What Happens Now

by Jennifer Castle

  Kendall nodded and I spread my blanket out next to her. She watched James rather suspiciously as he went over to talk to Eliza and Max.

  “What’s the matter?” I asked.

  “I’m befuddled.”

  “How was it when he picked you up?”

  “Really boring,” she sighed. “He came in. He met my mom. We drove away.”

  “Did he open the car door for you first, or did he get in on his side, then do a lean-and-unlock?”

  Kendall’s shoulders slumped. “He leaned and unlocked.”

  “I wish you’d relax and stop trying to figure him out. You like him, you’re spending time with him. At the lake, no less! That should be enough for now. That’s plenty.”

  “That’s easy for you to say, newly crowned Queen of the Fangirls. You’ve got your king.”

  “Jamie told you about AlternateArt?”

  “Yes.” She snaked the sss.

  I opened my mouth to say what was destined to be another platitude, something from the repertoire of supportive-sounding but clinically empty best-friend-isms. But then Camden sat down next to me and wriggled out of his shirt. It was almost alarming to see him in a bathing suit now, his chest with the beads of sweat trailing down, his waist with the hint of fuzz in the middle. He hadn’t been shirtless that whole night at the Barn, yet here he was in all his uncharted territory. There went my kneecaps again.

  Then James and Eliza and Max joined us. A cooler bag was opened, tortilla chips and iced tea passed around. We talked about plans for the SuperCon: what costume tweaks had to happen, what panels we should attend, who was going to drive. Eliza told a hilarious story about a cat she’d been pet-sitting for.

  “I thought he had a piece of pink ribbon stuck to his back legs. So I tried to pick it off, but then realized the ribbon was not stuck to his back legs. It was coming out of his butt.”

  We offered a collective ew.

  “Did you pull it out?” asked Camden.

  “Uh-uh. You’re not supposed to ever do that. In case you pull its intestines out or something. No, I watched that litter box like a hawk for two days. Then . . . voilà. It was enough ribbon to wrap a present!”

  We all cracked up.

  “Please don’t ever give me that present,” said Max.

  Eliza laughed, then eyed him sharply. “See, Max. I laughed. Evidence of a sense of humor.”

  Max opened his mouth to say something, but it seemed like he couldn’t decide what it was going to be. On instinct, I jumped in and told a similar story about Danielle eating a penny when she was four years old.

  All of us here at the lake, being and sharing and enjoying. It was worth it, whatever consequences might happen as a result of me taking this day. I’d crossed over to something I didn’t know was there until it manifested.

  After the snacks were gone and the good stories told, we quieted down. It felt natural, part of the expected lazy rhythm of summer. In this lull, I stood up and took a step down the beach, then turned back to Camden and motioned toward the water. Suddenly I was traveling across the sand, not even feeling the jagged pebbles that I usually stepped over, knowing Camden was following me. I did a running dive and heard him do the same. The water. Finally warm, finally that ideal temperature that almost feels bittersweet on your skin because it lasts such a short time. When I came up for air, I scanned the beach, then realized I was looking for Danielle. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been here without her, where I didn’t have to worry about her safety. To set a good example.

  Now I swiveled around, looking for Camden. He was treading water a dozen feet away, waiting for me to notice him. He jerked his head toward the raft and I nodded back, then we started swimming.

  I thought fleetingly of that day when he taught Dani how to dive, when I’d watched Eliza and Max doing exactly what I was doing now. It felt like eons ago.

  Camden reached the raft first and when I climbed up, he was already sitting there casually, his knees drawn to his chest. I crawled to a spot across from him and folded my legs to my side. The sun was beginning to get intense and I could already feel the heat grow on my back.

  “Alone at last,” he said, searching my face. Maybe he’d had those hunger pangs, too.

  “Not really.”

  “Close enough.”

  He leaned in now and kissed me. Not quickly, not slowly. Just perfectly. I almost cried from the relief of it. We stayed connected for as long as we could, knowing there were surely people watching us.

  When Camden pulled away, he sighed, then stretched out on his stomach. His elbows bent, his head sideways on his hands facing me. I lay down on my left side using my arm as a pillow and we stared at each other.

  “Is this what you thought it would be?” he asked.

  “Yes,” I said simply.

  He closed his eyes and nodded, and that was all. I searched for the sound of his breathing amidst the splashes and voices and birds overhead, and when I found it, I had everything I needed in that moment.

  Take it, Ari. You deserve it.

  I took it. I tried to soak it into my pores, the perfection of right-this-second. But when Camden still didn’t speak after a few minutes, I poked his shoulder.

  “Are you asleep?” I asked.

  He smiled without opening his eyes. “Very much the opposite.”

  But he said no more, and after a few moments, all the uncertainties of my life—and his—started wandering in. I kept pushing them roughly away and they’d stagger right back.

  Finally I asked, “Have you talked to your mom lately?”

  “I talk to her every day,” he said flatly, then propped himself up on one elbow. “Ari, you are here without your sister. You have several hours without any obligations or responsibilities. Can’t you just be?”

  It stung for a moment, what he said, but when I looked at him I realized he didn’t mean it to. He was saying it because he cared. Because he wanted something for me.

  “I can be,” I said. “Hell, I can be the ass off anyone.”

  “Great,” said Camden, lying back down. He slithered his feet around my ankles and kept them there.

  Maybe it could be done. Maybe I could live both my lives. Or they could become one. I closed my eyes and felt the pressure of Camden’s feet against mine, matched my breathing to his. In the middle of this just being, the thought came and I couldn’t push this one away either.

  I’m in love with you.

  It was as easy and obvious as air. I let it fill me.

  I’m not sure how much time passed. It felt like a month, but was probably more along the lines of five minutes. Then I heard splashing and raised my head to see Kendall swimming toward the raft.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “You should come back to the beach.” There was something heavy and dark in her eyes.

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “Just come back,” she said, and swam away. Camden and I looked at each other, then at the beach. I couldn’t see anything except Eliza, Max, and James standing in a cluster.

  “Come on,” he said, clearly worried.

  We dove into the water and swam.

  I could hear Max’s raised voice as soon as my feet found the lake bottom. Kendall stood nearby, holding out my towel, which I grabbed and wrapped around me.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “Talk to Max,” she said, frowning.

  Max heard us and turned around. Then he came toward me holding up an object. When he was two steps away, I realized what it was: a set of acrylic paints in a fancy wooden box. We sold the same set in Millie’s. It was the highest quality paint we carried, with a big price tag to match.

  Oh.

  “I’m sorry,” said Max. “I found this in Eliza’s bag.”

  He offered the box and I responded on instinct, holding out my hand. He laid it on my palm, then we all looked at it, me and Max and James and Camden, like we expected it to do something.

  “She stole this from the store
?” I asked.

  “She’s saying she meant to pay for it when you came out of the back room, but then forgot.” He turned toward Eliza and didn’t bother to lower his voice. “Which, based on some things that have gone down in the past, I don’t believe.”

  I peered around Max to where Eliza sat on her blanket, her elbows resting on her knees, staring out at the lake.

  “That’s why she’s banned from the knitting store,” I said.

  “And a few others,” added Camden. “If it helps, it was always in the name of cosplay.”

  I looked at the box and wondered what Eliza had planned to do with it. “That doesn’t really help.”

  I walked past the boys to Eliza, unsure of what to say or do when I got there.

  “Hey,” I said.

  Now she finally looked up at me, right in the eye. Eliza never looked anywhere but right in someone’s eye, and I realized how much I respected her for that.

  “I really did mean to pay for it,” she said. “We were so excited that you could come with us, we were amped to get on our way and I totally spaced.”

  “I’m sure,” I said. What I didn’t say was, Then why was it already in your bag?

  What she didn’t say was, I’m sorry.

  “I’ll bring it back to the store, then you can come in and buy it later.”

  Eliza frowned. “Can’t I just give you money the next time I come in?”

  “We don’t really let people do that.” It was simply a fact I was stating, but I knew to her it meant much more. I was lumping her in with the general, ordinary public.

  She sighed and waved her hand. “Keep it, then. Take it back. I don’t need the paints right away, or I can get them somewhere else.”

  Why did it feel like I was letting her down? That I hadn’t fulfilled some kind of obligation?

  I turned away and put the box in my own bag, then casually zipped it shut. Kendall and James met my glance, and it was clear they weren’t buying Eliza’s story, either.

  What had happened here? Five minutes ago the day had been storybook. Movie montage. I’d rejected my own tendencies and embraced it. But things had exploded anyway.

  “Be right back,” I said, swallowing something that was rising in my throat, then walked toward the restroom building. Privacy dark alone quiet. I’d just grabbed the handle of the women’s room when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “You sure you’ve got the right door?” asked Camden.

  I let out a laugh, realizing I hadn’t been breathing properly since coming out of the water. The end of it shook down into a sob. I leaned into him and put my head on his chest, and he put one hand tentatively on my back.

  “This is where we first met,” he said softly after a few seconds. “I’ll always associate the smell of toilet cleaner with that.”

  I laughed again, wiped my eyes. Leaned in harder.

  “That was a really crappy thing for her to do,” I said. “I’m not sure how to feel about it.”

  His chest inflated, then deflated, in a long sigh. It was like riding a wave.

  “Eliza has her own stuff,” murmured Camden. “She hasn’t had it easy, either. I don’t think she meant to hurt you or make you feel taken advantage of. She just gets tunnel vision sometimes.”

  I drew back to examine his face. “Are you defending her?”

  “No. I’m giving you context.”

  “Because she’s your ex-girlfriend. This could be seen as dangerous territory.”

  “Thanks for the map.” He dropped his hand off me.

  I stepped away from him. “I’m going to pee now.”

  As I moved toward the door, he grabbed my wrist. “Ari,” he said.

  “What?”

  “Don’t be mad.”

  “I’m not. But I need to know you’re on my side. If, you know, this ends up being a thing with sides.”

  Camden looked uncomfortable, like he’d never been asked to make this kind of choice for anyone.

  “Always,” he said, swallowing hard.

  I nodded. I tugged my wrist free. He let it go. I wasn’t sure which happened first.

  From the moment I came out of the restroom, it was like we were three pairs of strangers at the lake who just happened to put their blankets near one another.

  Kendall and James went swimming together, and I watched them sit on the edge of the dock. Their heads close, their mouths moving. From that distance, it looked like James could have been desperately in love with Kendall or completely ambivalent toward her. But Kendall’s body language was large enough to be read from where I sat. She wanted everything he had to offer, and probably a lot of things he didn’t.

  Eliza and Max went for a walk to the creek. I didn’t know who had suggested it, only that they were gone when I returned, and that I was glad they were gone. Also, that I felt sad to be glad.

  Camden and I lay on our backs, our heads touching, him reading my borrowed copy of Time Enough and me reading Planet Jasmine. Every once in a while, one of us made a joke about what was happening in our story.

  “Uh-oh, Marr,” I’d say. “Keep it in your pants.”

  In this way, the reality we shared right then was the one that mattered, the Silver Arrow reality we knew would have a happy ending even if it took us a while to get there.

  Eventually, it was time for me to leave so I could pick up Danielle.

  Kendall was out on the raft with James, so Camden walked me to my car, hobbling in his bare feet over the hot pavement of the parking lot. We kissed good-bye briefly, only halfway on the lips.

  “Do you regret letting us steal you?” he asked as he opened my door for me.

  “Never,” I said.

  But it wasn’t until I was driving away from the lake that I realized I’d actually meant it.

  17

  “Why are we going to Millie’s?” asked Dani from the backseat, twirling a pink-and-yellow lanyard she’d made that day.

  “Don’t you want to see Daddy? He’ll let you pick out some stickers.”

  We rarely brought Dani to the store. All she wanted was to take stuff home. But I needed to get the paint set back on the shelf before closing time.

  “Hey!” said Richard when we walked in. “What a surprise!”

  He came around the counter and scooped up Dani. I looked at the pile of receipts and noticed there were more than usual. It must have gotten busy after I left.

  “She wanted to come see you,” I said.

  “No, I didn’t,” said Dani.

  “Well, it seemed like she did. And I think I left my book here.”

  Richard nodded, more preoccupied with the lanyard Dani was shoving in his face.

  “I made it all by myself!” she said. “With my counselor! And a C.I.T.! It’s for Mommy on her first day of work.”

  “She’ll love it,” said Richard. “Want some stickers? I got new ones.”

  He put her down in front of the sticker rolls and put his head close to hers, showing her the options.

  I took this moment to step into the paint aisle and dig the set out of my bag, stick it back into the empty space on the shelf like it was the final piece of a puzzle. I wished I wasn’t so good at arranging the displays. Richard would have noticed it was missing when he was doing his end-of-the-day rounds.

  I took a deep breath and turned away from the paints. Dani was watching me over her shoulder as Richard was putting some sticker sheets into a paper bag for her.

  Here I was, right back on the track of the day. Back in the store, tasked with a few hours to keep Dani entertained. It was easy to feel like the hours at the lake, the messy intensity of it, had all been a dream I’d come up with while stuck at the counter, waiting for the front door to ding open.

  Mom had said she’d be home at six thirty but it was past seven with no sign of her. Richard and I sat at the table, watching our tortellini get cold. Dani had already eaten and retreated to her room.

  “This isn’t going to work,” I said. He knew I meant trying to ea
t together as a family.

  “Traffic,” was all he could respond, then took a forkful of pasta. “It’s ridiculous for us to wait. I’m digging in.”

  “Maybe from now on Dani and I should eat together, then you can wait and eat with Mom.”

  Richard raised his eyebrows. “I can eat with Mom?”

  “Why, don’t you want to eat dinner with your wife?”

  He speared another tortellini, not meeting my glance. “Of course I do. I don’t know what I meant by that.”

  I started eating, too. After a minute or two of silence, I finally paused and said, “Thanks for today.”

  Richard smiled. “I’d say anytime, but I can’t, really.”

  “I know.”

  “I’m glad you had fun.”

  I hadn’t said I’d had fun. But why wouldn’t he assume that? Who wouldn’t have fun on a perfect summer day with a boy she’s just realized she’s in love with? That would be me.

  “I know the store got busy,” I said. “I hope you were okay.”

  He shrugged. “It’s good that it got busy.”

  We finished our pasta and I stood up, took Richard’s bowl to the sink for him.

  “Let me know when it’s time to kiss Dani good night,” I said, then went to my room. That was when I heard Mom’s car drive up. I shut the door and put on earphones so I could listen to music instead of what happened next.

  Later, there was a knock, and Mom poked her head in.

  “Hi,” she said.

  I took the earphones out. “How was your first day?”

  She came all the way into the room and leaned against my doorframe.

  “Hard. But good. Really good. I’m going to like it there.”

  “Are you mad about dinner?”

  She sighed. “No. I just didn’t expect that particular plan to fall apart so quickly.”

  “Did you still get a chance to read to Dani?”

  Mom nodded. “She wants you to go in and kiss her good night.”

  I started to get up, but then Mom held up her hand. “Wait a minute. Richard’s in there with her now, and I need to talk to you about something.”

  She closed the door, and I burned with a feeling of betrayal. Richard had told her. Richard had told her!