Where It All Lands

by Jennie Wexler

  “No one,” I say.

  “Whatever, man. You don’t play like that unless you’re pissed and we both know it.”

  “Are you still pissed?” I ask him. “At your dad?”

  “I’m fine,” Drew says, his tone clipped. I know he’s lying. His eyes shift to the blue sky as he fidgets with his jacket sleeve. “He’s talking about spending Thanksgiving with us.”

  Sometimes I think Drew would be better off if Don left him alone. Each new disappointment piles higher and higher, like a precarious Jenga tower. Drew pretends like it doesn’t get to him, but one day it’s all going to crash down.

  “So how was the Pearl Jam show?”

  “Mind-blowing,” I say, and Drew smiles.

  “How mind-blowing?”

  “Not that mind-blowing,” I say, still cursing myself for not making a move on the train last night.

  “It’s been almost two months. What are you waiting for?”

  “I think I have to tell her.”

  “We’ve been over this. Do not tell her,” Drew says, putting on his marching band hat, backwards as usual. “Trust me.” He hops down to his section as the rest of the band files into the bleachers. Stevie sits with the saxophones, and the sight of her makes me fumble the drumsticks.

  I have to tell her. Genie stares at me, daring me to tell her.

  “Hey, Stevie,” I yell.

  She pulls her hair out of her red neck strap and places her sax in its case. Sweat beads along my back and under my arms. I twist against my uniform. I stand. I sit. My brain pounds against my skull. She heads up the bleachers, taking off her marching band hat.

  “What’s up?” she asks, sitting next to me. As soon as her brown eyes connect with mine, my throat goes dry. I can’t tell her. I have to tell her. Genie smiles at me, taunting me.

  I detach Genie from the drums and shove him at her.

  “Say thank you to Genie for his services,” I say, and she laughs. At least she laughs.

  “Thank you, kind genie,” she says, playing along, which I appreciate. “We still have a few games left though.”

  “Stitching’s coming loose.” I point to a small rip by Genie’s shoulder. “Any chance you can sew?” I can’t look at Genie’s wide smile any longer. He knows all my secrets.

  “I have some sewing skills.” Stevie takes Genie and stuffs him in her backpack.

  “What are you doing later?” I ask. Maybe once I’m out of this marching band uniform I’ll have the guts to tell her. “Can I come by after my shift?”

  “You better.”

  * * *

  I know two things. I’m falling hard for Stevie Rosenstein, and after tonight she may never speak to me again. Tonight, I’m telling her about the coin toss. I can’t keep hanging out with her and looking into those trusting brown eyes. She shouldn’t trust me. I’m keeping this awful secret and none of this is real until she knows.

  I walk up the front steps and smile at four pumpkins arranged in a semicircle next to the front door. The largest wears a Jets jersey and has a mess of ribbon attached to the stem, which I guess is supposed to look like her dad’s curly hair. The next largest one must be for her mom. A mini smock hangs across the front and a paint brush is glued to its side. The two small pumpkins make me laugh. Stevie’s pumpkin wears sunglasses and has long straw hair, and Joey’s pumpkin sports a Jets hat and balances on top of a skateboard.

  As soon as I ring the bell, feet pound the floor and within seconds the front door swings open.

  “My man,” I say, as Joey crashes into me, hugging my waist hard. He pulls up his track pants, which are too long and hang over his socks. The house smells like tomato sauce.

  “Stevie’s upstairs,” he says, nodding up the wooden staircase.

  “Shane!” Naomi appears in the foyer and hugs me hello.

  “How did the art show go?” I ask. She’s smiling so wide I bet she has good news.

  “I sold a painting,” she says, her voice overflowing with excitement. She steps around a large box that’s labeled living room. They still haven’t fully unpacked, like they don’t believe this is their permanent home.

  “Congratulations,” I say, but her attention turns to Joey, who has climbed on the banister and hangs backwards off the railing.

  “Shane!” Joey flips off the railing and lands at my feet. “Wait!” He takes off running as Naomi shrugs and shakes her head. Joey reappears holding the two drumsticks I gave him. He plops down on the floor, grinning, a gap where his right bottom tooth used to be. It fell out last week and I drew a pretty convincing tooth fairy on the congratulations letter Stevie and Naomi wrote. Part Tinker Bell, part butterfly. They stuffed the letter and a five-dollar bill under his pillow. I think he bought it.

  Joey plops down on the floor by my feet and I kneel down next to him.

  “Not on the hardwood,” Naomi says as Joey starts to tap the drumsticks on the floor. He scoots to the gray and white rug by the entryway and motions for me to follow.

  “Watch,” Joey says, as he pounds out an almost flawless beat to “We Will Rock You” on the rug. We worked on it for a solid hour right after he lost that tooth, and I’m impressed by how quickly he picked it up. Naomi looks on, pride spilling from her eyes.

  “You got it!” I say.

  “Another one,” Joey says, handing me the sticks. “Show me?”

  I place the sticks back in his small hands and guide them, tapping out a simple rhythm. One tap, one tap, two taps, and repeat. Joey plays it back, grinning the whole time.

  “Another?” Joey’s blue eyes blink up at me. This kid is impossible to say no to.

  “Joey, I think Shane came here to see Stevie,” Naomi says, smiling at me as she takes the drumsticks from his hands. “C’mon, it’s time for bed.”

  “To be continued,” I say, holding up my palm. “In the meantime, practice what I taught you.”

  “Thanks, Shane,” Joey says as he jumps up and high fives me. Such a cool little dude.

  I head upstairs and rap on the door three times. One knock, pause, then two quick knocks, so Stevie knows it’s me.

  “It’s open,” Stevie yells. When I walk into the room Stevie smiles. She’s sitting on her bed and leaning against the yellow headboard. All at once my heart flies out of my chest and sinks to the floor.

  I have to tell her. I shouldn’t tell her.

  I kick off my sneakers and take my place across from her, leaning back on an oversize pillow against the wall.

  “All fixed.” Stevie holds up Genie. I want to kiss her so badly, but Genie’s evil smile taunts me. I have to tell her. I should not tell her. “Are you going to Tom’s homecoming party?” she asks, her eyes wide and a deeper brown than I’ve ever seen.

  “Nah, I’m wiped from my shift. Plus, I’d rather not be in the same room with Brent,” I say. I try to avoid Brent and his crowd whenever possible. “You going?”

  “Maybe later.” She gazes out the window and pulls on the sleeve of her sweatshirt. “I want to practice a little more tonight. The piece still isn’t working.”

  “We need to practice the middle part,” I say. Stevie’s right, the piece still needs work and I hope it’ll be ready by December. We haven’t been practicing as much as we should. Every afternoon starts out with good intentions, Stevie running through the song once and me pounding out a solo on my set. But then, we start talking about some band or some album we love. The other night we spent a whole hour analyzing the lyrics to Dark Side of the Moon, riffing on life and what it all means. At first it was life according to Waters and Gilmour, but then it was more about what we think, what we want. Stevie laid on her back, her chestnut hair spilling into a halo on the rug. She said she couldn’t wait for college, to be in one place. But then she propped her head on her hand, her hair falling around her neck and said, Scratch that. I just wanna be here, with you. All I could do was nod because I couldn’t speak. And then she said, When I’m with you, I don’t worry about moving.

  And now I
know I’m not just falling for her. It’s more than that excited feeling I had when we first started hanging out. It’s finishing each other’s sentences and knowing she’s going to love a song before she’s even heard it. It’s being her last call every night before bed, and not being able to fall asleep without hearing her voice. It’s not falling. It’s landing, finally landing where I want to be. It’s all the more reason that I know I have to tell her.

  “I wanted to bring you this,” I say as I dig into my backpack and pull out a plastic container. Stevie grabs it, her eyes igniting.

  “You said it was your favorite,” I say, handing her a fork. She pops open the container and forks a big bite of cheesecake, rolling backwards.

  “So good,” she says, even though her mouth is full. When she sits back up, she cuts another piece and holds it out to me. I take a bite and little fireworks go off in my mouth.

  “Really effing good.”

  “Told you Dino’s cheesecake is the best,” she says as her brown hair falls in front of her eyes. She pushes it back and gets cake in her hair. I bite back a smile.

  “What?”

  “Cheesecake … in your hair,” I say, touching the crumbs with my finger.

  But instead of taking my hand away, I keep it intertwined with the strands of her hair. Stevie freezes mid-bite and swallows, staring at me. She puts the fork down in the container. My heart bangs relentlessly against my chest, stomping all over my lungs, ribs, and stomach. I swallow again. I need to tell her. I can’t not tell her.

  Stevie looks right at me, anticipation beaming from her eyes. It dawns on me, like a huge neon light flashing the words in my face. She wants me to kiss her. I’ve never kissed a girl. I don’t even know how this works. Sweat collects in my palms, but she takes hold of them anyway, her hands small and soft, not all callused like mine.

  A small smile curls her mouth. I have to tell her. I can’t kiss her before I tell her. My mouth falls open, but nothing comes out. Instead, I inch my way toward her and my heart jackhammers up my throat and into my skull. I have to tell her. But instead, she kisses me, and once we connect I can’t stop kissing her, and my heart won’t stop pounding, and for a second I stop breathing.

  “Hi,” she says when we pull apart, like she’s just met me. She looks at me differently too, like I’m an entirely new person.

  “Hey,” I say.

  “This is…” she starts to say, but before she can finish, I kiss her again, the room tilting as we go.

  “Unexpected,” she says between kisses. She leans her head on my shoulder, still holding my hand. “You’re really unexpected.”

  “You’re not. Unexpected, I mean,” I say. “You must have known.”

  She smiles again, leaning into me, and saying, “What did I know?”

  “Come on. I’ve liked you since the day I met you.” I confess because for the first time in my life, I got the girl. And not just any girl—Stevie. It’s like I can say anything, like I’m invincible.

  “Well…” She looks at me through her lashes and raises an eyebrow in the cutest way. “Maybe I knew.”

  I want so badly to kiss her again, but before I do, an image flashes through my mind. That tiny penny flying through the air and Drew’s boot lifting to reveal tails. My stomach twists on itself, like a wet shirt being rung out to dry. I saw the way she looked at Drew at the beginning of the year. I need to know that this is real, that Stevie wants to be here with me, and only me. Not to mention the fact that we never should have flipped that coin. It wasn’t right.

  “Listen, Stevie?”

  “Yeah?” She looks at me, cheeks flushed. I almost chicken out, my pulse beating in my skull, but I take a deep breath and say it fast.

  “Back on that first day. Something happened.”

  “What do you mean?” Her smile falls. I can’t catch my breath and sweat breaks out by my hairline. I tug at the bottom of my shirt and clear my throat.

  “The first day we met…”

  “Are you okay?” She reaches out and touches my arm and everything melts around me. Her bed, her yellow dresser, the whole room starts to morph. My stomach burns but I swallow my nerves.

  “We flipped a coin. Drew and me. To decide who would get to ask you out.”

  Stevie stares at me, her face completely blank.

  “What?” she whispers. Her features scrunch together as she computes what I told her. She bites her lower lip. I swallow again but my mouth is bone dry.

  “We both wanted to ask you out, so we flipped a coin.”

  “Like a bet.” Stevie glances at the floor and shifts away from me. When her eyes finally meet mine, they’re like two tiny puddles after a rainstorm. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear.

  “It wasn’t like that, I swear.” I shift back to her, the bed creaking, but she moves farther away. She closes the plastic cake container, then chucks it in the ceramic garbage can by her desk. My mind shifts into overdrive. She doesn’t understand. I need her to understand. “No, really, it’s this thing we always do. Drew and me, and—”

  “I think you should go.” She won’t look at me. She’s done looking at me.

  “Listen, please…”

  “Leave.” Her voice shakes and she wipes her cheek with her sweatshirt sleeve. I get up and shove my feet in my sneakers. I ruined this. Stevie hugs her knees to her chest, burying her face in them. Her hair spills over her knees.

  “Stevie?”

  “Go.” Her voice is muffled and serious, her face still buried in her knees. That kiss was like getting to the top of a rollercoaster only to come crashing down. Why did I have to open my mouth? Maybe Drew was right. Drew and his ridiculous coin toss. Maybe that penny changed everything, because if it didn’t exist, and she’d chosen me on her own, I wouldn’t have had to tell her, and she’d still be kissing me right now. Then again, without the penny, maybe she would have chosen Drew.

  I know two things for certain. I have completely fallen for Stevie Rosenstein, and she’s never going to speak to me again.

  CHAPTER 10

  Stevie

  I pick my head up and loosen my grip on my knees. My eyes shift to a yellow piggy bank on my desk, my name displayed in bubble letters on the front. Hundreds of coins collected since I was five years old. Hundreds of wishes for all the things I was saving for, like a bike, and an iPad, and of course all my music. Those coins always represented hard work and dreams. Not a bet. I’m not someone’s game. I don’t buy Shane’s excuses.

  I press my lips together, and my heart soars and sinks all at once. That kiss, my first ever real-life kiss, was like trying on a pair of jeans that at first, didn’t look right on the rack. But in the dressing room, they glided on perfectly. That kiss fit. It was like I’ve been kissing Shane my entire life, like I already knew that his mouth would be soft, and his hands would slide around my back, and that when he peeked at me, his eyes would be like fresh honey.

  I squeeze my lids shut, the tears creeping up again. Drew and Shane masterminded these last two months, like I’m a pawn in their chess game. I’m sick of not being in control. From above my bed, the hanging yellow duck grins at me. I grab hold of its foot and yank it down with all my strength, tiny nails popping out of the wall and raining over me. I reach for my phone and punch out a text to Sarah.

  Me

  I need to talk to you.

  I stare at the screen, willing an answer to appear, but it stays blank. I stuff the duck into the back of my closet and tap out another text, this time to Ray.

  Me

  Hey

  Ray

  Don’t mind me. Just over here wallowing in my pathetic homecoming fail.

  Me

  I’m so sorry about homecoming queen. I know you wanted it.

  Ray smiled through the whole ceremony, like it was no big deal, even when Jenna’s name was announced instead of her own. But I can’t think about all that now. I can’t think straight at all.

  Ray

  Thanks. There’s always next
year. Listen I’m heading to Tom’s in a bit with Drew. You coming?

  Me

  I need to talk to you about something.

  As soon as I type the words, I think better of it. Telling Ray about the coin toss could mess everything up for her too. But at the same time, she deserves to know. I start typing, trying to explain what I still don’t understand, when another text comes through.

  Ray

  So sorry Drew just got here. Let’s talk at the party, okay? I’ll see you there!

  Me

  Okay. See you soon.

  I can’t talk to Ray until I know exactly what happened at the beginning of the year. There’s only one person who can tell me the truth about what went down when that coin flipped high in the air, and I need to talk to him, now.

  * * *

  “I’ll walk,” I yell to my mom, who’s standing on our front steps, dangling car keys from her fingers.

  “You sure you’re okay? You seem upset and it’s dark.” She apprehensively looks at the quiet sky.

  “I’m fine. And it’s around the corner.” I’m already halfway down our driveway, leaves and acorns crunching under my boots. “I’ll be home by curfew.”

  “Do you have your Mace?” she asks, as if we live in a city, not a nothing-ever-happens New Jersey suburb. I can’t help smiling at her concern.

  “Yes, Mom,” I groan. “Night!” I wave and pick up my pace. Once I near the end of the block I peek over my shoulder and she waves one last time. I wave back and round the corner, unsure if my heart is racing from my walk-run, my nerves, or from the anger boiling in my gut. My boots stomp against the concrete, dead leaves rustling as I go. Was I a joke to them? A clueless new girl they could take advantage of? A game they played out of boredom? Drew and Shane flipped for me like I’m a nameless, faceless object who had no say whatsoever. But Shane seemed like he was for real. My throat catches when I think about him on the back of the train leaning his head on mine. It all happened, but what if it meant nothing? Tom’s house pulses at the end of the block and I pick up my pace.