The Tension of Opposites

by Kristina McBride

  Noelle’s parents thanked everyone again and then stood. Cameras flashed brightly and reporters shouted as the couple walked offscreen. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. How could Noelle’s life ever return to normal?

  I sat up, grabbed my cell phone, and dialed the first three numbers of the Pendeltons’ house, then threw the phone down on my bed.

  If I called, they would tell me the same crap about Noelle not being ready for visitors. And I couldn’t let that happen.

  As I drove through the familiar neighborhood, my mind wandered back in time, recalling the details of one of the last days I had spent with Noelle.

  “What are you gonna do with this old thing anyway?” Noelle slid forward in her chair and picked up the camera I’d set on the patio table, turning it around in her hands. I wanted to fling its thick strap around her neck to make sure she wouldn’t drop it on the concrete.

  “Dunno.” I shrugged. “Use it, I guess.”

  “It’s not digital, though?” Noelle crinkled her nose.

  “You have no appreciation for the finer things, Noelle,” Coop said as he hopped down the kitchen steps with an orange Popsicle in his hand, plopping into one of the padded chairs around the table.

  “Who asked you?” She kicked at his bare feet, which he swept off the ground and propped on the table.

  “Eew.” Noelle swatted at his long legs. “People eat here, you know?”

  Coop rolled his eyes. “Like Mom has ever let anyone enjoy a meal outside without dousing this table in Clorox first?”

  “But your toenails are disgusting.” With her eyes narrowed to slits, Noelle inspected her brother’s toes.

  “A little length never hurt anyone,” Coop said, sliding his foot toward Noelle’s face with a laugh.

  Noelle flung herself back into her chair before he could make contact. “If any of your foot fungus gets on me, I won’t hesitate to kill you.”

  My eyes fluttered back to Noelle’s hands. I held my breath, waiting for my grandfather’s camera to crash to the ground, smashing its lens into a thousand tiny pieces.

  “Is there any film in here?” With one hand, Noelle shielded her eyes from a wave of sunlight that burst from behind a passing cloud.

  “I loaded a roll this morning,” I said. I held out my hands, and Noelle passed the camera over. “My dad had to help me figure it out.”

  Noelle stood up, pulled at the waist of her tank top, and ran barefoot into the Pendeltons’ grassy backyard. “Take one of me!”

  “Uh-oh,” Coop said. “This could be trouble.”

  “Come on, Noelle. My grandpa used this camera for serious stuff.”

  “I’m not a serious subject?” Noelle flung her arms in the air and spun in looping circles, like we used to do as kids, trying to get that drunken-dizzy feeling and seeing who could stand up the longest.

  “Just this morning, my dad spent twenty minutes on a grueling version of his this-is-not-a-toy lecture.” I stood and pointed the camera at a red bird perched on the branch of a tree that butted up to the back of their house. “He’s waited three years to give me this camera. It’s the one thing Grandpa Lou left just for me. I don’t want my first roll of film to—”

  “How offensive.” Noelle stopped spinning and placed one hand on her chest, holding the other out into the air to steady her balance. “I’m pained beyond words that you don’t feel I’m good enough to photograph.”

  “You’re a drama queen.” Coop balled up his Popsicle wrapper and launched it at Noelle. She ducked, her hair flaring out, and the paper spiraled over her head.

  I secured the camera’s strap around my neck and centered the bird in the frame. My finger found the shutter-release button and pressed. The shutter clicked and the bird startled, flying into the air.

  “Hey!” I placed the camera against my stomach, walked back to the table, and sat. “Stupid bird.”

  “I won’t run away,” Noelle said in a singsong voice.

  “No,” Coop said. “We’ll never be that lucky.”

  Noelle stuck her tongue out at her brother. “You love me, and you know it.”

  “Like I love gnarly foot fungus,” Coop said.

  “Just one, okay?” Noelle propped a hand behind her head, her elbow sticking up toward the deep blue sky, jutting her hip into the air in a way that made her teal miniskirt sway back and forth.

  I sighed, stood up from the table, and stepped into the silky grass. “Fine,” I said, raising the camera to my face.

  “Have I ever told you,” Noelle said as she moved toward me with a huge grin on her face, “that sometimes I feel like a shooting star?”

  “Stop there,” I said, pressing the shutter-release button.

  “But I’m a star, and I’m going to fly!” Noelle leaped toward me, her face filling the entire frame just as the camera snapped her picture.

  “Noelle, you ruined the shot,” I said with a slight whine. “I want this entire roll to be perfect.”

  She giggled and started spinning again, her long chestnut-colored hair twirling around her body.

  “Leave it to her,” Coop said from behind me, “to mess everything up.”

  “Oh, shut up, Pooper,” Noelle said with a giggle.

  Coop shoved the Popsicle stick into his mouth and crunched it, smiling at Noelle.

  “That drives me crazy,” she said.

  Coop crunched again, splintering the wood into several tiny slices. When he pulled it from his mouth, it looked like a miniature broom. “I live to drive you crazy.”

  “I’m gonna go,” I said, reaching for the camera case and tucking the Nikon into its cool dark security. “I’m gonna head to the park and get some shots of the ducks or trees or something.”

  “Oh my God!” Noelle clapped her hands and ran to the table. “That’s perfect. Pooper, go get your shoes. You’re coming, too.”

  I shouldn’t have said anything. Once Noelle got something in her head, there was no turning her back. Still, I always tried. “I was going to go by my—”

  “One more shot,” Noelle said. “You and me by the fountain. Shoes off, toes slipping into that cool water. It’ll be great.”

  “Noelle, I—”

  “Not another word from you,” Noelle said. “Pooper, why aren’t you moving?”

  Coop shook his head, his longish blond hair waving in the breeze. Looked into the sky like he hadn’t heard a word Noelle had said.

  “Ugh, fine.” Noelle walked behind Coop’s chair and leaned over her brother’s shoulder. “Cooper, love, be a dear and slip on some shoes. I’d be forever indebted if you could take a picture of me and my BFF by the fountain.”

  Coop nodded. “Love to,” he said, brushing Noelle’s tanned arm with the slimy wood.

  “Gross, Pooper.” Noelle flicked him in the forehead.

  “Watch it, sis,” Coop said, pushing her hand away. “I just agreed to do you a favor.”

  “Fine,” Noelle said with a huff. “I’ll get you back later.”

  Coop ran up the steps and pulled open the screen door to the kitchen. “I’ll meet you guys out front.”

  Noelle held her hand out to me, and I stepped forward, taking it in my own, not knowing that years would pass before the opportunity would arise again.

  After I rang the doorbell and stood waiting, I couldn’t catch my breath. No, I told myself. You will not lose control again.

  The first time it had happened, I had been alone. It was sudden, my breathing coming a little too fast, shallow; I couldn’t catch the deep breath my body demanded. My heart pounded to escape my chest, as if I’d just sprinted the entire way to the park, but in reality, I’d been hiding against the rough bark of a thick tree for at least an hour. When my chest exploded, I was certain I’d had a heart attack, knew I was going to die.

  I cried out to the long line of people holding hands and taking mini steps away from the crashing fountain, but no one heard. They continued to stare at the ground, shuffling over each thread of grass, searching for
any clue. I leaned back against the tree, clutching at my chest, pressing my hands against my eyes, waiting for the bright light that signified the end. But it never came. Gradually, my hearing cleared, my body relaxed, and I shuffled home. I told my mother everything, except where I had been, and she frantically dialed my doctor, who, after giving me a head-to-toe checkup, told me I’d had a panic attack and referred me to a therapist. I guess after all that had happened in the five days since I’d found Noelle’s abandoned bike, I knew I needed someone to help me. So I went. And I talked. Eventually, though, I started to lie.

  I thumbed the doorbell again, not caring if I was being a nuisance. I’d given Noelle’s family enough privacy. It was time for me to do this. Besides, before the kidnapping drove a wedge between us, making our visits too difficult to bear, we had once been so close we were practically family. I heard footsteps after I pressed the doorbell for the third time. Coop answered the door.

  “Tess.” I saw a sliver of his face through a small crack in the door. He was pale, and his eyes looked sunken.

  “Hey, Coop.” I tried to take in a deep breath.

  “She won’t see you.” He opened the door a little wider. “She’s holed up in her bedroom, hardly seeing us.”

  I blinked, trying to keep the words from registering. “It’s that bad?”

  “Worse.” Coop looked at the purple gift bag in my hand. “What’s that?”

  “Just a little something for Noelle.”

  I had a sudden urge to push Coop away from the door, to run up the stairs that were behind him and rush into Noelle’s bedroom. Instead, I held the bag forward, willing him to take it.

  “I dunno, Tess. My parents are being really cautious.” Coop glanced over his shoulder.

  “Please, Coop.” Tears welled up in my eyes, and his image swam before me.

  “It’s just hard to tell what’s going to upset her.”

  “Okay.” I lowered the bag. “I don’t want to upset her. I just need her to know that I never stopped thinking about her.”

  Coop looked back once more, quickly. “Trust me,” he whispered. “It’s not a good idea.”

  “Okay,” I said, placing one hand on the door so he couldn’t close it. “Maybe I could go up for just a second?”

  He drummed his fingers on the door. “Uh-uh, Tess.” He shook his head.

  “I just want to see her. In person.” I pushed against the door. He held it firmly in place. “Of all people, you have to understand that.”

  “Tess,” he whispered. “The longer you wait, the better, okay? Things are not the same.”

  I looked from his eyes to the dark staircase that led to the second floor and removed my hand from the door. I wanted to ask him what he meant. To tell him that Noelle would always be Noelle and to give her a break. But he closed the door before I could say anything, and I was left standing alone, breathing in that thick floral scent, wondering what he’d meant by “not the same.”

  I walked slowly toward the driveway. My Jeep was parked next to a thick pine tree that had grown taller since Noelle’s disappearance. I stared at the dark needles, wondering how I would ever reconcile with my friend if everyone was going to stand in my way.

  Just before opening the driver’s-side door of the Jeep, I took a quick look at Noelle’s window. I flinched when my eyes found her staring out at me, a ghostly version of my old friend.

  Noelle’s pale face was framed by straight, midnight black hair. Her eyes matched that border, dark and lifeless. Her hand fluttered against the glass, a pale moth straining for something out of reach. The translucent skin of her palm pressed against the pane, and she leaned forward a bit.

  I smiled.

  She didn’t.

  And then there was a breeze, soft against my skin but solid against the bag hanging from my wrist, causing it to sway back and forth. I held the gift in the air and suddenly, after all this time, allowed myself to believe that she was home.

  I leaned down and pulled the heavy bottom branches of the pine tree from the ground, then placed the bag into the cool, damp shadow underneath.

  Turning back to Noelle, I saw only the flutter of a white curtain.

  In the Jeep, I sat wondering what had broken our brief connection. A sound, perhaps, that reminded her of her captor. Or maybe Coop had knocked on her door to tell her I had stopped by.

  Seeing her stare out of that window without a smile on her face made me wonder again if all the news reports could be true. If she’d really had the freedom to roam around the neighborhood she’d shared with Charlie Croft. If she’d actually been friends with the girl and the guy whom people had seen her hanging out with. But most important, I wondered what, exactly, Charlie Croft had done to keep her quiet. And why she hadn’t made that phone call to Coop much sooner. At that thought, my hands started shaking so much it took three attempts to insert the key into the ignition.

  As I drove away, I told myself that none of that mattered. Noelle was alive. Everything else would fall into place. It had to.

  Friday,

  October 2

  5

  Like an Accident

  I was never one of those girls with a body-image issue. You know, the type who, after reading somewhere that celery sticks have negative calories, eat nothing but the little green stalks. (Think Jessie Richards, the skinny-minny captain of the varsity cheerleading squad.)

  I didn’t think I was perfect or anything. Though I secretly loved the way my sandy-blonde hair dried in soft waves that spilled down my back, and the way my eyes matched my favorite aqua tank top, I had a little pooch in my middle that needed some attention. And when I looked down, I had this disturbing hint of a double chin. But unlike some girls, when I was hungry, I ate. Unless I was at school.

  On the first day of eighth grade, I decided I wouldn’t go to the cafeteria without Noelle at my side. Since then, I had discovered several methods of gobbling a quick snack in hiding, my favorite being the duck-behind-a-book-in-the-library technique. I was proud that I had remained true to my friend; since her disappearance, I had not once eaten in the lunchroom. The root of this issue was superstition; I somehow felt that if I gave in and giggled over some stupid piece of gossip, the slight chance of Noelle’s return would disappear.

  My second reason for avoiding the cafeteria was that I didn’t have anyone to sit with. I had only one person I could call a friend, Darcy, but she was two years ahead of me, and our friendship was mostly about photography. I didn’t want any other friends. I’d pushed all my old friends away after Noelle went missing, ignoring them so blatantly, they had eventually stopped calling. All the stuff friends do with one another … that was sacred. It belonged to Noelle. Besides, I couldn’t sit around laughing with a bunch of people whose only concern was what to wear to Friday night’s football game when I was pretty sure Noelle would never laugh again.

  I had isolated myself as much as possible. Except in photography class, where Darcy wouldn’t leave me alone, even if I tried to set her on fire.

  I liked things the way they were. Comfortable. Predictable. Safe.

  Until the second week of my sophomore year. Noelle was home by then, which caused the structure of my avoid-the-cafeteria argument to crumble. It was a Tuesday, the day the carefully constructed bubble that surrounded me popped.

  Max, who knew nothing of my years as a loner, caught me in the hall on the sixth day of school, hooking his arm into mine and swinging me around in the bustling crowd.

  “I’m sick of eating alone,” he’d said. “Care to join?”

  “I don’t really do the caf,” I answered, trying to slip my arm out of his, my cheeks burning at the soft heat of his skin brushing against mine.

  “I noticed,” he said, tucking my arm tight against his body. (Dear Lord, his side was incredibly hard. Was it possible to actually feel the muscles rippling under his thin T-shirt?)

  As we weaved our way through the blur of people clutching textbooks to their chests, my brain whirred with que
stions I could never voice. Why, with his good looks and easy personality, didn’t Max have ten friends already? And why, of all people, had he chosen to eat with me?

  “Seriously,” I said as we approached the gaping entrance to the cafeteria, “this isn’t my scene. All the gossiping and plan making, it goes against my nature.”

  “That,” he said with a grin, “is exactly why I like you.” And then he pulled me through the double doors and into the chest-vibrating, high-impact noise of four hundred shouting students.

  As he led me through a maze of round tables, my attention snagged, the same question looping through my head over and over again. Helikesmehelikesmehelikesme?

  It must have been the way that question echoed through my mind, making me feel light-headed and slightly disoriented. Or it could have been the pressure of all that noise and energy. But when Max yanked out a chair and pushed my shoulders until I sat down, I didn’t even attempt to stand up and walk away. The way I would have if he had been anyone else in that building.

  Two weeks later, I had a new routine. Every day after fourth period, Max stood next to my locker, waiting for me to spin the dial and exchange my books, all the while talking me into eating with him. Each time, I found myself protesting less and less. Today, I had barely even complained as we’d made our way through the crowd, toward the table that had somehow become ours.

  “Create and destroy,” Max said from his seat next to me.

  “Oh, that’s a good one,” I said, comfortable now with our game of listing opposites. It had started as a brainstorming session for our photography project, but it quickly became a way for us to talk without really talking. “But how would you photograph it?”

  “I dunno.” He took a bite of his shiny green apple. “But I like it enough to think about it.” Max squinted. I could tell he was trying to figure a way to make his idea work, like he always did when I challenged him.

  The bell rang, and a mass of people stood from the tables around us. Chairs scraped the floor, books were clutched tightly, and bodies funneled toward the exit.