Thousand Words

by Jennifer Brown

  She turned her head to look at me, and after a couple of seconds, registered who I was. “Ashleigh!” she squealed, sitting up and throwing her arms drunkenly around my neck. “You came!”

  I laughed—as if I’d ever not come—hugged her, then was practically pulled onto the ground when she flopped back onto the chaise. “Sorry I’m late,” I said, trying to untangle myself from her hug. “Run went long. Igo about killed us today.” I picked up her drink and took a swig. It was warm, and the sweetness made my jaws ache.

  She waved her hand in front of her nose. “Phew! So I smell!” She and the other girls burst into laughter; then she flipped over onto her stomach and called, “Stephen! Ashleigh needs the same treatment you gave me earlier!”

  I had no idea what she was talking about, but after a second, Stephen Fillman and his friend Cody, both of whom had graduated last year with big-time football scholarships to state universities, pulled themselves out of the deep end and loped toward me, rivers of water coursing down their hairy legs and off their trunks and landing with loud splats on the concrete pool deck.

  “No!” I squealed as Stephen bent over and wrapped my kicking feet into the crook of his arm. Cody came around the lounge and grabbed me by the waist. “Stop!” I yelled, gasping at how cold the water dripping off them felt on my skin. I playfully smacked at Cody’s hands. I dropped Vonnie’s cup on the pool deck, heard her curse and yell, “You owe me a drink, woman!,” but I honestly couldn’t even really register the words because the boys were carrying me and then swinging me in arcs over the deep end of the pool before letting go.

  I free-fell into water so crisp and cold it startled me. I blew bubbles through my nose as soon as my head went under, letting the water caress my limbs and pull me down to the painted pool floor. My hair drifted around my face and I waved my arms, slow and dreamlike, then found the floor with my feet and pushed myself back up toward the sky, which looked impossibly blue filtered through the water.

  I came up sputtering and laughing, feeling weightless, like any worries, any fears, anything heavy I might have been holding on to were sliding off me and collecting on the bottom of the pool like silt.

  It was the last moment I would feel that way for a long time.

  AUGUST

  Message 7

  have u seen the txt that’s been goin round by

  chance? if not u better look.

  As the sun started to go down, someone suggested a game of pool volleyball. I played on the boys’ team: a bunch of football players and runners, most of whom had been drinking pretty heavily for a while, versus a rotation of girls from our state-title-winning girls’ volleyball team. The guys needed me—the girls were killing us.

  But we didn’t care. It was fun losing. Adam took a spike directly to the head, twice, and we all laughed while he made the culprit, Cheyenne, kiss it. I sat on Stephen’s shoulders to get the high shots. Vonnie had cranked up the stereo inside the house, setting the speakers in the open back door, and the game took on a rhythm that matched the music.

  Everything felt different at this year’s party. We were all older now. We were upperclassmen. Masters of our own destinies. We could do this. We could handle whatever came our way.

  But then Rachel’s new acrylic was ripped off. There was blood dripping from her finger into the water, which grossed Vonnie out and caused her to start gagging, and Rachel was making a huge wailing deal out of it. She staggered to the upstairs bathroom and the game broke up, everyone wrapping themselves in their towels or pillaging the kitchen cabinets for snacks or showing off on the diving board.

  Cheyenne and Annie and a bunch of the guys tossed around a Frisbee that one of them found in the crawl space under the deck, and someone had lit the tiki torches that lined the patio. I found myself stretched out on the chaise next to Vonnie’s again. She still had her sunglasses on, though the sun had gone down. Her hand had knocked over the fresh drink she’d poured for herself and she hadn’t even noticed that the pink puddle was stretching toward the pool’s edge.

  “I think Stephen’s into you,” she said after a while.

  I took a sip of a drink Cody had poured me earlier and made a face. “What are you talking about? No he’s not.” My mouth felt numb and I found myself laughing at everything, which was so annoying and I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. This was the best I’d felt all day; maybe all summer. I wished Kaleb had come with me. It would’ve been nice to have a good time with him for once.

  Vonnie sat up. “Yes he is. He was totally rubbing your legs during that game.”

  “He was holding on to me. I would’ve fallen off,” I said. She leaned forward and slid her sunglasses down her nose, staring at me over the top of them cynically. We both cracked up. “Okay, maybe,” I said. “But I’m not interested. Remember Kaleb?”

  Vonnie pulled off her glasses and rolled her eyes. “Who isn’t here, by the way. Just in case you didn’t notice.” Vonnie hadn’t had a boyfriend since Russell Hayes broke her heart last summer. She’d said she was swearing off teen romance and would wait for the real thing somewhere down the road when guys started maturing. In the meantime, her idea of a committed relationship was whatever relationship was available at the moment. Earlier I would have bet there was a good chance Vonnie was going to strike up a “relationship” with Stephen that night, so why she was grilling me about him when she knew I was dating Kaleb was beyond me.

  “He had a baseball game.”

  “Which is interesting, given he’s not actually on a baseball team.”

  “Von, I told you, it’s an informal league. They’ve been playing forever. And everyone’s—”

  “I know, I know.” She recited in a bored voice, “Everybody’s splitting up because half of them are going away and the other half are stuck at Chesterton and it’s going to be all sad and horrible because he won’t get to see them again for a really long time.” She turned toward me, her face serious. “But what about you, Buttercup?”

  I smiled at the nickname Vonnie had been calling me ever since fourth grade, when we’d gone through a phase of being obsessed with the song “Build Me Up Buttercup.” “I’m here, aren’t I?” I took another swig and gazed at my pruny toes. The nail polish I’d put on the day before was all chipped and ugly, but I felt too floppy and relaxed to do anything about it.

  “Of course you are. I didn’t mean that.” She leaned over to put her head on my shoulder, but the gap between our chairs was too wide, and her chair tipped sideways, spilling her onto the concrete. She laughed, her fingers digging into my arm. “I sat in my drink,” she giggled, feeling the puddle under her butt with her other hand.

  “Ow, you’re shredding my arm, cat lady,” I said, barely feeling her grip and laughing too hard to care.

  Rachel came out of the house, dressed in street clothes, her finger wrapped in a huge bandage. She righted Vonnie’s chaise and sat in it, leaving Vonnie on the ground between the two lounges. Rachel eyed us with a frown.

  “She is messed up,” Rachel said, as if she hadn’t been equally messed up before the Great Nail Calamity.

  “I am not,” Vonnie said, letting go of my arm and lying back on the concrete. She waved her hand at Rachel dismissively. “I’m concerned for my best friend. What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t worry about my best friend?”

  “Why, what’s up with you?” Rachel asked me.

  “Nothing,” I said, exasperation creeping into my voice. “Everything is fine. She’s worrying for no reason.”

  Vonnie held up one finger drunkenly. “Reason. She’s passing up the chance to be with Stephen because she’s in love with a guy who isn’t even here.”

  “You and Stephen?” Rachel said, her eyes getting big.

  “No!” I said. “There is no me and Stephen. I’m with Kaleb.”

  “No you’re not,” Vonnie said. “You’re here, and Kaleb is with his baseball team. Because he doesn’t want to forget them.” I got what she was saying. I had thought the same thing m
any times over the past few months. It seemed like I was always alone, only seeing Kaleb from a lawn chair out in a field somewhere. I might get a wink from the dugout. I might get a little slap on the butt or quick hug after a game, while he was on his way to grab a burger with the team, never inviting me to go with him because it was “boys only.”

  He was going to miss them. He wanted to rack up all the face time he could with them. But was he going to miss me? He didn’t seem the least bit concerned about that.

  Vonnie was right. He was with them because he wanted to be. And I was here alone because of it. But I wasn’t ready to admit out loud that Vonnie had a point. Partly because she didn’t understand Kaleb the way I understood him. She didn’t know how special he made me feel when we were alone together and how it was worth it in those moments to have been on the sidelines for so long. But I also partly didn’t want to admit it out loud because Rachel was sitting right there and I didn’t want Rachel involved in my personal life.

  “It’s not like that,” I mumbled, bending forward to pick at the remaining polish on my toes. My hair felt sticky in the folds of my neck, and the after-pool feeling was gross and I just wanted to take a shower and go to bed. Between the swimming and the alcohol and the day’s run, I was super-tired, and super-tired of talking about Kaleb. This conversation wasn’t helping my mood any. “He won’t forget me, either.”

  The song on the radio changed and we all sang along for a moment, watching Stephen and Cody scale the gazebo roof, Adam videotaping them on his phone and Rich chucking pool toys at them to knock them off. Then Rachel said, “You should send him a picture of yourself. To take with him.”

  “Trust me, he’s got like a zillion pictures of me.”

  “No, I mean a… picture… of yourself,” she said, her voice going low and whispery.

  Vonnie gasped, scandalized. “Dooo it,” she said.

  It took a minute for me to understand what they were talking about. Why would they be so excited about me taking a picture of myself for my boyfriend to have at college?

  Then it hit me.

  Not just any picture.

  “Naked?” I whispered.

  They both nodded. “You totally should,” Rachel said. They looked at each other and laughed.

  “Do it,” Vonnie repeated.

  “Oh, okay,” I said sarcastically, then when they continued to grin at me like they were totally serious, added, “Uh-uh. No way. You two are crazy.”

  “He’ll remember you for sure then,” Rachel said.

  “He’s going to remember me anyway,” I said hotly. I could feel my face start to burn. “What is the deal with you guys? He’s playing baseball. It’s not like I need to be chained to him twenty-four seven.”

  “Come on.” Rachel rolled her eyes at me as if I were acting like a difficult child. “It’ll be a going-away present. I’ll bet he’ll totally stare at it all the time. It’s not like anyone’s going to know.”

  “And you look hot,” Vonnie added. “Hey, Stephen, wouldn’t Ashleigh look hot naked?” she yelled, then fell onto her back in wild laughter.

  I squealed and turned away from the gazebo, avoiding Stephen’s reaction. “Shut up, Vonnie!” I said, but I couldn’t help laughing a little, too.

  “What are you afraid of? That he won’t like it?” Rachel said over Vonnie’s laughter. “He’s a guy. Trust me, he wants to see you naked.”

  Kaleb and I had gotten pretty close, but not yet that close. He’d seen me in a bikini plenty of times, but that was as naked as I’d ever been in front of him… or any other boy, for that matter. He’d never even pushed for it, but sometimes when we were making out, his hands would start roaming and I knew that if I’d offered to take off my clothes, he would’ve been really happy.

  Now that I thought about it, maybe if I’d offered to take off my clothes every now and then I wouldn’t be taking a backseat to his boys all the time. Maybe it would be me he’d be worried about missing so much.

  “You know, he’s going to be meeting tons of girls at college,” Rachel said. “And they probably won’t have any problem getting naked in front of him.”

  “That’s right,” Vonnie added. “You should be proactive.” But she messed up the word and it came out more like prorackive.

  “Thank you, guys,” I said. “That makes me feel tons better. Really.”

  I didn’t need them to point out that he was going to be around college girls. I was already a little worried about what kind of girls he would meet at college. They’d be older than me, and probably willing to do things I wasn’t willing to do.

  Maybe Rachel and Vonnie were right. Maybe it would be the going-away present he needed to get his mind off his boys and totally onto me. If I was going to compete with college girls, maybe I had to be willing to woman up a little. I couldn’t be a baby forever.

  “What am I supposed to… how would I even…?” I laughed, covering my face with my hands. “I can’t believe I’m talking about this right now.”

  “It’s not rocket science. Just get naked, take a picture with your cell phone, and text it to him,” Rachel said. “Totally easy.”

  Vonnie put her hand on my arm. “Oh! And just be like, ‘See what you’re missing? There’s more where this came from.’ He’ll crap himself.”

  The music thumped, louder and louder. Everyone had gotten out of the pool and was milling around the patio, the flicker of the tiki flames bouncing off their bare skin, which looked soft and warm and tan. In that moment, it felt like summer would never end.

  My head buzzed with the noise and my stomach twisted up in butterflies. I felt wired, like every nerve ending in my body was zapping into place.

  “You guys, I can’t,” I whispered, but inside I was starting to think I could.

  “Why not? I totally would,” Rachel said, her voice dripping with derision, like I was the most infantile person she’d ever met. “My brother’s girlfriend does it all the time. And she’s in ninth grade.”

  “It would be a great way for you to show him how much you love him,” Vonnie added sincerely. “Remind him you belong to him, you know?”

  That was what I wanted. It was all I wanted, really. To let Kaleb know that while his boys were important, I was the real thing. I loved him. I was willing to give him something special. I didn’t want him to forget me.

  The song switched, then played out and switched again. Cheyenne and Annie came over and squeezed next to Rachel on the chaise. Vonnie and the other girls talked about how much they hated their coach, and a couple of older kids started showing up as it got later, barging through the gate with towels slung over their shoulders as if they owned the place. The party raged on, bumping with music and splashing and whoops. But I wasn’t really there. I was in my own head, swimming in my thoughts, going round and round until I was dizzy and bold.

  “I’m gonna do it,” I said at last, and Vonnie and Rachel stared at me with wide eyes.

  “What?” Cheyenne asked. “What’s she gonna do?”

  But I didn’t answer. I gulped down the last of my drink and stood up. I could hear Rachel whispering to the other girls as I strode into the house. I didn’t look back.

  DAY 4

  COMMUNITY SERVICE

  We weren’t required to work silently in community service, but I did anyway. Darrell and Amber and Kenzie all knew each other and shared stories that were funny or interesting or exciting or terrible only to them. I couldn’t have added anything even if I’d wanted to.

  Their conversations would go like this:

  “Y’all hear Fat Benny got busted?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “You know, Sanchez’s stepbrother.”

  “You mean Mike?”

  “No, his other stepbrother. The one with the red hair who passed out that jank acid at Ace’s house that one time?”

  “Oh, that guy. I thought he was dead.”

  “No, you’re prolly thinking of Travis. Dude that crashed his motorcycle into the Big Bu
rger.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember that. Went right through the window.”

  On and on it would go, and I would try to follow the trail, finding myself sketching little family trees in my mind. And I’d think, Oh, I remember when that guy drove through the Big Burger window. It was on the news. It seemed surreal to me that I was hanging out with people who knew him personally, but I would never say anything because to me it was just another news story and to them it was something that had happened in their lives, and our experiences could never be the same.

  Plus, I didn’t want to open up any discussion about what might have been on the news about the sexting scandal at Chesterton High. I had a feeling I didn’t want to know what they’d all seen about me.

  So instead, I sat at my computer and did my research, trying to follow their conversations in fits and starts, and wondering what Mack was doing that required so much clicking and why he never got involved, either.

  Mack had never spoken. At least not that I’d heard. I almost wondered if he could. What was weirder was that nobody really ever spoke to him, either. Not even Mrs. Mosely, other than to say hi when he walked in.

  Mrs. Mosely spent most of her time bent over a book or would sometimes step out into the hallway to use her cell phone. Once, the front-desk receptionist came down and lingered outside our door until she got Mrs. Mosely’s attention, and then they hung out in the hallway and talked for a while.

  But every now and then someone would say something that would interest even Mrs. Mosely, and I would see her glance up from her book, sitting very still, her eyes darting back and forth between Darrell, Kenzie, and Amber, who never seemed to even notice that there was anyone else in the room with them.

  “My mom is getting divorced again,” Amber said as we settled into our work routines on my fourth day. “This is number five. I keep telling her to mess around with as many dudes as she wants, just stop marrying them, but she says she can’t help it if she falls in love.”

  Kenzie leaned back in her chair and rubbed her belly. “Shit. Look what falling in love got me,” she said. “Got me fat.” And they both laughed.