Golden

by Jessi Kirby

  “Fine,” she says finally. “But just so you know, you’re ruining the picture I had in my mind of how this whole thing is going to go down.”

  “Really?” I laugh. “What did you have pictured?”

  “Never mind. Can you follow me to my house? We have to figure out how we’re gonna do this thing.”

  “Right. Let me just—” I stop short at what I see. “Is Trevor Collins sitting in your car?”

  “Yeah.” Kat dismisses the question with a wave of her hand. “Long story. I’ll explain when we get there.”

  “Did you . . .” I don’t want to finish the question.

  “Yeah.” She takes a step back. “I showed him the journal. He’s coming with us. Meet me at my house, okay?”

  She turns before I can argue, and when she gets in her car, Trevor Collins waves at me through the windshield. And now I know. I’ve lost my chance.

  18.

  “On Going Unnoticed”

  —1928

  I drive angry. When the light up ahead turns yellow, I hit the gas instead of slowing down, and by the time I fly through the intersection, it’s definitely red. I don’t care. I almost want to just keep going, right out of town. If it wasn’t for the fact that Kat still has the journal, I might. Just go and take the trip by myself and forget about the fact that my best friend not only did the one thing I asked her not to by showing Trevor the journal, but she’s also done a thing I didn’t think I needed to ask her not to do. She had no right to show Trevor the journal. Or invite him on our trip. And now, all of a sudden, this . . . thing with him. I know I’ve said over and over I’m not interested, and I didn’t think I was. Not really. But still. I didn’t expect her to make him her end-of-the-year fling. I thought she knew me better than that. Now I just feel like I should’ve known better.

  I hit the gas again, hard. I don’t know how I let this happen. How I let a real chance with him pass me right by. Especially now, with the end of school so close. I thought I liked the idea of possibility always floating there between us, but it’s going to disappear soon, with graduation. I’ll leave for school in the fall, and he’ll head off to snowboard around the world, and the possibility that was there will dissolve into nothing without ever having a chance.

  The next light is already red, and though I’m almost mad enough to sail right through the empty intersection, I slow down and come to a complete stop. And in that pause, when I finally take a breath, I know how I let this happen. I know exactly how. I did what I always do—deny and avoid and chicken out because I was scared of what might come next if I actually took a chance. A knot of regret tightens in my stomach, and frustration at myself and my continual inability to just do things. To just take risks or chances. Maybe if I had the words CARPE DIEM tattooed on my wrist I’d be different. Or WWKD—What Would Kat Do? That’d be a good one.

  Ugh. It’s too much to think about on top of the journal and Julianna, so I try not to. Instead, I turn the music up loud enough to drown everything out and drive the rest of the way to her house trying to sing along, even though I don’t know the words to the song. By the time I pull into Kat’s driveway, I’ve almost managed to focus all of my anger on the part about her showing him the journal and inviting him on our trip instead of on the other stuff that I don’t want to think about right now, because being mad instead of hurt makes me feel a little stronger when I get out of the car.

  Unfortunately, that strength lasts exactly the two seconds it takes for me to see Kat and Trevor in her living room window. They’re sitting next to each other on the beige sofa. Close. She’s smiling and talking away, and he’s smiling too, eating up every second of it, I can tell. I know how her particular brand of charm works, and I’m sure he’s just as helpless against it as every other male who comes into contact with her. I feel my jaw tighten, and have to fight the strong urge to just go home and leave them to their impulsive hook-up. But there’s the journal I need to get back, at the very least.

  It’s this fact that forces my feet up the stairs of her front porch. I try to relax my face and concentrate on acting breezy and unaffected by Kat or Trevor or what might happen between the two of them. It’ll be easy, I tell myself. I don’t care anyway. He’s a bad idea that I’ve said no to more than once. One who, if we actually went through with this trip, I’d be spending three days with, in a car, watching fall for my best friend.

  My own tragic, unrequited love story.

  I waver at the top stair. This plan gets worse every time I think about it, and with every second that passes, I’m more sure I can’t go through with it. The conviction I felt after seeing the painting seems distant all of a sudden—like some dreamy, romantic notion that shouldn’t have been more than a fleeting thought. Believing in anything more than that is likely a huge mistake—just like taking the journal and getting so caught up in it that I’ve ignored everything about my real life, including my speech.

  The reality of it smacks me in the chest and spreads out heavy over my shoulders. The scholarship dinner, the night that could impact my whole future, is in four days, and I haven’t written a single word of the speech that literally everything I’ve worked for depends on. I don’t know what I was thinking. Taking a trip right now is not even a possibility for me, and that’s what I need to tell Kat, as soon as I walk through the door.

  “Hey,” she chirps, when I open it. She jumps up from the couch in what seems like a suspiciously quick way to me, and I try to ignore all of the reasons my mind throws out as to why.

  “Hey,” I answer back. Grudgingly. I don’t look at Trevor, not because I don’t want to, but because now it feels like I can’t without being completely transparent. I can feel disappointment etched onto my face.

  I keep my eyes steady on Kat. “Listen. I was thinking on the way over here—this whole trip thing is a bad idea.” I pause, and she gives Trevor a look. “It’s stupid to think Julianna could still be alive somewhere. Or that she did that painting. Or that we could actually find her. I don’t know what I was thinking. I got all excited reading her journal and—it was just . . . I wasn’t thinking.”

  I pause again to give them a chance to agree, but they don’t. I clear my throat. “And there’s no way I could possibly go, anyway. I haven’t even started my speech.”

  I can see Kat’s trying to hide a smile, and the effort of it makes her look like she’s about to burst. “What?” I ask, and it comes out sounding as frustrated as I feel.

  “Really? You have to write your speech? Is that the best you can do? What you just said there?”

  “I don’t need to do any better than that,” I snap. “It’s important.” Trevor shifts on the sofa and I soften my tone, not wanting to make him uncomfortable. “And I’d never get away with it anyway. It was a stupid idea. I’m embarrassed that I even came up with it in the first place.” I glance in his direction, but keep my eyes on the floor, because that wasn’t the only stupid idea I’ve had in the last few days.

  Trevor nods slowly, taking a step toward me. “Hm. That’s too bad, Frost. Because we found something in the art supply closet that might change your mind.” This gets me. I look up at him. He smiles, and grabs something from behind the couch, stands up, and holds it behind his back. Then he moves in closer to me than he was before. “Something you might wanna see.”

  I step back, cheeks flaring up, but I don’t look away from his blue eyes. There’s something in them that really does make me want to see. “What are you talking about?” I ask. Curiosity has trumped my awkwardness. “What did you find?”

  Kat doesn’t wait for him to answer but jumps in, and her words tumble out in one ecstatic rush. “Okay. After I left the library I read the whole journal during second, and with all that stuff about art in there, it got me thinking that there might be something left of hers in the art supply closet because everyone knows Mr. Potter is a serious hoarder, so I asked Trevor for the keys and he wanted to know why, so I told him the whole thing and he offered to help. And then we
found this.”

  Trevor pulls a canvas out from behind his back and puts it on display in his hands. “Voilà. A Julianna Farnetti original. Signed and dated. From before the crash.”

  I blink once, twice, three times. Then I let my eyes trail over the familiar lines of the Minarets and the sky behind them. It’s almost the same painting as in the cafe, but less complex, without the sharp emotion or sophistication of the other one. Like an earlier draft. I stare at the blank space in the sky where the stars outline the constellation Orion in the painting in Kismet. This was before everything. Before she met him. Before she had to make a choice that didn’t feel right and lied to do what she thought was. Before the sadness of Acquainted with the Night. I swallow hard and bring my eyes down to the bottom corner. Her signature is there in this one, scrawled out in the same swirly, hopeful hand as it is on the front of her journal, which Kat is now holding up next to it.

  “Can you believe it?” Kat can barely contain herself. “What are the chances? That’s why I wanted to see the painting so bad when I got there today—to compare them—but you yanked me out of there like a crazy person.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t want you to say anything to Josh yet.” I can’t take my eyes off the painting. “This is amazing, I—” I simultaneously forgive her and feel like the world’s worst friend for jumping to the worst possible conclusion about her and Trevor and what they were doing together. “I am an idiot.”

  “Actually,” Trevor says, handing it to me, “I think you might be kind of a genius for putting it all together.” He smiles when he says it, and I melt a little inside.

  Kat jumps in front of him again. “So like I was saying. It’s her. It has to be her. It’s fate, and they’re supposed to be together, like you said. Like in all your sappy-ass movies.”

  The doubt and worry from a few moments ago try to hold on, but everything in me wants to agree and run with this idea. I look down at the painting in my hands. “I don’t know . . .”

  I look at her name in the corner of the canvas, and in that moment I’m sure. For some reason this is the one unexpected, important thing I’m supposed to do.

  “Come on,” Kat says. “We’re doing this. We’re going to find Julianna Farnetti and reunite her with her one true love, and it will be brilliant and beautiful and the best thing you’ve ever done. I’ve got it all planned out. There aren’t very many little art towns around Hearst Castle, and I found one that seems promising. It’s called Harmony.” She gives a nod of finality and skips the part where either one of us get to respond, then continues, all business.

  “So I think we should go with my original, brilliant plan to use Senior Ditch Day. It’s the perfect cover. You’ll get up and act like everything’s normal. Pack your stuff in your backpack, park your car at school, then walk to the Carl’s Jr. parking lot.”

  “Of course.” I have to laugh at this, because in our little town, Carl’s Jr. was somehow established as the official meeting place for anything. My theory is that it was before cell phones, when everyone had to actually meet up somewhere to find out what was going on and where the parties were. Now it’s like a Summit Lakes teenager tradition. Meet at Carl’s Jr.

  “We’ll all meet there,” Kat says. Then she nudges Trevor. “Right?”

  “Yep,” he nods. “Bright and early.”

  “He’s driving,” Kat says. “Your car needs to stay at school, mine would never make the trip, and it’s never bad to have a guy along for this type of thing, anyway.”

  Trevor smiles. “And I thought you were only using me for my car. Happy to know it’s me you might actually need.” Kat ignores him, and though I’m still unclear on exactly why he’s coming along, I attempt to do the same, which doesn’t really work. That smile, and those eyes—

  “Parker—you listening?”

  I nod and make a conscious effort to look only at Kat.

  “Okay. So we’ll pick you up and get on the road, and we’ll have a head start since the entire senior class will be gone. I don’t think they even bother calling parents that day. Then, ‘after school,’ you just call your mom and tell her you’ll be at my house for the night. My mom’s working a double so she won’t be home to answer, and we’ll be back by Tuesday afternoon before your mom has a clue you were ever gone, and in time for your dinner thing the next day.”

  “But what about—”

  “Your speech? Easy. Write it this weekend, and you can practice it in the car, all the way there and back.”

  “But my mom—she’s never gonna say yes to me staying at your house that night.”

  Kat sighs, then steps in front of me and puts her hands firmly on both my shoulders. “Then make something up. Or just do it anyway. At some point, you’re gonna have to stand up to her and just do what you want. I can’t think of a better reason to than this.”

  I take a deep breath, then let it out slow. She’s right. And in theory this should all work, but I know my mom well enough to guess that it probably won’t. Not only is my mom aware of where I am at all times, she also seems to possess the ability to predict when I’m even thinking of doing something I shouldn’t. On the other hand, she has been even more wrapped up in work than normal over the last few weeks, so maybe her guard is down. Or she’s distracted enough, at least. It’s only one night.

  “Okay,” I say. And it makes me panic a little inside, so I take another deep breath. “Let’s do it.”

  “Really? Goddamn, I’m proud of you, P!” Kat smacks me on the butt. “Now go home and act normal and write your speech.”

  “Okay,” I say again, not only because she dove wholeheartedly into this idea with me, but she’s figured out a way to actually do it. To make something happen. And I’m grateful to her for that. Almost grateful enough to quelch the tiny, questioning voice in the back of my mind that keeps trying to figure out how Trevor fits into all of this. Or maybe where I fit in with him. Either way, sharing the small space of his car for a little while might not be the worst thing ever.

  Kat hands me Julianna’s journal. “Here, I almost forgot. Since you’re the one who figured this out, you’re going to be the one to give it back when we find her. Keep it safe until then. Now go. Be all studious and obedient this weekend so your mom doesn’t suspect anything.” She steps past me, opening the door wide for me to go. And then she glances from me to Trevor and back. “And give this guy a ride home while you’re at it.”

  19.

  “Into My Own”

  —1915

  “So . . . which way are we going?” I say over my shoulder as I back out of Kat’s driveway. Despite all my Facebook research, I don’t actually know where Trevor lives.

  His eyes catch mine when I turn back to the steering wheel. “I don’t know,” he says with a smile. “Which way are we going, Frost?”

  His tone and the question send a shot of nervousness straight to my stomach, but with everything that just happened, I’m feeling bold. I put the car in park, turn to face him, and shrug, trying to keep from smiling back. “That really depends on where you want to go, Trevor Collins.”

  His smile broadens at this, and he unbuckles his seat belt and turns so he’s facing me. And we sit, with my car idling, and the music playing, just looking at each other, and there’s so much there, wanting to be said. And done. All I would have to do at this moment is lean across the electric space between us, and—

  And in one smooth motion, Trevor does. I freeze, and then I’m leaning too, eyes closing, to meet him halfway for this thing we’ve been dancing around forever. But I don’t feel his lips on mine. Instead, I feel his mouth next to my ear, and his breath warm on my neck, not one part of us actually touching. “You’re the one driving,” he says, “so really it’s up to you.”

  Wounded pride burns in my cheeks. I don’t want it to be all up to me. Why does it have to be? I don’t move, and neither does he, at first. Fine. I can play this game too.

  “In that case,” I say, and I shock myself
by letting my lips brush his neck when I do, “then I guess I should take you home, since you don’t seem to have anywhere else to go.”

  I don’t know who’s more surprised at this, me or him. But when he leans back shaking his head, confident smile in place, and I see the flush in his cheeks too, it makes me feel better. I put the car back in drive and grab the wheel with both hands so he won’t see that they’re still shaky. And then I’m the one who smiles. “So why don’t you tell me how to get there.”

  I take the long, long way home after I drop him off, partly because I want to hold on to the nervous, exhilarated feeling that’s still there, and partly because I need to focus on our plan, which hinges on me writing my speech over the weekend, and somehow finding the guts to completely disobey my mom if I need to. That’s the part that makes me the most nervous.

  By the time I walk through the front door, I’ve almost got myself convinced that if I find Julianna, it’ll all be worth it. And then I hear it in her voice.

  “Parker? I need to talk to you.”

  It’s that tone I hate. The one that’s stern and trying to remain calm but is clearly having trouble doing it because she’s pissed about something. I run through the possibilities of what it could be. I haven’t done anything. Yet. I slide my bag off my shoulder and walk over to her as casually as I can.

  She’s sitting at the dining room table, fingers clacking away on her laptop.

  “What’s up?” I ask, a touch too high-pitched. “How’s the shop going? That order come in on time? I can help process it next week if you want.” Maybe if I just keep talking I can get her off topic and off my back about whatever it is.

  “Did you run a red light today?” she asks without looking up.