by Jolene Perry
Bree drives through Paradise Hill while I sit rigid and tall in the passenger’s seat. I’m afraid to ask about her confused grammy or her parents. I definitely don’t want to talk about Bryce. Today was supposed to be us getting back to normal. Instead, Bree sings the Beatles, and I just take up space in the car.
When Bree finally parks in front of Audrey’s, I shove out of the car. The drive has never taken so long.
Cigarette smoke tickles my nose as we walk up the sidewalk, and I sneeze. My hand flies over my nose as if it’ll stop the throbbing. “Dang it!”
Bree laughs. “Just smoke, Gabe.”
“My nose still hurts from the detectors,” I whine.
She points with a grin. “At least your black eye is almost faded.”
Yeah. To yellowish.
When I finally release my nose, I see a few girls from our school outside the nail salon, smoking. One of the girls leans toward another, slipping a mini alcohol bottle into her pocket. I can’t help but stare. The girl who just got the bottle pulls it out and takes a small sip before passing it back.
I turn away and walk behind Bree into Audrey’s. “What are they even doing?”
Now is when Bree will do that little partial snort thing she does and say something about respecting your body, but she’s silent.
“You here?” I ask.
She holds the door for me, but my toe finds the threshold, and I lurch forward, barely catching myself before hitting the floor.
“Graceful.” Bree reaches a hand down to help me up. “They’re just sneaking a few sips, Gabe. It’s not like they’re out driving around with a fifth of Jägermeister.”
My jaw drops. Guess I was right to wonder if our day together would feel normal or not. This is not normal.
“Jill?” Bree calls.
“Back here, girls!” Jill says from near the dressing rooms.
“So, about your Hartman deal,” Bree says over her shoulder. “He’s just adjusting. I bet he’ll seem extra awkward for a while, or maybe he won’t, and you two can be adorable together anyway.”
“Um…” That’s not help. That’s an observation.
We wander through the racks—with labels like Twenties to Die For, Forties Made for Rosie Girls, Twisty in the Sixties (which is paired with a black-and-white picture of the Beatles), and Find Your Groove in the Seventies—until we’re near the dressing rooms.
Five wardrobe boxes are crammed against the wall, blocking two of the three dressing rooms. The top corners of the boxes are cut away to reveal hangers full of vintage goodness.
Jill wasn’t kidding when she said they’d gotten a big shipment in.
“I just…” I start but stop. It’s not like Bree needs a reminder that I say stupid things at stupid times.
“If he didn’t like you, he wouldn’t have offered to drive you.” Bree’s brows waggle again.
“Hey, girls.” Jill grins. “Pretty great shipment, huh?”
“I think we need pics for the blog,” I say.
Bree shrugs. “Okay.”
“Just okay?” My heart is starting to race at all the possibilities of how we could angle a fun post—“Sorting through the Stacks” or “Finding Treasure amid Chaos” or “How to Keep Your Shopping Time Short When the Selection is Large.” So many ideas…I bet we’d get a ton of likes and reblogs if we angled it right. Normally this is where Bree’s the best.
Bree pauses in front of the first box and flips a few hangers. “Promise me that if you buy something, it won’t be black.”
Right. I’m supposed to be stretching myself today.
Jill chuckles a little as she taps on her tablet, probably adding the new stuff to her inventory.
She’s sort of forties-fifties today in rolled-up denim and saddle shoes. More casual than normal, but then she probably knew she’d be doing inventory all day.
I’m touching dresses and blouses and jackets that have the very distinct feeling of being something different. I stop breathing when I reach a section of sixties shift dresses and hope that at least one of them fits me.
Bree pulls out a lacy, silky piece of lingerie.
“A peignoir?” I ask. “Really?” What on earth would she…Oh. Oh no. No, no, no…Bryce?
I have a cream dress tucked under my arm, and Bree is biting her lower lip and flipping through hangers of tiny, silky nothings.
“So…” Bree breathes out. “He kissed me today. One of those nice, long, slow…I mean, everything between us just gets better and better.” She hangs up the tiny scrap of silk and lace, a faint smile on her face. I’m pretty sure this is what a “dreamy” smile looks like.
I’m supposed to want to hug her or squeal or fake slap her for not telling me immediately. Instead my mind goes totally blank.
Her phone sings “I Want to Hold Your Hand” (another of her oldie Beatles favs) to signal a text, and she giggles. I glance over her shoulder and catch part of her responding text.
…knew I was thinking about you…
I step closer, and she hits Send before tucking her phone back into her bag.
Bree looks up at me. “What’s that look?”
“I don’t know.” Because I don’t. I don’t know what I look like. I guess I’m in shock or something that she and Bryce are a for-real thing. Does falling for a guy make you completely oblivious to all the lists of things that could go wrong? To the guy’s questionable history?
Her eyes stay on me for a minute longer before she starts fingering the dresses in front of me. “Remember when I asked you if you thought we were missing out on the high school experience?”
I do remember. I didn’t know what to do with that comment then, and I don’t know what to do with it now. “You sound like a brochure.”
Bree slides her fingers over more silk. “I just mean that we…I don’t know. Bryce isn’t someone I’d have ever even tried for.”
“Right,” I say. “Because his reputation sucks.”
Bree shakes her head. “More than that. You know. I’m not the kind of girl that guys like Bryce notice. I’m not…mainstream enough, I guess. But he did, and when he talks about all the adventures he’s had up the coast and making banners to attach to the other high schools’ bleachers, and how they got Theo’s car stuck on this trail because Jeremy’s grandparents have this cabin…”
All of this sounds like the stupid stuff that we’ve tried to stay away from. Now our happy routine of Audrey’s, which was shifting us back to us, feels…different. Like Bree’s moving in a direction I don’t want to go.
“Oh!” Bree grabs at a scrap of something on top of one of the boxes. “This is so cool!”
I step closer, still unsure of how to comment back. She’s holding the tiniest bikini I’ve ever seen. A crochet bikini. “Seriously? You might as well be naked.”
Bree fingers the fabric with a smile. “I wanna be able to talk to my best friend about things, okay? So don’t make that face, and please don’t be a prude.”
I can hear myself sputtering, even though I didn’t give my mouth permission for that kind of behavior. “The word prude makes you sound like a granny.”
Bree turns to Jill, seemingly totally unbothered. “I can say prude without being a granny, right?”
Jill glances at me, her red ponytail swinging over her shoulder. “It is more polite than the alternatives I can think of.”
Because there are worse things to call me than a prude?
“Oh.” My heart shrinks because Bree is supposed to be safe. “Fine. Whatever.”
Bree squeezes my arm. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Gabe. But we can’t just talk about clothes forever. And you’re so judgmental about Bryce that I’m afraid to say anything. And I get it, I do. I just…”
She’s getting bored with me.
“I…” I just can’t imagine putting so much effort into a relationship with a guy that won’t last. And there’s nothing else I can say about Bryce right now. “Clean slate.” I’m a liar.
“Okay,” she says
before turning back to the box she was peeking in. Her phone sings again, and she bounces as she types Bryce back. Way back at the library, she’d said that she didn’t trust him. Has he wiped that fear away? Has she been taken in so quickly? Broken hearts. Naked pictures. Cheating. How big does his trail of destruction need to be before she listens?
“You want the cream dress?” Jill asks me.
I glance down at the garment in my hands. The quilting is pretty awesome, and if I wear my cardi with it, I can still wear my black shoes. “So very much.”
She laughs. “It’s in inventory, so I can check you out.”
“Just this for me,” Bree says, showing Jill the tiny crochet bikini. “And no comments from Gabe there.” Bree spreads her hand wide and laughs as she holds her hand against my face, pretending to block my view. Normally I’d grab her hand and pull it away, or grab it closer and lick her palm to gross her out, and then we’d both laugh at each other. But her hand blocking me doesn’t feel like as much of a joke as it normally would. It feels like I’m being twisted and dried out.
“I’m done,” I tell her. “It’s fine.”
I’m so not done and so very far from fine. And I don’t even know what to think about my friend maybe seriously falling for a guy who is going to destroy her.
Jill runs our PayPal info, since we rarely have any cash, and most of her business is online anyway. It is far too easy to spend money. I hope this dress fits, but with all the guy talk and Bree’s weirdness, I’ll just try it on at home.
Bree tucks her tiny bag into her monster purse. “Thanks, Jill!”
Jill continues with inventory on her iPad. “See you girls next week.”
“For sure,” I tell her as we head for the door.
Just then Bryce runs in and grabs Bree so fast she screams, and then laughs as he pretends to eat her neck.
He’s so disgusting.
“I really need to get home,” I say flatly.
“Well, I”—Bryce cradles her against him—“was gassing up my car when I saw yours, and now I wanna hang out with you.”
Bree glances my way. “I gotta take Gabe home first.”
I fold my arms. “Sisters before misters and all that.”
Bryce frowns in a pout, his stupid blond hair all gelled and pushed up, making me wonder how much time he spends trying to look like an asshole. “Hey.” Bryce’s eyes find mine. “Why don’t you just drive Bree’s car home, and I can drop her off there later? You can help a sister out.” He winks.
How does he even think he can be involved in this?
“What a great idea!” Bree starts digging in her purse. “You don’t mind, do you, Gabe?”
“No,” I say flatly. “Not at all.” She knows I hate to drive. What is with her? Just a few days ago at the library, she was watching out for me with the driving thing, and today she’s shoving me off on my own.
“Not so stone-cold after all.” Bryce laughs a little.
I grit my teeth. He would just look so much better with a black eye.
Bree elbows him with a giggle. “Stop it!”
I get another twist in my chest, and it’s not good. She can ditch me and be weird. Fine. But we always stand up for each other. Always. Her brows are supposed to be pinched, and her voice should have that snap to it that Bree’s voice gets when she’s mad. Instead she’s wrapped up in the offender’s arms.
Bree finally finds her green rabbit’s foot key chain and holds it toward me. “You’re the best! This’ll be so good for you. Just leave the keys on the floor.”
I’m waiting for her to look at me long enough to know that this is just not cool. Audrey’s is our thing. We come here, we go home, we update on all our social media…But this? Her leaving with a guy? With Bryce?
Suddenly her arms are around me, squishing me to her. “I owe you huge, Gabe. Huge. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
I let out a breath, my frustration already depleted.
“He’s important to me,” she whispers. “I don’t have a lot of people. So thanks.”
I open my mouth to answer, but she’s under his arm and out the door, leaving me standing in Audrey’s with a dress that I really wanted to be giddy about buying. Instead, I’m thinking that I might be losing my only friend, and I have no idea how to stop it.
Chapter 13
Mom’s in her nicest funeral dress, so the customers must be well-paying ones. I sit at the dinner table—another Saturday night at home and working. She shovels in a sandwich before going downstairs to be the pro. I should just hang out, do my homework, and watch TV. It’s what I’ve done with my nights, every night, since Audrey’s. Since I drove Bree’s car home at like twenty miles an hour with white knuckles. I’m not even sure how late it was when Bree finally got her car. I fell asleep before she made it to my house, and we’ve barely talked at school.
Bree hangs on Bryce all day, and I’m…I feel like I’ve let go of something I really wanted to hold on to. Bree’s always losing track of time or not realizing that forty-five minutes go by between when I text her and she texts me back. How is that even possible?
Once Mom heads down to help Dad, I go to my room and change into my blacks. Tonight is fallen climber guy, and I’m curious to see what his crowd is like.
When I make it downstairs, the lobby is emptying into the chapel. There are people of all ages, but a lot of twentysomethings in too-trendy outfits. I wonder if they’re here to pay their respects or to show off their new heels. Guess I’m judgy and annoyed tonight.
The churchgoers usually have us transport the bodies to their churches, but the nonchurchgoers use our chapel. We’ve had rock ’n’ roll funerals, Elvis funerals, Hello Kitty funerals…So, really, I was right: funerals can be parties.
“Gabriella?” Hartman calls from behind me, and I whip around, trip over my feet, and stumble twice before catching myself.
“Crap,” I mumble because this is so typical of me—and so not what I need right now.
“Sorry! I’m so sorry!” His hands hover-flutter around me like he wants to fix my clumsiness but doesn’t know where to start.
I wave him off and brush off my dress. “It’s fine. I’m fine. It’s not like I hit the ground.”
Wait a second.
“Why are you here?” He’s been pretty silent in school this week, which is fine. It means that whatever weird plan Bree has to get us together isn’t working.
He’s in a white shirt, black sports jacket, and dark jeans and looks…good. A little mainstream for him, but very, very good. “I don’t know.”
“I’m…” I tug down my blouse and then point to my name tag. “I’m working, and once I’m done, I’ll have to go pick up my little sister.”
He sorta twitches forward like he’s gonna move but hasn’t quite made up his mind.
“Can I help?” he asks.
Help? Is he serious?
“Why are you here?” I ask.
He takes a few steps toward me. Close enough that I have to really tilt my head.
“I looked at the schedule on your website. There’s a funeral.” He blinks and then stares at his shoes. “I just want to sit in the back, but if you need help, I could help.”
I scan the room because the last thing I need is Mom or Dad questioning Hartman’s presence. “Why?” This is just so very weird.
“How sad are you when someone dies?” he asks.
“What?” I take a step back. Too many dead people come through here for me to even know how sad I am.
“I’m not…” He presses his fingers to the bridge of his nose. “I thought…”
I stand. And wait. And wait. “Hartman?”
His eyes are pleading. “I thought maybe if I saw a bunch of people go through what I went through, that it would hurt less. Or that I’d find a way to turn off how hollowed out I am.”
My jaw goes slack, and I get a swirling in my gut. I take the standard three even breaths to sort myself out.
“Is that weird?” he asks s
lowly.
I don’t know if that’s weird or not. The pain in his eyes taps against my heart the way that Mr. Nichols did, which is maybe not good for my sanity. It does mean that I can’t turn him away. “Come sit with me in the back if you want. This is the guy you guessed right on anyway. You know…downstairs.” On the other very odd day that Hartman came inside.
His face relaxes in relief. “Thank you.”
“It’s open to the public.” I turn and Hartman follows me into the chapel. I’d totally text Bree to see what comes next, but I think the stress of her maybe not texting back, paired with Hartman’s proximity, would be too much.
Hartman and I sit in the back. The rows of pews on either side are nearly filled with people. Guess our climber was a pretty popular guy. Closed casket. The dollar figure to fix his head was steep.
Churchy music I’ve heard a million times plays, and one of the ministers Mom and Dad hire most often says just enough words to be present.
A young guy gets up and talks about his dead brother being so full of life.
I’ve heard this so many times. It’s stupid, really. Everyone is full of life until they’re dead. I tap my toes together and stare at my feet.
“What?” Hartman whispers.
I lean close enough that I hope my whisper doesn’t carry. “People say the same things over and over. People die all the time. Every minute people die.” I tap my feet a few more times. “They’re still surprised.”
“Of course they are.”
I look at him long enough that I start to feel his brown-eyed stare tingle in my stomach. I grasp my waist and jerk my head to face forward.
“This…” The guy at the podium sniffs a few times and wipes his eyes. “This was his favorite climbing song.”
He closes his eyes.
Some rap song I’ve never heard comes on, and the guy up front wipes his cheeks again. All I know is that no radio would ever be able to play it over all the bleeping they’d need to do.
Hartman’s mouth pinches, and I get that he’s trying not to smile. His body convulses once like he’s trying not to laugh. I use the back of my hand to lightly slap his shoulder, but I can feel my shoulders start to shake as I try to hold in the fit of giggles pushing its way to the surface.
