Since You've Been Gone (35 page)

“Or she won the lottery,” I suggested. “And her friends realized she could afford a
much
better cake.”

He laughed. “She rid the town of its chronic vagrants-and-coyotes problem.”

I smiled at that, and we walked in silence for a moment before I said, “Maybe she didn’t do something big. Maybe she just told someone something.”

Frank looked over at me, more serious now. “Like what?”

I shrugged. “Something they’d been needing to hear,” I said. I thought it over for a moment, then added, “I don’t think you have to do something so big to be brave. And it’s the little things that are harder anyway.”

“And you usually don’t get cakes for doing them,” Frank pointed out. He stopped walking, and I realized we’d made it back to my house. I was about to protest, to offer to walk him halfway back, when I was suddenly hit with another wave of fatigue, and I yawned hugely.

“Thanks for walking me home,” I said, looking across the road at him. “And for, um, driving me home as well.”

“Of course,” he said. He lifted his CD. “Thank you for this.”

I just looked at him in the moonlight for a long moment—something I knew, even as I was doing it, that I never would
have done if I’d been stone-cold sober. “Happy birthday, Frank.”

He smiled at me, looking tired but happy. “Good night, Emily.”

I walked down the driveway to my house, and I knew without looking back to check that Frank was still there, waiting to see that I got in okay. And sure enough, after I’d unlocked the door, I turned around and saw him, alone in the road, CD under his arm, moon shadow stretching out behind him. From the doorway, I raised a hand in a wave, and Frank waved back, then turned and started walking home himself.

“You’ve got this,” Frank assured me as I stared at the riding ring in front of me and tried to remember how to breathe.

“Totally,” Dawn said, giving my shoulders a squeeze. Collins’s mouth was full, but he gave me a thumbs-up.

I was back at Saddleback Ranch, figuring that at this point, so close to the end, I should follow Sloane’s list to the letter. And it
didn’t
say pony ride. When I’d told Frank I was ready to give it another shot, he’d booked the time, and then everyone else had decided to come along. They claimed it was for moral support, but I had a feeling it was to stop me from bailing again. And since Dawn was here—wielding my How Emily Sees the World disposable camera—it wasn’t like
I’d be able to take a call from her and pretend it was urgent.

The horse that I was going to be riding was named Butterscotch, which seemed much better to me than Bucky, and Frank had assured me that he’d requested their smallest non-pony horse. The woman in charge had told me what to expect before she went to get the horse from the stables. She’d offered me a trail ride, which I had immediately turned down. When she finally seemed to get that I was only doing this to conquer a fear, she’d proposed just having the horse walk with me around the ring a few times.

“Aw, it’s so cute!” Dawn said. I turned to see where she was looking, and saw the Saddleback Ranch woman leading out a lumbering horse who looked half asleep. It didn’t put me at ease—it was still a horse, after all—but it was about half the size of Bucky, and the very sight of it didn’t terrify me.

“Not at all evil or scary,” Frank said, giving me a smile.

“Do you want to go make friends with it first?” Dawn asked. “Matthew, give Emily the snacks.”

Collins swallowed, looking alarmed. “Um . . . what do you mean?”

Dawn smiled at him. “So we can give them to the horse! The carrot sticks?”

“Oh,” Collins said, after a pause. “You see, you should have told me we were bringing snacks for the horse. I thought they were for us. My bad.”

“Wait, you ate all of them?” Dawn asked, taking her canvas
bag back from Collins and peering inside. “The apple too? And where are the sugar cubes?”

“You’re telling me we brought the sugar for a
horse
?” Collins asked, incredulous. “What does a horse need sugar for?”

“I can’t believe you just ate raw sugar cubes,” Dawn said, shaking her head.

“They’re sugar cubes!” Collins said, his voice rising. “What else are you supposed to do with them? And since when do horses get snacks?”

“It’s okay,” I said. “Really.”  While I appreciated the thought, I didn’t want to put my hand anywhere near the horse’s mouth and give it an opportunity to bite me.

“Ready?” the woman called from the center of the ring.

I felt everyone’s eyes swivel over to me, and I nodded, and made myself walk toward the horse, even though the only thing I wanted to do was turn and run back to my car. The woman helped me get one foot into the stirrup, and I swung my other leg over the horse’s back. Once I was in the saddle, I gripped the reins, bracing myself for the worst—the horse would throw me off, or start running at a gallop, or drop to the ground and roll over me. But none of that happened. Butterscotch just stood there, her sides expanding slightly under my legs as she breathed in and out.

“You look great!” Dawn called, giving me a thumbs-up.

“Oh, you know what? It looks like Butterscotch fell asleep,” the woman said. “Just give her a gentle kick.”

That sounded like a terrible idea to me, but once I nudged her a little, Butterscotch woke up, shaking her head in a way that made me grab onto the saddle. But that was about as violent as she got. She started to lumber around the ring, and I didn’t have to do anything. It was like she’d done this hundreds of times and knew just where to go. I would occasionally feel myself start to panic as I felt the horse moving beneath me, but I tried just to keep breathing. After all, I had hugged gas station employees and almost gotten in fights and kissed strangers in pantries. I could do this.

And as she walked around the ring, not seeming at all like she had any desire to knock me off her back and make a run for it—and truly, if she did, it wasn’t
that
far to fall—I started to breathe a little easier. This wasn’t so bad. It wasn’t something I was going to start doing on a regular basis, but it was okay. I was okay.

“Smile!” Dawn yelled from the side of the ring, holding up my disposable camera. I gave her what I was sure was more like a grimace, but I was actually glad that she was documenting this. And as
Butterscotch and I went around the ring one last time, I even felt myself relaxing just a little bit, trying to enjoy, if I could, what was left of the ride.

“So where are you with the list?” Collins asked as we all congregated around our cars. I think the woman had seemed surprised that I had only wanted to be on the horse for five minutes, but helped me down anyway, and I’d even given Butterscotch a tentative—
very
gentle—pat as she went back to the stables.

We’d taken four separate cars there, which probably wasn’t great for our carbon footprints, but when I’d asked Frank if he wanted to carpool, he’d told me that he had to get ready for something right after, and was vague when I asked him for details.

“Three left,” Dawn said, her brow furrowed. “Or four. Right?”

Before I could answer, Frank jumped in. “Three. Dancing, the dress, and skinny-dipping.”

I nodded, all too aware that I’d left two of the hardest ones for last. Whereas the dress thing had been taken care of with Frank’s invitation, and I supposed I could always just dance all night in my room with my iPod playing, the skinny-dipping was still one that I wasn’t sure how I was going to manage. But even despite that, the fact that I’d crossed off most of the list was still surprising to me. It had seemed so impossible when it had first showed up—and now it was almost over.

“Oh,” Dawn said, looking down at her phone, her eyes widening. “I should get going.”

“Deliveries?” Collins asked, handing her back the empty canvas bag.

“I wish,” she sighed. “We’re catering a wedding tonight at the Stanwich Country Club, and I have to help serve.”

“You are?” Frank asked, sounding surprised.

“Yeah,” Dawn said, with a shrug. “Sometimes people have different stations, for the food, you know, like sushi or whatever. And these people wanted an Italian station, so . . .”

Frank looked at Dawn a moment longer, then turned to me. “You should crash the wedding.”

“What?” I asked, just as Collins asked, “She should?”

“Yeah,” Frank said, nodding. “Dance until dawn!”

“I’m sorry,” Collins said, shaking his head. “Who are you and what have you done with Frank Porter?”

“I can sneak you in!” Dawn said, clapping her hands together. “And we can hang out. I’m always so bored at those things, and everyone always pretends they can’t see you. What are you going to wear?”

I turned to Frank, who was looking at me with a small smile, a challenge in his eyes. It
would
be a great opportunity to cross one off. And since I’d worked there last summer, I was pretty sure I knew the Stanwich Country Club well enough to navigate my way around without getting caught. “Okay,” I said to Frank, then nodded at Dawn. “Let’s do this.”

In my cupholder, my phone buzzed and I pulled it out. “The man with the umbrella does not see the sunset,” I said, keeping my voice low.

On the other end, I could hear Dawn doing the same. “In Rome, the fountains all face north.” When we’d decided to do this, Frank had given us a crash course in spy codes, but I’d already forgotten what most of them meant, and had the distinct feeling Dawn had as well, and that we were both still using them because it was fun.

“Jenga,” I whispered as I looked around, slouching low in my seat. I still couldn’t quite believe I was about to do this. There was silence on Dawn’s end, and I added, “I mean, I just parked.”

I’d gotten ready up in my room, putting on the dress I’d worn to last year’s prom. It was pale gold, strapless, and tea-length, fitted at the waist with just a slight flare in the skirt. As I got ready, I had my fingers crossed that this wedding wasn’t themed, and that I wasn’t going to show up wearing the completely wrong thing. I’d curled my hair so the layers framed my face and put on much more makeup than usual, and by the time I’d finished my best attempt at a smoky eye, Dawn had texted.

Dancing getting started! See you soon?

I texted back, and then grabbed the tiny beaded clutch I’d borrowed from my mother without asking. I wasn’t sure how late the wedding was going to go, and after my mother’s lecture on the porch, I didn’t want to push my luck, so I’d asked if I could sleep over at Dawn’s house. My mom had agreed—she remembered Dawn from when she’d met her briefly at Living Room Theater. And even if I didn’t end up sleeping over, I knew this would let me come home late without anyone waiting up for me. But even so, as I crossed to the door, I was glad that it was late enough at night that my parents were locked in their study. I think even in their close-to-the-end brain fog, they might have had some questions about why I was attending a sleepover in formal wear.

I still had last summer’s employee parking sticker on my car, and I hoped nobody would be looking at it too closely tonight. But as I pulled into the parking lot, I didn’t feel as nervous as
I’d expected to. I was even hoping it might be fun. I felt myself smile as I walked, thinking about how nervous I’d been just to go into Paradise and talk to Mona—and what a difference a summer could make. Dawn had texted me the location, and I hurried around from the employee parking lot to the main grounds, slowing down once I saw other wedding guests, just trying to look like I was out for a stroll.

“Open sesame,” I said into my phone. “I’m on my way.”

“Copy that,” Dawn said, “over and out.”

She hung up and I crossed toward the reception, which was set up under a big tent on the lawn. I could hear music coming from it as I got closer. I took a big breath and stepped under the tent. It looked like everyone had abandoned the tables, because the dance floor was packed. There was a live band playing, not a DJ, and even though I didn’t have much experience with wedding bands, I could tell they were good, the lead singer belting out a song that had been overplayed on the radio all summer, but somehow making it soulful and her own.

I edged along the side of the tent, where the food stations were set up, and tried to keep from laughing as Dawn approached me, a platter in her hand. “Can I get you anything?” she asked with a grin. “Bruschetta, perhaps?”

“No, I’m okay,” I said, pressing my lips together to keep from smiling.

“Then go dance,” Dawn said, bumping me with her hip in the direction of the dance floor. “That’s why you’re here, right?”

It was. I took a step toward the dance floor, just as the band launched into their rendition of “Cupid Shuffle.” Sloane, on principle, hated songs where everyone danced together. It was the source of one of our biggest disagreements, about movie musicals—I loved them; she wasn’t a fan. But I really liked when there was a pattern to follow, and you weren’t just dancing on your own, trying to hope you didn’t look like an idiot. So it was with some relief that I could start Cupid Shuffling along with all these people I didn’t know, as we slowly turned in a circle as the song directed us to.

When they segued into “Footloose,” I felt myself start to move to the beat without even thinking about it. I looked around, waiting for one of these strangers to point at me, to start whispering that nobody had seen me before, that someone should throw me out. But by the time the song was into the second chorus, it became clear to me that everyone there was much more interested in having a good time than in cataloging wedding guests. It was a fun group, too, people cheering or booing when they didn’t like the song choice, everyone dancing enthusiastically if not with a great deal of skill. And even though I was on my own, even though I didn’t have anyone to jump up and down and yell with when a favorite song came on, I felt myself getting into the music, finding freedom in the fact that these people didn’t know me, nobody did, and so it didn’t matter if I looked like an idiot.

Two songs later, I was hot and sweaty and having fun. The
music was loud, and I had my eyes closed as I swung my hips from side to side, letting my hair whip around my face. I hadn’t been dancing since the prom, and I’d forgotten just how much I loved it. And when there was nobody to try and impress, no moves you have to edit for the sake of trying to look cool, it was that much more freeing. I tipped my head back and sang along when I knew the words, and when I didn’t, I just danced, my hands up and swaying in the warm night air, not caring if anyone was watching or what they thought of me. My feet were hurting in my heels, and I had a feeling I had mascara all over my face, but I didn’t care. I was having a good time. “You Shook Me All Night Long” came to a dramatic end, and I played air drums along with the drummer, feeling like if I couldn’t dance until dawn, I could at least dance until the band called it a night, and Sloane would just have to be okay with that.