Sarah, but I smiled back anyway. She linked her arm in mine and whispered in my ear.

"Time for the face paint."

I laughed and let her smear my face with streaks of color. Then I did the same to her. After that, we painted the faces of a couple of kids whose parents weren't around. We watched the parade go by. Yelled and cheered at the Evanston Marching Kazoo Band. Then some cops and firemen. Uncle Sam on a high two-wheeled bicycle did crazy circles around the parade mascot, Sparky the Firecracker. Kids floated by on floats. Old people rode past in cars that were even older. The governor of Illinois stopped to shake my hand. Best I could tell, he wasn't even wearing a monitoring bracelet.

We watched for two hours and got sunburned until someone gave us some sunscreen. Then we headed down the block to a bar called Clarence's. It had an outdoor patio that was filled with parade people. We found a table, and I went up to get a couple of beers. Sarah drank half of hers in one go.

"Fun?" I said.

"Wonderful." She clinked her nearly empty gla.s.s into mine. "Thank you very much."

"You don't go to parades in Michigan?"

"Charlevoix has a parade. We usually watch it from our boat."

"Nice."

"Not really. You sit out there all day with the same seven people."

"I guess it would be all right if it were the right seven people?"

"I guess. You want another one?"

"Sure."

Sarah started to get up, but a waitress was nearby and took her order. Sarah sat back down. We'd wiped off the face paint, but a handful of guys at the bar couldn't keep their eyes off her anyway. She was wearing shorts, a yellow tank top, and oversize sungla.s.ses. With her hair pulled back and the glow from her day in the sun, I couldn't blame them.

"What?" Sarah slid the gla.s.ses up on her forehead.

"Huh?"

"You're sitting there, smiling."

"Can't I smile?"

"It's just that you don't do it that often."

"Do what?"

"Smile." She broke out a killer as the waitress put down our second round of beers. "It looks good on you, Ian. The smile, that is."

"You think so?"

"I do."

The beer was cold. Sarah insisted we clink gla.s.ses again. She giggled and slid her eyes over my shoulder, toward her admirers at the bar.

"They've been ogling you since we got here," I said.

She put down her beer and leaned close until our lips were almost touching. "Want to give them something to talk about?"

"I thought we were friends?" I said.

"We are." She eased back in her chair and took another sip from her pint. "Actually, I was worried about you this morning."

"Why?"

"You got out of your car like a black cloud. Grim."

"Sorry."

She waved her hands around us. "It's the summer. A parade. We're young and drinking beer. How bad can that be?"

"You're right."

"I know I'm right. So why?"

"Don't mess around, Sarah."

She slipped her hands over mine. They were warm and strong.

"I'm not messing around, Ian. If you have a problem, I'd like to think I can help."

"It's not a problem."

"Then what is it?"

Maybe it was the beer. Maybe it was her. Maybe it was just the need to feel something more. Something I could hang on to. Whatever it was, it opened the door. And I walked through.

"I visited a graveyard this morning."

She didn't expect that. Probably wished she'd just drunk her beer and kept her mouth shut. But now she was in for it. And so it went.

"Why?"

"I had a twin brother, Matthew. He died when he was ten. Today's the anniversary."

"I'm so sorry."

It was the second time she was sorry for me. And I still hated it.

"Let's just forget about it."

"No."

"Yes. It was a long time ago, and I paid my respects this morning."

She was quiet for a bit, studying the dregs in her gla.s.s. "Can I at least ask how?" she said.

"How Matthew died?"

Sarah nodded.

"You don't want to know."

"What does that mean?"

"We were swimming in Lake Michigan and he drowned."

"You were there?"

"Me and my stepfather. Matthew got caught in a riptide. They found his body three days later." I watched her face pale as she realized what I was telling her. "That's right, Sarah. Jake and I both had brothers who drowned when we were kids."

"What does it mean?"

"Probably nothing."

"It doesn't freak you out?"

"I told you the other day, the Wingate letter bothers me. As far as my brother's death goes, there's no connection to Havens."

"You don't know that. What if the person who sent the letter knows about your past and is manipulating you as well?"

"How? I decided to take Z's seminar myself. I didn't tell anyone. No one influenced me. And I didn't receive the Wingate letter. Havens did."

"It's still a little strange if you ask me." Sarah's phone buzzed. She checked the number. "It's Jake." She clicked on her phone. "Hey, we were just talking about you. Yeah, he's right here." Sarah reached over and squeezed my hand. "You want to come over?"

She pulled the phone from her ear. "He's at Medill now." She put the phone back to her ear. "Jake, we're at a place called Clarence's on Central. We've got a table outside." A pause. "Cool. See you then."

Sarah clicked off and slipped her phone onto the table. "He's gonna come over."

"Fine."

"I think you need to tell him about Matthew."

"There's no connection, Sarah."

"We don't know that. We can't know that."

When I didn't respond, she ordered us two more beers. With their arrival the dark talk vanished. At least for the moment. We were sitting and sipping when Havens walked in.

"You guys look like you're having fun. What's up, Joyce?"

I gave him a nod. Sarah patted the seat beside her. Our waitress materialized at Havens's elbow. He ordered whatever we were having and sat back in his chair. "You go to the parade?"