Back When You Were Easier to Love (11 page)

Gretel finishes straightening the sleeping bag, tosses one of her pillows on it with a flourish, and sits, cross-legged, on the bed. “You promised to give me all the details when you got here,” she says. “So spill.”

“Not now. I don’t want to leave Noah alone in a strange house. Let’s go play Uno or something.” Uno is, of course, the lamest game known to man. Must be why it feels like exactly the right game to play with Noah.

Gretel rolls her eyes. “First off, Uno? Um, no. Second, Noah wanted some ‘chill time,’ as he put it. The drive exhausted him.”

It sounds like a made-up story to convince me to gossip with her. “And when exactly did he tell you all this?”

“After dinner, while you were chatting it up with my parents. He and I were doing the dishes. He’s a much better houseguest than you are, by the way.”

I’m less than thrilled by this information. “Terrif. So what’d you guys discuss?”

“Very little, actually. That guy’s loyal to you to a fault.”

I sigh. “It’s not just me. Noah’s loyal to everybody. It’s his thing. His all-around-great-guy self.”

“Well, it’s boring. Whenever I asked him about the trip, about you, about the two of you, he was totally vague.” She brushes a strand of hair out of her face.

“You asked him about
the two of us
? No wonder he was vague—he’s probably totally freaked out because he thinks I told you there was a two of us and now he has to tactfully tell me how wrong I am so he can remain his all-around-great-guy self.” This is so not good. “Why would you say that? You
know
there’s not a two of us.”

“Just how would I know that?” Gretel asks, pounding her fists on the mattress like she’s done a hundred times before. That’s just counting when she’s mad at
me
. “You haven’t told me anything about why you’re here except that you need closure. Noah, however, seems like a normal guy who does not need closure. So the question is, why did he just drive all day and agree to stay with some family he’s never met before?”

I think about how to answer this while taking my prized Barry Manilow concert tee out of my bag. I’ve never seen Barry live—the shirt is an older-than-I-am relic from my mom’s college days. It’s paper-thin and ragged at the collar, but I sleep in it almost every night. Pulling it over my head, I say: “Driving all day wasn’t a big deal to him. He’s a car person. That’s his car out there. A SAAB nine hundred. A classic.”

“Just because he has a classic car and likes to drive it doesn’t mean he wants to drive it to
Claremont
, of all places. Jeez, Joy, you’re really not a car person, are you?” It’s obviously a rhetorical question. “This whole thing is really strange.”

“Yeah, but my whole life is really strange, so I’m okay with it.” While Gretel changes for the night, I turn my head and stare into the mirror again. I like the way I look. I look like who I used to be. “This whole thing is just one more part of my Haven world that defies all natural laws. But I’m here now. So can we just leave that world behind?”

All Gretel’s wearing are snowflake-patterned pajama pants and a party-pink bra from Victoria’s Secret, her one corporate sellout. “Yeah,” she says finally, nodding. “Yeah, we can.”

I didn’t realize it until now, but I’m exhausted, so I slide into my sleeping bag while Gretel pulls on a graphic tee for some indie band, probably a local one. It’s too bad I hate camping, I think, feeling the fake-silkiness beneath me. When I’m indoors, I love my sleeping bag.

All is right in this world. I’m in my cozy sleeping bag, with my best friend who supports the arts and in-die rock, and I’m going to find my boyfriend and get the answers I deserve. The answers are going to fit together, make sense. How can they not? Everything makes sense here, tonight.

Except Noah. He’s the only thing that doesn’t fit together, make sense. Gretel’s right: this, all of this, is really strange. And I was telling the truth when I told her I was okay with it, because there’s no denying that my whole life is strange.

But Noah’s isn’t. Noah’s UEA break is supposed to consist of fun, wholesome recreation, like visiting the pumpkin patch with the other Soccer Lovin’ Kids, going on hayrides and flirting with girls by throwing straw in their hair. It’s almost scary how clearly I can see Noah’s alterna-UEA break play out in my mind, like a video that was shot but never uploaded.

So far his real UEA break’s been so dull it couldn’t even be a documentary: driving all day with some random girl he feels sorry for, staying with strangers because he feels obligated. I think back to today, the good parts, and how they were probably only good for him because they meant he succeeded.

Hurt—a heavy, dull hurt—sinks in piece-by-piece, and the fake-silkiness turns cold beneath my legs, and all is not right with the world. The realization is like a double punch to the gut, taking away the happiness I feel now
and
the happiness I felt today. I am his service project. I am nothing more.

I knew that. I knew that all along, really. So why am I letting it bother me now? Noah doesn’t want to be here, but who cares? He doesn’t make sense here anyway, and everything else does. The way I do. The way I do with my boyfriend.

My boyfriend. Who is not Noah. Zan. Zan’s the one who matters. I want that thought, right there, to counteract every hurt I’m feeling. It doesn’t, though. But it does start to fade.

“Wait,” Gretel says. “You’re not seriously getting into bed right now, are you?”

“Uh, no?”

“I invited Tess and Jen over. Just to kick back, nothing fancy or anything. Is that okay?”

“You invited Tess and Jen over? Now?”

Gretel gives me a weird look. “It’s eight thirty.”

Whoa. Flashback.

It’s not that I don’t want to see Tess and Jen. After all, they’re my peeps, my posse, my friends-till-the-end. I guess I just didn’t plan on seeing them until later. Later, when I had Zan back. Later, when things were right again and I wouldn’t look like such a loser.

But friends are supposed to see you at your most pathetic. Friends are supposed to see you at your bottom-of-the-barrel worst and love you anyway. And you’re supposed to let them.

“Okay,” I say, sliding out of my sleeping bag and feeling warmer immediately. “When are they getting here?”

It’s crazy how
some people you can see every day and you still aren’t comfortable talking to them, but others you go without talking to for months and in nine seconds it’s like no time has passed.

Tess’s got her MacBook flipped open and is sprawled perpendicular to me on the floor. It looks the same as the one she had when I left—white and skinny—but knowing Tess, it’s a safe bet that this is a newer, faster, superior version. I say, “Nice computer,” and she rattles off stuff about giggers and hard drives that she must know I don’t understand a word of. I love how familiar she sounds, how familiar she looks with her black-brown hair lanky around her chunky, college-girl glasses. Not that she’s actually in college, but in spirit Tess has been in college her whole life. It’s just who she is.

Jen’s curled up in a corner of Gretel’s four-poster bed, knitting. Her hands move so fast they almost look like they’re shaking, and there’s an ever-shrinking ball of teal-colored yarn at her feet. “So, should I be offended you didn’t tell me you were coming?” she asks, half smiling, half curious.

“Yeah,” says Tess. “You didn’t tell me, either. Should I feel left out?”

“The trip was totally last minute.”

“She barely even told me she was coming,” Gretel adds.

“Again,
last minute
.”

“Okay, so what exactly sparked this impromptu visit?” Jen looks right at me, her gray eyes skeptical and catlike. Her needles don’t slow even for a second.

Jen’s been knitting ever since I met her. I mean, she’s stopped to sleep and go to school and stuff, but if she can be doing two things at once, she is, and one of them is usually knitting. Apparently she went to this überprogressive elementary school, where this was actually part of the curriculum. Maybe they’re onto something—Jen can focus on two things at once better than I can focus on one thing at once.

“You know,” I tell her, “the girls in Haven are way into crafts, too. You’d fit in really well there.”

“Dude, do
not
say that.” Jen shakes her head. “I want no connection to that town or any of its . . .” She struggles for the words. “Its ... things.” She looks disgusted, and I can’t tell whether it’s because of Haven or because she couldn’t come up with a better word than “things.”

“You’re changing the subject, Joy,” says Tess.

“Yeah, answer my question!” Jen says. “Why was it so important to get here pronto that you couldn’t even give your friends a heads-up first?”

“Zan.” This time when I yawn I don’t bother hiding it. “Zan can’t wait.”

Tess and Jen both nod, and I’m relieved for my real friends, the ones who know me, the ones who know that’s all there is to it. Until Gretel says, “Oh, and she brought one of her Haven things with her.”

“If we must
do this,” I say, rummaging through my backpack, “then at least let me change out of my Barry shirt first.” The striped Henley I was wearing all day doesn’t really go with my pajama pants, but I don’t want to change clothes entirely and have my friends think that I think this late-night visit to his room is a big deal. But I don’t want to wear my Barry shirt, either, and make myself look like an even bigger service project than Noah already thinks I am—a lunatic Barry Manilow fan who drags some guy who couldn’t care less to her old hometown and makes him meet her friends.

“If we
must
? Of course we must! I can’t believe you thought you could sneak a hot guy on this trip without even telling us.” Jen pulls a Dr Pepper Lip Smacker out of her pocket.

“How do you know he’s hot?”

“He sounds hot,” says Tess.

“How can he sound hot? You haven’t heard his voice. You haven’t heard a physical description of him. You haven’t heard anything about him at all.”

“Methinks the lady doth protest too much,” Gretel says, “and you really do want to go in and wish him good night.” The guest room, where Noah’s staying, is next to the kitchen, so Gretel’s come up with the plan to go downstairs for a snack and casually “say hi.”

“I do not. I just want to go to sleep. It’s after midnight.”

“Dude,” says Jen, rolling her eyes again, “it’s nine thirty.”

“Ten thirty my time!”

Tess closes her computer. “Okay, even I think that’s lame. Let’s go.”

I try to make sure the stairs don’t creak on my way down, but I’m the only one who does. “Guys, can you be a little quieter?” I whisper.

“Why are you whispering?” Jen exaggerates tiptoeing in her hand-knit red slipper socks. “Nobody’s asleep yet.”

Gretel flips on a light over the kitchen sink. “There’s soda in the fridge.”

I can’t help a smile sneaking into my eyes. “Do you have any Sprite?”

“We have an all-natural lemon-lime alternative to Sprite.” She lifts a bag of organic cookies off a shelf in the pantry. “Does that count?”

“You’re a Sprite drinker now?” asks Tess, getting herself a can of something that looks berry flavor.

“Nope, but Noah is.”

“You know his beverage preferences?” Jen raises an eyebrow. “This is getting serious.”

“It is not! Get me a can of whatever you’re having,” I tell Tess.

“Let me ask you this, then,” Gretel says, turning out the light. “Do you even know
Zan
’s favorite drink?”

It’s dark now, dark enough that I know she can’t see my face as it crumples, thinking of Mocha Java. “Yes. Yes I do.”

 

“Room service!” Gretel says, tapping on Noah’s door.

As he opens it, the dim hallway is slowly bathed in apple juice–colored light.

Besides the bedside lamp being on, Noah’s room looks uninhabited—the bed is unmussed and his stuff must be hidden in his closet. His iPod is clipped to his track pants, but he probably wasn’t listening to it if he heard us knock. “Um, hi.” His smile is confused at first, but grows wider as he speaks. “What is all this?”

“We wanted a late-night snack,” Gretel says demurely, “and thought you might like something, too.”

Noah’s eyebrows knit together, like he’s expecting the worst. He probably thinks Service Project and her posse of crazies are going to waltz in and give him a lap dance or something.

“We brought you Sprite!” I say, holding it up and forcing a smile. A smile that, I’m sure, looks as forced as it feels. “Or at least an all-natural, lemon-lime alternative to Sprite.”

“And cookies,” adds Tess.

“I do like cookies,” Noah says, nudging the door so it’s open all the way. “And all-natural lemon-lime alternatives.” He’s looking so relaxed now that I’m sure he’s going to invite us in, until I remember: Noah Talbot is not the kind of guy to let girls in his room. I’m not sure if that counts as a Haven thing or a Mormon thing, but it’s definitely a Noah thing.

“Noah, these are my friends Tess and Jen,” I say, pointing.

“We know many things about your ways,” Tess says.

Gretel and Jen both elbow her.

“What?” she asks. “We do.”

“Thanks,” says Noah. I’m not sure if he’s thanking Tess, for her great knowledge of “his ways,” or thanking us in general for the snacks, which we haven’t even given him yet. But it’s definitely time for us to go.

“Here.” I thrust the can of Sprite-alternative at him. “Jen, give him some cookies.”

“It’s nice to meet you,” she says, handing over the whole bag. “Really nice to meet you.”

“You, too,” he says, smiling again. I can only imagine what he’s really thinking. Shouldn’t imagine, shouldn’t care, but I still do. “Good night, Jen, Tess, Gretel, and Joy.” He says each name carefully, like it’s special, and he sounds like such a gentleman. But he probably rattles off the names of all the girls at school the same way. He’s always a gentleman.