The Promise

by Melody Grace

  “You must be good,” I said out loud without thinking as we began to walk again. Theo looked puzzled. “To get accepted in the graduate program,” I explained. “It’s competitive, isn’t it?”

  He looked bashful. “I guess. I did my undergrad at BU, I wasn’t even thinking about programs, but my professors recommended me. They offered a great package in the end. I have to work a lot of hours TA-ing, but at least it keeps my tuition costs down.”

  “TA?” I echoed, confused.

  “Teaching Assistant. Basically, I run the lectures and grade papers for undergrads when my professors have better things to do,” he explained with a wry smile. “Which is most of the time.”

  I’d bet his classes are full, the halls lined with adoring freshman girls.

  “Is that what you want to be?” I asked. “A professor?”

  “Maybe. I like teaching, and let’s face it, a master’s in poetry isn’t good for much else.”

  I smiled. “I don’t know about that. I saw an ad in the newspaper just the other day: wanted, poets. Six-figure salary, full benefits, paid vacation.”

  Theo laughed out loud, a real belly laugh that warmed me to my bones.

  “I wish. I sometimes think they had it right, back in Renaissance Italy. Artists and writers would have patrons,” he told me, “Rich aristocrats who would pay them just to create whatever they wanted.”

  “I bet there were strings, though,” I said, thinking of my own parents, and the allowance they used to deposit into my account each month, their wordless bribe to keep me close to home. “Nothing comes for free.”

  Theo paused. “No, you’re right. Nothing does.” Then, as if sensing the conversation had taken a darker turn, he added, “They probably had to write poems dedicated to how amazing their patrons were.”

  “And paint them as the most beautiful people in the world.”

  Theo smiled. “All those stunning portraits we see in the museums were really butt-ugly in real life.”

  “Is that the poetic term?” I teased.

  He laughed again, then came to a stop on the sidewalk. “This is you, isn’t it?”

  I was disappointed when I looked up and realized we’d walked all the way back home. My brownstone apartment building stood just a few feet away from the corner, the light left on in my bedroom window.

  “This is me.”

  Looking back, I can’t tell you what made me reach for him. It would be easier to explain if I was tipsy, my inhibitions blurred and drowsy, but I’d barely sipped that red cup, and every instinct was sharp, bright with a crystalline clarity. Maybe it was the streetlights, that fractured glow of neon and headlights casting such a golden light across his face, the planes of skin and jawline and dusted stubble making my fingers itch to touch him. Maybe it was the knowledge of Hope’s list, not getting any shorter by the day, and the burden of responsibility she’d left on my small shoulders.

  But I know the truth, deep down.

  I just wanted him.

  Before I could take it back, I went up on my tiptoes against him. My reach was swift and clumsy, my hand against his chest as my mouth lurched towards his. There was barely an inch between us, the heat of his breath whispering on my lips, when Theo stepped away.

  “I . . . Claire—”

  Oh God.

  I recoiled, shame flushing hot through every inch of my body. “Sorry,” I blurted, “I didn’t . . . I mean—”

  “It’s fine—”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “No, I’m sorry.” Theo looked awkward as hell, but it was nothing compared to the humiliation dragging me back down to earth.

  I backed away, and stumbled up the front steps. “Thanks for walking me home,” I blurted. “Bye.”

  I turned and fumbled with my keys, every second out there in the night making me feel more exposed. What was I thinking? How could I have wrecked things in just a single moment?

  Finally, my keys fit the lock. I half-fell through the door, but as I closed it behind me, I heard Theo’s voice, low and steady on the breeze.

  “Goodnight, Claire.”

  Chapter Four

  Saturday, I had the morning off. There were errands to run, and a heap of laundry on my bedroom floor ready for the ancient shuddering basement machines, but I couldn’t stay home. I’d already relived the humiliation of my clumsy kiss too many times to count, and the city glittered, bright and clear outside the windows. I pulled on my gloves, stuffed my sketchbook in my bag, and thundered down the staircase and out into the world again.

  In daylight, the streets seemed brand new. The intimate darkness that had cloaked us during our walk home was replaced with pale, bright sun, and instead of being one of only two people in the world, I was anonymous in a crowd of thousands. The streets were busy, the autumn skies bright and brisk, and the dazzling leaves that had painted the sky only days before now blanketed the ground, crunching under my boots and whirling bright cyclones in the wind.

  I found my bearings, then struck out in a new direction: back across the park and into the placid neighborhoods that stretched to the west of the city. I’d never ventured this way before, but walking the wide, serene streets, I felt strangely at home. Here, sturdy oak trees lined the sidewalks, their roots bursting through the concrete, and vast gingerbread houses sat behind thick hedges, surveying the city from their white-trimmed turrets and lazy front-porch swings. It was a long way from the dry Texan streets, stretching in their neat grids as far as you could imagine. The strip malls and suburban tract homes were far behind me now. Every turn in the road felt like an adventure, and I paused to peek through the front gates and up rose-trimmed garden paths, avoiding the curious stares of people out walking their dogs.

  Theo probably thought I was crazy, the way I’d been talking last night—even before the cheek-flushing embarrassment of my fumbled kiss. But he’d spent his whole life here, he didn’t understand how these cool New England hues could be as fascinating as a foreign street to me. I often wondered if it was threaded into our DNA from the start: who was content to stay, soothed by familiar scenes outside their window every day, and who craved the change of new horizons. The pioneers had struck out West in their dusty wagons, but when it came to choosing my own destination, I’d known the warm shores of California weren’t the ones for me.

  It had been chance, in the end, like so much else. A rerun of an old TV show, with clapboard houses and winding creeks that caught my eye the day I found Hope’s last letter. I discovered later it hadn’t even been filmed here at all, but further South, the snow as fake as silicone in the frosted camera frame. But by then, my ticket was booked: hidden in the pages of a sketchbook on my dresser until the day I packed my bag and caught a cab to the Greyhound station, my life savings taped in a brown paper envelope around my stomach, over the tattoo my parents would never know about, and the first stirrings of fearful regret. I shouldn’t have been so scared. My doubts faded with every passing mile of cracked highway, until, three days later, the bus spat me out here, stiff and tired, but wide-eyed with new determination.

  My life had begun again.

  About a mile through the neighborhood, I found a quaint stretch of shops and a gold-etched bakery sign. I bought a coffee and a slice of vanilla loaf—the crust cracked with sugar—and settled in at a table by the steamed-up windows, watching the young moms mop up after their playful toddlers in the corner booth, and a pair of old men sitting side by side, quietly passing sections of the newspaper to one another as they sipped their paper cups and read.

  I pulled out my sketchbook and my new set of charcoal sticks. There was plenty around me, and I started and stopped my warm-up sketches half a dozen times, but when it came time to settle my hands and still my thoughts, there was only one subject in my mind.

  Theo.

  Even tinged with shame, my memories wouldn’t shift. My hands moved of their own volition, the charcoal cradled lightly between my first two fingers and thumb. I could see him there, on th
e back porch last night: the shadows casting a sharp line across his jaw, and that lazy, slowly easing smile as he settled back and began to talk.

  I’d had crushes before, but this was something different. For years, my fumbling affections were always built more out of fantasy than any truth. I would spend hours daydreaming a random boy into existence, building elaborate scenes like movies in my mind, until the object of my crush became a character, speaking the perfect lines, making just the right romantic moves, so much a figment of my hungry heart that when I saw them in real life again, standing in line at the fast-food window, or walking down a faded linoleum hallway, the disappointment was almost a betrayal. I’d built such heroes in my mind that nothing, not even the real boy right in front of me, could possibly measure up; my crush dissolved in a heartbeat, and my restless imagination skipped on to the next possibility, the next shooting star in the sky.

  But with Theo . . . I didn’t want to spin those happily-ever-afters, or place the perfect words in his mouth. Every time I felt at the brink of rewriting our brief meetings—what if, what if?—I pulled back.

  I didn’t want him to become a fantasy, like all the others. I was done playing pretend.

  The hours slipped away that morning, lost in the thick pages and the delicate smudge of black against the pale. I was better at it now, practiced from a week of portraits, his face and figure adorning every other page, but still, it felt like something was missing. There was a light to him, a soulful solitude that couldn’t quite be captured, no matter how long I worked. A photo wouldn’t have made a difference either, I knew. Some people were just like that: the true essence of their personality shifting like quicksilver, refusing to be marked down in such a permanent form.

  My phone buzzed a bleating reminder, and I finished the picture with a sigh. The burnished light of Theo’s eyes stared back at me from the page, and I carefully layered the page with tissue paper, making a note to seal it later, and packed my things away again. I was due for my shift at Wired by one, so I took a brisk pace back, checking my phone for a shortcut through the unfamiliar streets. My phone rang in my hands.

  Home.

  I stood, frozen there on the sidewalk. A small kid came careening past on a tiny training bike, and I stumbled back, almost losing my footing.

  “Sorry!” his mom called breathlessly, chasing behind him down the street.

  By the time I had recovered, the phone clicked to voicemail. I tucked my handset away in my coat pocket and forced myself to keep walking, but I felt it, burning through the fleece all the way back.

  We hadn’t spoken for weeks, not since that last, terrible call as I sat on the Greyhound bus watching my old life ebb away into the sunset through scratched and dusty windows. There had been pleading, and tears, even blackmail in the end, but it was too late for them to change my mind. The calls continued, daily, but I didn’t pick them up. I sent texts, instead: checking in every other day. Yes, I’m OK. Yes, I’m still alive. They didn’t even know where I was. I knew even a mention of the city name, and they’d be here in a heartbeat, on my doorstep to cajole and guilt me back home again. Hope’s list was still tucked in the back of my sketchpad, and until I had worked my way further down that wistful page, I knew I didn’t have reasons enough to stay.

  But still, the guilt slipped through me, treacherous as I arrived at Wired. It was packed, the line ten-deep at the front counter, with people loitering in every corner for the chance to snatch a precious table.

  “Thank God,” Mika exclaimed, as he hurried past. “Can you cover the register? We’re slammed.”

  “Just a sec.”

  I ducked back outside and paused, just by the doorway. I knew I should get straight to work and ignore my mom’s latest guilt-laden message, but I couldn’t help pressing my phone to my ear just to hear her familiar voice again.

  Sweetheart, we’re just worried about you. You’re being selfish, worrying your dad like this. Talk to us, let us know you’re OK. These messages aren’t enough, please Claire.

  My gut twisted. She was right, I was being selfish, but wasn’t it my turn? My whole life, I’d let them decide. It had been no great battle, they’d known best, after all. But I was an adult now, and it was time for me to make my own mistakes, no matter what the consequence.

  I turned back to the door just as it pushed open, jostling me back. As I fumbled with my phone, my bag slipped, spilling its contents on the busy sidewalk, and I cursed.

  “There’s another forfeit.” Theo’s voice came, and then he was on his knees beside me, helping collect my things, blonde head bent in the sunlight.

  My heart lurched.

  My head was still spinning from the voicemail. I felt so off-balance; the world was the wrong side up, and here he was again, to knock me even further off my feet.

  I snatched my bag back and shot to my feet. I couldn’t face the awkward look I knew would be on his face so I didn’t even try to thank him, I just bolted back inside the café without another word.

  “Save me from freshman girls and their fucking Frappuccinos,” Kelsey greeted me as I slipped behind the counter.

  “Swear jar!” JJ called.

  “Fuck,” Kelsey swore again, and then dragged a couple of crumpled dollar bills from her pocket to lay in JJ’s outstretched hand. “You better use that bounty to buy me something pretty!” she called after him, before finally turning back to me. “Are you sick?” She frowned, stepping back. “You look all flushed.”

  “No, I’m fine. Just, rushed to get here.” I quickly stashed my bag under the counter and tied on an apron. “You want me to take over up front?”

  “Please, I’m going to poison the next person who asks for pumpkin spiced anything,” she announced cheerfully.

  I turned, and found a teenage girl looking stricken by the register. “Ignore her,” I said. “She’s harmless.”

  “Tell that to my ex-boyfriends,” Kelsey muttered, retreating to the relative safety of the espresso machine.

  I took the girl’s order, and then two dozen more, until the voicemail seemed like just a memory of the life I’d left behind. The rush continued, all through lunch, until at last the flood of caffeine-hungry customers slowed to a trickle, and Mika waved me off the front register to go bus tables and clean up.

  Kelsey was on her break, camped out at a booth in the back with a pile of pastries. She pushed the plate over to me as I wiped down the next table. “Take one. They broke in the box,” she said, with a wicked grin. “So we can’t sell them.”

  “Broke all on their own?” I asked, laughing.

  “Guess the bakery guy was extra-clumsy today.” Kelsey stuffed another piece of brownie in her mouth.

  I took a piece and glanced at the book she was reading, a dog-eared classic that I couldn’t tell was for pleasure or school. She saw me looking. “My study group is meeting later, if you want to come.”

  “Thanks, but I wouldn’t keep up.”

  She snorted. “More than half the guys in this town. It’s like being born with a trust fund and a dick gives them a free pass from actually having a brain.” She kicked her combat boots up in the booth, and turned back to her book. “Oh, I forgot,” she said, looking up. “Your boyfriend was looking for you.”

  “My what?” I stopped. “Who?”

  “You know who.” She gave me a look. “Teddy Roosevelt.”

  “I don’t . . . Oh. Theo.” The blood rushed to my cheeks again. “He was asking about me?”

  Kelsey nodded, her mouth full. It seemed like an eternity before she swallowed, brushed cookie crumbs from her shirt, and said, “Right before you came in today. He didn’t leave a message, didn’t even want me to tell you he was here, but I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Thanks.” I went back to wiping down tables, but my heart shivered. I wondered what he’d wanted to say. Now I regretted bolting from him so quickly outside, knowing it was because he’d come to seek me out, and not just another uncomfortable accident.

 
“Be careful with that one, OK?”

  Kelsey’s quiet warning made me pause. “What do you mean?”

  She gave a little shrug. “Just . . . these guys, they don’t mix with townies, not for long. They stay safe in their college bubble, and we’re over here, on the outside, bringing their coffee and cleaning up when they leave. That’s just how it goes.”

  I shook my head slowly. “He’s not like that. And anyway, why are you talking like this?” I frowned, puzzled. “You’re a student, too.”

  “Not anymore,” Kelsey said. She saw my confusion as I took in her books and notes and explained. “I had to take a break last year. I keep up with the reading lists, and still meet my old study groups, I probably work harder than half those idiots, but it doesn’t count. At least, not yet.” Her eyes narrowed in determination. “At least this way, I can blitz through all the classes and catch up, when I do go back.”

  I wondered what had made her take that break from school, but I knew better than to ask. There was a bitterness in her expression, and besides, there was an unspoken rule here against straying too far into our personal lives. Too many questions from me might prompt the same curiosity from her, questions I didn’t have the answers to just yet: what was I doing here? Why did I come?

  How long was I planning to stay?

  “Thanks for looking out,” I said instead. “But you don’t need to worry. Theo and I, we’re not . . . I mean, he’s just a friend.”

  Even those vague words sounded false on my lips, but Kelsey could see right through me. “Sure he is,” she said. “I’m just saying, have your fun, but don’t expect it to last through winter break. Guys like that always have a way of disappearing on you.”