by Cat Patrick
9
Despite falling flakes obstructing my vision, I see Jamie’s silhouette in the front window as I trudge around the corner to her street.
“Why aren’t you wearing that cute coat you bought when we went thrifting?” she asks, even before the front door to her 1970s house is all the way open. “And why are you dressed like you’re exploring the Arctic?”
“Why were you watching for me?” I answer her questions with a question as I kick snow off my boots and push past her into the entryway. I start to unravel.
“It’s dark,” she shrugs. Jamie will never admit it, but toward me, at least, she’s very protective.
“Why did you walk here, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” I say, tossing wet hair out of my face. “Seemed like a good idea.”
I finish unwrapping and then neatly stack my winter wear on the entryway bench. But not without grabbing my cell phone in case Luke calls tonight.
Just as we’re ready to head to Jamie’s room, her mother pops her head around the corner and beams at me. She’s wearing a retro print apron over her power suit.
“Hi, London!” she calls.
“Hi, Susan,” I say with a friendly wave. Jamie rolls her eyes, grabs my hand, and pulls me in the direction of the stairs.
“How are you, sweetheart?” Susan asks as we pass.
“I’m fine, thanks for asking,” I call as I’m dragged down to Jamie’s lair in the finished basement.
Halfway down the stairs, my mom calls to make sure I made it safely. I quickly tell her I’m fine and hang up.
Thirty minutes later, I’m on Jamie’s bed, trying not to get bloodred nail polish on her comforter.
“Why do you have that weird look on your face?” Jamie asks. “You’re making me nervous.”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I’m just happy.”
“About the weirdo?” Jamie teases.
“He’s not weird; he’s hot,” I say back.
Jamie shrugs.
“So, what’s the deal? Do you remember having babies with him or something?”
I set down my polish and look at my best friend intently.
“No,” I say in a whisper. Jamie scoots closer to me. “I can’t remember him at all.”
“Then what’s the point?” she asks, rolling her eyes and looking disappointed. She refocuses on her nails. “Why bother?”
“Well, that’s the thing,” I say. “If you think about it, it’s not that he isn’t in my future.”
That gets her attention. She looks up. “Huh?”
“Well, I reread my notes from this week. Monday, I didn’t remember Luke from Tuesday. But then on Tuesday, I talked to him and stuff. See?”
“Uh… no.”
“He was in my future on Monday, I just didn’t remember it. It’s not that he isn’t in my future….”
“Then it’s probably because he’ll do something bad to you. You’re blocking him.” Jamie sets down her nail polish and looks at me seriously. “London, you should stay away from that guy.”
“It doesn’t necessarily mean something that bad,” I say, wanting to defend Luke. “I mean, he’s not going to kill me or anything.”
“How do you know?” Jamie asks.
“I just know!” I say, not really just knowing. But logically, I remember way into the future, so I assume that I won’t be murdered anytime soon.
“Okay, okay!” Jamie playfully shouts, holding up her palms in surrender. “I just think maybe you should aim a little higher.”
I don’t answer, for fear of what’s coming next. I brace myself for the conversation that my note this morning told me we’d have here tonight.
“Take Ted, for example,” Jamie begins. She means her detention monitor, who also happens to be the Driver’s Education teacher. Who also happens to be married.
“What about him?” I groan.
“Hey, that’s not nice,” Jamie says with a babyish frown.
“He’s married, Jamie,” I say without looking at her.
I try to avoid remembering holding Jamie’s hand at the side of her hospital bed after a bottle of pills doesn’t work, but trying not to think of the memory only makes it burrow itself into my brain.
“He’s unhappily married, and he’s a really great guy.” Jamie defends Mr. Rice as I defended Luke. I can’t help but think of her own unhappy marriage to come, of stories of her parents’ unhappy marriage that may have influenced her in some way.
It reminds me of a note I read this morning from last week.
“Hey, how’s your dad?” I ask casually. Jamie and I will spend a college spring break at his house in L.A. “Didn’t you visit him recently?”
She gives me a funny look. “Why are you acting like you know him? You’ve never even met him.”
“Oh, sorry,” I say. “Anyway, how was the trip?”
Jamie eyes me skeptically and applies some polish. “We already talked about this. The trip was fine. He’s fine. His lame new wife is still lame.”
“I wonder if my dad has a lame new wife,” I say under my breath.
I tighten the cap on the potent red polish. “Do you have any black? My nails are chipped,” I say, surveying the damage.
“Red on the bottom and black on the top, huh? Very school-spirited of you,” Jamie comments as she digs through a basket of tiny glass bottles in every color. She finds black and tosses it my way. Still, she’s focused.
“What’s with the dad talk all of a sudden?” Jamie asks, but doesn’t let me answer. “They’re gone. End of story. Anyway, stop trying to change the subject. I’m serious about Ted. He’s really great.”
“Uh-huh,” I murmur as I paint.
“He asked me to meet him after school on Monday,” she says, as if it’s the most natural thing on earth. I stop painting midnail.
“Jamie, seriously, you can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
She laughs like it’s a game. She can’t see what this fling will do to her down the line, but I can.
“Why not? I’ll tell you why not.”
“Go ahead, I’m listening,” she says, but she picks up a bottle of hot-pink polish and goes to work on her toes.
“He’s a teacher; you’re a student. He’s an adult; you’re a minor. It’s illegal, Jamie. He could get fired and sent to jail.”
“He won’t. That never happens.”
That never happens? Do we live in a world where this is so common that Jamie has grounds to say “that never happens”?
I ignore her and go on.
“He’s old.”
“He’s only twenty-four,” Jamie answers. “And have you not seen him? He’s totally hot.”
I think of passing Mr. Rice in the hallway next week: she’s right, he is hot. But that doesn’t make this okay.
I mentally consult my notes and recall the couple of mentions of guys Jamie has associated with recently. “Don’t you like Jason? Or Anthony?”
“They’re boys. They’re fine distractions, but Ted is a man.”
“He clearly has issues if he’s pursuing a high school girl.”
“I’m not just any high school girl. And really, London, you can’t change my mind. I like him! Why can’t you just be happy for me?”
My argument is going nowhere, so I bring out the big guns.
“Do I have to tell you how this will end?” I ask softly.
Jamie’s head whips in my direction. She meets my eyes. In hers, I see a fire blazing.
“You won’t tell me that I’m going to get caught cheating, but you’ll happily wreck things with Ted?”
“Not happily, it’s just that I…”
“Stop,” she says, holding up a palm. “I don’t want to hear it. We’ll just see. Okay? We’ll see how things turn out. You could be wrong.”
“I’m not,” I say confidently.
“Whatever,” Jamie snaps.
We are silent for a few moments. I consider the long walk home in the snow, and eventually I take one for the tea
m.
“Sorry, J, I just worry about you.”
“I know you do,” she says. “But stop. I’m okay.”
“I know you are,” I say.
“Seriously, London, listen to me,” Jamie begins, sitting up taller on the bed. “You can mess with your own business however you want, but keep those memories about me to yourself. It’s weird enough knowing that you know how things will go for me. I’m not one of those people who go to palm readers. I like surprises. Just let me live my life.” Before I can open my mouth, she adds, “Please?”
“I will,” I promise sadly.
“Thanks,” Jamie says with a weak smile.
I think we’re okay now, but as we walk out of her bedroom to head upstairs for a spaghetti dinner, Jamie mutters, “You better write that down in your little notebook so you don’t forget it.”
“Don’t worry,” I say softly. “I will.”
10
I’m in the cemetery.
My mother is sobbing to my right. There is a menacing stone angel to my left. Across a semicircle of black-clad mourners, a few faces stand out: an older woman with a white lace handkerchief, a younger woman in a low-cut dress, an imposing bald man who looks like a brick wall.
My eyes are stuck for a moment on a small black brooch attached to the older woman’s sweater. From where I stand, it looks like a jeweled beetle, and it seems oddly fancy for a funeral. Then again, I vaguely remember reading an article later in life about Egyptians being buried with beetles. Maybe it’s significant to her. Maybe she just likes bugs.
Tentatively, I inhale, fearing the stench of rotting corpses, but instead I smell two of my favorite scents: grass and rain. Some of the mourners have umbrellas. Some are getting wet.
I look at the path leading to our gathering: it is dirt and rock, mostly dirt in some places. Because of the rain, there are footprints there. Some small; some large. Lots of footprints.
I want to walk through the footprints and mess them up, but I don’t. Instead, I stand still in the rain, wondering what’s going on.
11
Eyes adjusted to the October morning, I try to read the note in the dark. No go.
I roll to my side and edge out from under the cozy comforter. Reaching to turn on the bedside lamp that I’ll have for years to come, I knock over a cup of water that I don’t remember leaving on the nightstand.
Rookie mistake.
Quickly, I snap on the lamp and mop up the small puddle with my pajama sleeve. The PJs are red thermal; I don’t remember putting them on.
Situation under control, I sink back against the pillows. Squinting from the light, holding the note inches from my nose, I read.
10/24 (Sun.)
Clothes:
—Red thermal pajamas most of the day
—Long-sleeved teal sweater and skinny jeans (Mom and I had dinner at Casa de Amigos… spilled hot sauce on upper thigh of jeans… check to see if stain’s out)
School:
—Take Span.-Eng. dictionary to Spanish for translation exercise
—Anatomy quiz (check out study guide by the computer before school)
—Start on graphic design project
Other:
—J was still weird today about Friday’s conversation (told me again NOT to tell her anything about her future)
—Notes about J & me talking about dads made me curious… snooped in Mom’s room today while she was out. Insane what I found. Envelope in my right desk drawer. Not sure what to do except keep it hidden from Mom for now.
—Luke didn’t call again today (read back; he sounds awesome minus the no-calling thing)
I fling off the heavy quilt and plod over to the desk. I grab the study guide from the top and the overstuffed envelope from the drawer. On my way back to bed, my eyes wander to the framed photos of me and Jamie dating back to what looks like junior high. There is a silly collage with photos and magazine cutouts that I can only guess Jamie and I made together. It’s juvenile, but I like it. Without being able to remember for sure, I assume that things were a whole lot simpler then.
Half an hour later, my mom knocks and I rush to cover up the pile of contraband. When I don’t answer, she opens the door anyway.
“I knocked,” she says.
“I know.”
She looks at me quizzically in response to what I can only assume is an expression that is equal parts anger and guilt.
“You’re going to be late for school,” she says.
“Okay, I’ll hurry,” I say back.
“What’s up?” she asks, a funny expression still plastered on her face.
You tell me, I think to myself.
“Nothing, why?” I say instead.
“You seem… off. You seemed off last night, too,” she says, one hand on the open door and the other on the frame.
“Well, I’m not,” I retort. She holds up her hands in surrender.
“Okay, fine, London. Just get moving. You’re going to be late.” She turns and closes the door behind her.
Twenty minutes later, during the ride to school, she interrupts my thoughts.
“Is this because of that boy?”
I whip my head in her direction. “Did you read my notes? That’s a total invasion of privacy,” I snap.
“Whoa,” Mom says calmly. “I most certainly did not read your notes, London Lane. I would never do that. Why would you suggest such a thing?”
“Because you know about the guy.”
“London, you told me about him,” Mom says, with an annoying smile.
“Oh,” I say, embarrassed. “Well, I don’t want to talk about him.”
“Whatever you say,” my mom says, with a little laugh that makes me want to scream. Thankfully, we’ve arrived at the school.
The moment the car stops in the drop-off zone, I jump out, slam the door, and walk purposefully inside Meridan High.
As the morning progresses, my hostility toward my mother morphs into anger toward the world. When Jason Samuels accidentally hits me in the shoulder with the basketball during PE, I chuck it right back at him.
Hard.
When Page Thomas dares approach me about her stupid crush, I silence her with one knifelike look.
When the gorgeous Goth girl who will spend most days in the parking lot for the rest of the year runs into me in the hallway, I don’t apologize.
And when I throw open the library doors, storm through the metal detectors, and march to my seat for study hall, I’m ready to confront Luke about not calling or just ignore him completely.
But then he arrives. And speaks.
“Want to come to my house for lunch today?” he asks, all dimple and blue eyes.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes, I do.”
“What’s that?”
Jamie is way too nosy. I’ve only opened my bag to put my Spanish textbook in it before class, and she’s managed to log its contents in under two seconds.
“Nothing,” I say, glancing at the manila envelope before zipping the bag and easing it onto my shoulder.
Jamie is staring at me. She’s not buying “nothing.”
“Fine,” I say, pulling her away from my locker and in the direction of Spanish. “I’ll tell you, but it’s no big deal.”
“Sounds interesting,” she says, looping her arm through mine. Jamie and I will always walk like this: arm in arm. It’s our thing and I like it, particularly this morning, when I’m feeling like I need her strength to get through what’s ahead.
Then again, remembering this morning’s note, I know that she needs my strength today, too.
Jamie is looking at me expectantly.
“It’s some old photos and stuff,” I say quietly, as if it’s a secret.
“Of who?” Jamie asks.
“Of my dad,” I say, wincing.
“You and the dad thing lately…” Jamie’s voice trails off and she looks ahead to navigate us through the bustling hallway.
“I found them hidden in a box in my mom’s closet wi
th some of my dad’s old ties and stuff.”
“You were snooping around in your mom’s closet?” Jamie asks, totally missing the point.
“Yes,” I say without explaining. “Anyway, that’s not the worst part.”
“What’s the worst part?” Jamie’s pretty eyes are back on me now.
“He sent me some birthday cards when I was little,” I say, feeling sick. Exactly three. Exactly three birthday cards that, apparently, my mother hid from me.
“What did they say?” Jamie asks, intrigued.
“Just normal stuff,” I lie. In truth, the cards are depressing. They’re sparse and apologetic.
But they’re there.
Jamie and I walk in silence the rest of the way to Spanish, me thinking about my dad, Jamie gripping my arm tightly because I think she knows she needs to right now.
12
“Is that him?” Jamie whispers as she leans forward toward me. Our desks are pushed together, head to head. We’re supposed to be translating a Spanish newspaper article into English.
Instead, Jamie is flirting with Anthony and I am looking at faded photographs that I’ve expertly hidden within the pages of my Spanish dictionary.
“I guess so,” I whisper back.
I’m not sure why we’re whispering: we’re supposed to talk during language lab. Ms. Garcia looks at us funny, so Jamie translates the headline of the story.
EARTHQUAKE SHAKES MEXICO CITY
“El terremoto…” She reads aloud in Spanish as she writes the phrase, accentuating the tongue roll to make me giggle. I know she’s trying to lighten the mood.
I hear Amber Valentine behind me, struggling to pronounce “hambre,” or hungry. Giving up, she decides to amuse her partner by saying “tengo hamburger,” and I suspect the reason he laughs so hard at her stupid joke is that Amber Valentine looks like someone named Amber Valentine.
“Let me see another one,” Jamie commands when she’s finished writing. I offer her the dictionary with the photos inside.
As she checks them out, I look at the pictures upside down and backward, thinking to myself that my dad looks exactly as I’d imagine him to look.
