Red, White & Dead. Laura Caldwell

years of living off his settlement check, it was starting to dry up—but somehow it was impossible to imagine him getting up and doing something besides deciding between merlot versus cabernet.

      “Yeah. Actually, I think I already have the job. They just need my résumé for office purposes, to put it in my file.”

      “What’s the job?”

      “An internship at WGN. The radio station.”

      “The one with the glass studio on Michigan Avenue?”

      He nodded.

      “Wow.” I couldn’t hide my astonishment. “That sounds like a big gig.”

      “No, it’s being an assistant—or intern or whatever—to the producer for the midday show.”

      “So you’ll be going there every day?” Somehow this concept seemed impossible.

      “Yeah. I’m going to be working, Iz.” There was a note of pride in his voice I didn’t recognize. He studied my face. “I mean, c’mon, I don’t know what I want to do with my life. Actually, I wish everyone would stop asking me what I want to do with my life. What does that even mean?”

      I shrugged. I couldn’t be of any help there.

      “But it’s time to do something,” he continued. “Maybe this radio thing could be for me.” He shrugged, too. “You know Zim?”

      I nodded. “Zim” was Robby Zimmerman, a friend of Charlie’s from high school.

      “Well, his dad is in radio sales, and he got me the job. There’s no money in it, like no money, but—”

      “You’re going to work for free?” Financially, I was appalled, but this sounded more like the Charlie I knew.

      “Yeah. At least at first. Because I have to try something, Iz. I’m twenty-seven.” He said this like, I’m eighty-three.

      Charlie’s birthday was just a few days ago, and he was taking it even more seriously than I was my upcoming thirtieth.

      “I can’t sit around on my ass forever.” He frowned and looked out at a duck being chased by a toddler who was being chased by her mother.

      “Why not? You do sitting on your butt better than anyone I know.” Somehow, this whole notion of Charlie as a member of the working class freaked me out, made me feel as if my world was shifting even more. Things in my life kept skidding around, and I hated the fact that I had no idea where they would all land.

      Charlie laughed. “You don’t want me to get a job, because you don’t have a job.”

      “Exactly. It’s the beginning of summer and both the McNeil kids are lazy good-for-nothings. Let’s make the most of it and spend the summer on the lake.” Suddenly, I could envision it—Charlie and I walking from my mom’s house to North Avenue Beach, maybe sitting on the roof deck of the restaurant that looked like a boat and eating fried shrimp for lunch, lying under an umbrella in the sand for the rest of the afternoon, barbecuing with my mom and Spence in the evenings. Ever since the breakup with Sam—and Theo and Grady—I craved my family like never before. Even more so now that it felt as if I was about to lose Charlie somehow. Or at least the Charlie I knew.

      “You should do that,” Charlie said. “Have yourself a lazy summer. Pretend you’re me, and I’ll go to work and pretend I’m you.”

      I frowned. I wasn’t enjoying the prospect of suddenly being the sloth of the family. I didn’t think I could pull off slothful with exuberance and elegance the way Charlie had. I was pretty sure I didn’t want to.

      Then I had an idea. “How about we go to Italy? Tell the radio station you can start in a month or even a few weeks.” If we could stay with our aunt and I could use my airline miles, it might be doable. Charlie loved the concept of traveling, had been talking about Europe the last year, and if I planned the trip for him, the ease of it all might just push him over the hump and get him to agree.

      “Can’t. Their other intern quit. They need me on Wednesday.”

      “Like in two days, Wednesday?”

      “Yeah.”

      “Wow.” I hardly knew what to say. “Congratulations, Charlie.” I squeezed his hand.

      “Thanks.” He smiled—that great Charlie McNeil smile that made the few freckles on his face dance and his hazel eyes gleam. If there was a famous McNeil smile, as Mayburn had suggested, it belonged to Charlie, not me.

      I turned and looked at the pond, at a dad with twin girls on a paddleboat. The girls were laughing, pointing. The dad appeared stressed and was trying to stop them from falling over the side.

      “Remember when we got to do things like that with Dad?” I gestured at the boat.

      Charlie crossed his arms and studied the family. “Not really. I don’t remember much about him at all.”

      “Really?”

      “I remember a few things. I remember what he looked like. I remember what Mom wore on the day he died. Remember that belt she had on?”

      I nodded. I could see the scene as if it were playing in front of me.

      When I was eight and Charlie five, my mother had to tell us that our dad was dead. We lived in Michigan then. It had been a magnificent, sunny fall day, and Charlie and I were playing in the leaves in the backyard. I would rake and form piles, then Charlie and I would take running, shrieking leaps and dive into them. Then Charlie would sit, and I would rake, and we would do the whole thing again.

      We had been doing that for at least an hour when my mother came out of the house. She wore jeans and a brown braided belt that tied at the waist. She walked across the lawn slowly, too slowly. She was usually rushing outside to tell us it was time to eat or time to go into town. The ends of her belt gently slapped her thighs as she walked. Her red-blond hair was loosely curled around her face, as usual, but that face was splotched and somehow off-kilter. I remember stopping, holding the rake and studying her, thinking that her face looked as if it had two different sides, like a Picasso painting my teacher had shown us in art class.

      She sat us down on the scattered leaves and asked us if we knew where our dad was that day.

      “Work!” Charlie said.

      My father was a psychologist and a police profiler. I knew that much, although I really didn’t understand what those things meant.

      “No, he—” my mom started to say.

      “The helicopter,” I said, jumping in. My father already had his pilot’s certificate and was training for his helicopter rating.

      “That’s right.” My mom’s eyes were wide, scared. The helicopter my father was flying had crashed into Lake Erie, she explained. And now he was dead. It was as simple and awful as that.

      Charlie seemed to take the news well. He furrowed his tiny brow, the way he did in school when he knew he was supposed to be listening to an adult. But when she was done, he leapt to his feet and scooped up an armful of leaves with an unconcerned smile.

      “I’m surprised you remember that,” I said to Charlie now. “I thought you didn’t really understand what was going on.”

      “I didn’t, not until later. But I remember that day. Always will.”

      We both stared at the pond. The father had gotten his twins to sit still, and they paddled away from us, all of them laughing.

      “Do you ever think you see him?” I asked Charlie.

      “Who?”

      “Dad. You know, do you ever think you see him or hear his voice?”

      “You mean, someone that reminds me of him? Not really.”

      “I do.”

      Out