“We’re about the same size now.” Sebastian appeared near my right side.
“Oh. Hey.” I swayed slightly, dizzy from the drinks or spinning around so much or a combination of the two. I grabbed a cocktail napkin from the bar and swiped it across my forehead. I could feel makeup dripping down my face like paint flung against a wall. He leaned against the bar, too.
“Where have you been?”
He had taken off his jacket and his tie was undone and draped around his neck. He ran his hands through his hair, making the curls stand out from his head even more. I had to resist the urge to smooth them down.
“Talking to some college friends,” he said, swaying when he gestured toward the nearest corner. He grabbed a stool to balance himself, but it wasn’t enough to keep him from knocking an empty glass back into the bar. “Oops.”
“Careful.” I reached as if to grab him, my fingers grazing his shoulder just before he righted himself.
“These hurricanes. These are damn good.” He took a gulp from the glass in his hand, emptying it. “Want another one?” He didn’t wait for my answer before leaning across the bar, gesturing for the bearded bartender to make his way toward our end.
“Where’s Julia?” He twisted his head as much as he could while lying half on the bar and searched the dance floor. At that moment, with his wrinkled forehead and the concern in his eyes, he looked exactly like Boom watching us leave the White Elephant.
“Dancing,” I shouted. The band had started playing a loud number with a lot of drums. Whatever was in those drinks was making my fingers tingle, making me bold. I rested near him, letting our elbows touch. “Can I ask you something?”
He must have seen Julia, because he slid off the top of the bar and went back to gesturing for the bartender. He nudged my shoulder with his own. “Sure. We’re old friends now, right?”
My brain felt filled with clouds. I couldn’t figure out if he was teasing.
He pushed against me again. “Hey, I found Pip. Take a look at her. You have to, because as her brother, I’m not sure how much more is good for me to see.”
I scooted to try to look at the dance floor from his angle. It was no longer just our elbows touching, but our entire sides. I could feel the heat of his body from my hip to my shoulder. The starched fabric of his shirt stuck to my arm, and his belt pressed into my hipbone.
The girl from before was dancing inches from Julia, who would step closer and then spin away, as if daring the girl to try and catch her.
“She’s amazing.” I paused, then said, “How come Boom doesn’t care that we’re here?”
Sebastian handed the bartender a twenty and turned around to pass me a glass, putting an inch of space between us. The pinkish liquid had sloshed over the sides and my glass was already sticky and dripping. I grasped it with both hands, but didn’t drink.
“Sorry, what’d you ask?” He bent in close enough for his breath to tickle my ear, and I had to close my eyes to remember my question.
“Uh, why doesn’t Boom flip out that we’re out here, instead of back at the White Elephant?” My words felt like marbles rolling across my tongue.
Sebastian took a sip of his drink, and when he leaned his back against the bar to look out at the room, I used it as an excuse to do the same so our arms could keep touching.
“I know it’s messed up. I know it’s not like normal families or anything—”
“What’s normal, anyway?” I shouted, even though the band chose that moment to switch to a slow song where the piano twinkled instead of pounded and the guitar muffled instead of wailed, making my question hang in the air like a half-empty balloon.
“It’s complicated.” He sighed. “Boom can’t say no to Julia. He’s just so happy when she’s happy that he can’t say no.” He shook his head. “She went through a pretty rough patch . . . after the accident. Can’t really blame him. We just want her to be happy.” He took a sip of his drink. “Besides, Charlie Ryder’s here. What could possibly go wrong?”
For the first time since we had kissed in October, we held each other’s gaze without looking away. “To messed up and complicated.” I clicked my glass against his.
“To ‘what’s normal, anyway?’” He took a drink from his glass, set it down on the bar, and glanced at his watch. “It’s almost midnight. Wanna get some air?”
I nodded, placing my full glass next to his and slipping painfully back into my shoes. I followed him toward the table where we had dumped our stuff.
“Can I tell you a secret, Charlie?” As we both shrugged on our coats, he balanced on the balls of his feet like he was getting ready to sprint.
I nodded again.
He leaned in close enough for me to smell his skin: sugar, sweat, and rum. “This might be the best night of my whole life.”
He grabbed my hand and we worked our way through the crowd to the open door, where the light spilled onto the street like paint from a tipped can.
Outside on the sidewalk, I could feel the sweat that had been collecting between my shoulder blades trickle to the small of my back. I felt shivery, flushed, and bold. So even though there were people pressing around us—drunks stumbling toward the next bar, groups of girls giggling and holding one another up, tottering on their high heels on the cobblestone street—I pulled Sebastian’s hand to make him stop.
From across the street the sounds of an entire bar starting the countdown drifted: ten, nine, eight, seven. Then I could hear through the open door of the Chicken Box everyone just one beat behind: six, five, four, three.
Every inch of my hand felt his when he tightened his grip.
Two. One.
Happy New Year!
Someone knocked him toward me from behind, and that was all it took. His lips. My lips. Kissing him wasn’t something I could control.
I couldn’t get close enough to him. He pulled me tighter and tighter to his chest until I didn’t know where he ended and I began, and still it wasn’t close enough. When someone bumped me from the side, we didn’t separate.
Any part of me that wasn’t touching him was instantly bitten by the January night. I ignored the cold. We kept kissing.
I ignored the catcalls and whistles as New Year’s partiers flowed around us like they were water and we were two stones in a river.
It took a drunken girl grabbing my arm to steady herself for us to separate.
This was not supposed to happen again. I couldn’t stop it from happening again. I wanted so much for it to happen again.
I took a step back, and he did the same. We didn’t speak. A silver plastic necklace dropped between us, landing on his shoes. We both looked up and saw her at the same time, leaning with her arms crossed against the doorway of the Chicken Box, the party lights and music behind her and the bouncer staring where she was staring: at us. Her expression was unreadable. She didn’t move until the stunning girl from the dance floor slipped her arms around her waist and dragged her back inside, leaving a pile of necklaces where Julia’s feet had been.
Sebastian reached down and grabbed the beads off his shoes and slipped them around my neck.
Then he kissed me again.
NINETEEN
DID I EVER GO TO sleep? Or did I just keep floating in that waking dream that began when Sebastian and I kissed the night before?
I couldn’t stop replaying everything, even though my head was foggy and my body exhausted. I couldn’t stop smiling.
Three raps on my door in the morning, however, were all it took for the smile on my face to turn into a twisting in my stomach. The clock on the bureau said 7:00 a.m. It could only be Julia.
I scrambled out of the small twin bed, knocking into the side table hard enough to send a leather-bound book to the floor.
“Coming.” I replaced the book and then shuffled to the door, trying to keep one hand pressed against the spot on my knee that I could already feel was going to bruise. I eased open the door, but it still creaked loud enough to make me wince.
Julia’s hair was piled on top of her head. Stray wisps floated out of her messy bun and drifted as softly as whispers against her pale face. She had a blanket over her shoulders like a cape and a pair of felt slippers on that looked large enough to belong to Boom. She didn’t say anything, just gestured for me to follow her, not turning around to see if I did. She knew I would.
I pulled on a pair of wool socks over the cotton ones I already had on. A draft crept up from the first floor, so I grabbed a blanket off my bed as well. The stairs groaned in a way that felt painfully loud, making me pause each time I put my foot down. Julia was already out on the porch, curled up on an Adirondack with her blanket wrapped around her like a patchwork cocoon by the time I made my way out the door.
I folded into the chair next to her and tucked my blanket around myself, feeling the cold prick my face. I waited.
When Julia didn’t speak, I waited some more, trying to look out where she was looking, trying to see the frost-covered lawn, boarded-up boathouse, and white-capped winter ocean through her eyes. If she was angry, the wonder of the frozen view would be lost on her.
“I owe Sebastian a lot,” she said finally, her smoky voice cutting through the stillness like a wire through clay. “He was the one who found me . . . after the accident, you know?”
I raised my chin out of my blanket. “No, I didn’t.”
“Well, he did. He knew where I’d be, even when I didn’t know where I was.”
“Julia—”
“I’m not mad,” Julia said. “Not even a little. I knew it was only a matter of time before they got to you, too.” She sighed and kept her eyes fixed straight ahead at some point on the January horizon. “I just hoped it wouldn’t be so soon.”
“Julia,” I said, feeling every muscle it took to form her name. “I tried not to. I tried so hard. It was a mistake. We were being stupid and drunk.” My voice wavered. “It didn’t mean anything. Just kissing.”
Julia rested the side of her head on her knees and finally looked at me. “If that was just kissing, then Mother Teresa was just a really nice old lady.” Her cheeks and nose were pink from the wind.
“I’m your friend first,” I said as I struggled to sit up straight in the deep chair. “Before anything else, I’m your friend.”
She sighed. “I suppose it’s my own fault. I brought you to Arcadia and introduced you to them. They can be so damn charming. Even Bradley has his moments. As for Sebastian, I’ll talk to him later. On pardonne tant que l’on aime.”
I couldn’t tell if she was seriously mad at Sebastian or just joking, so I said nothing.
She started humming.
“Julia?”
“Yeah?”
“That time on the roof.” I cleared my throat. “You know . . . last summer?”
“Uh-huh?” Julia had tucked her head into her blanket like a turtle drawing into its shell, but I kept going.
“Well, it was nice, but I’m not . . . well, you know that I’m . . .” My words tripped over themselves like passengers rushing to get out of a crowded bus. “I’m ninety-nine percent sure I like boys. Not that kissing you wasn’t very—”
“Pardonne-moi?” Julia’s laugh was muffled by her blanket until she drew her face out and her giggle cracked against the cold air. She raised a pale hand to her mouth. “Oh! Charlie. No, no, no, no, no. Not that you’re not a terrific snogger, but a lady knows what she knows and you were . . . you are so obviously not in my boat.”
She scooted over on her Adirondack until there was room for one more. I untangled myself just enough to shuffle over and squeeze in beside her. Once I had arranged the blanket so my body was again completely covered, she rested her head on my shoulder and I shifted down so I could rest mine on top of hers.
“The thing is that you were supposed to be mine. Just mine. I found you and now I feel like they’re taking you away.”
“That’s silly. No one’s taking me away. I’m still your friend. We’re still us. Here. Together. Contra mundum.” The burst of love I felt for her spread through me like blue paint turning red to purple. She was my Julia. I was her Charlie. I wouldn’t let anything change that.
“Just promise no secrets. I can’t stand secrets. Even if you think I don’t want to know something, you have to tell me. Deal?”
“Deal.”
“Okay,” she said, leaning against me with her whole tiny body so that our blanket cocoons were the only things that separated us. “I feel it’s only fair to warn you that when Sebastian was seven he insisted everyone call him Jack because some kids were teasing him about his name. Then when he was ten he went for over a week without changing his underwear because he thought it would help the Red Sox win the World Series.”
“Julia, I’m okay with some secrets,” I said, trying and failing to smack her arm through our layers of blankets.
I settled back down beside her, once again resting my head on top of hers. “If it means anything, I think I really, really like him . . . name insecurities, dirty underwear, and all.”
“Of course you do. How could you not?” She shifted her blanket so it covered more of her neck. “He’s my brother. Some of my sparkling personality and wit was bound to rub off on him eventually.”
The sun was just breaking over the harbor in the distance, making the frost on the brown grass glisten like someone had painted each individual blade. The wind that swooped over the lawn and hit our cheeks was full of ocean, ice, and a new year and all its possibilities.
Tucked in beside my best friend, with the boy and family I adored still asleep upstairs, I was sublimely, irrationally, and perfectly happy.
NOTE #2
Charlie,
Good luck with your final semester! I can’t help you with your Latin translations, but if you need ideas for a senior prank I’m your guy.
Sebastian
P.S. I’ll come visit after study hall on Thursday. Ask Pip if she needs anything from the outside world.
P.P.S. If Pip says nice things about me, you can share the chocolates with her. I think they’re the ones you like.
P.P.P.S It’s been less than forty-eight hours since I saw you. I miss you already.
The chocolates were the same kind that had survived my first trip to Arcadia.
The flowers Sebastian sent smelled like summer, and I kept them on my desk long after they started to droop and should have been thrown away.
The note I slept with under my pillow—until I worried about smudging the ink and put it in my memory box instead.
A PERFECT PRANK
“We need to start planning.”
“Isn’t it a little early in the year? We’re barely into January.”
“Charlie, it’s never too early to plot. Let’s start with a list of all the past senior pranks. Three years ago, they filled Dr. Mulcaster’s office with Dixie cups of fruit punch. Unoriginal. Are you writing this down? The year after that they parked all the vans on the quad. Boring. And last year they put Vaseline on all the bio lab beakers. That’s just mean. Quel gâchis!”
“What about when they put all those animals in the dining hall? It took the custodians a whole day to get the chickens out of the kitchen.”
“That one was éclatant!”
“So what are we going to do?”
“I’m not sure yet. But it’ll be unforgettable.”
TWENTY
THE TIME BETWEEN WINTER BREAK and spring vacation was a gray blanket that spread over campus.
Everyone seemed slower. Formal dinner felt longer, classes more tedious. And winter sports were outright unbearable, which is why Julia and I skipped rec basketball as often as we could get away with it. Plus we were both terrible.
By February, it was easy to forget having ever felt warm or that the snow that pressed against the sides of the buildings and muffled the ground was ever anything other than dirty and depressing.
We were a campus of sleepwalkers for nearly three months each year—which is why there was a Headmistress�
��s Holiday to wake us from our stupor.
Because she had done so well running the board for the fall musical, Julia was put in charge of operating the sound system three days a week for morning assembly. Most of the time, my advisor, Mr. Bates, let me keep her company in the control booth rather than making me sit with the rest of his advisee group in the theater. I didn’t complain about classes or sports, and my dad and Melissa never called him about my grades. I asked little of Mr. Bates, so he demanded little of me.
While coaches got up to announce game scores and teachers stood behind the podium to talk about dress code and schedule changes, Julia and I sat in our little bubble high above the rest of St. Anne’s.
Sometimes we did homework, but most of the time we read magazine quizzes to each other or pored over old yearbooks that had been abandoned and piled in the back corner.
By mid-January, my daydreaming had become a joke beyond Julia and me, and by February even the faculty were teasing me.
One morning, my Latin teacher, Dr. Merton, threw a pencil at my desk to get my attention.
“Amor vincit omnia, Charlotte. Love may conquer all, but it will not conquer your worksheet.”
I had mumbled an apology, picked up my pen, and started to work.
Still, when I got to one particular translation I hadn’t been able to help smiling. “Beatitudo nos efficit omnes stultos.” Happiness makes us all fools.
Fools and so much more.
“There you go again,” Julia said, swinging back and forth in her chair, her feet resting on the soundboard.
“Sorry. I was thinking about Latin class.”
Julia rolled her eyes and went back to studying the yearbook in her lap while I looked at the stage and tried to pay attention.
“Look.”
“Huh?” I had been semi-watching and listening to Coach Archer talk about the latest JV volleyball game, but most of my thoughts had drifted back to Sebastian and the fact that he was visiting that night.
Even in Paradise Page 14
