Anything to Have You

by Paige Harbison

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  “HEY, DADDY, I’M going to school.”

  My dad glanced back over the couch at me. “What’s that now? It’s almost eight o’clock at night!”

  “I’m—Daddy, I’ve told you this, like, thirty times.”

  “Oh, right. Working on the project with Aiden.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you need a ride?”

  “No, he’s picking me up.”

  He hummed the tune of “K-I-S-S-I-N-G” at me.

  “Shut up! And hey, speaking of, I’m pretty sure you’re dating Marcy and not telling me.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Um, probably the fact that you have never in your life had more conferences to go to, and you guys are, like, all flirty now at the diner.”

  He was eating his favorite at-home dessert, a scoop of vanilla ice cream with whipped cream, chocolate syrup and sprinkles. It was always an adorable process to watch him make it. All finicky, and making sure he added just the right amount of each ingredient.

  “I want you to date her, you know that. I’ve been telling you to ask her out for how long now?”

  He sighed, and I knew Aiden had been right. “Yeah, I know, but it’s not the most normal thing in the world. Old dad, having a girlfriend.”

  “In this day and age? Are you serious?” My phone buzzed and I saw Aiden had texted to tell me he was outside. “I gotta go. But, Daddy...it’s fine. I’m glad you guys are dating.”

  He gave me the sad-Dad eyes. “Really?”

  I laughed and went over to him and gave him a hug. “Yes, dummy. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

  “All right, have fun.”

  “It’s homework.”

  He turned back to the TV. “Doesn’t mean you aren’t going to enjoy yourself.”

  As I walked toward his Jeep, Aiden leaned over and pushed open the door.

  “Nattie, what’s goin’ on?”

  “Nothin’...thanks for picking me up.”

  “No problem at all. You’re on the way, anyway. I’m pumped to start making this thing happen!”

  “Dude, me, too, we’ve been doing such boring work on it for so long, I can’t wait.”

  “I got the posters printed, and they look really good.”

  “Really? That’s awesome. Can’t wait to see.”

  It started raining halfway there, so when we arrived we had to dash from the car to the doors of the school so we didn’t ruin all of our stuff.

  We got everything inside, nearly dropping all of it in a puddle at one point, but then recovering. Our station was in the center of the school, in a big open square where people spent their time between, before and after classes. It was the perfect place. It was weird to see it at night like this, completely deserted. We had waited until after most practices were over so that we would have the space to plan out the project. The only reason we were allowed in quite so late was that play rehearsal went until ten at night.

  An hour later, we were into it. We had used Command strips to put enormous foam boards up on the wall—his idea, to avoid the crappy look of general craft paper.

  He was using a yardstick and a pencil to mark the areas we would be renting out to people. In the end we’d decided to charge one dollar per person to be part of it, and a nine-dollar upcharge for each specifically rented block.

  I was sitting in the middle of a circle I had made of piles of papers. We’d had some contributions turned in already, due to the project being mentioned on the morning announcements. I held up a stack of movie tickets (a surprisingly high number of people collect them), and looked around for somewhere to put them. I finally reached behind me and started making a second ring of piles around myself.

  I looked up to see Aiden laughing.

  “What?” I looked at him through my glasses.

  He leaned on his yardstick, smiling a little, and then it faded. “Nothing. You’re funny.”

  “Hey, I’m just trying to stay organized here.”

  He gestured at the speakers I had set up, playing Cold War Kids, by my backpack. “Are you ever not listening to something?”

  I shook my head. “Not ever by choice. I can’t stand silence.”

  “Kind of weird for someone who stays home most of the time.”

  “I’ve gotten out plenty.”

  “Can I grab a sip of that?” He held out his hand and I gave him the soda I had just sipped from.

  “I don’t know how Brooke does it so often, though. The parties and stuff. She’s going to burn out halfway through college.”

  “Probably for the best.”

  “That’s actually true. Better now than when she’s a little older and ought to start worrying about real life, I guess. Unlike my mom, who did it all once she had a kid.”

  He handed back my soda. “Thanks. Should we go hang these posters up? I’m about finished measuring this stuff out.”

  “Yeah, sure, I could definitely stretch my legs.”

  Aiden grabbed the pile of posters. They were white, all with different colored print. They advertised the wall, gave the costs and suggestions for what to contribute.

  We wandered down the halls, him handing me the posters, me sticking them to the walls, doors and bulletin boards.

  “So let me ask you,” he said. “Brooke said you’re going to be here next year. And you haven’t talked at all about your plans for college. I haven’t thought I should ask, but...what’s the deal there?”

  I breathed deeply and puffed out my cheeks. He was a fan of asking the loaded questions. “I didn’t figure it out in time. I didn’t know what I wanted to do or go to school for. And my dad isn’t exactly loaded, so I didn’t want to send out a bunch of applications to random places for no reason.”

  “Couldn’t you go somewhere with an undeclared major and start getting the lame general ed classes out of the way?”

  “I could, but I don’t even know where I want to be. What if I pick somewhere, and then figure out what I want to do, and they don’t offer it as a major?”

  “What would that be?”

  “I don’t know...who knows? It could be anything.”

  “You’re still not sure about what you want? Not at all?”

  I glanced at him before putting up another poster. “No.”

  We started up the stairs. “Well...what do you like to do?”

  “Um...”

  “You like to watch movies. Listen to music. Cook. There it is!” He pointed at me.

  “What?”

  “Cooking. You like cooking.”

  “I do, yeah, but—”

  “Have you ever thought about culinary school?”

  I took another poster. “I mean, I have thought about it. In a way...but I can’t go to culinary school.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “I don’t know! It’s so specific. I’m supposed to go to college college.”

  He stopped dead. “Natalie.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “You’re not ‘supposed to’ do anything. You have to do what’s going to make you happy. Cooking makes you happy?”

  “Sure, yeah. I like it. I’m good at it.”

  “Do you like anything better, that you can think of?”

  I shook my head. “I guess not.”

  “You don’t want to teach, or act, or be a scientist, or become a doctor or lawyer or anything?”

  “Hah. No. I do not.”

  “Can you see yourself being a chef?”

  A smile crept across my face involuntarily. “It would be pretty cool.”

  It felt freeing. Imagining becoming a chef felt like getting away with something. Someone would pay me to do it?
<
br />   “I guess it doesn’t feel like something I could really do. As if it isn’t a real job or something. But I know that’s dumb. I know it’s a real job.”

  “It absolutely is.”

  I bit my thumb. “It would be pretty awesome to cook for a living. Every time I ever think about all the other things people are going to school for, I get so stressed, and so discouraged.”

  “That’s because none of those jobs are right for you. I could never become a chef. Same way you probably don’t think you would ever want to become a vet.”

  “God, no.”

  “There you go. All right, let’s hurry up and hang these posters.”

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were in a hurry.”

  “I’m not,” he said, grinning. “You are.”

  * * *

  ONCE HE DECIDED we needed to go fast, we pasted up all the posters within fifteen minutes. Then we were in his car, on the way home, and then walking into my house.

  “Hey, Daddy,” I said as we walked in.

  “Nat, I didn’t expect you back already.” He muted the TV and turned to us. “And Aiden, too, huh?”

  “Yes, sir, how are you tonight?”

  “Good, good. Watching a little SportsCenter here.”

  “Did you see what they were saying about the Redskins this year? The draft is going to be crazy. My buddy and I have a bet going on who we’ll land as quarterback.”

  I made a face at Aiden and then at my dad.

  “We’re boring Princess Natalie, I think,” said my dad.

  “Really? Five seconds of football, that’s your limit, huh?” He and my dad laughed.

  “You kids got some more homework to do?”

  “No, actually...” Aiden nudged me. “You want to tell him what you figured out?”

  Dad looked at me, intrigued.

  “Um, I was thinking about applying to culinary school.”

  His mouth fell open. “You serious?”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “I think it’s a great idea, personally,” said Aiden. “She likes cooking. She’s good at it. And there are a bunch of culinary schools in D.C. I bet she could end up working at a really great restaurant down there somewhere.”

  “You know, I suggested this to her once and—” he held up his fingers in a circle “—nothing.”

  “I needed to think!” I said.

  “Yeah, yeah. Well, I think it’s great, honey. Seriously. Didn’t I tell you I liked Aiden?”

  Oh, my god. Embarrassing.

  “Uh-huh, okay, so we’re going to go use my computer, is that fine?”

  “The door stays open. And here—” He reached into his back pocket to retrieve his wallet. “Here’s my Visa, in case there’s an application fee.”

  “Okay. Thanks, Daddy.”

  We started up the steps.

  “Your dad likes me?” Aiden whispered, smiling brightly at me.

  “Don’t get too full of yourself, he likes almost everyone.” But I smiled back, feeling happier and more settled than I had in as long as I could remember.

  * * *

  “AND...SUBMITTED.” AIDEN double-clicked, and then turned around in my desk chair. “How do you feel?”

  I was sitting on the edge of the bed, right behind him. He had sat with me for two hours, him on his phone and me on my computer, finding places to apply to. Then he’d helped me fill out applications to two nearby schools and kept me company while I completed dull financial aid forms.

  “I feel awesome,” I responded. “Really good. It’s crazy. I’ve had no idea at all what I wanted to do. For the longest time.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes things’ll hit you. You figure them out, all of a sudden.”

  “Apparently.”

  He snapped his fingers. “Just like that.”

  “I guess so. It feels right.”

  He nodded and gave the sides of my thighs a light tap. “Good. I’m glad.”

  A few seconds of silence. “Yep. Me, too.”

  His eyes landed on mine, and he held my gaze. My chest lit on fire, and my skin started to tingle.

  “I’m glad you finally know what you want.” He looked very serious.

  I nodded, and when I spoke, my voice was a little quieter than I had expected it to be. “I’m, well...I’m glad you know, too. Being a vet...is so cool...”

  He nodded. I wasn’t even sure when or how it had happened, but we had grown closer. If I leaned forward, I could kiss him.

  I had to resist the strange and crazy impulse to do just that.

  The silence suddenly felt so loud. One more nod, and then he dropped his gaze down to his hands. “Fuck,” he whispered.

  “What?”

  He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes at me. He wanted to say something. I didn’t know what, but I wanted him to say it.

  “Natalie, it’s getting pretty late, you gotta wrap it up.” My dad’s voice echoed up the stairs and into my room.

  “’Kay,” I yelled back.

  When I looked back at him, the moment where he was going to say whatever it was...was gone.

  “I should go.”

  “I guess so...thanks so much for...” I gestured at the air. “Everything, you know.”

  “Anytime. I’ll, um...I’ll see you.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  AIDEN STARTED ACTING completely weird after that. Even weirder than he had before. Two weeks passed, and I got nothing. No explanation of what he might have been about to say, or why he’d seemed upset when he left, no explanation for why he wasn’t talking to me now. He wasn’t giving me the silent treatment exactly, but he was in no way trying to start or keep up a conversation with me.

  In our class together, he was all business. He even put in his headphones when we met to put things on the boards together.

  Self-deprecating as I could often be, I was sure this time that I had done nothing to deserve this. The change in his behavior was so obvious that for once I was sure it wasn’t in my head. He had acted one way, something had happened and now he was completely different.

  It’s upsetting to know you made someone mad with your actions, but it is arguably more infuriating to know this but not know what your actions were. Brooke seemed normal enough. She, too, though, seemed not to be talking to me as much. She said it was because she was studying for her final exams, but I just didn’t know. She was normal when we did talk, but it wasn’t normal to talk as little as we were.

  Today was the day of the prom rally. It marked three weeks exactly till the last day of school for seniors and two weeks until the end of classes and beginning of exams. It also meant prom was two weeks away.

  Brooke always got pumped up and excited during this time of year. Weird as she might or might not have been acting over the past couple of weeks, you would never know it from how she flew over to me when she saw me.

  “Nattie! I am so excited. But freaking out. What if I don’t get nominated in my senior year? I will be humiliated.”

  “Freshman and sophomore years you were nominated for Homecoming princess and won the second time. And last year you were nominated for Homecoming queen and beat out the senior girls. You only lost prom queen last year because Lauren Hottinger was on crutches with a broken leg from when she was building a house for Habitat. How can you possibly be worried?”

  “I’m still convinced that bitch was faking.”

  “Well...that might be going a bit far.”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, I don’t want to not—ugh, can you imagine?”

  No, I couldn’t. Because no part of my life had ever been about homecoming or prom court, except in relation to Brooke and all of her anxiety about it every year.

  “Well, I voted
for you.”

  “Aw, you did?” she asked, like it wasn’t obvious that I would.

  “No, I voted for Alexa.” I gave her a look. “Obviously, Brooke.”

  We started making our way to the football field for the rally.

  “Oh, there’s Aiden,” she said, pointing. She held a finger to her lips in a “shh” motion—as if I have ever or would ever scream his name or shout or something.

  She snuck up and then jumped on his back. He buckled almost imperceptibly, but then grabbed her under the knees and said, “Hey, babe.” He set her down and looked to me. “Natalie.”

  I noticed now that Eric was with him. I waved with a tightlipped smile at them both.

  “Anyway,” Brooke said as we all walked together. “I voted for you, too.”

  I actually looked around me to see who she was talking to. “Who?”

  “You!”

  I scoffed. “What a waste of a vote!”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Everyone talks about you, whether you like it or not. Especially with, ya know...” She glanced up at Eric, who was now back in conversation with Aiden.

  I rolled my eyes. “Bull. But that’s cute of you to nominate me. Thank you.”

  “Did you nominate Aiden?” she asked quietly. “Or did you have to vote for Eric?”

  It honestly hadn’t even occurred to me to do otherwise. “Yeah, I voted for Aiden.”

  “Okay, good, I want to make sure. Can you imagine how awkward it’d be if, like, Eric won? Or if someone else random did? I do not want my dance to be with someone else.”

  At the entrance of the stadium, there were a couple SGA students handing out class T-shirts. We gave them our sizes and years and took them. We made our way to the best seats we could get in the bleachers.

  It was finally hot out today. It had been an exceedingly long winter, with an infuriatingly frosty spring. But for the past few weeks it had been warming up nicely. Even without stepping outside, anyone could have guessed it from Brooke’s dark, short Daisy Dukes.

  “Put on your shirt!” said Brooke, who was pulling hers on over her tube top, and then tugging the tube top down and off. “Come on, don’t make me the only loser with school spirit. Why are you in a sweater, anyway, you masochist?”