Like It Never Happened (16 page)

For a minute, Charlie sat hunched over his lap, elbows digging into his knees. Then he left. I stayed cemented to the mattress while he clomped down the stairs and slammed the front door.

I moved to the window and watched him linger in the pool of light from the streetlamp. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled a pack of American Spirits from his coat pocket. He cupped his hand so tenderly around the cigarette, like you would a newly hatched bird.

Probably he knew I was watching.

Gnawing at me was the thought of the unlocked door. I turned from the window and flew down the stairs. The moment the lock clicked into place, I felt strangely calm.

My feet carried me into the kitchen, where my arms wrapped around the package addressed to my sister. I took it up to my room.

I don't know why, I just couldn't resist.

Dear Mary,

You might remember this tiny covered wagon from the day Mrs. Peterson's sixth-grade class took a field trip to the Pioneer Center. On the bus, you sat next to Kristina Hart. I sat behind you, next to Mrs. Peterson. How humiliating. The museum showed us a movie about hardship on the Oregon Trail. Then we watched a middle-aged woman in a bonnet churn butter. In the gift shop, eleven-year-old Mary Rivers slipped this diminutive souvenir into the pocket of her raincoat.

“Are you going to pay for that?” I asked, aghast.

“Are you kidding?” You rolled your eyes. “Who would pay for this?”

You robbed the Pioneer Center. Later, I robbed you.

In ninth grade, I lent you some books. What teenage girl doesn't force her favorite novels on her favorite friend?
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Café
and
The Color Purple
. And then, just in case you were really dense,
Annie on My Mind
.

You did not read the books, too busy getting stoned with other girls' boyfriends. Too busy climbing over the counter at Everyday Music to kiss that cashier, who had gouged earlobes before everyone and their mothers had gouged earlobes. But you kept the books in a stack on your nightstand, like you might read them if you ever got the flu. You even brought them to New York, leaving them and everything else when you moved out of our apartment. Here you go. Maybe you'll read them this time.

What is
this
garbage? you might ask. It is a piece of a broken CD: P. J. Harvey's fifth studio album, to be exact. You wanted it so badly you would admit no other reason for agreeing to make out with Heidi Cho when Derrick Woolf offered you each twenty-five dollars. I stood in the parking lot of the Meow Meow, rain making my coat smell like an old dog, and watched you cup Heidi's chin in your hands. You both feigned indifference as Derrick doled out the cash. He paid you in singles.

I wouldn't speak to you on the bus ride home, and I think you knew why.

“I needed the money,” you said, pressing your forehead against the window.

Later, you burned me a copy of the album, entitled
Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea.

I broke it.

This next CD is in one piece, but equally impaired from years of traveling in my Discman. The song “Cemetery Gates” has never sounded like anything less than lust since one night in eleventh grade. It was April, the rain was warm and tropical. You had just obtained your driver's license and were for some reason brimming with unchecked, desperate energy. Like an animal. We drove up Mount Scott to the National Cemetery. And finally you pressed me into the wet earth, on top of all those dead soldiers. Finally the force of Mary Rivers was in my favor.

A girl I dated when I was twenty-three told me that song is about plagiarism.

Whatever.

Remember how we ditched prom early and used our fake IDs at the Blue Moon? Here's a matchbook from the bar. We each drank four cranberry vodkas and tried to play pool. We were in it for the leaning, the squinting, the slender cues sliding between our fingers. Pure sex appeal.

But before we ditched prom, Kristina Hart observed us slow-dancing to Mazzy Star. Kristina told her mother, who told mine.

You may remember: About a month earlier Mom had been stopped at a red light on Burnside when she saw us emerge from the bookstore, hand in hand. At home she gave me a lecture: “I know how close girls your age can be . . . but you don't want people to get the wrong idea.”

Well, if Eileen Hart had the wrong idea, Jesus himself probably had the wrong idea. Such good terms, those two were on.

Nobody had told my parents that they could attend Bible study, and vote for Bush, and buy all the right bumper stickers—and
still
their teenage daughter might turn out queer.

But prom night was fun, don't you think?

Oh yes. I kept the ticket stub. PDX -> JFK. 6:45 am. Gate D3. Everyone hated Grandma P for letting my trust fund kick in on my eighteenth birthday. Thanks, Grandma. For that and for everything else. (She died, if you were wondering. Took all my pride not to call you.)

And finally, the wooden ring I found in a flea market in Queens. Such a sentimental idiot, to think a ring would convince you to stay.

But you were smarter than me, Miss Rivers. You knew exactly what we had, and what we had already lost. I demanded the ring as you were leaving, like I might give it to someone else. (Never.) And you looked at me like I was so unreasonable. I wanted to strangle you then.

But later I understood: If I hadn't screamed at you to stay away from me, you might not have.

Congratulations, Mrs. Cline.

Love,
Nadine

When I heard my parents' car pull into the driveway, I repacked the box with all nine artifacts and the letter on top. I slid the package beneath my bed. Sobs—the ugly, shuddering kind—were rising up my throat. I swallowed hard and listened to my mother ascend the stairs. She pushed open my bedroom door.

“You're in here all alone?” She looked disappointed, like she had expected a celebrity guest.

I gestured to the empty room, heart still racing.

“Where's Charlie?” she asked.

My urge to cry mingled with an urge to scream. Why did everyone like that guy so much?

“Probably off legally changing his name to Brando,” I said.

My mother looked equal parts confused and disturbed.

“Where's Mary?” I attempted to sound normal, and not like I had uncovered an alarming secret. Not like anything under my bed might sabotage my sister's wedding.

“She's with the Clines tonight.” My mother rolled her eyes. “You should see the centerpieces that girl picked out. Completely obscene, if you ask me, which she didn't.”

For a second, I was distracted, wondering what could make a centerpiece obscene. Mom shut the door. She was always doing that—entering unannounced, then exiting halfway through the conversation.

Curling into a ball, pathetic and fetal, I sobbed.

And I knew my feelings were all wrong. Because even though Nadine's letter was extremely sad and fairly shocking, I wasn't crying about that. I wasn't even crying about Mary's impending marriage to an aging golfer, when she was maybe or probably or definitely gay.

I was still crying about my stupid boyfriend.

Charlie, who had slept with Liane.

Charlie, who had looked at me like I was a child unwilling to eat my dinner.

Charlie, who would never write me a letter like that—because he would never waste so many words on loving me or hating me or trying to win me back.

Charlie, who had believed the rumors after all.

C
harlie was supposed to look at me hungrily
.
I was supposed to step tentatively toward him, then retreat. His line was: “Go ahead. I'm not going to interfere with you.”

“Then again,” he reconsidered. “You might be kind of fun to interfere with.”

I was supposed to seize a lamp for self-defense. The script actually called for a broken bottle, but Mr. McFadden figured that might be dangerous. Charlie was supposed to lunge and pin my arms to my sides and say, “We've had this date from the beginning.”

Only we couldn't do any of it. Charlie wore his wrinkled undershirt and his new Levi's, but there was nothing malicious in his eyes. He kept whispering his lines, like each sentence was an apology. I was dissolving in this terrible, naked embarrassment. I couldn't stop thinking about Liane listening backstage—Liane, who knew everything I didn't know about sex. And about Charlie. And about having sex with Charlie.

We fumbled through the scene, all the way to the end. Charlie held me in place, inflicting only the slightest pressure.

“From the top” was our director's verdict.

We tried again. Charlie forgot his line, and his face went blank like he had forgotten his own name. I was so miserable I wanted to howl.

Finally Mr. McFadden rose from his seat. “Okay,” he said. “Let's quit. I'm going to look over the text tonight, see if I can find a way to water down this scene.”

He sounded genuine. Still, Charlie and I held our breath and looked at each other. For once, I could actually read my boyfriend's mind. And he would never quit, not after the word had been said out loud.

“Wait,” said Charlie.

With a cruel smile, Mr. McFadden sank back into the second row.

Charlie crossed his arms. He tilted his head to one side and then the other, closing his eyes against the strain of his neck muscles. Then he looked at me, his tongue lazily polishing his bottom lip. I could tell he had stopped seeing me and was now seeing only Blanche DuBois: frail, fluttering like a moth.

“I'm not going to interfere with you,” he said. Without breaking eye contact, I reached for the lamp. “Then again.” Charlie lunged at me without finishing his line. My gasp was real, but my fear was fake. Or it was the other way around; I couldn't tell anymore. I struggled against his arms, all tense and unyielding. In that moment I could have quit the stage forever.

Then Charlie's arms went slack. He cupped my chin in his hands, gently.

“We've had this date from the beginning.”

His delivery was soft and sad—the exact opposite of Marlon Brando's. We held our pose until Mr. McFadden clapped his hands together three times. He actually clapped for us.

So far beneath his breath, only I could hear, Charlie said, “I'm sorry.”

Backstage, Tess and Tim were playing a fast-paced card game that involved slapping cards against the floor and shrieking frequently. Neither of them had gotten to rehearse a single scene, and I realized that sitting needlessly backstage for three hours could drive anyone crazy. Still, their energy made my head hurt.

I turned to Liane, hoping to communicate my exhaustion and win her sympathy. Painful as it was to picture her with Charlie—and I had pictured it, a lot—the silver lining seemed obvious. I had concealed vital pieces of information that night in her tree house. But so had she.

Zipping her perfect, wine-colored leather jacket, Liane met my gaze. Did she know that I knew? With a half smile, she waved good-bye and left through the stage doors. I couldn't read her mind.

After disbursing cigarettes to Tess and Tim, Charlie offered me the open pack. “Ready?” he asked.

“Go ahead,” I said, waving him off. “I actually have to get something from my locker.”

I didn't, but I felt like walking home alone. The three of them exchanged semi-concerned looks before nodding and pushing through the curtains. They were presumably halfway across the auditorium, out of earshot, by the time Mr. McFadden said my name.

I jumped. He rarely followed us backstage after rehearsal. Casually, he leaned against the front of his desk, crossing his arms and then his legs. “Are you okay with all of this?” he asked.

I wanted to laugh, because there was an enormity contained in “all of this” and he didn't even know it. Instead, I nodded. Maybe I wasn't okay, exactly, but I couldn't quit the play. I had formed an unreasonable attachment to Blanche DuBois.

“I realize I was manipulating you back there. I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry.”

Speechless, I shrugged my shoulders. Teachers were not supposed to apologize.

“I like what you did with that scene,” he continued. “I think it's a valid interpretation.”

“Charlie did it,” I said.

“Charlie did part of it,” he insisted. “You did the rest.”

I couldn't remember doing much of anything, which worried me. Whatever Mr. McFadden had seen couldn't be repeated. Not without me breaking into sobs onstage, anyway.

He studied my expression. “Walk with me,” he ordered.

Our footsteps echoed in the long hallway. Mr. McFadden walked fast, like he had somewhere to be. I half skipped to match his strides, which reminded me of following my father through the airport. But comparing Mr. McFadden to my father filled me with a slow-seeping kind of shame, so I stopped.

He shouldered through the main doors. The night was dark and damp, as cold as it could be while still raining. Farther down Hawthorne, a pack of chaperoned children blocked the sidewalk, their Halloween costumes obscured by ponchos. I had completely forgotten the date.

“Shitty night for trick-or-treating,” I observed.

Mr. McFadden nodded distractedly.

I braced myself for the rain. I had brought the wrong coat. Nothing waterproof was warm enough. “Good night,” I said.

“You can't walk in this.” Mr. McFadden spoke more to the bloated sky than to me. “Let me drive you home.”

I hesitated. My parents probably wouldn't mind if I used a credit card to pay for a taxi. Plus, Mr. McFadden looked kind of uncertain—like he wasn't sure if he wanted me to accept or refuse. But we had done this before. The same offer hadn't felt so bold in the spring.

So for the second time in my life, I followed Mr. McFadden to the staff parking lot.

When I remembered the small issue of his car only starting with no weight on the passenger seat, I regretted my decision. I wasn't in a butt-lifting mood.

I looked at him. He gave me a nod. I lifted my butt and he started the car and we merged onto the boulevard. It was all feeling very familiar.

“Why don't you get a new car?” I asked in a fit of candid irritation. “This is ridiculous. What if you have a date? Do you seriously ask her to lift her butt up?” I winced at my choice of pronoun. Mr. McFadden never spoke about his romantic life, so I didn't know for sure.

He didn't seem to notice. “No first dates in the Toyota,” he admitted. “For a number of reasons.” He gestured to the Starbucks cups littering the backseat, the gearshift held together with duct tape.

“It's weird that your car is so shitty,” I said, apparently incapable of making appropriate conversation. “It doesn't even match.”

“Doesn't match what?” His lips curled in amusement.

“You.”

He was quiet for so long that I actually stopped waiting for a response.

At a red light, he took a breath. “I'm not sure my teaching style is entirely indicative of my personality.”

I kind of snorted; it was the exact type of thing he said all the time.

“Seriously!” he insisted, sounding suddenly different, younger. “I'm not just a director. I play many other parts—captain of this fine automobile, for example. If my teaching style suggests a kind of . . .” He glanced at me.

“Hard-assery,” I supplied.

He spoke through laughter, half pleased: “It's just because high school students respond well to criticism! The more I ask of you guys, the more you deliver. And in my experience, when young actors hit their stride, they offer something that adults just can't.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“You're all so focused on trying to understand your characters. You always want to know how they feel. Adult actors are obsessed with understanding the author's message, or with the historical context of the play. They want to know exactly what they're preaching. High school students only care about getting mad, or falling in love.”

I was conscious of the windshield wipers squeaking, and of Mr. McFadden's tongue clicking against the roof of his mouth, and of the stoplights reflected in the wet pavement. It was draining, in a way, noticing all of this at once.

“I don't think anybody in
A Streetcar Named Desire
falls in love,” I said.

He chuckled. “You might be right about that.”

I leaned over my knees and rummaged in my bag for my cell phone. The clock on the stereo was flashing the wrong time. I felt his eyes flicker to my arched spine and back to the road.

“What about you?” he asked. “What are you, besides an actress?”

“Huh?” I sat up abruptly, hair whipping against the seat.

“What do you like to do when you're not onstage?”

I liked making out with Charlie. And walking downtown with the Essential Five and eating candy off my stomach while watching Audrey Hepburn movies. I even liked running errands with my parents. Sometimes.

“Nothing,” I said.

He raised an eyebrow. “That can't be true.”

“There isn't time for anything else.”

“That's my fault, I suppose.” He cringed, maybe because the rain was picking up.

“I guess I don't mean time.” I didn't want to offend him. “It's more like there's no space in my life for anything else. Theater could be like, just one thing. But instead I make it everything.”

I looked over to gauge his reaction. His face was slightly pockmarked and I was strangely attracted to the imperfection of it. Staring at Charlie's face eventually got old, like looking at a lake on a windless day.

“Is it enough?” he asked.

“Sometimes,” I said carefully. “Sometimes it's way too much.”

Without warning, the rain became a downpour. The windshield wipers squeaked frantically from side to side, but water had flooded our view.  

“Shit!” he yelped. “I can't drive in this.”

“I told you, you need a new car.”

Laughing somewhat hysterically, he manually rolled down his window. Rain rushed in, splashing against the dashboard. Mr. McFadden leaned into the storm and guided his fine automobile to a side road, where we wouldn't be blocking traffic. He parked illegally beside a fire hydrant and rolled up his window. He was half soaked.

“The rain will stop soon,” he promised, unbuckling his seat belt and sliding down in his seat. He drummed his fingers nervously against the steering wheel. “I'm sorry. I should have just put you in a cab.”