The Book of Luke (2 page)

“What?” he asked.

I couldn’t bring myself to say “my sweatshirt.” But it was my sweatshirt, emblazoned with
BROWN
in capital letters across the front. Only now it should say
FAILURE
, or
LOSER
. Or maybe
IDIOT
, since I’d believed the guy in the admissions office when he’d told me I was a shoo-in (okay, those weren’t his exact words, he’d actually said something like, “you’d make a wonderful addition to the class of 2011,” but the implication was the same).

“You know what I’m talking about,” I told him. “Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence that you’ve found a new favorite sweatshirt.”

“What, this old thing?” TJ pointed to his chest. “It’s just comfortable.”

He wasn’t fooling me. I knew the sweatshirt was his way of rubbing it in. It was no secret in my family—I was the good kid and TJ wasn’t. Not that he was bad. TJ didn’t hotwire cars or skip school or spray-paint gang signs on little old ladies’ homes. My brother just wasn’t like me. Nobody expected him to be perfect. And they certainly didn’t expect him to get into Brown.

“Whatever.” I flipped the page in the catalog on my lap, indicating our conversation had come to an end.

During a two-hour delay that seemed to last six days, I’d burned through the thirty dollars’ worth of magazines I’d bought for the trip, and had even, in utter desperation, resorted to reading my mother’s
Smithsonian
and the ingredients of my third Snickers bar. So when we finally boarded the plane and my seat front pocket offered 112 glossy pages of SkyMall glory, I grabbed it. And was thankful. Finally I had something to take my mind off what was happening—and what was happening to me.

But somewhere between the cat-friendly self-cleaning litter box and the digital camera/spy pen, my window seat neighbor decided that chewing gum at a rate ten times the speed of the jet engines outside her window wasn’t enough. She wanted to carry on a conversation, as well.

“Is Boston your final destination?” she asked me, as if, after listening to gate announcements all morning, airport-speak had rubbed off on her.

I nodded, and waited for her to ask if my carry-ons were properly stowed in the overhead compartment.

“I was visiting my son in Chicago for Christmas,” she told me. “And my new granddaughter. She’s just one month old.”

I smiled and told her what I figured she wanted to hear. After all, I was nothing if not well-mannered. “That sounds like fun.”

She smiled back. “What about you? Did you have a nice holiday?”

I should have just said “fine” and stopped there. I should have just given her the standard answer everyone uses for seemingly innocuous questions like “how are you?” and “how’s your day going?” I should have just said “good” and left it at that.

I knew that was the polite thing to do. But I was tired of being polite and I was sick of being nice.

Maybe it was that I’d had my fill of recirculated air or that I’d reached my tolerance for the constant rattling of the beverage cart, but more likely it was that I’d been up since six o’clock that morning and had already eaten my way through the top row of the candy counter in the Hudson newsstand. And so, even though I knew I was expected to say something courteous, I told her the truth.

“My holiday sucked.”

“Oh.” For the first time since we sat down, she took her elbow off the armrest. “I’m sorry.”

She was sorry. Funny how a complete stranger can be sorry, yet a guy I’d known for two years and dated for four months didn’t even think to apologize after he told me he didn’t think we should see each other anymore.
It would just be too hard
. Who was Sean kidding? What he really meant was,
I’m a lazy shit who will forget you the moment your cab drives away
.

In psychology class we’d learned about the five stages of grief. Of course, Sean wasn’t dead (even though the idea was becoming more appealing by the minute), but those five stages also happened to fit my current situation perfectly. In the four hours between leaving Sean in my driveway and hearing the captain tell us we’d be traveling at thirty-seven thousand feet, I figured I’d gone through four of the five stages, and added a new one that Kübler-Ross forgot.

1. Denial
   . I kept telling myself that there was no way Sean just broke up with me. There was no way my boyfriend would dump me at eight o’clock on a Saturday morning in my very own driveway while my family watched from an idling cab. There was just no way. There had to be a mistake. Sean never was much of a morning person.
   
2. Anger
   . I hated him. More than I’d ever hated anybody in my entire life. Even more than I hated Curtis Ludlow after he told our entire sixth grade class I was the one who stepped in the dog crap and wiped it off on the front steps of the school.
   
3. Kübler-Ross called it
   grief,
   but I’m going to call it what it was—my heart breaking. Sitting there in gate B13, I swear I could feel my heart shriveling up inside my chest. I could feel everything Sean ever found lovable draining out of me onto the coffee-stained carpet. Even with hundreds of passengers swirling around me in the gate area, I felt completely and utterly alone.
   
4. Bargaining
   . Maybe if I let him think about it for a few days he’d realize he’d made a mistake. Maybe if I hadn’t insisted he come over this morning to say good-bye, he’d still be at home in bed wishing he could give me one last kiss. Maybe if the plane suddenly plunged toward the earth at mach speed and Sean came
   thisclose
   to losing me forever, he’d realize he couldn’t live without me.
   
5. Kübler-Ross claimed the fifth stage was
   acceptance
   . Acceptance, my ass. The fifth stage is
   Fury
   (capital F), coupled with a seething desire to physically harm him, cause him emotional anguish, and make him regret the day he ever thought he could break up with me right after eating a sesame-seed bagel with cream cheese. The fifth stage was
   wrath
   . Rage. Resentment. That woman who cut off her husband’s penis and tossed it out a car window? She was clearly in the fifth stage. And, now, so was I.
   

“Are you okay?” the woman on my right asked, and pointed to the wax-coated bag tucked in front of her own SkyMall. “You don’t look so well.”

“I’m fine,” I assured her, even though I was the furthest thing from fine.

She didn’t press the issue. “Well, it sounds like a change of scenery is exactly what you need.”

“Change is exactly what I
don’t
need,” I told her. “What I really need is for everything to be the same.”

I
don’t know what I expected. It wasn’t like I thought there would be a
WELCOME BACK
,
EMILY
sign strung across the front door of Heywood Academy, or a crowd of people lined up to greet me—not that I was opposed to the idea. But still. It was weird. Almost like walking into your bedroom only to find someone’s rearranged the furniture—it was still the same place, but it wasn’t exactly as I’d left it.

There was the new Astroturf soccer field courtesy of Josie’s father, and an addition to the foreign language wing where the old arts building used to be. The dull white hallways I remembered were now painted shiny beige, and the maroon metal lockers that I’d once carved my initials into were now navy blue with circular holes where the built-in locks had been.

I glanced down the hall toward the library and wondered who had my old locker now. Some ninth grader who had no idea I’d scrawled “E.A. + O.L.” on the inside of the door using an unbent paper clip I took from the computer lab (I felt guilty afterward and tried to bend the clip back into shape and return it to the lab, but, of course, I couldn’t come close to making it look like anything other than a mangled piece of metal and so I ended up burying it at the bottom of one of the small white plastic garbage receptacles they mounted on the walls of the girls bathroom stalls). A ninth grader who, even though there were barely three hundred students in the whole school, had no idea who “E.A.” even was. Probably a ninth grader a lot like the guy staring at me right now, wondering,
Why the hell is that girl checking me out?

I didn’t recognize him, not that there was any reason I should. Although now he was wearing the upper school’s standard navy blazer, maroon tie, and khaki pants, he would have been a sixth grader when I moved to Chicago. And I wasn’t in the habit of getting to know the kids in the lower school beyond the mandatory Secret Santa chocolates we delivered to them before Christmas break. Besides, his locker would have been on the bottom level back then, safely tucked away from upper-school students and four-letter words that his innocent ears weren’t supposed to hear.

But at that moment, he and three of his friends were watching me, sizing me up, trying to figure out if the new blond girl in the navy pleated skirt and blue oxford was someone they’d be interested in, or if she realized they were only freshmen.

As they examined me like some specimen in biology class, I attempted to look like I fit in. Which I once did. Three years ago I would never have stood in the hall outside the bathrooms wondering what to do next, where to go. I would have known where I belonged. But as I glanced down at my watch and pretended to be waiting for someone,
anyone,
I didn’t feel like I belonged at all. And I was starting to feel like I was spending way too much time in the vicinity of restrooms.

“Oh my God, Emily!” a voice called from the other end of the hallway, and I whipped around, knowing exactly who I’d find.

“I can’t believe you’re back.” Josie rushed toward me and threw her arms around my shoulders, the small blond hairs on her arm highlighted against the tan she must have earned in the Bahamas over Christmas vacation. This wasn’t some orange-y pseudo tan, like the kind we used to pour out of a bottle that inevitably gave us carrot-colored cuticles for a week because we forgot to use soap when we washed our hands. No, this was real. And the idea of Josie hanging out on some tropical island for Christmas break was completely
un
real. So unreal I felt my stomach clench, like that time I drank that bad eggnog.

“This is so great,” Josie gushed, still holding on to me.

My first reaction was to return her hug like I’d done a million times before, but right away it was obvious that things were different—mainly that I was four inches taller and Josie was at least two cup sizes bigger. For a minute I thought maybe Josie had used her dad’s recently acquired fortune to purchase a new set of boobs. But she would have called to tell me about any silicone enhancements, wouldn’t she? Besides, Josie wasn’t like that. Or at least she wasn’t like that when I knew her.

My heart sank. Not because Josie was perfectly bronzed and so clearly superseded me in the chest department, but because it was exactly what I’d been afraid of—that we’d be different. That we’d changed. And the reality of Josie’s chin barely reaching my shoulder was proof that, literally, Josie and I no longer saw eye to eye.

With my boyfriend gone, my valedictorian title left behind, and the recent news that I’d been practically rejected at Brown, Josie and Lucy were the only consolation I had for the next five months. They were the only things that made the idea of moving back to Branford even remotely bearable. And, now that I was staring at the side part in Josie’s blond hair, and she was probably staring at the blackheads on my chin, even that consolation wasn’t so consoling anymore.

Still, Josie pulled me in close, her sun-streaked hair falling across my face so that I had no choice but to inhale her long blond strands. And that’s when, in a single sniff, I realized that there may be some hope after all. I may have grown up and she may have grown out, but Josie’s hair still smelled like Pantene shampoo. Just like it used to.

I kept inhaling, taking comfort in the idea that maybe Josie hadn’t changed that much.

“So, when did you get back?” Josie asked, pulling away. “Are you all unpacked? How’s your new house? And why didn’t you call me the minute you got in? Forget it, it doesn’t matter, I’m just glad you’re back.”

Josie had a tendency to do that, to ask a question and then not bother waiting for an answer.

“I meant to call you,” I told her, hoping she’d believe me. Josie used to say I was a horrible liar. I used to take that as a compliment, but now I wished I were more comfortable spouting intentional half-truths. Or no-truths. “We’ve just been so busy getting settled and all.”

The whole-truth was, I hadn’t called Josie in the forty-eight hours we’d been back because I was afraid. Afraid of getting on the phone and realizing we had nothing to talk about, or even that we didn’t
want
to find anything to talk about anymore. Afraid that, if she knew that my relatively ideal life had taken a turn for the worse, that I’d gone from pretty much succeeding at everything I did to failing miserably, she’d realize I wasn’t the same person she used to like.

“The moving truck got here two days ago, and my mom is still going through boxes,” I told Josie, hoping that would be enough of an explanation. “Good thing I finally found a box of clothes, or I’d be wearing a Hefty bag.”

Josie laughed. “You always did look good in green,” she told me before taking my hand and leading me down the hall toward the seniors’ lockers, and away from the no-man’s-land I’d been standing in by the bathrooms.

“Lucy’s been sick since New Year’s Day, but she promised she’d be here today,” Josie assured me.

And that’s when the door to the stairwell flew open and Lucy’s curly brown hair and red, chapped nose bounded toward us. “There you are,” she exclaimed, her voice deep and nasal, like she was imitating those people on the NyQuil commercials. “Don’t get too close, I don’t want to make you sick,” she warned, but that didn’t stop her from hugging me.

“You look crappy,” Josie told her, standing at arm’s length.

“I feel even crappier,” she assured us. “My mom wanted me to stay home but I told her
you
were coming today.” Lucy nudged me just like she used to when she wanted to get my attention. Or anyone else’s. Lucy was a nudger, an arm squeezer, a poker, and even an under-the-table kicker when necessary. She’s also been the captain of the varsity soccer team since her sophomore year and the starting center on the lacrosse team, so it’s not like any of these gestures was received without some degree of discomfort.

“So, what do you think?” Lucy asked me.

“About what?”

“About everything! The way the school’s changed, how we’ve changed.” She eyed Josie’s chest but didn’t poke her, even though I knew it was probably killing her not to. “Do we look different? I mean, you’re taller, and your hair’s longer, but otherwise you look exactly the same.”

I smiled, not because my hair was longer or I was taller, but because they really didn’t seem that different, either. “Besides the obvious, you guys look exactly the same, too.”

“We don’t have much time before first bell, so start talking,” Josie instructed, taking a seat on the radiator lining the length of the hallway and pulling me down next to her. Lucy took my backpack and laid it on the floor before sitting down to my right.

I had about seven minutes to cover two-and-a-half years. There was no way I could tell them everything, explain who my friends were, or describe what it was like living in the Midwest. Did I start by telling them that everyone in Chicago called soda “pop,” or that instead of applying to Williams and Wesleyan, my friends were applying to Northwestern and Notre Dame? Did I mention that my parents weren’t living together and seemed on the verge of divorce? Did I begin by announcing that I wasn’t accepted early decision at Brown? Or just come right out and tell them that Sean dumped me two days ago because he didn’t think a long-distance relationship would ever work out?

But I couldn’t tell them any of that. I knew who they were expecting. Nice Emily. Sweet Emily. Not bitching-about-everythingthat’s-wrong Emily. If you asked anyone at Heywood Academy what they remembered about Emily Abbott, nine out of ten people would say, “Emily Abbott, she was so nice!” The tenth person would probably remember I was the one who’d scraped dog crap on the school’s front steps.

Even if Lucy and Josie were acting like no time at all had passed since we last saw one another, I wasn’t convinced it was that easy. A lot had happened in two-and-a-half years. Josie had practically become an instant heiress thanks to some software program her dad invented, and Lucy was being wooed with scholarships and promises of greatness by every Division I school with a women’s soccer team. And now I was supposed to jump-start our friendship with my own sucky life? No way. I’d give them the Emily they remembered.

“There’s not enough time. You guys tell me what’s been going on here,” I demanded instead—in the nicest way, of course. The hallway was filling up with students and the sounds of locker doors slamming shut, and I only had a few minutes before Josie and Lucy would leave me and I’d be on my own. “And hurry up,” I insisted, feeling our time together ticking away.

“Not much around here changes, unfortunately,” Lucy answered. “A few other people have moved away, and a few new people started, but otherwise it’s the same old faces you’ve known since sixth grade.”

“Come on, there must be something? No cringe-worthy stories?” I asked, not bothering to hide my disappointment. I’d missed out on two whole years at Heywood, there had to be some piece of interesting news to tell me. “Any new guys?” I turned to Josie, remembering that the last time we spoke on the phone she had just gotten herself yet another new boyfriend. “What’s going on with Luke?”

Josie’s hands flew up between us as if attempting to deflect the question. “Don’t even say his name.”

“He cheated on her over Christmas vacation,” Lucy explained.

“He didn’t just cheat on me, I caught him making out with someone else at Owen’s New Year’s party.”

“A sophomore from St. Michael’s,” Lucy added, knowing that added insult to injury.

For a second it occurred to me that a cheating boyfriend might be worse than a boyfriend who blindsided you with a breakup. Maybe my mom was right. Maybe things could be worse. At least Sean didn’t break up with me because he wanted to be with someone else. He broke up with me because he just didn’t want to go out with me anymore.

Okay. That didn’t help at all.

“That had to suck,” I empathized with Josie, attempting to put Sean out of my mind and focus on her cheating boyfriend instead.

I had a hard time picturing the Luke Preston I remembered cheating on anybody, no less Josie. When Josie and I would still talk on the phone our sophomore year, she’d mentioned Luke had changed over the summer, but I figured he’d just gotten his braces off, maybe lost a few pounds, and finally shaved the brown fuzz that seemed to hover over his upper lip like something more in need of a Swiffer than a razor. And even though Josie told me she and Luke had started going out in October, I still couldn’t quite picture my Josie, the girl who totally had her act together, going out with Luke Preston, who was mediocre at best.

“He kept swearing he sent me a breakup e-mail right before I left for the Bahamas, like that made any difference. What kind of an asshole breaks up with someone in an e-mail?”

“And right before Christmas!” Lucy added in a show of support.

I figured it was the same kind of guy who thinks he won’t get caught making out with a sophomore at Owen Lyle’s New Year’s party. Or the kind that tells his girlfriend he doesn’t want to go out with her anymore while he’s wearing the L.L.Bean field coat she gave him for Christmas and eating the sesame bagel she’d toasted for him.

“When I told Luke I bought him a present in the Bahamas, he told me to just keep it.” Josie shook her head and frowned. “Then I called him a prick and he told me to get over it.”