Just One Day jod-1

by Gayle Forman

  “Quite the bacchanal,” Melanie says approvingly, nodding to the guys in swim trunks holding bottles of tequila by the neck, the girls in sarongs with their hair freshly cornrowed. There are even actual Mexicans here, the guys smartly dressed in sheer white shirts, hair slicked back, and the girls in fancy party dresses, cut up to there, legs long and brown.

  “Dance first or drink first?”

  I don’t want to dance. So I say drink. We line up at the packed bar. Behind us is a group of French-speaking people, which makes me do a double take. There’s hardly anyone but Americans at our hotel, but of course people from everywhere come to Mexico.

  “Here.” Melanie shoves a drink into my hand. It’s in a hollowed-out piece of pineapple. I take a sniff. It smells like suntan lotion. It is sweet and warm and burns slightly going down. “Good girl.”

  I think of Ms. Foley. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Bad girl.”

  “I’m not that either.”

  She looks peeved. “Nothing girl.”

  We drink our drinks in silence, taking in the growing party. “Let’s dance,” Melanie says, yanking me toward the ring of sand that has been allocated as the dance floor.

  I shake my head. “Maybe later.”

  And there’s that sigh again. “Are you going to be like this all night?”

  “Like what?” I think of what she called me on the tour—adventure averse—and what she said at the pool. “So like me? I thought that’s what you loved about me.”

  “What is your problem? You’ve had a stick up your ass this whole trip! It’s not my fault your mom is Study-Hall Nazi.”

  “No, but it is your fault for making me feel like crap because I don’t want to dance. I hate techno. I have always hated techno, so you should know that, what with me being so reliably me.”

  “Fine. Why don’t you be reliably you and sit on the sidelines while I dance.”

  “Fine.”

  She leaves me on the perimeter of the circle and goes off and just starts dancing with random people. First she dances with some guy with dreadlocks and then turns and dances with a girl with super-short hair. She seems to be having a fine time out there, swirling, twirling, and it strikes me that if I didn’t already know her, she would no longer be someone I would know.

  I watch her for at least twenty minutes. In between the monotonous techno songs, she talks to other people, laughs. After a half hour, I’m getting a headache. I try to catch her eye, but I eventually give up and slip away.

  The party stretches all the way down the curve of the water—and into it—where a bunch of people are skinny-dipping in the moonlit sea. A little way’s farther down, it gets more mellow, with a bonfire and people around it playing guitar. I plant myself a few feet away from the bonfire, close enough to feel its heat and hear the crackle of wood. I dig my feet into the sand; the top layer is cool, but underneath it’s still warm from the day’s sunshine.

  Down the beach, the techno stops, and the reggae band takes the stage. The more mellow bump-bump-thump is nice. In the water, a girl starts dancing on a guy’s shoulder, pulls off her bikini top, and stands there, half naked like a moonshine mermaid, before diving in with a quiet splash. Behind me, the guys on guitars start up with “Stairway to Heaven.” It mingles strangely well with the reggae.

  I lie down in the sand and look up at the sky. From this vantage point, it’s like I have the beach all to myself. The band finishes a song, and the singer announces that it’s a half hour until the New Year. “New Year. Año nuevo. It’s a tabula rasa. Time to hacer borrón y cuenta nueva,” he chants. “One chance to wipe the board clean.”

  Can you really do that? Wipe the board clean? Would I even want to? Would I wipe all of last year away if I could?

  “Tabula rasa,” the singer repeats. “A new chance to start over. Start fresh, baby. Make amends. Make ch-ch-changes. To be who you want to be. Come the stroke of midnight, before you kiss your amor, save un beso para tí. Close your eyes, think of the year ahead. This is your chance. This can be the day it all changes.”

  Really? It’s a nice idea, but why January first? You might as well say April nineteenth is the day that everything changes. A day is a day is a day. It means nothing.

  “At the stroke of midnight, make your wish. Qué es tu deseo? For yourself. For the world.”

  It’s New Year’s. Not a birthday cake. And I’m not eight anymore. I don’t believe in wishes coming true. But if I did, what would I wish for? To undo that day? To see him again?

  Normally I have such willpower. Like a dieter resisting a cookie, I don’t even let myself go there. But for the briefest second, I do. I picture him right here, walking down the beach, hair reflecting in the flames, eyes dark and light and full of teasing, and of so many other things. And for a second, I almost see him.

  As I open myself to the fantasy, I wait for the accompanying clench of pain. But it doesn’t come. Instead my breath slows and something warms inside me. I abandon caution and all good sense and wrap myself in thoughts of him. My own hands circle around my chest, as if he were holding me. For one brief moment, everything feels right.

  “I thought I’d never find you!”

  I look up. Melanie is striding toward me. “I’ve been right here.”

  “I’ve been looking for you for the last half hour! Up and down the beach. I had no idea where you were.”

  “I was right here.”

  “I looked everywhere for you. The party’s getting totally out of control, like roofies-in-the-punch wild. Some girl just puked six inches from my feet, and guys are hitting on me with the worst pickup lines in the world. I’ve had my ass pinched more times than I can count, and one charming guy just asked me if I wanted a bite of his sandwich—and he wasn’t talking about food!” She shakes her head as if trying to dislodge the memory. “We’re supposed to have each other’s backs!”

  “I’m sorry. You were having fun, and I guess I just lost track of time.”

  “You lost track of time?”

  “I guess so. I’m really sorry you were worried. But I’m fine. Do you want to go back to the party?”

  “No! I’m over it. Let’s leave.”

  “We don’t have to.” I look toward the bonfire. The flames are dancing, making it hard to pull my gaze away. “I don’t mind staying.” For the first time in a long while, I am having an okay time, I’m okay being where I am.

  “Well, I do. I’ve spent the last half hour panicking, and now I’m sober, and I’m beyond over this place. It’s like a Telemundo frat party.”

  “Oh, okay. Let’s go then.”

  I follow her back to the shoe piles, where it takes ages for her to find her flip-flops, and then we get into our waiting taxi. By the time I think to look at the dashboard clock, it’s twenty past twelve. I don’t really believe what the singer said about midnight wishes, but now that I’ve missed mine, I feel like I should’ve tried before the window of opportunity closed.

  We ride home in silence, save for the cab driver softly singing to his radio. When we pull into the gates of the resort, Melanie hands him some bills, and for a minute, I get an idea.

  “Melanie. What if we hire this guy in a day or two and go off somewhere, away from the tourists?”

  “Why would we want to do that?”

  “I don’t know. To see what would happen if we tried something different. Excuse me, señor, how much would it be for us to hire you for a whole day?”

  “Lo siento. No hablo inglés.”

  Melanie rolls her eyes at me. “I guess you have to be satisfied with your one big adventure.”

  At first I think she means this party, but then I realize she means the ruins. Because I did actually manage to get our families to visit a different ruin. We went to Coba instead of Tulum. And just as I’d hoped, we stopped at a small village along the way, and for a moment there, I’d gotten excited, thinking this was it, I had actually escaped into the real Mexico. Okay, my whole family was in tow, but it was
a Mayan village. Except then Susan and my mom went crazy buying beaded jewelry, and the villagers came out and played drums for us, and we all were invited to dance in a circle and then there was even a traditional spiritual cleansing. But everyone was videoing everything, and after his cleansing, my dad “donated” ten dollars to a hat that was conspicuously put in front of us, and I realized that this was no different from being on the tour.

  The condo is quiet. The parents are all in bed, though as soon as the door closes Mom pops out of her bedroom. “You’re early,” she says.

  “I was tired,” Melanie lies. “Good night. Happy New Year.” She pads off toward our room, and Mom gives me a New Year’s kiss and goes back to hers.

  I’m nowhere near tired, so I sit out on the balcony and listen to the dwindling sounds of the hotel’s party. On the horizon, a lightning storm is brewing. I reach into my purse for my phone and, for the first time in months, open the photo album.

  His face is so beautiful, it makes my stomach twist. But he seems unreal, not someone I would ever know. But then I look at me, the me in the photo, and I hardly recognize her, either, and not just because the hair is different, but because she seems different. That’s not me. That’s Lulu. And she’s just as gone as he is.

  Tabula rasa. That’s what the reggae singer said. Maybe I can’t get my wish, but I can try to wipe the slate clean, try to get over this.

  I allow myself look at the picture of Willem and Lulu in Paris for a long minute.

  “Happy New Year,” I tell them.

  And then I erase them.

  Nineteen

  JANUARY

  College

  Two feet of snow fall in Boston while I’m in Mexico, and the temperature never rises above freezing, so when I get back two weeks later, campus looks like a depressing gray tundra. I arrive a few days before classes start, with excuses of getting prepped for the new semester, but really because I could not handle being at home, under the watchful eye of the warden, one day longer. It had been bad enough in Cancún, but home, without Melanie to distract me—she took off for New York City the day after we got back, before we got a chance to ever resolve the weirdness that had settled between us—it was unbearable.

  The Terrific Trio comes back from break full of stories and inside jokes. They spent New Year’s together at Kendra’s family’s Virginia Beach condo and went swimming in the snow, and now they are ordering themselves Polar Bear T-shirts. They’re nice enough, asking about my trip, but I find it hard to breathe with all that bonhomie, so I pile on my sweaters and parkas and trudge over to the U bookstore to pick up a new Mandarin workbook.

  I’m in the foreign languages section when my cell phone rings. I don’t even need to look at the caller ID. Mom has been calling at least twice a day since I got back.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “Allyson Healey.” The voice on the other end is high and winsome, the opposite of Mom.

  “Yes, this is Allyson.”

  “Oh, hello, Allyson. This is Gretchen Price from the guidance office.”

  I pause, breathing through the sickening feeling in my stomach. “Yes?”

  “I’m wondering if you might like to stop by my office. Say hello.”

  Now I feel like I’m going to throw up right on the stacks of Buon Giorno Italiano. “Did my mother call you?”

  “Your mother? I don’t think so.” I hear the sound of something knocking over. “Damn. Hang on.” There’s more shuffling and then she’s back on the line. “Look, I apologize for the last-minute notice, but that seems to be my MO these days. I’d love for you to come in before the term starts.”

  “Umm, the terms starts the day after tomorrow.”

  “So it does. How about today, then?”

  They are going to kick me out. I’ve blown it in one term. They know I’m not a Happy College Student. I don’t belong in the catalog. Or here. “Am I in some kind of trouble?”

  That tinkling laugh again. “Not with me. Why don’t you come by—hang on.” There’s more shuffling of paper. “How about four?”

  “You’re sure my mother didn’t call?”

  “Yes, Allyson, I’m quite sure. So four?”

  “What’s it about?”

  “Oh, just getting-to-know-you stuff. I’ll see you at four.”

  Gretchen Price’s office is in a crowded corner of the ivy-covered administration buildings. Stacks of books and papers and magazines are scattered everywhere, on the round table and chairs by the window, on the love seat, on her messy desk.

  She is on the phone when I’m ushered in, so I just stand there in the doorway. She gestures for me to come inside. “You must be Allyson. Just move a pile off the chair and take a seat. I’ll be with you in a second.”

  I move a dirty Raggedy Ann doll with one of the braids chopped off and a stack of folders from one of the chairs. Some of the folders have sticky notes on them: Yes. No. Maybe. Paperwork slips out of one. It’s a printout of a college application, like the one I sent in a year ago. I shove it back into the folder and put it on the next chair.

  Gretchen hangs up the phone. “So, Allyson, how’s it going?”

  “It’s going fine.” I glance at all the applications, all the comers who want a spot like mine. “Great in fact.”

  “Really?” She picks up a file, and I have the distinct impression my goose is cooked.

  “Yep,” I say with all the chipperness I can muster.

  “See, the thing is, I’ve been looking at your first-term grades.”

  I feel tears spring to my eyes. She lured me here under false pretenses. She said I wasn’t in trouble, it was just a getting-to-know-you session. And I didn’t fail. I just got Cs!

  She looks at my stricken face and motions for me to calm down with her hands. “Relax, Allyson,” she says in a soothing voice. “I’m not here to bust you. I just want to see if you need some help, and to offer it if that’s the case.”

  “It’s my first term. I was adjusting.” I’ve used this excuse so much I’ve almost come to believe it.

  She leans back in her chair. “You know, people tend think that college admissions is inherently unfair. That you can’t judge people from paper. But the thing is, paper can actually tell you an awful lot.” She takes a gulp from one of those coffee cups that kids paint. Hers is covered in smudgy pastel thumbprints. “Having never met you before, but judging just from what I’m seeing on paper, I suspect that you’re struggling a bit.”

  She’s not asking me if I’m struggling. She’s not asking why I’m struggling. She just knows. The tears come, and I let them. Relief is more powerful than shame.

  “Let me be clear,” Gretchen continues, sliding over a box of tissues. “I’m not concerned about your GPA. First-term slides are as common as the freshman fifteen. Oh, man, you should’ve seen my first-semester GPA.” She shakes her head and laughs. “Generally, struggling students here fall into two categories: Those getting used to the freedom, maybe spending a little too much time at the keg parties, not enough time in the library. They generally straighten out after a term or two.” She looks at me. “Are you pounding too many shots of Jägermeister, Allyson?”

  I shake my head, even though by the tone of her question, it seems like she already knows the answer.

  She nods. “So the other pattern is a bit more insidious. But it’s actually a predictor for dropouts. And that’s why I wanted to see you.”

  “You think I’m going to drop out?”

  She stares hard at me. “No. But looking at your records from high school and your first term, you fit a pattern.” She waves around a file, which obviously contains my whole academic history. “Students like you, young women, in particular, do extraordinarily well in high school. Look at your grades. Across the board, they’re excellent. AP, science classes, humanities classes, all As. Extremely high SAT scores. Then you get into college, which is supposedly why you’ve been working so hard, right?”

  I nod.

  “Well you get here, a
nd you crumple. You’d be surprised how many of my straight-A, straight-and-narrow students wind up dropping out.” She shakes her head in dismay. “I hate it when that happens. I help choose who goes here. It reflects badly on me if they crash and burn.”

  “Like a doctor losing a patient.”

  “Great analogy. See how smart you are?”

  I offer a rueful smile.

  “The thing is, Allyson, college is supposed to be . . .”

  “The best years of my life?”

  “I was going to say nourishing. An adventure. An exploration. I’m looking at you, and you don’t seem nourished. And I’m looking at your schedule. . . .” She peers at her computer screen. “Biology, chemistry. Physics. Mandarin. Labs. It’s very ambitious for your first year.”

  “I’m pre-med,” I say. “I have to take those classes.”

  She doesn’t say anything. She takes another gulp of coffee. Then she says. “Are those the classes you want to take?”

  I pause. Nobody has ever asked me that. When we got the course catalog in the mail, it was just assumed I’d tackle all the pre-med requirements. Mom knew just what I should take when. I’d looked at some electives, had mentioned that I thought pottery sounded cool, but I may as well have said I was planning on majoring in underwater basket weaving.

  “I don’t know what I want to take.”

  “Why don’t you take a look and see about switching things up a bit. Registration is still in flux, and I might be able to pull some strings.” She stops and pushes the catalog clear across the desk. “Even if you do wind up pre-med, you have four years to take these classes, and you have a lot of humanities requisites to get in too. You don’t need to jam everything together all at once. This isn’t medical school.”

  “What about my parents?”

  “What about your parents?”

  “I can’t let them down.”

  “Even if it means letting yourself down? Which I doubt they’d want for you.”