Loving Emily

by Anne Pfeffer

  “Could you manage to leave her a message?” Emily asks.

  I nod.

  “I’ll call her on my cell, just to see if she’s answering or not. If she answers, I’ll hang up. She won’t recognize my phone number. If she doesn’t answer, then you call right away and leave her an update.”

  It turns out Mom’s not picking up, so I call her and croak out a brief message that I’ll be home tomorrow.

  “There,” Emily says. “Now you’re all set.” She tucks the covers around me and sits down on a chair by the bed. We look at each other, both feeling how bizarre it is to be alone, the two of us, in a strange, empty house belonging to someone we barely know or like, who’s not around anyway. And we’re going to spend the night here to boot.

  It figures, that the one time I get to sleep overnight with Emily, she’s mad at me and I’m strung out on heroin. I yawn and my eyelids fall, no matter how hard I try to keep them up. With all the energy I have, I reach my hand out to her, and she takes it. Her eyes brim over.

  “I was so scared. Why did you do this? You could have died.”

  “It was stupid,” I say. “I wanted to know what it was like for Michael, I guess.”

  “Don’t ever do it again.”

  “I won’t,” I promise, knowing I’m telling the truth. Whatever Michael saw in getting high is not clear to me. Then I have to rest, after the effort of all that talking.

  Emily climbs into bed with me. “I hate not being with you,” she says.

  “Same here.” Silence. “Emily?”

  “Hm?”

  “That day that I came to your house.” I stop talking to rest for a second. “Did you really tell your dad you didn’t want to see me?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  I tell her, as best as I can. With the drugs still in my system, I think I hear a two-second lag between the movement of my lips and the sound of my voice, like on a bad phone connection.

  “Ryan, I didn’t know! My dad never told me!”

  “But you didn’t return my texts.”

  “With Dad and Nana around, I was stuck doing all this family stuff. It was, well, it was hard.” Her voice trails off.

  “I’m really sorry I let you down. I didn’t want the baby to die.”

  “I know.”

  We are holding each other’s hands, and her face is close to mine on the pillow.

  “Ryan?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I feel bad. I’ve been keeping away from you. I could have returned your texts.”

  “Why didn’t you?”

  “It’s just that … I’m not as strong as you are.”

  I must be hearing her incorrectly. “What do you mean?”

  “I couldn’t handle the whole Chrissie thing. It was so intense. A pregnancy, childbirth, life or death responsibility.” She moves her hand on my arm. “I just wanted to be sixteen and think about my own stuff, you know?”

  “Well, that’s what I want, too.”

  “But you’re helping her anyway. You’re so good and strong and kind. I’m in total awe of you.”

  I didn’t know heroin was a hallucinogen. But if it keeps producing scenes like this, I will take it every day.

  “You’re so amazing, Ryan. I’m sorry I ran away.”

  Maybe this really is happening. But I’m so tired. I try to keep my eyelids open, but they drop. We curl up together in the bed in Chase’s guest room, our arms around each other.

  “I don’t want to be apart anymore. I’ve missed you so much,” she says.

  “Me, too.” I drift off into sleep, thinking I’m just glad she’s here.

  • • •

  “You’re sure you’re not addicted?” Emily asks me the next day. She’s worried about that, although I’m not.

  “That stuff was like bad seafood,” I tell her. “One time, and you’re off it forever.”

  I have the shakes for the next few days, if that can be called withdrawal. For me, though, the experience was mainly about being with Emily, about spending a night in bed with her, so wasted that I could hardly even think about sex more than three or four times, and then only theoretically. Feeling her love and strength lifting me up, her hands touching me, feeling safe and taken care of—if I were going to be addicted to anything, it would be Emily, not some powder in a plastic bag.

  Although we’re back together, Emily decides to stay in her carpool, so I still go straight to Chrissie’s every day after school. It sucks that we can’t meet at the guest house ever. I know better, though, than to suggest another round of car sex after our run-in with law enforcement.

  Emily talks about our upcoming travels. “Boston’s going to be incredible,” she says one day in the park, as we sit there on the cold grass, shivering a little, my jacket spread around the two of us. “I want to visit as many schools there as I can.”

  “Yeah, it’ll be good.” I couldn’t care less about Harvard or BU. I just want to sit next to Emily on every bus and airplane we take, especially if we can share a blanket.

  “After the England program ends, it’d be so much fun if we could travel together in Europe,” she says. “I wonder if there’s a way we could do it?”

  It would be awesome to travel around and see things with Emily, not to mention laying her down on foreign mattresses in six or seven countries, but I keep remembering that history program. I’d just as soon watch glaciers move as study William the Conqueror. I find myself thinking about the tennis club and the thought of maybe training with Ben again. If I really plunged in this summer and took it seriously, I wonder how far I could go.

  Chapter 45

  I’m in the Mills library with Jonathan and Calvin. While I stare blindly at our useless footage, the two of them sprawl in our big leather chairs, wearing cargo shorts and Timberland loafers and swigging Gatorade. Relaxed and confident in my leadership, they are jabbering about something incomprehensible.

  “…find the vertical components of velocity and acceleration,” Jonathan is saying.

  They don’t know that we’re sunk. We have nothing to work with.

  “…raising the plane degree shortens the distance,” Calvin says.

  Something in there cracks them up. They are both practically falling down, they’re laughing so hard.

  I close my eyes. They won’t be laughing for long.

  Get it together, Ryan. Failure is not an option.

  What would Dad do?

  I take a few deep breaths. You guys,” I say, forcing myself to sound strong and confident, “let’s brainstorm a little. See if we take this thing up to the next level.”

  “What do you mean? I thought you said our scenes were great,” Calvin says.

  “They are! That’s why it might be cool to wrap a story around them.”

  I’ve seen my Dad on the set coaxing new scenes and better work out of tired writers and actors who just want to go home. The way he puts it is, Don’t require. Inspire.

  “You guys are the golf experts. When a swing’s bad, what happens?”

  “What happens? Well, the ball flies off where it’s not supposed to go,” Jonathan says.

  “And?” I’m looking for something, anything, that might give us a direction to take.

  “You could hit a bird,” Calvin says.

  Hit a bird. I start to smile. “Or a squirrel,” I say.

  “Or a golf cart.”

  “Or a little old lady!”

  “So let’s say Jonathan is a total menace on the golf course. Every time he swings, he hits something.” I think for a minute. “So the golf course tells him he can’t play there anymore until he improves his swing. And Calvin teaches him how. Jonathan is saved, thanks to his knowledge of physics. That’s our story!”

  Over the next week, we film the additional scenes we need, edit the footage, and argue about how to present the physics.

  “It has to be clear and easy to understand,” I tell them. “Think lowest common denominator. Think me. If I can understand it, we�
��ve got something.”

  The night before it’s due, we hold a screening in the forty-seat Mills home theater. Besides the three of us, my dad, sisters, and Ro are there. Emily had wanted to come, but instead has to scramble to finish a history paper due tomorrow. Mom’s at a yoga class.

  As it runs, I watch with a director’s critical eye. Jonathan careens around the golf course, swinging his club. His girlfriend Samantha, dressed as a little old lady golfer, does a comic crumple under the force of a runaway golf ball. A stuffed squirrel that I got from a props supplier goes flying out of a tree. I can hear my sisters laughing. When Jonathan runs for his life, chased all over the golf course by a cart and its angry owner, even my dad laughs.

  I make a cameo appearance as a golf course official, palming a police nightstick and using an accent of my own invention to say, “I em effraid ve must revoke yoor golf course prifileges.” Calvin demonstrates his perfect swings and explains the physics in his English butler voice. We include plenty of hard science, but it’s clear and easy to follow. The film comes to an end, and I flip on the lights.

  “It’s awesome!” Jonathan says. “You even made Calvin look good!”

  “You should look half so good, Takahara,” Calvin replies with a smug grin.

  “Great job, son,” my dad says. “You made it work.”

  “You mean it?” Without my telling him, Dad knows the filming difficulties I was up against— inexperienced cast and minimal shooting time, not to mention the nonexistence of a script. I have actually directed a film—a cruddy little student film, but still, a film. And it was fun.

  “Yeah,” he says. “You have a good eye, good instincts. You should develop them.”

  Yes. Dad liked my film.

  I stand there taking in this strange new feeling—I’m proud of myself—and thinking I could get used to this.

  Then, guilt slams into me. It makes me sad to think that this good thing only came my way because Michael died.

  • • •

  “The doctor says I can go off total bed rest!”

  “Really? Are you all healed then?” I’m driving Chrissie home from the medical clinic.

  “I guess. I feel good. I’m rarin’ to go.”

  “But don’t you have to take it easy?”

  “Yeah. That’s why I’m only going back to the SaveWell part-time.”

  “You’re going back to work? Don’t you think you should kick back a little?”

  “And do what for money? I already owe you so much I don’t even wanna think about it.”

  “Then don’t. I’ll help you with money for now. They don’t pay you jack at the SaveWell.”

  “That’s why I need that audition, Ryan.”

  “I’ll call Mitzi.” She’s casting two other films, plus going back and forth to New York for a TV series. “She’s swamped, but I think she’s had the Roxanne casting on hold since this happened to you.”

  “It’s not too late, then?”

  “I don’t think so. I’ll let you know.”

  • • •

  Now that I’m free from my afternoon shifts at Chrissie’s, Emily has Songbirds rehearsal every day after school. They’re gearing up for the National competition in June, and Emily’s going to have a solo, which ups her practice time even more. I stay late every day to take her home, but the guest house becomes more and more of a distant memory.

  Jonathan, Calvin, and I show our film to the physics class. The audience laughs in all the places I hope they will and claps when it’s over. A couple of kids tell us that this is the first time they ever understood anything about physics.

  “See, lowest common denominator,” I tell my partners as we pack up to leave class. “If I can understand it, anyone can.” We are high-fiving each other, happy that it’s done and that it went well.

  “Ryan,” Jonathan says. He’s on his laptop checking the surf reports. “Whaddya say? A little board time later on?”

  Mr. Simpson approaches. He’s a thin guy with a nervous tic of jerking his head to one side every thirty seconds or so. He doesn’t quite meet our eyes. “The physics work was excellent,” he says. “Not only were your research results interesting, but you’ve created a good teaching tool.”

  He continues. “My one concern’s the amount of adult help you had on this. Ryan, I know your father’s a film maker. This project was supposed to be your own work.”

  Our three jaws hit the floor at the same time. I feel a surge of heat as rage starts to build. Jonathan and Calvin put a lot of extra physics in this, above and beyond what we learned in class, and he’s not accusing them of cheating. But my two loyal friends are already on Simpson like a pair of Rottweilers.

  “Ryan’s the mastermind of this project!” Calvin exclaims with a sweep of his arm. He has discovered his dramatic side since the shoot. “He did all the film work himself.”

  “We were there when he did it! We barely saw Mr. Mills,” Jonathan says.

  Mr. Simpson begins to back pedal. His head jerks a couple of times right in a row. “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, Ryan.” He shifts his weight back and forth and runs his hand through what’s left of his hair. “I just assumed you couldn’t have done it, because it looked so professional.”

  “It didn’t look professional,” I say. Like glowing coals, I am still emitting heat. “It looked like what it is. Top-quality student work.”

  Jonathan, Calvin, and I get an A plus on our physics project. I’m still pissed off at Simpson, but a little part of me is thinking, so he thought my old man did it, huh? Even if it’s only by a high school physics teacher, it’s kind of nice having my work mistaken for my father’s.

  Chapter 46

  Finally, it’s the day of my interview at the Teen League. Its offices are in a seedy part of the mid-Wilshire district, on the third floor of this office building. I park my car at a meter, locking it while a couple of street people ask to wash the windows. I give them each a five and leave, praying the car will be there when I come back.

  I haven’t told my parents I’m here. On the application, I identified my father as D. Mills, Media Consultant, and my mother as N. Mills, Homemaker. I want to get this one on my own.

  I walk in through a reception room where kids and their parents sit waiting to meet with Teen League staff. The room’s cheerful, with plants, bookshelves, and an aquarium full of fish. I like the energy of the place.

  The receptionist, Linda, takes me past a row of carrels, where kids sit working the phones. A girl in a t-shirt and giant overalls, cut off into shorts, is saying, “Did he hit you or hurt you in any way?”

  She listens, sitting very still, as if concentrating on every word. “Good, but still, be sure to document everything that happens,” she tells her listener. “Write down dates and exactly what he says and does. Hide the notes where your dad can’t find them.”

  My throat gets tight and painful as I listen. Did Michael ever make any calls to a place like this? Did anyone he called ever try to help him?

  After a moment, the girl’s off the phone, and Linda introduces us. Her name’s Amanda Lewis, and she’s a junior at UCLA. She’s at the Teen League on a work-study project and is overseeing the high school volunteers.

  Amanda shakes my hand. She has these surprising green eyes and a cute laugh. “I’m sorry we’re so disorganized this morning,” she says. “Bridgette Connolly, our Staff Director, was supposed to be back from the Children’s Court, but she’s been delayed. Do you mind terribly waiting? It could be a half hour or more.”

  “No worries,” I tell her. By now, there’s just one boy left in the waiting room, maybe twelve years old, along with a woman who’s sitting tense and straight-backed in her chair. The kid wears jeans with three inches of boxers showing above them, and a sweat-shirt with the hood pulled up around his face.

  “…not like last time!” she says to him.

  “You don’ be tellin’ me what to do!” He scowls and looks at the floor.

  I sit down, drumming my hands
on my knees a few times. I look around. I go over to the bookshelf, but find only little kids’ books. I sit back down. By now, the woman is writing something, while the boy stares straight ahead, frowning.

  I dig around in my pockets and unearth some old store receipts. Seeing a trash can nearby, I wad up the receipts, take aim, and shoot. My paper wad bounces off the rim of the can. The boy’s watching me from the corners of his eyes.

  “Oh!” I cry. “Near miss!” I walk over, pick the wad up off the floor, and sit back down. I aim and shoot, a high arcing shot. It’s in.

  Now the boy walks over, takes my paper wad out, walks away, then whirls and does a jump shot. The wad goes in.

  “Two points!” I tell him. “But I can take you.”

  “No way,” he says. “I can wipe the floor with you.”

  The woman is giving him dark looks, and for a minute it seems like she’s going to say something. But then she settles back into her chair.

  “Four out of five,” I say.

  We begin shooting, taking turns. We are tied, four to four.

  “Nine out of ten,” I say. We keep shooting. On my last shot, I miss. I groan. The boy easily makes his shot and does a victory dance.

  “Awesome,” I tell him. “But watch out. Next time, you’re toast.”

  “You wish.” He’s grinning broadly. “I’m gonna take a leak,” he tells the woman and walks out. She sits up in alarm.

  “Would you please follow him?” she asks me. “Make sure he comes back?”

  “Follow him to the bathroom?” I’m puzzled.

  “Please?” she repeats. “Make sure he comes back?”

  I follow the boy down the hall and duck into the men’s room behind him. He’s standing at a urinal with his back to me. This is incredibly strange. I feel like a pervert.

  The boy looks over his shoulder. “You gotta problem, man?”

  He and I are the only spots of color in this bathroom, with its all-white floors, walls, sinks, and stall dividers.

  “Your mom asked me to come in here with you.”

  “My social worker,” he says.