Even in Paradise

by Chelsey Philpot

  “You’re going to make me regret asking you, aren’t you?”

  “You don’t already?”

  “You’re insane.”

  “And you love me for it.”

  I did.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  THE SATURDAY OF PROM JULIA went to that place where I knew I couldn’t reach her. She spent the morning on her phone or staring at it waiting for it to ring. When it did she’d whisper and then duck out of our room to go talk in the hall. She spent the afternoon on her bed looking out the window, her expression as impenetrable and troubled as the ocean before a storm.

  I gave her space. I left our room to go to the studio, the library, to take a break from her radiating unease. When I came back hours later, she was in the same position: tucked into the corner of her unmade bed, Aloysius in her lap, the photo of Gus on the sailboat in her hands. The room was dark. She hadn’t moved to turn on the lights. When I dropped my backpack on the floor, she jumped like the sound had reached out its hands and shaken her.

  I had to remind her three times to get ready. I turned on music. I put out her dress. I danced around the room with Aloysius in a stumbling waltz. Slowly she melted. Slowly she began to smile. Slowly she came back.

  By the time Sebastian knocked on our window, she was jumping on her bed and I was still only half-dressed. But she was happy. I was happy.

  Prom theme was “Impressionists’ Spring,” so I wore a vintage yellow and orange dress that Mrs. Buchanan swore she hadn’t worn in years. Julia wore a purple and blue strapless that looked like she had dragged it from the back of Mrs. Buchanan’s closet and snagged the tulle on every hanger along the way. Sebastian, I was happy to see when Julia and I met him on our dorm steps, wore pants.

  The dining hall was lit brightly enough to be seen from an airplane, never mind from across the quad. Julia actually skipped when we walked through the doors. The round tables had been removed and the wooden beams wrapped with little Christmas lights in green, yellow, pink, blue, and orange. A DJ set up in the far corner was playing a jazzy old song, and no one was dancing yet.

  I felt Sebastian’s arms slide around me. He pushed my hips so I swayed with him along to the music.

  “Gross. Beurk!” Julia said, looking at us. “Je me tire. Because if you guys start making out—”

  She started walking away before I could hear the rest.

  “Julia, wait,” I said, pulling away from Sebastian. But she had already worked her way through a group of girls huddled around a cardboard re-creation of Monet’s Japanese bridge.

  I groaned.

  “What?” Sebastian said, drawing me back toward him.

  “I spent all afternoon trying to snap her out of a weird mood. I just want her to have fun tonight.”

  Sebastian settled his chin on my shoulder. He nuzzled my neck when he spoke, and his chest was warm against my back. “You need to have fun, too, Charlie.”

  He was right. I knew he was right. So I let myself lean into him just a little bit more, and when he once again swayed to the music, I moved with him.

  I tried not to look for her as the night went on, but it was as useless as trying to get a song out of my head. Sebastian and I took fake champagne from the trays of passing waiters and waitresses. We danced, and I steered him to another part of the dance floor any time Piper and her date came too close. We found Jacqueline, Rosalie, and Amy, who had invited a confused-looking Vinay to be her date. But only when we snuck away to the patio and wrapped ourselves up in each other did I stop searching the room for Julia.

  That was where we were when her voice came over the loudspeakers.

  “Ladies . . . and the handful of brave gentlemen, allons-y!”

  Sebastian dropped his arms from around my waist and pulled me back inside. “Is Julia on the prom com—”

  He stopped speaking when an impossibly thin, tall Asian waitress near the dance floor shoved her tray of drinks into the arms of a very surprised Dr. Merton, who had the bad luck to be standing near the DJ stage. The waitress slowly raised one arm above her head and jutted her opposite hip out at an unnatural angle.

  “What the—” The music cut me off.

  “Wellllll, you know you make me want to shout!”

  With the first burst of sound the waitress leaped, landing on the balls of her feet and swinging her hips side to side. Within seconds, a waiter with a square jaw and a long nose standing nearby had thrust his tray full of empty glasses at a blond girl I recognized from my history class and joined the first dancer movement for movement.

  “Kick my heels up and shout!”

  Another waiter-and-waitress couple met them in the center of the floor, each arm wave and hip thrust perfectly in sync. The crowd began forming a circle around them.

  “Don’t forget to say you will.”

  A waiter with broad shoulders burst into the space the two couples had created and ripped off his vest and shirt, sending a few buttons flying into the audience and revealing a bright pink unitard that looked like it had been painted on his pale skin. His pants came off next with one swoop, the Velcro in the sides screeching. Just as the four dancers fell to the ground in a combination of rolls and splits, he joined them. They moved across the floor, expanding their circle. Two more waiters fell into the center of the group.

  “Don’t forget to say, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.”

  They rose together as if they were all puppets being pulled on the same string. One of the men lifted the pale guy with broad shoulders off the ground and swung him on each side like he was weightless.

  The music changed abruptly to a pop song that I had heard pounding from beneath practically every room in my hall that spring. Four more waitresses and waiters joined those already dancing, shedding their vests and pants until they were all a swirling mass of neon.

  I didn’t realize I was smiling so hard until my face started to hurt.

  Sebastian leaned into me, not taking his eyes off the dancers. “You have to wonder where she got such coordinated waiters.”

  I threw my head back and laughed. “It’s Julia. I can only imagine.” A female dancer clad in a fluorescent yellow leotard that left little to the imagination erupted into the air in a full split and landed in the arms of a male dancer in a blue unitard that also left no secrets. “That was—”

  The music switched to an upbeat oldies tune I knew from long rides in my dad’s truck.

  “Do you love me?”

  Sebastian whispered in my right ear and rubbed my arms, sending goose bumps down to my fingertips.

  “I can’t hear you,” I shouted, my nose bumping his cheek when I turned my head.

  “Now that I can dance.”

  “I love you—”

  I stopped swaying my hips and twisted so I was facing him. The dancing circle had expanded and now students and even some of the teachers on the fringes were mimicking the movements of the dancers in the center.

  “Watch me now, oh.”

  “I love—”

  “I heard you,” I said, much louder than I needed to. The dancers jumped, the music pounded, and the people surrounding us had started to dance.

  “I love you!” I flung my arms around his neck. He stumbled backward, but caught me.

  It was true. I loved him so much I had to either laugh or cry, my heart was that full.

  “And I can do the twist.

  Tell me baby, mmm, do you like it like this?”

  The waiter and waitress dancers were grinding together in ways that made even Coach Hassle, the youngest faculty member by years, look away from the dance floor.

  “Yeah?” Sebastian shouted.

  “Yup!” I laughed and kissed him, not caring who saw.

  “Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. Do you love me?”

  He unclasped my arms from around his neck and pushed me arm’s-distance away, his hands on my hips, his eyes studying my face. What he saw there must have convinced him, because he pulled me into a tight hug and we rocked back and forth ami
d the sea of people pulsing, swaying, and turning around us.

  Just as the music turned to another pop song and the dancers dropped to the ground, leaving everyone else standing, I spotted Julia over Sebastian’s shoulder. She was leaning inside the arch of the back entrance. Her dress stuck out around her like a badly cut tutu and she had lost the flower I had put in her braid.

  She was a princess surveying her domain, a master choreographer enjoying her masterpiece, and an illusionist taking in the magic she had created. She was a legend, a genius. She was my Julia.

  I let go of Sebastian and raised a hand above my head in a mock toast.

  She stepped away from the wall and made a deep curtsy.

  I bowed.

  Sebastian kissed me and then stepped to the side, so when Julia ran from the wall and threw her arms around me we had room to spin until we were so dizzy we had to cling to each other to keep from falling down.

  “Let’s go next year. I’ll put off RISD. You’ll put off Wellesley. Let’s run away,” I shouted, just before turning her out from me.

  When she turned back in so our hips bumped she threw back her head and laughed. “Tu ne le regretteras pas. We’re going to conquer the world, Charlie.”

  We danced the rest of the night, Julia and me. Contra mundum.

  GET A DRESS

  “Julia, it’s fine. My mom sent me money for my birthday and Melissa paid me a little for watching the boys over spring break.”

  “No. I want to pay for the dress. I was the one who dragged you off campus to shop. Besides, it’s my brother’s party you’re getting it for. We should buy the dress, Mummy said.”

  “I doubt Bradley cares who pays for the dress. He won’t even—”

  “Actually, since he was the one who sold a start-up, I’ll make him pay Mummy back.”

  “You guys already do too much, and I’m not really comfortable—”

  “Just pick out a damn dress, Charlie!”

  The woman at the cash register looked up from the stack of receipts she had been sorting. A woman near the entrance of the boutique turned so suddenly she dropped a pair of pants from the top of the pile in her arms.

  I stepped behind a jewelry display, pulling Julia with me. “Why are you shouting at me?”

  “I’m not shouting.” Julia pressed her fists against her eyes. “Just pick out a dress. Please. I want to go back to campus now.”

  “Okay . . . okay.” I flipped through the sales rack. “This one’s pretty.”

  She grabbed the hanger from me. “Let’s go.”

  Julia sat in the passenger seat of the St. Anne’s van for the ride back to campus. When the driver dropped us off in front of our dorm, she whispered, “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “I’m just stressed.”

  “About what?”

  But she didn’t hear me—or maybe she didn’t know how to answer.

  BALANCE

  They had told me she was fragile. First Rosalie. Then Boom. Then Sebastian. Even Julia herself warned me in her way.

  But I didn’t understand what they meant until she broke down in front of me, crumpling like a piece of tissue paper drifting into a bonfire, disintegrating to ash even as she floated upward.

  Before that night, I didn’t grasp that the shadows that sometimes crossed her face weren’t momentary clouds passing in front of the sun. Her deep silences were more than daydreams. And her habit of standing with her arms wrapped around her ribs was her way of holding herself together.

  I didn’t get that there must be balance.

  She couldn’t hold so much life, light, and joy without also containing their opposites.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  ON THE DAY OF BRADLEY’S party, the Buchanan cousins were at Arcadia by ten, stumbling over one another like puppies in a cardboard box as they shrieked from the house all the way down to the beach where Sophie kept watch.

  Cordelia wanted no part in their games. She wanted to stay with me on the porch and learn how to fold linen napkins into peacocks.

  “They’re pretty. Too pretty to have out here in the wind. We’ll put them inside by the cocktail tray for the party,” I said, looking at our lopsided display. The napkins were more blobs than birds.

  Cordelia stuck her hands on her hips. “I know that’s just a nice way of saying you don’t want them out here. You’re just trying to make me feel better by using an oof-fin-nism.”

  “Euphemism.” I pulled what was supposed to be the neck of one of the birds a little straighter.

  Mrs. Buchanan walked over from the corner, where she had been arranging vases of lilies, and pulled Cordelia to her, kissing the top of her head. “How’d you get to be so smart?” she asked. “Huh? You should be grateful you didn’t get my brains.”

  “I know a lot more than people give me credit for.” Cordelia squirmed from under her mother’s arm. “I’m going to go make sure Simon and Jasper aren’t messing with my shells.” Cordelia leaped down the steps, landing just near enough to one of the posts at the bottom that Mrs. Buchanan and I both jumped as if we could grab her.

  Once Cordelia was lost in the circle of children, Mrs. Buchanan shook her head and put her hands on her hips, standing just as Cordelia had. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes that looked like it had been there for years. “It was just yesterday that she believed me when I told her that she couldn’t go in the water when I’m not here because of sea monsters, and the tooth fairy wouldn’t come if she didn’t brush her teeth.” She glanced from side to side, confirming we were alone before shaking out a cigarette, lighting it, and taking a long drag, her eyes closed in bliss.

  She exhaled and looked at me. “You won’t tell, will you? The kids think I gave them up years ago . . . and I have. It’s just every once in a while my nerves . . .” She trailed off.

  “I won’t tell.”

  She hugged her left arm under her rib cage and held the other at a sharp angle from her right hip. She looked like a store mannequin, posed and vulnerable as hollow plastic. “Promise me you’ll never take these up.” She exhaled smoke out her nostrils in two straight lines. “My mother always told me that smoking was a sign of weak character.” She took the cigarette from her lips and studied it. “I suppose she was right.”

  I shook my head. “I’ve never smoked,” I said as I leaned against the railing next to her.

  “Good. Don’t do as I do . . . as they say.” She didn’t look at me when she spoke, but continued staring at the cigarette balanced between her fingertips. “Charlotte, I need your help.” She paused and brought the cigarette to her lips, inhaling. “We ask a lot of you—”

  “Not really—”

  “It’s just, we trust you. We depend on you, Charlotte.” She exhaled smoke out the side of her mouth and tapped her fingernails against the railing.

  “I don’t want to put you on the spot. But Julia needs to behave tonight. No drinking. No pranks. Nothing but her perfect charming self. Bradley selling his company is such a big deal, and there are going to be too many important people with sticks up their asses here tonight. Pardon my French. Tomorrow, I’ll let her streak through town naked if she wants to, but tonight I need her to . . . oh, I don’t know.” She flicked some ash over the side of the porch into the bushes.

  Her eyes shifted from the horizon to me. When they did, it was the first time I noticed the lines at their corners. She had brushstrokes of gray in the hair at her temples, but they blended so well into the blond that I hadn’t seen until then.

  I looked down at my hands on the railing. “I can’t spy on Julia.”

  “Charlotte, I don’t want you to spy on her. I just need you to help her be her best self.”

  I watched one of the cousins—Simon? Jasper? I could never tell them apart—run down the dock and lie down flat on his stomach to dip his bucket full of stones and shells into the ocean. When Sophie yelled for him to come back to the beach, he did, leaving his collection of treas
ures at the end of the dock, already forgotten.

  “I’ll do what I can,” I said.

  “Well, I guess that’s the best any of us can hope for. To do what we can,” she said, stubbing her cigarette out on an upturned shell resting on the seat of a rocking chair and dropping it behind the bushes. Then she walked into the house, as graceful as a white sheet on a laundry line twisting in the breeze.

  “Jules—”

  “You never call me that.”

  “I do when you’re up to something. Your mom doesn’t want anything bad to happen tonight.”

  “So she made my best friend in the whole world my babysitter?”

  “It’s not like that. Look, why do you even need the money?”

  “It’s a surprise. For Bradley.” She kept clenching and unclenching her hands. Tugging at her sundress.

  “Can’t you just make him a great card?”

  “Pathetic, Charlie. Très, très pathétique.”

  “Julia—”

  “I need this. Please. I can’t ask anyone else. Sebastian can’t find his wallet again. Sophie would tell. Cordelia’s a baby. You’re it. You’re my best friend.”

  I trudged up the stairs to get what money I had, hoping for the best, dreading the worst.

  By the time I had gotten dressed, done my hair, and found my tube of lip gloss, the party had spilled from the porch to the lawn. Hundreds of white candles cast hazy light on the tops of tall tables, and rich smells drifted from the trays of passing waiters and the kitchen, mixing with the ever-present scents of seaweed and salt.

  Twilight was taking its time that night. The sky was a watercolor: light blue, darkening to navy, then black dotted with the first suggestion of stars.

  Sebastian stood in the middle of a group of men with silver hair and protruding stomachs. Boom, Sophie, and Mrs. Buchanan were smiling and nodding at a middle-aged Asian man and a petite woman in a green dress near the entrance of the glowing white tent, and Cordelia was showing a girl half her size how to put a marshmallow on a stick near the fire pit. Julia was nowhere to be seen.