As we walk down the hallway, we pass several other residents and some nurses, all of whom greet us enthusiastically, except for one short woman with white hair who glares at Ernie as she opens the door next to his.
“That’s Clarisse,” he whispers once she’s gone into her unit and shut her door. “An angel on earth, that’s for sure.”
“I’d be cranky, too, if you kept me up all night with a tennis ball,” I tell him, and he roars with laughter. Honestly, at this point, I think I’m just encouraging him.
Outside, we walk through the garden before finding a bench under the canopy of a leafy tree.
“See, isn’t all this fresh air and sun worth the walk?”
“Eh. Unless we got a new sun in the past week, I already saw this one,” he says grouchily.
Ernie says nothing for the next few minutes, so I let him enjoy the silence.
Finally I ask, “What are you thinking?”
“Trying to think if I can convince one of the grandkids to send us a fart machine,” he says. “I think Clarisse would enjoy that one at lunch.”
I shake my head. “Leave the poor woman alone.”
Ernie smiles. “So, when are you leaving?”
“Leaving?” I ask. “I still have an hour with you!”
“No. I mean, for good.”
I narrow my eyes at him. “Not for a long time.” He signals for me to help him up, and I draw his walker close so he can use it to heave himself up. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re eager to get rid of me.”
“I just hate to see someone like you, with your whole future ahead of you, putting everything on hold to spend time with an old geezer like me. Don’t you kids go to university anymore?”
“Some of us do.”
“Will you?” he asks.
“Probably next year.”
“Didn’t you say you graduated? Why not this year?”
“I’m not ready,” I say. “I’m not sure what I want to be.”
“That’s nonsense. Nobody becomes what they want to be,” he says dismissively. “You just go out there, try not to face-plant, and hope nobody notices.”
What if you already face-planted? I want to ask him. What if you’re still on home base and you’ve already ruined the entire game? Then what?
“You’d make a fine nurse,” he says. “But I wouldn’t pursue anything that involves using words too often. Your performance on that crossword was abysmal.”
I hold open the door and wait as he shuffles into the building. “I was only supposed to be writing what you told me to!”
“That’s not how crosswords work,” Ernie says, and I roll my eyes.
“Just don’t wait too long,” he says as we turn down the hall back to his unit, “to start trying to be what you want to be—or whatever nonsense you said.
“Eighty years flies by,” he continues. “Except when you have hemorrhoids. Then it’s like watching the goddamned concrete dry.”
I giggle. “I hope I never find out.”
“I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Not even my brother, Gareth Richard Solomon IV, the unlucky son of a bitch.”
We go on to discuss the fact that All Saints is taking Ernie and some other residents to a movie on Saturday afternoon, so I have that day off.
The rest of the night, while I’m volunteering at the club, and the next day at Camp MORE my mind keeps replaying Ernie’s words. Just don’t wait too long.
Eighty years flies by.
And some people don’t even get eighty years. Some don’t get fifty. Or eighteen.
But what if you’ve fucked up colossally and the universe isn’t done punishing you? What if there is something fundamentally wrong, something inside you that chases people away and hurts those who stay? Is there any point in trying to do anything but burrow and wait until the world forgets who you are? Until you forget who you are?
I’m so distracted mulling this over in my mind that I’m powerless to do anything by the time things have gone spectacularly wrong.
“We could do Saturday morning,” Willow is saying now. “Brett can pick you guys up and then we’ll grab some coffee on our way out of town. I am not giving up both my bed and coffee.”
“Your bed?” I repeat. We’re on lunch duty today, so we’re circling the cafeteria, keeping an eye on all fifty-something kids.
“I know, I know. You’ll say we have sleeping bags, but a sleeping bag is not a bed,” Willow says.
Now I’m completely confused. “What do you need sleeping bags for?”
“For camping! I knew you hadn’t been paying attention,” she says. “Where do you go in that head?”
To the past.
Always to that night.
“Who’s going camping?”
Willow stops walking abruptly and sets her hands on her hips. “Okay, seriously?”
“I’m sorry. I’ve been spacing out all day.”
“Yeah, I know you have,” she says. “We’re going camping. You, me, Luke, and Brett.”
If she didn’t look dead serious, I would be laughing.
“Uh, what gave you that idea?”
“The fact that Luke told Brett you would? Also, I’ve been talking about it all day, and all you’ve done is nod and agree. You’re not going to back out, are you?”
“I was never in, Wills,” I say. “Why the heck are you going camping?”
“For my vlog. Xothelodown does the woods.”
I stifle a smile. “That sounds . . . interesting.”
“My followers voted for it. Honestly, I’m a little terrified. You know what Brett is like: supermacho and nature-y and all that. If you don’t come, I’m not sure I’ll be coming back alive.”
“Okay, supermacho and nature-y does not mean he’s going to bury your body in the woods. Also, a getaway in the woods with just the two of you? That’s so romantic.”
Willow gives me a stern look. “If it’s so romantic, why are you trying to get out of it?”
“Willow, I can’t,” I say firmly.
“On account of?” she prods.
“On account of . . .” I struggle to think of an excuse. I’m not even working this Saturday, thanks to Ernie’s excursion. “I don’t camp. Plus! I volunteer at the club on Saturday morning.”
“We’ll go after. Or I can talk to Daddy. We can totally get you out of it.” Shit, it’s true. Willow’s father owns Tennis Win.
“Willow—” I say.
“Please. I will love you forever.” She bats her eyelashes at me. “Plus, if you don’t want to go, you have to take that up with your boyfriend, because he already said you would.”
“Fine, I think I will. Take it up with him.”
“Fine,” Willow says.
When I stop by for dinner at Luke’s house, I plan on confronting him, but he’s on the phone as he opens the door.
Mel is in her room tonight. She’s sitting in her wheelchair, a piece of paper in her hand, but it looks like she’s struggling to hold the pen.
“Do you need me to write something for you?” I ask.
“Oh no. I’m fine,” she says, smiling at me. She lets the pen drop in her lap. “Luke says you’re going camping.”
“I think maybe he’s going camping. I’m not.”
One of Mel’s thin eyebrows skitters up. “Why not?”
“Because he signed us up for it without checking with me first. I’m busy on Saturday.”
“Tsk, tsk,” Mel says jokingly. “I thought I raised him better than that.”
“Raised me better than what?” Luke asks, entering the room. I’m wearing a shirt that hangs off my shoulder, and I’m speechless when he leans down and kisses me there. “What did I do now?”
Even though I can still feel the shadow of his lips on my skin, I fold my arms across my chest. “Why did you tell Willow and Brett we’d go camping?”
“Oh . . . that,” he says.
“Yes, that.” I sit on the edge of Mel’s bed. “I thought we talked about yo
u not running the show.”
Though we try to keep up a happy front in his mother’s presence at all times, I’m feeling so pissed that I can’t contain myself. Besides, happy couples fight all the time.
Luke’s eyebrows raise in surprise, but his eyes are twinkling, as if he’s enjoying this.
“Is something funny to you?” I ask.
“You’re just so damn cute when you’re mad,” he says, and a lump lodges in my throat. Is it just me or is he getting better and better at this acting-in-love thing? He almost sounds like . . . he almost sounds like my Luke, the person I used to know.
“What can I do to make it up to you?” he asks, still looking at me like he’s trying not to laugh.
“Tell them we’re not going. I volunteer at the club on Saturdays. Also, we really shouldn’t leave Mel by her—”
“Oh, hell to the no!” Mel exclaims. “You are not using me to get out of anything.”
“We’re not using you,” I amend quickly.
“In fact, I’m kind of sick of having you two around all the time. You’re like those horrible gnat things.”
“Fruit flies?” I say, incredulous.
“Fruit flies!” she says. “You hover.”
I’m genuinely hurt by this, and if Luke’s face is any indication, so is he.
“We’re around too much?” I ask.
“Way, way too much,” she says. “Luke, the last time you were this annoying, you were two years old and trying to follow me everywhere, even when I went to pee. I’ll survive for one night. If you’re so worried, Naomi can stay over.”
Luke is looking at her, his eyes narrowed. “Are you just trying to make us go?”
“Yes,” Mel says. “I am just trying to make you go. I literally have no time to myself.”
“You have all day when I’m at work,” he says, still sounding wounded.
“But then Marilyn is around, and honestly it’s exhausting.”
“We’re just worried about you,” I say gently, touching her arm.
“I know, and God love you. But if you don’t go on this camping trip, I’m going to throw myself in front of a moving vehicle.”
“Mom—” Luke says.
“Obviously I can’t,” Mel says. “But I can get creative, if it comes down to it.”
I look at Luke and know we’ve lost; if Mel has her way, Luke and I are going camping.
14
THEN
“Since when did Mel get so manipulative?” I asked Luke, playing with a strand of his hair. We were in his car, his driver’s seat inclined all the way back, as I straddled him. It was the most . . . confined space we’d ever been in together, and every part of my body was aware of it. So, apparently, was Luke’s.
“Right?” he said, burying his face in the crook of my neck. “She thought if she told me to grab a box of doughnuts on my way into town—”
“And if she told me to get doughnuts on my way to visit her,” I continued, “she would get double the doughnuts. Except, surprise, we actually talk.”
“At least we’re making her wait an appropriate length of time before giving them to her,” he said.
“Yep,” I said, though the truth was that the amount of time we were spending parked in front of my driveway had very little to do with punishing Mel and way more to do with rewarding ourselves for not having seen each other for the past week. Technically, Luke’s being in town this weekend had more to do with seeing Mel after her stint in the hospital. He’d written his midterms and then driven down after his last class on Friday.
It was past eleven now, and his first stop had been to see me.
He raised his head from my neck now, his gaze intense, and I pressed my lips against his. The kiss started out tender and soft, but as the seconds passed, it grew more urgent. My hands dug through his hair as we kissed, our bodies pressed against each other, and his arms scalded the skin on my back and hips under my shirt.
I broke the kiss and breathed against his lips. “Have you ever . . .” My voice trailed off, but I knew he’d understand what I meant.
“No,” he said, chasing my mouth with his. “But I’ve done other stuff.”
I tried not to stiffen too obviously.
“With who?”
He stopped kissing me and looked up at me with heavy-lidded eyes. “Do you really want me to answer that?”
“It was that Meredith girl who used to be your lab partner, wasn’t it?” I asked.
“Jess,” Luke said, half sighing, but even in the dark, I could tell he was blushing.
Meredith was this petite, pixielike red-haired girl who used to come over to the Cohens’ house and work on “bio lab” at least once a week when Luke was a junior and Ro and I were sophomores. Sometimes Luke went over and worked at her house. She had perfectly clear skin, claimed never to have had braces, and called herself a “flexitarian.” She was also super nice, which was how I knew to be suspicious of her.
“Have you?” Luke asked now, making a trail of kisses down the side of my neck, past my collarbone, to the swell of my chest.
“You’re my first real boyfriend. Obviously not,” I said, still kind of put out over the Meredith thing.
“Nothing’s obvious when you look like you do.”
I was trying really hard to maintain a healthy level of annoyance—how dare Luke have done “other stuff” with a girl who wasn’t me! And a flexitarian, of all people!—but he was making it really hard.
“Stop,” I said.
“It’s true.”
“Well,” he said, kissing the part of my shoulder where my collarbone met my arm, “we’ll go slow and make everything count.”
I readjusted my body against his and heard his sharp intake of breath. “Slow?” I said. “Are you sure that’s what you want?” I was secretly delighted to have this much of an effect on him and even happier that his body was so quick to betray him. So I did it again.
“You’re a monster, you know that?” he said, leaning back against the headrest for a second, but he was grinning from ear to ear. “I’ll worry about . . . that. You, meanwhile, should have other concerns.”
“Like?” I asked.
He leaned forward like he was going to kiss my temple when I felt his tongue dip into the top fold of my ear.
I gasped.
His laugh sent tingles through my ear and the rest of my body. And then he did it again and again.
A few minutes later I settled back into the passenger seat. We decided to wait a few more minutes to cool down before driving to Mel’s house.
“I’d let you hold the doughnut box for cover,” I teased, but Luke said, “Mom’s tearing into those doughnuts the minute she sees them.”
“At least her appetite seems to be coming back,” I said.
We were both quiet for a moment, staring out through the windshield at my garage door.
“I guess I’m getting a little taste of what it’s been like for you, huh?” Luke said now, and I turned to look at him, confused. “Without your mom.”
“Oh,” I said. “It’s not the same . . . She’s still here.”
“I don’t know. It sucks when someone is here but not present. And honestly, your dad hasn’t been much better.”
An unexpected protectiveness came over me. “I think they’re trying,” I said.
Luke nodded, but I knew that he knew the truth. Nothing was changing with my mother or my family. Despite the brief moments when we almost connected, my parents remained as distant from me as they always had, and neither of them seemed to think it was a problem.
I thought he might start the car then and take us to Mel’s, but he asked another question. “What do you guys do in the shed? You and Ro.”
I glanced at him, surprised. It was pretty much the last question I’d imagined he’d ask.
I shrugged. “Talk.”
“Just talk?” he repeated, and I frowned.
“What kind of question is that?”
“I don’t know. Ro said
it’s like therapy or something, that he always feels better after he leaves.”
“I do, too,” I said. “It’s basically just finding a dark place with your best friend and telling them everything you can’t tell anyone else . . .
“That, and spiders,” I added with a smile. “And earwigs. And house centipedes. Possibly vermin. Also cockroaches.”
“You’re not making it sound too enticing,” Luke said, finally starting the car.
I grinned into the night. “It has its perks.”
For the rest of the drive to the Cohen house, we talked about the lake shindig Ro was planning for his birthday next weekend. Or I did. Luke wasn’t doing much talking.
Finally I said, “Are you planning to get here on the Friday or Saturday?”
Luke was hyperfocused on the road.
“Luke?”
“I don’t think I’m coming,” he said, and my mouth dropped open. “I’ve driven down here almost every weekend since school started, and it’s taking its toll.”
“I know,” I said. “And I hate you driving so much every weekend. But this is Ro’s birthday.”
“He won’t care if I’m there or not.”
“Are you kidding me? Of course he’ll care.” I couldn’t believe he was saying this. The three of us had celebrated every single birthday together since Ro and I were seven.
“What is with the two of you lately?” I asked.
Luke didn’t answer, his jaw tight as he faced the road. If Mel had been healthy, she would have kicked their butts. As it was, I was going to have to do it on her behalf.
NOW
Exactly nothing is going my way.
To start with, my mom has bounced back from her dip a couple of weeks ago and Mom 2.0 has returned in full force. A really good thing—except suddenly she’s refusing to let go of the idea of having Luke over for supper.
“Mom, it’s awkward,” I complain as I stuff a muffin in my face for breakfast on Friday morning. “Everything is still super new.”
“How is it new when you dated last year?”
I remember the night last fall, while Mom and I cleaned out the fridge, when I told her that Luke and I were dating. It’s still one of my favorite memories—just the two of us, talking boys and crushes over a glass of milk.
Some Other Now Page 19
