Candor by Pam Bachorz Page A

music?”
    She makes a face. “Yeah. My parents took all my good music away. So I’m stuck with yours.”
    “Good. Keep listening.”
    The jazz is decent. “You have good taste, even if you are a positive influence.”
    I show her the oven that refrigerates food until it’s ready to cook. The pantry with shelves that light up when a box gets too light—time to replace it. Upstairs, we stop by the home theater with the massage chairs.
    “Where’s your room?” she asks.
    “It’s not exciting.” But she insists, so I show her. White walls. Twin bed. A desk with plenty of room for thick textbooks.
    She looks for a minute. “It’s basic.” Her voice is too nice, like she feels sorry for me.
    “It used to be great,” I tell her. “There were these model train tracks hanging from the ceiling, and a bed shaped like a caboose.”
    “What happened?”
    “I grew up.” And people weren’t touring our house anymore.
    She walks over to my desk. “It’s so empty.”
    “It doesn’t matter.” The shed is my real hideout now.
    “I could paint something for you. Or draw something on the wall,” she says.
    “That’s, um, nice of you,” I say. Surprised, I guess. And wondering what my father would do if a piece of art showed up in our house.
    “Or not.” She rolls her eyes.
    But then she spots it. A corner of paper showing below the Yale calendar on my wall. Her drawing, where my dad would never notice.
    “You kept it.” She yanks down the calendar. “You liked it.”
    “You’re a crazy stalker,” I tell her.
    “Crazy artist stalker.” She’s got a smile on her face that I bet tastes like champagne.
    I pin the calendar back up. “Come on. My dad won’t be gone forever.”
    We finish the tour in Dad’s bathroom. It’s bigger than our kitchen back in Chicago, with countertops ripped from some mountain in Brazil. Nia pushes the button to turn on the shower. We watch all thirty jets pulse water against the tiny Italian tiles.
    The noise fills my head. Pushes everything else out. Whatever I say belongs to me. I can be the guy with the orange paint can.
    “It’s made for two people,” I tell her. “I could show you.”
    She gives me a shove. “You talk to your girlfriend that way?”
    “She never notices. We’re not … like that.”
    “Show me the backyard.” Nia pushes past me. Before I know it, she’s at the sliding-glass doors at the back of the house.
    The backyard is the one place I don’t want to be with her. Or anyone.
    “Maybe we should study,” I shout.
    But she’s already gone outside.

SHE’S STARING AT the pool when I catch up. “Why did you waste my time with the pervy shower? It’s amazing out here.”
    I swallow. The spit barely slides down.
    Nia looks up at the porch ceiling. “Hey, house. Turn some lights on.” Nothing happens.
    “Lighting,” I say. “Backyard. Mid-level ambience. Spots on the trees.”
    Her eyes get huge as the lights brighten and fade to their new settings. “It’s like you have a movie set in your backyard.”
    Our pool is top-of-the-line. There are two waterfalls, and an island in the middle with a built-in cooler. It’s exactly what you would expect Campbell Banks to have in his backyard. Unless you knew his family history. But nobody knows that here. Nobody but him. And me.
    “Are these real?” Nia skips over to the boulders around the edge of the water. I follow. Slowly.
    “They’re fake.” I run my finger over the bumpy, cool surface. “It took three men a month to sculpt them.”
    She sits on the edge of the water and unlaces her ripped black sneakers. Then she slides her feet in the water, toes pointed. “You must swim here every day.”
    “We never use it.” I can see the red ambulance lights, bouncing off another pool’s water. I take one step back. Then another.
    “Liar!” She flips her foot back and water spots my shirt.
    “Careful!” I jump back another step. But I still don’t feel safe.
    “Do you fill it with