A Million Miles Away

by Lara Avery

  Kelsey had stopped reading off her notecards now.

  “We let so much go by without acknowledging it’s there,” she said, and realized she was talking about a lot more than Andy Warhol.

  “Anyway,” Kelsey said, clearing her throat. “People say Warhol was doing it for money and celebrity, and maybe he was, but he didn’t stop working after he became rich, so I don’t think that was it. He just wanted to make people look twice.”

  She still couldn’t see the faces of her classmates, but she didn’t care if they had listened. She had said her piece.

  “The end,” she said, and right then, Kelsey felt a sense of completion. She was done with high school. She had tried to keep her hopes up, but Peter’s silence had numbed her. She might not get the best grades, but none of her teachers would fail her, and she had gotten into KU. Most important, she was pretty sure she had found what she was supposed to find: that she could be an artist someday, too.

  On her way out of the classroom, as the next student made their way to the front, she stopped at Mrs. Wallace’s desk. “Thank you,” she whispered to the teacher. “I’m going now.”

  Mrs. Wallace whispered back, “Your presentation was a little short for my taste, but well done. Good luck, Ms. Maxfield.”

  Kelsey roamed the empty hallways, not bothering to change out of her sixties outfit. At her locker, she took out her phone to text Gillian and Ingrid, but paused, seeing the email that waited there.

  She opened it, read it, and read it again to make sure.

  Then, slamming her locker closed, she ran.

  She ran through the back lot, dodging her fellow seniors, who stared suspiciously at her, running in her fake eyelashes and go-go boots. She found her car and rolled down the windows, stomping on the gas to reverse out of the parking space, and flying into the street, letting her hair-sprayed bun blow out in the May wind.

  She parked haphazardly on the street in front of her house and ran up the stairs to open her laptop.

  Peter had already called twice. She answered on his third try, tapping the screen with her cursor over and over, begging it to show the face she had dreamed of every night, every day, every second.

  “Hello?” she said, her ears buzzing, her face hot from the rush.

  Nothing but scrambled sounds from the other end, and when he finally did appear, he was frozen, a wooden background where a green tent used to be. He must be in a new location, and this one had a bad Internet connection. She cursed the place, wherever he was.

  But Peter looked happy to see her. Unless he was denouncing her with a smile on his face, he was happy to see her. His image moved again, but only slightly.

  “Did you get my video?” she called, hoping she could hear him.

  His sound cut in, only for a second, then out again. “Connection’s bad—” she heard, then, “I—Got your video—I knew it.”

  She waited, barely breathing.

  “It’s okay—” Peter said, and though the sound dropped out again, goodness grew from her center, outward. His mouth formed words as he rubbed his head, explaining something.

  “Try again? I can’t hear you!” she called.

  Suddenly, she heard the two syllables she had been longing for.

  “Kelsey—”

  Kelsey. Kelsey. He had said her name. Finally, he knew her for who she was and not who she was pretending to be. I’m Kelsey, and you love me.

  “I love you, Peter,” she said, and he appeared to have finally heard her.

  “I love you, too—” he said, and leaned closer to the screen, but at that point, the call dropped.

  She jumped out of her desk chair, and then on top of it, yelling until her lungs got tired. “YES! Yes, yes, yes, yes!”

  She opened the screen door to her porch and fought the urge to shimmy up the drainpipe to the roof of her house.

  Her future was still uncertain, and so was his, but they would be together. First, in Kansas, then, who knows? She closed her eyes, feeling the wind.

  The sun had risen over a path, she could see Peter there, ready to take it with her. She was free.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Kelsey, Gillian, and Ingrid surveyed the party from above, their graduation gowns in wrinkled heaps on Kelsey’s floor. Kelsey was wearing the dress the three of them had picked out from the Topshop in the Kansas City plaza, a simple, short skater dress in bright crimson, to match the crimson and blue balloons her mother had tied on every available surface, making their house appear like a giant playground ball pit.

  “But in a good way,” she had assured her mom.

  Besides the grief group, they hadn’t had guests over since Michelle’s funeral, and until yesterday, it had showed. Her mother had rescheduled her students’ final so she and Kelsey could spend the morning clearing out the pizza boxes from the recycling, sweeping the floors, putting ailing house plants out of their misery.

  They had spoken little, handing each other the dustpan, catching each other’s eyes with small, warm smiles.

  When they were through, Kelsey reminded her to hide the jade statues.

  The pomp and circumstance came next: shaking hands with the principal she barely knew, holding up her diploma for photos from every angle, and her favorite part, tossing her cap in the air among so many others, like a flock of one-flight birds.

  “Oh, look,” Gillian said, pointing to the yard from the porch. “There’s that guy from Chemistry. You invited that guy?”

  “Sure,” Kelsey said, careful not to muss her lipstick on her straw. “I invited everybody. Why not?”

  “Even Davis?”

  “What? Where?” Kelsey scanned the crowd, then found him immediately, chatting up her father next to Anna and George, as well as some of his fraternity brothers.

  “I didn’t invite him, actually.” Her mother must have contacted her ex-boyfriend, for the sake of good graces.

  He caught her looking at him, and waved. She waved back.

  Davis made a long, brushing motion with his hand, from his head, all the way down, and pointed at her. Beautiful, he mouthed, and gave a thumbs-up.

  Thank you, Kelsey mouthed, and smiled.

  Everything was beautiful. This afternoon, just as the green of the backyard trees had realized its full potential, Kelsey’s mother had strung the leaves with Lions’ red streamers, like Christmas. Even the halfhearted peonies that her father had planted long ago looked fertile and content, thick white petals drooping in droves.

  Bees swarmed the sugar-soaked rims of margarita glasses.

  Someone had brought their French bulldog to the party, who made his rounds licking sauce off of fingertips.

  “The frat boys are going to eat all the tacos,” Ingrid complained, examining her manicure.

  “Let them eat tacos,” Kelsey said with a flourish of her hand like a queen over her subjects. She didn’t know most of the people crowding the speakers, which were blasting Beyoncé, or at least she didn’t know them anymore. But she had barely known herself until now. Today, she was weightless.

  She was a graduate. She was a future Rock Chalk Dancer. She was in love with Peter, who would be home in a matter of months.

  Which reminded her.

  “Be right back,” she told Gillian and Ingrid, and went inside to get her phone.

  Meg had texted her earlier, asking her what her plans were today.

  Can’t come help you practice, Kelsey typed, because she couldn’t see any other reason why Meg would be asking. My parents are throwing me a graduation party!

  Before she hit SEND, she paused, remembering. Meg still didn’t know about Michelle.

  She debated, then edited the text to read My parents are throwing us a graduation party! and sent the message. Eventually Meg would understand, once Peter got home to explain it to her.

  She returned to her side of the porch, which would always be her side. Even Gillian and Ingrid hadn’t spread out to Michelle’s section, out of habit, or perhaps out of quiet respect.


  “To Mitch,” Kelsey said, lifting up her glass.

  “To Mitch,” they repeated, and Gillian put a hand on her shoulder.

  Kelsey was transported to last year at this time, when the four of them were attending Davis’s graduation party.

  Kelsey and Michelle were just about to turn seventeen. They were standing around an enormous sheet cake. As they gathered, Kelsey’s mother, Davis’s parents, and his grandparents began to take their photo. Flashes sprayed their vision for a few minutes, the lot of them united, barely touching each other’s backs as they stood, imagining it was just another five minutes they had together. Together as they were, seventeen and nothing else.

  Michelle had chosen that moment to whisper to Kelsey, “This time next year, I’ll be long gone.”

  “Yeah, right,” Kelsey had whispered. “Miss your own graduation? Where will you go?”

  “I don’t know. The East Coast. Maybe Europe.”

  Kelsey had looked at her sister and raised her eyebrows, sarcastic. “Fine. Good riddance.”

  Kelsey was pulled back to the present by the stone in her gut. Gillian and Ingrid stood beside her, soaking up the midafternoon heat.

  She wished now she would have said something else. No, asked something. She wished she would have asked Michelle what she wanted to do when she got there, what art she would make, who she wanted to be. Had she asked, her sister wouldn’t have been such a mystery to her now, in the present.

  Then again, maybe Michelle didn’t know, either. She might have been a completely different person by now. So much could change in a year. So much could change in seconds.

  Thank you, she thought, though she didn’t know who or what she was thanking. She was thankful for the memories, at least, that would never leave her, but didn’t have to haunt her, either. Not all ghosts are meant to make you sad or scared.

  She was grateful for the passage of time.

  “I wish Peter were here,” Kelsey found herself saying aloud.

  Gillian glanced at her, winking. After Peter had called the other day, she had told Gillian and Ingrid straightaway. They had pestered her with questions: What would she do once he got back? Would he move to Lawrence? Would she follow him out East? Would they live out the summer, and leave it at that?

  Kelsey didn’t know. Love had a way of dissolving every object and detail and fact of reality that wasn’t immediately blooming, offering itself to the feeling. She let herself be carried by it.

  All she knew was that in two days, she would attend the official tryout for the Rock Chalk Dancers. She had practiced the assigned routine for hours, until it had become pure muscle memory. Ingrid, while watching her, had told her the only thing missing was her face. Kelsey didn’t look like she was enjoying it, Ingrid said.

  In two days, Ingrid would start her summer job, lifeguarding at the local pool.

  In two days, Gillian would leave town, visiting her older sister in New York.

  Two days didn’t matter right now, though.

  Now they were sipping margaritas, all of them in heels that made them several inches taller than usual.

  Beside her, Ingrid hit her arm.

  “What?”

  “We have to go downstairs,” Ingrid said, her voice squealing.

  “Please don’t tell me it’s another picture,” Kelsey said, rolling her eyes as she stared into her empty margarita glass. “My mouth hurts from smiling.”

  Gillian also gasped, and pulled Kelsey away from the porch railing, toward her room. She licked her thumb, rubbing a dab of taco sauce off of Kelsey’s cheek.

  “What the hell, Gil?” They must have seen something she didn’t see. She made for the porch again, but the two of them yanked her away.

  “Downstairs. Now,” Gillian said.

  She followed them as they stomped quickly down the steps, trying not to trip on their heels. When they reached the kitchen, Ingrid opened the back door, and Gillian ushered Kelsey outside.

  Against the fence, he stood, almost unrecognizable in army dress blues. He was holding his beret in one hand, and a bouquet of roses in the other, searching through the faces for hers.

  Finally, they found each other’s eyes from across the yard.

  Her mouth fell open.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  “Peter.”

  He pushed past the mingling crowd and was suddenly in her arms, swaying back and forth, her body pressed against the buttons of his coat.

  “We got pulled,” he whispered in her ear. “My company got pulled early.”

  “When did you get here?” she said, still muffled in his shoulder.

  “Just now. Just landed in Kansas City. I asked Meg where you were. I wanted to surprise you,” he said, running his fingers through her hair.

  “You did!” she said, laughing.

  She had so much to take in about him, she didn’t know where to look. His smile, sly and sweet and proud, or his dark blue eyes. She found her favorite part, the white blonde streak in his eyebrow, and brushed her thumb over it.

  People were looking. She didn’t care.

  She pulled him to a corner of the yard, away from the crowd. “Look at you.” She held him out in front of her.

  Peter looked down at the flowers in his hand. “I didn’t know if you like roses, but I figure, who doesn’t like—”

  “Everyone likes roses,” she said, and giggled. She led him inside. Shivers poured through her from her chest down to her feet, washing her calm, almost sleepy with happiness.

  They sat in the still house, making room on the couch among the balloons.

  “I feel like I’m in outer space or something,” he said, looking around.

  “This is perfect,” she said quietly. “How long will you be back?”

  “Until they call me for another tour,” Peter said. “Which may be in a couple of months, maybe never.”

  “Let’s say never.” Red and blue light cast through the spheres. Then Kelsey pulled his face close to her and kissed him. “I love you so much,” she said, and his eyes lit up.

  Their foreheads touched.

  “I love you, too, Michelle.”

  A muted thunder in her head, like a bomb going off.

  Kelsey drew back. She was unsure of what she just heard. “What?”

  “What?” Peter repeated, pulling back to look at her, his brow coming together over a puzzled smile. He batted a blue balloon away from his shoulder.

  Kelsey searched his face, unable to ignore a panicked ringing in her ears. “Was that an accident?”

  “Was what an accident?”

  “You called me Michelle.”

  His voice lilted, joking, “That’s no accident. It’s pretty standard for humans to call one—”

  “Peter,” she said quietly. “I’m Kelsey. You know that I’m Kelsey. You said you got my video when we talked last week.”

  “What video?” His eyes narrowed, and his smile disappeared. “What do you mean, ‘I’m Kelsey’?” He spoke slowly. “If you’re Michelle’s sister…”

  Kelsey’s pulse jackhammered. “I sent you a video to explain. You said you got it.”

  Peter spit air, incredulous. “I never got a video, Kelsey! Is this a joke?” Peter frowned. “I honestly don’t know what you mean.”

  “Okay,” she started, and humiliation at its purest seemed to form a force field between them. “This is weird. Try to remember the video. Try to remember telling me about the video.”

  Her image on-screen, as he was supposed to have watched, came to her, hurting her head.

  She had opened her mouth and pointed out her crooked incisor to the camera. See that? she had said to Peter. And this? She had stood and turned to reveal the mole on her lower back. Those are really the only differences. Were. Were the only differences.

  “Video? I never said anything about—Oh. I told Michelle the video was bad on our Skype call. That’s the only time I said anything about a video.”

  “I thought you understood. I—” Kelsey s
wallowed.

  Peter’s face got gentler, trying to understand. He put his hands on her arms. “You keep saying that. I have no idea what you’re talking about. This is insane. Where is Michelle?” His eyes moved briefly around them, as if she were there, somewhere in the house.

  Kelsey’s breaths were coming slow and frayed. She was paralyzed.

  She had already done this. She had already broken down as far as she could go. She couldn’t go back now, right here, in a sea of balloons, people laughing and talking outside.

  “Say something!” he burst out. “Please tell me what you’re doing!” The beret was crumpled in his fist.

  Slowly, the two of them stood.

  She couldn’t speak. It took everything Kelsey had to will herself to the mantel, where a folded piece of paper sat, as it had remained for eight months. She handed it to Peter and waited, her eyes down, just feet from where she stood that day in October.

  It was a program from Michelle’s funeral. Kelsey had memorized and recited the passage written inside, from the Book of 1 Corinthians.

  She remembered: I tell you this, brothers: Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

  She tried to push away the sound of her own voice saying those mechanical words, but her brain wouldn’t let her forget that cold day. Now of all times, as if it was taking her there to punish her.

  Peter read the program, turned it over, and read it again, the letter she should have sent from the beginning.

  “She died?” His voice was surprisingly light, with the accidental innocence of a kid. “She’s dead?”

  Kelsey tried to choke out a response, but her brain was too busy.

  But someone will ask, her voice echoing in the microphone, absorbed by somber faces, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies.

  Her mother entered the room, stepping over balloons. “Kelsey, what is going on?”

  But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.