Chasing Days

by Deirdre Riordan Hall

  Chasing Days

  by

  Deirdre Riordan Hall

  ☼

  Chasing Days

  Copyright© 2017 Deirdre Riordan Hall

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any informational storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the author/publisher except where permitted by law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover Design: Nova Book Covers

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  “You get a strange feeling when you're about to leave a place…like you'll not only miss the people you love but you'll miss the person you are now at this time and this place, because you'll never be this way ever again."

  -Azar Nafisi

  To the friends and family who always remind me what it feels like to be free.

  Chapter One

  ☾

  Sunday

  2 weeks

  My best friend Teddy likes to quote a famous Greek philosopher saying something like, the only constant is change. For instance, this weekend, hundreds of men and women, men and men, and women and women said I do. Early this morning, tears pierced the day for grandparents who died in the night. Today, millions of mothers and fathers will hold their newborns for the first time.

  Change is a constantly unfurling ribbon of joy and heartbreak and emotion and sometimes it feels massive, overwhelming, and as if the world spins away from me and I can't keep up.

  After being waitlisted, students receive notice the art school they secretly applied to sent the thick envelope—that’s Teddy. I'm going to miss him so much. I worry I might miss him too much. I heard him whooping with excitement from next door and expect a call any minute.

  One-minute passes. Nothing. I saw the mail delivery person stuff the envelope in their mailbox. Two-minutes. Still no call or text. He doesn't bash the front door down with excitement.

  At any given moment workers are laid off, players get laid, lovers make love, and virgins lose it—except me. (Not that I'm thinking about that, but I am, actually. All the time lately.) Pirates lay siege. Treasures wash ashore. People get lost and find themselves where X marks the spot—exactly where they didn't expect themselves to be, despite what the compass said.

  Cataclysmic life changes are happening now and now and now.

  And here I am, dipping my spoon into a carton of ice cream, digging for the thick vein of fudge, and packing my backpack for the last two weeks of high school, waiting for my best friend to call or text or send a confetti blast of glee through the window, but he hasn't…

  Change is happening.

  Cataclysmic change.

  I'm not sure I like it. I'm not sure I'm ready.

  My cheek absorbs the cool from the window as I lean against the glass, watching the stars flicker to life. I shove the sash past the first two sticky and stubborn inches to get some fresh air. I inhale the dewy, almost-summer night.

  Teddy’s muffled voice, in a one-sided phone conversation, stirs the air between the walls that separate our houses.

  A little sinker casts itself into the pool of my belly as I wonder why he didn’t call me first. I doubt he’s talking to his parents; he avoids contact with them as much as possible and vice versa. It’s too late for him to be on the phone with anyone at the school, confirming, then double and triple checking that there wasn’t a mistake. That it’s for real. I can’t imagine he’d have called H, even though her mother is also an artist and she wrote a letter of recommendation for him.

  I chew my pen cap, the domed kind that has the perfect amount of give with each bite. I swap this out for another bite of ice cream and then cross an assignment off my list. Two down, one to go.

  I spin in my seat and stare at the shiny new document waiting for me to declare why I’d ban Ulysses by James Joyce. For the record, I wouldn’t, I'm all for freedom of speech. But Mr. Dicostanzo divided the class into two groups to write a persuasive argument for or against the novel. Unfortunately, he dumped me in the nay pile. Which is almost like a hay pile, but I’m not the needle. Just an ordinary piece of straw, kind of like the color of my hair.

  I exhale, fluttering my bangs off my forehead. If I held onto even the thread of an expectation that Mr. Dicostanzo would answer my question, I'd ask, "Why couldn’t we pick for ourselves whether we’d include it in the curriculum or throw the hardcover into a blazing bonfire?"

  At Puckett High School, Dicostanzo is the Dictator. He’s been there for at least a hundred years and was my mother and father’s English teacher, also known to them as the Dictator or simply just, The Dic. They’d add a K if asked to spell it out. When my parents say words like dick, boobs, and douche, I squirm. Sometimes I squirm even when they don’t say those things.

  I type the heading for my paper, miss a key, and spell my name Qilla instead of Willa. I consider leaving it, though Dicostanzo would probably dock five points. His name isn’t undeserved.

  I can't wait another second to text Teddy, but only drop a hint so he has the pleasure of telling me the good news himself. I have an open carton of ice cream over here and an extra spoon… I write.

  Maybe he’ll want to celebrate before his mother and father drag him through the same argument they’ve been having since he was born:

  Be someone else. No.

  Be more like us. No.

  Be normal. No, no, no.

  Tomorrow I’ll wear the Team Teddy T-shirt I made a couple of years ago when the Westings started to get serious about their son's future. Interestingly, this coincided with the monthly hair color swaps, the tattoo, and an unfortunate, though humorous, incident with a pair of roller skates. As a rule, mother and father Westing don't laugh. But Teddy’s going to be the one to come out on top, whether or not his parents accept whom he is. Some things you just know about a person.

  Sometimes I whisper-shout my own comments when their arguments spill through the windows. I fist pump the air when Teddy makes a solid point about his individuality. They can’t see past the blue hair, his extraordinary ability to draw and sculpt zaftig female forms, and the fact that he swears like a sailor. I don’t think he’s afraid of anything.

  My parents say he’s a delight and would adopt him if he ever appeared on our doorstep swaddled and orphaned.

  The Westings are blind to the fact that he’s never missed school, not since he had pneumonia in third grade. He also gets straight A’s and has a job at the roller rink. Not to mention Teddy is the best friend a girl, who is his diametric opposite, could have.

  Ten-minutes later, all I’ve added to my paper is my last name and the date. The cursor blinks for me impatiently. It’s quite possible that I’ve exhausted every word, turn of phrase, and sentence in the last four years of higher education. I doubt the Dictator will accept the excuse that I’ve simply run out of things to say. Sometimes I wish I’d run out of thoughts because they bounce around at all hours, keeping me up, confusing my right foot and my left, and distracting me from everything not inside my head.

  I text Teddy ???!

  My mom and dad are in the next room laughing as they marathon season three of Girls. The light flashes a blueish glow and a beat heavy song issues from the TV. I watched the first episode with them before realizing the show was fashioned after their lives: a hipster explosion of struggling creatives, irresponsibility and instability, and sex. God, so mu
ch sex.

  It doesn’t matter that I’ve never done it or that I know for a fact that my parents did when they were younger than me—I’m the evidence—but just that it’s so baldly out there. I’ll walk through the room and on the TV, two characters are having sex in a kitchen scene. I’ll pass through again with a bowl of popcorn and two of the characters are doing it on a desk. I’ll shield my eyes and hear moans and squelchy noises coming from any given episode. There’s so much pale skin and dirty talk. If a show could be the soundtrack to Autumn Wohl and Kurt Breuk’s lives, Girls would be it, minus the me part.

  Cold ice cream meets my warm tongue and the lie of my genuine disinterest flares just below my belly.

  Minutes later, the two of them giggle and the living room goes dark, followed by sounds of shuffling as they stub toes and bump around our comfortably lived in house: my mother's piles of magazines and books, my dad's abandoned home improvement projects, and lots of beer brewing business-related boxes.

  “Willa, we’re going to bed,” Mom calls.

  I can practically see her trying to keep a straight face, like they’re the teenagers sneaking off.

  “G’night sweetie,” Dad says.

  “To the moon and back,” Mom says, her voice softer when I hear the loose step squeak as she ascends the stairs.

  “To the moon and back,” I mumble.

  We both mean it, really. I love my parents, but they’re so not like parents that it's sometimes alarming and yeah, it usually makes me squirm.

  The mattress on the bed upstairs shifts. Ew. I know what they’re going to do. I stuff earbuds in, crank up an indie rock song, and lean in close to the computer screen. When I look away into the dark room, the image of the blinking cursor hangs in the air like a glowing ghost.

  I refresh and re-refresh the message page on my phone as if the texting feature failed me and didn’t send Teddy’s reply.

  Suddenly, it buzzes, startling me. The bubble says that it's from Heather Hitchcock Hennessy. Otherwise known as H. Quick, need to take subversive measures to stop my mom from throwing me grad party. Help!

  We used to call Heather Big H. It's funny only because she's a tiny person with a pixie cut and has a big name to go with her big personality. However, she asked us to drop the Big part last year. Now she's just H. I assume she intends the text for Teddy. Out of our group, he’s the revolutionary.

  I type Forwarding message to resident anarchist.

  Moments later, she responds Ha ha. No seriously, the threat is imminent. Teddy will only encourage her because he likes to get fancy—she’s making reservations at the Clam Shack.

  The name Clam Shack is ironic because the restaurant is the most upscale in town. Perhaps it started as a shack and expanded into the classy, oceanfront dining experience that I’ve only been to once, even though I walk or drive by it daily.

  As we’ve counted down the months to graduation, Heather has turned the dramatic flair up, usually a role reserved solely for Teddy.

  I respond The food is good.

  Not the point. I’ll be mortified. You-know-who works there.

  Oh. Now it’s clear. I was hoping to sponge a good meal with a great view with my besties. She just wants to faux-avoid Jud Sherman. Heather has had a secret crush on him since ninth grade when he was lanky with puppy dog hands and lots of ingrown hairs on his neck. Though now, I’ll admit he’s filled in the gaps and isn't half-bad, not that I'm looking. Much.

  Up until H's birthday in April, she dated Lou Vasquez. He did what should be rule number one in the do-nots in the breakup book for guys: he stood her up and then did the whole it's not you, it's me over text. It was her birthday. More than a month passed without another word even though we all go to the same school. There’d been a lot of ugly crying, but it’s dried up in the last week during this heatwave. I think Heather is getting dehydrated.

  I doubt H will ever be the same. Also, as far as I know Grady O’Rourke works at the Clam Shack. He's my Jud Sherman. I haven’t decided if during the next two weeks before graduation whether I’ll talk to him or continue to pretend he doesn’t exist even though when I’m in his proximity every nerve cell in my body flusters me with rosy excitement and stomach flushing dread. Not the kind of dread that happens when I’m face to face with an exam I'm not prepared for. No, the kind of dread that tells me I will have to do something instead of just hiding behind my too-long bangs, which I’ve successfully done for a while now. Okay, four years.

  I’m not one known to take risks. Although it isn't clear if this is an absolute aspect of my personality or a product of expectation.

  I text Heather back There’s no time like the present to take your chances. The clock is ticking. What do you have to lose? This might be what I want her to tell me…

  Heather writes Who are you and what did you do with Willa?

  For once, I don’t answer because lately, I’m not entirely sure, but it’s easier to act as if everything is the same even though it's as if my biochemistry reorganizes itself daily, sometimes by the hour: rearranging the furniture and changing up the scuffed flooring and floral wallpaper in favor of paint called atomic pink and orange mayhem. I’m not sure I’m ready for the new décor. Remember what I said about change?

  The low murmur of Teddy’s voice carries through the night. I wonder whom he’s talking to and if he already finished his essay. Lucky him. When Mr. Dicostanzo drew the invisible line down the center of the classroom, Teddy was on the other side. However, unlike me, he’d be able to pull off the case for banning the book without a problem. It’s like he’s so comfortable in his skin, he can slip into any other form as if he’s inhabited it all along, yet it’s always still him. My dad would argue he's like Johnny Depp in every role he’s ever played. The outline of the character is apparent, but skillfully amped by Depp's unique take on Jack Sparrow or the Mad Hatter or Kemp in the Rum Diaries. He’s a huge fan. My mom, not so much.

  I flip to my notes and begin the least inspired essay I’ve ever written.

  One page in, the neighborhood is quiet except for the crickets who’ve decided summer is close enough to strike up the string band. The talk in town is this heatwave is going to continue indefinitely or at least for the next two weeks, coinciding perfectly with the end of the school year in an ancient building without air conditioning.

  I flick on my phone and text Teddy So…

  Two pages later, still no response. Maybe he forgot to plug in his cell phone and was using the house phone earlier. I hit save on the ancient desktop computer. The machine whirs and grinds with the effort. I’m at the door, ready to go to Teddy's when the Westing's garage door slides open. I’ve missed my opportunity. They don’t like my kind.

  I double-check my phone. There aren't any new messages, only about ten dozen saved voicemails from Teddy. He's called me at least once a day since we've been old enough to memorize each other's numbers.

  Because I'm also good friends with procrastination and maybe because I need a laugh, I press listen on the earliest message from Teddy saved on my phone.

  The drawl he never quite abandoned after his family moved here—the granite state—from Tennessee comes through like a sleepy case of the Mondays. "Hey, Willa. Have you ever tried to vacuum the lawn? Talk to you later." I have no doubt he's asking these questions from some strange well of personal experience or because he wants to get me to do this stuff in an act of idiocy, hilarity, or complete and utter randomness.

  I listen to the next one. "Hey, Willa. Have you ever forgotten to put the seat up when you went to the bathroom? Talk to you later." Then just to get my smile hitched all the way up, I click for one more. "Hey, Willa. Have you ever used a shoe as a pillow? Talk to you later."

  I listen for the sound of his voice from next door, but the neighboring house is quiet and dark.

  I close the window, wake up the computer, and force the rest of the essay out. I imagine a quill marking the words on my skin, I must not tell lies, I must not tell lies, I must not
tell lies fifth year Harry Potter style. I’d totally shelve Ulysses in my library. Maybe Teddy's not the only rebel in town after all.

  I imagine he's waiting to tell his mom and dad until the morning; though in the past, he’s taken advantage of their lubricated moods when they return home from whatever society blah blah blah event they’ve attended without inviting their offspring. I think that they think he shames them.

  At the continued silence and stillness, I suddenly feel like I did go to the bathroom with the seat down because I don't understand why he'd wait to tell me his life changing news.

  Then, as if on cue, a heated discussion rumbles from next door —the Westing's shock at their son's subterfuge plays loudly. They can't believe Teddy secretly applied to art school and that he's insisting he go.

  Seriously, some people.

  It would be a travesty to the entire population of planet earth if they deny him the opportunity. They’ll simply have to see that or disown him, which wouldn’t surprise me. Upside, I’d get a brother.

  I gaze at the short stack of college prospectuses on the shelf above the computer. Teddy knows with absolute certainty what he wants to do. I’m hung up on trying to figure out what I'm going to do right now, never mind in three months or ten years.

  Voices rise and fall. I want to text him encouragement, but last summer a silent agreement slipped between us: it is my duty to ignore how his parents are assholes, just like he does. Only he doesn’t, not really. Our bedroom windows are opposite and I’ve heard him sniffling as he sketches and plots late into the night.

  If I had to assign points to the current argument, at least based on what I overhear and what I know, I’d say Teddy ten, Mr. and Mrs. Westing nil. His comment about it being his life was well said, though they did have a point about it being their money. I sigh and return to my document.

  My neck aches by the time I’m finished and the residue of the icky feeling from the arguing next-door leaves me unsettled. I fuss around in my bedroom until I find myself in front of a piece of poster board leftover from one of my final projects. I get out a pack of markers and write in bold letters Teddy, you are my hero! You're amazing! Congrats!