by Pete Hautman
“We connect through our dreams. Like we could be a thousand miles apart and I’d still know you were there.”
June felt her heart lurch, and for a moment she imagined it — a thousand miles between them. All too real.
She said, “We could just stay here, like you said.”
“We might get hungry.”
“We could order a pizza.”
“Do they deliver pizzas to cars?”
“Why not?”
They talked about living in a car, and other things, as the windows slowly cleared.
“Look,” June said.
Wes turned his head to look out the windshield. A police car, lights flashing, had stopped in front of the party house.
“Right on schedule,” Wes said.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
WES LOVED DRIVING IN THE SNOW, at night, hardly any traffic, the tires squeaking softly, sliding just a little on the turns, big clumps of flakes flattening on the windshield for a moment before being swept aside by the wiper blades. They drove randomly through the neighborhoods, not talking much. Many of the houses still had their holiday lights burning.
“We’re inside a snow globe,” June said.
And that was what it felt like.
“You know what we need?” June asked.
At that moment, there was nothing Wes wanted more than to be driving in the snow with June by his side.
“Hot chocolate,” June said, answering her own question.
Hot chocolate, to Wes, meant stirring instant cocoa into a mug of milk and heating it up in the microwave. June had something more elaborate in mind.
Standing in the kitchen, he remembered the day they’d bonked heads at the SA, the first day they’d kissed. Now, watching June, he could feel that same energy, that same force that had brought them together that day. Almost as if the air was buzzing.
“You want to get the milk out of the fridge?” she said as she placed two saucepans on the counter.
Wes opened the refrigerator and found a carton of milk. Whole milk, not skim milk like his mom always bought.
June was peeling the wrapping off an enormous bar of chocolate with some foreign name. She could feel Wes’s eyes on her as she broke off a chunk and began chopping it to bits with a knife.
“You want to put a little water in the small pan?”
“How much?” Wes asked.
“Just a splash,” she said. Wes was sure she could tell by the way he handled the saucepan that he wasn’t used to cooking. “Put it on the stove and turn the burner to low.”
Wes did so, then awaited further instructions. She told him to measure two cups of milk into the other pan. As he did that, she brought the cutting board to the stove and scraped the chopped chocolate into the pan with the water.
“I need a whisk,” she said. “Top drawer, left of the sink.”
Wes opened the drawer. “What’s a whisk?” he asked.
June laughed. “A wire thing, like for stirring.”
Wes sorted through the various kitchen tools and came up with something that looked sort of whisklike.
“That’s it,” June said.
As he handed her the whisk their fingers touched, and he realized that it was the first time they’d touched since she had rubbed his feet in the car. Again, he felt the force pushing him toward her, but he resisted. For the moment, thinking about it was enough.
“What next?” he asked.
“Put the milk on the stove.”
Wes was beginning to feel more comfortable — he hadn’t screwed up or broken anything yet. He loved the way June moved, the way she was intently whisking the chocolate, like it was the most important thing in the universe.
“You have to keep stirring,” she said. “You want to pick out a couple of mugs? The cabinet next to the fridge.”
This is like a dance, Wes thought as he moved past her to get the mugs, almost but not quite touching. She stopped whisking for a moment to turn up the heat under the milk, then went back to stirring.
“All these mugs have the names of companies on them,” Wes said.
“Places my dad’s worked. My arm’s getting tired. Can you stir for a while?”
Wes took over the whisking.
“Just keep it moving,” June said. “I’ll get the whipped cream.”
It was awkward at first, but he quickly got the hang of it and kept whisking the melting chocolate as June added dollops of warm milk. He loved that they were doing something together — not just being together, but having a goal, even if the goal was hot chocolate.
“I like the way you whisk,” June said, and he felt it all up and down his spine.
They sipped their hot chocolate on the sofa in front of the flickering gas fireplace, talking about things. Later, thinking about that night, Wes could not remember what they had talked about. He did remember that when he took his first sip he got whipped cream on the tip of his nose, and June had laughed, then wiped the glob of cream off with the tip of her index finger and put it in her mouth. And he remembered the clock on the wall chiming midnight.
“It’s here,” June said.
Their New Year’s kiss was soft as snowflakes colliding. Their lips came together lightly, and they stayed that way for so long — nothing touching but their lips — that June thought she might pass out. And then they drew apart and looked into each other’s eyes, and it was magic.
Wes and June were sitting on the sofa in the living room, Wes’s arm resting lightly across her shoulders, their feet propped on the coffee table — he was wearing a pair of Mr. Edberg’s argyle socks, her feet were bare — when they heard her parents’ car pull into the garage. Wes took his arm back and sat up straight as Mr. and Mrs. Edberg walked in the door.
Mr. Edberg saw them sitting there. He didn’t say anything at first. Wes had no idea what to expect.
After a moment, Mr. Edberg said, “Happy New Year,” and tried for a smile, but gave it up. Both of them looked dead tired.
“Happy New Year,” said both Wes and June.
“I like your socks,” June’s father said.
“Thank you, sir,” said Wes.
“Not going to call me El?”
“That would feel too weird, sir.” Wes wasn’t trying to be sarcastic; it was the simple truth.
Mr. Edberg took a moment to process that, then nodded.
“I understand,” he said.
“Time to say good night to Wesley, dear,” Mrs. Edberg said to June.
Mr. Edberg held up a hand. “Just because we’re old and need our beauty rest doesn’t mean these youngsters can’t keep celebrating,” he said to his wife. “It’s the New Year, after all.” Looking at June, he added, “Just don’t break into the liquor cabinet or play any loud music, okay?”
June nodded.
A minute later, they were alone again. Wes and June stared at each other.
“That was freaky weird,” June said.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
IN THE MORNING, JUNE OPENED HER EYES feeling as if she had awakened into a new world. She looked at her clock. It was almost ten. She sat up and stretched, then went to her window and looked outside.
Fairyland. The snow had formed improbably tall caps on fence posts, birdhouses, mailboxes, and trash cans. Every twig on every tree supported a ridge of sparkling snow. The world had turned pure and white and clean.
June thought it the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. Then her mother came into her room and sat down on her bed with this awful frozen expression on her face.
Paula had gotten a new board game for Christmas. Wes had refused to play it with her, and she’d gotten really mad at him. She started doing things like not telling him about his phone messages, informing on him for every infraction of household rules, and refusing to help him fold his laundry, a task she had once undertaken with great pride. Wes, in a self-involved fog, had hardly noticed he was being dissed by his little sister, which made her even madder.
But on the morning of New Year’s Day, Paula walked into the living room and found her brother lying on his stomach on the carpet playing with her new game, making designs out of the colored tiles and little men. She almost choked with indignation.
“Who said you could play with my game?!”
Wes looked up and grinned. “Nobody.”
“Well, you can’t!” she said.
“You don’t want to play?”
“You said you didn’t want to. You said it was stupid.”
“I didn’t mean it,” Wes said.
Paula stared at him.
“Do you want to play or not?” he said.
“I have to eat breakfast.”
“So eat your cereal in here.”
“We’re not supposed to.”
“Mom’s at aerobics, and Dad went to play racquetball. I won’t tell, if you promise not to spill.”
Paula could find no fault with Wes’s offer, and a few minutes later she was sprawled on the floor with a bowl of Froot Loops, explaining the rules of the game. Wes pretended not to understand even the simplest instructions, forcing Paula to explain things over and over, which delighted her, even though she knew he was just acting stupid to tease her. They were just getting started playing a real game when the phone rang.
“I bet it’s your secret girlfriend,” Paula said.
Wes jumped up and checked the number on the kitchen phone. It was June. As he lifted the receiver, Paula shrieked, “Hi, Wes’s Secret Girlfriend!”
Wes just laughed and closed the kitchen door and leaned back on it.
“Hey,” he said into the phone. He listened, sliding slowly down the door until he was sitting on the floor. After a few more seconds, June stopped talking.
She said, “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
Omaha. Three hundred fifty miles away. She might as well be moving to Neptune. In two weeks she would be moving to Neptune.
Sani-Made, after all their talk about hiring her dad permanently, had decided not to renew his contract. In fact, they had fired him. On New Year’s Eve, just as he was leaving work.
It wasn’t the first time her dad had been let go suddenly. In the workout business, getting axed was almost normal. The company owners let him come in and do the dirty work, and then turned around and did the same thing to him.
Her dad shrugged it off. “Next!” He’d accepted the Omaha job twenty minutes after getting fired by Sani-Made. In fact, he was driving down the next day, leaving the task of packing up and moving to June and her mother.
“Omaha-Benford Bank has a house for us,” he said. “One of their foreclosures. It’s in a nice neighborhood. You’ll like it.”
Like it? They’d never lived anyplace long enough for her to like it. June knew better than to argue. Her father’s business migrations were a force of nature — the universe conspiring to seek out every scintilla of happiness inside her and rip it out, bloody roots and all, and turn her life to a stinking pile of crap. That was what it was about. He could have gone on to his new job all by himself, let her and her mom stay in Minnesota until the end of the school year, at least — but no, he had to have the family together, as if a few months apart would somehow damage them. Damage? How could they be any more damaged than they were already?
Still, that was what scared her, what kept her in line. If she threw a screaming fit and refused to leave, what would happen? Would her family shatter? Sometimes it felt that way — one wrong move and everything would fly apart.
She spent most of the day in her bedroom making piles of stuff. Stuff to keep, stuff to give away, stuff to throw away, stuff she hadn’t decided about. The throwaway pile was biggest. It included all her schoolwork, clothes from last summer, old magazines, empty and almost empty makeup containers. The downstairs phone rang. June stopped what she was doing and listened. She heard her mom’s voice, a short conversation that she couldn’t quite make out, then her mom coming up the stairs. She concentrated on making a perfect stack of folded T-shirts. Her mom looked in through her bedroom doorway.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Making piles,” said June.
Her mom sat down on the bed. “That was Wesley again,” she said.
“I thought it might be,” June said. She had turned her cell off after talking to Wes that morning.
“I told him you weren’t feeling well, and that you couldn’t talk to him.”
June nodded.
“I’m sorry. He seems like a nice young man.”
“He is.” June spoke in a voice so small she could hardly hear herself.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FIVE
SCHOOL STARTED AGAIN THE NEXT DAY. June was absent. Wes ran into Jerry Preuss after English class.
“Hey,” Wes said cautiously.
Jerry nodded, his expression giving nothing away.
Wes said, “How are you doing?”
“I’m great,” said Jerry.
“That was some crazy party,” Wes said. When Jerry gave him a blank look, he added, “At Alan’s? Alan Hurd?”
“Oh,” said Jerry. “I don’t remember much.”
“I heard the cops broke it up early.”
“Did they?” Jerry said.
“I think so.” Wes wondered if Jerry really didn’t remember, or if he was just pretending not to because he was embarrassed. It didn’t really matter.
Wes said, “The Edbergs are moving.”
“I know,” Jerry said.
“You know?”
“She called me last night.”
“She did? You talked to her?”
“I just said I did,” Jerry said, half smiling, a flicker of surprise — and triumph — in his eyes. “They’re going to Omaha. So what?”
“So nothing.” Wes walked away, feeling more than a little sick inside.
It didn’t take much for June to convince her mom that there was no point in her going back to school for one short week.
“If I stay home, I can help you with the packing,” she said. “If I go to school now, we’ll just start a bunch of stuff that I’ll never be able to finish. Besides, I think it’s best to just move on. You know. Next!”
Her mom laughed at that. “You’ve got more of your father in you than I thought,” she said.
June went to work on her father’s closet, packing his suits and jackets and shirts and trousers in cardboard wardrobe boxes left over from their last move. All of his suits were either navy blue or gray. People who wear brown and green suits are perceived as untrustworthy, he had once told her. Another one of her dad’s peculiar notions.
June didn’t think she was like her dad at all. But some of his ideas were hard to argue with. For example, there really was no reverse gear — she couldn’t go back and have New Year’s Eve over and over again.
How could something so inevitable be so hard? She wished she could close her eyes, turn around three times, and be there. Wherever. Not here.
Poor Wes. She felt awful for him, she really did, but she was doing him a favor really, just chopping it off, ending it, avoiding that long, awkward, painful good-bye. She should have stuck with Jerry. It was easy to say good-bye to Jerry. Good-bye, Jerry. Have a nice life. Good luck with your political ambitions. I hope nobody at that party YouTubed you.
So easy.
But not Wes. Thinking about not seeing him was unbearable, but not as unbearable as thinking about seeing him again, and then having to let go. Three hundred fifty miles. It wasn’t really as far as Neptune. They could bridge the distance, texting and talking and sending pictures back and forth … but it would be only a matter of months before her dad took a job in Alaska or Alabama, or Wes would meet somebody else, or go back to that girl Izzy.
June squeezed one more sport coat into the wardrobe box. She used a fat blue marker to write Dad’s Closet on the side and taped it up. She had done this before. All of her father’s stuff would fit in seven boxes, three big and four medium. June could
fit her stuff in one big box, two medium, and three small. Her life: one big, two medium, three small. There was no point in accumulating stuff if you had to move every few months. No point in accumulating anything. Friends, for example.
June went to her bedroom, back to her piles. One pile was socks. She sat down and started pairing them up. Because if she was missing one sock, there was no point in moving its mate to Omaha.
Wes would laugh at that. Or he would say, “Yeah, but what if later on you find the missing sock in a pant leg or folded up in a towel or something? Then you’d wish you still had the one you threw away.” Or maybe he would say, “What’s the deal with matching socks? Who says they have to match? Wouldn’t the world be more interesting if people wore a different sock on each foot?” Or he might say, “You shouldn’t throw it away. You should donate it to the One-legged League.” And she would say, “Or the One-footed Family.” And he would stick his hand in the sock like it was a puppet and say, “No! No! Pleeeeeease don’t throw me away!” They would laugh.
Where was she getting this stuff? Anyway, it was a miracle: She wasn’t missing any socks.
Next?
Her cell rang. She checked the number; it was Wes. She let it go to voice mail, jammed the paired socks into a shoe box, and put the shoe box in a moving carton. She dialed her voice mail and listened to his message. Same as before. He wanted to talk to her. He didn’t get it. He didn’t get that there was no point. That it was over. That it had never started, not really. She felt herself getting angry, and went with it. Anger was cleansing; it felt good to get mad. She thumbed an angry text into her phone and sent it quick, before she could change her mind.
Wes read the message over and over, like touching a sore.
i dont want to see u its over STOP
CALLING ME goodbye im sorry
Maybe her parents had forced her to write the message. Maybe they’d written it themselves. Maybe she was being held prisoner, or she was drugged. Because it was impossible that she didn’t want to see him. It was too cruel, too insane, too … impossible.
But he knew it was true.
