Those Girls (15 page)

I
n geometry, Veronica asked me if I’d told Alex about New Year’s.

“Oh my god, no!” I said. “Why? Do you think she knows?”

“I don’t know,” she replied, doodling stars in my textbook. “Drew’s just been so distant. I thought maybe you told Alex and Alex told him or something.”

“Well, I didn’t. And you better not, either!”

“So.” She crossed and uncrossed her legs and twirled a thin piece of hair around her pinkie. “Have you and Sam talked about it much? I’ve been wondering.…”

Why was she bringing this up now, in math class? We’d successfully managed to pretend it never happened, and I was really relishing in her newfound ability to follow fucking directions. The truth was that Sam and I didn’t talk about it much, but when we did, he got smiley and flirty and raunchy, and as miserable as the fucking experience was and as creepy and dirty as I’d felt since, it had worked. Sam was back with me again, I could feel it—he wanted me again, paid attention to me again, was excited to see me, touch me, have sex with me again. So fuck her, thinking that she had some sort
of place in our relationship now. Thinking that she was somehow involved.

I drew a bear and a pig in the margin of my notebook next to her star. Then some lightning bolts.

“Not really,” I said, “and I thought we agreed that we weren’t going to talk about it, either?”

“Even me and you can’t talk about it?” she asked with genuine sadness in her eyes. “Because Drew’s been weird. I can’t tell if it’s me, if he subconsciously can sense something.…”

She was provoking me. Wanting me to ask about her relationship, wanting us to be girlfriends who talked about this kind of stuff, who gave each other advice and supported each other and told the other that everything was going to be okay like we used to.

The first time I ever hung out with Veronica alone was one time in seventh or eighth grade, when Alex was out of town. She was this tall, glamorous creature who came from New York who’d decided that she liked Alex, which made me jealous of Alex, but also wonder what it was about her that was attractive to someone who came from somewhere where everyone was attractive. And why she’d chosen her to bond with and not me. I hated her, but I also wanted her to like me.

We raided her mom’s closet and dressed each other up in fur coats and leather pants and all sorts of ridiculous things that my mother had probably never even heard of, let alone worn, and took pictures of each other. I put on some neon hot pants, and she said, “Your butt is amazing. I could fit it in the palm of my hand.” Every inch my butt grew after that, I always thought
about whether it could still fit in the palm of somebody’s hand, and that if it couldn’t, it was too big and I no longer had anything that Veronica didn’t.

It was always like that with Veronica, always a competition, and I always felt like I was losing—until I got Sam. Finally,
I
earned something that she wanted, because I’d
worked
for it. For once, the world didn’t fall effortlessly into her lap like it always fucking did. Boys just naturally flocked to her; her parents just threw money at her and let her do whatever she wanted. She ate whatever she wanted and stayed thin, did whatever and whoever she wanted and people still liked her, never studied and got good grades. I didn’t understand it, and it wasn’t fair. Alex and I were best friends for years, and then Veronica came along and they were instantly close. Sam met Veronica and immediately liked her. I killed myself for everything I had, and it all still felt like it was slowly slipping from my grasp—fuck her. I was going to make her work for my friendship; for once in her life, she would have to fucking earn something she wanted.

“I think you’re just being paranoid,” I said.

“Girls!” Mrs. Matthews screamed. “Can either of you tell me what kind of triangle this is?”

“Uhh… equilateral?” Veronica guessed. She was wrong.

I
figured I’d have a St. Patrick’s Day party, because, well, I was bored out of my mind and was starting to get that disconnected vibe I got from time to time. I was starting to wonder if I’d gone about this year all wrong. All I’d wanted was for things to be good with Alex and Mollie again, for the three of us to laugh and make inside jokes and dance around like we used to. I thought dating Drew would bring me and Alex closer together, give us something in common, be an excuse for us to hang out all the time but, of course, stupid me, it did the opposite. We barely even talked anymore.

I guess I didn’t know what I thought sleeping with Sam would do for my relationship with Mollie, but I just wanted to prove her wrong about him, prove to myself that I was right about that night freshman year and that I could have had him if I wanted him. If I could show her that she was wrong about him, maybe she’d realize she was wrong about a lot of things. Maybe she’d feel knocked down a peg or two, get over herself, get over it all, and come back to me and Alex and be able to just say
fuck it
with us, relax, be silly with us, and have some
fun again, stop trying so hard and caring so much, maybe start eating, like, actual meals again.

We needed an excuse for everyone to get together and have fun again. March had been totally rainy and miserable, so I figured I’d give us all something to do and look forward to and have a party.

I decided to mix it up and make it a day party, have everyone over at, like, noon and start boozing from there. Also, I was tired of trying to fill my Saturday afternoons alone. I always wondered what other people did all day when they were alone. When we were younger, Alex, Mollie, and I used to hang out, go to the movies or the mall, make mischief in one another’s houses on Saturdays and Sundays, but that wasn’t happening anymore. They were always busy now: band practice, homework, SATs, jogging, family stuff, Sam. And Drew never wanted to hang out in the daytime; he was always writing. Writing, writing, writing. About god only knows what—he still hadn’t let me read anything.

One could spend only so many Saturdays at the mall alone. I tried to watch some of the movies that Drew told me were so good, but I always found myself zoning out or falling asleep. Same thing happened with homework. I got more involved in my cooking; I went out and bought myself really fancy knives, got a fancy French cookbook, and challenged myself to make every dish in it. When I finished the French one, I got a Chinese one. I’d eat as much as I could in two days, and then bring Tupperwares full of leftovers to Gabby Sherman and the do-gooders to take to the homeless shelter, because what a
waste. I started cleaning, too. Furiously. Rosie asked me if my mother was upset with her, if we’d gotten another housekeeper to come in on her days off, because the house was always so spotless when she arrived. I just told her it was my new
domestic
phase. That I wanted
to be a good wife some day!
She laughed.

I called the party for noonish, and by two
PM
, some of the jocks had shown up, a few seniors, some randos from our grade, Josh Holbrook and some sophomores, but no Alex, no Mollie, and no Sam or Drew.

I called Drew a few times, but there was no answer. It was taking him longer than expected to get the green streamers and leprechaun cutouts I’d asked him to pick up.

I called Alex.

“Hey,” I said. “What’re you doing? Why aren’t you here yet?”

“Oh shit, what time is it? I’m just reading,” she said.

“You’re doing homework on a Saturday? On St. Patrick’s Day? Put on something tight and green and get your ass here.”

She laughed. “No, I’m reading, like, an actual book. For fun. I know. I’m a loser.”

I laughed. “Seriously! Stop being a nerd and come hang out!”

“I’ll be there in a little,” she said. “I’m actually really into this right now. I’m lazy. It’s raining. I haven’t showered.”

“You suck.”

She paused for a minute.

“I know. Maybe tomorrow let’s just you and me hang out and get dinner or something? We haven’t really had any bonding time in a while,” she said.

I smiled, because I couldn’t believe she’d even noticed.

“I’d really love that,” I said.

“Okay, I’ll see you soon.”

I hung up the phone smiling. I couldn’t remember the last time Alex and I hung out just the two of us. That night before my First Week of School party maybe? We used to hang all the time. When Mollie disappeared into Sam world, the two of us would get into all sorts of wacky trouble. She’d make me smoke pot, and we’d go to fancy dinners and charge them to my dad’s credit card, sneak into Penn parties and make out with frat boys, or just sit around my pool and talk about life and sex. Well, I’d talk about sex. She’d talk about life. And life without sex. I wondered where we’d go for dinner. Sushi maybe, because they never carded. I wanted to get drunk with her and really bond. I felt like we had so much to talk about. I wanted to talk to her about Drew, see if maybe she could give me some advice. I was dying to ask her about Fernando, and tell her how happy I was for her and what a great guy he seemed like—maybe she was thinking about sleeping with him! Maybe I could give her advice, too, like I used to with Mollie. I wanted to figure out some way to ask her if she knew what was going on with Mollie and Sam and if she was as worried as I was that Mollie was really losing it and possibly about to snap.

I tried calling Drew again, still no answer. And there was a small pit in my stomach that didn’t even care. That knew I’d probably have more fun without him, and was sort of relieved to be free and unburdened at a party again, and that maybe that meant something. I took a swig of green beer and went back to entertaining my guests.

I
t was raining, and I was reading
High Fidelity
, thinking about the top five songs I’d want played at my funeral. I couldn’t decide between wanting something tragic and emotional like Radiohead or the National or something whimsical and ironically appropriate, something that might make people laugh and say
Oh, this is so Alex
, like “Crossroads.” My mom was working in New York for the day, Josh had already gone to Veronica’s party, and I was alone in my house. I loved being alone in my house. No questions, no noise, no feeling of being flocked and watched, just the freedom for me to do as I pleased at a pace of my liking. I knew I had to go to Veronica’s party, but I couldn’t have been less in the mood. All I wanted to do was sit in bed and keep reading what was quickly becoming my new favorite book. I told myself I’d go at four o’clock. By then people would be drunk enough for me to unabashedly mock them to their faces and I could sneak out an hour later but convince people I’d been there all day.

Hours passed, and I hardly noticed. New song lyrics started to seep into my thoughts, something about rain, something about being alone, but then I worried if Fernando would read
into my lyrics, which led me to think about how I didn’t really feel like thinking about him.

Then Drew called.

“Hello?” I said.

The line was quiet, but I heard him breathing.

“Drew? What’s up?”

“Hey,” he said. His voice was shaky, off.

“What’s up?”

When he said he was at the hospital, my throat swelled, and I knew something was really wrong. I knew no one had sprained an ankle playing basketball or cut themselves slicing bagels. I don’t know how I knew—I just knew.

“Are you okay? What’s going on? Is Veronica okay?”

“My dad was in an accident.”

My heart pounded in my face and fingers. I didn’t know what to do, how to feel, where to go, what to say. Thunder cracked outside my window.

“Is he okay? Are you okay?”

“No.” His normally soothing, sturdy, NPR tone rattled like my windowpanes. I hung up and ran to my car. I didn’t look in the mirror, didn’t turn off the lights, just went.

I shuffled through the wet emergency room. Through the maze of strange faces and white coats. The smell of disinfectant made me a little dizzy, but I darted through the wide white hallways until I found them. Drew sat on a plastic chair with his head down, elbows on his knees and white-knuckled hands clasped together. His mom sat next to him; she was crying and holding Isabelle, who was still in her blue-and-pink polka-dot
pajamas. Christina, wearing denim overalls, sat next to Drew and stared expressionlessly at the wall.

One time, Drew’s dad drove us to the shore. He made us listen to classical music the whole way. Drew whined and complained and told his dad that he should try to be a little cooler. His dad said, “I don’t need to be cool. I’m your father.” And I thought about how nice it must be for Drew to have a dad who cared more about being his dad than being cool.

My dad was always competitive with us about who was cooler—who listened to cooler music, had more disdain for authority and convention, did harder drugs. Sometimes it was exhausting. I was the only girl in the world who told her dad that she was checking out some local band when she was really at the library. My dad, with his band and his underground music and his ratty T-shirts and hand-rolled cigarettes, was so cool that he decided that he was too cool to even be a dad at all.

It seemed to take Drew forever to stand up. Once he did, his body melted again in my feeble arms. He was clammy and shivering. He didn’t say anything, just rested his wet cheek on mine.

“What’s going on?” I’d already started to cry.

He took my hand and walked me out into the hallway, around a corner from the waiting area where his family sat. He stood square in front of me, legs sturdy on his flat feet and head stiff and strong on his broad shoulders. Then his face slowly collapsed.

I threw myself around his shaking shoulders and felt him
entirely crumble into me. Tears streamed down his cheeks and mine, and I didn’t know what I was supposed do, what I was supposed to say. So I didn’t say anything for a while. We just stood there in the hospital, hugging and crying. I wanted to call my mom.

“What happened?” I finally asked, my elbows still locked around his neck.

“An accident,” he said. “Hit a tree on Blackrock Road. He was drunk, they think. They don’t know. I’m sure he was.…”

There was pressure around my chest; my ribs closed in on my lungs. I pulled away from him and grasped his arms in my shaking hands. Intercoms and announcements buzzed around us, but it was all muted and in slow motion.

“Is he okay?” But I knew that he wasn’t. There was a panic in Drew’s eyes that said that he wasn’t.

He shook his head and lunged toward me, buried his face in my hair.

He sniffled in my ear, and I looked around the corner at his mom and his sisters. They had all collapsed into one another’s chests and shoulders. They all seemed so small, this whole thing so big, and all of them, so small.

“What can I do?”

“Can you take me and the girls home? My mom is going to stay here with my aunt to deal with stuff. We can’t be here anymore. Please?”

I thought about my own father, where he was, if he was okay. I hadn’t heard from him in months. I wondered how I’d feel if he died, how it would be different from how Drew was
feeling. I wondered how Drew felt. I hated myself for not being able to really know. I wondered if this truth would inevitably make me a huge failure as a best friend.

But I didn’t have time for that kind of thinking. Not today. I kept looking over my shoulder for Veronica. Wondered if she’d know what to do and if that was the reason he was with her and not me.

We drove back from the hospital in silence. No talking, no radio, just the patter of rain on windows and tires over wet gravel. The sky was bright white. The girls got out of the car; Drew sat.

“Can we go back to your house?” he asked.

“Are you sure you want to leave the girls?”

“Christy can watch Izzy. I can’t be in that house right now. I don’t want to talk to anyone but you.”

When we got inside, I asked if he was hungry. He shook his head and went straight upstairs to my room. He kicked his wet sneakers off, lay on my bed, curled onto his side, and stuck his hands in the pockets of his green sweatshirt. I stood at the foot of the bed, just watching him, scared, confused, having no idea what to do or say. The rain started up again outside the window, beating on the pane like it was trying to break in or get our attention. I lay down next to him, spooned him from behind, and rested my chin on his damp shoulder.

“Thanks for coming, Alex,” he said. Drew never called me Alex. Coming out of his mouth, it sounded like someone else’s name.

I kissed his cheek, and he turned over onto his back. He
stared up at the ceiling, tears forming and falling from the corners of his eyes.

“Do you want to watch a movie or something?” I asked.

“Can we just lie here?”

“Sure,” I said, and rolled over and lay on my back to stare at the same blue ceiling.

We lay there for I don’t know how long, minutes, hours maybe. Not talking, just listening to the rain and each other breathe and staring at the ceiling. I waited for him to talk first, not wanting to say the wrong thing, or anything at all, if he didn’t want me to. I closed my eyes tight, trying to stifle my own tears, because they seemed selfish and unfair.

“It’s weird,” he said finally, eyes still fixed on the ceiling, “that people can actually die, because of nothing—because of an accident. As stupidly and easily as someone spills a drink or stubs their toe, a whole life can just end.”

I stayed quiet.

“It’s not like he really added much to our lives,” he went on. “I often thought about how different life would be if he left, and I usually came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t change that much at all.”

I stayed quiet, but I rolled over onto my side and propped my head up with my hand.

“Life without a dad is different,” I said.

He turned to me. “God, I’m an asshole. I didn’t mean…”

“No, no, it’s totally not the same thing. I can’t even imagine what must be going on in your head right now.” I paused. “Have you called Veronica?”

“No,” he replied, then rolled over and looked straight into my puffy eyes. “I can’t deal with her or that dumbass fucking party right now.”

He pushed my hair back behind my ear.

“You’re my best friend,” he said.

I smiled and told him that I felt the same.

“No, I mean it. You’re not just
my
best friend, you’re
the
best friend I could conceivably imagine to exist, and I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to have found you. I don’t deserve you. I’m sorry to put all this on you.…”

I sat up. “You’re not allowed to worry about me right now.”

“I never worry about you,” he said. “I worry about me, losing you.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” I said.

He scooted closer toward me and put his hand on the back of my head.

“Yes, you are,” he said. “It’s only a matter of time. Some guy’ll scoop you up, whisk you away. You’ll finally realize that you don’t need to be wasting your time hanging around with a pathetic loser like me.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. “Please, I’m not going anywhere. We’ll be fifty, and I’ll be single and living in a smelly apartment over your and Veronica’s garage, babysitting your beautiful, long-legged children, while you two go out with all the other happy couples on Saturday nights.”

He laughed. “There’s no way that will happen.”

Thunder split outside and we both jumped a little, but he turned back to me. He possessed an eerie focus. My heart
raced, and a familiar lump formed in my throat. I looked down at the decorative blue and purple pillows on my bed and twirled one of the loose ribbons around my forefinger.

When I finally looked up at him, fighting tears, fighting everything, I shrugged. He took my head in his palms, pulled my quivering face close, and kissed me, our lips wet and salty from the tears.

I smiled, leaned in, and kissed him quickly again, wanting to get another one in before we both just smiled and lay back down, and I filed the event as an extra intimate expression of gratitude and affection in a time of crisis.

“What was that for?” he asked.

“What was yours for?”

“I just wanted to kiss you right then.” He sat up. “I want to all the time, but I just had to right then.”

Pressure in my chest returned. “You want to all the time?”

I had to maintain perspective on this situation, keep my grasp on reality and remind myself what had just happened, what was going on, that Drew was not in his right mind at the moment. His right mind didn’t want to kiss me all the time; his right mind kissed Veronica all the time. His PTSD mind kissed me, not his right one. Not his right one…

He ran his wide hands over his face and head and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “I want to all the time!” he said, throwing his palms in the air. “I know I’m not supposed to. I know this is probably the worst thing I could possibly ever do, at the worst possible time, but I just can’t fake it right now.”

The rain distracted me. It slapped against the windows, and the wind shook the house.

I looked at him, teary-eyed, shaking from my core.

“Really?” was all I could muster to say, fighting a smile, knowing the inappropriateness of such an expression at such a time.

“Really.” Then he kissed me again.

We kissed longer that time, got lost in it. My head turned quiet, and I lost track of his hands, my hands, the rain, the thunder, the minutes, and everything that had gone on that day, that week, that year.

“I never slept with Fernando,” I said.

A smile spread across his face. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Then why…”

“Because you slept with Veronica!”

I started to cry again. I felt less bad about it this time.

He didn’t say anything, just took my face in his hands and kissed me again. We wrapped ourselves around each other and fell into the bed.

“You waited for me,” he said, smiling. “I wish I waited for you. I’m sorry I didn’t wait for you. I just got confused and turned around. It was always you. I always thought it would be you.”

He lay on top of me, his wet blue eyes slicing mine. He looked different at this close range, like someone I hadn’t known my whole life. Someone younger, less sure. He leaned
down, and we kissed again, longer, harder, his hands moving over me with abandon and mine taking the same reckless initiative. He slid my shirt over my head, and I realized that this was happening. I couldn’t stop it; I didn’t want to. I wanted every part of him, every part of all of it. Whatever it was.

His hands and lips were soft and slow. He kissed my neck and stomach and legs and arms and ears before he did it. It felt strange and good, but strange. I wondered if this was how it was supposed to feel, how it always would. I couldn’t help but laugh every time I looked up and saw that it was Drew’s face there over mine. I couldn’t believe this was him; we were us, doing this. Together.

Afterward, he fell asleep. I lay with my head on his bare chest, listening to the relentless rain. I remembered that no one had called Veronica.