What Happens Now

by Jennifer Castle

  “I’ve got you. Try it now.”

  She took a few moments to psych herself up, and then she did try it. She went into the water clean.

  When she surfaced, Camden let out a “Woohoo!”

  “I did it!” Danielle screamed, then scrambled up the ladder. “Now I’m going to try it without you!”

  “Good,” said Camden, and with that, he dove into the water and swam quickly, almost sprinting, out to the raft. I watched him climb onto it and unfold in the sun. He reminded me of a cat that came up to you for petting, then ran away at the moment he seemed to be enjoying it most.

  Maybe I’d offended him. Or bored him. Oh, God. Boring would definitely be worse.

  I imagined diving in after him—yes, diving again—and swimming to the raft, too. Reaching for his arm and holding on tight as he helped me up. Sitting down next to him so we could continue our conversation, if that’s what it had been. Showing him how astonishingly un-boring I really was, and maybe even convincing myself.

  Then I heard splashing behind me and turned to see Max and Eliza rushing into the water from the beach. Squealing, because that’s how cold the water still was in late June, that’s the kind of pleasure-pain-pleasure dance you did with it.

  I watched them swim under the rope dividing the shallow end from the deep end, headed to the raft. Doing the exact thing I’d just envisioned, the distance between me and them growing wider with every kick they made.

  And in that moment I decided for sure to make that distance go away. It wasn’t going to be now, because it couldn’t, but it could be—would be—soon.

  “Come on,” I said to Dani. “If you do one more dive on your own from standing, I’ll buy you any treat you want from the snack shack and we won’t tell Mom.”

  6

  Kendall had finally learned to make the soft serve end in a perfect point. Last summer, they always flopped over no matter how hard she tried. Now, when she leaned down through the order window at Scoop-N-Putt and handed me my chocolate-vanilla swirl in a sugar cone, I didn’t even want to lick it, it was such a work of art.

  “I’m not done until nine,” she said.

  “That’s okay,” I said, sliding my money across the counter. “I’m just happy to hang. Mom’s at work and Richard told me to go out and do ‘teenage things.’”

  “It’s on me.” Kendall pushed the money back. “Take advantage of the perks.”

  I sat down at a picnic table with my copy of Silver Arrow: Velocity Matters spread open flat so nobody could see the cover. A moment to appreciate the fact that it was eight thirty, yet the sky was still light enough to read by. The beauty of ice cream that melted exactly as fast as I could lick it. The gnome over there at Hole 1, always with the broken fingers on one hand that made it look like he was flipping you off.

  Half an hour later, Kendall was done with her shift. She came out of the building wiping her hands on her shorts.

  “I’ve started dreaming about ice cream,” she said. “But not in a good way.”

  “Like, nightmares?”

  “Yeah. Like, The Blob.” She sat down next to me, but facing the other way, with her legs out. She pulled one knee to her chest in a stretch.

  “Do you have to go straight home?” I asked.

  “Not really, if I’m with you. What did you have in mind?”

  “Remember last summer when we weren’t allowed to drive at night yet, and we kept fantasizing about taking a ride somewhere after dark?”

  Kendall smiled knowingly. “Your car or mine?”

  “I’ve got Richard’s, with the moonroof.”

  Once we were driving west toward the mountains, our hair whipping and snapping, Kendall kicking off her shoes to press her blue toenails against the windshield, I turned the radio up. Night air, finally dark and thinning out, puffed through the car and we simply lived in it for a few minutes.

  This was an okay silence. It was the silence of knowing how to be with someone.

  “Tell me some gossip,” I finally said. “You must get premium dirt through this job.”

  “You don’t really care about that stuff, do you?”

  “But you do. This is me making an effort.”

  Kendall smiled mischievously. “Okay. Well. Chris Cucurullo’s brother got arrested for DUI. That’s the latest good one.”

  I hated Chris; he was a walking stereotype with his varsity jacket and excessive use of the word bro.

  “I have to admit that neither surprises nor upsets me.”

  “It makes you a little glad, right? I hear the brother’s a bigger douche bag than Chris. See, now you’re getting the whole point of gossip.”

  We laughed.

  “I talked to Camden yesterday.” That just came out. I hadn’t even been sure I wanted to tell her yet.

  “A conversation?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Not like, I’m sorry I’m in the men’s room and we accidentally urinated together?”

  “A real one. Several minutes long. He helped Dani learn to dive off the dock.”

  “So . . . what? You’re obsessed with him again?”

  I shrugged. I’d had a Camden Dream the night before. In it, we were sitting side by side, reading the same book. Who has lame-ass dreams like this?

  “You don’t know anything about that guy,” said Kendall.

  “I know enough.”

  “Oh, right. Dashwood and the pink church and his painter mom.”

  “Lavender. You said it was lavender, or turquoise.”

  Kendall closed her eyes and held them there. She seemed exasperated.

  “And his mom isn’t a painter,” I added. “She’s a fabric artist.”

  “He told you that?”

  “I Googled it.” We were quiet for a few moments. Not the good quiet, anymore. “I’m sensing disapproval coming from that side of the car.”

  “I’m remembering how much it hurt you last summer to see him with that girl, how pissed off at yourself you were for not doing anything when you had the chance. Or in your case, a whole shitload of chances.”

  That made me wince. “He’s not with that girl anymore. He may be with someone else, I have no idea. But I need to at least investigate further. I don’t want to have any regrets like last summer.”

  Kendall stared at me for a moment, then nodded and said, “Fair enough.”

  Suddenly a song by the Shins came on the radio, a song we both loved. It was one of those moments when radio karma finds you when you need it most. I turned up the volume and Kendall started tapping her feet against the windshield, making her hands dance to the chorus, and just like that we were rescued from the intensity of the conversation.

  “So where are we going?” I asked.

  “Let’s head up to the lookout.”

  We drove through town and into the cornfields, past the farm market and the orchard nobody liked, toward the place where the road dead-ended into another road that would take us up the mountain. One hairpin turn, and then we were there. A scenic overlook for the tourists that offered only a stone wall separating you from certain death down a vertical rock face.

  I parked and we got out, then sat on the wall. The lights of the valley below us, the geometric shapes of crop fields, and the vague suggestion of hills and an unseen river in the distance. It was home.

  “Want to share this with me?” Kendall asked as she pulled a beer out of her huge purse.

  “You know I don’t drink.”

  “Just checking, in case that’s changed.”

  I gave her a look. “Still on the same medication so no, that hasn’t changed. But that’s classy, carrying beer around with you.”

  Kendall shrugged. “This would be part of the ‘doing whatever the hell we want to’ program. That girl, Claire, from work? Her father has a craft brewery. She gives these to me as a thank-you for covering for her when she’s late for her shift.”

  She opened the bottle and took a sip, made a face, but then took another sip. Kendall had more freedom than anyone else
I knew—she was the youngest of four and the only one left living at home, so her parents were pretty much over it—she never seemed compelled to take advantage of this. Until now.

  I watched her, wondering how drinking a homemade beer was going to help bring her all the things she felt she’d been missing. Finally I asked, “Do you think it’ll be a good summer, Kendall?”

  “It might. But there’s so much pressure. I mean, what makes something a good summer, anyway? Is there a checklist of things we’re supposed to do?”

  “It didn’t used to be that way. We just had fun.”

  “Well, now we have other stuff.” Kendall paused, took another swig of beer, and then turned to me. “Although I was thinking about how we used to hang out on the raft at the lake and play Truth. We haven’t done that in a long time.”

  “Could that be because we’re not thirteen anymore?”

  “Aw, come on. You’re never too old for Truth.”

  “Who goes first?” I asked.

  “Me.”

  “Okay. Bring it on.”

  Kendall shifted on the wall and placed the bottle down beside her, took a deep breath, and then quickly pushed out the words. “When you sliced up your arm. You’ve always said you weren’t trying to kill yourself. Is that really, truly true?”

  Now that the question had been asked, she seemed to deflate with relief.

  “Yes,” I said. “Of course it is. All this time, you never believed me?”

  Kendall’s face took on extra shadow. In that shadow, I saw the things that kept changing between us, all the distances and differences we were constantly trying to bridge.

  “Can you blame me for not being so sure?” she asked faintly.

  I held out my left arm and pushed up the sleeve. “Look how high these cuts are. They’re nowhere near my wrists or even a main artery. You think my grasp of anatomy is that bad?”

  Kendall looked long and hungry-curious at the scars. I’d never invited her to examine them before.

  She swallowed hard. “So then, why?”

  I paused and looked up at the sky, which seemed full of extra stars. I couldn’t articulate it to myself, let alone Kendall. The pain, and the urge to punish myself for feeling it in the first place, and the need to let it out. The unbearable relief of watching my skin open up. Imagining the gashes were mouths that screamed Help into the silence.

  “All I can tell you,” I finally said, “is that at the time, I couldn’t not do it. Does that make some kind of sense?”

  Kendall thought about it for a moment, then nodded. “It actually does. But why . . . why . . . the other stuff . . . ?”

  “You mean, why was I depressed in the first place?”

  “Did something happen or . . .”

  She stopped, hoping I would finish the sentence and maybe it would be one shocking revelation that would explain it all. Here came the truth I’d only admitted to my therapist.

  “That was the hard part . . . ,” I began, forcing the words out quickly. “Nothing happened. There was no reason. I have a mom and a stepdad and a half sister who love me. I didn’t get hurt or traumatized. My biological father checking out on me was pretty bad, for sure, but that was so long ago.”

  I paused, and Kendall stared, and in the darkness I hoped she could see how tough this was for me.

  “But still,” I continued. “It came. Or maybe I should say, I think it’s always been there. I get now that it’s part of who I am.”

  A car pulled into the parking lot just then and we both glanced up to watch it. A young couple climbed out and perched themselves on the hood to light cigarettes.

  “Truth,” I finally said, smoothing my sleeve back down. I didn’t want Kendall to say anything; I wanted it to simply be out there, floating on its own, with no need for a response to make it more true. “So now it’s my turn?”

  “Yup,” said Kendall.

  I thought hard about which honesty I wanted, and realized I wanted honesty, period. The specifics didn’t matter.

  “Tell me something you haven’t told anyone else.”

  “Too vague. Don’t wimp out on me here.”

  I sensed she was inviting me closer, over some extra barrier I didn’t know was there.

  “Tell me something you’ve been afraid to tell me,” I said. The words felt risky and raw.

  Kendall smiled, like I’d asked the right question, then searched my face. For what, I wasn’t sure. Then she turned back to the view and finally said, “I’m spending the first semester of next year in Europe.”

  I laughed hard. But she gave me a look.

  “Oh,” I said. “You’re not kidding.”

  “It’s called the Movable School,” added Kendall. “It’s just for girls. We’re going to England, France, and Italy. I’ll get full course credit, but the classes aren’t traditional. Everything’s a hands-on experience. And I’ll get to write. I’ve already set up a blog where I’m going to post travel pieces and photos.”

  I examined her face. “You’re really not kidding.”

  She took a sip of beer, swallowed hard. “It’s been set for a while, but I didn’t know how to tell you. And I couldn’t tell anyone else before I told you. So now I’m telling you.”

  Kendall had never said anything about wanting to spend a semester away. In Europe. I wasn’t sure what was worse: the fact of her being gone, or that she’d kept all these plans to herself.

  “You know how hard school has been for me,” she said, wiping her mouth. Staring out at the lights scattered in front of us like ships in their own ocean. “This is my chance to save this whole four-year sentence and turn it into something meaningful.”

  “You’re going to have a blast,” I said. Which was true. We were still playing Truth, right?

  “You’re not upset?”

  “I’m excited for you.” Another truth.

  I asked Kendall more about the Movable School. How many students would be in the program, where exactly they were going, and all the other things I knew I was supposed to ask. Things I really, honestly, did want to know. (Truth.)

  She’d be leaving at the end of August.

  “Some seriously exciting stuff might happen to you with this,” I said in response to all the details. “New people, new experiences. You can even be a new you, if you want, because you won’t be here.”

  “That’s the idea,” she mused, staring off so far, it could have been halfway to London already. “Jealous?”

  “Green-eyed raging monster.”

  She nodded. We were quiet for a long time. Was this still the silence of knowing how to be with each other?

  “Truth,” said Kendall finally.

  “It’s a bitch,” I said.

  On the way back into town, I stopped to get gas. I couldn’t afford to fill up Richard’s car completely, but I thought half a tank would matter. Kendall waited in the car, air drumming to the radio as I operated the pump. My hand was starting to ache from squeezing the nozzle when I noticed two people rummaging in the dumpster nearby. One was so tall, he could just bend over at the waist and his head disappeared into the dumpster. He pulled out a big cardboard box.

  “Nice,” said the girl he was with, and this is when I realized these people were Max and Eliza. Eliza already had some stuff at her feet: Styrofoam, two or three boxes. A white vintage SUV sat nearby with the back open.

  When I was done with the pump, I leaned into Kendall’s window.

  “Those are Camden Armstrong’s friends over there. Should I go say hi?”

  “Duh,” she said.

  So I walked over. Max was now loading the boxes and Styrofoam into the back of the car. It was Eliza who saw me first.

  “Satina Galt!” she said.

  “Hi.”

  “We go to this gas station for dumpster hauls because nobody ever comes here. What’s your excuse?”

  “Joyride up to the overlook.”

  “Ah. Nice night for it.”

  “What’s the haul for?”

/>   “Arts and crafts,” she said. She was wearing a black skirt, a white T-shirt with the collar hacked off, and silver gladiator-style sandals. Her hair hung straight, partially in her face, and it seemed intentional. She stepped closer to look at me, at my standard-issue cutoff jean shorts and T-shirt, my purple boots. “Max tells me you’re hooking him up with some yarn. Does Camden know you have that capability?”

  She made it sound like I ran some kind of underworld knitting circle.

  “I don’t really know Camden. Just from the lake.”

  “Are you coming to his party?”

  I stared at her blankly.

  “You should come,” said Eliza. “It’s the first party he’s ever thrown. He’s worried nobody will show up.”

  I’d never been to a party at an unfamiliar house before. But, hell. If Kendall could go to Europe, I could go to a party full of Dashwood kids.

  “I’ll show up,” I heard myself saying.

  “Good! It’s on Saturday. Do you know where the barn is?” She said it like a proper noun. The Barn.

  “I thought he lived in a church.”

  Eliza shook her head and rolled her eyes, as if she’d heard this before. “Nope. It’s a barn.” She walked back to the truck and I heard a ripping noise. She came back with a trapezoid of cardboard and a highlighter pen, writing an address on it as she walked.

  “Here,” she said, pushing it at me. “Bring friends.”

  Max was getting in the SUV now so she climbed in on the passenger side. I felt hopelessly inarticulate around Eliza. I wanted to change that.

  “Why are you making a Bramscarf?” I found myself shouting up to her through the window.

  Eliza gave a crooked grin that somehow made her even more striking. “Saturday night. You’ll see.”

  They both waved as they drove by, and I waved back. When they were gone, Kendall, who had heard it all, stepped out of the car.

  “Did that happen?” she asked. I held up the cardboard as proof. “You’re going, right?”

  “If you’re coming with me.”

  Kendall whipped out her phone. “I’m lining up a shift switch for Saturday,” she said as she started typing on it. Then she paused and looked me right in the eye. “We’re going to have a lot of fun before I leave, Ari, and it’s going to start with this party. I can feel it.”