A Postcard Would Be Nice

by Steph Campbell

  “You still playing?” Ryan asks, tipping his head in the direction of my bass.

  I shrug. “Just dicking around on it, really. Hey, man, how was the show?” The old Oliver Wu would feel guilty that he’d bailed on the band when they’d needed him. But I don’t.

  “Was okay,” he says. He keeps his eyes trained on my guitar, though. “Money was good. Prom was lame.”

  I chuckle. “I figured it might be.”

  “So, bro,” he says. I raise my eyebrows when he says the word, ‘bro.’ “Heard you got called up to Ms. Cameron’s office a couple days ago?”

  My vision goes a little dark around the edges. Heat rushes to my face.

  “Yep,” is all I offer.

  “Listen, Ol, I heard something. Well, we all heard something.” Ryan rubs his hand across his cheek and purses his lips, looking contemplative, like he’s trying to decide if he has the stones to continue this talk. “People are talking.”

  “Yeah?” I feel my pulse spike. My heart is beating so hard I can feel the lub dub vibrating in my ears.

  “Is it true?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Topher. He heard from some kids at lacrosse that you didn’t … that the thing with Tarryn. That you didn’t … that you didn’t screw her by choice.”

  It’s ugly. The night was ugly, the words are ugly, the truth—any way you say it, but especially the specific way Ryan chooses to—it’s just fucking ugly.

  “Are we really talking about this?”

  Mom has the air cranked down low like usual, but I’m sweating like I’ve played an entire set under the stage lights without a break.

  “You’re my best friend, Ol—”

  “Am I?” I scoff.

  “I know I was a prick, but man, you violated some heavy code. We were all just so confused, felt like we didn’t know you anymore.”

  “Your code,” I say. I shake my head. “I don’t think it’s mine anymore.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” he asks.

  “It doesn’t matter.” What I mean is, it doesn’t matter because it’s not his business anymore.

  Ryan rubs the side of his face, then his ear, and it makes me think of the first time we went to a show together.

  We were twelve-year-old twerps who’d had no business seeing a Minor Threat cover band, but we’d had his cousin buy us the tickets and had rode our skateboards there. We’d wormed our way up to the front of the mosh pit and had figured out really quickly that we weren’t ready for it, but neither one of us had wanted to admit to the other that we wanted to leave.

  A floater had come over us, and our gangly arms weren’t strong enough to support him so the guy had panicked and kicked around a little with his steel-toed boots. Ryan had taken a boot to the side of his head, splitting the top of his ear open. We’d been sore and bruised in places our scrawny, pre-teen bodies didn’t know existed by the time we’d left, but based on the amount of Ryan’s blood that we’d both been covered in, we’d earned ourselves a little punk rock cred that night.

  “And it’s true,” I say.

  I don’t know why. It took me weeks to explain all of this to Paloma, someone I care about, who cares about me. Why am I sitting in my own room explaining myself to someone who probably doesn’t even give a shit about me anymore?

  His complete silence pisses me off. “Hey, I didn’t just tell you that I’m a unicorn. Or I’ve got six nipples. Or that you’ve actually been best friends with my twin brother all these years. I was…”

  “What?”

  “I think … I think what they’re saying is true.”

  “You think? How is that even possible, man? I mean, come on, Tarryn? What’d she do, hold you down?”

  “I don’t remember what happened,” I say.

  “But dude. Sex? You have to participate in that.”

  “Do I?” I can’t be sure.

  “Don’t you?” Neither can Ryan.

  “I don’t know is what I’m telling you. I don’t remember.”

  “But if you … you know … you had to sort of want it. You had to somehow—”

  “Be asking for it?”

  “That’s not what I said. Or what I mean. Fuck, Oliver. I just mean, you’re a dude—”

  “You ever woke up with morning wood?” I ask. Ryan recoils a little, but gives half a nod. “You ever get a half-chub when Mrs. Glazer brushes by you, while she’s collecting papers, even though she sort of looks like your Aunt Lucy?”

  “Fuck off,” Ryan bites back.

  “I’m being serious. I don’t know what happened exactly. But I know I had sex. And I know I didn’t want to.”

  I sort of expected that saying the words out loud this way would bring some sort of relief, some weight would be lifted, but somehow, it only feels like its own brand of defeat.

  Ryan slumps back down onto my desk chair and stares at his hands. “I don’t know what to say, man.”

  That’s the thing about the truth. Sometimes it takes away everything—even your ability to speak. But I found my voice again, at least when it mattered.

  I pick my phone back up.

  “Listen, I’ve got something to take care of,” I say to Ryan.

  (Written while packing) (undelivered)

  44.

  Paloma hovers in my doorway, watching me play a couple of chords, and then as I jot down a few notes. I know she’s there, but I’m nervous about looking up. About doing this. Whatever it is.

  Finally, I look up from the paper that I’m holding to my thigh with one hand and catch her eye.

  “Hey,” I say. I lean my guitar against the edge of my desk and smile. “I was wondering if you were gonna show.”

  She takes a small, timid step into my room like she isn’t sure she belongs.

  “Sorry,” she says. “Train was late.”

  I stand up and wipe my hands down the front of my jeans. “I told you I could’ve come to you.”

  “No, this is good.”

  “Your graduation is tomorrow night, right?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Cool,” Paloma says. “Mine’s not ‘til Thursday night.”

  I take a couple steps toward her and touch her fingertips, but stop before I hold her hand. “Maybe we could hang out afterward? Like, to celebrate?” I want her to come over for dinner and cake afterward, like when she came for my mom’s birthday. I want to have another night like that when there was nothing but being happy. Together.

  “That’s what I wanted to talk about.”

  My smile twitches downward, but I fight to bring it back up.

  “Okay,” I say. I slump back down onto my chair, because Oliver Wu is a ton of things, but slow isn’t one of them.

  “I got my plane tickets,” she blurts out. “I’m going to Italy.”

  “Wow, you’re really doing it? That’s awesome.” I stare down at my hands, and we both know what I’m thinking.

  “I leave next week.” She answers the question before I can even ask it.

  “That’s great,” I say, head still down. When I finally glance up, the eye contact feels too intense. “That’s really soon.”

  “It is,” she says. “I think it’ll be good to get away, though.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yes, for sure. School is out, and I couldn’t get on as a lifeguard this summer. Too many applicants, you know?”

  I nod, but I don’t really understand. I don’t get why things had to work out this way, why they had to be so screwed up before they even got started.

  “So, there’s not, like, anything really keeping me here,” she says. And those words sort of break my heart.

  “Oh,” I say. The air leaves the room. It’s just Paloma and me, staring at each other, and everything that maybe could have been if it weren’t for that party. The party that finally brought us together and somehow managed to tear us apart.

  “What are your plans this summer?”

  “What is this, Palom
a?” I stand and shove my hands deep into my pockets to keep them from shaking.

  “I just don’t know if I can do this.”

  I step in closer. “Do what, exactly?”

  “Do any of it. I mean, the night of prom, that was—”

  The absolute best night of my life.

  “It was good. Just let it be good.”

  “I can’t. I can’t do any of this. With you. Not right now.”

  “Don’t,” I say.

  “I need some time to process it all, you know? I think the distance will be good.”

  “Distance from me?” I ask.

  “From everything, really.”

  “So, we just graduate, and then go our separate ways? Pretend we never met?”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that, Oliver.”

  “How’s it gonna be then, Paloma? I thought … I thought things were good, you shouldn’t—fuck!” I comb my hand through my long hair. “I shouldn’t have told you. I knew this would happen.”

  “You should have told me. I just need some time. I think we both do.”

  She’s blinking over and over, like she wants to look away, to break eye contact. But I won’t let her go. I just stare back at her.

  “I guess people are never in the same place at the same time,” I say.

  “I guess you’re right.”

  45.

  I adjust the tassel on my cap and try to remember which side they told us it should be on at the assembly the other day.

  It’s strange knowing that, after today, I’ll have achieved my goal.

  Graduating high school, yeah, but the bigger goal for this year: to make it through without crumbling.

  I did it.

  A lot of it was because of Paloma and her laugh echoing in my ear and her smile in line at the coat check. And some of it was because of Colm, whose racist jokes and pretend irritation with me can’t hide the fact that he’s one of the most loyal, generous people I know.

  But most of it was because I’m Oliver Wu.

  And I can handle this.

  I can handle bad shit happening, and I can do it without bringing anyone I care about down with me.

  I close my eyes for a second and think of the letter I wrote after Ryan came by the other day. An anonymous tip to the dean of Mater Dei. I drove over and slid it through the mail slot of the main office door myself.

  I don’t know if anything will come of it. I don’t know if Martin’s family will bail him out if it does. But I did the only thing I knew how to do, and it felt pretty damn good doing it.

  “You all set, Ollie?” Mom asks as she peers inside my open bedroom door.

  “I’m good,” I say.

  And, this time, even though I don’t have the girl, I try my hardest to mean it. Because all I wanted to do was leave Tarryn, the band, the rumors, school—everything—behind.

  But that plan was flawed from the beginning. Because leaving everything, means leaving Paloma.

  It had to go one way or the other. Maybe Paloma was right, that the distance will be what’s best for both of us. Maybe people are never in the same place at the same time.

  Or maybe Paloma was wrong.

  Maybe all that matters is that we want to be in the same place at some point, and that’s the goal—to connect where and when we can. Maybe we achieve that goal by losing the secrets that don’t keep us sane at all.

  Maybe it’s possible that one day Paloma and I will find our time and our place—where there are no more secrets between us.

  46.

  I hear the knock and pull open the front door, but don’t even allow myself the chance to register any hope that it might be Paloma.

  But it is.

  “I didn’t think I’d see you again,” I say. I can’t help but wonder if the dean got my letter. If Martin was hauled away at his own graduation. If he was humiliated like I was. I shake my head to clear the thoughts. I need to let it go.

  “I’m on my way to the airport.” Paloma looks over her shoulder at the car that’s parked near the curb. “Do you think I could come in for a minute?”

  I pull the door open and nod.

  “It’s quiet,” Paloma says.

  “My dad’s at work. Mom took Kevin to a Zelda symphony.”

  Paloma raises an eyebrow and cracks a smile I don’t expect. “That’s a thing?”

  “Apparently,” I say, closing the door behind us. “You thirsty or anything?”

  “No, thank you. I don’t want to be any trouble.”

  “There’s still coffee in the pot.” I nod toward the kitchen. “It’s no trouble. It’s just coffee.”

  “No. It’s not,” she says, all the polite small talk finally giving way to something real. “And you know it. What I meant was, that I didn’t mean to come into your life and cause any trouble, Oliver.”

  I stare up at the ceiling, unsure what to say, or why she’s even here, and ask, “So, you’re all set?”

  Instead of answering the question, Paloma says, “I’m sorry, Oliver.”

  I lean into the railing of our stairs. “You’ve said that one hundred times, and I’ve told you over and over that I don’t want you to think that this is your fault. You have nothing to be sorry for. Please.”

  “No, I know. But I still needed to come by one more time. Just to let you know that I am sorry.”

  “Okay, so what are you apologizing for now?”

  “I mean, I believe you that you don’t actually think it was my fault.” Paloma adjusts the strap of her purse on her shoulder, and I imagine her in Italy with her sketchbook under her arm and not in line at the museum. Not ever again. Not after today.

  “I talked to Martin.” Her mouth goes tight, and she shakes her head.

  “Has he been bothering you?” I ask, pissed, because I hate she’d ever dated that asshole. Pissed because of what he’d tried to do to her. Pissed that it had wound up unraveling my life instead.

  “Nope.” She glances to the side. “The night … our prom? When you told me you only needed to tell me, and then you could move on?”

  I nod.

  “I thought I needed to confront him, have some big showdown. But I was wrong.”

  I wonder if she knows that I’d contemplated the same thing. That I’d acted on it in my own way, too.

  “What Tarryn did to you … what Martin tried to do to me…” She exhales a long, shaky breath.

  “I know,” I tell her. Even though I don’t. Even though I sometimes think I should do more than what I did. That maybe I should report what happened to the cops, or see a therapist or something. Maybe I will someday. Right now it’s too much to untangle, and I’m just glad I’ve been able to move on as much as I have. At least I know that I have people in my corner who will help me with whatever steps I need to take, whenever I’m ready to take them.

  “Before I go,” Paloma says. She squares her shoulders, and then continues, “I wanted to say that I’m sorry that it happened to you, because I don’t think you’ve had anyone tell you that, Oliver. And it needs to be said.”

  It seems so damn obvious, but there’s an instant click in me, and I say the only words that make any sense, even though they’re not enough. Not by a long shot.

  “Thank you.”

  She reaches into her back pocket and says, “I want you to hang on to this, though.”

  Paloma hands it to me, and I glance down at the postcard. The glossy front corners are separating from the thick paper backing. It’s nearly full. Starting with that first note I wrote to her, while I stood on her porch.

  “There’s barely any room left.” I say.

  She shrugs her delicate shoulder and the thin T-shirt she’s wearing slips down off it.

  “There was hardly any room for anything to begin with.”

  Don’t say that.

  “Are you nervous?” I ask.

  “A little,” she says. She bites down on her lip. It’s her tell. Then adds, “Okay, yeah, a lot.”

  “Don’t be,”
I say. I bump my shoulder lightly into hers the way we’ve done dozens of times. “You’re going to have an amazing time.”

  “I know,” she says, smoothing down the front of her pale purple skirt. “I’m going to miss you, Oliver.”

  I try to say that I’ll miss her too, but I can’t make my mouth form the words. It’ll hurt too badly.

  “And one more thing,” she says. She wipes at her eyes with the back of her hand and sniffles a little. “You always asked what I was working on in the museum.”

  Paloma reaches into a canvas bag and pulls out her sketchbook.

  “I want you to have this.”

  “Paloma—” I start. “I can’t take this.”

  She nods and says, “Of course you can. I want you to. It’s not all good. It’s not all art. Some of it—well, you’ll see.”

  I take the book from her and hitch it under my arm.

  I thought I was okay, but I can’t help the way my throat pinches tight and I have to swallow hard to move the boulder that her words have lodged there.

  “Don’t,” she says. She touches her fingertip to the corner of my eye. “Don’t cry. I don’t want to remember you like that. It’ll just make me think of how you almost died hiking with me and—”

  I laugh a little, and it feels good. She’s strong. She’s going to be amazing.

  And I’m going to be okay, too.

  “Hey, I’ve been thinking about what you said. About being in the same place at the same time.” I flick the battered postcard in my fingers. “I think you were a little off on that one.”

  “Yeah?” She nods. “It wouldn’t be the first time I was wrong.”

  “I’ve had some people I thought would care give up on me this year. And I had some people show how fucking loyal they really are. It doesn’t matter if we’re in the same place. As long as I know you’re thinking about me…”

  She moves closer to me. “I am.”

  “Really?”

  “You want me to prove it somehow?” A real smile makes her lips curve up.

  “When you get to Italy?” I pull her closer.

  “Yeah?” She puts a hand on my hip.