I heard Dad come up beside me. “It’s beautiful,” I said.
“I think so too.” He nodded to himself as he looked around. “We had a few setbacks, but it all worked out in the end, I think.”
I scanned the basement again, trying to picture it with furniture in place and family pictures scattered on the warm taupe walls. My eyes watered from the paint fumes. “For sure,” I said.
Dad thumped the wall beside him with his palm. “This basement is probably stronger and sturdier than it’s ever been before. Imagine that. And all it took was a year and a little elbow grease. Okay, a lot of elbow grease.”
“And several thousands of dollars.”
He got a faraway look in his eyes, and I could tell he was dreaming about pool tables again. “It was worth it,” he said, then snapped out of his trance and smiled at me. “Don’t you think so, sweet pea?”
I looked around, taking in the endless possibilities in front of me. “Yeah, I do.”
****
On the night of the play, Michael picked me up at my house. My mother had been less than thrilled when she found out I was going out with him, but she got over it. At least Emma was happy to see him. She’d never liked Dylan. It’s funny how perceptive little kids can be.
“So what’s this play about?” Michael asked on the way to my school.
“I’m not really sure,” I said. “Actually, it’s a musical.”
“Oh.”
The pained look on his face made me laugh. “You didn’t have to agree to this, you know.”
“I know.” He glanced over at me. “I wanted to.”
I tore my eyes away from his and pretended to search for something in my purse. This felt like one of our first dates, back when being with him made me all self-conscious and fluttery. Back when we had a world of possibilities ahead of us.
The school parking lot was filled right back to the road. Michael dropped me off at the doors so I wouldn’t have to walk in the rain. When I entered the school I was greeted by a wall of people, parents and grandparents and students and teachers and little kids, all gathered by the closed auditorium doors. With this turn-out, I knew getting decent seats would be tricky, so I tried to squeeze nearer to the front. As I was doing this, I heard someone call my name. I peeked around the plump lady beside me and saw Ashley and Jill Holloway and…Who is that? I thought, craning my neck. When I caught a glimpse of her face, I gasped.
“Erin!” I pushed my way over to them. When I finally reached her, we hugged like long-lost sisters. “What are you doing here?” I asked, pulling back to study her. She had a new haircut and looked fantastic.
“My dad had to come back for a work conference thing, so I tagged along. I really wanted to see Brooke’s play. And I missed you guys!” She wrapped one arm around me and the other around Ashley, who was beaming.
“I was just as shocked as you are,” Ash told me. “She didn’t tell anyone she was coming. I was standing over there by the stairs and all of a sudden, there was Erin. I almost passed out.”
Erin laughed. “I wanted to surprise you guys. Brooke doesn’t know I’m here either. I haven’t seen her yet.”
“She’ll be so happy you came,” I said.
Erin detangled herself from us and smiled at Jill, who’d been standing nearby during our reunion, looking a little teary-eyed. Jill and I had become pretty good friends over the past few weeks. At first I thought Ashley might disapprove of her, but surprisingly, in spite of Jill’s questionable morals and bold fashion sense, the two of them got along really well. Ashley thought Jill had spunk, and Jill admired Ashley’s convictions. They were an unlikely pair, polar opposites in every way, but you can’t argue with friendship.
The auditorium doors swung open then, which meant it was time to battle for seats. Jill—who as it turned out was a really talented painter—had worked on backdrops for the play, so she went to sit with the other set designers. Ashley and Erin took off in another direction, knowing without my saying anything that I wanted a little privacy for whatever this was (a date?) with Michael. Before parting ways, we secured a time to get together and catch up before Erin had to leave. I was looking forward to talking to her in person instead of through a computer.
Alone now, I went to scout out a couple of seats. I found two vacant ones near the back and dove for them, almost trampling an elderly man’s foot in the process. I sat down and waited for Michael, who after ten minutes still hadn’t returned from parking the car. Just as I was starting to think he had ditched me, I spotted him by the doors, looking for me. I kept waving at him until he saw me and headed in my direction.
“Sorry,” he said. He fell into the chair next to me and shook water droplets off his arms. A sprinkle hit my jeans, leaving tiny dark circles. “I had to park all the way down by the community pool.”
The pool was about a five minute walk down the road. I felt bad for him. Not only was I making him sit through a musical, but he’d had to walk all that way—in the rain, no less—to get here. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault it’s raining and the whole town is here.”
I searched his face for signs of irritation, but found none. In fact, he appeared relaxed as the lights dimmed and the curtain went up, revealing a garden scene that must have taken Jill and the other backstage people weeks to create. The play began, and Michael and I watched in silence until the scene changed and Brooke came on stage, looking confident and beautiful despite the old-fashioned housekeeper’s dress she was wearing. Like all the other times I’d seen Brooke perform, I found it impossible to take my eyes off her.
After her scene, Michael leaned close to me and said, “She’s amazing.”
“I know.” I felt so proud of her I could’ve cried. In fact, I did cry, but not until the end of the play when the audience erupted into thunderous applause. I was so happy for Brooke, and so overwhelmed by the play and Erin’s surprise visit and being there with Michael, that I couldn’t hold it back. It was too much.
“Are you okay?” Michael asked during the standing ovation. Tears were dripping down my cheeks, destroying yet another perfect makeup job.
“Uh huh.”
“Do you want to go or…”
I nodded and dug out a Kleenex. We could have gone backstage to see Brooke, but I knew how crazy it would be back there and I’d see her tomorrow anyway, when we got together with Erin. I’d congratulate her then. Right now, all I wanted to do was escape this mob.
People headed en masse to the doors, and it took us several minutes to get out of there. At one point, Michael grabbed hold of my hand. “Don’t want to lose you,” he said, but once we were outside and free from the crowds, he didn’t let go. “Do you want to walk to the car or wait here while I go get it?”
“Walk,” I said. The rain had tapered to mist and it felt good to be out of the warm, stale school air.
We started down the dark road, sticking to the shoulder so as not to get splattered by the cars speeding by. Michael had let go of my hand, but I felt his arm brush mine with each step, which was almost as distracting as the hand-holding. It had always been like that with us—even after a year and a half, a simple touch could still turn me inside out.
As we walked we talked about the play, about how good Brooke and the other actors were, how impressive the sets looked. But our conversation felt forced, as if we were just trying to fill the silence. That thick curtain still hung between us, heavy with expectations.
“We should probably talk,” I said once we’d reached the car and climbed in. The rain had started again. Rivulets of water trickled down the windshield, distorting the blaze of headlights in the distance.
“Do you want to go somewhere?” Michael asked.
We were still parked along the road near the community pool, not the safest place to be on a rainy night when people could barely make out the road in front of them. But I didn’t want to talk anywhere public, so Michael moved the car ahead a few feet into the pool parking lot. It w
asn’t as dark there, and we had less of a chance of getting sideswiped by a minivan.
“Well…” I said.
“Well…” he said.
That was as far as we got in the first few minutes. Then, remembering the curtain and how much it bothered me, I said, “You’re wondering if I think we should get back together.”
He peered through the foggy windshield, nodding slightly. “It crossed my mind.”
I took a deep breath. Our future hinged on what I said next, and I had to get it right.
“When we broke up, I sort of turned into someone else. My friends, my real friends, didn’t know me anymore. Then I didn’t know me anymore. I was starting to lose myself, and that scared me.”
Michael was quiet for a moment as he mulled this over. Then: “The asshole who left those bruises on you is to blame for that.”
“Partly, yes. But I’m not mad at him anymore.” Not only was I no longer mad at Dylan, but I also still cared about him, and worried about him, and sometimes even missed him. But I kept those feelings to myself.
“Well, I’m still mad at him.”
I shrugged. “You can be mad for both of us, then. I have to move on.”
“I can’t help it,” he said, his jaw muscles working overtime. “Ever since I saw your wrist, I’ve wanted to track him down and do the same thing to his neck.”
“No. I don’t want you to go to jail. You just got home.”
That broke the tension. He glanced at me and then shook his head, trying not to smile. Another yawning silence passed.
“Does it bother you that I’ve been with someone else?” I asked him. “I mean, I know it bothers you that it was Dylan, but does it bother you that I’ve…you know…with someone else?”
“Does it bother you that I have?”
Although I’d suspected that hadn’t been celibate during our time apart, hearing it confirmed still hurt. Jealousy tickled my throat, but I swallowed it back down. It was a useless emotion right now. “I can live with it if you can.”
“I can live with it,” he said, as if this were the only option. If we had any chance of making this work, it had to be. “Anyway, that’s part of what this break was about, right? To see what else was out there?”
The way he was looking at me reminded me of the night of our first date, when we sat in this very car, the air sizzling between us as we surrendered to a fate that felt beyond our control. Back then, we’d let the future take care of itself. This time, it was up to us.
“Yeah,” I said. “You’re right. It’s funny though.”
“What is?”
“We spent all that time looking for something else when what we really wanted was right there in front of us the whole time.”
“What did we really want?”
“This,” I said, and I leaned over and kissed him. When he kissed me back, nothing seemed to matter anymore—not what he’d done, not what I’d done, not the time we’d wasted being apart. This was our chance to start over, and I thought that maybe someday we could be stronger and sturdier than we’d ever been before. Imagine that. All we needed was a little elbow grease. Okay, a lot of elbow grease. We were worth it.
“I never stopped wanting to be with you,” Michael said when we’d finally finished kissing. “I thought about you all the time.”
“Same here.” Then, inspired by his honesty, I said, “I drove by your house one night when you were home for spring break.”
“I know. I saw you.”
“You saw me? Why didn’t you mention it?”
“I figured you had your reasons for stalking me.”
“I wasn’t stalking you! I was just—.”
He interrupted me with another kiss, telling me without words that he fully intended to keep the past in the past, where it belonged.
“So,” he said, nibbling on my collarbone. “You want to go get some ice cream?”
Several seconds passed before I regained the power of speech. “More than anything.”
He started the car and headed in the direction of town. It wasn’t long before Oakfield’s one and only ice cream place came into view, its bright neon sign promising thirty-two flavors. We barely gave it a second glance as we drove past, leaving it behind.
About the author:
Rebecca Phillips lives in Nova Scotia, Canada with her husband, two children, and cat. This is her second novel. The first novel in this two-book series, JUST YOU, is also available for purchase.
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