by Paula Garner
“Not that much.” More like not ever. “You?”
“I used to,” she said. “And then I stopped. But Jeff’s, like, super social. So I sometimes get dragged along.” She gazed into the water.
“Aren’t you getting tired of hanging on?” I asked.
“Huh?”
I gestured with my head to where she held the gutter. “To the side.”
She laughed. “I thought you meant Jeff.”
Yeah. That, too.
Meg made her way to the ladder while I climbed out the side and went to our chairs, moving them close to each other and turning them toward the sun. The day was bright, but cool enough that the hot sun felt like heaven. Meg scurried over, shivering. I felt bad that she was so cold, not that I could do anything about it. She pulled a huge towel out of her bag and wrapped it around herself. After she had dried off a little, she laid the towel down on the lounge chair and settled in next to me.
It was surreal: Meg actually there, with me, at the pool we spent so much time at when we were kids — sometimes with our moms and Mason, sometimes just us. We had possibly sat in these very lounge chairs at some point, on the same patch of concrete, near the same tables. And now, here we were, together again.
Meg turned to me. “Weird, huh?”
It was as if she read my thoughts. I nodded. “But, you know . . . good weird.”
She reached out and briefly put her hand on my arm, then pulled her sunglasses down and lay back. I leaned back, too, tingling with warmth from the sun, and from Meg’s touch.
“You need a ride home or what?”
I opened my eyes to find Dara standing in front of me, toweling off her hair so hard you’d think it would leave a bald spot. I had just been starting to feel a little woozy and dreamy. She was like a bucket of ice water over my head.
I glanced at Meg.
“I feel like staying awhile,” she said.
I shrugged at Dara. “Thanks, though.”
Dara leaned over me and gave my stomach a couple of loud smacks. “Don’t eat junk. See you tonight.” She swished off.
And then the guys left, too, but not before confirming that Meg was coming to the party. Twice.
It wasn’t long before Meg got up and returned with loaded hot dogs and strawberry éclair ice-cream bars — a lunch that was high in fat and even higher in subtext. We ate it all, soaking up the new summer sun and talking about anything except Dara. Or us. Or Mason. Or her parents. There were a lot of elephants in the room. And we were doing an admirable job of avoiding all of them.
And then it all went south. Above the boisterous din came a piercing scream from the kiddie pool. And then another.
Meg clapped her hands to her ears, her face going chalk-white.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, shifting to face her. Another series of screams sliced the air.
Two lifeguards jogged past, one saying to the other, “It’s that autistic kid. He screams when he gets overstimulated.”
I turned back to Meg, who was still clutching her ears. Beads of sweat bloomed on her forehead. As the screaming continued, she started snapping a rubber band on her wrist and mumbling to herself.
I leaned in toward her. “Meg?”
She jumped up, so I stood up too, but she took off for the bathroom.
The minutes ticked by as I waited for her, wondering what the hell had just happened. The screaming eventually stopped, but there was still no sign of Meg. At one point I walked over by the bathrooms, but, with no recourse, I just went back to our chairs and sat down. I was considering asking a girl to go check on her for me when she appeared.
“Meg? What happened?”
She shook her head, shoving her things into her bag. Her eyes were pink and swollen. She took a deep breath and held it before letting it out. Finally she said, “Could we just go to your house, maybe? We really need to talk.”
“Sure. I’ll call my dad for a ride.”
I was bombarded with warring emotions: Concern for Meg, who seemed like kind of a wreck. Joy at the prospect of spending the afternoon together. And terror at the threat that seemed to cling to the words “We really need to talk.”
MY DAD DROPPED US OFF AT HOME AND headed straight to Starbucks, of all places. He claimed he planned to work there on his laptop for a bit, but I was pretty sure he was either doing recon to figure out how they make fancy espresso drinks or just giving Meg and me some space. My mom apparently was doing lunch and a movie with someone from her support group.
As my dad pulled away, Meg paused in the driveway. Her eyes went to the magnolia, then to the blossoms in the grass, shriveled and browning, and then, finally, to her old house. Her lips moved as she plucked at that rubber band around her wrist.
I stepped closer. “You okay?” My hand hovered near her back, not yet able to make the leap to touching her.
“I don’t know yet.” She took a slow breath, exhaling through pursed lips, then followed me up to the front door. I pulled the house key out from under the doormat.
“You still keep that there?” Meg exclaimed. “That’s the first place a burglar would look!”
“Look at you, thinking like a criminal.”
“But I’m right!”
“I didn’t say you weren’t.”
Meg followed me inside, pausing to look around. I set my bag down quietly, watching her.
“Everything’s the same,” she said, her eyes scanning the living room to our right. She bit her thumbnail. “Except this.” She stepped into the living room and pointed to my most recent school photo, framed on the wall with the others. “And this.” The year before. “You always did photograph well.”
I gave her a say cheese smile, and she smiled back.
“And you never even wore braces,” she said.
“Nope. Want some iced tea?” I asked, going into the kitchen and opening the fridge.
“Sure.” She went to the cabinet and took down two glasses.
I smiled as I took out the tea. Meg may not have known north from south, but she knew exactly where the glasses were in our kitchen.
“What?” She tilted her head at me, noticing my expression.
I shrugged, then stared into the pitcher of tea. “It’s just . . . you remember where things are.”
“I know. It’s weird. It doesn’t feel like time has passed here. Popcorn.” She walked over to the cabinet over the stove and opened it. “Check. Cereal.” She opened the pantry door and pointed left. “Check.”
She closed the pantry door and turned back to me. “Otis.”
“Check,” I said softly.
Our eyes locked for a moment. She looked away first. I went to the counter and filled the glasses with ice from the dispenser in the freezer door. I was pouring the tea when Meg said, “Oh, shoot!”
When I turned to look, she had her dress strap pulled to the side, where a strip of pale skin revealed the crimson surrounding. She shook her head. “I thought I’d be fine since I already have a base tan, but I guess that was a lot of time in the midday sun.”
I winced and set down the pitcher. “Should you put something on it?”
She pressed her finger into her shoulder and let go. An oval glowed white, then flashed back to red. She frowned. “A cold compress might be good.”
I ran a kitchen towel under cold water and squeezed it out.
“Thanks,” she said, reaching for it. She dabbed it on her shoulders, drawing in air through her teeth.
“Your back is burned, too,” I told her. “Here.” I took the towel and hesitated. Her hair was in the way, but moving it seemed maybe like taking too many liberties. But she did it herself, sweeping it over her left shoulder. I gently laid the towel on her back. “Is that okay?” Touching her, even through a towel, made me a little shaky. The smell of her hair wafted up to me, fruity and flowery.
“I’m such an idiot,” she said, glancing back at me. “How come you didn’t burn?”
“I don’t really burn. I just tan.”
She made a face and mocked the words back at me, making me laugh.
“Hey,” she said, turning back around. “I’m sorry. About earlier. I . . . I didn’t mean to freak out like that.”
“It’s okay.” But I wished she’d explain. Why had that kid’s shrieking bothered her so much? Just when it felt like she was the exact same Meg, something like this came along to remind me that in some ways she was a stranger to me.
I handed her the towel back, and we took our iced tea downstairs to the family room and turned on a station that ran old TV shows. I excused myself to change into shorts and a fresh T-shirt, wishing I could shower but not wanting to leave her alone for that long. Instead I just slathered a thick layer of deodorant on and hoped for the best.
When I rejoined her, her phone rang, a meditative spa-like ring tone. She grabbed it and said apologetically, “I was waiting for this. Sorry. I’ll be right back.” She stood and ran up the stairs, waiting till she got there before she answered. It didn’t take a genius to figure out who it was.
I sat and sulked. After a few minutes, I decided to head up to the kitchen for some more iced tea — and maybe for some masochistic eavesdropping while I was at it.
“I’m at his house now,” she was saying, so quietly I could barely hear her. “I’m gonna talk to him soon. . . . I know, I know.” A deep, shuddering breath. “And he’s being so nice about everything.”
She said it like it was weird that I was being nice. Why wouldn’t I be nice? Was I not always nice? And I hated that Football Guy was in on whatever this talk was she wanted to have with me. Was she going to tell me that she’d never really liked me that way and that she could only move back if I promised to keep my distance?
Just then the central air clicked on, and I couldn’t hear her over the blowing. I closed the fridge and headed back down the stairs.
She came down a few minutes later and sat next to me, pulling the flower-patterned quilt off the arm of the couch. “I always loved this quilt,” she said, laying it over herself. “The crotch-et quilt.”
I laughed. “Shut up.” In fifth grade, reading aloud in class, I had the misfortune of coming across the word “crocheted” for the first time, which I pronounced crotch-et-ed. How was I supposed to know? Meg used to die laughing every time she remembered it.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. “Maybe we should take a nap.”
I blinked in confusion, unsure if she was serious. The words “we” and “nap” in the same sentence led to some hopeful and unlikely interpretations in my head.
She opened her eyes and gave me a tiny smile. “On separate sofas, I mean.” She yawned.
“Obviously,” I said, trying to get my heart rate back under control. “I’m sure Jeff wouldn’t appreciate even an innocent, platonic nap between friends.”
“Ha. Probably not.”
I couldn’t help myself. “Doesn’t he trust you?”
Her eyes flicked briefly to mine. Just when I thought she wasn’t going to respond, she said, “Why is she so stuck on you?”
“Huh?” Man, she could switch gears.
“I mean, don’t take that the wrong way; I totally get how a girl could get stuck on you. But Dara — it’s different. Obviously.”
I was still processing the line she’d tucked in the middle, about how she totally got how a girl could get stuck on me. I would have liked to plumb that compliment deeply.
“The Olympics.” I traced lines down the condensation on my glass of tea. “She’s trying to get me to the Olympics. That’s why she spends all her time training me. It’s her obsession.”
“The Olympics?” Meg said, eyes widening. She shifted to face me, leaning her back against the arm of the sofa. “Are you that good?”
I snorted. “No. But try telling her that.”
“Why does it matter so much to her?” She leaned toward the table to pick up her glass of tea.
So I told Meg the story of Dara.
When I got to the part about the shark attack, a look of recognition crossed her face. “Oh my God . . . I remember seeing stories about her on the Internet. That was when we were, what, like eleven?”
I nodded, setting my glass down on the table.
“She’s not from here, though, is she?” Meg asked.
“No, she lived in New York. She moved here after the accident.”
Meg raised her eyebrows. “Wow. I mean, I feel bad for her. But still . . . the way she treats you . . .”
Dara would find Meg’s disapproval deeply ironic, given her opinion of how Meg had treated me.
I picked up the remote from the sofa next to me and examined it. “Maybe I wouldn’t like the way Jeff treats you, either,” I said, as if it were an apples-to-apples comparison.
“He makes me laugh,” she said quietly. “I need that.”
Great. He was good-looking and funny. I hated him.
“Anyway, he’s my boyfriend. Dara’s not your girlfriend. Right? Just your, what, boss?”
I glanced up at the loaded remark. “Friend,” I said carefully, still fingering the remote. “Friend-slash-coach. I don’t know — it’s complicated.”
“So you keep saying.”
I shrugged.
“There must have been someone,” she said, watching me. “If not her.”
“What do you mean?”
She gave me a come on look. “You’re sixteen and a half. And look at you!” She looked pointedly at my body. “There must have been someone. All this time?” Her sunburned nose glowed red in the warm light of the lamp on the end table. She tipped her head to the side, waiting.
Was this the talk? Was she about to pull the rug out from under me? “So what if there was? What would it matter?”
“I don’t know,” she said quietly, picking fuzz off the quilt. After a moment, she scooted down and laid her head against the arm of the sofa, curling up on her side. Apparently she was actually going to nap?
I slid to the end of the sofa to give her more room, plucking a Hershey’s Kiss from the green glass candy dish my mom liked to keep on the end table — her grandmother’s. “For what it’s worth, no. There hasn’t been anybody.”
She turned her head to look at me. “How can that be?”
“Impossible standards, I guess.” I held the chocolate out to her. She lifted her head to see what it was, then backed away. “No. No, thank you.”
“What?” I unwrapped it and popped it in my mouth. “Since when do you turn down chocolate?”
“I don’t like it anymore.”
I stared at her as if she’d said she no longer breathed air. “Since when?”
She didn’t answer.
“That doesn’t even make sense, Meg,” I said, unwrapping another Kiss. When we were kids, chocolate was one of the four major food groups. “Who are you?”
I was sort of joking, but she apparently wasn’t in a humorous mood.
“I think I’m going to sleep now.” She laid her head back down.
“Seriously?”
Crickets.
I sat there for a few minutes, rolling the foil wrapper in my fingers and watching her. She radiated exhaustion. I got up and arranged the quilt over her. At the very least, I could continue to be “nice.”
I went upstairs and rummaged through the linen closet until I found the caddy of stuff we brought on vacations — mini shampoos, sunscreen, that kind of stuff. I found a travel-size bottle of aloe vera.
I went into my room, tidied up a little, and then messed around on the computer. My mom texted me: What are you two up to?
Transparent enough? I thought about texting back, We are having sexual intercourse, try back later, but I knew how well that would go over. I told her the truth: Meg was downstairs resting, and I was on the computer. She said she was on her way to meet my dad at the nursery to buy some flowering plants for the deck, and then they were going to bring home Thai food for dinner in an hour or two.
Dara had sent me three emails with links to pages about i
mproving breaststroke, subject lines: STUDY THIS!! She said nothing else, other than See you tonight. Don’t forget.
I lay down on my bed, wondering about the changes in Meg. Screaming freaked her out. She didn’t like chocolate anymore. Chocolate! I thought about how many jillions of s’mores we had eaten together over the years, all those summer barbecues . . .
I turned to my side and looked at the picture of Mason. My chest ached. That smile of his — it broke me wide open. Sometimes it could still surprise me, the fact of his being gone. I probably was in no position to judge my mom for how stuck in her grief she seemed to be. Maybe hers was just more visible. I generally made a point to show as little as possible. Of everything.
I must have fallen asleep, because I woke up, aware of a presence. I got up and found Meg hovering in the hallway outside Mason’s room.
“Hey,” I said, running my hands through my hair. When I came closer, I saw her eyes were wet. I marveled at how fragile she seemed to be now; when we were kids, she almost never cried. I was the big baby.
She gestured toward the room. “When . . . ?”
“Recently,” I said, stepping past her through the doorway and picking up a geode paperweight from the desk. I ran my finger along its sparkling, jagged interior. “We actually kept it exactly the same until a few weeks ago.”
“Oh my God. Really?”
I glanced up sharply at the alarm in her voice. I shouldn’t have told her that.
She put a hand to her chest. “This whole time?”
I shrugged. What could I say?
From the hallway she pointed to the picture of Mason and me, the one where I was reading him Goodnight Moon. She smiled, but her face was filled with pain.
I set the geode down and went over to her. I hesitated for a second, then put my arms around her, reminding myself that we were not strangers, we knew each other, dammit. She shook a little, her arms folded against herself, but after a moment she slid her arms around me and rested her head on my chest. Despite the fact that it was kind of an excruciating moment, it felt so good to hold her.
And it gave me an idea. I had no clue how it might work logistically, though, since I didn’t have my fucking license. Maybe Meg would borrow my mom’s bike . . .
