Parker stood in front of the bed, his chin in his hand as he examined the contents of his opened suitcase, looking as though he were silently counting something with his eyes or making a mental list of some kind. As I stepped into the room, he removed a few shirts, apparently located what he was looking for and nodding with reassurance, replaced the garments, muttering something under his breath.
“You know,” he mumbled, keeping his eyes on the suitcase and its contents, “Gina has always said I pack like a woman, but I don’t think I ever believed her until now.”
“How’s that?” I asked.
He looked at me then and grinned. “My suitcases are both overflowing with stuff that I got while I was here and I still feel like I’m forgetting something.”
I smiled back. It was true that in the past few days, Parker had gotten a little souvenir-happy as we took him around town once again, this time with me and Annie along for the ride instead of at a funeral. It was hard not to notice their awkwardness with each other, but it was easy to see that both Parker and Annie were truly trying as Annie pulled Parker by the hand to the back of a scented candle store and made him smell everything until, he claimed, his nose was numb and he, in turn, made her closely survey every postcard in every store, asking which ones she thought were the best. He claimed almost proudly afterwards that he had drained his cash reserve for the trip buying gifts for Gina, Theresa, the Mayfields, Julian (his best friend) and a few various other people. I told him it was as though he had gone to a foreign country instead of a few states away. He just raised his eyebrows a little incredulously at that. I guess with Gina worrying him, home had felt like a thousand miles away.
“It could be this,” I said casually, bringing out what I had been hiding behind my back.
He raised his eyebrows at me as he saw the two brightly colored, signed (and personally illustrated) copies of Middle of Nowhere. “What, do you guys keep a stock of those in your gift shop?”
I laughed and shrugged. “Isaac and Zac wanted to give you something to remember us by and thought this might be cool. It was, of course, Zac’s idea to give one to Theresa, too.” I rolled my eyes at this.
He mirrored the motion and gently took the CDs from me, turning them over in his hands and carefully examining them as though trying to memorize something he was scared of forgetting.
“You talk like I’m not coming back, you know,” he pointed out, placing them inside the already overflowing suitcase, still open on the bed.
“Are you?” I asked, not caring to make it a secret that I wasn’t so sure he would.
“If I’m invited,” he said, smiling a little. “Are you planning on coming back to Rochester any time soon to see me?”
“Not like I can avoid it,” I mumbled, remembering what the various legal representatives had said about testifying against Lyle. “Maybe I’ll see you then.”
“Well, besides then,” he said.
“If I’m invited,” I replied.
I think we both knew what that meant.
“You’re always invited,” he said anyway.
There was a heavy pause as he closed his suitcase once and for all, barely getting it to snap shut, placing it on the floor next to the rest of his things.
“Excited about going home?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” he said. My puzzlement must have showed on my face. “I mean, part of me wants to stay here and get to see more of what you guys are really like...and part of me knows that I really need to get home to Gina.”
Gina had called no less than six more times since she had first found out about Lyle, wanting to know if I was okay, wanting to apologize to me, wanting, sometimes, to be reassured that there was a mistake. That it had never really happened.
Mostly, Parker was the only one that talked to her and when he did, he spoke in low and soothing tones and his fist clenched and unclenched at his sides. I bit my fingernails through these, often watching from the kitchen table as he talked. I didn’t want Gina to feel guilty because of me. Because of something that I had done.
But that last was something I generally was supposed to discuss with my ever-reassuring couselor.
“Tell her hi for me,” I said. “And tell her I’m okay.”
“I will,” he assured me. “When the time is right.”
I nodded, knowing what he meant. There was a lot they were going to have to get through. It wasn’t hard to be perceptive of that fact. There was a lot of things we were going to have to get through, too.
I cleared my throat and shifted uncomfortably.
“Can I ask you something?” I asked as he stared down at the floor, toeing one of the throw rugs.
“Yeah, sure,” he said a little hesitantly.
“Was it all you were hoping for?” I asked.
He smiled in amusement at the question. “I know now,” he said. “And I couldn’t ask for more than that. Not even for it to happen differently.”
I nodded.
“Thanks,” I said quietly.
“Thanks,” he repeated in kind.
We both smiled at that.
“What about you?” he asked. “Like I said before, this is happening to you, too. How do you feel about the way it all played out?”
I sighed. “I wish,” I said, “that my parents would have told me. And I wish that...certain aspects had never happened. I even kind of wish we had met and gotten to know each other better under better circumstances than a quick ‘Oh my God, you’re my twin brother’ type thing. But I don’t regret that it happened. I like having another brother to add to my collection, if you know what I mean.”
“Not to mention a stunt double for your next video,” he said.
“And a way to trick the tabloids,” I said.
“Or give them something to talk about,” he added.
“Either way,” I said with a shrug. “Honestly, though, even after all this time and getting to know you, it is a little weird looking at you and having to convince myself it’s not a trick of mirrors.”
“No kidding,” he said, rolling his eyes and we both laughed. “Not to mention the fact that I am now more scared than ever to go into public bathrooms and permanently hesitant about attending concerts.”
“Yeah, before we know it there could be a triplet somewhere involved in all this,” I said, chuckling at the thought, though admittedly scared as hell of going through a process like this all over again, adding the complication of a third person.”
“Or Jonny Lang’s parents will finally admit that Jonny is really Isaac’s long lost twin brother,” he said.
“Isaac wishes,” I replied remembering his absolute look of envy every time he saw Jonny play his guitar on television or the few times we had seen him in person. “Then he would have a chance at the prodigy guitar player gene that Jonny seems to have obtained.”
“Hey, anyone who can make the guitar faces Isaac makes doesn’t need to be a prodigy,” he said. “Just a damn good player. I can’t play as well as he can to save my life.”
“It might just not be your instrument,” I said.
“No,” he agreed. “I think the pen is my instrument.”
He had confessed to the journal he had kept during his stay a few days before. He offered to let me read some of it, more as an apology for some of the things he had written than anything else, but I had declined. Parker’s world was scary enough without getting inside his head through paper and pen. Besides, it wasn’t like he was going to be selling it to the tabloids any time soon. He had seemed relieved at my polite refusal.
“Then wield it like a warrior, damnit,” I said.
“I will,” he replied, saluting. Then, looking at the clock. “It’s getting late.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “It’s a pretty early flight, right?”
He nodded.
“All right, then,” I said. “I guess I should go to bed and let you get some sleep.”
“Why? So I can have nightmares about plane crashes and being the sole survivor?” he said, raising his eyebrows.
I grinned and, at his gesture, made myself comfortable for a long night.
Please, sir, I want some more.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Sixty