The Big Crunch (11 page)

Her black eye was completely gone.

She called Wes around three. He seemed nervous, and almost right away he asked her if she had talked to Jerry.

“I talked to him yesterday,” she said, “from La Jolla.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“Does he know we’re going out?”

“I don’t tell him every detail of my life.”

“Yeah, but —”

“Actually, he thinks I won’t be back until tomorrow.”

Wes didn’t say anything.

June said, “I just didn’t want to deal with him on — you know — New Year’s.”

Wes didn’t say anything, again.

“Anyway,” said June, “what time are you coming over?”

Wes cleared his throat. “Eight? I know a party we could go to, but …”

“But what?”

“I think Jerry might be there.”

“Oh.”

“Maybe we can talk about it when I come over.”

“Okay.”

“So … see you later?”

“Okay.”

June hung up with a sense of dread mixed with nausea.
Drausea.
Five minutes ago she had felt great, all excited to be seeing Wes again, ringing in the New Year and all that, and now suddenly she was drauseated. This was what happened whenever she got to know people, got connected to them. The only good thing was that every time her life turned to crap, she didn’t have long to wait for her parents to move so she could start the cycle all over again.

Her cell phone rang. It was Jerry. June discovered a hard, cold place in herself. She answered the phone as if she had no idea who was on the line.

“Hello?”

“June! It’s Jer.”

“Jerry. I was just thinking about you.”

“Me too. It’s snowing here. What’s it like in La Jolla?” Jerry always liked to talk about the weather. Politics and the weather.

“I’m here. We came home early,” she said.

“Cool! So we can do New Year’s together!”

June went to her hard, cold place, took a breath, and said, “Jerry …”

Something in her voice must have told him something.

He said, “Wait … June? Are you mad at me or something?”

How did clueless Jerry all of a sudden get so perceptive? She said, “No, I just think maybe we —”

“Wait! How about if I come over and we can talk? I really want to see you.”

“Jerry, I don’t think —”

“Wait!”

“No! Listen to me, Jerry. I can’t —”

“Would you just
wait
a second?”

“I can’t,” June said. She really couldn’t. She had to do this now. “I can’t go out with you anymore.”

She could hear him breathing.

Then he said, in a smallish voice she hadn’t heard before, “Why?”

“Just … because.”

The snow continued to fall, big sparkly storybook snowflakes drifting slowly from a low gray sky. By the time Wes arrived at June’s, it was four inches deep. His mom had almost gone back on her promise to let him use her car, but he’d somehow convinced her that the weather wasn’t that bad, and he’d promised her that he would only drive to June’s, and then to Alan’s party, and no place else. And of course he swore every which way not to take even a sip of alcohol.

June answered the door. “My dad said to tell you to behave yourself,” she said.

Wes looked past her, expecting to see Elton Edberg’s wolfish smile.

“They’re not home,” she said.

Wes felt the tension go out of his shoulders.

“You want to come in?”

Wes stepped up into the entryway and became weirdly conscious of his height. Not that he was tall, but he was taller than June, and now she seemed smaller than he remembered. She was holding her shoulders in and bending forward ever so slightly, making her seem even smaller, looking up at him with those eyes. She took a step back. Wes closed the door, awkward and suddenly shy.

June said, “He’s not so bad, my dad.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“My mom says he acts like he does because he’s in a business where he has to be right all the time.”

“He seems like an okay guy. I mean, for a girl’s dad.”

June laughed.

There was another awkward moment.

“Um … can I get you something to drink?”

“I promised my mom I wouldn’t.”

“I mean, like, a glass of water.”

He nodded, embarrassed. She turned quickly away and made for the kitchen. Wes stomped the snow off his feet and started to follow her, then thought better of it and toed off his sneakers. In the kitchen, June was pouring water into a glass from a dispenser on the refrigerator door. She turned toward him and sort of jumped, surprised to find him there, so close. Had she expected him to wait by the door? Why wasn’t she talking? He was confused.

“Here,” she said, stepping toward him. Wes reached out, but instead of handing him the glass, she moved into his arms and they were kissing, and for a moment, there was nothing in his
corner of the universe but lips and tongues and her body pressing into him, and he knew in some distant fragment of his consciousness that he was falling, not falling to the floor but falling into a vortex that had opened deep inside himself as his awareness spread to every pore, as if he were lit up and glowing like a firefly, and then he heard the sound of shattering glass but he didn’t stop because as long as that moment lasted, he believed to his core that it never had to end.

It was happening to June too. She was sure that what she was feeling was exactly what Wes was feeling, except that even as it was happening she sensed a jittery, anxious aura, and a tiny voice inside her — Fearful June, or perhaps Pragmatic June — was saying,
He’s going to bolt. He’s going to run away again.
But as the kiss went on, she banished the other Junes and let herself sink into the moment even though she knew in a distant sort of way that the panic she sensed was coming not from Wes, but from deep within herself. Then came the sound of breaking glass, and Scornful June was laughing in her ear, and she tried to pull away but her body would not let her, and then somehow she tore herself loose, gasping for breath as their arms came apart and they once again became two people, separate and distinct, but not as separate and distinct as before.

“I dropped the glass.” Her voice had turned husky and deep. She looked down; Wes was in his stocking feet. Shards of wet glass were everywhere. “Careful.”

Wes was staring at her stupidly, his mouth slightly open, his eyes glazed over.

“There’s glass all over the floor,” June heard herself say. “Don’t move.”

She got the sponge mop from the kitchen closet and moistened it, then started mopping, dragging the water and glass away from Wes’s feet. Wes watched her silently. She could feel his eyes sending out tractor beams — even though they were separated by a few feet of space, there remained an unbreakable bond. Unbreakable? No, it was more like being connected by glass fibers — hard as steel, brittle as chalk.

“I got it all, I think.” She squeezed out the mop over the sink.

Wes took a step toward her.

“Wait,” she said.

He stopped.

The panicky feeling had come to the surface again, settling around her middle like her own personal lightning storm. She knew that if they kissed again, there would be no stopping. She wasn’t afraid of sex — it would happen or it wouldn’t. It wasn’t about that. It was more that if she didn’t slow it down —
way
down — there would be no place left to go.

He’d been body-slammed from the inside out. What had just
happened
here? June was standing with her back to the sink, gripping the edge of the counter so hard her knuckles were white, staring at him like she was afraid. Afraid? Had he done something wrong? He was sure she’d wanted to kiss — she’d made that perfectly clear — and they hadn’t done anything more. Although it had been an amazing kiss. Izzy had never kissed him like that — like she wanted to be
inside
of him.

He said, “Hey …”

“I broke up with Jerry.”

“Oh.” Not that that explained anything.

“I called him.”

“Is he … is he okay?”

“I guess. You know him better than me.”

Did she mean he knew Jerry better than she did, or that he knew Jerry better than he knew her?

She said, “I just thought, if we go to this party —”

“We don’t have to,” Wes said.

“I mean, if we did go and Jerry was there, and if he still thought I was in California and his, you know, his girlfriend or something … it would be awful. So I had to tell him.”

Wes nodded.

June said, “So who’s having a party?”

“Alan Hurd.”

“Which Alan is he?”

“The shorter one.”

“Is it far?”

“You … you want to go?”

“I think we should,” said June.

C
ARS LINED BOTH SIDES OF THE STREET
in front of the Hurd residence; many of them had been there long enough for the snow to completely cover their windshields.

“Alan’s parents are in Florida,” Wes said.

“They left him home alone?”

“Supposedly his older sister Hannah is there. She’s twenty-two. Except she went on an overnight and made Alan swear not to have any parties while she was gone. That was what gave him the idea.”

June laughed.

“Seriously,” Wes said. “They don’t get along so well, and Alan knew that even if she found out, she couldn’t say anything to their parents because she wasn’t supposed to leave him home alone. It’s a weird family.”

“They’re all weird,” June said. “Families.”

“No kidding.” Wes parked at the end of the line of cars and turned to June. “It might be kind of crazy,” he said.

“I could use some crazy,” June said. She didn’t mean it.
Crazy
she did not need, but it seemed like a funny thing to say, so she said it. Wes laughed. She liked that, his easy laugh. They were almost back to normal, or what felt like normal — a new normal. Just enjoying being together, the way people are supposed to.

“We don’t have to stay long.”

“I wonder if the Bitches will be there.”

“Which bitches?”

“Phoebe, Britt, and Jessica.”

“Oh.
Those
bitches. They’ll probably be at every party in town. The question is, Which party will they be at when Phoebe passes out in somebody’s parents’ bedroom?”

“Really?”

“That’s what happened last year.”

June nodded, but she wasn’t really thinking about Phoebe; she was wondering again whether Jerry would be there. She didn’t think so. When they’d talked on the phone — their conversation had gone on for twenty minutes before she was able to end it — Jerry had told her he was staying home all night. He’d even made a sort of lame joke: “New Year’s Eve parties are bad for politicians,” he had said. “You never know when you might find yourself on YouTube.”

That was actually pretty funny,
she thought.
For Jerry.
Or maybe he hadn’t been joking.

“You up for this?” Wes asked.

“Let’s do it.”

They could hear the music the moment they stepped out of the car.

“Pretty loud,” Wes said. “I can guess how this party’s going to end.”

“With police?” said June.

“Exactly.” He walked around the car and offered June his arm.
It felt right and natural. She hooked her mittened hand around his elbow and they stepped onto the sidewalk, kicking up snow as they walked, not too fast, toward the house. It was almost spooky, he thought, how he could be with June with neither of them talking, and have it feel so right. With Izzy the talking had never stopped. They were almost to the door when it opened and two guys wearing letter jackets tromped out, one of them saying in a loud voice, “This party sucks!”

Wes knew one of them, a senior named Bryan something, kind of an idiot but not a bad guy. The two lettermen lurched past Wes and June, laughing at something, and headed across the street to their car, one of them yelling, “Next!”

“I don’t think I’d get in
that
car,” June said.

The door was standing open. Wes and June stepped inside and found themselves tripping over a sea of shoes and boots.

“I think that’s a hint,” Wes said.

“I hate stocking-foot parties,” June said, pulling off her boots.

The house was packed. A Foo Fighters song was tearing up the living room speakers while some bowel-thumping hip-hop filtered up from the basement. Dozens of loud voices were striving to be heard over the music. Wes didn’t recognize the first ten people he looked at, which meant that Alan had long since lost control of events. Control was not Alan Hurd’s strongest quality.

Wes and June threaded through the partygoers, looking for Alan. They found him holding court beside a keg planted in a
huge bucket of ice in the middle of the kitchen, surrounded by a crowd of people representing every level of inebriation.

Alan’s mother would have died on the spot. Wes could feel his socks sticking to the beer-sloshed tile floor. A cloud of cigarette and marijuana smoke hung in an eye-stinging haze. Something green and drippy had spattered the white cupboards.

Alan caught sight of Wes and shrieked: “Wesley Weston Westerhiemer freaking Andrews. You came!”

Every face in the kitchen turned toward him, saw who he was, then promptly lost interest — except for Jerry Preuss, who was slumped against the sink holding a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of lime vodka in the other. He was wearing somebody’s bra around his neck, and his eyes were pointing in two different directions. Wes had never before seen Jerry drink or smoke, but he knew instantly that Jerry was profoundly and irredeemably polluted.

Alan shouted, “Pour my man Wes a beer!” but Wes was already backing out of the room. He turned, looking for June, but he couldn’t find her. Had she left already? He stepped over some guy — Robbie Johanson, flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling fan. Wes ran to the front door, thinking June might have panicked and left. Her boots were still there. He went back through the house, checking the bedrooms. No June. He went down the stairs to the basement. Phoebe Keller and Britt Spinoza were feeding people from a salad bowl full of cherry Jell-O shots.

Back upstairs, in the kitchen, somebody told him June and
Jerry had gone out to the screen porch in back. Wes rolled open the sliding glass door and stepped through.