And then he was going to leave town for college? What the hell had he been thinking?
Wendy stopped and looked over her shoulder. He took a deep breath and forced his leaden legs forward. He’d catch up with her, and she’d give him shit. Gloat over outrunning him. He looked forward to it. It would tether him to reality, arrest the panic. It occurred to him that good-naturedly arguing with Wendy was one of the only things he hadn’t lost when his dad died. He was only sorry he’d had to quit the debate team before she joined. He would have enjoyed making their tendency to spar official.
He was huffing by the time he reached her. But smiling, too. She had somehow, just by standing there with her hands on her hips waiting for him, managed to beat back his impending meltdown. He was ready for her disdain.
It didn’t come.
“You’re so tired,” she said.
What could he do but agree? “Yes.”
“You’re not sleeping enough.” She tilted her head and paused for a beat before adding, “But what can you do? It’s not like you have a choice.”
The simple statement almost took his breath away. It wasn’t that he needed sympathy. He didn’t feel sorry for himself. It was just that sometimes it felt like Wendy was the only person who saw him. Really saw him. His mother was too lost in her grief and guilt. Jane was…good. She hadn’t caused a lick of trouble since their dad died. She worked, too, babysitting and tutoring—as much as he would let her—and she gave him all her money. But she never commented on any of it. They hadn’t spoken about their new lot in life.
But Wendy. Smart Wendy. She saw things.
“I don’t have a choice,” he agreed, panting and glad of it because his breathlessness was covering the emotion that would otherwise be weighing down his voice.
“Let’s just walk,” she said.
And they did.
And she gave him no shit. Just told him about the season’s debating theme, which was education. “This week I’m arguing that homework should be banned.”
He laughed. “I wish.”
“That would make your life a lot easier, wouldn’t it?” She was still being uncharacteristically serious. Still seeing him.
“Why did I think I could go to college in New York?”
She furrowed her brow. From her point of view the question had come from nowhere. And as a rule, he didn’t burden other people—especially not Jane or Wendy—with his worries. But it was like the question was too big to stay contained in his body. Some foolhardy part of him had just blurted it out.
But if she’d been surprised by the non sequitur, she recovered quickly. Kept walking. “Because you got a full scholarship to a great school in a great city.”
“But I can’t just leave them.”
“You can,” she said calmly, turning onto a path that cut through a park near their houses. “It’s not that far.”
“It’s not like I can’t get just as good an education at the University of Toronto.” Now that he’d started voicing the second thoughts that had been plaguing him since he’d accepted the NYU offer, he couldn’t seem to stop. “I could live at home, and—”
She wasn’t having it. She held up a palm meant to silence him, stopped walking, and turned to face him. “Look. Jane will be fine. I’ll make sure of it. She and I have already decided we’re going to go to college together, so you don’t have to worry about her. I’ll be sticking to her like glue.”
“But my mother—”
“Is an adult.” She leveled a stern look at him, but then her face softened. “And she’s not as bad as she used to be.”
“You think?” He’d been wondering about that himself. His mom had been interacting with them more. Coming out of her room to watch EastEnders with Jane. She’d even gone on a walk around the block the first nice day of spring. But he hadn’t been sure if he’d been reading too much into all that. And there was no one he could talk to about it. No one with whom to triangulate his impressions.
Well, he’d thought there was no one. But of course that wasn’t right. There was Wendy.
“Yes,” she said firmly, and he believed her. Wendy didn’t do bullshit.
Her face underwent a further softening. She looked at him and saw his struggles. Quietly acknowledged them. “You’re allowed to do something for yourself, Noah.”
She was talking about New York, but suddenly, what he wanted to do for himself, here in this park with the birds chirping, was to kiss her.
It was the strangest goddamned thing. It was like some external force had invaded him and stuck this rogue idea in his head. Kiss Wendy Lou Who. The girl who saw him.
She must have felt it, too, because her eyes widened and her breath made little puffs of steam in the cold air as she emitted a series of short exhales.
His hand floated up and came to rest on her cheek. It was hot. His skin felt hot all over, too, and he didn’t think it was from the running.
“Noah,” she whispered.
He thought later that if she had just remained silent, he probably would have done it. But that single word, her familiar voice, jolted him back to his senses. He might be romanticizing Wendy at this moment as capable of seeing into his soul or some shit, but she was still Wendy. His little sister’s best friend.
What the hell was the matter with him?
So, accustomed to doing his duty, Noah retracted his hand, ruthlessly beat back the rising tide of disappointment inside him, and summoned his best big brother voice. “Thanks, Wendy. Knowing you’ll be keeping your eye on Jane and my mom will make me feel so much better when I’m gone.”
She blinked, clearly in need of a moment to adjust to what had just happened—or not happened.
But then, ever perceptive, she turned and started walking again. He followed, both thankful and disappointed that the…incident had passed unremarked on.
After a few moments, she said, “Only a couple months till school is over. You’ll be able to get some rest then, I hope.”
“Summer sounds like a dream right now,” he agreed, both because it was true but also because he was happy to have something mundane to talk about. “No homework. Just the store. We can go running in the evenings without me falling over dead.”
She shot him a sly look—she looked like her usual self again. Once again a mixture of regret and relief swirled through him.
“So maybe by the end of next summer, you’ll be able to catch me.” And then she took off.
Shaking off the memory, Noah pumped his legs to try to close the gap between them, and this time, in the real and not the daydream world, he had enough energy to do so. He took one last look at Wendy’s back before falling into step beside her. Then they jogged side by side at an easy pace for twenty or so minutes until they reached the edge of Riverdale Park. She’d suggested they run to the park and pick up the Don River trail.
“Race you to that tree!” She pointed at an enormous maple about a hundred yards off and sprinted away.
She left him in the dust.
Point to Wendy—both the kid and the grown-up versions of her.
Chapter Five
SIX WEEKS BEFORE THE WEDDING
The text came from Jane just as the front door buzzer rang inside Wendy’s condo.
I’m in your lobby, and I’m invoking the Josh Groban clause.
Wendy tried to swear but she laughed at the same time, so it came out more like a snort. She buzzed Jane up, unlocked the door, and went to the kitchen to turn on the kettle.
The Josh Groban clause. That was not normally a phrase Wendy enjoyed hearing. Wendy and Jane, despite their closeness, did not have the same taste. Never had: back in the day, Jane had been obsessed with the Baby-Sitters Club while Wendy immersed herself in the world of J. R. R. Tolkien. Peter Pan had been their only overlap, really.
She and Jane had an agreement to help manage their present-day divergent taste: Wendy went with Jane to hear the sanitized Pop Ken Doll known as Josh Groban, and Jane went with Wendy to hear the indie band
s she favored.
“Hi!” Jane let herself in the front door and kicked off her shoes.
“When and where?” Wendy asked, dropping tea bags into mugs and pouring water over them as she grinned at the sight of her bestie.
Jane sat on one of the stools at Wendy’s breakfast bar. “Saturday. Madison Square Garden.”
Wendy choked on her first sip of tea. “New York? I’m not going to New York with you to see Josh Groban!” She made a theatrical choking noise to supplement her previous genuine one. But, really: no way. She hadn’t seen Noah since his surprise visit six weeks ago, and she was only just starting to get her equilibrium back.
“But—”
Wendy held up a palm. “The Josh Groban clause does not have a provision for air travel!”
Jane made an inarticulate defeated noise and slumped her shoulders.
Aww, shit. Guilt-trip: activated. “Shouldn’t you take Cameron anyway?” Wendy needed to start getting used to the idea that she wasn’t Jane’s main person anymore.
“Cameron hates Josh Groban.”
Now there was something she could appreciate about Cameron. “And I don’t?”
“Of course you do, but unlike Cameron, you’re contractually obligated.” Jane winked. “Anyway, I have an ulterior motive. I was thinking I might go dress shopping.”
“I thought you had a dress.” Part of Jane’s commitment to a “low-key” wedding was that she’d ordered a simple dress from J Crew.
“I do. It’s just that I was talking to Gia the other day, and she offered to get me in at this super fancy bridal salon where you basically have to be famous to get an appointment. At first I was, like, no, but then I googled it, and oh my God, Wendy. You should see these dresses. I mean, I know I’m not supposed to want the big, puffy, expensive dress, but…”
Dammit. If this was about the wedding and not just Josh Groban, there was really no way Wendy could in good conscience get out of it. She was supposed to be doing a better job at this whole maid of honor thing, right? Here was a ready-made opportunity. All she had to do was get on a plane and then smile and nod and tell Jane how beautiful she was when really the voluminous dresses she was considering would make her look like a fluffy marshmallow.
She could feel herself weakening.
Jane set her mug down on the bar. “I was thinking this trip might get you a little action, too.”
Wendy choked on her tea for the second time. “Excuse me, what?”
“Oh, come on. You’ve been complaining lately about being in a slump. It’s been, what? Six months?”
“Seven and a half months, actually.” Not that she was counting. But Jane’s point was taken. Things were a little…arid down there.
“You broke up with Christopher, okay, but—”
“We didn’t ‘break up.’” Wendy made air quotes with her fingers. She didn’t like to interrupt her friend, but the correction was necessary. “We were never together.”
“Well, you kind of were.”
“No. We were fuck buddies. Then he got serious about a woman.”
“And that didn’t bother you at all?” Jane had never really been down with Wendy’s preference toward casual sexual relationships. It wasn’t that she didn’t approve; she fundamentally didn’t understand.
“No,” Wendy answered honestly. “It bothered my vagina, maybe, but I liked Christopher. I’m glad he’s happy.”
“God, you’re as bad as Gia!”
Their absent friend Gia was known for her devotion to casual sex. “Hey, the modern woman doesn’t need a man,” Wendy said. And Wendy wasn’t as bad as Gia. Not that “bad” was the correct word. Wendy admired Gia’s pleasure-seeking ways, but Gia would never go seven and a half months without doing the deed. Wendy wasn’t sure how she’d let it go so long, except that, like most lawyers, she worked a million hours a week. Christopher had been a lawyer, too, so late-night liaisons had been easy to arrange.
“Anyway, I don’t need to go to New York to get laid.” Wendy didn’t partake too much in the hard-living life that tended to come with her profession, but it was easy enough to “make friends” when she wanted to. She would replace Christopher when she felt like it. But she took Jane’s point—she should probably get on that.
But…An image suddenly pushed its way into her mind—an image of a shirtless Noah Denning smirking at her. And the image had sound.
You should come to New York with Jane next time she visits.
“Oh, I forgot!” Jane hopped off the stool and came back with her bag, from which she produced a package. “My brother sent this to you care of my address.”
She dropped the package on the island with a thud. After a one-second delay, there was an identical thud in the pit of Wendy’s stomach. The return address was the Office of the New York County District Attorney.
Wendy leaped off her stool like it had burned her.
“It must be your shirt,” Jane said. “I told him to leave it here for me to get cleaned, but nope, he insisted on taking it home with him and sending it to his trusted dry cleaner. That’s so like him, isn’t it? Go way out of his way to make sure something’s done right.” Jane rolled her eyes, but they gleamed with affection.
“Yes,” Wendy said, but it occurred to her that she didn’t really know what Noah was like, not anymore. She’d gone running with him when he was last here, but that was the most time she’d spent with him in years. Sixteen-year-old Noah would absolutely have made sure her shirt was taken care of. And modern-day Noah had gone out of his way to do so.
So how to square those versions of him with the one in between? The eighteen-year-old Noah who’d stood her up at the prom? Left her standing there in a dress she’d withdrawn money from her college fund to buy, her face inexpertly painted in newly purchased makeup, the only girl without a corsage because she was the only girl without a date?
Jane had started it all. It had been a joke to begin with, an innocent question lobbed at Tim, a friend of Noah’s from the grocery store. It was a mid-May evening, and Wendy and Jane were studying in the Dennings’ kitchen as Tim and Noah clattered in, just off a shift.
Well, Wendy was studying; Jane was flipping through Seventeen and sighing over a spring formal spread. Wendy had been studying, but, as was the case lately, the minute Noah entered a room, her brain turned to mush.
A big ball of mush incapable of thinking about anything beyond the feeling of his hand on her cheek. And as if on cue her cheek—just the one—started burning.
It had been a month since their last run, and she couldn’t get over it.
It was just that she’d thought…he’d been about to kiss her? Was that even possible? She still didn’t know.
Noah’s eyes skittered to Wendy. She’d been staring at him without meaning to. Crap. She quickly looked away and forced herself to pay attention to Jane, who was grinning and batting her eyelashes theatrically at Tim.
“Tim, will you take me to the prom?”
Though they ran in different social circles at school, Tim and Noah had become friends at the store. They would often hole up in Noah’s room and play video games after a shift. Tim was a rebel of sorts—he had a rock band and he was perpetually on the verge of flunking out. He was a little bit of a legend at their school. And Jane had a crush on him.
It was a mild one though, and it was an open secret—she’d turned it into a bit of a running joke. Tim the brooding bad boy was so different from serious, shy Jane that everyone took Jane’s theatrical crushing in the lighthearted spirit in which it was intended.
“Why on earth would I want to do that?” Tim teased.
“Are you kidding?” Jane said. “Underclassmen can’t go to the prom unless they go with a senior. Think of the social currency that I, a nerdy freshman, would acquire by showing up at the senior prom with you.”
“Oh, come on,” Tim said. “You’re not a nerd. You’re the coolest girl I know.”
Jane burst out laughing. “Then you don’t know ninety-ni
ne percent of East York Collegiate.”
It was true. Star debater Wendy and comic book nerd Jane weren’t getting their heads flushed down toilets or anything, but there was also no way they were getting asked to the prom. For her part, Wendy didn’t care. If something wasn’t even remotely within your grasp, what was the point of getting worked up about not having it? It was like getting your undies in a bunch because you didn’t win the lottery. Why waste the energy?
“Oh my gosh,” Jane went on, staring off into space dreamily. “If I showed up at the prom on the arm of East York’s resident bad boy, I wouldn’t have to worry about anything the next three years. Ha!”
Both the guys looked at Wendy, as if for confirmation of what Jane was saying. They were both unplugged from the social reality of school, Noah because he worked so much and Tim because he really was East York’s resident bad boy and hence had better things to do. She shrugged and nodded. Everything Jane was saying was true.
“Aww, shit.” Tim rolled his eyes good-naturedly. “When is it?”
Jane gasped and her eyes grew comically wide. “A week from Saturday.”
“Do I have to wear a tux? I’m not wearing a tux. I can get away with that—I’m a bad boy, right?”
“Oh my God! Are you serious?” Jane started jumping up and down, her face awash in happiness. If Tim hadn’t been serious, he was now—there was no way anyone could look at that face and not do its owner’s bidding.
Tim performed a surrendering shrug. “What the hell? Why not do a good deed before I’m done doing my time at that cesspit of a school?”
Jane hugged Tim, then danced over to her brother and hugged him, too. “You’re not going to get all pissy about this, are you, Noah?”
“Nope.” He clapped Tim on the back. “It’s your grave, dude.” The fact that Noah, who was usually so protective of Jane, had given his blessing reinforced just how not a threat Tim was to Jane, romantically speaking. So it would be a platonic date.
It Takes Two Page 5
