And that’s why I feel that I can push you harder than most of the high school students I have mentored. I think we are beyond tense issues or maintaining a consistent point of view. Clearly you are a reader because you are mastering the art of writing the novel and only good readers who read like a writer can do that. I want to recommend a list of craft books for you.
Attached are my notes. I’m not gonna lie, there’s a lot of suggestions for revision but you are up to the challenge.
I think that you already know you are a good writer. Now I want you to prove to yourself that you can write an amazing novel.
Looking forward,
Alyssa
Amazing novel. Maybe. I’d settle for a novel. Completed. I hit print on Alyssa’s notes. I’m up for the challenge.
Chapter Eleven
Escape
Sean makes keeping my promise to stay “in the moment” easy. Since I saw him on that Monday about three weeks ago we have talked every night, and he has picked me up from school a few more times. But tonight, we went to dinner and now we’re here at the overlook at the edge of the woods in town.
We pull up to the low fence and the view is all lights and stars. In front of us is a clearing, and we can see the deep black sky and the little flickers of light from the stars.
The heat blasts in Sean’s car, a sound like the white noise machine in Dr. Foster’s office waiting room. Behind us are the woods. A place where kids from all the neighboring towns tumble into to have a bonfire and a smoke. A place where the police crawl from Friday sundown to Sunday sun up. But tonight is the big basketball game between our town and our biggest rival, so not another car in sight.
We talk about our day. I tell him about the A plus I got on my Odysseus paper, that I already finished the edits for Alyssa and have written another ten pages.
“I want to read this masterpiece.”
Not if you knew it was all about my ex-boyfriend. The fantasy happy ending I wish I had with my ex-boyfriend. “Not yet,” I say and look out the window at the flickering.
“Writing is the only thing that helps me escape—” I want to say, ‘my life now’, but instead I say, “my stress. Makes me lose the moment, forget everything.”
“That’s why I like to act. To escape.” And then he adds, shyly: “Lately being with you, it’s almost better than acting.”
I can see out of the corner of my eye, he’s looking at me. He reaches for my hand, which is a little shaky but when I look at it, it’s fine. His hand is soft and warm. Mine is clammy. I’m with Sean. This is real. This could be better than any story I write about Justin. If I just try, a little.
“I really like you.’’ He runs his thumb over mine. “Don’t think I ever stopped.”
His words make me squirm a little, so I say:
“Let’s go outside, out there. To the woods. There’s a little stream somewhere in there.”
“It’s cold—”
But I’m out the door already and running towards the woods. I remember running back there with Justin and hopping on some stepping-stones that seemed perfectly placed across the stream.
I slow down and turn and run backwards, waving Sean towards me. I drop my jacket and feel the wind through my cords. I pull up the turtleneck to cover my chin and mouth as I run. My boots crunch over the cold ground. Sean picks up my jacket, laughing.
“Be careful!” He calls to me. “It’s dark out here. Hey, slow down!”
I stop in front of an old gnarled tree. There’s a tree in my yard that’s smaller version of this one, with branches that are perfect reclining seats. I want to climb this one. I put a hand on it and then hoist myself with my foot secured onto a low branch. My foot slips.
“Ow!”
Sean swoops down, and I feel myself being lifted. His face is inches from mine.
I wince. “My butt.”
“Should I rub it?” He’s half-kidding.
I decide to try and be sexy, but instead I squeak awkwardly, “Yes.”
He puts me down gently and leans himself against the tree carefully, covering my butt with one hand. Then he pulls me by my hips towards him. A flicker of the memory of my first kiss with Justin passes through my mind, but I put my hands on either side of Sean’s cold face and the memory fades. The only light is from the moon that falls between the thick trees. I pull Sean’s face to mine and let my cold nose touch his. Then our foreheads touch. He smells like breath mints.
Our mouths are open when they touch. We keep kissing and I think of nothing but the cold air against my back and the warmth and softness of Sean’s lips. He kneads my butt. It doesn’t hurt anymore. When he guides me to the ground and pulls me on top of him, I still only think of kissing him and the cold air.
. . . . .
Sean kisses my neck and I see my jacket next to me, his is under my head like a pillow.
“Are you alright?” He whispers into my neck.
“Yes,” I breathe into his.
His hands move from under my turtleneck to the top of my jeans. “Is this okay?”
I feel dizzy lying on the ground.
“Yes,” I say again.
Sean kisses my neck again. I squeeze my eyes shut and try to relax, but my legs feel shaky. I wait to feel something. I don’t know what I’m supposed to feel, so I reach for his zipper.
Everything kinds of stops when my hand touches his boxers.
“You’re not alright,” he says. “I can tell.”
“Come back. I’m fine.”
“Maybe I rushed this. I just got caught up.” He looks up at the sky and then back to me. “We don’t have to do anything, you know.”
“I—” The air pierces my throat. I can taste the cold.
“I hope you don’t think this is all I want.” He zips his pants.
“No!”
“Because if that’s what you think of me…”
I reach out for his hand. I still feel dizzy.
“No!”
“Because, you know, if I just wanted a hand job—”
“Sean.”
He sits back on his heels. “Let’s go.” He sighs. “It’s getting late. I promised your Dad you’d be home by eleven-thirty.”
I fix my pants and shirt. When I’m done I say, “This has nothing to do with you.” I reach for his arm. The moon is farther away, smaller and dimmer.
He shrugs me off him, but gently, and stands up.
“Listen,” I stand, too. “I haven’t…you know... I haven’t had anyone… you know, do that.”
But he doesn’t say anything back just reaches down and grabs our jackets. Then he puts my jacket over my shoulders and finally says, “I just felt you tense up.” He balls up his own jacket and stuffs it under his arm. “I guess I’m waiting for you to say, ‘Forget it. I just like you like a brother.’”
“I can assure you that there’s no brotherly-sisterly feelings on this end.”
“Good.” He puts an arm around me, and we walk silently to the car.
“Never?” He stops at the car. “Not with Justin or Zak?”
I shake my head.
He opens the car door for me. “You didn’t want to?”
“This is embarrassing!” I slide into the front seat. When he gets in and shuts his door I say, “But if you must know…With Justin, he was drunk when he tried the first time, and then we pretty much fell apart shortly after. With Zak…I liked him, but as far as being really attracted to him, like in a way that would make me physically want to—” I can’t find the right words and the only words that co
me to me sound like health class or something.
“He didn’t turn you on?”
I giggle, which makes him giggle.
“Are we really talking about this?” He says.
“At least we’re talking. Maybe next time I’ll relax.”
“Yeah,” he sighs, but he’s smiling. “Me, too.”
. . . . .
“I can’t believe that Boy Scout Sean actually said the words ‘hand job’.” Susan slaps the table and nudges Peter.
“Jesus, I can’t even say—” He looks at us, red faced. “I can’t even say—” he stops again and looks around and then whispers, “Hand job and I’m a guy!”
I take a sip of my decaf latte. “He said it, and sadly, I didn’t do it.”
Susan raises a pierced eyebrow, “Sadly? You wanted to?”
I mull this a bit, cupping my hands around the warm mug. “Not because it was such a turn on or anything but more because isn’t it kind of time for me to move to that stage?”
“What?” Both Susan and Peter look confused.
“See my shrinks—” God, it really is a plural thing. “Seem to believe that I, on some level, don’t want to fully grow up. Isn’t sex or, you know,” I lower my voice, “hand jobs kind of a more advanced level of a relationship?”
Susan slaps the table again and my latte, Peter’s tea, and her hot cocoa shake. “Anyone can give a hand job.” She motions with her hand, but Peter catches it expertly as if catching a baseball before it falls to the ground.
“Listen,” Peter shoots a nasty look at Susan like she is a heathen. “The deal with this is that if you like someone, you want to take it to the next level because you want to make them feel good and vice versa. Don’t do it to grow up.”
I sip my latte again and look around the coffee shop. None of my favorite baristas are here. It looks like a whole new crew. My chest hurts.
“It’s been a long time since we’ve come here for coffee.”
“Are you changing the subject because you are embarrassed or because you don’t know what to say?”
“I don’t know. Maybe both. But seriously, no more Barista Bob.” We all turn to the drink bar and see lots of intelligent looking, hipster guys and girls, none familiar to us.
“Let’s forget this whole hand job thing for a minute.” Susan taps her empty cup against the table. “What I want to know is have you been able to forget about Justin. You haven’t said anything about him since you got together with Sean.”
That’s because I’ve immersed myself in the “now,” in the present. In Sean. In school. I don’t say this because then I’d have to explain it, and since I don’t fully understand how I’m doing that, I just say, “He’s kind of left my mind. The panic stuff and everything sort of pushed it—I guess the past—all away.” Except late at night when I can’t fall asleep. I fantasize about Justin and I getting together again…Somehow, some way. Or, I think about my story, “Mya” reuniting with “Dylan”, the current scene I’ve been trying to write. She shows up at his rehab and has to argue with the secretary to get in…All that tension leading up to when they first kiss again, in the room he shares with this older guy/Jesus looking type… But I don’t say any of this out loud.
“All I know is that it’s senior year bitches! And whatever way we want to get through it, we go for it. Peter’s got Jack. You’ve got Sean. And I’ve got me. Yes friends, I’m dedicating the rest of the year to fabulous me. So, when you all go off on your dates and stuff, don’t fret over me. I’m busy loving myself!”
Peter and I look at each other and burst out laughing.
“What?” She says her face completely not kidding. “I’m serious.”
“I know,” Peter says putting an arm around her and kissing the top of her head. “I know.”
Chapter Twelve
Blast from The Past
After Susan and Peter drop me off at home, I check my email before working a little on my book. Sean is going to be away all of next weekend for a theater competition and I promised him a few pages to read in the car on the way. I’m about to hit send on a scene where Mya flashes back to being a little kid with Phoebe, Holden, and Dylan, and Dylan tries to kiss her on the playground when my inbox chimes. An unfamiliar address pops up: [email protected] and of course the letter J, as it always does when I see it written or typed, makes my heart skip. I don’t know Justin’s email address. Could it be?
Maddie,
I’m might give up after this email. I sent you two other ones in November. Maybe your address has changed. I’m going to try one more time. Hope it’s the charm. : )
It’s been way too long since we have talked.
Zak would be a junior now and Mia would have been a sophomore in college. Do you think about Zak a lot? I hate to say it, but I don’t think of Mia as often.
NOAH JACOBS?!
But I do think about you.
I’m going to be visiting Columbia this weekend and thought maybe we could meet for coffee or something. I know it’s kind of last minute, only because you didn’t respond to my other emails : (
I understand if you can’t do it, but it would be cool to see you.
Noah.
Maybe this is even better than Justin. I so should have checked some of those emails I deleted back during the insane asylum time.
“But I do think of you.”
Noah. Beautiful Noah. Sweet Noah. Parallel lives Noah. He was another CIT from camp that summer I was with Zak. I have thought about Noah so many times, replaying the gentle no-tongue-but-I-wanted-it kiss we shared before we went back home.
Noah. He lost his girlfriend just months before camp to a drunk driver. When Zak was killed, it was Noah who helped me find a way to stay at camp, to attend the memorial service that the camp had for him. But then once we left, we only emailed a few times and then it just stopped.
All I know is I’m glad Sean has to be away this weekend because I really want to see Noah again.
. . . . .
I linger in the entrance to Starbuck’s on Broadway, which is hard to do because people are coming in and going out quickly. I see Noah through the crowd, but he can’t see me. He sits in the corner against one of the tall windows. His hair still golden brown but much longer. His head is bent over the Wall Street Journal, which I kind of find lame. I would expect The Voice or the Times.
I finally move out of the doorway and make my way through the crowd of college students dressed in jeans and thick sweaters and professor-types in khakis and dress shirts.
“Noah?”
He looks up and a lock of dark honey brown hair flops in front of his eyes, I just want to grab him into a tight hug.
“Maddie!” He pushes his chair back and almost bumps into the single skinny man clutching a latte in one hand and a cell phone in the other. “Sorry.” Noah turns back to me and finishes standing all the way up.
He’s definitely at least a good four inches taller than me. I know we weren’t that far apart two years ago. He bends down and hugs me. I smell sunshine and fresh air.
I slide a chair out and sit down. “You’re all grown up!” How witty. How mature.
He laughs. “Tell me all about you, what’s going on? How have you been?”
I fiddle with a straw rapper and try to find a good opening. “Aside from some senior year stress, things have been okay.” I stop fiddling. “Actually, I’m writing a book for my senior project.”
“Really! Man, I haven’t written anything other than essays for school since camp.” He smiles crookedly. “I’ve been kind of stressed too with college stuff. Hey, do you want a drink?”
<
br /> “Yeah,” I reach for my purse on the table.
“Since I made you schlep from Connecticut to the City, let me get it.” He puts his hand on top of mine, which is still on the purse. “You used to like coffee with lots of sugar and cream. Should I get that?”
I can barely reply because I’m super-aware of his hand.
I nod and then correct myself. “Decaf.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I’ll fill you in. There’s a whole song and dance about it.”
The rest of the afternoon slips away as we sit and relive each other’s last two years. The sun moves from one side of Starbuck’s to the other and the café empties out and fills back up. I told my parents I would be home late. They seemed relieved that I was willing to travel so far by myself. I have my Rescue Remedy and anxiety pills, so I feel equipped.
I fill Noah in about the panic and his response: “I’ve been on Zoloft since Mia died.”
We sit back in our chairs. The voices around us are kind of like background music. I feel incredibly relaxed, each muscle releases. He looks one way, towards the coffee bar, and I look the other, out the window. I see a guy with an African print shirt walking by, holding a set of bongos. Then a tall black-haired woman wrapped up in a shawl, strides by, like a model, holding a Zabar’s bag.
“Hey, are you getting hungry?” Noah asks.
I nod, thinking of that Zabar’s bag. I love going to Zabar’s. You can get an entire meal there.
“I know what we can do for dinner.”
“Sure. Are we dressed for it?”
“Oh, there’s no dress code. And we don’t eat there.” I grab my purse. “If you’re going to live in the City, you have to experience Zabar’s.”
Till it Stops Beating Page 8
