“Do you have a pair with bunnies or duckies?” she asks.
“No, but I have a merry widow.”
She laughs. God, I’ve missed that laugh. “Do you have a long shirt or a nightgown?” she says.
Me, wear a nightgown? “Let me go get you a shirt.”
Without warning, we hear a sound like bullets hitting the window, like machine-gun fire. We both duck down, covering our heads. Then we realize how dumb that looks and giggle. We go over to the window and gaze out. Rain is still sluicing down the glass, but now the ground is covered with pearls of ice. “It’s hailing,” we say in unison. She slugs me. “Owe me a Coke.”
“Oh, man. I hope it doesn’t dent my new car.”
She turns to me. “You got a car?”
“For no reason, except maybe they were tired of me bugging them a hundred times a day.”
“Or they felt you deserved it.” She rests her head on my shoulder.
The hail is unrelenting. Now I really am worried about my car. “Hopefully, Dad got me denters’ insurance.”
She twists to face me. “Is there such a thing?”
I just look at her. She wraps her hands around my neck and fake strangles me. She says, “I remember a couple of years ago we got this softball-sized hail. It didn’t last too long, thank goodness, and afterward I went out and found the biggest chunk I could. It was actually a whole lot of little pieces of hail all globbed together. I put it in the freezer to keep forever. I wonder what happened to it.”
I remember that storm, too. “Hang on,” I say, and then sprint downstairs to the kitchen. At the back of the freezer is a Baggie, and I pull it out. I run back upstairs and show it to Liana.
Her eyes grow wide. She tosses me this lopsided smile and goes, “Great minds think alike.”
Chapter 25
I hear Mom come in around two AM. I haven’t been able to sleep, knowing Liana’s just down the hall. Slipping out of bed, I go over and crack open my door. It startles Mom. “What are you doing up?” she whispers.
“Can’t sleep. Is the baby okay?”
Mom’s face tells the answer. I open my door all the way.
“We tried to stop the labor, but she had a placental abruption. The baby weighed just over a pound, and we kept him alive for six hours. But his lungs were severely underdeveloped, and he had a heart defect. Then his brain began to hemorrhage. Poor little thing.”
I go over and hug Mom around the waist. It’s tragic. Dying young, at any age.
Mom says, “At least we saved the mom. I’m wiped. I need to go to bed.” She unlocks my arms from behind her and plants a kiss on my head.
I return to my room, and a minute later a soft knock sounds on the door. I get up to answer it. Liana’s there, her arms folded across her chest.
“Did the baby make it?” she asks.
I shake my head.
Her face falls. I hear Mom and Dad talking in their room, so I pull Liana into mine and shut the door.
“I can’t sleep,” she says.
“Me neither.” In the glow of my digital alarm, all I can see is her silhouette, but it brings me to full alert. “You want to watch a movie on my iPad?”
“Sure,” she goes.
She trails me to my desk, and when I stop abruptly, she runs into me. She giggles. It makes me want to laugh, too, but I suppress it.
“Did you close your door? Because if my mom or dad knows you’re in here with me…”
We both pad to the door and peek out to make sure the coast is clear.
“Be right back,” Liana whispers. She tiptoes down the hall, closes her door quietly, and then tiptoes back.
There’s only one chair at my desk, but we could sit on the floor, or the bed. She says, “I promise to keep my hands and lips to myself if you do.”
I raise a palm. “Scout’s honor.”
She asks, “Were you ever a scout?”
“Hell no.”
She laughs, and then claps a hand over her mouth.
I place the iPad between us as she hops into bed beside me. As we’re scrolling through movies, I ask her, “Do you think it’s harder to lose a baby who’s only been alive for six hours, or a person who’s a little older? Say, seventeen. Someone who’s left a mark.” Even if it was scuff marks on others’ hearts.
Liana doesn’t answer for a long time. At last she says, “I don’t think it matters. You either love your children or you don’t. They’ll always be a part of you.”
I wasn’t talking about parents. I meant me. Her.
“Let me know if you see something you like.” I’m on the third or fourth page of movies before I realize her eyes are locked on me.
“What?”
“I see something I like.” She takes the iPad, leans across me, and sets it on the nightstand. Hovering over me, she lowers her head and kisses me, gently at first, and then more passionately. I know I should turn away, tell her to stop, but I can’t. I want her.
She takes me in her arms and rolls me to the side to face her. “I lied,” she says.
“Me too.”
I close my eyes and we’re kissing again. Then, just as quickly as we started, we stop. Liana throws an arm over me and we just cuddle. Talk.
“Can I ask you a question?” I say.
“Ask me anything. I don’t want us to ever keep secrets, Alix.”
“Cross my heart and hope to—”
She grabs my hand and presses it to her heart. “Live.”
“Live.” Although that promise is up to fate.
“What’s your question?” she asks.
“It’s about your religion,” I say. “I don’t want to offend you.”
“You won’t. What do you want to know?”
“Do you ever think it’s hypocritical to be Catholic, knowing that they condemn gay people?”
As soon as the words are out, I wish I could take them back. She has the right to believe whatever she wants.
“You’re right,” she says. “It’s hard to rationalize how a person can buy into some of the teachings of a religion and not others. All I know is that I love God, and believing there’s a higher power and a heaven to go to when you die gives me comfort. There are a lot of teachings I don’t believe. Like you can’t practice birth control; you can only go to a Catholic church; you can’t wear polyester.”
“What? Seriously?”
“For me, though, God is love, pure and simple. And God would never ask me to choose between my truth and my faith.”
That makes sense to me. I could build a personal spirituality based on love.
“Did I answer your question?” Liana asks.
“Yes. Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” She runs the backs of her fingers down my face and kisses me. We don’t go any further than kissing. Touching. She’s soft and warm and safe. I think safe is what we both need right now.
Bright sunshine streaks through the curtains and my bleary eyes drift across the bed. She’s still here, spooning against me.
I glance at my clock and gasp. Ten thirty? “Liana.” I shake her shoulder a little.
She murmurs.
“You have to go back to the guest room.” If Mom or Dad finds us here…
“But I don’t want to.” She links a leg in mine and rolls me over. She rakes her fingers through my hair.
Liana must hear the footsteps on the stairs at the same time I do. She scrambles to untangle herself from the sheet.
At that moment, a knock sounds and my door opens. Mom sticks her head in. “I need you to run some errands for me, if you don’t mind.”
“I don’t mind.” Glancing sideways across the bed, I notice Liana’s not visible. She must’ve leapt off the mattress just in time.
Mom adds, “Good morning, Liana. Maybe on the way Alix can fill a gas can so you can get your car to a station.”
“Okay,” this tiny voice squeaks from the floor. “Thanks.”
Mom leaves and I sprawl across the bed. Liana’s flat on her
stomach, her butt cheeks fully exposed around her thong.
“Hold on.” I grab my iPad. “Let me get a shot of this for Facebook.”
Epilogue
I see Joss a few times at school, but whenever our eyes meet she turns and bolts. I get the message. Maybe I’m her worst memory of her dead sister, since I’m the one who told her the truth. One day I drive by her cul-de-sac and there’s a FOR SALE sign stuck in the Durbins’ front yard with a SOLD banner slapped across it. My first thought is, I hope wherever Joss lands, she’ll make a new beginning for herself.
The distance between Arvada and Greeley is still a pain, but school’s out for both of us, so Liana and I have more time to spend together. Our girls’ track team went to the state finals, even without Swanee, and it was a blast cheering them on and hanging out with Betheny again. I’m pretty sure Swan wouldn’t be pleased to know she wasn’t as pivotal to the team as she thought. But in her short life, she did find her passion.
Liana suggested I set up a website to sell my jewelry. Her brother is studying to become a Web designer, and he agreed to help. “For a nominal fee,” he told Liana. Liana told him, “ ‘Nominal’ meaning ‘free.’ ” She threatened to rat him out about his speeding tickets, and now I’ve got a very cool website called Bejeweled by Alixandra. In the first week, I actually sold two sets of earrings. It’s awesome imagining my jewelry being worn by people who find it beautiful or funky. I’m applying to CU to study art. Or premed. Or both. Liana’s going to need a roommate. Right?
Liana and I are meeting at Red Rocks Amphitheatre for the July 4 concert and fireworks display. Even though we’re officially a couple now, prior to the concert, we wanted to finalize one aspect of our lives so it wouldn’t always be hanging over us.
As I turn into the entrance for Red Rocks, I see that Liana’s car is already in the lot. She’s nowhere to be seen.
The sky is a dazzling blue against the white helium-filled balloon I bought at Party City on my way here. The balloon bobs in the breeze as I make my way up the trail to the auditorium. I don’t want to lose my balloon in the wind, so I wrap the ribbons three times around my wrist.
Liana’s sitting on the top riser with her white balloon, and when she sees me she stands and waves. I hurry to her and we embrace. “You’re late,” she says. “Did you have trouble finding it?”
“Yeah. My GPS is permanently set on Greeley.” We laugh. If you live in Colorado, you know where Red Rocks Amphitheatre is. Not to mention I’m fifteen minutes early.
“Are you ready?” she asks me.
“In a minute. I wrote something.” I fish in the front pocket of my shorts and pull out a sheet of paper folded in fourths. If there’s one thing I’ve learned through all of this, thanks to both Swanee and Liana, it’s that we have so little control over what happens to us in life. But we do have the power to forgive, both ourselves and others.
“It’s not that good,” I say to Liana.
“If you wrote it, it’s Pulitzer Prize material.”
I snort. “Hold this.” I hand her my white balloon.
We sit, both of us gazing down at the empty stage. We considered doing this at Jeffco Stadium, where Swan died, but agreed that would be morbid. And melancholy is not our intent today.
“Ready?” I say.
“Could you be any more dramatic?”
“Shut up.”
She grins. Her hair glistens in the sun and a curly tendril blows into her mouth. I reach over and brush it away.
Unfolding the paper, I take a deep breath and recite:
“Maybe you knew
how short your time would be
how your love
could be potent
possessive
poison.
We loved the person
we knew
or thought we did.
That’ll never change.
Love can give you life
or take it away
you can pass it on
or stop it in its tracks.”
I hesitate. “Is it awful?”
“No. But it feels unfinished.”
“Duh. Because there’s more.” I continue:
“We want you to know
we forgive you
and we thank you
for bringing us together.”
I refold the paper. “That’s it.”
Liana takes my hand and squeezes. “It’s perfect. Now are you ready?”
I nod.
She hands me back my balloon. We discussed buying a bunch of multicolored balloons, but decided in the end on the two white ones, symbolizing doves. Peace and serenity. We couldn’t abandon the rainbow completely, so we each got a variety of colored ribbons tied to the ends of the balloons. We knot all the ribbons together and stand up.
Our fingers curl together around the knot and I say, “On the count of three.”
We count, “One, two, three,” and then release both balloons. They rise into the air, the ribbons fluttering like kite tails. Liana and I shade our eyes and watch as a gust of wind whips the balloons down the auditorium, between the red granite towers, over the stage, and out of sight.
Liana and I snake our arms around each other, resting our temples together. Then we kiss. Liana breaks free and points straight up in the sky. I catch a final glimpse of our balloons, sailing high into the heavens.
Good-bye, Swanee, I say to myself. You were my first, and that’ll never change. But life goes on, and so do survivors. Liana and I are joining their ranks.
Acknowledgments
None of my crazy career choices would’ve been possible without the enduring love and encouragement of my partner, Sherri Leggett.
When I told her, “I quit my (very high-paying tech) job today to become a writer,” she said, “Ho-kay. Have you ever written anything?”
I said, “Pfft. No. But look at all the books out there. How hard can it be?”
I’m here to tell you it’s haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaard.
I owe my twenty-five-year writing career to my editor, Megan Tingley, who discovered me while we were still in trainers. She’s been my mentor from the time she was an associate editor until now, in her current position as Executive Vice President and Publisher at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Thank you, too, to all the employees at LBYR who work their butts off to make great books.
Not long after Megan and I met, it was my great fortune to hook up (figuratively) with my brilliant agent, Wendy Schmalz. She’s been my biggest champion and friend forever and ever. That woman can work miracles.
An author needs support from her writing community, and I am extremely grateful to The Wild Writers (www.thewildwriters.com) for their time and talents in critiquing my work.
Thank you to all the teachers and librarians who make my books available to young readers, and to the readers themselves, young and young-at-heart, who’ve continued my cycle of empowerment by letting me know how much my books have validated, comforted, and inspired them.
Adopt a cat today.
Love, Julie
Lies My Girlfriend Told Me (ARC) Page 18
