Just Listen

by Sarah Dessen

  By the time we left an hour later, all the bacon was gone and I was so full I thought I would bust. Back in the car I reached for my seat belt, pulling it across me, then stopped just short of the buckle as Owen slid it in for me, then grabbed the hammer again. His hands were right at my waist as he tapped its center, his head ducked down by my shoulder. I looked at his dark hair, the sprinkle of freckles by his ear, those long lashes, but then he was already done, pulling away.

  All the way into town, I watched Rolly in the side mirror as he put on his padding for work: first the big chest piece, then the tubes on his arms and legs, gradually growing more substantial and less recognizable in front of my eyes. He put on the helmet just as we pulled up to the strip mall where EmPOWerment! was located.

  “Thanks for the ride,” he said, opening the door and easing himself down to the ground. The padding on his legs was so thick he had to take short, halting steps, his arms held out to his sides. “I’ll call you later.”

  “Sounds good,” Owen told him.

  As we drove home, the scenery blurring past, I thought back to that first day, and how strange it had been to find myself with him. Now it was almost normal. Outside, the neighborhood was quiet, a few sprinklers going, a man in his robe padding out down the driveway to pick up his paper, and I found myself remembering what Rolly had said earlier about the perfect moment. This seemed like one, suddenly, the right time to say something to Owen. To thank him, maybe, or just to let him know how much his friendship had meant to me in the last couple of weeks. But just as I was getting up the nerve to say something, he beat me to it.

  “So. Have you listened to any of the CDs I burned for you?”

  “Yeah,” I said as we turned onto my street. “I actually started the protest song one yesterday.”

  “And?”

  “Fell asleep,” I told him. He winced. “But I was really tired. I’ll try it again and let you know.”

  “No rush,” he said, pulling up in front of my house. “These things take time.”

  “No kidding. You gave me a lot to listen to.”

  “Ten CDs,” he replied, “is not a lot. It’s barely a smattering.”

  “Owen. It’s, like, a hundred and forty songs. Minimum.”

  “If you want a real education,” he continued, ignoring this, “you can’t just sit and wait for the music to come to you. You have to go to the music.”

  “Are you suggesting some sort of pilgrimage?”

  I was joking. Judging by the serious look on his face, however, he was not. “You could call it that,” he said.

  “Uh-oh,” I said, sitting back in my seat. “What would you call it?”

  “Going to a club to see a band,” he replied. “A good band. Live. Next weekend.”

  The first thing that popped into my mind was a question: Are you asking me out? The second, following rapidly behind, was that if I actually asked it, he’d answer in full truth, and I was not sure I wanted that. If he said yes, it would be…what? Great. And terrifying. If he said no, I’d feel like an idiot.

  “A good band,” I repeated instead. “Good according to who?”

  “To me, of course.”

  “Oh.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “And to others, too,” he said. “It’s Rolly’s cousin’s band.”

  “Are they—”

  “No. Not techno,” he answered flatly. “They’re more kind of a loose rock, original songs, somewhat jokey but solidly alternative.”

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s quite a description.”

  “The description means nothing. It’s the music that counts,” he said. “And the music, you will like. Trust me.”

  “We’ll see,” I said, and he smiled. “So when is this loose-rock-original-songs-somewhat-jokey-but-solidly-alternative band playing?”

  “Saturday night,” he replied. “It’s an all-ages show, at Bendo. There’s an opener, so they’ll go on around nine.”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, as in you’ll go?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Cool.”

  I smiled as, behind him in my house, I saw Whitney appear at the top of the stairs. She had on her pajamas and was yawning, one hand to her mouth, as she started down to the foyer, her shadow stretching across the wall beside her. Once at the bottom of the stairs, she crossed into the dining room, then bent down over her flowerpots in the front window. After a moment, she reached out, pressing down the soil in one of them, then turned another so the opposite side faced the light. Then she sat back on her heels, her hands in her lap, and studied them.

  I glanced at Owen, who was watching her as well, and wondered what this looked like to him. From the outside, it had to seem so different from what it really was. Move on to the next house and you’d see something else, another glimpse, another story. This one wasn’t even mine to tell, but for whatever reason, I found myself wanting to do it anyway.

  “They’re herbs,” I said to Owen. “She just planted them yesterday. They’re, um, part of her therapy.”

  He nodded. “You said she was sick. What’s wrong? If you don’t mind my asking.”

  “She has an eating disorder,” I told him.

  “Oh.”

  “She’s a lot better than she was,” I added. And this was true. In fact, I’d watched her eat two pieces of pizza the night before. Much later than I ate, and only after blotting off any semblance of grease, and then cutting them into many small pieces. But she did eat them, so that had to count for something. “I mean, when we first found out, it was really bad. She was in the hospital for a while last year.”

  We both watched as Whitney stood up, brushing a piece of hair out of her face. I wondered if she suddenly looked different to Owen, as if knowing this information had changed her to him. I studied his expression, but there was no way to tell.

  “That must have been hard,” he said, as she turned, starting around the dining-room table. “Watching her go through that.”

  As Whitney stepped through the archway to the kitchen, she disappeared. A second later, I spotted her again, crossing in front of the island. That was the thing I always forgot about being outside our house, how it seemed like you could see everything, but certain things were blocked out, hidden. “Yeah,” I said. “It was. It was awful. It really scared me.”

  This time, I didn’t think about the fact that I was telling the truth. I didn’t have that moment when I felt myself take the leap, daring to be honest. Instead, it just happened. Owen turned and looked at me, and I swallowed, hard. Then, as I so often found myself doing when I had his attention, I continued.

  “The thing about Whitney,” I said, “is that she was always really private. So you never knew if anything was wrong with her. My sister Kirsten, she’s the total opposite, the kind of person who always volunteers too much information. So, like, when Kirsten was unhappy, you knew it even if you didn’t want to. Whereas with Whitney, you had to draw it out of her. Or figure it out some other way.”

  Owen looked back at the house, but Whitney had disappeared again. “What about you?” he said.

  “What about me?”

  “How can they tell when something’s wrong with you?”

  They can’t, I thought, but I didn’t say this. Couldn’t say this. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess you’d have to ask them.”

  A big SUV blew past us then, kicking up a bunch of leaves that had been raked to the curb. As they fluttered across the windshield, I glanced back over at my house to see Whitney climbing the stairs again, a bottled water in her hand. This time, she glanced outside. When she saw us, she slowed her steps, briefly, before continuing on to the landing.

  “I should go in,” I said, reaching down to undo my seat belt. “Thanks again for breakfast.”

  “No problem,” Owen said. “Don’t forget about the pilgrimage, okay? Saturday. Nine o’clock.”

  “Got it.” I opened my door, sliding out, then shut it behind me. As I walked around the front bumper, he cranke
d the engine, then waved at me. It wasn’t until I got halfway down the driveway that I realized I was still wearing his jacket. I whirled around, only to see him taking the corner, a blue blur, disappearing. Too late.

  I unlocked the front door, stepping inside, then slid the jacket off, folding it over my arm. There was something clunky in the outside pocket, and I reached in, my fingers groping until they brushed a solid object. Even before I pulled it out, I knew what it was: Owen’s iPod. It was nicked and scratched beyond all belief, a faint crack across the screen, his earphones wrapped around it. And despite the cold of the World of Waffles, it was warm in my hand.

  “Annabel?”

  I jumped, then looked up; Whitney was at the top of the stairs, staring down at me. “Hi,” I said.

  “You’re up early.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I, um, went out for breakfast.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “When did you leave?”

  “A while back,” I said, starting up the stairs. As I got to the landing, she stepped aside, just barely, so I had to squeeze past her. I heard her sniff once. Then twice. Bacon, I thought.

  “I better go start on my homework,” I said, heading toward my room.

  “Okay,” she said slowly. But she stayed where she was, still watching, as I shut my door behind me.

  Because I had never once seen Owen without his iPod, I assumed he would notice its absence pretty quickly. So when the phone rang later that afternoon, I picked it up expecting to hear him already in deep music withdrawal. But it wasn’t Owen; it was my mother.

  “Annabel! Hi!”

  When my mother was nervous, her cheerfulness quotient skyrocketed. The line was almost crackling from her forced perkiness. “Hi,” I said. “How’s your trip going?”

  “Just fine,” she said. “Right now your father’s playing golf, and I just got my nails done. We’ve been so busy, but I figured I should check in. How are things going?”

  This was actually her third call in thirty-six hours. But I played along anyway.

  “Good,” I said. “Not much is happening.”

  “How’s Whitney?”

  “Fine.”

  “Is she there now?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. I sat up, then got off the bed, walking to my door and opening it. “I can check—”

  “Did she go out?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure,” I said. God, I thought. “Hold on.” I stepped out into the hallway, then put the phone to my chest, listening for a second. I didn’t hear the TV, or any noise from downstairs, so instead I walked a few paces to Whitney’s door, which was closed, but not entirely. I knocked, lightly.

  “Yeah?”

  When I pushed it open, she was sitting on her bed, cross-legged, writing in a notebook in her lap. “Mom’s on the phone,” I said.

  She sighed, then reached out her hand, palm up, and I stepped over, giving her the receiver. “Hello?…Hi…. Yes, I’m here…. I’m fine…. Everything’s fine. You don’t have to keep calling, you know.”

  Then my mother said something, and Whitney sat back against her headboard. As she listened, offering up a series of mmm-mhms and uh-huhs, I glanced out her window. Even though our rooms were adjacent, her view of the golf course, where a man in checked pants was now taking a practice swing, looked totally different to me, like it might have been another place altogether.

  “Yeah, okay,” she was saying now, reaching up to smooth a hand over her hair. Looking at her, I thought again how beautiful she was—even in jeans and a T-shirt, no makeup, she was breathtaking. So much so that it was hard to believe she could ever have looked at herself and seen anything else. “I’ll tell her…. Okay…. Bye.”

  She dropped the phone from her ear, hitting the OFF button. “Mom says she’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. “They’ll be back by dinnertime.”

  “Oh,” I said as handed the receiver back to me. “Right.”

  “And we can either eat spaghetti for dinner tonight or go out.” She sat back, pulling her legs up to her chest, then looked at me. “What do you want to do?”

  I hesitated, wondering if this was a trick question. “I don’t care,” I said. “Spaghetti is fine.”

  “All right. I’ll fix it in a little while.”

  “Okay. I can help, if you want.”

  “Whatever,” she said. “We’ll figure it out later.” She leaned forward, picking up a pen from beside her foot and uncapping it. I could see now that the top page of the notebook in her lap was filled with her print, and I wondered what she was writing. After a moment, she looked up at me. “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said, realizing I was still standing there, staring at her. “I’ll, um, see you in a bit.”

  I went back to my room and sat down on my bed, picking up Owen’s iPod. It seemed strange, and maybe kind of wrong, to have it here in my room, not to mention in my hands. Still, I found myself unwrapping the earphones, then hitting the power button. After a second, the screen blinked to life. When the menu appeared, I clicked on SONGS.

  There were 9,987 to choose from. Good God, I thought, as I scrolled down through the list for a minute, titles blurring past. I remembered what he’d said about drowning things out. It was what he’d done during the divorce, but also every day, I realized, when he walked around with his earphones on. Ten thousand songs could fill a lot of silence.

  I clicked back to the menu, then scrolled to PLAYLISTS. Another long list popped up: A.M. SHOW 8/12, A.M. SHOW 8/19, CHANTS (IMPORTED). And then: ANNABEL.

  I lifted my finger off the button. It was probably just one of the CDs he’d made for me, I thought. But still, I found myself hesitating, the same way I had earlier in the truck. Wanting to know, but not. This time, though, I broke.

  When I clicked on the button, the screen changed, pulling up a list of songs. The first one was “Jennifer” by a band called Lipo. Which sounded slightly familiar. As was “Descartes Dream,” by Misanthrope, the second song, which I went ahead and clicked on. It only took a moment to recognize it as one of the songs from the first show of Owen’s I’d listened to. Not liked, but listened to. And discussed with him afterwards.

  They were all there. Every song we’d ever talked or argued about, listed in careful order. The Mayan chants, from the first day he’d given me the ride. “Thank You,” by Led Zeppelin, from when I’d picked him up. Entirely too much techno, every thrash metal song. Even Jenny Reef. As I listened to a bit of each, I thought of all the times I’d seen Owen with his earphones on and wondered what he was listening to, much less thinking about. Who would have ever guessed that it might have been me?

  I glanced over at the clock—it was 4:55. Owen had to be missing this by now. No big deal. I’d just drive over to his house and drop it off. Easy.

  Halfway down the stairs, though, I heard a crash, followed by a muttered “shit.” When I poked my head into the kitchen, Whitney was shoving a saucepan back into the cupboard.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Fine.” She stood up, brushing her hair out of her face. On the island in front of her, there was a jar of pasta sauce, a box of spaghetti, a cutting board with a red pepper and a cucumber on it, and a bag of lettuce. “Are you going out or something?”

  “Um,” I said. “I was…just for a little while. Unless you want me to—”

  “No, I’m fine.” She picked up a box of spaghetti, her eyes narrowing as she read the back of it.

  “Oh. Okay,” I said. “Well, I’ll be back by—”

  “It’s just…” She put the box down. “I’m not sure which pot I’m supposed to use for pasta.”

  I put Owen’s coat down on the table, then crossed the room to the cabinet next to the stove. “This one,” I told her, pulling out the large stock pan and the strainer pot that fit inside of it. “It’s easier to drain that way.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Right. Sure.”

  I carried it to the sink, filling it up with water, and put it on the stove. I could fee
l her watching me as I turned on the burner. “It’ll take a while,” I told her. “If you cover it, it cuts down the time some.”

  She nodded. “Okay.”

  I walked back over to the chair where I’d left Owen’s coat, then stood there, watching, as she took a smaller pot out of the cabinet and put it on the stove. Then she picked up the pasta sauce, popping off the top and dumping it in. All of this she did very slowly and deliberately, as if she were splitting atoms. Which wasn’t really all that surprising, as Whitney hardly ever cooked for herself. My mother monitored all her meals, fixed her snacks and sandwiches, even the cereal she ate for breakfast. I realized that if this was weird for me to watch, it had to be really strange for her to do. Especially alone.

  “Do you want me to help?” I asked her as she pulled a spoon out of the drawer by the stove and stuck it into the pasta sauce, stirring it tentatively. “I don’t mind.”

  For a minute, she didn’t say anything, and I wondered if I’d offended her. But then, not turning around, she said, “Sure. I mean, if you want to.”

  So that night, for the first time I could remember, I fixed dinner with my sister. We didn’t talk much, other than her asking me the occasional question (what temperature to put the oven on for garlic bread, or how much spaghetti to make) and me answering (350, all of it). I set the table while she tackled the salad in her typically slow and methodical way, cutting up the vegetables so carefully and grouping them by color on the cutting board. Once everything was done, Whitney and I sat down together in the dining room, just the two of us. As I slid into my seat, I glanced over at her flowerpots in the windowsill.

  “They look good there,” I said as she sat down.

  “I guess,” she replied, picking up her napkin. Her plate was mostly salad, with only a tiny bit of pasta, but I didn’t say anything, if only because I knew my mom would have. “Now they just have to actually grow.”

  I twirled some spaghetti around my fork, then took a bite. “This is good,” I told her. “Perfect.”

  “It’s pasta,” she said with a shrug. “It’s easy.”

  “Not always,” I told her. “If you don’t cook it enough, it’s crunchy in the middle. And if you cook it too much, it’s mushy. It’s a fine line.”