Liv, Forever

by Amy Talkington

  When he texted me, I was always busy, headed to class or the studio or my work-study job, where Gabe and I would enter ridiculous names into the growing database, both of us awkwardly trying to pretend that I didn’t know about his delusions.

  And Malcolm was busy, too—classes, meetings, sports, and whatever sorts of things it was an Astor had to do. There was little time for flirtation at Wickham Hall. The school practically seemed designed that way.

  Our only shared activity was the weekly morning Chapel. Once I bumped into him there, but he was being pulled in the opposite direction by his friends. And I was quick to tell him I was headed to the studio and would see him soon. I noticed his group—Abigail, Kent, and the others—always sat in the exact same spot near the front of the chapel, so I always sat in the back. This way, I managed to avoid Malcolm (without totally avoiding him) for a few weeks. I told myself I was playing hard-to-get like all the other girls seemed to do. But, as I watched the leaves turn from green to yellows and oranges as brilliant as Cezanne’s fruits, I couldn’t stop thinking about that spontaneous kiss he’d given me and wondering what exactly it had meant.

  At Chapel, I kept waiting for someone to come out and talk about God, until finally a girl in my art history class told me it wasn’t a religious thing. It was just an all-school meeting thing, and they only called it Chapel because it was in the chapel. Every week the headmaster came out and made various announcements, most of which were boring and braggy: Wickham Hall had won This Award, so-and-so alumnus had been appointed to That International Whatever. I was already in the habit of tuning him out and counting blazers in the pews or pieces of stained glass in the windows.

  But on this particular day—now early October but before summer had totally thrown in the towel—the headmaster went up to his podium. He silenced the room, took a good long dramatic beat with all eyes on him, uttered two words, and walked away.

  “Headmaster Holiday” is what he’d said.

  The normally reserved students jumped out of their seats, hooting, hollering, and high-fiving—behaving almost like normal high school kids. I remained seated. I didn’t know what Headmaster Holiday meant, but I was beginning to get an idea. I looked around and caught a glimpse of Gabe as he slipped out the door, alone as usual. I considered going after him. I wanted to help him, to befriend him, but he’d told me he saw ghosts. That kind of complicated things.

  Then I saw Malcolm walking up the aisle. Abigail hooked arms with him and started to drag him toward the door, but he broke away from her and gestured to his friends he’d see them later. Abigail pursed her lips. She had that look of poorly masked outrage. The others all sauntered out the big, pointed wooden doors, but she lingered and watched as Malcolm paused, looking around.

  I quickly realized he might be looking for me, and I busied myself. I stood up and clicked on my phone, as if it were utterly urgent to know what the weather forecast was. My stomach started to contract into a black hole. All of a sudden I realized I hadn’t been playing hard-to-get; I was nervous. Really, really massively nervous. What if he’d had a change of heart? What if he’d gotten back together with his girlfriend—he must have one, right?—and he was just coming over to tell me about her. What if it was Abigail? What if he’d been drunk or on drugs that night? What if he actually had liked me, but when he approached he realized I was not pretty after all? Or if, when we spoke, he realized I was not all that interesting? Or, worst of all, what if he’d realized I was untalented and he hated my art?

  In my peripheral vision, I could see him drawing closer—a blurry apparition in a polo shirt and blazer—but I kept looking down, eyes glued to my iPhone as if I didn’t have a clue he was there. Eventually he got so close, he could see the weather page.

  “What’s the high for today?”

  Busted. I wasn’t even looking at the numbers, so it took me a second to read the temperature and reply, “Sixty eight and not humid. For a change.”

  “Perfect,” he said. “I’ve been waiting for this day.”

  “Oh, have you? Why?”

  “Headmaster Holiday is an unexpected day off. Happens twice a year. No obligations—no homework, no practice, no pressure. A day when you couldn’t possibly say you were too busy.”

  I gave him a “don’t be so sure” look, but he just smiled, almost daring me to say it. I didn’t. So, he put out his hand. I hesitated.

  “Consider it a military mission,” he said sneakily. “Two spies in enemy territory. A covert action operation. Must proceed incognito.”

  I joined the game immediately, peering around with narrowed eyes. I noticed Abigail, still watching us. I raised my eyebrows, gesturing to Malcolm that a rival was nearby. We grabbed hands, slinked through the gabbing students, and slipped right out those big Gothic doors.

  As we hurried across campus, Malcolm let go of my hand and took out his iPod. He clicked it on and then handed it to me. A playlist called Liv, Forever was cued up.

  “I made it for you. Obviously.”

  “Hate to tell you, but I’m not going to,” I said, masterfully concealing my shock and delight.

  “Not going to what?”

  “Live forever.”

  “Your art will. That means you will, too.”

  “You really talk big.”

  “It’s your fault, Liv Bloom,” he smiled. “Your epic name brings it out in me.”

  We kept walking. We took a trail behind some dorms. I began to wonder where Malcolm was leading me. He wouldn’t say. We were alone. I heard Ms. Benson’s voice echoing in my head—those strange words of warning: Keep your eyes open and be safe. Don’t find yourself alone at night. But it was daytime. And I wasn’t alone.

  “So, are you gonna play it?”

  Oh, yeah. The iPod. “Yes,” I said as I glanced at the playlist. There was Nirvana, The Velvet Underground, Arcade Fire, Bon Iver, Fleet Foxes, Bright Eyes. Even The xx.

  “Not exactly what I expected.”

  “What did you expect?”

  “Something more like you, I guess.”

  “What am I?”

  “An Astor?” I said iffily, quoting him. “Whatever that means.”

  “Music is something I can control. It’s one place where I can do what I want. Listen to what I want. It’s invisible, so no one else can contain it.”

  “No one can control your thoughts, either,” I said.

  “That doesn’t stop them from trying. But you’re right. And they can’t control what I read or the art I like. I guess that’s why I’m so into all that stuff. They can make me do certain things, but they can’t make me who I am.”

  I nodded. I thought I understood, but I didn’t really. I didn’t know what it meant to be an Astor or what it felt like for someone to expect something from you. And who were “they” anyway? I really needed to Google “Astor.” A normal person would’ve done that already. But part of me wanted to learn who he was the old-fashioned way, and part of me didn’t want to know because I was pretty sure it’d scare me away.

  I unraveled the earphones. I took one earbud and handed him the other, then played the first song. So we walked along the path, shoulder to shoulder, listening to Bright Eyes’s “First Day of My Life.”

  Once again, I stepped out of myself. I flew up ahead on the path, stood on a perch, and looked back. It was the me I knew, wearing my favorite vintage red jacket. Nothing about me had changed except I was with a boy—a gorgeous boy, perhaps you could even call him a man—the kind you’d see in an Abercrombie and Fitch catalog. Or maybe J. Crew, if they were lucky. And he was playing me a song, a romantic song he’d picked out for me alone. A song I’d heard a hundred times before, but I’d never heard at all. And he was looking at me as if he liked me, like he really liked me. And it did feel like the first day of my life, or at least the first day of something big and new.

  “This is okay, right?” he asked, speaking over the music a little too loudly. “Just walking and listening?”

  “Yes, this is
perfect,” I said.

  And we walked along a sun-dappled path, comfortable like two people who’d known each other forever. If you’d shown me this image a few weeks ago, I wouldn’t have believed you. I’d never felt particularly comfortable with guys, especially not these kinds of guys. And these kinds of guys had never been particularly interested in me. It was like Michelangelo’s sculpture of the perfect male specimen David holding hands with a lanky, odd Giacometti figure. Not that I’m putting myself down—I like Giacometti, I really do—but I’m no Venus de Milo.

  And, joined like this, connected by two feet of cable, Malcolm took me on what he called “The Secret Agent Tour of Wickham Hall.” We heard The xx’s “Crystalised” as we tiptoed through the catacombs. Bon Iver’s “Towers” walked us down a secret staircase in the back of the chapel. The Velvet Underground’s “I’ll Be Your Mirror” sneaked us along the muddy banks of the school’s massive lake. Nirvana’s “Come As You Are” escorted us into the crew boathouse, and Arcade Fire’s “Awful Sound (Oh Eurydice) hummed as Malcolm paddled me across the lake in one of the sculls.

  We arrived at the edge of the campus, bordered by piney wilderness, during Fleet Foxes’s “Your Protector.” As if Malcolm had planned it, the landscape looked just like the video. I was visibly overtaken by the view. Think Turner—expansive and magical—with strokes and dabs of vivid fall colors.

  “It’s the Minerva Wickham Nature Preserve.”

  “You guys have everything here,” I said, unable to keep the awe from my voice.

  He nodded. “And you’re one of us now, by the way.”

  I smiled, a little uneasy. I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that yet. I looked out over the terrain. Lush and seemingly endless. And we walked right into it, serenaded by the Beatles’s “I’m Looking Through You.”

  IT WAS MID-AFTERNOON BY the time we arrived at the mountain. It wasn’t a mountain, really. That’s just what the Wickies called it. It was the top of a ridge overlooking the lake. Maybe fifteen feet above the water.

  We sat near the edge, leaning against a tree with our shoulders touching, and looked out.

  “Look familiar?”

  I scanned the horizon and realized out loud, “It’s the view from the painting in the tomb.”

  He nodded.

  “So, Edward Hopper sat right here. Took all this in.”

  “Pretty cool, huh?” he said.

  I giggled.

  “What?” he asked.

  “I just can’t believe you’re as big of an art dork as me. Not possible.”

  “Try me.”

  “Okay. What’s Guernica?”

  He sniffed. “Please, that’s insulting.”

  “Okay, what’s Saturn Devouring His Son?”

  “Goya. It’s intense. A father eating his own son. Goya painted it on the wall of his own house right before he died.”

  I giggled again. I couldn’t believe he knew all that.

  “It always reminded me of my dad,” he added, his tone a little serious. “But, come on, give me something hard,” he challenged before I could ask more about his dad.

  “What was Marcel Duchamp’s alter ego?”

  “Rrose Sélavy. With two Rs.”

  “And why?”

  “Phonetically, it says, ‘Eros, c’est la vie.’ Or ‘Love, that’s life.’ ”

  “Impressive,” I said, downplaying the fact I was dying inside. Brain exploding like a Pollock. Heart melting like one of Dalí’s clocks.

  I could see a lone boat in the distance, far, far out in the middle of the expansive, glassy lake.

  “You like paddling?” I asked.

  He smiled. “We call it rowing. And, yeah, I don’t mind it as much as some of the other stuff. It’s peaceful out there. The repetition calms my mind.”

  “Calms it from what?”

  “Thinking too much. Worrying about my future.”

  “Drawing does that for me sometimes.”

  We were silent for a moment, and I suddenly became hyperaware of the fact that we were touching. My shoulder and hip and thigh started to warm up, burning where we were connected. My eyes wandered, looking for anything to distract me from the fact that half my body was melting into lava, and I noticed a carving on a tree next to us: someone-plus-someone in a heart. I wondered if it meant this was the Wicky make-out spot. Maybe that was why Malcolm had brought me here.

  Then, as if on cue, he said, “There’s something I want to do.” My stomach knotted up immediately. I wasn’t a good maker-outer. And I didn’t know if I was ready for it because I still couldn’t really believe any of this was happening. But—he did not kiss me. He stood up, took my hand, and walked me to the edge of the cliff.

  “You swim, right?”

  “Yes, I swim,” I said, acting bent out of shape by the question.

  “Well, you never know. I’m not a very good swimmer, and I spend about half my life in a boat.”

  He stepped us right up to the edge of the cliff. I looked out.

  “Do you want to?” he asked.

  I nodded. “But wait.” I took off his iPod and put it on the ground at our feet. Then we jumped.

  I’d always been afraid of heights, but Malcolm was so sure, I forgot to waver or worry—or even wonder—before I jumped with him. We continued to hold hands as we fell. Or flew. It felt like we were flying more than falling. Like we were weightless, a single airborne object. It’s true that when you do something like that time slows down. I could see us from the distance, our jump forming an arched line down the landscape—a trickle of red paint dripping into the glassy water.

  Hitting the lake felt like a slap in the face, much colder than I expected. But when I surfaced, I was laughing. I couldn’t help it. It just happened. Malcolm started laughing along with me. He swam over to me and took my hand again. I shivered and shook out my hair. We swam to where the water was about four feet deep and stood in it, close to each other, both still wearing our shoes. Our clothes stuck to our shoulders and chests. My feet sunk into the soft sludge.

  “I knew you’d do that with me.”

  “That’s funny, because I didn’t.”

  “But you didn’t hesitate.”

  “It’s like you have this idea of me, and I become it,” I heard myself say. But I didn’t regret it. “I’m not the girl who gets up and dances in front of the entire school or jumps off cliffs.”

  “Yes, you are.”

  He was right. I suppose I was—or at least was starting to be.

  He reached up to my neck, touching my locket. “I like this.”

  “Thanks,” I said, looking down, opting not to tell him where it came from, why I never took it off.

  We stood there so close to each other. The water made us sway ever so slightly, as if we were dancing again. I felt he was going to kiss me, and I quickly swished onto my back in the water. There’s nothing I wanted to do more than kiss him, but it scared me that I wanted this person so much. This person I still hardly knew.

  He moved onto his back next to me. We floated and looked up at the sky. Looked up at the sky and floated. Until our fingers felt like “seersucker.”

  That’s what he said. I didn’t know what seersucker was.

  LATER, AFTER IT WAS dark and our clothes had dried and we’d shared a grilled cheese and black-and-white milkshake at the Tuck Shop (which, for the record, is the student snack bar), we headed toward our final stop on the tour. Old Homestead.

  As we approached the house through the cemetery, I felt uneasy. Malcolm insisted no one would be there. But I told him I’d rather wait in the cemetery while he went and checked. When he dashed off, I took out my small Moleskin notebook and looked around for inspiration. As I glanced over my shoulder, a girl was suddenly there. I stood up, startled. She looked oddly out of date, kind of fifties or sixties—like one of Warhol’s famous Jackie Os—sporting a jet-black bouffant, a smart suit, and skin that was almost as blue and pasty.

  “I didn’t see you there,” I said. />
  “But you see me now?” She seemed anxious.

  “You just surprised me.” I studied her face. I thought I’d become familiar with all of the faces on campus, but I did not recall this peculiar girl.

  “You see me? You do?!” She looked down at herself, touching her limbs excitedly as if she’d just grown them. Then I saw her wrists. Both had gashes. They were bleeding. I sucked in a breath.

  “Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not. I’m not at all okay.”

  “Should I get someone?”

  “Yes! We need to get someone! But not one of them,” she said, eyeing Old Homestead.

  I looked down, fumbling in my bag for my phone, and when I looked back up she was dashing away.

  “Hey, wait!” I rushed after her, weaving through the tombstones, but she vanished into the woods. I paused at the edge of the dark forest.

  “Hello!? Are you going to be okay?!” I yelled out after her. But no response. No girl. I immediately started to text campus security, as Mrs. Mulford had instructed us to do in the event of an emergency outside the dorm. I typed:

  wounded girl in cemetery ran into woods.

  “What are you doing way over there?” Malcolm said from behind, jolting me.

  I turned to him, rattled. “The strangest thing just happened. This girl was here—dressed all retro—acting really weird. And her wrists were all bloody, then she just ran away.”

  At first he looked confused but then he sighed, kind of annoyed. “Must’ve been a prank. It’s Headmaster Holiday. Wickies go nuts with pranks on this day.”

  I nodded. Of course. What else would they do with a day off? Looking down at the text, I realized how absurd it was. It obviously wasn’t real. I deleted it.

  “Ha. Ha. Very funny!” I shouted toward the forest, just in case she (or one of her conspirators) was still lurking nearby. “I bet it was Abigail,” I said, remembering the look on her face as Malcolm abandoned her earlier. “Or maybe even Gabe.” He didn’t seem like the pranking type, but maybe he was still mad and just trying to freak me out.