The Memory of Us

by Lisa Sorbe

  West’s brows shoot up the moment he sees me.

  Candy’s take a dive.

  “Oh, yeah. I just thought I’d change into something a bit more…fresh.” I blow out a breath and fan myself. “Worked up quite a sweat on that last hole.”

  “I bet you did.” Candy’s voice is so low, I doubt West can hear it. She flashes me a smirk before turning to him, her sarcastic grin melting into a smile so sugary sweet I wouldn’t be surprised if her lips tasted as delectable as her name implies. “Ready?”

  Lottie’s is packed when we arrive, and while Candy and I snag one of the last tables, West makes a trip to the bar for drinks. It’s the first time we’ve been alone since we met earlier, and now that she’s out from under West’s eye, Candy takes this opportunity to size me up. “So, how long are you in town for?”

  I fold my hands on the table. “Until August. I took a leave of absence so I could take care of things here.”

  Candy nods. “I’m sorry about your mom.”

  Her mask slides off, and for a moment I see the face of a vulnerable woman who cares way too much about what people think of her. But it’s gone before I even know what to make of it; within seconds, her gaze is filled with cold calculation. It’s a look I recognize, the feral mistrust for others that some women just can’t seem to shake.

  Trust me, Candy, I want to say. I’m no threat.

  But when West slides into the seat next to her, passing over my ginger ale and handing Candy her margarita on the rocks, I realize that may not be entirely true.

  I’ve seen West with girl before, of course. Though he didn’t really reach the height of popularity until our sophomore year of high school, he dated enough during those three years to make up for the gangly towheaded boy he used to be—back when I was the only girl who would give him the time of day.

  But now, all I can think when I look at him and Candy together is that they’d make some hella beautiful kids.

  I take a sip of my ginger ale and cast a greedy look at Candy’s margarita.

  “Funerals are just so sad,” Candy continues, pulling her drink toward her, pinching the little red straw and giving it a swirl. “Don’t you think?”

  I blink. “Yeah. Especially since it was, you know, my mother’s.” My voice is even, so there’s no indication of the snark I’m holding in, deep down, that’s swimming like a shark in the darkest part of my heart. “How did you know her?”

  Candy pulls the glass from her mouth and takes an extraordinarily long time licking the salty sweetness from her lips. Her brow furrows as she tries to think.

  Don’t strain yourself, Candy.

  But I bite my tongue, keep my face neutral.

  “Well, I didn’t.”

  Now it’s my turn to look confused. “Oh, I guess I just assumed… I mean, I saw you there and you looked, well, pretty upset.”

  Candy giggles—an annoying, throaty little purr—and leans into West. “Oh, I was just there for West.” She turns in her seat and runs her fingers up his arm. “He was so upset about it that I offered to go and be there for him. And, well, I guess I just got caught up in the whole thing—”

  the whole thing?!

  —“because, like I said, funerals are just, you know, so sad.”

  She smiles up at West who, for the most part, has the decency to look sheepish.

  “Wow,” I say, my voice flat. “Weddings must be brutal for you.”

  Candy tears her attention away from West long enough to frown at me. “But weddings aren’t sad.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I say, shrugging. “I think it’s a pretty sad state of affairs when a person feels the need to chain another to his side because he can’t manage life on his own.” My smile is silk. “Personally, I find weddings to be an extremely morbid affair.”

  Candy’s mouth works for a bit, like she doesn’t know how to respond, and West clears his throat. “Laney,” he says, “has a pretty warped view of love. And a huge problem with commitment.”

  To anyone outside looking in, West appears calm, nonchalant. But I know better. Just by the tone of his voice I can tell he felt the jab of my words. I also know the places he could take this conversation. Not that he would, with Candy here.

  So I needle. Because, like an incorrigible child, I want his attention—regardless of how I get it.

  “I only have a problem with commitment when it involves basing my happiness on other people. Or my sanity, for that matter,” I add, remembering the way my mother fell apart after my dad passed.

  I have no intention of turning into that. None.

  Taking a small sip of my drink, I sit back and wait for his rebuttal.

  But he doesn’t take the bait. His laugh may be light, but there’s a shadow in his gaze, like storm clouds rolling in to swallow a clear summer sky. I used to love the way I could read his emotions in the hue of his striations, how the very shade of his irises would lighten or darken depending on his mood.

  In all the years I’ve known him, I think I’ve managed to pull from them every variant of blue imaginable.

  “You haven’t changed one bit, Laney,” he says, chuckling. “Not one bit.”

  His stormy eyes clash with mine, and for a moment the noise of the bar dims. But I hold my ground, because West can’t break me. I made sure of that, twelve years ago.

  “Thank god for that.” I toss back the rest of my ginger ale and then flag the waitress, ready for a real drink.

  I don’t get drunk this time.

  Instead I sip my drink and listen to the cover band play everything from Willie Nelson to AC/DC to Pink. It’s a weird combo, but Candy bops along to the beats, even managing to pull a reluctant West onto the dance floor when they slow things down with a wonky rendition of Nothing Compares to You. It’s too loud to hold a conversation, for which I’m relieved. West hasn’t said much to me since my rant about marriage, and that’s just fine because nothing he says will ever change my mind.

  We’ve been down that road already, thank you very much.

  It’s a little after midnight when we decide to call it a night. West drops Candy off first, much to her disappointment, and though they part with a friendly hug, it’s pretty obvious she would suck his lips off if he let her.

  We continue back to Vining Drive in silence, though the tension between us is palpable. Finally, when I can’t take it anymore, I blurt, “What the hell were you thinking?”

  West glances at me before palming the wheel and turning onto our street. A sliver of moonlight momentarily fills the cab, highlighting his confusion. “What? What do you mean by that?”

  “What I mean is, why the hell did you bring me tonight?”

  We pass under a row of trees, their branches dousing the moon’s light and throwing us back into darkness. “I just thought you’d have fun.” He shrugs, one hand draped casually atop the wheel and the other on his thigh. “You seemed like you needed it after this past week. I’ve never seen anyone wound so tight.”

  And there it is. The jab that he’s been holding in all night.

  He keeps his eyes on the road, though a hint of a smile plays on his lips.

  “Whatever,” I mumble, turning to stare out the window. The moon hangs full and round in the night sky, and the cab’s interior flickers light and dark as we drive down the tree-lined street. I catch glimpses of houses pushed back from the road, their windows black as oil, and wonder if the people who lived in them when I was growing up still live in them now.

  Did anyone else manage to get out of this town? Or are they happy here, content with their little lives?

  “Your girlfriend’s a peach,” I say now, because if he can jab, so can I.

  “Candy is not my girlfriend.”

  “Really?” I ask. “Well, you might want to tell her that. Or,” I purse my lips and pretend to think, “is that why you brought me along? Figured bringing another woman on your date would clue her in without you even having to say anything. I mean, you’re not exactly big on confronta
tion, are you Weston?”

  “Yeah, well confrontation, commitment…I guess we both have our issues, huh?” His voice reeks of sarcasm, and I turn away in a huff, flapping my lips wordlessly and rolling my eyes.

  Because I’m a snotty pre-teen again. Apparently being around West is the fountain of youth. Maybe I’ll just have to bottle some of him up before I leave.

  The flare in my stomach when I contemplate the alternative meaning to that thought flings me right back into adulthood.

  “Pobody’s nerfect,” I retort, a throwback to a phrase we used like nobody’s business when we were kids. I laugh at my own joke as I roll the window down and lean against the door, appreciating the cool rush of air on my face. Resting my elbow along the edge, I let my arm dangle out, my fingers tapping an anxious rhythm on the door. I know I have no right to feel jealous. But jealous I am. “Her name is Candy, West. Candy.”

  “Which is short for Candice.”

  I humph. “Are you sure?”

  “No.” The truck slows, coming to a stop at the end of my driveway. West throws it in park and turns to me. The shadows in the truck’s cab deepen the hollows of his cheeks, harden the planes of his face. If I didn’t know him in the intimate way that I do, I’d probably be intimidated as hell. “But what do you care?”

  “Um, I just think you can do better. She’s kind of a bimbo.” I bite my lip. So that was mean. But seeing them together tonight did something to my brain, and the insult just sort of…slipped out. “I mean, you obviously have nothing in common with her. Unless you’re one of those A-holes who base everything purely on looks. Then, in that case…” I let my voice trail off, silently kicking myself for being such a bitch right now.

  But I can’t help it.

  “Goodnight, Laney.” West turns in his seat, shifts the truck into gear, and stares straight ahead. He’s dismissing me, like I’m some unruly child he doesn’t want to deal with anymore.

  Whatever.

  “Fine. Don’t dig deep. Happy-go-lucky West. Not a damn care in the world.”

  He says nothing, but the way his eyes pinch at the corners speaks volumes.

  I roll my mine, becoming more and more comfortable in the angsty teenage role I’ve succumbed to tonight. “Goodnight, Weston,” I snark, flinging open the door and hopping out of the truck. I’ve barely taken two steps when the engine revs and he pulls away, peeling the short distance between my driveway and his.

  It’s kind of funny, if you think about it. How we can never really get far enough away from each other when we’re all worked up like this. Within seconds, I can see him stomping up the stairs to his porch from mine.

  A mad cackle rises up in me as I unlock my door, though it’s hardly filled with humor.

  That boy.

  This man.

  I should have stayed away.

  The first time I remember being separated from West was when we were five and my parents decided to forgo the usual long weekend excursion to the Wisconsin Dells and take a longer road trip, traveling west across Minnesota and South Dakota to the Black Hills. They had planned to stay an entire week, not including the day’s drive there and another to get back home.

  So, all in all, nine days.

  Of course, at the age of five, my young mind couldn’t comprehend the scope of time that actually amounted to. A little over a week might as well have been a year, or maybe as little as four hours. All I knew was that we were going somewhere far away, and the excitement around the house was palpable.

  It was the first long trip my parents had taken since Mike was born seven years prior. My mom and dad were full of smiles and laughter as they planned, dragging out the atlas (or Big Map as I’d call it) and tracing the route they intended to take, first with their fingers and finally with a yellow highlighter. The anticipation grew as we counted down the time from three weeks to two weeks to one week, becoming more and more pronounced as the days passed.

  It was an energy I shared with West when we played, relaying tidbits my parents would tell me about the things we would do and see on the trip. There was a place called the Bad Lands that I really didn’t know anything about, but I was fascinated by the name so whenever I spoke about it I did so in a reverent sort of whisper. West said it just sounded scary, and personally I agreed—though I would have rather held a snake than admit it to him. And speaking of snakes, there was a place called Reptile Gardens that Mike was dying to see. He’d flash the brochure my parents ordered earlier that spring whenever he got the chance, laughing as I cringed and cried. Eventually my dad took the brochure away with the threat that if Mike teased me any more about it, we’d skip that leg of the trip.

  It didn’t help that, by that point in our lives, West and I were spending every spare moment together; it was like we each had another house, another family when we weren’t with our own. It wasn’t uncommon for his mom to set a plate for me at their dinner table or for my mom to pull the spare mattress out from under my canopied daybed for West when we refused to part for the evening.

  So when my mom asked me to pack a backpack for the trip the day before we were set to leave, I told West to do the same. I just figured he’d be going too…because…why not? He was a part of me, a part of our family. I never once questioned it.

  Looking back, I don’t know how our mothers didn’t see this coming. West and I talked about the trip while we played with trucks and mud and barbies and Star Wars figurines and watched daytime cartoons on Nickelodeon. We’d whisper about it at night, when we were tucked in our beds, facing each other from across the room, our faces washed in moonlight.

  We were kids, and we assumed.

  I should have noticed something was up when my mother refused to let West sleep over the night before the trip. Her excuse was that we were going to be leaving early in the morning—“Five thirty…before the sun is even up!”—and I needed to go to bed at a decent time so I wouldn’t be (in her words) cranky during the drive. “No distractions,” she said, ruffling West’s white blonde hair affectionately before leaving my bedroom.

  We parted in the driveway that night, knowing we’d see each other in the morning. We had big plans to continue a game of She-Ra versus Darth Vader during the long drive, and I had every intention of conquering West’s Death Star with the rag tag team I’d put together: Fitness Barbie, several My Little Ponies, and my secret weapons—a few GI Joe guys I’d stolen earlier that afternoon from Mike’s room.

  West wouldn’t know what hit him.

  “And don’t forget your cards,” I warned, referring to the Garbage Pail Kid cards that, much to our mothers’ annoyance, we’d been collecting and trading like crazy. As independent as he was for a five-year old, he also had the tendency to be forgetful, often getting sidetracked by a butterfly during a bike ride or the subtle way a ray of light would hit the water of the pool when we were neck deep into a game of Marco Polo. He’d become lost to the everything but the moment, and I’d have to pull him back in, reminding him of the things he needed to remember.

  When I think back on it now, it’s probably safe to say that young West was a little bit like an old man and an attention deficit dog all rolled into one.

  I spent the night before the trip in a restless state. The idea of hitting the road the next morning was more successful in stealing my sleep than if West had stayed over, chattering at me from the bed next to mine. I dozed on and off throughout the night, and was already wide awake when my mother poked her head into my room the next morning. I pulled on my clothes and sat still long enough for her to twist my hair into a long braid, and then grabbed my bag full of toys and bounded down the stairs to where my dad’s truck waited in the garage. The previous day, he’d rolled out a mattress into the truck’s bed and covered it with sheets and blankets, constructing a perfect sort of fort for the ride there and back, and I was perhaps more excited about this part of the trip than arriving at the actual destination.

  It was still dark outside as I made my way around the truck, but
the garage light was on and that fresh early morning smell was rolling in along with a cool breeze as I hopped up onto the tailgate. Kicking my legs, I watched the street, and before long I could just make out the black blob of shadow that was West, a hulking pack bouncing on his back.

  My dad was in the house prepping the cooler and my mom was busy prodding Mike out of bed, so we were alone when West flung his backpack up into the truck and clambered in beside me. The topper covered the truck’s bed, giving the entire space a cave-like feel, and we immediately began to settle in, unzipping our packs and pulling out toys. I don’t know how long we were out there before anyone noticed us, but I remember the shock on my dad’s face when he appeared at the open tailgate, the handles of a hulking cooler clutched in his calloused hands.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  His eyes were on West when he said this, and the question escaped his lips with a little laugh, like we were playing some sort of joke on him, one that neither West nor I understood.

  It was at that moment that I saw another shadow darting across the street, a soft white nightgown flapping in the breeze. It was West’s mom, and oh…was she fit to be tied. She was so angry she could barely speak. But the words she was able to get out gutted me: “Weston Ryan Brooks! You get out of that truck this instant!”