Something Right Behind Her (16 page)

“Uhuh,” George
didn’t look up as he filled the bowl now with a fresh, green bud. I guessed
George was putting on a bit of a performance for me, showing how he didn’t care
about the tacky lawn ornament his mom had out front, or her “date night” which
appeared to be a code word for messing around with her fat old-cop boyfriend. I
tried to show George I was comfortable with all that by kind of sprawling out
on the couch next to him, and taking a big long hit off his bong. Of course,
I’d only done bong hits like once before, so it was a miracle I didn’t die
coughing and make a total fool out of myself.

I must’ve done
something right, because I blew a bunch of smoke out my nose, and I immediately
felt a massive head rush. “Good girl,” George said chuckling, and he pounded me
on the back. “What I like about you, is you make that look pretty damn girly,
while still getting some serious smoke. You have these little ways about you.
How you sit with your legs all close together like that, like a girl in a movie
or something.”

I thought I was
being pretty casual there on the couch, but when I looked down at my feet, I
did have my converse crossed at the ankles. “I guess that’s just my personal
style,” I said, and I glanced sideways at him. He was staring over at me, and when
his eyes met mine, we started to kiss.

It wasn’t like
the night before, when his mouth felt soft and gentle on mine. He was more
insistent this time, more focused. I let my body melt into the moment.
Surprisingly, George’s sheets smelled really good. It was similar to how he
always seemed to smell like something fruity and like cigarette smoke. Sliding
into George’s bed in just my underwear was not something I had anticipated
doing, but somehow I felt fine about it, and slightly curious about what would
happen next. The thought of Doug, and how it had been only a month or so since
I’d gotten into bed with him, hardly crossed my mind, and when it did, it felt
almost purely like a memory, not something that mattered much anymore. I
purposely avoided thinking about Eve.

I kind of
thought one of us would pull away at some point, and put a stop to the whole
thing, maybe save something for another night, but then George reached for the
little drawer in his nightstand and I knew right away he was groping for a condom.
As long as he had one handy, there was no real reason to stop. I was curious,
anyway, how it might feel to sleep with George. I knew at least he wasn’t
playing me like Doug had. Also, being with him didn’t mean breaking some big
promise to Eve. It meant going along with the moment. Maybe even getting
carried away. What was wrong with that? There was a bunch of stuff I wanted to
be carried away from.

George seemed
pretty experienced, for just a junior guy. He had a Dirtbag girlfriend all last
year until she moved to Florida, and I think she’d been year older, so maybe
that’s where he got his experience. George seemed almost more attentive to how
the experience was for me than Doug had, and I got into the way George shifted
me this way and that, positioning me just right. I liked the way he felt at the
end, and how he collapsed into me. There was one sort of awkward moment at the
very end. He seemed embarrassed and slightly alarmed, but I wasn’t sure what
had happened, and I didn’t want to act like there was something I didn’t know.
The sheets underneath me were really wet, and I thought maybe that’s what he
felt bad about.

I got up quickly
and started looking for my clothes. I caught sight, then, of my new leather
jacket draped against the back of George’s dingy-looking couch. The thick, soft
leather folded in a way that looked expensive even from across the room. It
seemed like a lifetime ago that Mom bought me that jacket at Kimi’s, though
it’d just been that morning.

There was
something about the silent way George and I approached the car that made me a
little nervous. “Look, Andy, about what happened.” He started to speak, but I
interrupted him.

“It wasn’t your
fault, George,” I said. “It just happened.” He nodded and started the car. I
felt bad that he seemed to think the whole thing was a mistake. It didn’t occur
to me until later that maybe we were having a serious communication failure.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Even though
we’re Jews and we don’t exchange gifts or do anything like that at home, I’ve
always given gifts to Eve and she’s always given me something. This year I had
filled an old iPod I had with every great song I’d ever heard on it. I started
working on the giant playlist weeks ago and once it was finished, I only had to
figure out how to wrap it, whether I’d make a card or something to go with it.
Then, of course, I had to plan my visit, call Mrs. O’Meara to let her know I
was coming. The visit would have to be early in the week since we were leaving
in the evening on Friday to go to the D.R.

I called Mrs.
O’Meara on Monday night and made the plan. I’d go on Wednesday, right after
school. On Tuesday night, I wrapped the present in some really cool old comic
books I’d bought at a yard sale. Eve always liked Betty and Veronica and those
other corny old comics. I was nervous about the visit. Every time I saw her
now, something about her had changed. It made me worry what might be different
about her now.

I decided the
best thing to wear was my basic jeans and converse uniform with a slight twist.
I’d wear one of those lightweight scarves you wrap around your neck like three
times, with a low v-neck and my leather jacket. It’d be cool, and, if Douglas
were around, not-try-hard-sexy, not that I’d be thinking about Douglas. I’d
moved on from him, though maybe not up, I told myself with an inner chuckle.

When I tried the
top on though, something didn’t look right. My hair had gotten really
out-of-control. There was a giant frizz-bomb sticking out on either side. I
hadn’t had a haircut in a while and some of the usually neat curls had grown
beyond what a little product could contain. I searched through my drawer for my
emergency haircutting shears.

It wasn’t smart
to cut your own hair, I’d read that in the magazines. It was your basic
“never-do,” but with my kind of hair no one could tell if it wasn’t even, so I
adopted the fix-it-myself habit years ago.

I started
snipping away at the bushy sides, collecting the dark mass of curls on the edge
of my dresser. Then, the length seemed too long for the sides and I snipped at
that. I snipped at stray hairs all over my head. I fell into a trance, snipping
here and there, and the curls that were left bounced back into place with a
newfound spring. When I was done, there was a large pile of hair on the
dresser, which I balled up and deposited in the toilet. Mom didn’t like it when
I cut my own hair, not because I was lousy at it, but because I was always
leaving bits of hair everywhere.

I shook my hair
out and eyed the results in the mirror. I’d taken off a good few inches. If I’d
actually gone and had it done and they cut it that short, I’d probably be
pissed. But, having done the thing myself, I was pretty satisfied. It’d be
especially nice in the Dominican Republic, to not have all that frizz to deal
with. I also liked how the shorter hair drew attention to my eyes and nose. My
nose isn’t adorable like Eve’s, but it’s very straight, with a nice sprinkling
of freckles across it.

The haircut made
me feel fresh. I’d been a little low since the night with George, but now I was
shaking it off. Part of me felt like it was no big deal, and even sort of a
good thing. I was trying to detach myself from Doug. George was a sweet guy,
we’d used protection, and we were maybe even seeing each other in a way.
Sleeping with him wasn’t something I’d brag about, but I didn’t feel paralyzed
by it, like I had after Doug. Most important, having a fling with George was
not a betrayal of Eve. Anyway, no one saw me leave with George, though Sharon
had been on my case about leaving before she even got there. She kept saying
that Jill and Tom were so wasted by the time she got there, they’d started
eating Gayle’s mom’s Weight-Watcher’s meals, which got Gayle in trouble.
Apparently, this was my fault because I’d have kept them away from the frozen
meals.

The dream that
woke me up Wednesday at dawn wasn’t the absolute worst I’d had. It began as the
kind where Eve can walk again, where she’s well - only, this time, we were in
Spanish class, and I was sitting in Eve’s old seat. Eve looked too skinny to be
standing up, but she kept saying she was fine, she just had the flu, and now
she was back and I should get out of her chair. The scary part was when I stood
up to let her sit. That was the part that woke me, because as I stood up, I
felt a ping in the back of my legs and my knees buckled. There was someone
shooting at us, but I couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything to protect Eve, who
was the only one standing, the only one with no desk to hide behind. The only
thing that kept this dream from being as bad as the one at the beach was that
all along it felt like a made for TV movie, like my unconscious, dream-mind
knew the plot, knew it had all been done before.

Mom noticed the
bags under my eyes at breakfast, but I denied not getting enough sleep. All I
had to do was make it to the D.R.
 
Somehow I figured once I was out of the country, I’d be free of these
nightmares, at least for the duration of the trip.

Mom drove me to
school, since she was driving me to Eve’s later and then to Randy’s, since I
didn’t like to drive to White Plains by myself. The plan was that Mom and I
would grab a bite to eat, and Dad would get Milly from a friend’s house and
then take her out somewhere. Mom and I were going to get sushi in White Plains
on our way home. It was hard to get Dad to do that kind of thing on a
weeknight, since he usually worked late, but since it was so close to the
holidays, he’d agreed.

I liked to have
Mom drive me to school. It was kind of like being a little kid again, and I
fooled around with the stereo, flipping it between the two stations I liked
until Mom made me stop messing with it. When she pulled up in front of the red
brick main building, Sharon started waving like an insane person. She has this
weird attachment to my Mom since my Mom tutored her in after school when she
was in seventh grade. Sharon was an even bigger bitch back then than she is
now, and Mom doesn’t like her one bit. Still, Sharon doesn’t know that.

Mom waved
unenthusiastically to Sharon. “Be nice, Mom. This is my actual life,” I said.
Mom smiled and kissed my cheek.

“Keep your chin
up sweetie,” Mom said. “Anyway, keep in mind you’re going to get a break from
all of this, nothing but sun, lying on the beach, and my fabulous company.”

“I know Mom,” I
said, and I gave her the thumbs up sign. I was actually kind of psyched to hang
with Mom, to be in that low-pressure zone for a while. She smiled back at me
from the driver’s seat.

The only snag
the whole day was seeing George. He was out in the hallway when I went to get a
diet orange soda from the machine. George gave me this big smile and walked up
real close to me and touched my arm. No one else was around, or else it would
have been weird, since we never talked much in public. I kept walking and put
my money in the machine. “Hey George, “ I said really casual. “What’s up?”

“Hey, babe. Just
glad to see you. Did you get my texts?” He asked. He wasn’t whiney, exactly.

“Yeah, it’s just
been this insane week. I had three papers due and a couple of tests, so I’ve
barely had a second.” This was all true. Still, I could’ve responded to George.

“Well, I was
wondering if you wanted to hang out, maybe come over for awhile before you
leave.”

“Actually,” I
said, “I’m going to see Eve tonight, and then tomorrow I’ve gotta pack.” I said
it like I really regretted not having time for him. I still liked the way he
wasn’t exactly smart, but he never said anything really dumb, either.

He leaned up
against the soda machine. I was about to walk back to the cafeteria, just going
on my way, but he was staring hard at me. “That’s fucking tough,” he said. “If
one of my friends was that sick, I’d be really fucked up. It’d make me mad to
see someone cool and chill all messed up like that, especially with so many
assholes around here who have nothing but good luck.” George gestured with his
chin toward the cafeteria, the domain of football players, of soccer players,
of rich kids. I never thought George minded being prince of the Dirtbags.

“Yeah, it’s
true,” I said. “But you can’t really imagine this happening to anyone you know
at all,” I said. “I can’t even remember what she’s like from one visit to
another. But then she’s also the same, in some ways, as ever. The same person.”

“That’s fucked
up, Andy. “ He put his hand on my shoulder and held me like that for a second,
like he was trying to hold me up. “You gotta take care, OK.” He looked at me
sort of sternly, but caring. It wasn’t cheesy the way he consoled me. For a
second, I almost wanted to tell him about the dreams, how the stuff people say
about recurring dreams driving you slightly crazy was true. I wanted to tell
him how strange it was how in my nightmares she was almost never sick at first,
but she was still always dying. How her death was always a shock, but there
were a lot of people I knew coming out of the cafeteria, streaming into the
hall. It wasn’t a conversation I was ready to have in the middle of school,
especially since I was going to see her that afternoon. It was the worst way to
talk about your best friend behind her back, to admit to someone that to you
she’d already become almost a ghost.