Our Song (10 page)

“Goodness. It sounds like we’re breaking up and we’ve only just met.” Was he flirting or was that just his English accent playing tricks on me again? “Here, let me.” He refilled my cup with fresh coffee, securing this one with a lid. “All right,” he said, his voice softer now, like he was revealing a piece of the real him. “Let’s start over. I’m Nick, and you are…?”

“Olive,” I said, taking a sip from my cup. The coffee was lukewarm, but it felt soothing against my cheek where I had bitten down on it.

“Nice to meet you, Olive. First meeting?”

“Is it that obvious?” I asked, taking another sip.

“No, it’s just that I’d remember you.” A shiver went up my spine as that almost-smile appeared on his face again. “We kind of stand out when the median age here is fifty-two, don’t you think?”

I nodded and felt myself deflate a little. Yet another reminder
not to look for meaning where there wasn’t any. “How long have you been coming?”

“Long enough to know these meetings are bullshit. Most of these people don’t know the first thing about death.” A thick piece of hair fell into his face. He flicked it back with a quick jerk of his head, revealing his eyes. They had small flecks of green, only visible up close.

“Then why bother coming back?”

He shifted his gaze toward the floor. He was wearing an old, scuffed pair of red Converse. The laces on his left foot only reached halfway down his shoe. “It’s what I deserve.”

Nick snapped his head up and looked right at me. There was something haunting in his expression.

“Break’s over.” Stuart came around with a small plastic trash bin for our empty cups and used napkins.

Nick leaned in close. “Wanna get out of here?”

Even though it was only a whisper, his voice swooshed through my head like the melody, as if my ears had just popped after a long flight and I could suddenly hear again. Was he serious? We’d only just gotten there.

“We’d like to get started,” Stuart said, clearing his throat.

“You coming?” Nick was already on his way out the door.

Everyone else had already returned to the circle. Our two empty seats stared back at me. It wasn’t the kind of thing I would ever do, take off with some strange guy in the middle of Hollywood. So why did I want to say yes so badly? “I can’t…” I finally said, and headed back toward my seat.

When I looked back, Nick was already gone.

“READY FOR DESSERT!”
Noah announced, pushing his plate away, just like he’d been doing since he was a toddler.

He still had those big round brown eyes and the same dimpled chin that he’d had since the day he was born. I was one of the very first people to see him, even before my dad, who was still clutching my mom’s hand when Noah came out. It was strange to think that Noah was born in this house.

That definitely wasn’t the plan. My mother always made sure to make that point whenever the story came up, which it did a surprising amount. She didn’t want to give the wrong impression and have anyone mistake her for one of those crunchy home-birth moms who doesn’t shave her armpits. Of course, all it would take was one look at my mom, in her sweater sets and pearls, to know she could never be
that
mom. She had been so determined to get every last thing done Before the Baby Came (it had become her mantra for the last eight weeks of her pregnancy), that she was able to ignore her contractions while she ironed a stack of onesies. Once her water broke, I was the one
who called my dad. I was only ten, but I knew I had to do something while my mother insisted she wasn’t going anywhere until she finished ironing. Looking across the kitchen table at Noah now, I couldn’t imagine him being capable of making that kind of call.

By the time my dad got home, it was already too late to get to the hospital. An ambulance came and Noah was delivered right here, in this very kitchen. Derek was convinced that witnessing all that—the blood and pain and everything that went with it—must have scarred me, and that it was the reason I was afraid to have sex. Only I knew it couldn’t be, because being there for Noah’s birth was one of the very best memories I had.

“Wait for your sister to finish,” my mother called from where she stood hunched over the counter, poring over paint samples.

“But she never finishes anymore,” he said matter-of-factly, picking at my barely touched shepherd’s pie.

“That’s so not true.” I kicked Noah under the table and forced down a few more bites.

“Ow, why’d you do that?”

Shut up!
I mouthed. Ever since I went to the meeting last week, my mother had finally started to back off. Luckily, she remained too consumed with paint chips to notice. She was preparing to redo the kitchen. Again. She always gave at least one room in the house a makeover right around this time every year. She took spring cleaning to a whole new level.

“Hmmm, I can’t decide,” she said, holding two practically identical shades of white up to the wall, which was currently
painted “canary.” I remember because she roped me into this same process the last time she redid the kitchen two years ago. “Which do you like better, eggshell or minced onion?”

“Minced
onion
? That’s a color?” I looked down at the fan deck displaying a dozen more shade options that all looked the same to me. “Why not do something really bold and go for white dove?” I said, reading the name off the closest chip. It didn’t really matter which one I picked. She had already made up her mind anyway.

“I think minced onion would be lovely,” she said, completely missing my sarcasm.

“Where’s Dad?” I asked, desperate to change the subject.

“He’s working late tonight.” She dropped the samples in order to remove a pound cake from the oven. Hints of lemon and rum filled the air.

“Again?” I asked. She’d said it like it was just this once, like it didn’t happen every night.

“You have to tell me how you like this, Noah. I’m testing a new recipe.”

“Is he on a big case or something?” It was obvious she didn’t want to talk about it, but I didn’t care. It seemed like the only time I saw my dad anymore was from my spot in the garden, under the cover of darkness.

Her hand faltered as she cut the cake, the slice falling into a pile of crumbs. “Look what I’ve done.”

“It still tastes the same,” I said, popping one of the warm crumbles in my mouth. I felt bad for rattling her. “See? Delicious.”

“Here, have a proper piece.” She cut into the cake again, a smile spreading across her face.

“I’ve gotta go,” I said, wrapping the slice up in my napkin as a car honked outside. “That’s Annie.”

“Is your meeting tonight? I could have sworn it was tomorrow.” She double-checked the calendar on the fridge.

“The meeting is tomorrow. It’s Senior Carnival tonight.” That was its official name, but everyone called it “Spring Fling.”

“That’s wonderful!” My mother’s face brightened. “I’m so happy you’re going. Here,” she said, shoving another slice of cake into my hands. “Take a piece for Annie.”

• • •

“This is for you.” I hopped in the car and handed Annie the cake. It still felt hot, even through the festive checkered cloth napkin. “From my mom.”

“There’s going to be tons of food there.”

“You try telling her that,” I said, pointing to the house, where my mother was watching us from the open doorway.

“Right.” Annie rolled down the window and waved at my mother with her piece of cake in hand. “Thanks! Smells great, Mrs. Bell!”

“She’s ecstatic you got me out of the house,” I said as my mother waved back, beaming. “She was seriously starting to think I’ve become the world’s biggest loser.”

“Oh come on, the world has much bigger losers than you.” Annie put the car in gear and pulled away from the curb. “Thanks for doing this.”

“In and out. One hour, right?” I was filling in for Jason Gaits, the yearbook’s assistant photo editor, who bailed at the last minute for a Magic: The Gathering tournament. Annie needed to cover the event for the yearbook, and I owed her for driving me to the meeting. And for being the only person who still treated me the same as before.

“Have you considered the possibility that we could actually, you know, have a good time?”

“At school?” I stared out the window, at the neighborhood whizzing by. “Fat chance. You know what everyone thinks of me.”

“First of all, who really cares what those dork-bags think? Pretty soon we’ll never have to see any of them again. In the meantime, we can just make fun of everyone acting like drunken fools. You know that’s my favorite pastime. Especially when you get to capture it on film, for all posterity. Think what these pictures could be worth in thirty years. That’s what I call power.”

“Derek would never be caught dead doing something embarrassing. He still talks about that picture of Obama smoking a joint and how he’d never make such a dumb mistake. I mean he used to…”

Even though I hadn’t spoken to him in weeks, Derek was still at the forefront of my mind and still kept popping up as my frame of reference. I rolled down the window and let my arm trail in the wind. I was wearing his favorite jeans, the ones that flared a little at the ankle. He never said they were his favorite in so many words, but he liked the way they hugged my butt, and I wore them whenever I wanted him to notice me.

“Oh, pulease! Like that picture really hurt Obama. Getting
high is probably the only thing that could help Derek. Talk about stiff and BO-RING.”

“That’s not fair.” I still felt the need to defend him. He was like a phantom limb whose tingly nerve endings I could still feel long after they’d been cut. Maybe it was that I hadn’t seen him or Betsy since that day by our lockers, or simply that more time had passed, but the possibility that we could still be together loomed even larger in my mind. Lots of couples broke up and spent time apart before getting back together.

“I wish Derek wasn’t your guide for how to behave in the world.” She shot me a look, once again nailing my innermost thoughts.

I looked up at the sky, now dark. The moon was fat and rising, casting a wide glow across the neighborhood. I wondered where Nick was now, if the same moon was shining down on him too. When I closed my eyes, I thought about him whispering in my ear, of how it made my body tingle. Trailing my fingers up my neck, I could practically still feel his breath on me. But the memory disappeared the second my fingers grazed over my necklace. The one Derek gave me. Reaching back, I unhooked the clasp and dangled the chain out the window. Watching it sway in the wind, I imagined the gold heart slipping off onto the road below, the crunching noise it would make as the tires rolled over it. All I had to do was let go, just like the voice was telling me to. But then I thought about Derek and the last two years. About my own heart, and about that night.

I tightened my grip and put the necklace back on.

• • •

We parked in the teacher’s section. Annie had a special pass since she was technically working the event. The sound of music and voices rose above the school from the football field behind it, where the carnival was taking place.

“Here, take this.” Annie handed me a bulky carrying case from the trunk.

“This weighs like a million pounds. What’s in here?”

“Film, lenses, extra batteries.”

“Couldn’t you have gone digital for once?” I said, slouching under the bag’s weight.

She took her camera out of its case, strung it around her neck, and opened the shutter. “Think fast!”

“Hey!” I raised my hand to cover my face as the bright flash went off. “You know I hate having my picture taken.”

“If you think you’re getting out of being in the yearbook when your best friend’s the photo editor, think again,” she said, snapping another one.

“The last thing I need is any lasting evidence to remind me of this year.”

“You say that now, but the year’s not over yet.…” She started across the parking lot as fireworks exploded into the sky behind the building. “Come on, good times await.”

The football field had been completely transformed. A few dozen booths lined the perimeter with things like dunk tanks, kissing stands, and ring toss contests to raise money for prom. There were popcorn, corn dog, and cotton candy stations, and a giant jumping bouncy castle set up in the middle of the field.

My stomach knotted as the sound of stifled voices and giggles rose from behind the bleachers.

“Hold on,” Annie whispered. She climbed onto the seats and aimed her camera between the first two rows.

“What are you doing?” By this point I was so used to the stares and whispers I was sure they were aimed at me.

“This is where the real action is.”

“What the—?” a male voice protested as the flash went off. Ten seconds later, Jeff Baker and Christina Larter, two kids from our class, came running out. Jeff’s shirt was half buttoned and Christina’s hair had fallen out of her usually tidy ponytail. She was part of a clique that Annie and I called the PCs, which stood for the Ponytail Clones. They all had the same shade of blond hair and wore their ponytails at the exact same point near the top of their heads.

“Hook up at your own risk,” Annie said, snapping another shot.

“Give me that.” Jeff lunged at her, trying to knock the camera from her hand, but he was so drunk he tripped over his own feet. Christina fell right on top of him in a fit of sloppy laughter.

“I didn’t know they were together.” I felt the sudden tug of envy as I glanced back at the two of them, rolling around on the ground without a care in the world.

“Eh. That’s why they call it Spring Fling.”

Maybe that’s all that Betsy was too, I thought with a glimmer of hope. Derek’s spring fling.

We made our way around the field, stopping at each booth
so Annie could take more pictures, until she turned and handed me the camera. “Here, why don’t you take a few.”

“It’ll be a complete waste of film,” I said, backing away. I thought about all the blurry, out-of-focus pictures I used to take on our trips to Arizona for my mother’s family reunions. They never made it into the albums.

“I have, like, a million rolls. Another perk of being photo editor.” She placed the strap around my neck. “Trust me, it’s easy.”