Since You've Been Gone (37 page)

Some part of me realized how absurd this was, Frank and I standing next to each other—naked—neither of us sure where to look or who was going to get a towel first. I kept looking over at him, then immediately looking away, trying not to see too much, but getting quick flashes—Frank’s chest, his jawline, his hipbone . . .

I crossed my arms over my chest and turned my head just slightly to see that Frank was looking away. “I’ll get a towel first?” I asked, and he nodded. I grabbed one from the pile and wrapped it around me. I took another for Dawn, who was still running in the wrong direction, weaving up the beach.

“Got it,” I said to Frank, and then turned my head away before I saw anything else. “Dawn!” I yelled to her, holding out the towel in front of my face. “Come toward my voice!”

“Thank you,” Dawn said as she hurried over to me and took the towel. “I couldn’t see where I was going!”

“Who knows, the Farrellys probably wouldn’t have minded,” Frank said as he came over to us, his towel riding low on his hips. I felt myself swallow hard, thinking of the full glimpse I’d just gotten, and also wondering if there was a way I could suggest that he maybe stop wearing a shirt on our runs.

“I’ve got your clothes,” Dawn said, snapping me out of this and making me realize I was still staring at Frank’s bare chest.

“Right,” I said, suddenly feeling very warm, despite the fact the water had been cold and I’d been shivering a few minutes ago. We headed up to the deck, where Collins was now standing, a mug in his hand and a satisfied smile on his face.

“I’m going to kill you,” Frank told him matter-of-factly.

“Oh, come on. Admit it, that was much more fun,” Collins said. “The real skinny-dipping experience. You’re all welcome. Now, who wants hot chocolate?”

By the time I pulled into my driveway, it was almost light out. Frank had found clothes for me, since I really didn’t want to attempt to get back into a formal dress after an ocean swim—a soft pair of gray sweatpants, and the academic decathlon shirt he’d worn the first day we’d gone running together. We ended up just sitting around Frank’s kitchen island, drinking the hot chocolate Collins had made, and then finally just eating all the marshmallows, until it was almost five. Then Dawn and I headed home, Collins crashed on Frank’s couch, and Frank waved good night to us from his doorway.

I killed the engine and caught my reflection in the rearview mirror. My hair was in tangles, and the wedding makeup I’d worn was half washed off, half smeared under my eyes. But my cheeks were flushed and even though I looked like a mess, I looked happy. I looked like someone who’d had a night, and had a story to tell about it. Which was, I realized as I collected my dress and heels in my arms and made my way, yawning, to the front door in the cool early light, exactly what had happened.

“Hello?” I answered my phone without opening my eyes. It was two days after we’d gone skinny-dipping, and far too early to be awake if I wasn’t going to be out running.  And since Frank had gone camping with Collins, I wasn’t running—which meant I should still be sleeping.

“Morning,” Frank said, far too cheerful in the morning as usual, and I rolled onto my side, eyes still closed, holding my phone up to my ear.

“Hey,” I said, smiling. “How’s the camping trip?”

“Uh,” Frank said. “Have you looked outside yet?” I suddenly became aware of a steady, rhythmic sound hitting the window and roof. I opened my eyes and pushed my bedroom curtains
aside. The sky was gray and there was rain beating down against my window.

“Oh,” I said, leaning back against my pillows. “So I take it the camping trip is off?” I asked.

“Off,” Frank confirmed. “And Collins is really upset about it, for some reason.”

“Well,” I said, glancing out to the rain again. Even if they put it off for a day, I had a feeling the ground might be too wet to camp successfully. “Maybe you guys can reschedule?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” he said, and even though I couldn’t see him, I was pretty sure he was smiling. “Are you busy tonight?”

“No,” I said slowly, not sure what I would be letting myself in for by admitting this. “Why?”

“I’m going to text you an address,” he said. “And see if Dawn’s free too.”

“Okay,” I said, and waited for some more information, but apparently none was going to be forthcoming. “What is this?” I finally asked.

“You’ll see,” he said, and he was definitely smiling now, I was sure of it. “Be there at nine. And you might want to bring a sleeping bag.”

“You’re sleeping over at Dawn’s again?” my mother asked, blinking at me. She and my father both had the bleary-eyed look of people who had spent too much time in front of their computer screens.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to tell myself that this was only a slight tweaking of the facts. I still didn’t even know what Frank had invited me to, but like the night of the wedding and skinny-dipping, I knew that telling my mother I had a sleepover would at least buy me a late night out, no questions asked. Or so I had thought. “Is that okay?”

“Fine with me,” my dad said, pushing his glasses up on top of his head and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Just make sure you have her over here too, to thank her. Okay?”

I nodded, thrilled that this had been so easy. “Sure,” I said. “Great.”

I started to go when I realized my mother was still looking at me, her head tilted slightly to the side. “When’s Sloane back, Em?”

“Oh,” I said, surprised by the question. “I—I’m not exactly sure.”

“Sloane,” my dad said, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head. “Is she doing okay?”

I looked at him, completely confused by this. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“She just always seemed a little . . . lost to me,” he said. I was about to take a breath, try and refute this, since it was the opposite of everything I’d ever thought about her, but my dad was putting his glasses back on and squinting at the computer. “Do we really have to have the death scene with the pigeon?” he asked with a sigh.

“You know we do,” my mother said, shaking her head and leaning closer to her own monitor. “I’m as happy about it as you are.”

Normally, I stayed out of my parents’ writing process. They either told me far more than I wanted to know, or got defensive if I asked the simplest questions. But I was not about to let this one slide. “Pigeon?”

My dad was already typing with one hand, and used the other one to point at my mom. “As Tesla was dying,” she started.

“In a hotel room,” my dad interrupted. “Can you think of anything sadder?”

My mom went on. “As he was dying, he kept telling people that he was in love with a pigeon outside his window.”

I just stared at them. “A pigeon.”

She nodded. “He said it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. That it could see into his soul. That it was special.” She started to type again as well, and I knew that I could go now, having secured my permission to go, and that my parents were a few seconds away from not even being able to tell if I was still in the room. But I didn’t think I could leave it like that. “And?” I asked. “Was it? Special, I mean?”

My mother glanced over at me and gave me a sad smile. “No,” she said. “It was just a pigeon.” They both started typing again, their keyboards making a kind of music together. I listened for just a moment before I backed out of the dining room and closed the door quietly behind me.

“Any idea what this is about?” Dawn asked me as we both got out of our cars and walked toward the front door. I had a sleeping bag rolled under my arm, and I saw that Dawn did as well—and that she’d also been smart enough to bring along a pillow, which I now realized I’d forgotten. It had stopped raining an hour or so before, but everything was still chilly and damp, and there was the feeling in the air like the rain could start up again at any moment.

“None,” I said. Frank had texted me an address that hadn’t meant anything to me, but as soon as I’d pulled into the driveway, I’d recognized it. It was the spec house, the one that was sitting empty, the one we’d passed while running.

Frank pulled open the door before we’d even had the chance to knock, and stood on the threshold, smiling at us. “Hey,” he said, holding the door open. “Welcome to indoor camping.”

“Indoor what?” Dawn asked as we stepped inside. I immediately took off my flip-flops and put them next to Frank and Collins’s shoes, and Dawn followed my lead. The walls of the foyer were bright white and the wooden floors were pristine, and the last thing I wanted to do was to track mud all over the place.

“Indoor camping,” Frank repeated. He gave me a look. “Someone once told me that in a well-ordered universe it’s the only way to camp.” He smiled and then led us into the main room, and I saw what he meant. The room—the whole house—was totally empty, no furniture anywhere, not a single
decoration or knickknack cluttering up the place. Except, that is, for two round camping tents that had been erected in the middle of the room. There was an entire camp set up in the empty room, including folding chairs and a Coleman lantern. “It seemed like the next best thing.”

“And plus, no bugs,” Dawn said. She rolled out her sleeping bag next to one of the tents. “This is awesome.”

“Is it okay we’re here?” I asked Frank in a low voice.

He shrugged. “It’s not like anyone’s bought it,” he said, a bitter note in his voice that I hated to hear. “So as long as we don’t wreck the place, I think it’ll be fine.”

Since there was no electricity—or any lights or appliances that ran on electricity—it was actually more like real camping than I’d been anticipating. When it got dark outside, it got dark inside the house as well, the only light coming from the flickering lantern we’d set up in the center of the “camp.”

Collins, for some reason, had been withdrawn all night, not really participating or hanging out with us, and he’d retired to his tent pretty early and zipped the flap closed. I could see that Dawn looked hurt by this, but kept up a brave face anyway, trying her best to join in when Frank decided we should tell ghost stories, despite the fact that all she could seem to contribute was a recap of the last slasher film she’d seen. She decided to call it a night pretty soon after that, moving her sleeping bag so that it was next to Collins’s tent, and zipping it up around her shoulders.

And then it was just me and Frank and a flickering lantern throwing huge shadows against the unadorned white walls. He headed into his round orange tent, and I spread out my sleeping bag on the floor, now really regretting not bringing a pillow along with me. I had balled my sweatshirt up under my head, and was trying to find a place where my face wasn’t hitting the zipper, when Frank stuck his head out of his tent.

“Night, Emily,” he called, reaching over to turn off the lantern.

“Night,” I called back, giving him a smile and trying not to wince as some of my hair got caught in the zipper.

“What are you doing?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Nothing,” I said, a little defensively. “Just . . . you know, sleeping.”

“Where’s your pillow?” he asked. There was a loud sigh and the sound of someone turning over in Collins’s tent, and Frank glanced over at it, then walked closer to me, kneeling down in front of my sleeping bag. “Where’s your pillow?” he asked, more softly.

The light from the lantern was playing over his features, lighting them up and then throwing them into darkness again. I registered that he was now dressed for bed, wearing a light gray T-shirt that looked soft and a pair of long shorts. Since I hadn’t known I’d be staying over—which I really should have, given the fact he’d told me to bring a sleeping bag—I was still in the T-shirt and leggings I’d come in, which happily could double as
sleep clothes. But I’d wriggled my way out of my bra under the sleeping bag, and so made sure to keep holding the sleeping bag up high as Frank knelt next to me.

“I didn’t bring one,” I said, with a shrug. “But I’m fine. I have a sweatshirt. And it’s just as good.”

“It’s not,” Frank said, a note of finality in his voice, and I suddenly wondered if he wanted me to go home. “It’s ridiculous to sleep like that all night.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling more disappointed by this thought than I should have been. But it was like my heart just plunged into the bottom of my sleeping bag. “Well. I can go, then, I guess.”

Frank smiled and shook his head. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Come share mine. It’s big enough for two.”

“But—” I started, but Frank had already taken the lantern with him and headed for his tent. “Frank!” I shout-whispered, but a second later, the light from the lantern went out. Collins sighed loudly from his tent again, and I realized I had limited options. I could stay out here, using my very uncomfortable sweatshirt as a pillow, and probably wake up with a zipper scar across my face that would make me look like a pirate; or I could share Frank’s tent with him. Would it seem weird if I didn’t?

And even though
Sleep next to Frank Porter
hadn’t been on Sloane’s list, the thought of it still felt incredibly scary. But there was no other real option, unless I wanted to draw attention to the fact that I thought it might mean something when he obviously didn’t. And the fact was, I wanted to. I didn’t know what
that meant, and didn’t really want to think about what it meant just now. I spent a futile few minutes trying to get my bra back on in the dark, then gave up and just stuffed it into the bottom of my sleeping bag, then crawled out of it and walked over to Frank’s tent, pulling my sleeping bag behind me.

The flap was half down and I unzipped it all the way. My eyes had adjusted to the dark enough that I could see Frank sit up and smile at me. “Hey,” he said, his voice quiet but suddenly seeming loud in this small, enclosed space.

“Hi,” I murmured as I pulled my sleeping bag inside.  Though I couldn’t see much, the interior of the tent seemed smaller than it had from the outside. But it was a two-person tent, and Frank’s sleeping bag was on one side that seemed demarcated by the seam that ran over the top. I turned away from him as I got into the sleeping bag, then pulled it up in front of me.