I'll Be Here (16 page)

When dad started dating Diana, that lax schedule changed.  It didn’t seem
right
to her that we didn’t have a proper visitation schedule.  Diana didn’t like the sound of “whenever” so she came up with the two monthly dinners and two week-long stays each year—one after Christmas and one in the summer. 

“Well, please look at it this week.  I know that you’ll be busy planning for college and there are a few things that your father mentioned that he wanted to do so the summer weekends are filling up fast.”

“Of course.”  I take another bite of eggplant parmesan to occupy myself.

She touches my father’s arm.  “Miles, do you think it would be too much for you to put your phone away for a few minutes and try to enjoy dinner with
your daughter
?” 

I hate how Diana does that—uses titles like “your daughter” and “your father” instead of just calling us Willow and Miles. 

He looks over sheepishly and punches two more keys before sliding his phone into his side pocket. 

“Sorry about that.  Busy time at work right now.  New cases coming in every day and we’re short-staffed as it is.”  He looks at me attempting to make a connection.  “Tell me how you’ve been kiddo.”

Kiddo. 
That’s what he still calls me.  It bothers the hell out of me but I don’t say anything because the last time I told my father something honest—that I no longer enjoyed our annual visit to Disney World—he was completely irritated.  He called my mother and acted like it was
her
fault that I’d grown up and didn’t want to stand in hour-long lines in ninety-eight degree weather to see animatronic animals sing and dance to cheesy songs. 

No, speaking one’s mind does not pay off with Miles James.  He’s a strictly “on the surface” kind of father.  He wants to hear that I’m doing well in school, that I’m eating lots of vegetables and that I brush my teeth every night before bed.  Anything more tends to set off a chain reaction of negativity.

He and Diana listen attentively as I tell them about school and the paper that I have due in English.  He asks a few questions.  I answer.  And then he looks at Diana and something passes between them and he takes her hand.  “We’ve got news,” my father says with a grin like he’s holding court.

“Okaa-aay…”

“We’re getting married.”

Oi vey.

***

Now is as good a time as any to admit that I lied before.  My friendship with Laney didn’t just end with a fight.  It didn’t fizzle out.  I extinguished it.

Why?

Because Dustin didn’t like her.

The first day after Mr. Rotholz redid the seating chart and Dustin looked over at me in Chem lab—I mean,
really
looked at me—I blushed from the tips of my toes all the way up to my hairline.  Two months earlier Alex had turned me down and my heart had gone into a tailspin. 

Laney had called it a “bump in the road,” but it felt like a lot more than just a bump.  It felt like Kilimanjaro.  And with my mom’s cancer it felt like my entire life was in a tailspin of suckage.   

You know that saying,
when it rains, it pours
? 

Well, that pretty much sums up the way that I was feeling.  I was in a torrential downpour and I didn’t have an umbrella.

And then Dustin Rant smiled his cocky smile at me and it was the sun peeking out from behind a patch of storm clouds.  At this point my transformation was underway.  I’d already started paying attention to my clothes and wearing makeup to school.  I practiced my posture in the full-length mirror in my bedroom.  Mom had insisted that I talk to someone—a professional—to help me cope with the stress of her illness.  I’d only had to go to five sessions before mom was convinced that I was stable, but I still remember some of the things that Dr. Snyder (I wasn’t allowed to call her Patty then) had said to me.  

            She brought up my sudden interest in clothes.  Obviously my mother had dished about me prior to my office visit because how else would Dr. Snyder know that the tailored vest and pointy-toed shoes that I was wearing were “new for me”?  The last time she’d seen me I’d been in a pale blue loose-fitting dress with crocheted sleeves at Mom and Jake’s wedding.  Clearly that was no indication of my style preferences. 

It was easy to brush it off.  I’d shrugged.  “I’m an adolescent.  Isn’t trying new stuff what I’m supposed to be doing?”

Dr. Snyder had nodded and made this face that at the time I thought was a tad condescending, but in hindsight, I know that’s just the face that she makes when she’s thinking. 

“When you’re in crisis mode it’s normal to search for areas of your life that you can gain control over.”

Crisis mode? 
I thought that was a bit of an exaggeration and said as much. 

Maybe my reasons were simpler.  Maybe I was just trying to make a change.  People had been changing their lives for the better for centuries—getting religion, moving continents, giving up candy and fried foods.  Why did it matter so much what I wore?  Combat boots and vintage tops didn’t define me.  Neither could patent leather and breast-boosting undergarments.

Dustin, for one, liked my new look.  “Nice shirt,” he commented as I sat down at my lab seat.  When he laughed a few minutes later I noted that his nostrils were perfectly symmetrical.

I told Laney how he walked me to my next class after our lab. 

“Duh—he likes you,” she said as if that wasn’t something that was altogether amazing. Looking back it’s entirely possible that there was a hint of disapproval in her tone.

Could it be true?  Did Dustin Rant like
me
?  I couldn’t fathom it.    

A week and one day later he invited me to a party at the beach. 

(!!!)

Laney came with me because I said that I needed back-up and even though she rolled her eyes at the gathering of parked luxury cars in the corner of the beach access parking lot and mumbled under her breath about spoiled little rich kids, she was my best friend and if that meant tagging along to some party that she hated, that’s what she would do.

He found me almost immediately and shoved a red plastic cup brimming with foamy beer into my hands.  It was bitter and I hated the taste instantly but I drank the entire thing within fifteen minutes because I figured that was what I was supposed to do.  When the cup was empty I moved to refill it.  This was my very first experience with a keg and some guy I didn’t know laughed at my fumbling with the spigot thingy (which I later learned is called a “tap”) and ended up filling the cup for me.

I tried to talk to people—to fit in but I was distracted by Dustin over by the bonfire laughing loudly and jokingly wrestling one of his friends that I recognized as being on the track team also.  I liked the deep dimple that appeared on his cheek when he smiled and the way that his eyes kept drifting over to mine even when other girls were talking to him.  I wondered about the smell of his skin and feel of the dark blonde curls that tickled his collar.

Couples began to fork off and in the moonlight Dustin pulled me away from the crowd down to where the water brushed the dry sand.  He held onto my hand and he kissed me for the first time while the black water lapped at our shoes. 

I felt warm all over and when his mouth moved down my neck and his hands crept up my shirt to the swell of my breasts, I didn’t stop him.  If Dustin’s mouth was a little sloppy due to him being tipsy I didn’t really care.  When his fingers grazed my zipper I held onto his hand with mine.  Dustin sighed and kissed my earlobe.  He bent his head and told me that I was gorgeous and that I was his. 

He held my hand in his as we walked back to the epicenter of the party. 

“What’s with your friend Laney?”  By the time he asked the question we were close enough to the bonfire that I could see his face.  His nose was crinkled.

“What do you mean?”  I asked even though I knew exactly what he meant. 

“She’s weird,” he said as if it were a fact, not an opinion.

I looked for her.  She was standing off to the edge of things talking to a boy I recognized as a senior.  I could barely make out the words but a few carried through the other noises. 
Taxes, nouveau rich, right, decency…
  I cringed.  Laney was talking politics.  At a party.  A party full of teenagers. 

Dustin frowned.  “You can do better.”  Like it was a simple thing.  Like you could choose your friends and change them like a pair of pants that don’t work for the weather.  Like that’s all it was. 

And as the senior rolled his eyes and walked away from Laney I thought that maybe Dustin was right. 

***

The beach doesn’t change much and neither do the parties.

Usually they are at the beach access over at the east end of Palmer Road.  It’s called The Hooch which is a name that no one really gets, but it sticks and I wonder if that’s because no one’s been able to think of anything better.

The crowd at the Hooch consists mainly of kids from Northridge High, but there are always some people from Bayview, which is where Alex graduated from.  And some of the time a few people will show up from Saint Joseph’s.  In all the times that I’ve come to a party at this beach with Dustin I’ve never bumped into Alex and I’m starting to have second thoughts.

I’m glossing over the part where Alex picked me up tonight because I think that I blacked out through most of it.  Pretty much all I remember is him opening my car door and my arm brushing against his and the rest is a blur.  I didn’t recognize the soft indie music coming out of the speakers but I focused on the chords to get myself under control.  I will not even mention the way that Alex smells and that as soon as he was in the driver’s seat I was tempted to crawl over the center console and sniff his neck.  

“You’re sure?” He asks with his pierced eyebrow raised like it is completely independent of the other when I tell him where the party is.

“Yeah,” I reply, a little flustered that he’s asked the question.  Alex looks at me for what I think seems like a long time, but he doesn’t say anything—he just drives us here. 

I wait at the front of the car rubbing my upper arms while he rummages in the backseat for something.  When he comes up beside me I see that it’s a black hoodie. 

“Try this,” he says.  His blue eyes are electric in the fading light.  “You look like you’re freezing.”

It’s true.  I am shivering.  Only I could freeze when it’s practically summer but the air down by the beach is always cooler than I think it will be.  Even this time of the year, the wind picks up over the open expanse of water and blows in a chill like the breath of someone with ice cubes in their mouth. 

The jacket slouches over my shoulders and falls to the middle of my thighs where the soft cotton tickles me.  It smells like Alex and reminds me of another time and another jacket. 

“If I were you, I would hold off on making plans to go to the Antarctic anytime soon,” he says. 

I laugh.  “Damn.  I guess I should call my travel agent first thing in the morning.”

He flashes his full-on smile and my breath catches. 
God
. 

Though it’s almost nine, this time of year it is just getting full dark.  Even so, it’s obvious that a few people are already hammered.  A kid that can’t be more than fifteen is losing his guts over by a metal trashcan near the dunes.

For a few minutes we stand at the edge of things, pensively perched on the sand watching the people swirl with the smoke from the bonfire.  I can
feel
Alex close to me as if he is in my blood, rushing through my veins on the pathway to my heart.  And when his fingertips brush against the backside of my hand, it sends a jolt of electricity through my entire body.   

 The fire throws off crackling sparks that fizzle in the darkness and float down around the shadowed bodies like fairy dust.  I close my eyes and I’m thinking of the time Alex and I went with our moms to that restaurant out west of town where we ordered corn fritters and freshly squeezed lemonades served in chilled mason jars.  That was in the summer.  I remember that Alex grabbed my hand and led me out on the dock where a crusty old fisherman was gutting his catch.  Their silver-blue bodies glistened under the sun and a few fish still jumped and writhed, their mouths forming elongated Oh’s.  And then I’m thinking of
The Price is Right
—and how weird is that?  Why am I thinking of that show?  And—

“Faber!”  This is some guy shouting. 

He materializes from behind a redhead in a sparkly green top.  I recognize him as someone who goes to Bayview.  His gait and his beefy shoulders and crew cut scream “football jock.”  He’s got a huge smile on his face.  He and Alex do a quasi-handshake, slap thing. 

Football guy is named Jonathan and he’s a senior at Bayview this year.  Apparently Jonathan goes out with the green-sequined redhead and he’s also responsible for acquiring the keg so “beer is free game” for “Faber and anyone who’s with him.”  He gives me a conspiratorial wink and a cocked smile.

I smile back. 

It remains unclear if Jonathan and Alex are actual friends or if Jonathan is just a bit drunk and happy to see someone that hails from Bayview even if he did graduate two years ago.  Jonathan’s hooting and guffawing and when he comes close to my face I find out that his breath is sweet and sticky. 

The redhead appears over his shoulder with a darker haired friend and Jonathan launches into the introductory spiel and now I know Alicia and Lauren.  Lauren, who I learn graduated last year, asks Alex about school and it’s clear that she knows something about him.  As I stand there and watch him interact with these people I realize that I never think of Alex as being friends with such normal people.  When we walk away a few minutes later I say something like this.

Alex laughs.  My stomach flips over at the sound. 

“What’s normal?”  He asks.

“I don’t know exactly but you’re not it.”

His expression is amused.  “I’m not?”  He shakes his head.  “It must be the facial piercing and the strange music.  Is it too much?”

I laugh.  “No.  I actually like the eyebrow ring.”  His lips form a smirk as I reach up to brush his brow with the very tips of my fingers.  “When did you get it?”