Em scowls. “I won’t.”
“Whatever you say.” I hide a grin. She’s totally going to crack—I can tell.
I bust out my blue dress again for our night out, safe in the knowledge that what was kind of trashy by Oxford standards is practically a nun’s habit when it comes to Key West.
“And, anyway, who gives a damn about being sexy or not,” Em declares, linking her arm through mine and pulling me into the bar with nothing more than a quick flash of our fake IDs. “It’s not like we’re going to pick up a guy and take him back for a threesome!”
I giggle. “Tell that to them! Drunk college dudes aren’t exactly rational.”
We blink, adjusting to the dim light. I figured the bar was kind of upscale, in sleek blue and silver, but still it’s packed with rowdy groups of guys downing shots and girls stripped to bikini tops gyrating on the dance floor.
I pause, the noise and loud hip–hop beats overwhelming me. Everywhere I look there are flashing lights and drunk, squealing girls. “Maybe I should have rethought this whole spring break thing.” I was only away a couple of months, but somehow I forgot it was like this. Guys looking you up and down so blatantly, girls glaring at the competition. I gulp. “We could do that pay–per–view thing and—”
“No way.” Em pulls me firmly toward the bar. “We’re reacclimatizing you to your old habitat.”
“We’re what?”
“This is the horse, and you’re getting back on it.”
I should have figured Em wasn’t to be disobeyed; she has us perched at the bar with a couple of drinks in under ten seconds.
“Nonalcoholic,” she yells at the campiest barman I’ve even seen. His shirt is sheer and stretched so tightly across his chest you can see every ridge of muscle. Em turns to me. “No offense, but this isn’t the sort of place I want to get drunk in.”
I clock at least three jocks in football shirts looking at her hungrily. “Good call.”
“So what shall we toast to?” Em looks at me over the fruity cocktails, her face flushed and glowing. I’m struck by how far she’s come—not far enough, for sure, but still she’s got a look in her eyes I swear I never saw in any of those old photos: happy, relaxed.
“The switch!” I exclaim loudly, trying to feel like I can blend back in here.
“The switch!” she echoes, plucking a cherry from the top of her glass and biting into it. “And the strangest three months of my life.”
I toast along, but I hear the past tense in her tone. “So… You haven’t heard from Ryan?”
Em sighs. “Nope, and I doubt I ever will.”
“You could call him, you know,” I suggest, watching her carefully. “Or email, or even just text.”
She shrugs kind of listlessly. “It won’t make a difference; there’s no point. God, how pathetic am I? First Sebastian, then Sam, and finally Ryan. I’m doomed to be alone.”
“Who was this Sebastian guy, anyway?” I take a sip of my drink. “Maybe I met him.”
“You would have definitely. He lives right next door to me.”
I choke.
“No way!” Spluttering, I reach for a wad of napkins and dab at my streaming nose. “Robin Thicke dude is your ex?”
Em looks puzzled. “I gave him that CD for Christmas.”
I laugh, not believing this. “Oh god, honey. You are so better off without him. I hate to break it to you, but he slept with, like, three different girls every week.”
Her mouth drops open. “Really?”
“Honest.” I shake my head, tears still in my eyes. “And none of them sounded happy, if you know what I mean.”
“Tash!”
“I heard everything,” I swear. “I wish to god I hadn’t, but that’s the truth.”
She presses her lips together, like she’s trying not to laugh.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing. Just… I suppose it was a lucky escape.” She finally grins. “That I didn’t sleep with him, I mean. If what you heard was true.”
We fall about in hysterics, laughing so hard I nearly lose my balance and fall off my seat.
“And I never met him,” I gasp, shoulders shaking. “I know what noise he makes when—” I can’t even get the words out. “But I never even laid eyes on him!”
“Whoa there.” The guy behind me grabs my arm just before I slip to the floor. “Easy does it.”
“Thanks!” I gasp, gripping on to the rim of the bar for safety.
“No problem.” He flashes a grin at me, blond and cute and eager looking.
I turn back to Em.
“Go on,” she whispers. “Back on the horse, remember?” I shrug, but she widens her eyes and kicks me, hard.
“Oww!” I hiss, but she doesn’t quit, so with a sigh, I swivel back to him.
“Hey,” I start, since it’s clear Em won’t be happy with anything less than a conversation. “Thanks again for helping me out.”
“That’s cool.” He runs one palm over the top of his head, like he’s checking every tuft of bronzed hair is in place. “These places can get way out of control.”
“Uh–huh.” I nod, immediately bored. I think of Will and feel that clench again in my chest, but Will is an ocean away and out of my life.
“Dude!” Suddenly another guy appears. He’s short and stocky like a baseball player, with a beer in his hand and wearing a pale-blue shirt soaked with sweat. “You know who this is, right?” He looks at me, mouth wide open. “It’s her. You know, from the video. With what’s–his–name.”
Blond Boy’s eyes slowly spark. “No way, it is you!”
I feel Em’s hand on my back. She’s already standing, ready to go, but I don’t move. I knew this was coming, but I figured I’d be panicked, sick, like I’ve always been.
No more.
“You liked the show?” I ask, calmly taking another drink. It’s strange, but I don’t feel threatened or exposed.
“Totally!” They snigger, kind of disbelieving. “Man, you were so hot.”
“I played that clip, like, all the time.”
“Lovely,” I say, totally sarcastic, but they’re too busy panting to notice.
“And when you did that twisty thing, with your hips?” It only took a moment for the cute, chivalrous one to become a leering jackass. “I tried to make my girlfriend watch, but she dumped my ass. Frigid bitch.”
“Dude, I remember!”
“Ha, I know, right!”
I roll my eyes at Em. She’s watching me, all concerned, but I’m fine. Finally.
“So, you, like, up for a replay?” They look at me, only part joking.
“I’ve got, like, a hundred bucks on me,” Jock Guy adds.
I raise my eyebrows.
“I’ve got another two hundred,” Blond Boy says quickly. Like it makes a difference.
“You know what… ?” I pause, biting my lip as I pretend to think over their amazing offer. They lean closer.
“No.”
And then I take both our drinks and upend the glasses over their heads.
“Let’s go, Em.” Slipping down from my stool, I take my purse and shoot a look back at the guys. They’re soaked, sickly sweet syrup dripping down their fronts, and Blond Boy even has a paper umbrella lodged in his now–not–so–perfect hair. I laugh. “I always like to meet my fans,” I yell behind us as Em tows me away.
And then I blow them a kiss.
Emily
We’re still laughing by the time we get back to the hotel, tripping over our heels and clinging to one another in glee.
“And the look on their faces… !” I gasp, fumbling in my clutch bag for the room card.
“I know!” Tash sweeps into the room and flings herself on one of the beds triumphantly. “And I didn’t freak out, not at all.”
“You were amazing,” I agree, pulling my pajamas from my case and slipping into the bathroom to change. “You see?” I call through the door. “I knew you could adjust to this sort of scene again.”
“I guess I can.” When I come back into the room, Tash is sitting cross–legged, munching on a handful of extortionate minibar peanuts. She pauses to lick salt from the corner of her mouth, a giddy grin still on her face. “You know who they looked like? Professor Elliot, right after I called her a bad feminist.”
I giggle, rummaging in my suitcase for my wash bag. “I still can’t believe she slagged you off to Aldridge—and then you got that offer, anyway.”
“Totally.” Tash beams. “Oooh, is that your movie?” Spying a manila envelope buried among my clothes, she reaches over and takes the small package.
“Oh. That.” I feel my elation suddenly begin to ebb away. “Ryan dropped it by before I left. I haven’t been able to watch it yet,” I admit.
“Let’s do it now,” she cries. “Come on, I’m dying to see it.”
“Well… all right,” I agree unenthusiastically, but she’s already flipping up her laptop screen and opening the envelope.
“Which one is it?”
“Hmm?” I carefully begin to smear moisturizer under my eyes, the way my mother ordered me to at age twelve, “to stave off the ravages of time.”
Tash tosses the discs onto my bed. “There are two. And a note!” she exclaims, withdrawing a single sheet of paper.
“I don’t want to hear!” My heart drops, just imagining what Ryan would have to say.
“Sure you do.” Ignoring my plea, Tash begins to read. “Emily—I know you’ve already made up your mind about us, so I won’t try and stop you. But please think about the summer job.” At this Tash fixes me with another of her looks. “Either way, I made this so you remember your time here and everything you managed to be. Have a safe journey home.”
She lowers the letter. “That’s all there was. Go on, play the disc!”
I slowly clamber over beside her and slip the DVD into the computer, my insides already twisting themselves into a tangle.
“Look, it’s you!”
I watch in silence as a photograph of me fills the screen under the words “Emily’s Big Adventure.” It’s one of the shots from outside the diner: my hair is glossy under the sun, and my whole face is lit up as I blow the camera a kiss.
“So cute!” Tash coos, hugging me, but I just feel a pang. It already feels like that place is a world away. The first still is quickly replaced as new photographs and short bursts of film dance across the small screen. Me working on the script, me lying out on the lawn with a book, me ordering our group around during filming, all set to a familiar soundtrack of Bruce Springsteen, Patsy Cline, and all the other songs Ryan played for me that day.
I watch myself as if in a daze. The girl on–screen is more hesitant than the people around her, I can see. She holds back, visibly assessing each moment, but then there are moments where Ryan has caught me completely unaware: doubled over with laughter on the beach; eyes animated as I explain a line of dialogue.
“That must be Carla!” Tash exclaims happily, as the slide show continues. And then another film clip plays. I’m Rollerblading on the boardwalk in Santa Monica, begging Ryan to turn the camera off.
“You’re not doing too bad.” Our banter is a burst of noisy giggles and sarcasm. “You haven’t checked the time all afternoon.”
“Yay me!” I’m breathless and flushed, backlit by the sparkling ocean and sinking neon sun.
“Don’t go changing too much; they won’t recognize you when you get home!”
The shot freezes on my face in that moment before I started to fall, lingering on the screen in front of us.
“You look so sad,” Tash murmurs quietly. I nod. She’s right, it’s as if a shadow is drifting over my features. Ryan captured me in the very instant that I thought about going home, and what he saw there would be clear to anyone: a fleeting look of panic in my eyes, a fraught tension in my jaw.
The image finally fades away and the disc is finished. I exhale, not realizing I’ve been holding my breath.
“Are you OK?” Tash looks at me carefully. I shrug.
“Yes. No.” I fall back onto the pillows, my voice small. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, Em.” She lies down beside me, our hands overlapping and limbs splayed out like paper dolls. “Talk to me.”
But I don’t know how to find the words, so we just lie in silence while aching waves roll through me until, at last, I drift to sleep.
I slip out of bed early before Tash awakes and wander across to the beach. Sitting on the cool, clear sand, I watch the light from the rising sun behind me turn the water a brilliant blue and try to find a path through all my confusion.
I’m on the edge of something, I can tell, but even the thought of moving in any one direction is enough to paralyze me. Snuggling deeper into the folds of my new UCSB jumper, I try to organize all my thoughts into a neat, ordered list like usual, but nothing stays in its place. Images from Ryan’s film keep jumping into my mind; memories of the past semester; my script; the hours I spent on research and applications for the law internships.
I sigh. I thought I would make the decision and be done with it—that’s always been the way it’s worked before. I may make lists and weigh up every available criteria and even occasionally plot a spreadsheet of competing values, but in the end, once I reach a (well–considered) conclusion, that’s it: over, finished, certain. No regrets, no repeats, and certainly no changing my mind.
But now…
I shiver despite the sun, remembering the look on my face in that frozen shot. Things will be the same as they always were back in England, of that I have no doubt, but surely that’s a good thing? I missed my old routine: the academic rigor, the satisfying framework of achievement—so why now do I feel such a flutter whenever I imagine working until 2:00 AM on an essay or spending eight hours a day buried in the dusty Raleigh library?
I’ve tasted something different here—that’s the problem. The past three months have been the first time in my life I’ve stepped out of the hyper–driven rush of school and career planning, the first time I’ve ever been able to look in on my life from the outside and see myself for what I am.
Stressed. Overachieving. A control freak.
I repeat the words under my breath, and then again, feeling lighter with every whispered syllable.
It shouldn’t be this hard.
That’s what I’ve learned on this trip, I realize—besides how to dress like a California girl and fake an excited squeal. That my life shouldn’t be this hard. I’m nineteen years old, buried in activities and work, and I’m acting as if one wrong move will throw me into a downward spiral. Like I’m just a single ruined timetable away from stacking shelves in the village Tesco for all eternity.
I start to smile. A sense of gentle reassurance is spreading through me, as easy as the Florida sunshine on my skin. Because in this instant, I know without a doubt that I’ll be all right. No, better than all right—I’ll be excellent. But not if I let myself get tied up again in stress and cold fear and the constant Oxford rush to do more that put such an awful expression on my face in that shot.
I always thought I was aiming for the best possible kind of life, the one my parents told me I should strive to achieve, but now I know I deserve better than the neat plans I made so carefully; I deserve that trip in my bloodstream that I felt watching our film up on the auditorium screen; I deserve laughter and adventure and the rush of uncertainty that comes from living without a schedule.
I start suddenly as a body collapses beside me on the sand. Tash passes me an open box of Krispy Kremes, oozing custard and calories.
“For breakfast?” I exclaim, my pulse still beating a giddy dance from those revelations.
“Uh–huh,” she mumbles through a mouthful of icing. I stop myself from making another nutrition–related comment and fill my mouth with soft fried dough instead. It turns out to be a far more pleasurable option.
“So what are we up to today?” Tash asks, yawning.
“I don’t know,” I muse, stretching all
the tension and worry free from my muscles. The beach around us is filling up as the college kids prepare for another taxing day of tanning, the breeze scented with sunscreen and ocean tang. “I was thinking some lounging, a little more relaxing…”
“Perfect,” Tash agrees. “And remember, we’ve got wireless internet in the hotel room if you feel like running over and sending Ryan an email.”
I laugh at her tenacity. “Will you ever quit?”
“Umm, no.” She gives me a wry grin. “This is what friends do.”
“Well…” I stretch my lips into a slow smile. “Perhaps I will just write a quick message before we hit the pool.”
Tash squeals and grabs me. “Seriously?”
“Seriously.” I giggle, and to my relief, the decision really does feel final.
“I knew it!” she exclaims. “I knew you’d break sometime. And I hadn’t even started with the movie marathon or the guilt trip about opportunity.”
“Gee, thanks!” I elbow her. “I didn’t realize this was an intervention.”
“Only ‘cause you needed it.” Tash pushes back. “And anyway, you have to come. What would I do all summer without you?”
“Go clubbing with Morgan and Lexi?” I tease.
“Ew no!” She grimaces. “They’re toxic. Oh, wow, we’re going to have the best time.”
“We will,” I agree happily, reaching for another donut.
“And Ryan’s going to be pleased…” She looks at me sideways. I laugh.
“This isn’t about Ryan!”
“I know, it’s about identity and autonomy, blah blah.” She waves my protest away. “But that doesn’t mean you can’t have your cake and kiss your boy too.”
I pause for a second, reveling in the lightness in my chest. I have no idea whether Ryan will want to get back together with me or how my parents are going to react when I tell them what I’ve decided, but I don’t feel as if I have a single problem in the world. “I’m going to have everything,” I say slowly, like a promise to myself.
Life Swap Page 21
