Things Change

by Patrick Jones

  "But mostly, it's about Brad," she continued, more seriousness in her voice than I was accustomed to hearing. "I just got to thinking about him and got all goofy sentimental like he does."

  "Why is that?" I asked her. Kara and sentiment didn't sit well together.

  "I don't know. I got to thinking about what happens in five years when I'm sitting around with a bunch of friends and we are talking about proms, and I say that I never went, because I thought it was all so stupid. I thought I might regret not going, just like I feel bad about fighting with Brad so much, like we did last year when we went to the prom."

  "Really?"

  "That was such a mess. We shared a table with Paul and that girl he was seeing, Carla. They started fighting, but that is all in the past, right?"

  "I guess," I said without much conviction.

  "Okay, now let me tell you the truth," Kara laughed. "I want to go to the prom to have one last chance to shock everyone and get their attention."

  "Kara, I don't understand you. You are so beautiful and—"

  "And Johanna, I don't understand you; you are so smart—"

  "It's not the same thing." I smiled at Kara's transparent attempt to make me feel better about myself.

  "And why is that?" Kara asked.

  "For one, all girls want to be pretty. Do you think all the girls at Pontiac West dream about being in honors physics? Most of us would kill to look like you," I explained.

  "What you don't know about other girls is a lot," Kara said.

  "What do you mean?" I asked.

  "It's not a contest, Johanna," Kara replied. "I just think that everybody wants what they don't have."

  Before I had a chance to reply to Kara's insight, I was interrupted by my father shouting up the stairs, "J°J°> we're leaving!" I yelled out an acknowledgment, then pressed my ear against the phone again.

  "Look, what matters is you and Paul getting back together," she said firmly.

  "Paul and I—"

  "I know, but let me tell you something, Johanna. I've been through this with Brad, and it just isn't worth it. I wish I could have back all the time that we spent fighting."

  "You don't understand; it's not like that."

  "I guess I can't understand, because I don't know what happened, and you don't want to tell me. If you want to tell me what is really going on, I'll listen."

  "I don't know what to do," I replied, then lapsed into silence, which Kara respected.

  "What does your heart say is the right thing?" Kara finally asked.

  "I don't think my heart knows what the right thing is any­more."

  Kara paused and spoke to me the way I wished my mother would talk with me, rather than speak at me or question me. "Johanna, the heart always knows."

  What I couldn't tell Kara was that my heart knew, but it knew too much. It knew that I loved Paul, and it knew that I hated him. It knew that I wanted to be with him again, and it knew that I had cried tears that said never again.

  I heard the sound of the garage opening and closing; my parents were off to work, but somehow I figured that I would have a harder and more stressful day than both of them.

  "Kara, look, I've got to go. Thank you for calling me; this was so sweet." I wished I could send her a huge hug through the phone.

  "Thank your friend Pam," Kara explained.

  "I will, but you saved me again," I said as I heard my parents driving away.

  "Well, if you are drowning and you want to get saved, you've got to reach out, know what I mean?" Kara said. "I'll talk to you later, kid."

  I hung up the phone, and then sprinted over to the window. Minutes that seemed liked hours passed until I heard the sound of the Bird coming down the street, then turning into the driveway.

  Paul got out of the car, leaving his door open, filling the air with the sounds of "Thunder Road." He went around to the passenger-side door—my door—and opened it as well. He reached into the backseat, emerging with a rolled-up white sheet. I pressed myself up against the window as Paul unrolled the sheet over the hood of the Bird, holding down the edges with what looked like pints of ice cream, Baskin-Robbins chocolate chip no doubt.

  CLIMB IN was written in big black letters.

  As I cleared the tears from my eyes I heard the sound of Paul knocking on the door. But unlike the last four days, he didn't stop after a few tries. I moved from the bedroom to the top of the stairs. I sat there feeling my heart beating under my black T-shirt, beating, it seemed, in time with Paul's slow, steady, and soft knocking on the door.

  My senses were overloading: the sounds of Springsteen spilling out into the March morning, the knocking at the door, the beating of my heart, the sound of Kara's voice, and the memory of Paul's laughter. I retreated briefly into my room and grabbed Paul's note and reread it, even though I had read it so many times that I had it almost memorized. The knocking continued as I started walking down the stairs. Kara wasn't an honors student, but she was smarter than me. The heart always knows.

  I opened the door and let Paul back into my life.

  "Joha, I am so sorry," Paul said, his hands stretched out before him. "So sorry for what happened between us."

  "Paul, I need to hear it."

  He wrapped his arms around me. His chin was resting again where it belonged, on my shoulder. "I am sorry for hurting you."

  I squeezed him tight, hoping to force the words out of him. "For hitting me?"

  He took my hands from around him and kissed them both, then kissed my forehead. The last time I was this close to him, his hands were slamming into my face; now his mouth was moving over the same place. "Joha, that will never happen again."

  "Promise?" I asked. I needed to hear it again.

  "I swear to you. Like I said in my note to you. Things are going to change."

  I couldn't move; he was holding me so tight, our bodies were morphing together. They were resuming their natural shape. A hole had been created, but we were filling it in again. "Never again?" I said, fighting back tears.

  "Never."

  "You hurt me so much," I said, the memory of that night and all the nights of tears afterward.

  "That's in the past. That never happened." He pressed my star-shaped earrings into my hands. "Joha, you are my star. I want you to have these back. I want you to take me back. I don't want to hurt anymore."

  "I know Paul, I know," I said. I wanted to push all of the hurt out of his body, take it into mine. I wanted to take away all of his pain, all that hurt that spilled out in his note to me.

  He lifted my glasses off, setting them on a table by the door. I didn't fight him. "I know I hurt you by what you saw me do."

  He kissed over the top of my eyes.

  "I know I hurt you by what you heard me say."

  He kissed below both my ears.

  "I promise I won't hurt you again, Joha."

  He kissed me on the lips.

  "I promise I just want to make you feel good and laugh."

  He kissed the top of my throat.

  "Everything is going to be okay. I need you so much."

  He lifted my T-shirt up. I helped him pull it over my head. My face was flushed, my breathing was heavy, and my body was tingling.

  "But mostly I hurt your heart," Paul said softly. He reached behind me, closing and then locking the door. "Let me kiss it and make it better."

  TWENTY-THREE

  "I am not wearing a tux!" Paul's voice boomed over the table and spilled into the rest of Santi's. It was two days before the prom, and the argument between Kara and Paul raged on.

  "You can't wear a Springsteen T-shirt and torn blue jeans to a prom," Kara pleaded.

  "I'll wear a tux once in my life, when they plant me six feet down in the brown ground. Let them get their deposit back from me, then," Paul was smiling, and that made me happy.

  "Look, I don't care if it is pink or blue or purple, but you gotta wear one," Kara insisted. "Everyone else will be wearing one. You wore one last year."

 
"First off, I don't want to talk about last year. Second, I've changed. Third, since when did Brad and I do anything that anyone else did? Woman, have you not been walking this Earth with us for four years?" Paul looked around the table for an answer to his rhetorical question.

  "Brad, tell him what you think," Kara said, kissing him on the cheek.

  Brad started to sink under the table. "I think I would rather be anywhere else in the world than in the middle of this conver­sation." Everyone laughed.

  "Johanna, help me out here, kid!" Kara said.

  I took a big sip of my Coke to stall for time. "It's not my prom. You guys decide, and let me know." I already knew what I was going to wear: that blood-red sleeveless gown Kara wanted me to buy last December. My arms were bruise free; Paul had kept his word.

  "Another thing, I want a limo," Kara pressed on to the second point of contention.

  "A limo is lamo. A limo is lemon. A limo is a no-go," Paul said as he waved his keys in front of Kara's face. "We fly in on the wings of my Firebird."

  "No, I want the two of you in tuxes, and I want to be in a limo!" Kara sat back in the booth, her pouting cherry-red lips jutting out like a cliff.

  Brad reached over and kissed Kara. "We'll work something out."

  "It just doesn't make sense," Paul said, tapping the table with his finger. "You rent the limo, you rent the tux, you buy the tickets, you buy the dress, buy the haircuts, and then you puke over all of it drinking bad punch spiked with cheap wine." Even Kara had to laugh at that.

  "So what are you guys doing after the prom?" Brad asked, trying to change the subject.

  Paul pulled his glasses down his nose and stared at each one of us. His voice got very serious, very slow and solemn. "As you know, Bradley, the senior prom is an important time, not just in the life of the high school student, but the whole family. It is really a family affair."

  "What are you saying?" Kara asked, scratching her cherry-red-streaked hair.

  "What I am trying to say, my diva darling, is this night isn't just about Johanna and me." Paul reached his hand under the table and rubbed his right thumb between my legs. "What I am saying is after the prom, Johanna and I will be visiting the grandparents."

  The Coke spit out of my mouth and nose all over Kara's dress, while my face turned even redder than her dress, lips, hair, or nails.

  Kara got out of the Firebird first, getting her camera ready to capture the image of Paul and Brad stuffed into their tuxedos, standing in front of the Auburn Hills Country Club. Brad looked great; he could wear a potato sack and look good. Paul relented to Kara and was wearing a tux, albeit one that he and I purchased at the Salvation Army last night.

  "We look like penguins out of water!" Paul complained as he reluctantly stood next to Brad to pose for a picture.

  "Except penguins don't wear Converse high-tops or wraparound sunglasses," Kara said, snapping the picture of Paul in all his accessorized glory.

  "You just said I had to wear a tux, you didn't say anything about the other parts of my wardrobe," Paul said, his laughter filling the parking lot. "The shoes and the shades are black, which is very formal."

  "Everybody will be staring at us," Kara said as we all walked toward the door.

  "You're not one to talk, baby," Brad said, taking the camera from Kara, then quickly snapping photos of her, which she willingly posed for. No one was going to notice Brad, Paul, or me with Kara in our group.

  Kara had dyed her hair platinum blond and painted her lips and nails the deepest shade of red I've ever seen. It defied the color spectrum. The bright white dress wasn't from any formal store intended for prom night. It was a cross between something from Victoria's Secret and a wedding dress. As I watched the parade of short black cocktail dresses followed by the long, flowing dark blue gowns file into the country club I knew that Kara, per usual, had smoked them all.

  We handed off our tickets and walked inside. Paul had the DJ in his sights in just a few seconds. Paul told me he would get a Springsteen song played and vowed to stage a sit-down strike—in honor of his great-grandfather—in the middle of this dance floor if the DJ wouldn't play at least one of the songs.

  While Paul was cutting up with the DJ and Kara was off with Jackie and Lynne taking photos, and having their photos taken, Brad and I sat at the table, both of us unmoved by the dance music pumping around us.

  "So tell me what happened last year with Paul and Carla?" I asked Brad. Paul never wanted to talk about Carla, so I stopped asking; but I never stopped wanting to know.

  Brad took a sip of water. "Don't know much about that, Chief."

  A small voice in the back of my head was saying "Shut up, Johanna; let it go," but I pressed on. "Really?"

  "Chief, you're one of the smartest people I know. Smarter than me, smarter than most of the people in this room." Brad reached across the table and grabbed my hands, then stared me down. "The smart thing is to just let it go. You can't change the past. All of us had a terrible time last year at this thing. Just let that go. It's history," Brad said with finality, and then motioned for Kara to come over the table.

  I looked at Brad, searching those kind eyes for an answer, then I realized that he and Kara had given me the whole answer, and so had Mr. Taylor. When you're writing a first draft of history, mistakes will happen. Maybe the test of character Mr. Taylor talked about wasn't just about overcoming mistakes, but about forgiving them. I needed to let all of it go.

  When we first walked into the prom, I saw Mr. Taylor and his wife standing by the front door. I wanted to go up and say hello, but I was still afraid and embarrassed. I could only hope that Mr. Taylor would forgive me for the way I'd cut him off. I could tell that he badly wanted to help me earlier this year, but I couldn't admit to him that someone he thought was so smart and mature was acting so stupid, all in the name of love. I wanted him to think that I could handle anything. Just because I had learned that I couldn't didn't mean my favorite teacher had to know.

  "Ready to dance?" Paul asked, rubbing his hands gently on my back. I had been so lost in my thoughts I was unaware that Paul had sneaked up behind me.

  "Of course, but there's no Springsteen playing," I said as we moved toward the dance floor.

  "Just wait," Paul said. His face broke out in a huge smile of pride when "If I Should Fall Behind" boomed over the speakers. We were about the only two dancing as Bruce sang.

  "How did you get the DJ to play it?" I asked.

  "The jacket of the CD I gave him was filled with titles of top forty crap." Paul was smiling. "But every track was this song; so no matter what he picked, we were getting this."

  Paul and I were spinning small circles on the dance floor. As he and I moved together I tried to let the music take me over, but I couldn't shut my mind down. I wanted to be perfect: the perfect student, the perfect editor, the perfect girlfriend, and the perfect lover. But even if I was learning more every day that I couldn't be perfect, this moment was.

  As we danced I felt memories sweep over me. The first time we kissed sitting in the Firebird. The first time we danced at Jackie's party. The first time we made love at my grandparents' house that December night. I was losing control to the moment and how it connected with every other moment in my life. If the music stopped right now, if I had to decide my life right at this moment, I would choose to spend it with Paul. My parents, my plans and their plans, and maybe even my potential, be damned; this is where I wanted to be. I didn't need a crystal ball; I just wanted a mirror to reflect this image forever. My whole life was happening now, spilling out in front of me. There was no hitting and no crying; there was no shouting and no screams; there was only this moment. I wished the song would never end and the sun would never rise.

  When the song ended, and my dream was denied, I wouldn't let go of Paul. I wouldn't let go of this moment.

  "Joha, what's wrong?"

  The tears tasted as sweet and fresh as ice cream. My mouth was savoring the sweetness; it had no time to waste uttering me
re words.

  Another song started, the music boomed and bodies around us started to shake to the faster beat; but I didn't move. I wouldn't let go of this moment.

  "Joha, what's wrong?" Paul asked, bending down and cupping my chin in his hands. I took off his sunglasses so I could see his eyes. But I didn't answer; there were no words.

  "What's wrong?" Paul leaned into me, our faces just inches away from each other. "What do you want?"

  The answer was as obvious as it was old. "I want you to kiss me."

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Dear Dead Dad:

  I am listening to Darkness on the Edge of Town by the Boss over and over again. The song "Adam Raised a Cain" bores into my mind, especially the line "you inherit the sins, you inherit the flames." I have been thinking about you a lot these past few days. I graduated from high school last week. Mom gave me two things for my graduation. One was her mother's Bible. Exactly what I needed.

  I don't think you would even know Mom now. I don't remember even going to church when you lived here, but now it is her life. She only goes twice a week but talks about it all the time. She sits in our trailer all day watching the Christian TV station. She tells me she prays for me. If only that made a difference. I guess she thinks Jesus will protect me, although he did a lousy job of protecting her. Protecting her from you.

  The other gift was a gold watch. Another thing I needed not one bit. I guess I can use the watch to time my life, ticktock as time slips by and I die here day by day.

  I am going to apply to the community college. I think I have enough money to pay if I can stay working forty hours this summer, eight hours a day, five days a week. You used to work eight hours a day, sleep for eight, and drink for eight. A perfectly divided life.

  Sometimes you took time away from your drinking to smack Mom around. I always wondered how you could treat her that way. How could you hit someone you loved? You never hit me. I guess you didn't love me, did you Dad? Because if you loved me, you wouldn't have left. You would have stayed around and beat the shit out of me.