by Anne Pfeffer
He stands up and wipes his face again. “Whatever… but that’s what you are, Ryan. You’re a mensch.”
• • •
I reach the hospital, arriving outside what I call the Capsule. It’s the special glassed-in area, where Chrissie’s baby is staying with other newborns. Nat’s already there, making his daily visit. He and I stand in the hallway, peering through the window at a bundle of blankets in the third crib from the left. Both Chrissie and the baby are going home tomorrow.
Since mothers are allowed inside the Capsule, Chrissie’s there with the baby, leaning over and talking to him. She has what looks like a blue shower cap over her hair. I see her lips moving, but can’t hear her.
“Yancy’s going to call any minute,” Nat says. “She’s getting the results of the paternity test.”
Yancy has given the hospital a hairbrush of Michael’s for a DNA sample. She and my folks, the Skeptics, decided to stay out of all this until the test results came in. Meanwhile, Nat and I, the Believers, have been at the hospital every day, helping Chrissie out. Nat even went with me to her place yesterday to pick up her laptop and some books for her.
Nat clutches his shirt pocket, which is vibrating. “This is Yancy.”
I stand there, waiting. Sure enough, a minute later, Nat is beaming and giving me a thumbs up. He’s a grandpa.
“Congratulations.” I shake his hand. Even though I hadn’t worried about it or anything, I’m glad we have it now. Proof for all the non-believers.
“Listen, tomorrow, do you mind if Yancy and I pick up Chrissie and the baby at the hospital?”
“No,” I say, as I think of Chrissie and all her fears. I study Nat, trying to read his mind.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asks.
I nod, praying I’m going to like what he has to say.
“We’re going to offer her and little Michael our guest house. To live in.” Nat’s face is taken up in the kind of smile I haven’t seen on him since before Michael died. “We’ll be gone a lot this summer, but still, she’ll be safe and comfortable there with him.”
“That’s a great idea!”
“Yeah. We couldn’t let our grandson stay where she’s living now!” Nat claps me on the back, beaming. “Thank you for helping her so much. She’s a good girl. Who knew that our Roxanne would turn out to be a daughter-in-law! Well, sort of!” he adds, when he catches my expression.
Then, like the sun popping behind a cloud, his face changes and he is fighting back tears. “Sorry.” He pulls out a tissue and blows his nose. “It’s just ….”
“I know.”
I wish Michael were here, too.
• • •
Emily’s coming back from the East Coast trip tomorrow. I only spoke to her once while she was gone. I need to think, she told me.
So do I. In my hand is a letter, which came today from the Teen League. Dear Ryan, it says. We are delighted to offer you a place in our summer High School Counselor Training Program and a position as a volunteer counselor thereafter.
It’s as if the Teen League was custom-made just for me. I like everything about it: working with kids, helping them stay away from drugs, the chance to make a film – my own film that says the things I want to say. It’s perfect for a Senior Honors Project, which I’d better qualify for. Failure is not on my radar screen.
I drive to the tennis club, where I have a three o’clock practice match with one of Ben’s students. He’s fourteen, and he’s good. I pretty much wipe the court with him, but in a constructive sort of way. Ben’s watching and stops us occasionally to throw instructions to the kid, Jonas.
Afterwards, Ben calls me over to him. “You’re looking better and better,” he says. “If you got into regular strength and cardiac training, along with the right practice drills, you’d be—well, you could be really good.”
“You talking about me going back into training?”
“It’s all a matter of how committed you are.”
“I think I’m ready for it,” I say. “But I also have to keep my grades up.”
“Good for you. That’s important.”
“Can I let you know in a couple of days?” I think I know the answer I’ll give, but then again, maybe I don’t. I just need to sit with it for a while.
“Sure.”
I go home and throw myself on my bed. It feels like everything about my future and who I am hangs on what I do this summer.
I see two possible Ryans next fall. The Ryan-who-stayed-in-LA is a scorching hot tennis player—an actual contender at tournaments. He’s great with kids and has really helped a couple from the Teen League. He’s making this amazing documentary that he wrote himself.
The Ryan-who-went-to-England is a loser who followed his girlfriend there because he had nothing of his own to do.
My arms close around my pillow.
It’s pretty clear which Ryan I like better.
On the other hand, Ryan-in-England is also a guy who keeps his word to his girlfriend, a guy who doesn’t let people down. Ryan-in-LA doesn’t worry so much about stuff like that.
Ryan-in-England will have great sex with his girlfriend all summer. Ryan-in-LA will live on his fantasies.
It’s not until I realize that no choice is going to make me happy that I finally decide what I’m going to do.
Then I change my mind.
Chapter 53
“How was your trip?”
“Incredible.” Emily’s voice sounds thin and remote over the phone. “I just knew, Ryan, the minute I got to Boston. That’s where I’m going to school.”
“Well, that’s great.”
“We need to talk,” she says.
I would want to see her, but this heavy feeling weighs me down, like I’m trying to peer through thick fog or walk through knee-deep water. A vise closes around my chest and squeezes the air out of me. Is it over, between her and me? I don’t know how I’ll live. Emily is like air, a necessity.
Later that day, I bring her to the guest house. Ever hopeful, I glance toward the bedroom door, but Emily is already sitting on the sofa in the living room, twisting her hands together and clearing her throat. I sit down beside her. I still can’t quite believe what I’ve decided to do.
“Emily, I’m really sorry I didn’t tell you about some of those things with Chrissie. But you have to know that there’s nothing between her and me. She’s a friend. That’s it.” I stare at the edge of the rug, following its zigzag pattern with my eyes.
“I know,” she says.
I look up quickly. “You’re not mad at me anymore?”
She shakes her head. “You should have told me about the party and the audition. But I know you, Ryan. I know you wouldn’t cheat.”
I’m glad she’s forgiven me, but it makes it even harder to go on. “I’ve been thinking a lot since you left.”
“Me too,” she says.
My smooth prepared speech deserts me, and the words come out of my mouth in a single blurt. “I’m not going to England.”
She takes in a sharp breath and stares at me.
I’m explaining it to myself at the same time that I explain it to her. “Being with you would be awesome. But … I don’t like history! I wanna get back into tennis. And work at the Teen League and make a film for my Senior Honors Project.”
She looks down at her hands.
“And you’ll do your own thing this summer, too,” I say. “It’ll be great for you. And then we’ll have all of senior year together.”
Emily just keeps staring down at her hands for a long moment, while I inspect what I can see of her face, trying to read her expression. Then she looks up.
Her eyes glow. I’d expected her to be mad or disappointed, but instead she looks … proud.
“You’re so smart, Ryan. You’re doing the right thing.”
It never occurred to me that Emily would also like the Ryan-in-LA better than the Ryan-in-England.
“Really? You think so?” She’s okay with it!
“Exactly.”
“Like in your case, doing the Teen League.”
Something in her tone makes me ask, “And what about in your case?”
She looks down again. “Well, since you’re staying here, and I’ll be in England, maybe we should consider…. you know … seeing other people this summer.”
I feel a muscle start working in my jaw and hear a rushing sound in my ears. “You really have been thinking.”
“Ryan, we’re too young to tie ourselves down! And if we’re going to be apart this summer….”
I feel a strange prickly pain behind my nose and eyes, like something in between tears and a beginning migraine. She’s been thinking about this for a while. I know what it’s about.
Derek won. He got Emily away from me.
“We both have so many things we want to do and try,” she says.
“So you’re gonna go out with Masters?” I have to know.
She shakes her head. “He’s not nearly as much fun as you.”
Confused, I jump up and pace the living room. “What is it then? You just want a break from us over the summer? Check out some English guys?”
Her eyes are welling up, and she’s shaking her head. “This is too hard, Ryan.”
“What’s too hard?” I’m getting a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Us, together, next year. It’s too hard to be together, getting closer and closer, while the whole time, all I’ll be doing is applying to colleges so I can leave!”
A hard band coils itself around my chest and begins to squeeze. “But, leaving for college—that’s more than a year from now!”
“I’m not like you, Ryan. You’re so strong. You can handle anything. I can’t be with you and be planning to leave you, both at the same time.”
“You want to break up now because you might move to Boston next year?”
When Emily doesn’t answer, it bursts out of me: “Don’t you love me anymore? Am I not enough for you?”
“You are! It’s just …” She wraps her arms around herself. “Our love scares me. It’s so intense. I wasn’t expecting anything like this now, in high school. I want to go places, do things!”
“Then go places and do things with me!”
“You don’t understand, Ryan.”
A strange, painful energy is running through me, making me want to climb a wall or run down the street really fast or maybe throw something out a window. “I can’t talk about this anymore right now. I’m taking you home.”
“I really love you, Ryan. You have to believe that.”
“You want to leave me and date other people. That kind of love I don’t need.”
• • •
As Emily steps onto the curb outside her house, I floor the gas, my tires screeching as I pull away. I know where I’m going. I drive through the Palisades, following Sunset Boulevard’s snake-like, curving path toward the ocean.
Even in my misery, I see the colors as I drive, the colors of Los Angeles in springtime. It looks like we’ve had a city-wide paint ball war. The fences and walls are thick with purple and red flowers and these pinky-blue things, too, the size of cabbages. And other flowers are all over the place in huge splashes of peach, yellow, red and orange.
Why Emily would want to leave here to live with snow and cold and concrete walls is beyond me. What’s her problem anyway? Some people wouldn’t know a good thing if it went up their ass.
I hit the gas pedal and roar along to the beach, leaving Sunset and heading south on Pacific Coast Highway. I feel this brief, savage joy in accelerating to twenty miles per hour above the speed limit, but then scenes flash before my eyes: Michael’s black Mustang crumpled into scrap metal, him lying there while the paramedics try to save him, his coffin being lowered into the ground. I slow down enough to screech the car into a beach parking lot, and tear at the parking brake. Somehow I rip a gash in my thumb, but barely notice it.
I run down the sand to the water. And who does she think she’s going to date in England anyway? Some skinny, pale, pimply faced English dude? I don’t think so. What would someone like that know about loving a woman? I’ll bet the average dick over there’s the size of a number two pencil.
There are stones on the beach, which I start picking up and launching into the water. They are too small to make a really satisfying splash, but I throw them anyway. I look for a really big one, something to make a tidal wave as it hits.
I see nothing. I start to run along the water’s edge, digging deep in the sand with each step. I still can’t believe what she’s throwing away.
Nobody knows Emily like I do. For sure, nobody knows her body like I do. Man, is she gonna be sorry when she comes back here this fall, sees me, and realizes what she’s given up. Within a week, she’s going to be begging for a sweet-n-slow, heart-pounding, do-it-to-me, don’t-stop Ryan-style lay … and it’ll be too late. I’ll have moved on.
I’ve been running in deep sand for maybe twenty minutes. My lungs are on fire. My heart’s about to burst. I walk out into the water until it’s past my knees, rolling up my pant legs a little. The pants still get soaked, but I don’t care.
I stand there for a long time, letting the waves push and pull at my legs. If she thinks I’m gonna sit around this summer waiting for her, she’s in for a shock.
My heartbeat slows, and my breathing returns to normal.
Who am I kidding?
Of course I’ll be waiting for her.
The thing is, Emily and I still love each other. I think of the card I gave her, the one with the Grand Canyon on it. That card pretty much said it all. My love for Emily is like the Grand Canyon, enormous, wondrous. It’s epic love. But epic love can’t work at sixteen. Or can it?
The sun drops lower and lower in the sky until it’s just a slice of fire on the horizon. I wade out of the water and walk slowly back to the car.
Chapter 54
“Ryan, don’t be a stranger!” Molly says. It must be her latest new expression.
She stands over me as I lie in bed, a pillow covering my face. It’s been two days since Emily and I broke up, and we haven’t spoken to each other since. I’ve dragged myself to classes and down the stairs to dinner— but only because Ro made me. The rest of the time, I’ve been in bed.
“Get up,” Maddy says. She’s standing next to Molly.
That’s what Emily had said to Chase at her birthday party. I moan, remembering how amazing she was that night.
“He’ll be okay,” Molly says. She pats the pillow.
“No. He’s doomed.” Maddy’s voice is dark.
I groan to myself as I hear them leave.
I know I have to get up though. I’m supposed to go to Chrissie’s. Besides being with Emily, meeting the baby is probably the only thing I actually want to do right now.
As I stumble toward Nat and Yancy’s guest house, I hear Chrissie before I see her. She’s singing “She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain,” and seems to be making up her own verses for the little guy. “Michael’s comin’ ‘round the mountain, here he comes…”
It’s been a week since he was born, but because of Emily, and because of the baby’s time in the Capsule, I am only now meeting him. You would never know Chrissie gave birth seven days ago. She’s half her former size. I find her outside the Westons’ guest house with a pair of gardening shears, clipping roses. She’s wearing a wide brimmed hat and has her hair in braids.
Baby Michael sleeps in a sling at Chrissie’s waist. With a strange feeling of unreality, I peer into it. Here he is, finally, the baby I fought for.
He’s a squishy, red little guy. He yawns in his sleep and waves a walnut-sized fist in the air. I put out a finger and touch his hand.
His skin is so soft.
“You wanna take him?” Before I can protest, Chrissie has him out of the sling and is handing him to me. I somehow get him up on my shou
lder. He’s so tiny, but he’s solid too, moving restlessly and digging his feet into my chest. His face is turned toward my neck, and I can hear him making funny little sounds.
I hold my friend Michael’s child, thinking you’ll never know your daddy. But maybe I can tell him a few things. I’ll keep the good stories alive for him.
“You wanna hear his full name?” Chrissie asks. “Michael Ryan Fellars.”
“Really?” Starting to feel my throat close up, I quickly say, “How ‘bout we call him Mikey?”
“Mikey! He’ll get the crap beat out of him.”
I have to admit, she’s got a point. “Before he’s old enough to get beat up, we’ll switch over to Michael.”
Chrissie leads me inside, fills a vase with a giant bunch of roses, and puts it on a table. Unpacked suitcases and boxes fill much of the space, but she has hung crystals and wind chimes and put fresh flowers everywhere. There are two small bedrooms, a bathroom, and a tiny kitchen.
“How’s this going so far?” I ask. I still have Mikey on my shoulder, one hand on his back and the other hand cupped under his diaper. He’s wiggly, so I keep a good grip on him.
“Perfect!” she announces. “I told them I wouldn’t live here unless I could pay them rent. So I don’t feel like I owe them anything. They’re gone a lot. Nat’s such a sweetheart. He’s been great. And Yancy’s okay, too, once you get to know her.” She’s beaming.
“Where’s the baby crib?” I ask. “I heard Yancy wanted to make a nursery.”
“Ssshh,” Chrissie says. “I put the crib in my bedroom.” We walk into the small room, filled entirely by a bed and baby crib. The crib’s full of stuffed animals and toys.
“Where does he sleep?”
“In my bed with me, of course. Do you know that in other cultures, they wonder why Americans make their babies sleep alone in cages?” Chrissie looks outraged. “That’s probably why we’re all killin’ each other right and left in this country.”
“Won’t Yancy find out and get mad?”
Chrissie winks at me. “Her Highness doesn’t come out here much. Mikey and I make appearances at the main house, so she can see him.”
