The Brightest Star in a Constellati... - Chapter 17: Chapter 17

☽ Peter ☽
The leaves outside Evan's apartment have started to turn burnt orange, producing spots that blossom through the shades of green. The trees hang over the street, the branches intertwining to cover the parking lot. A sycamore seed spins like a cyclone before it tumbles onto my windshield.
Nicole sits in the passenger seat, kicking her combat boots back and forth. She's dressed like we're about to get trapped on this hiking trip, with her pink sweater zipped to the neck and a scarf thrown over it. I'd already determined that I'm woefully underdressed for this occasion, but given that I worked a shift until two in the morning at the hotel, it wasn't exactly my priority to worry about being in the mode—in fashion.
The door to the apartment complex opens and Evan comes rushing out. Holding a notebook in his hands, he crosses the threshold to Europa and climbs inside, fiddling with the cuff of his flannel. "God, have you been waiting long? I got caught up for a minute there. Sibling stuff."
I exchange a look with Nicole. She smiles at him, and Evan says, "Damn it, you're both only children, aren't you?"
"Guilty as charged," Nicole deadpans.
"Just my luck." He points to the end of the road and says, "Take a right turn. It's really not far from here."
I follow his instructions, even though I already know where we're going. The invitation had a street name, so... "I looked it up," I admit.
Evan chuckles lowly. He scratches under his chin, then rests his elbow on his notebook. "Trying to make sure I don't murder you?"
"It never hurts to be certain," I say. The grey asphalt fuses with the trees as I increase speed, rolling through Evan's subdivision on Nightingale street. It's the other side of town from the hotel, where the water is hidden behind the horizon, a tiny slice of dark blue against an otherwise clouded sky.
Nodding in affirmation, Evan replies, "For all you know, I have a knife in my pocket."
"So do I," I joke.
Nicole scoffs. She angles her head to face Evan and ignores me, as she basically promised would happen. I've determined that Lexa and Evan have one vote, which places me in the rather unfortunate position of breaking the tie. I'm pretty sure Evan knows that just as well as I do, and he's probably also figured out that Nicole Duford can cajole me into practically anything if she tries hard enough (save for murder).
"How old is your sister?" she asks innocently.
"Thirteen," Evan answers, "and she's my half-sister." His smile is uneasy, and it fades as soon as it appears.
Nicole sighs wistfully. "I wish I had a sibling. Then I could be mediocre in peace."
"You have me," I point out.
"That doesn't count. You're a minor annoyance at best," she retorts.
I, for one, am flattered that I'm only a minor annoyance. I wasn't aware it was a sliding scale that could be measured, and frankly, I'm interested to see where Nicole would place herself. "Thank you."
Evan scoffs; I wait for him to comment on it, but it doesn't happen. "The path is there, on your right," he says.
To avoid having to clarify, (sometimes it takes me a moment to discern left and right) Nicole points at a stretch of gravel beside the road. The sunshine blots the sky, tiny circles of light that cut through the clouds. An army of trees stands on my left, breaking only for a trail that juts out in front of me. It's practically unnoticeable against the sea of green, absorbed into the surroundings of the rest of the street.
I let a few cars pass before popping the door open. Evan takes the front of our group, forcing Nicole and me to speed up to catch him. Protected by the layer of trees, the breeze that reaches the pathway provides a sort of warmth.
"I should probably slow down for you," Evan quips from ahead of us. The light spilling through the gaps in the foliage forms amber rays that slide through the leaves; shades of dark emerald and the hint of orange. The chlorophyll breaks down, causing the original colour to bleed through as if the leaves are becoming themselves.
"Sorry!" Nicole chirps, transferring her weight from one foot to the other. She balances at the edge of a branch before it snaps under the force of her boots. "We're lame. Don't let us hold you back."
It's too late—Evan's already slowed down to match my pace. "I wouldn't be a good Vice President-elect if I left you to fend for yourselves."
"God, I knew it," Nicole says. "I have calculus with Lexa, and they brought cupcakes. I can't believe I'm giving away cupcakes to do exercise."
"I have a granola bar in my bag?" Evan offers. He comes to a halt as the trail widens, opening to a rocky incline. Moss grows across the rugged stones, skirting around pools of water that have formed in the indentations. The pebbles scatter when I walk, and as I keep moving forward, the trees fall away.
I can see above the forest that surrounds Northwood—the thick expanse of greenery that gave the town its name—and the roads interspersed between it. Nicole grabs a stick off the rocks and pokes my side with it. "I'll hold you to that. I accept bribes."
She leans over and prods the stick into the murky octagon of a pool. "Delacroix," she says, purposely saying my name like it would sound in French—De la cwoi—and smiles to herself when I respond,
"Duford." Like a lot of Acadians on the peninsula, Nicole's family name has many variations. Dufour, Dufort, and so forth. Sometimes, especially when she's less than pleased with me, it becomes a little game that we play where she pretends that I haven't taught her how to roll her r, and she hasn't snapped at me that it's actually, 'Duford-with-the-d.' "What do you want?"
And like always, she says something stupid. "I need you to convince me out of drinking this, Pierre."
Evan snorts. "Why?"
"It looks tasty," she says, if a little jokingly.
I bat her hand away like she's a cat about to jump inside the fish tank, which isn't exactly far from the truth. "Give me that, Duford."
She chuckles, then says, "Don't be lame. Live a little, wouldn't you?"
"No," I say, and give her a pointed glare to get her to cut it out.
"Okay, Mr. Concerned Parent. I'm going to go and walk around now. I promise I won't fall and die." She skips off without letting me protest, and I'm surprised she didn't already do that five minutes ago.
Evan watches her recede with a bemused expression on his face. Then he mumbles, "Have I been saying your name wrong this whole time?"
I turn to face him, partly startled. "Sorry?"
He clears his throat and repeats it, louder this time. Not that I didn't hear him the first time, just that it took me a moment to process it. I realize what he wants halfway through his repeated question, and I interrupt him to say, "What? No, you're not saying it wrong."
Evan says, "Nicole calls you Pierre."
"Ah, right... she does. It doesn't matter to me which name you call me by. I mean, technically speaking, they both mean the same thing. It's just the English version of my name," I explain.
"Huh, it seems... I don't know if I'd like being called by a name that isn't mine."
I shrug. "It doesn't bother me anymore." Searching for a name, I continue, "It's essentially like if I called you by the French translation of your name... not that there is one... but a virtually identical one. Ah, I've got it. Éric."
He grins; he has the slightest indent of dimples when he smiles like that, and it makes it hard not to smile back. "That's not the same."
"No, not really. But if I referred to you as Éric for years, you'd get used to it, right? That's sort of what I was trying to explain. I'm not going to spend my time correcting people. It's not worth the effort for such a minor issue."
"Still." He pauses, thinking about it for a while. "You probably get this question a lot, but where is your accent from?"
"It's... complicated," I say. "Do you want the simple answer or the long answer?"
He shrugs as he sits at the edge of the rocks, placing his sketchbook against the flat surface next to him. "I have time."
"Okay. It's a combination of three places: Montréal, Martinique, and maybe a bit of Rwanda. The last two are where my parents are from. Montréal is... another long story. My mother was adopted out of Rwanda by the consulate when she was young. The couple that raised her was very devout about their French. So, there you have it."
"That's..."
"A long story?"
He nods. "Yeah, that. I had no idea. So, does she know anything about her real family?"
"The documents are... lost. Or maybe her birth was never recorded. She doesn't know her real birthday, just the one given to her—January first. It's the same birthday given to every immigrant with no record."
Evan falls silent. I get the sense that he's thinking intensely about something, so I ask: "Are you okay?"
"Yeah," he says, "sorry. I have a lot on my mind. It probably seems stupid, in comparison."
"Since when was this a competition?" I refute. "What's it about? Soccer?"
He nods again. "I need parental permission to quit. It should be easy to get that—to just ask. It should be."
"Not everything is plain and simple." I wonder when I'm going to stop repeating that constant. It feels like an eternity ago, and yet it was barely a few weeks. I want to forget about it because Suzanna thinks I'm getting myself worked up about it, (and she's right) but sometimes I don't think I want to move on. Whatever moving on means. "Do you want to talk about it?"
Evan shakes his head. He looks a bit shocked, but I don't understand why. After all, he always asks me for permission, and I just figured he wanted the same back. "It's a long story," he echoes. "My mother wants me to be perfect. To be everything she wasn't—to continue playing sports because that's the way life has always been. I don't think I'm allowed to deviate from that, as much as I want to. I know it doesn't make sense, but that's what makes it a long story."
"No, I think I get it. If you need someone to sign a permission slip, I can try," I joke.
"Would that work?"
I answer, "I tried it already. For Nicole, of course, and we both ended up in the principal's office to have a stern conversation about what the word 'guardian' means."
A smile ghosts across Evan's face. "I believe that. Did you get in trouble?"
"With my parents? Not really." I watch him flip through the pages of his sketches before landing on a blank page. He hesitates for a second before tearing it off.
"Want to try drawing?" He wags a pencil in my direction and points to a mushroom across from him. Its top is a smooth yellow-orange, with grooves like the baleen of a whale.
"I'm not a very good artist," I say nervously.
"Oh, come on. It's not about accuracy. It's about drawing something that speaks to you. Putting the feeling in a box to keep forever."
I take the page. "That seems like a lot to ask of a couple of pencil lines."
"Maybe so," he answers with a chuckle.
Evan removes a box of coloured pencils from his pocket and places them between us. It can't be that hard, right? I settle in place a few inches away from him, trying to determine what I should draw. My eyes land on a particular leaf sitting against the rocks.
I take the light orange pencil, then regret my decision. The outside is a darker red—no, not that dark. I've gone and ruined it already. Maybe if I try to cover it with some green—ah. I've made it worse. I spend far too long trying to blend the colours together before slowly filling in the vein-like lines dotting the centre. And even when I'm finished, my drawing looks nothing like the leaf sitting in front of me. It just looks like a collection of scribbles vaguely forming the shape of a leaf; or rather, what someone who's never seen one before in their life would imagine they look like.
"Finished?" Evan asks. Without waiting for me to answer, he says, "Here's mine."
He holds up his drawing, and my self-confidence reaches a new record low. Although he hasn't fully coloured it in yet, I know exactly what it is by looking; a picture of me. My back is hunched, and I'm completely lost in thought. The background is a smudge of trees lining the outside. Is that really what I look like?
"It's not finished yet, and I messed up on the side angle," he explains. As if it could be any worse than the abomination I've created, which can barely be classified as art. "Let me see yours now."
I've been hiding it from him—covering the sheet of paper with my arm and shifting every time he tries to glance in its direction. With a sigh, I hand it to him and look away. My gaze studies the sharp rocks, rubbing the sole of my shoes against it. "Here."
His hesitation gives him away. "It's... nice. Do you mind if I put it in the notebook with the rest?"
"I don't really care if I ever see it again," I respond sharply.
"It's not that bad." Evan first looks at me, then tries to smile. He slides both pages back into his sketchbook and closes it. The front page is devoid of any indication of what remains on the inside; it's a plain, leather-bound book, and he's keeping it in his grasp like he's worried about losing it.
As he lies against the rocks, he says, "I used to come here all the time with Elaine—my sister. And my step-dad... Randall. He works on the boat between North Sydney and Newfoundland. You know, for Marine Atlantic, so he's gone every two weeks, and then he's home for two weeks. So he always wants to hang out with Elaine and me, just to have that time before he's gone again. The last time we were here, she brought a fishing line and tried to catch the little fish that swim past. It's been a while since we've been back," he says, "and I missed it."
I don't know how to respond to that, but luckily, Evan keeps going. "And I wonder why we stopped coming, if that makes sense. I didn't mind it."
"Elaine seems nice," I offer.
"She's sweet. Sometimes I wish I was more like her, more... I don't know how to explain it—it's like she knows what she wants, and then she goes and does it. I'm nothing like that. I don't have the planning skills."
I laugh slightly. "And what are those plans?"
"To be more successful than I'll ever be," he says. "But, seriously, that girl has her whole life planned out on a schedule. I don't think that far ahead, ever. I'm going to guess that you're the same way, though. I have a feeling."
"How so?" I may have an idea of what I want, but logic has proven that nothing in Northwood can happen according to plan.
He throws a hand up in surrender. "It might be related to the hotel. I assume that belongs to you."
"It does. But it's not that easy."
Placing his arms behind his head as a cushion, Evan says, "Just like quitting soccer isn't easy?"
"That's different," I point out.
Before he can comment further, the opening in the trail breaks so that Nicole can parade back towards me. She has the pin I gave her this morning attached to her sweater, which Dina helped me with during my shift. The design has a navy blue background tattered with pointed yellow lights, and Nicole's personalized badge reads Club Jokester.
"I see you found the pins," I say.
She shoots me a devilish grin and hands me the one Dina tailored for me; Club Dictator. "I like yours. It's accurate."
"I know." I reach into my pocket and remove the pin I've been keeping there. And I hand it to Evan. "This is for you."
He stares down at his Club Vice President pin, then says, "But we haven't voted yet."
"I suspect you have a decent chance," I say. "In any case, I have a 'Vice President elect' button if you want to take that instead."
Evan carefully places it on the front pocket of his flannel. It shines in the light, reflecting a circular pattern on his chin. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. We haven't voted," I remind him.
He places a hand against the ground to boost himself up. "You know, I think you enjoy making me worry."
Nicole giggles. "It's a show of imaginary dominance."
I have to shift to kick her in the shin, but it's worth it. She hobbles a few steps backwards, grinning about the fact that she was right. Not that I would ever admit that.