Don't Stop Now

by Julie Halpern

  For Amy

  Not too much. We still have a long way to go.

  Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER ONE

  “I did it,” Penny’s voice whispers on my voicemail. Confused, I push the button to replay. “I did it.” That’s all she said. According to Robot Phone Woman Time Keeper, Penny called at exactly 4:47 a.m., a rather unacceptable time to call anyone on a Saturday morning, and most certainly not on the Saturday morning after the Friday that was our last day of high school EVER. Because it is the first Saturday of the rest of our lives, finally past all of the clique clack crud of high school, I allow myself to sleep past my mother’s acceptable sleep hour of exactly 11:59 (“At least it’s still morning”) until 1:43 in the afternoon. Which makes me approximately nine hours too late to stop Penny.

  How did it become my responsibility to help this pathetic soul anyway? We weren’t ever friends until this past year, and even then only by default. I had no choice really, unless I wanted to be a total hag by not asking her to join us at the Lunch Table of Misfit Toys, dubbed so by our paltry group of seniors in lunch period 8, who were so placed because we chose not to stress ourselves out with AP classes, resulting in a more pliable schedule for the admin to have their way with. Instead of the race for the maximum number of AP credits possible, I selected some easy, breezy independent studies of things I actually enjoy doing, like Creative Writing and Photo. Why bother with the AP BS anyway? So you can graduate college early? No thanks. I breezed through my senior year like I plan to breeze through this summer, living off the fat of the land that is my bat mitzvah savings, and just chilling out. No worries. Or at least, that was the plan.

  “I did it.” Who leaves a message like that? Who is so paranoid that they have to be so cryptic? If this wasn’t day one of my Summer of Nothing, I might be in a hurry to figure this out. But first: breakfast. Or lunch, really. Snack? Lack, or lunk maybe. It is a bowl of cereal, whatever it is. I like to fancy myself a cereal connoisseur. Today, slightly out of it and in need of substance and energy, I mix some Frosted Mini-Wheats with Cookie Crisp, and throw in a few Craisins for fruit and texture. I shake up the skim milk, splash it on, toss around the cereal pieces with a spoon to make sure each piece is coated with milk, and plant myself in front of the computer. Then I second-guess it. Maybe I don’t want my lunk interrupted by the possibility of more Penny drivel waiting on the other side of the screen, so I flip on the TV instead. An actual video is on MTV. Hip-hop or rap or something. Not my scene. But I can’t help wishing I had a butt like that girl in the video. I wonder how she buys jeans, though.

  “I did it.” It’s like Penny’s voice is floating out of my cereal from between the flakes and the crisps. How did she say it? It wasn’t urgent or terrified, like someone calling 911 from under her bed as she waits for a killer to enter her room, nor was it excited or light or distracted or a million other adjectives I can think of. She just sounded flat, like the only reason she left the message at all was to keep a record of her existence.

  Before I call Penny, you know, just to clarify things, I decide to call my best friend, Josh. Although, if there’s one person who can outsleep me, it’s him, and I say this from experience. Sadly the experience is due to the fact that he and I are so platonic that his dad and my mom could give a rat turd if I sleep at his house or he sleeps at mine. On the couch, of course. So damn pathetic, then, that I am so madly in love with him. Cliché, touché, but true. I’ve spent four years waiting for something to happen between us that is more than just sharing a toothbrush when he forgets to bring his own. This summer is the last chance, before I head off to college and he heads off to tour Europe with his band or records the Next Big Thing album he always talks about or possibly moves to Saskatoon to hunt moose. He doesn’t know where he’ll go, but it sure isn’t college. And it’s most definitely not in any way, shape, or form dependent on anything I do or anywhere I go. But, damn, I wish it was.

  I decide to try and wake him. The phone only rings twice before Josh picks up.

  “Heeeyyyy.” He sounds awake and happy to see me on the caller ID, which gives my stomach a buzz. I remember once at school when I was talking to some randomer, and Josh came out of the bathroom, me not expecting to see him there because he had Español at the time, and this randomer, upon seeing the two of us see each other, said, “It’s like you guys haven’t seen each other in weeks. That’s how happy you look.” And I thought, Him, too?

  “Good afternoon, sir. May I interest you in a pointless quest?” Josh and I like to go for long walks or drives with fake purposes and dub them quests. Once we spent an entire afternoon “looking for love in all the wrong places,” like that super-lame old country song. We looked under rocks, at Ben & Jerry’s, in the sand box at Stroger Park. I thought maybe, just maybe, he’d get the hint that love was standing right next to him in a cute pair of cut-offs, but Josh seemed to miss that somehow.

  “I’ll meet you at Stroger in twenty. And I hope you don’t mind, but I have evening stink.” Josh isn’t much of a fan of showering on a regular basis, which may put off some, but I prefer his sleep smell to some covered-up soap smell any day.

  I finish my cereal, drop the bowl in the sink, and tug on a blue bra, blue T-shirt, and jean shorts. Some days I like to be monochromed, just for the hell of it. I brush my teeth, tug my chin-length golden brown hair into a nub of a ponytail, shuffle my way into a pair of flip-flops, and I’m out the door.

  The air smells free. Free from class schedules and guidance counselors and hallway politics. High school hell is over.

  “I did it.” Damn that message. Damn Penny for glomming her way into my life. I wish I didn’t care. It’s messing with my new freedom vibe.

  Three blocks away is Stroger Park, big when I was little and little now that I’m, well, big. Two regular swings, a tire swing, two baby swings, a slide, a wall climb, some monkey bars, and plenty of woodchips to stick in your flip-flops. I always wondered, Why the woodchips? It seemed like there would be more woodchip-in-the-eye accidents than woodchips-as-saviors-for-falling-children incidents. Or maybe I just missed them because I was too busy, you know, being a kid.

  Josh hangs upside down from the monkey bars, shirtless (as is his summer look), his self-cut, shoulder-length brown hair dangling below him. I try not to ogle, but, damn, he looks amazing without a shirt. How do guys get to look so good without exercising or eating well at all? He’s skinny, but not too skinny, and all nice and defined. I exhale a platonic sigh.

  “Hey, Lil,” he calls and swings himself off the bars, stumbling onto the woodchips. Even graceless, he’s gorgeous. “You smell that?” he asks as I approach him, and I sit down on the metal ladder to the monkey bars.

  “Well, what do you expect when you don’t shower?” I ask. “No.” He chuckles in his slow, slack way. He grabs the high bar closest to me and hangs himself so he can easily kick my knees with his ratty black Chucks. “Not me.” He takes a huge sniff of air. “That. T
hat smell. The rest of our lives.” He grins big and I grin bigger. Our lives are going somewhere away from here. Like Penny, I remember.

  “I got a message. This morning. From Penny.”

  “Poor little lamb.” Josh always teases me about Penny because I befriended her out of pity, but he plays along, too. We’re both too nice to let her go it alone. “What’d she say?” he asks me, still hanging.

  I ignore the shoes on my knees. “‘I did it.’” I look up at him and whisper it the same way she whispered to my voicemail.

  “Did what?” he asks, but not curious enough. “It?” He laughs, although we both know she did it a long time ago, thanks to the pregnancy scare aftermath I had to clean up.

  “She told me she was going to do something the other night, before graduation. Only I was just half listening, and you know how morose she can be. Sometimes I just need to block her out if I want to have a bit of fun.”

  Josh nods and lets the flappy rubber of his messed-up shoe tug on my knee. “So what did she do?” He’s more interested now, and now that I’ve got an audience for the story, so am I.

  “If I heard her right…” I pause, adding to the tension of the tale I’m about to begin. “Well.” Quizzical look. Pause. “I think she may have faked her own kidnapping.”

  I hate gym class. I hate wearing this hideous green, too-thin, too-short, too-cold uniform. It stinks. My bad for not taking it home, but I don’t even want it to touch my backpack. No one comes near me anyway, so what does it matter. I just wish these shorts weren’t so short. Did the makeup cover that purple spot on my leg enough? God, I hope so. I hope no one asks about it. Not like they will.

  I wish the boys’ gym classes were sharing the gym with us today. No, I don’t. I look gross today. Bloated. Must be getting my period. I hope I’m getting my period. God, I hope I get it this time. I don’t want Gavin to see me in these shorts. The bruise. Maybe he should see it. No. That might make him mad. Like I’m showing someone. Good thing the boys aren’t in here. I’ll just sit on the bleachers and hope Dr. Warren doesn’t force me to play basketball. Usually if I make a pathetic enough face, she leaves me alone. What is she a doctor of, anyway? Basketball. Did she really go to medical school to just become a gym teacher? Oh, god. She’s coming. She wants me to play. She wants me to be on the blue team. I hate the mesh smocks. Who knows who wore this before me?

  The blue team. At least there are some nicer people on it. Not those bitches who always laugh at me in the locker room. And in the hall. When I interrupt them talking to Gavin. What business do they have talking to Gavin? I would kill them all if I didn’t know that Gavin loves me more than he could ever love anyone else. That’s what he tells me. He wouldn’t lie.

  This girl Lillian is on the blue team. She’s so pretty. So tall. I wish I looked like her. I bet Gavin does, too. I bet she doesn’t have a single problem in the world. Isn’t she dating that guy Josh? He’s so sweet to her in the halls. Arms around her. They look perfect together. Perfect height. Perfect bodies. Perfect lives. I wish I were her.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Wait. What?” Josh looks at me like he isn’t sure he heard me right. “How can she have faked her own kidnapping? How can she fake a kidnapping to begin with? And why would she bother? She’s eighteen. What does she need to fake anything for except buying alcohol? And she didn’t even have to do that because her parents always left the liquor cabinet open anyway. Remember that night with the Kahlua?” I remember, since I vowed never to allow the tainting of my precious coffee, or anything else for that matter, with alcohol again. “But back to the loon fest at hand. Are you sure that’s what she said?”

  “I’m trying to remember.” I stir some woodchips around with my toe, revealing the dirt underneath. Circle. Circle. Dot. I’ve just made a woodchip crop circle. “She was sort of going on about Gavin.” Gavin being her mostly, sometimes ex, boyfriend. Mostly when he wants to be with other girls, not when he wants to be with Penny. Convenient.

  “No?” Josh feigns surprise. He sits across the bars from me now, on the opposite steps. He removes his shoes, no socks, and plucks up individual chips with his toes.

  “Yeah, that’s why I was only half listening. I feel bad because I know it was more crappy stuff, like him saying how fat she was getting, or how she’s not nearly as cute as some of the freshmen. I don’t know, it grosses me out to think about it. But I can only tell her he’s a dick so many times. I don’t even know what she wants to hear from me anymore. Sometimes it’s like she looks at me like I’m going to reassure her that he’s a great guy. No can do.”

  “So—fake kidnapping?” Josh attempts to toss a chip with his toes, but it just slips through. He tries again.

  I scan my brain for memories. “I think I changed the subject. Asked her about that guy she met on spring break when her family went to Disney World.”

  “The dude from Portland?” Josh flips chips from his toes toward my crop circle. I think he’s trying to make a bull’s-eye. I’m always amazed at what goes on up there in his head, how he’s able to be so light about some things, serious when I need it, and remember just about everything. Even when it’s about some random guy that some not-so-close friend met on a vacation.

  “Yeah—Ethan. But when I brought him up, she shushed me. Like, actual full-on librarian shushing.”

  “You know, librarians don’t really shush people as much as you think. That’s a stereotype.” He tries again with a toe toss. Not even close.

  I sigh dismissively. “You know what I mean. It was weird. Gavin wasn’t even in the room. He wasn’t even her boyfriend at that particular millisecond, and she’s all paranoid that he’s gonna hear her talk about another guy. Which she has every right to do.” Josh nods, still looking in the direction of his toes. “What’s she so afraid of?” I ask, even though I already know the answer.

  Josh looks up, chip still stuck between his toes, and asks, “Have you ever seen him in gym class? The guy’s a beast. We were playing soccer, by which I mean I was standing in the goal talking to George, and the six bros in the class were bobbing and weaving and man-slapping one another all over the place, and here comes Gavin out of nowhere with the ball. Slams it right into the net. Dudes behind him are spewing names at me I do not care to repeat, and I’m like,”—he holds his arms up in surrender—“‘Sorry.’ Gavin busts up to me, all in my face, ‘You got a problem, Turdman?’ For which I just answered with one of my patented Erdman looks.” Josh’s looks are both hilariously ambiguous and full of meaning if you know how to read them. “And he’s still in my face. I’m like, ‘Look, I’m a pacifist, man. Take your macho crap to someone who gives a rat’s ass.’ For which he declares me a fag and struts away.”

  “I am so glad we don’t have coed gym,” I proclaim. “Or didn’t, I mean,” and I smile at the thought that I will never be forced to do anything phys ed again in my entire life.

  “Point being,” Josh tries to get me back on subject, which is not unusual, “the guy’s an unpredictable freak. I’m not saying I’m scared of him.”

  “Of course not,” I tease.

  “But I’ve heard some things. Locker room things that weren’t meant to leave its sanctity.”

  “Kind of like Vegas, but not at all fun and definitely more stanky.”

  “Exactly. But none of it good, and all of it reeking of douchebag boyfriend.”

  Grrr. Why did I even get myself involved with this charity case of a girl? “So I’m starting to piece this memory together a little more. Penny is bitching about Gavin and another girl. Doesn’t want to talk about herself and another guy. Then the music got loud. Michael Jackson, ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.’ Everyone starts to dance. I wanted to but had to deal with Penny. Tragic. Still couldn’t help myself from moving a little, when she whispers something to me. It was one of those conversations where you nod and pretend to hear everything, just to appease the person. She never turns up her voice volume, even when things are loud around her. Drives me
crazy.”

  “Focus, Lil, focus.” Josh manages to flip a chip right into the center of one of my circles. “Yesss!” A small fist pump.

  “Um, focus?” I chide. Josh smiles. “I’m thinking she said something about having to leave, but not wanting Gavin to know why or where. Doesn’t want to make him mad. Then she mentioned Portland again. And then, maybe I’m just crazy…” Josh nods in agreement. “Shut up. But I think she said that she had this idea. She might have even said ‘good idea.’ To fake her own kidnapping.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.” Josh tires of his toe-chip game and stands up to hang from the bars again. “I mean, at eighteen you don’t even have to run away. You can just go. Why would she have to fake her own kidnapping?”

  “I’m trying to figure that out. If she was going to run away, she clearly would have said ‘run away,’ which doesn’t sound anything like ‘fake my own kidnapping.’ That seems overly bizarre for anyone, let alone Penny.” I lean forward, grab a particularly large wood chip and begin crossing out the circles with Xs. “But let’s just say, hypothetically, that someone, possibly even someone named Penny, does fake her own kidnapping. Why?”

  “Because she wants attention?” Josh suggests, dangling.

  “But Penny didn’t want attention. Not that kind, anyway. Not the kind that would let Gavin in on her tryst with another guy. He’d go ballistic, right?”

  “So maybe she’d fake her own kidnapping to take the focus off her and put it on a fake kidnapper?” Josh moves his way onto one bar and back to another, legs bent, trying to keep his six-foot-three-inch frame from touching the scrapey ground. I nod in semi-agreement, and Josh continues, “But that’s jacked-up.” He crosses the bars now toward me. “Kidnapping gets you and your kidnapper a buttload of attention. Media-grade attention.”