The Memory of Us

by Lisa Sorbe

  “No.” My voice is cutting, firm, full of everything I shouldn’t have to say.

  He just looks at me for a moment, incredulous, before understanding slowly begins to sink in. The laughter dies on his lips, and his eyes widen in apology.

  “No,” he says softly. “No, I don’t suppose you have.”

  Aside from sharing a glass of wine with Brent or nursing an obligatory cocktail during work parties, I avoid alcohol as much as possible. All it takes is the memory of my brother’s mangled body on the slab in the morgue to avoid having a second drink. And the way I behaved last night… What the hell was I thinking?

  “I don’t drink. Not like,” I sigh. “Not like, well… Not in the way I did last night.”

  “Yeah, you mentioned that—several times—while you were chugging half a bottle of Captain Morgan.”

  West crumples up his wrappers, and as I watch his large hands twist the paper, something whispers through me. A desire, totally and wholly inappropriate, burns deep inside, fluttering to the surface in a hot flush. Clearing my throat, I take a large gulp of coffee, burning my tongue in the process. I wince, though it’s more from worry than pain. Lord only knows what I could’ve said when I was so entirely under the influence last night.

  “What…” My nerves hijack my voice, and I wrestle it away by clearing my throat. “Did I say anything else of interest last night?” I unwrap the sandwich—sausage and egg—and carefully peel off a chunk.

  West considers me for a moment, and when he answers, I can’t read the look on his face. “You had quite a lot to say last night. Though,” he says quickly, as if noticing the fear flickering through my eyes, “I’m not sure you’d consider any of it interesting. At least,” he shrugs, “I didn’t.” But he bites back a smile, and I know he’s lying.

  “What?” I demand, dropping my piece of sandwich back into the wrapper. “What? What else did I say?”

  I’ve heard it said that people speak the truth when they’re drunk. That they’re so uninhibited that declarations and admission fly out of their mouths without so much as a second thought.

  The last thing I want is to speak my truth. And to West, of all people. I won’t even allow myself to utter it in private, much less think it. To say it, have it out in the open in this town, around this person?

  Catastrophic.

  Besides, it’s been years. Years since we…since we felt…whatever it was we felt at the time.

  And I doubt very much that West feels any of that now. I did us a favor when I left back then. When I cut myself off…from him. From everyone.

  We had confused friendship with love—the romantic, soulmate, can’t-live-without-you type of love—and it almost cost us everything.

  We were just kids, and we didn’t know what we were doing. What we were signing on for. And I’m sure he’d agree with me now, if I dared to ask him, that we’re actually better off this way.

  I tell myself this, every now and then. It helps ease the guilt.

  But he just shakes his head and pushes off the bed. “Nothing, Laney. Really. At least,” and his voice dips a notch, growing rough with suggestion, “nothing I didn’t already know.”

  I snort and pop the torn sandwich piece in my mouth. “Whatever,” I mumble. Then, swallowing, I realize he never answered my first question. “So,” I say, tearing off another piece. “Why are you here?”

  “Because I need you to drive me back to Lottie’s so I can get my truck.” He crosses his arms, causing his t-shirt to strain against his biceps. Not obviously so, not in a meathead, gym rat way. But more like a sunshine and hard manual labor kind of way. The asshole even has a tan; he’s darker than I am, and I live in the damn desert.

  I avert my gaze, staring instead at the sandwich in my lap. “Why? Did you get too drunk last night to drive it home?”

  “No, you did. I drove us home in your rental because you freaked out when I tried to get you in my truck. You said, and I quote, ‘Someone will steal it!’” He chuckles. “Wolf Lake is hardly a mecca for crime, but you were convinced.”

  Crap. He’s right. I vaguely remember promising to drive him back up to Lottie’s in the morning. Why I hadn’t thought about how I got home last night is beyond me. I’m usually so careful about things like that.

  I push the rest of my breakfast away and lean back against the pillow. My head is pounding and I have no desire to get behind the wheel of a vehicle, much less drive clear across town. All I want to do today is lay here in my warm little cocoon of blankets and sleep.

  “Can you just give me…I don’t know…like another hour or five?” I’m whining and I should care, but I don’t. Why do so many people drink like fish when this is the end result?

  West reaches out and grabs the aspirin, then my hand, and drops the tablets into my palm. “Can’t,” he says, offering me the bottle of water, “Cas has an appointment in an hour.”

  Taking a long pull from the water bottle, I tilt my head back and sputter as I swallow, “Cas?”

  “Casper. The guy who woke you up so enthusiastically this morning?”

  I frown and absently run my hand over my cheek, as if to wipe away any residual dog drool. “He’s black.”

  “Hey, don’t discriminate.” West shoves his hands in the pocket of his jeans and tilts his head as he looks down at me, amused. “Or I can take your Jeep and you can just vacuum the hair out and clean the nose prints off your windows before you return it. Cas is shedding his winter coat like crazy…”

  “Ugh, fine.” I push the covers back and go to slide from the bed when I realize the only bottoms I’m wearing are my underpants. I snap the blankets back over my lap and give West a pointed look, to which he throws up his hands.

  “Alright, alright. I’m leaving. But you know…” He pauses, and halfway to the door he chances a glance back. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, Laney.” His eyes are smoldering, his lips turned up into a smirk. It’s such a contrasting look of heat and amusement that it’s almost like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or throw back the covers so he can take another peek.

  And would I stop him if he did?

  I raise my eyes to the ceiling and shake my head before flipping the comforter over my face with a huff and flopping back into bed.

  West whistles as he makes his way down the hall, pausing only to holler, “Ten minutes, sweet cheeks,” over his shoulder.

  I drop West off at his truck and then promptly return home and crawl back in bed. As someone who rarely sleeps past six in the morning, this laying around well into the afternoon is such a new concept to me that, after I finally drag myself out of bed around one, I feel entirely off.

  West arrives at two, sharply rapping his knuckles on the door before walking right in. Which is fine by me, because I still don’t feel like moving. He finds me curled up on the couch, sipping coffee and pouring over my to-do list for packing. My hair is still damp from the shower and my face is makeup free, but my headache is finally starting to subside, so I guess that’s something to be happy about.

  But moving everything out of here? Today?

  My heart gives a little twist at the thought and the lurch in my stomach has nothing to do with my hangover.

  West sits down on the opposite end of the couch, kicking his long legs out and crossing them at the ankles. He sags into the cushions, brings his hands behind his head, and closes his eyes. “So,” he says by way of greeting, “looks like you’ve been busy.”

  His voice is full of sarcasm, and I know he’s referring to the state of the place. Though I’ve packed mine and my mother’s rooms, the rest of the house remains untouched. And the boxes from my bedroom that were previously packed sit in haphazard piles around the couch, their tops open and various contents sticking out every which way, disheveled from my rifling through them the past two days.

  I don’t have it in me to argue. “I’m behind, I know.”

  “Behind?” He nods at the opened boxes. “It seems like you’re moving in the oppos
ite direction.”

  I don’t respond, and after a few minutes of silence, West slides his eyes my way. “We don’t have to do this today, you know.”

  “Yes, we do,” I say, though my voice is lacking its usual gusto.

  West doesn’t argue. Just nods. “Okay. But maybe we don’t have to do it all today.”

  I look at him like he’s crazy. The notebook filled with everything that needs to be done before I can leave Wolf Lake forever is clutched so tightly in my hand that the metal spirals are pinching the soft skin of my palm. Without a word, he holds his hand out and I pass it over to him. A soft smile plays on his lips as he reads the first page, his eyes following my crisp cursive scrawl. “You and your lists,” he says, shaking his head and continuing to read. “I forgot about these.”

  I sigh and tip my head, resting it on the back of the couch. “I have a whole box of them to recycle.” I close my eyes against the sun seeping in through the living room curtains and wave my hand at the pile of boxes next to me.

  West is quiet for a moment as he reads through the list. “You don’t have anything about the pool on here.”

  My eyes fly open, my mistake dawning on me. “Shit. Yeah, I totally forgot about that.” I’ve only peeked into the large backyard since I arrived, noting the inground swimming pool that I practically lived in during my youth. Though now, it’s covered in a giant brown plastic tarp. I know my mother still used it during the short but humid Minnesota summers, telling me how she let the neighbor kids in every now and then to cool off when the temperature and humidity climbed high enough to be unbearable. Most of my summer memories include that half acre behind our house, or what we used to call “The Everhart Oasis”: my mother in her conservative one piece, either lounging on a silver inflatable raft or swimming laps; my dad roaming the sidewalk around the edge, armed with a giant net attached to a long pole and scooping the random bug or leaf out of the turquoise water; Mike and West and I, playing Marco Polo or racing from one end to the other or having contests to see who could make the biggest splash when jumping off the diving board.

  “I’ve opened and closed the pool for your mom these last few years.” He pauses, and I know it’s not in accusation that he says this. Besides, it was something I already knew. My mother would keep me filled in on the ways he’d help her around the house, fixing things as, in her words, “only a man can”.

  “I can open it this year. If you want.” West holds up the notebook, waggles it a bit. “You’ll probably have more luck selling the place if the backyard doesn’t resemble a swamp.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  He is right, actually. And the whole process doesn’t take that long, from what I remember. Drain the accumulated water on the cover, store it, deal with the filters and pump, fill the pool and test the pH…

  I sigh and nibble at the nail on my forefinger before realizing what I’m doing and stuffing my hand under my thigh. I’m so lost in thought that when I glance back up at West I notice he’s pulled one of the boxes from my bedroom over to him and is now rummaging through it.

  “Hey!” I snap, hopping up onto my knees and shimmying over to him. “Ever heard of privacy?”

  West pulls a binder from the box, a white one with a clear cover slip. Inserted inside are various photographs, the images covered in a yellowish, retro tint. “It has my name on it,” he says by way of explanation.

  And it does. I peer over his shoulder, my lips moving as I silently read the words The Adventures of West and Laney scribbled in childish bubble print. The once vibrant red, pink, blue, and green colors have faded, but the words still carry a pointed meaning. I vaguely remember coming across the binder while emptying my room and not giving it much thought. I was in the zone, blinders on to reflect only the task at hand. No dilly dallying, as my mother would say.

  My eyes slide to the box it came from and see that it’s also filled with the unwanted books from my bookshelf: an old Spanish to English interpreter, a beaten-up thesaurus, a couple Teen magazines, and thirty or so Fear Street novels that my fingers suddenly itch to remove.

  Why had I wanted to throw those away again?

  And, more importantly, why the hell am I questioning myself right now?

  “Oh, this is ridiculous,” I mutter, quickly staunching the flow of sentimentality that’s bubbling in my chest. I return my attention to West to find that he’s already opened the damn binder and is now paging through its contents.

  I roll my eyes and make a swipe to grab it, but he turns and nudges me out of the way with his elbow. “Back off, spaz.”

  I decide to try the reverse psychology approach. “Fine,” I say, pushing off the couch with my empty mug. “Have your fun.” I pad away into the kitchen, feeling weird. We were eleven when I put that binder together, exceling at scrapbooking before scrapbooking was cool. I was obsessed with becoming more than I already was—a boring book nerd who lived in Nowhereville, Minnesota—and constantly tried to push West into doing wild and crazy things, not at all unlike the types of things the brave and adventurous characters did in the books I read.

  By the time I’ve refilled my mug and returned to the couch, West has flipped through half the binder. Granted, there’s not a lot to it. Our first adventure—spend the night in a haunted house—was derailed when we were caught sneaking into the old Clapper house by Officer Sorenson and delivered home, downtrodden, in the back of his squad car.

  Sinking back into the cushions, I tuck my legs under me, lean my elbow on the back of the couch, and plop my head in my palm. “So, can we get to work now? Or are you not finished traveling down memory lane yet?” I ask, my voice carrying a bite that immediately makes me feel guilty. I’ve wasted the last couple days drowning in memories, revisiting my past with the zealousness of a starving man devouring his first meal in weeks.

  But enough now. Just…enough.

  “Memory lane,” West answers, his brow furrowed as he studies something in the binder. I take a sip of coffee, savoring the caffeine, and watch as a slow smile spreads across his face. He chuckles, a husky sound that vibrates deep in my belly, and again I’m reminded of how much more of a man he is now than he was when I left.

  Chills skate across my arms, the hairs standing on end. I curl tighter into myself. “What?” I ask, almost warily.

  “This.” West flips the binder around, bending the top behind the back, and shows me the page that caught his attention. It’s a plain sheet torn from a spiral notebook, the edges curled by time. Across the top, the words W & L, Summer Bucket List are printed neatly in purple ink. Two lines are drawn beneath the title, and below that is a list of what looks like twenty items.

  I just nod and take a sip of coffee, pretending to be unimpressed. “Yep.”

  “I totally forgot about our bucket list.” He shakes his head, like he can’t believe how something from almost twenty years ago could slip his mind so easily. While West studies the list, I grab my notebook and resume studying the one that actually matters—the one that will unburden me from this place once and for all.

  “We only finished one thing on this,” West mutters, almost to himself.

  “One and a half,” I say, referring to our disastrous attempt at ghostbusting. I reach for a pen and check off the two items under the bullet point labeled Closets: Mom/Dad and then, beneath that, Elena. The pen hovers over Mike, my eyes unable to stray from the name.

  “One and a half?”

  “Yeah,” I say, peeling my gaze from the paper to look up at West. “We got caught sneaking into the old Clapper house, remember?”

  His head falls back against the couch as he laughs. “That’s right. Man, our moms were so pissed. My dad marched me right into my room and gave me,” his lifts his hands, curling his fingers in the air, “the talk.” He closes his eyes, his lips turned up with the memory.

  I snort. “As if he needed to. If I recall, you were completely enamored with Lacy Reubens back then. There was no chance of anything happening between
us in that house that night. I doubt we would have lasted even ten minutes before freaking ourselves out and bolting.”

  “I don’t know.” West tilts his head my way. “You were pretty damned determined. Me on the other hand? I was scared shitless.”

  I furrow my brow, reaching back into the memory. “You didn’t seem like it.” As usual, West fell into my whim that night with the casual ease he always did.

  “Well, I wasn’t about to let you know how freaked out I was.” He shoots me a knowing look. “You never would’ve let me live it down.”

  I arch a brow. “You’re probably right.”

  West resumes his stretched position, lacing his fingers behind his head and closing his eyes. The binder remains on his lap, a testament to everything we left unfinished between us. I’m relieved he doesn’t mention the real reason we never finished that list; my dad died a week after that almost-night at Clapper’s.

  I return to the list in my own lap, avoiding Mike’s name and scanning through to the end, where I add the things that need to be done to get the pool open and ready for showing. I dot the last item with a flourish and am just starting to push myself off the couch to get started on everything when West speaks.

  “We should finish it.”

  “Finish what?” I ask, shoving items back into their boxes and folding the flaps of the lids closed.

  “The bucket list.”

  I laugh. “Yeah. Okay, West. Let’s get right on that. Right after I send off the letter declaring my eternal love to the New Kids on the Block.” I pause when I come to the box the binder was in and discreetly slide a couple of Fear Street books out before closing it.

  West pushes himself upright, resting his forearms on the binder’s slick cover. Clasping his hands together, he quirks a brow. “I’ll lick the stamp for you.”

  “I have no doubt that you would,” I say, standing and nudging the boxes back into a neat row with my foot. A ripping sound causes me to turn around. West has torn the bucket list from the binder and is waving it around.