Always Never Yours

by Emily Wibberley

  Or it could be an act.

  “Megan,” Rose says, withdrawing from the hug, “would you finish setting the table?” In mute surprise, I take the silverware from her and walk into the dining room, overhearing Mom and Rose begin to chat about baby names and nurseries.

  We sit down once Dad and Randall have dropped off the suitcases in my bedroom, where Mom and Randall will sleep before everyone drives up to Ashland.

  “The whole meal is nut-free, per Randall,” Rose proudly announces as the guys file into the room.

  “Well, I’ll be.” Randall grins, sitting down. “So thoughtful of you, Rose. Wow.”

  As the plates of potatoes and roast chicken are passed around the table, I watch Mom and Dad for signs of strain. They’re perfectly normal, Dad serving Mom a spoonful of the potatoes while she chides him for not doing any of the cooking. I chew quietly and listen to Randall recount his victory at the regional bowling tournament. The other three jump in with questions every now and then like they’re old friends.

  “What time are you guys leaving tomorrow?” Dad asks me when Randall goes into the kitchen to pour everyone refills.

  “After rehearsal,” I say in between bites.

  “And who are you rooming with?” Mom has a knowing smile.

  “I don’t know, Mom.”

  “Not Tyler, I hope,” she replies teasingly.

  I can’t keep myself from rolling my eyes. “The rooming is same-sex.”

  “It’s going to stay that way, too,” Dad warns, his brows flat.

  “Like there’s anyone I’d want to invite over.” Owen won’t talk to me except in the direst of circumstances, and considering the things he said to me in his bedroom, I’m not exactly keen to talk to him either. No matter how good of a kisser he is or how I felt when his fingers brushed my neck. It’ll be my first drama trip in years without a hookup.

  I catch the look my parents don’t even try to hide. “We’re not falling for that,” Mom says dryly. “This is a class of your drama friends. Even in Texas, where you didn’t know a soul, you still had one crush by the end of the summer. One that we know of,” she adds a second later.

  “Wait, what?” Dad looks up from his plate, startled.

  Before I have the chance to defend myself, Randall chimes in. “I caught the neighbor’s kid loitering in the backyard one night—”

  “Michael was harmless,” I interject.

  “—the week after you left Texas,” Randall finishes.

  I’d forgotten I ghosted on Michael, honestly. He texted me a couple times after I got home and then promptly found himself a blonde cheerleader. I wonder if they’re still together. I bet they are—shit, they’re probably engaged. It’s Texas.

  “Like that kid on the roof,” Dad interrupts my train of thought.

  I feel the blood rush to my cheeks. “Oh, Jesus.”

  Mom folds her lips inward, trying not to smile. Rose looks between the two of them, eyebrows arched. “On the roof?” she repeats.

  I try to nip this in the bud. “We really don’t need to relive that. It’s . . . It’s in the past. There’s . . .” I gesture to Erin in her high chair. “ . . . a child present.”

  “Erin’s not too young to start learning from her sister’s misadventures,” Dad says, then nods to Mom. “You tell it, Catherine. You’re the one who found him.”

  I shake my head. But for a moment, it feels like it’s four years ago, my parents are together, and Rose and Randall are just a couple we’re having over for dinner.

  “We were in bed watching some horrible movie . . .” Mom begins, looking to Dad. “What was it? You really wanted to watch it.”

  Dad leans back in his chair and crosses his arms. “Hey, Snakes on a Plane is a classic of American cinema.”

  Mom waves off his unsolicited review. “I thought I heard thudding on the roof,” she continues. “Henry tried to tell me it was just in the movie.”

  “In my defense, I knew she was looking for every reason to pause the film,” Dad cuts in.

  “The third time it happened, I went outside to see for myself. Lo and behold, there’s somebody standing on the roof over the garage.”

  “The next thing I know,” Dad takes over, “Catherine’s running back inside, looking pale, telling me there’s some guy trying to break into the house. Not an overreaction at all.”

  Mom laughs into her hand, blushing now, and through my mounting mortification I realize what’s happening here. My parents are rediscovering their friendship over what they have in common—embarrassing me.

  “I obviously pause Snakes on a Plane,” Dad goes on, “grab a baseball bat, and go downstairs. We get outside, I take one look at the guy on the roof, turn to Catherine, and say, ‘That’s a fourteen-year-old boy. Why is there—?’ and then I realize he’s there to get into Megan’s room.” He levels me an accusatory look.

  “I ask if he’s sure.” Mom jumps back in. “He just says, ‘Believe me, I’m sure.’ Then he yells up at the poor kid, and the kid trips and falls on his butt. Henry orders him to get off the roof, but the kid just sits there, looking like he’s about to throw up. I take Henry by the arm and tell him I think the kid’s stuck.”

  Rose and Randall shake with laughter. Even I have to admit the situation was kind of funny.

  “I get the ladder and climb halfway up. But the kid doesn’t move. I hear the upstairs window open, and Megan sticks her head out.” Dad looks at me. “Megan, why don’t you tell everyone what happened next?”

  “Okay, what was I supposed to do?” I protest.

  “Not invite the boy on the roof into your room,” Dad says.

  “You did what?” Rose gasps.

  “He was stuck!” I defend myself. “My window was closer than the ladder. I didn’t want Charlie to fall!”

  “I swear to god, Megan yells down to him, ‘Come on up! Just come in here,’” Dad confirms, and I collapse my head into my hands. “Needless to say, that wasn’t going to happen.”

  “Falling wouldn’t have even been the worst of Charlie’s worries,” Mom mutters. “He finally opens his mouth and explains he’s not good with heights. Let’s just say, Henry made it very clear Charlie had to come down right then.”

  “What did you say to the poor kid?” Randall shares a grin with my dad.

  “I might have told him . . . I’d throw him off if he didn’t,” Dad says with a shrug.

  “That worked?” Randall returns incredulously.

  “Not exactly.” Dad bashfully massages the back of his neck. “Catherine coaxed him down eventually.” He looks up at Mom. “I’m just glad you were there. I honestly might’ve killed the kid. You were always the even-tempered one.”

  It happens so fast, I nearly don’t notice. But Mom’s eyes flicker, and her smile falters just a touch.

  When we finish dinner, I stack dishes to carry into the kitchen while Rose gets dessert ready. Erin begins the frustrated whimper that means we’ve overtired her, and a tiny spoon clatters to the ground. I hear Dad get up, mumbling about Erin’s bedtime.

  “Would you mind if I read to her?” my mom asks.

  “Please,” Dad says. “I could use a night off from reading Green Eggs and Ham for the five-thousandth time.” Mom lifts Erin out of her high chair and goes upstairs while I load the dishwasher and Rose pulls a pan out of the oven.

  In fifteen minutes, Mom still isn’t back and Randall’s regaling me with the financial intricacies of his current case at work. When Rose comes out of the kitchen, a peach cobbler held in oven mitts, her eyes go to my mom’s empty chair, and she frowns. “Megan,” she says, interrupting Randall’s endless string of details. “Would you go upstairs and tell your mom dessert’s ready?”

  I shoot her a grateful look and escape into the hallway, passing the photo over the stairs from Dad and Rose’s wedding. It’s dark in Erin’s bed
room, the door ajar. I push it open and find Erin’s in her crib, already asleep. “Mom?” I whisper the moment before I see her in the rocking chair, the book closed on her lap.

  She hurriedly wipes her eyes. “Hi, honey,” she says softly. She forces a smile. “Is everyone having dessert?”

  Searching for what to say, I watch her straighten her blouse and set down the book, clearly intending to just go back downstairs. “You— Are you okay?” I get out.

  “Completely,” she reassures me. “There are . . . a lot of memories in this house. Nothing to worry about.”

  I follow her out into the hallway. The picture from Dad and Rose’s wedding looks a little too big and a little too beautiful. I feel like I should say something more to Mom, but I decide not to press her further because I know what’s upsetting her. There’d be no point in talking about it when there’s nothing I can change, and she’s obviously struggling enough without me dredging it up one more time.

  I knew this trip would be a mistake. The thought burns into my heart like a brand. I knew it would hurt my mom. I knew it would remind her of her old life with my dad and of his new one. It wasn’t enough for her to move out when they got divorced—she had to move from Oregon to the Southwest to escape everything that reminded her of the man she’s still pining for.

  Including me.

  It’s something she and I have in common. We’re always looking backward for the people who’ve moved on without us.

  TWENTY-THREE

  FRIAR LAWRENCE: Affliction is enamored of thy parts,

  And thou art wedded to calamity.

  III.iii.2–3

  I FLOAT THROUGH THE SCHOOL DAY IN a black cloud.

  When afternoon rehearsal ends at 5:30 and the bus for Ashland pulls up outside, I find Anthony in the parking lot. He’s drumming his fingers on his leg, and his lips twitch in the way I know means he’s dying to run lines. Undoubtedly noticing my expression, he thoughtfully restrains himself and gives me a hug before hunting down Tybalt and Benvolio.

  Eager to sit down and close my eyes, I join the line filing onto the bus a couple of people behind Tyler, who’s wrapping Madeleine in his arms. Of course she came back to school to send him off. She’s not coming to Ashland because she has her alumni interview this weekend for her early action app to Princeton, which obviously she’s going to crush.

  She and Tyler finally separate, and I glimpse tears in both of their eyes like the prospect of two days apart is nearly unbearable.

  I shake my head, and then she turns and I see what she’s holding. It’s a tiny mountain of brownies on the same flower-shaped plate I remember her bringing to school for me during my parents’ divorce. She hasn’t brought it out in years—she hasn’t needed to.

  Her eyes find mine between the heads of our classmates. Without a word, she leaves Tyler and walks down the line to me.

  “You didn’t have to,” I say, taking the plate from her.

  “Of course I did,” she replies matter-of-factly. “It sucks you’re going to Ashland right now, but call me whenever. Seriously.”

  “I will,” I promise. I called her last night about how I found my mom, and before I knew it two hours had gone by. I would’ve stayed up later talking to her, but sleeping on the couch with adults coming downstairs for trips to the bathroom and drinks of water didn’t leave me much privacy.

  We’ve shuffled forward in line, and it’s my turn to get on the bus. But on the first step, I hesitate. “Hey,” I call, halting her. “I feel like a sleepover’s in order when I get home.”

  She smiles lightly. “Definitely.” Giving me a final wave, she walks back toward campus.

  I trudge to an empty row near the back and take a seat next to the window. People are beginning to fill the bus, and I catch a couple pairs of eyes checking out the seat beside mine. I place the plate of brownies on the empty cushion, declaring it off-limits. When Owen boards, I watch him in my peripheral vision while pointedly staring out the window.

  Finally the bus rumbles to life, and I close my eyes. Just for good measure, I put in my earbuds, the universal sign for don’t talk to me. For a while I listen to nothing, trying to go over my lines in my head. But I turn on an old playlist when I realize the only words ringing in my ears aren’t Juliet’s. They’re my mom’s—There are a lot of memories in this house. Nothing to worry about.

  I don’t open my eyes for forty-five minutes, until we park outside a Burger King for dinner. Between thirty high-school students ordering burgers and freaking out over the premiere, it’s not hard for me to hide my nose in my script and avoid the conversation. In an hour, with night falling, we’re under way again.

  We pass sporting goods stores and strip malls on the way into Ashland, and then the wide street I take to SOTI. I watch coffee shops, bookstores, clothing boutiques go by in the window. We round a corner, and a compound of low buildings in Elizabethan style emerges on the right. And despite my horrible mood, my heart lifts a little when I see it.

  The Oregon Shakespeare Festival isn’t an event. It’s a place, a collection of smaller theaters grouped around a main stage built to resemble Shakespeare’s Globe. I don’t know why they call it a festival, because they have plays year-round, but I do know the production of Macbeth I went to in sophomore year is the best piece of theater I’ve ever seen.

  I’ve dreamed of having a production on one of those stages. I just never thought I’d be acting in it.

  We drive on past a quaint, three-story inn with a picket fence and a gabled roof, and I begin to look forward to falling into bed with a view of the theater. But we keep driving, and two right turns later, we’re parked outside a Springview Hotel. Despite the proprietor’s meager efforts, including a couple of ceramic plates on the walls, it’s charmless and corporate.

  I grab my room key from Jody, who’s watching me with concern, but she’s busy with the thirty other students clamoring for their keys. I slip out to the stairs, not in the mood to bustle into the elevator with my giddy cast-mates.

  My room is empty when I open the door. Feeling the irresistible urge to wash off the bus ride, I walk into the bathroom. When I turn on the shower I think I hear the beep and click of my roommate coming into the room, but I’m intent on relaxing in the steam before I’m forced to have a conversation. Under the hot water, half of the tensed muscles in my back unclench.

  Once I’ve put my clothes back on, I open the bathroom door and come face-to-face with Alyssa.

  “Unbelievable,” I say under my breath at the precise moment she gives me a glare of ice. Thank you, Jody. A night stuck in a room with Alyssa is exactly what I need right now.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not staying,” Alyssa says sharply from her seat at the edge of the bed. “I’m waiting for Will to text me, then I’m going to move my stuff to his room. I’ll be sleeping there.” She tosses her shiny black hair over her shoulder.

  “Of course you will,” I mutter. I expect the mention of Will to hurt, but it doesn’t. I really don’t care what he’s doing tonight, or who he’s doing it with.

  But Alyssa’s eyes have narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Something in me snaps. The combination of Owen, my parents, this stupid fucking play, and now Alyssa staring at me does not have me feeling like playing nice. “I get it now,” I reply with false lightness. “I wouldn’t sleep with him, and you will.”

  She stands up to her full height of five feet, four inches. “I’m not going to be shamed by a girl who’s had ten boyfriends in three years. You go right ahead and tell yourself I’m the bad guy, but I won’t feel guilty for finally getting with a boy I like.”

  “It’s not that you got with a boy you liked. You got with a boy who had a girlfriend.” I push away the memory of kissing Owen, feeling the cold of my wet hair down my back.

  “You date everyone, Megan!” Alyssa’s voice goes shrill.

&nb
sp; “And? Because I’ve had a lot of boyfriends, my relationships don’t matter?”

  “No, I don’t—” She looks away, and suddenly there’s something besides indignation in her tone. Something like pain, or purpose. “I mean, you think you’re the only girl who’s had a crush on Tyler Dunning? Or Dean Singh? Or Will? Do you even know what it’s like to want someone who will never notice you? I watched myself get overlooked for you time after time. Finally, a guy liked me, too.”

  I open my mouth, then close it. Of the ways I’ve understood my relationships over the years, usurper to Alyssa wasn’t one of them. But with everything else pounding through my head right now, I can’t deal with hearing her out.

  “Whatever,” I say with what I hope passes for finality. I walk to the door. “Enjoy your night,” I say, the door closing behind me.

  * * *

  Without knowing where I’m going, I head toward the stairs. I only know I need something to occupy me, to keep me out of Alyssa’s way, and to keep my thoughts from Owen and my family. I decide the lobby’s the best bet. I’ll run some lines until I figure it’s safe to return.

  Rounding the corner at the other end of the hall, I catch sight of Tyler in front of the vending machine. I pass him with my head down and shoulders squared, hoping to convey I don’t want to talk.

  “You don’t want to go down to the lobby,” I hear him say cheerfully before I reach the door to the stairs. “Jody’s enlisted everyone in folding programs.”

  His words bring me to a halt. “Thanks,” I mutter, realizing now I have nowhere to go. While I’m considering my dilemma, Tyler swears under his breath, and I turn to find him shaking the vending machine to what sounds like little effect.

  “Fucking money-eating piece of . . .”

  “Louder. I don’t think it heard you,” I tell him, unable to resist the urge to heckle Tyler.

  He eyes me, and then he clears his throat and repeats himself in his grandest stage voice. “Fucking money-eating piece of vile, execrable filth.”