The thought of not seeing her, touching her... It hurt. Staggeringly so.
“We’ll figure it out,” I said, drawing back so she’d have to look at me. “You’re still gonna cry at the airport when I go to college, and I’m gonna be there when you win your first Oscar, right?”
Jolene
But I couldn’t give him the answer he wanted, because how could we? Adam was determined enough that I believed he’d find some way for us to still see each other even if he had to bribe Jeremy to bring him to me. He’d leave his newly mended family to spend time with me...and he’d continue to alienate the only brother he had left in the process. He’d give things up so that we could have a taste of the future he wanted for us.
He’d made me want that future, too—the one where we stayed in each other’s lives and that neither of us had voiced; one where there was no Erica 2.0 for him and the only leading man for me was him.
The future where there was only us, together.
The problem was that he’d made me want his happiness more than my own. And his future could be happier without me in it.
ADAM
Everything about her laugh felt wrong. “You’re always so dramatic. So you start spending more time with your dad when you’re here. Honestly, that’s fine with me.” She swept the full length of her hair over one shoulder and started to braid it. “I’m way behind on finishing my application for my film program.”
I’m pretty sure I flinched. “Yeah, but—”
“Once I get in, I’ll be gone in a few months anyway, so you might as well start figuring out some way to survive without me. Hey, cheer up!” She clapped me on the chest, and I felt so shaken that the light pressure forced me back a step. “We both own phones, and I promise to check mine before I go to bed unless I’m super caught up in working on something, okay?”
I didn’t respond, because Jeremy swung open the door and leaned against the frame. “Five minutes are up, lovebirds.”
As he started tugging me inside, I thought I saw something flicker over Jolene’s face, like she wanted to reach out and stop him. But her hands stayed at her sides, and after saying bye, she left, her braid swinging behind her.
* * *
I hated myself for not hating the next two days more. Jolene and I texted a little on Saturday, but mostly I spent time with Dad and Jeremy. We ate out, hit up the home improvement store, reframed windows, played video games, hit up the home improvement store again. We also visited Greg, and when Dad once again offered to send Jeremy and me home with Mom, when she said no, we didn’t push it. In short, we acclimated to each other again. There were still stretches of silence and moments when I had to grit my teeth in order to keep my temper in check, but I did it.
I did such a good job that Jeremy didn’t balk on Saturday evening when I said I needed a couple hours to myself the next day. Once Dad left to fix a drippy bathroom faucet on the second floor, I pulled up the Danish pastry recipe Mom had texted me earlier along with the stuff she’d helped me pack from home. I’d made it with her before, but I was still hoping Jolene would judge me more on the intent rather than the taste.
Jeremy frowned when I told him what I was doing, then frowned further when I told him why.
Tomorrow was Valentine’s Day, and fledgling relationship with my dad or not, there was no way I wasn’t seeing Jolene.
I hadn’t wanted to go the flowers-and-candy route because A, Jolene would have called me lame, and B, flowers and candy cost money and I didn’t have a ton of that. What I did have was a helpful mother and the knowledge that Jolene had been bugging me to make her something else ever since I brought her that piece of sweet potato pie from Thanksgiving.
I’d put the dough in the fridge to rest overnight when Jeremy—still frowning—said, “Think I should have planned something for Erica?”
I turned away so he wouldn’t see me smother a laugh. “No way. Girls hate it when guys do thoughtful stuff for them.”
“But we’re, you know, really new. She’s probably not expecting anything, right?”
I pulled out a bowl and added cream cheese, sugar, salt, and a cracked egg on top with one hand for the filling. I stared at him when I turned on the hand mixer.
“She’s totally expecting something.” He cupped the back of his head with both hands and tugged it down before letting his arms drop to his sides. “So I’m screwed?”
“You’re not screwed. Come up with something.”
“What? I can barely afford my car insurance. I can’t get her anything.”
That was true, and unlike me, he hadn’t planned ahead. Which meant Erica was going to be SOL. Again. I groaned. “Here.” I gestured for him to take over with the mixer.
“I don’t have time to help you. I need to figure out what to do for Erica.”
“I’m about to stick your thick head in this bowl. This is what you do for Erica. Mom gave me enough ingredients to make another batch in case I ruined the first one.” I hadn’t. “I’ll help you and then you can drop it off at her house tomorrow. After you take me home.”
Jeremy looked at the partially mixed cream cheese and sugar, not nearly as enthusiastic as he should have been, and raised an eyebrow. “Maybe I can ask Dad to lend me twenty bucks and get her a stuffed bear or something.”
“Sure,” I said, yanking the bowl back and attacking the contents with the mixer. “They sell those at every gas station in the country. She’ll know exactly how much she means to you.”
After another minute Jeremy grabbed another bowl and, after looking at the recipe I had on my phone, asked me, “What’s an egg wash?”
* * *
“Hey,” Jolene said when she opened the door to her apartment on Sunday afternoon. “I thought we were both going to be busy all weekend...” Her voice trailed off. “Also, why do you smell so yummy?” She leaned forward and sniffed me. “I’m having Shaun of the Dead thoughts right now, like I’m not 100 percent sure that I won’t bite you.”
I grinned and produced the still-warm-from-the-oven pastries from behind my back. “I’m a little offended that you thought I’d let Valentine’s Day come and go without, you know...” I gestured with the pastry.
Jolene leaned her hip against the doorframe, a sly smile curving her lips. “Adam Moynihan, did you bake for me?” She reached for the plate, but I moved it away. Her smile, if anything, grew bigger.
“Well, now, I don’t know. I slaved over a hot stove for hours making these for you, and—” I moved close to her, still keeping the plate out of reach “—FYI, they are so light and buttery that they literally melt in your mouth.” My gaze fell to her lips when I said that, and I didn’t blush even when I saw bright spots of color on her cheeks. “Maybe I should wait and see what you have for me before I hand them over.”
She glanced at the pastries. “Adam. A little credit, please.” Then she took the plate and left me in the hall and came back a minute later with a book in her hand.
A book by J.R.R. Tolkien with a bookmark stuck in it at slightly more than the halfway mark.
“I’m still not loving it but I’m reading it. Well, not the songs, but everything else. For you. So we can talk about it next—”
I kissed her before she could finish speaking.
TWELFTH WEEKEND
February 26–28
Jolene
I didn’t wait for Adam on our next weekend. I watched from the roof as their car pulled up and he and Jeremy got out, followed by a woman I instantly knew was Adam’s mom. She had his reddish-brown hair and light complexion, and there was something in the way she moved to hug each of her sons that I recognized, an innate grace and strength that I’d only ever associated with Adam before.
She held on to them way too long, and though I was too high up to see the tears on her face when she pulled back, I saw her brush them away. Adam lifted his bag and pointed to
the building. He was asking her to come up with them. Jeremy added his own request, reaching for her hand and nodding his head, but she shook hers almost violently and backed up until she was pressed against the side of the car.
Adam’s and Jeremy’s shoulders slumped in identical movements. I expected Adam to go hug her again and apologize for asking, reassure her that it was fine if she didn’t want to go up.
But he didn’t. His fists clenched, and when Jeremy took a step toward our building, Adam hesitated, watching their mom before dropping his head and following his brother.
I don’t know if his head fell farther when he didn’t find me waiting inside for him. I know only that, when he got upstairs, he didn’t come knocking on my door or calling to me from his balcony.
* * *
I didn’t know what to do with myself on Saturday. Normally, as soon as I woke up, I went over to Adam’s and spent the day with him. For months that had been our routine, but I couldn’t go get him that morning. And he didn’t come get me. Last weekend had told me what to expect moving forward, and without Valentine’s Day as an excuse for him to get away, this was how it would be. I knew I couldn’t spend the whole day in my bedroom working on the film I’d made Adam for Christmas like I had the night before, and I was so focused on getting away from everything that watching that movie made me feel that I neglected to check the living room before pulling my bedroom door wide-open.
My dad wasn’t there, of course not; it was Shelly.
She was dressed in a skimpy silk nightie and robe that she had to be freezing in. She walked to the coffeepot with her phone pressed to her ear, oblivious to my open door.
“—but I waited for you last night,” she said, her voice equal parts hope and hurt. “You said you’d wake me up when you got home.” She shivered and tugged the flimsy silk robe tighter around herself as she filled the carafe with water. “No, I know, I know, but—” She stopped talking as I imagined he cut her off. She had time to measure the coffee grounds before he let her talk again. “I thought that since it was our anniversary you might—”
I should have quietly closed my door and tiptoed back to my bed, pretend I’d never heard my dad feeding excuses to Shelly for why he apparently hadn’t come home for their anniversary. It was bad enough that I’d had to watch her hunch into herself as he likely berated her for trying to make him feel bad for doing his damn job!
Growing up, I’d overheard him and Mom having that same fight more times than I could count.
You were the one who wanted the big house!
Because you’re never here! I needed something to make me feel less alone.
Right, because I’m not just responsible for putting this ridiculous roof over your head. I’m responsible for how you feel living under it! Well then, cheers to you, Helen. I hope it finally makes you happy.
Keep your voice down or you’ll wake Jolene.
That’s rich. She’s just another thing you said you needed until you actually got it. Buyer’s remorse doesn’t work so well with a kid, does it?
One or both of them would leave after that. When I was really little, there’d be another argument over who had to stay in the house with me. Mom usually lost, and I’d have to pretend to be asleep while she stood in my bedroom doorway muttering things that no kid should ever hear their mother say.
Watching Shelly, I couldn’t remember if the fights between my parents had ever started as timidly as the one I saw in that kitchen. Not that Shelly and my dad were technically fighting. She wasn’t raising her voice and seemed to be conceding every point to him. It was kind of pathetic, or that was what I tried to tell myself so I wouldn’t feel every quiver of her chin.
Shelly’s hands were shaking when she lowered her phone. She stood there, staring at the coffee maker for a long moment, before one still-shaking hand poured a cup.
“I’m sure that was fun for you,” she said without turning. “Poetic justice, right? He probably missed anniversaries with your mom because he was with me, and here I am freezing in this ridiculous—” she plucked at the hem that barely covered her butt “—thing that he never even saw.”
Then she laughed, and all the hairs on my arms rose. “Everyone said I was an idiot. Literally, I didn’t have a single friend who told me it was okay, no matter how much I swore we were in love.”
Cherry’s face sprang up in my mind for the first time since my birthday, and along with it came all the fights we’d had over her being with Meneik. She and Shelly weren’t the same, but their situations might have started out much more similarly than I’d ever considered. As hurt and angry as I still was, I felt hollow when I imagined a future for Cherry that even slightly resembled Shelly’s present.
I shook the thought away when Shelly turned, her coffee forgotten, showing me her tearstained face. “My mother refused to meet him. Did you know that? Wouldn’t let me bring him to her house. She said my father would be rolling in his grave if he could see what I’d done.”
“Why don’t you leave him?”
She started to smile, but it turned the other way. “I gave up everything for him. I lost my job, my family, and my friends. I destroyed your life, and even though I still think your mother is the queen bitch of the universe, I helped make her that way.”
“No,” I said. “You didn’t.” I don’t know why I did it—or rather, I did, but I didn’t want to think about the why. “Maybe you gave her another excuse not to hide it, but my mother has been...what she is for my entire life.”
Shelly’s perfect little mouth gaped at me. “Did you—you didn’t—”
“You’re not the reason my mother’s a miserable shrew. My dad’s not the reason.” I thought about what Adam had said to me, and I looked down when I felt my eyes prick. “I’m not the reason either.”
Somehow it all came pouring out of me, everything from those overheard fights when I was little to Mom firing Mrs. Cho because I’d made the mistake of telling her that our housekeeper loved me enough to make me a birthday cake. On and on I went, until I looked up and saw that Shelly was crying so hard that she couldn’t lift her hands to cover her face.
I had to get out of the apartment after that. I dashed into the hall, shutting the door and Shelly behind me and...then I stopped.
Normally, I’d have gone to Adam—or, more normally, I wouldn’t have had to go to him, because we’d have already been together. But he was inside his apartment with his dad and brother, and I wanted that for him, I really did. They could come out at any moment, maybe on their way to breakfast, or to go play ice hockey together, or anything, and the last thing I wanted—apart from having to go back into my dad’s apartment and face Shelly—was risk being outside Adam’s door, like the most pathetic person who had ever lived, when they came out.
So I knocked on Guy’s instead.
He opened the door mid-yawn, but it spread into a slow smile as his gaze traveled over me. “Well, if it isn’t my little early bird. Where’s your Adam this morning?”
“He’s spending time with his dad and brother.” I tugged on my braid and tried not to look at the door behind me, the one that could conceivably open at any moment. “I thought maybe we could watch a movie.”
Guy leaned against his doorframe. “Sure you wouldn’t rather wait out here in case he changes his mind and wants to be with you?”
I felt like squirming, and I was pretty sure he knew I felt like squirming.
“’Cause, you know, playing second fiddle to a sixteen-year-old kid—not really how I like to live my life.”
“You’re not,” I said, tugging on my braid so hard that my scalp started to hurt. “I’m the one who told him to hang out with them.”
He slowly crossed his arms. “So you could hang out with me?”
Any second, any second, Adam could come out. I didn’t have time to let Guy amuse himself by jerking me around. “You know what, fo
rget it.” I turned to walk away, but Guy darted out and caught my arm, and the pressure made me yelp.
“Hey, all I want is a yes or no and you can come in.”
“Let go of my arm, Guy.” I put enough strength into my voice that he blinked and released me. And suddenly he was all smiles.
“I was messing around, Jolene. I told you before you could always come over.” He backed up and gestured for me to enter his apartment. “I’ll even make you breakfast, and I don’t usually do that for girls unless I also bought them dinner.”
I made a face, which made Guy laugh.
“Again, I was kidding.”
“Then maybe you need to watch more comedies because...” I shook my head. “Not funny.”
Guy smiled and ducked his head. “I don’t know if I’d call it a comedy, but I did get a screener for Wes Anderson’s latest. Didn’t you say you like his hyper-stylized approach to storytelling?”
I frowned, but not in the slightly offended way I had a second ago. That was exactly what I’d said about Wes Anderson. “You remembered that?”
“Sure.” Guy lifted his gaze to mine. “You have great insight when it comes to films. You impressed me the first time we met, and I’m guessing you’re going to keep impressing me, well, if...” He turned sideways, giving me ample room to walk past him into his apartment.
I bit the inside of my cheek.
Every Other Weekend Page 30
