“Are we going to be skating and I finish this stunning triple backflip only to look over and find you in full-on Field of Dreams mode?”
“Why would I be crying?”
“Because you’ll be thinking about your dad, and because my jumps are going to be so awesome.”
I didn’t answer her. Instead I seized the opportunity to give the girl at the rental counter our skate sizes. Dad started us skating almost before we could walk. We went as a family almost every week; my parents would still hold hands like they were teenagers. And... I started to mentally swear at myself because I was about to lose it.
We started walking to a bench, but Jolene scooted in front of me. “Hey, so that was clearly a bad joke.” She took both my hands like she was about to bare her soul to me. In a soft, gentle voice, she said, “If you feel like you need to cry, just give me a sign and I’ll collide into you, knocking us both to the ground—that way everyone will think you’re crying ’cause I kneed your junk.”
I laughed, and not for the first time that day. Probably not for the fifth time, and we’d only met up a half hour ago. My heart settled into its Jolene rhythm, the too-fast hammering rate it leaped to when I stared at her too long.
“Seriously though, you good?” she asked. “’Cause we can do something that doesn’t involve rented footwear.”
“I’m good.” And with her, I was. “Besides I want to show you this. It’s like flying.”
With a comically wrinkled nose, Jolene took her skates and started jamming her feet into them.
“Here, you have to pull the laces tighter than that.” Sitting opposite her, I grabbed Jolene’s foot and placed it on the bench between my legs.
“I think you’re cutting off my circulation.”
“That’s what you want. Give me the other one.” She did, and I laced her up. “Come here.” I lowered her foot and pulled on her hands until she stood. I didn’t have my skates on yet, so the added inches from her blades put us at almost eye level. “How do they feel? Are your ankles secure?” My voice was unsteady from being that close to her, but I didn’t care.
“I feel like I’m embarking on the first stage of Chinese foot binding.”
“Good. I like you this height.”
“Oh yeah? Why’s that?”
I felt my face flush, but ignored it. “I don’t know. One of us doesn’t have to look up or down. We’re eye to eye.”
“And mouth to mouth. Smooth.”
Now that she mentioned it—actually, long before she’d mentioned it, like the second I’d seen the height of her blades before she even put her skates on—I’d imagined standing with her, mouth to mouth. I hadn’t imagined getting called out on it, but it was impossible to predict anything with Jolene. I loved that. I loved that it was equally impossible to think about anything or anyone else when I was with her.
“And don’t forget you have a girlfriend.”
Her words were a gut punch. Erica. Right. Crap. That was happening more and more often lately, forgetting about Erica when I was with Jolene. And I really didn’t want to be that guy.
“Ready to show me all your moves on the ice?”
“Lead on.”
* * *
An hour later, I was pretty sure that Jolene was a worse figure skater than I was a poker player. And I was a terrible poker player.
“Movies have lied to me. All the ice-skating montages where the novice turns out to be amazing after a single power ballad of practice scenes? No. Nope. Not even a little.” Jolene gritted her teeth as I helped her to her feet for the millionth time. “Ow.”
I didn’t have nearly as much sympathy as I had for her first half a million falls. “Quit trying to do all these spins. Just skate.”
“But the spins look amazing.”
“Not when you do them.”
She burst out laughing and took the gloved hand I’d offered. She was wobbly, even with my support, so I took her other hand and skated backward in front of her. “There’s this thing called patience.”
“There’s this other thing called condescension.”
My mouth kicked up on one side. “I’m just saying you can’t be amazing at every new thing you try. Ice-skating takes practice.”
She squeezed my hands, and my heart rate sped up in response. “I just hate this beginning part, where I want to be so much better than I am. I want to be at the fun part, where I can decide I want to do something and my body is like, ‘oh yeah, we got this.’”
“What part of life is ever like that?”
“The movies.”
I rolled my eyes, but there was a smile on my face that softened the action. “I meant real life.”
“Movies can be more real than life. They’re life the way the filmmaker wants it to be, or life the way the filmmaker needs to show the world, or life the way the filmmaker is afraid it is. It’s true life, even if it isn’t exactly real.”
We glided to a stop, and my smile halted with us. “That’s how you should start your essay.”
Instead of responding, her gaze followed a little girl who looked barely out of diapers, skating past with a skill and confidence that she was clearly envious of.
“Jolene.” We were standing still, so I didn’t need to keep holding her hands, but I did. I kept my voice soft until her gaze returned to mine. “What you just said—that’s why you want to be a filmmaker. Write it.”
“I’ve tried,” she said, gently tugging first one hand free, then the other. “There’s a reason I want to be a director and not a screenwriter. Besides, apparently writers are the least important part of the movie. I mean, look at the one we saw last weekend. The script was awful, but it made like a jillion dollars.”
I completely ignored her baiting comment. “I’ll help you.”
Her arms lifted slightly, as though she wanted to wrap them around herself, but then she forced them back down. “I don’t want any help.”
This time I let my annoyance pinch the skin between my eyes as I glided back a step. Her hands immediately reached for me, and she steadied herself. “Letting other people help you doesn’t mean you’re weak or helpless. Sometimes it just means you’re smart enough to understand that you don’t have to do everything on your own.”
I offered her my hand again, just one, because the truth was that she didn’t need both.
She eyed my hand, then my face, and a second later she lifted her chin and skated past me.
We stayed for another hour and she kept falling, ignoring every attempt I made to help her up.
* * *
I should have felt better at home that night in my own room but I didn’t, not really. My body might have been lying on my own bed, but my mind was still in the city, with Jolene.
Why was she so stubborn? Was it so bad to let me help her? I’d heard her talk about movies before. We watched a lot of them together, and while we weren’t allowed to talk during the movies—Jolene had practically breathed fire at me the first time I’d made that mistake, when she’d showed me Rabbit Hole—she’d pore over them afterward with me. She’d point out aspects of the story I hadn’t noticed or geek out about how certain scenes were shot to emphasize a specific emotion or mind-set of a character. She noticed all kinds of things I would have never picked up on, and more than noticing them, she had ideas about how she’d have shot different scenes.
I already knew her essay would be as passionate and insightful about films as she was, and if she needed a little help to smooth out a sentence here or there, how would that take anything away from what she’d done all on her own?
I reached for my phone a dozen times to tell her that, but I knew Jolene. If I pushed her, she’d push back no matter what I said.
With a sigh, I flopped back onto my bed and stared up at my moonlit ceiling.
It might have been an hour or three later when my phone buzzed.
> Jolene:
Hey.
Adam:
Hey.
Jolene:
My butt hurts.
Adam:
You’ll get better.
Jolene:
I can’t get worse.
Adam:
That’s what I meant.
Jolene:
It hurts more than it had to.
Adam:
Everybody falls. You got back up.
I waited for her to respond, but minutes ticked by and nothing. My thumbs hovered over my screen but I didn’t know what else to say.
Jolene:
Check your email.
A smile bloomed on my face when I opened my inbox, and right at the top was an email from Jolene with the subject line Essay.
Jolene:
Turns out you have to land on your butt exactly 429 times before you realize that it hurts a lot less if you let someone help you.
Jolene:
Fair warning, my essay is not good. If your eyes start bleeding at any point you can stop reading.
Adam:
They won’t.
Jolene:
They might.
Adam:
Thanks for letting me read it.
Jolene:
Don’t do it right now!
Jolene:
Adam?
Adam:
I’ll read it tomorrow.
Jolene:
Now my butt hurts and I feel nauseous.
Adam:
Night, Jo.
Jolene:
Thanks, Adam.
I immediately read Jolene’s essay.
My eyes didn’t bleed once.
IN BETWEEN
Jolene:
Forget everything you were going to do today. I have a plan.
Adam:
I feel like I need to be alarmed.
Jolene:
The word you were looking for is excited. I would also have accepted super psyched.
Adam:
You do know that we have school today.
Jolene:
And tomorrow’s Thanksgiving. You can’t tell me you’re looking forward to that.
Adam:
My mom’s an incredible cook and I make a mean sweet potato pie.
Jolene:
And I like eating my weight in mashed potatoes. Doesn’t change that fact that I’d rather stick a fork in my eye than share a meal with my mom and her boyfriend. Also save me a piece of sweet potato pie.
Adam:
That’s what you’re doing? Nothing with your dad and Shelly?
Jolene:
I’d rather stick two forks in the same eye and do something equally terrible to the other. Thankfully, no. Not this year. Are you seeing your dad?
Adam:
No. We’re driving out to my grandparents’ and it’s a long drive.
Jolene:
Think your mom will cry?
Adam:
Oh yeah. And Jeremy and I will get in a fight, my grandfather will yell at us in Dutch, and my grandmother will forget that Greg is dead and ask about him every few minutes. My mom will excuse herself to cry in the bathroom and then spend the entire two-hour drive home apologizing for ruining the day for us. Or I don’t know, maybe it’ll be different than last year.
Jolene:
You want one of my eye-stabbing forks?
Adam:
Thanks, but I’m good.
Jolene:
Liar. That is why I have a plan for one awesome day before the suckfest begins. So are you in or out?
Adam:
Tell me exactly what your plan is, oh brilliant one.
Jolene:
First, I totally approve of that nickname. Second, have you seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? And third, do you know of a parade nearby?
Adam:
Jolene.
Jolene:
This is where you point out that we have no cars and can’t drive.
Adam:
Also we have school.
Jolene:
All of those things are true, but you forgot one very important thing.
Adam:
I’m afraid to ask.
Jolene:
My friend has a loser boyfriend that she’d do anything to see, including put a temporary pause on the fight we’re having and have him drive to pick you up if I provide an alibi later for her parents. Jazz hands!
Adam:
You’re serious.
Jolene:
We’ll pick you up outside your school in 20 minutes. Also, where is your school?
Adam:
Unless your friend’s boyfriend drives a certain DeLorean, it’s gonna take you longer than twenty minutes to get here.
Jolene:
! You are totally winning for the Back to the Future reference right now. And I stand by my original estimate. Ask me why.
Adam:
...
Jolene:
Because we left fifteen minutes ago.
Adam:
You’re out of your mind. What if I said no?
Jolene:
LOL
Adam:
I could have said no.
Jolene:
You’re hilarious. Now give me the address.
ADAM
“What are you wearing?”
Jolene made a face as a girl from inside the car called out, “Told you.”
“Yes, I go to a private school. Yes, they make us wear uniforms. No, it’s not a Catholic school. The plaid skirt is just something they decided on to torment us.”
And me, apparently. It wasn’t even short, but I’d almost tripped down the school steps when I pushed out of the double doors and saw her leaning again a car. In tights and that skirt.
It was cold enough outside that I hoped she chalked up my red cheeks to the temperature, but just to be sure, I said something completely at odds with how surreal I found the situation.
“You know that text conversation this morning could have been avoided if you’d just sent me a picture of what you were wearing. I’d have been in.”
“Seriously? Boys are so dumb.”
Relieved, I shrugged. “So you must be Cherry.” I stuck my hand through the car window. “Hey, I’m Adam.”
Cherry shook my hand and raised her eyebrows at Jolene. “Polite, too. Are you sure we should be kidnapping him? Someone is going to miss him.”
“I have a shared custody agreement with his girlfriend, so we’re good.”
“You have a what?” My hands grew sweaty at the thought of Erica and the fact that she had no idea I was about to take off with another girl.
Jolene sighed. “I get you two weekends a month. Two. She can give me one measly afternoon, since I’m guessing she won’t even know you’re gone.”
I felt my cheeks heat again, because she wasn’t wrong. Erica would be less than thrilled by my friendship with Jolene—and could I even call it a friendship when I thought about her all the time? We texted every day when we were at home, and we barely left each other’s sides at the apartment. Jolene was becoming my best friend, except I never got caught checking out my other friends’ tights-covered legs or thinking about them while I kissed my girlfriend.
Yeah, I hated myself for that, and I was trying to stop, because that wasn’t fair to Erica. Or Jolene, who, despite her initial reaction, seemed fine with me having a girlfriend.
I wanted her to care a little. If it bothered her even a tiny bit...
I had to tell Erica. She didn’t always ask me what I did when I was at my dad’s, but she had to realize that I did more than sleep and eat. Plus, it was just my luck that Jeremy h
ad spontaneously decided to go out for the school play same as Erica, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he let something slip at rehearsal sooner or later. He was constantly telling me what a tool I was being to her—her being my girlfriend, not my friend-who-was-a-girl—though I’d have argued I sucked pretty hard to both of them. I knew it was bad when even Jeremy was disgusted with me.
“What’s up, man?” the guy in the driver’s seat said.
“That’s Meneik. He’s mine.” Cherry snaked an arm around the neck of the lanky guy next to her.
“Hey. Thanks for the ride.” I didn’t get a response as talking became physically impossible for either of them after that. I turned back to Jolene and found her grinning at me.
“You ditching school for me, Adam Moynihan?”
“I guess I am.” I grew sweatier at the prospect. I’d never cut before. None of my friends had cars so it’s not like I could have gone anywhere, but the idea had never appealed to me until Jolene. I couldn’t think of many things she’d ask that wouldn’t appeal to me. Still, I’d have been a lot more nervous if my buddy Os in the front office hadn’t agreed to stop the robocall to Mom telling her that I’d missed class.
“It’s a cute school,” Jolene said, her gaze roaming over the squat, redbrick building. “The white columns are a nice touch. Feels like a president could have gone here or something. Humble but wholesome beginnings and all that.”
I didn’t bother glancing back. The last thing I needed was for someone to look out one of the many windows and see me leaving with a girl who wasn’t my girlfriend. “No presidents yet, but I’ll let you know. We should go, right?” I hurried to open the back door for her, and she curtsied before sliding in.
As soon as we were in, Meneik released Cherry and pulled out of my high school’s parking lot.
“You do this a lot?” I asked, warily watching the couple in the front seat simultaneously make out and drive.
“Not really,” Jolene said, and then she leaned over to whisper in my ear. “I don’t think Meneik is qualified to operate a pencil much less a car—an opinion that Cherry takes exception to. We don’t hang out a lot anymore.”
“I meant ditch,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. She smelled way too good. Honeysuckles were quickly becoming my favorite scent.
Every Other Weekend Page 13
