Stay

by Deb Caletti

  I looked, too. “The Elements of Screenwriting. Elia Kazan: A Life; The Making of Citizen Kane. But wait. Zig Ziglar’s See You at the Top? The Art of Closing Any Deal? Some sort of businessman? What do you know about the guy?”

  “Not a thing,” my father said, pleased. This was a game that could last us the three months, easy.

  “We could just look him up on the Internet,” I said.

  “Cheating!” he said. “Don’t you dare. I’m going to get the bags. Feel free to gather more clues about our host.”

  Instead of gathering more clues, though, I sat down on the bed in my crisp, clean room. The bed had the kind of sheets and down comforter you could sleep years in. I wished I could sleep years, that’s how tired I was. A million years tired. The sheets smelled good, like spring. I looked out my large window, trimmed in blue paint. I could see the coastline from my bed, the blue-gray sea, though that night after dinner, it would become unbelievably dark out there. The dark of the ocean was an endless dark.

  It started to sink in: no one knew who I was here, and no one back home knew where I was. It was a fantastically freeing feeling. I could be anyone at all. I could be someone with an entirely different past, and a wide open future.

  You’d imagine with a feeling like that, a person could sleep easy. I guess I was thinking, though, that if someone were walking around outside, even right outside my window, you wouldn’t hear those footsteps in the soft sand.

  Chapter 3

  Of course I went to the next basketball game our school played against his. The minute I got home that first night, I’d looked up the game schedule to see when we’d be playing his team again. I thought about him every day until then. I started having those conversations with him in my head that you have when you first meet someone you sense is going to be important in your life. I told him things about me I thought he should know. That I was a mostly shy person concealing that fact; too straight, probably. Never tried pot and never wanted to but had several times been to parties and pretended to drink something I wasn’t really drinking. I read too much. I was scared of spiders but once was stung by a hundred bees and didn’t cry. I told him I loved the butter lake you could make in mashed potatoes with the back of your spoon, and the way lumberyards smelled, and goofy dogs, but that I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I “grew up.” Something with words like my father, I said to him in my head, because words were hills and valleys you traveled, so lovely sometimes that they hurt your eyes. I told him I felt sure there was a true and right place for me I hadn’t found yet.

  I imagined him telling me other things. His first memory. Who had hurt him and who had loved him best. His dreams. It was stupid, and I’m not that kind of person, but I even imagined us living somewhere together. I imagined us traveling to the place he had come from. We would visit museums with paintings in heavy gold frames or watch the northern lights with wool mittens on our hands.

  I had decided what to wear three days before*, but once I had on those jeans and that shirt I decided it looked like I was trying too hard because I was trying too hard, and that ignited one of those clothes crises that can get a person seriously panicked, where you feel the slick, precarious slope between having it all together and being completely out of control. Clothes piled up and I knew I was going to be late, and finally I put on something I wore all the time—my old jeans and a soft green shirt, my hair taken from its barrette and worn straight. Right away I felt better—feeling confident at a time like that was hard enough without having to get to know some new outfit, too.

  I borrowed Dad’s car, listened to my favorite girl power CD for a little musical rejection-proofing. I checked my reflection in the rearview mirror at the stoplights. My stomach felt giddy and tumbling. All this, and he probably wouldn’t even be there.

  The parking lot was packed. I think we were in some sort of basketball playoffs—I could never quite follow all of the specifics when Shakti told me. It was dark already and there was that parking lot excitement of a big event, headlights and shouts and loud laughter, people crossing into the paths of idling cars and running to the curb. Shakti met me out front by the bike rack, our usual place. Her eyes were bright in the streetlights.

  “This is it,” she said, and gave a little squeal. Shakti wasn’t the squealing type, and neither was I. She was smart and thoughtful and dinners at her house were careful and quiet, though the huge plates of food served by her mother were steaming and delicious and somehow passionate. Shakti had dreams of medical school and would no doubt get there, unlike Luke’s friend, Sean Pollard, who talked about going to Harvard Law School, but who thought a tort was one of those fancy desserts.

  “Is Luke nervous?” I asked.

  “Oh, God, Clara, he looked ready to puke. There’s a million people in there.”

  “Poor guy,” I said. But I didn’t feel “poor guy.” What I felt was my own disappointment. A million people. The chances of me seeing him again in a crowd like that were next to zero.

  We squeezed our way through the mob. Our band was playing a pounding, rousing something, and your ears just thrummed with noise. The blare of contemporary tribal warfare. Shakti had her place she liked to stand, right near the team benches, where she could keep an eye on Luke and on the assistant coach, our old history teacher, Mr. Dutton. Mr. Dutton’s face showed every emotion, and Shakti was sure she could read his game plan for Luke in his expressions. This was fine by me. We’d made an agreement in my head, the boy-from-somewhere- else and me—we’d meet again in the same spot. It was the only likely way we’d run in to each other again. I’d walk over to him, just as I had last time. I had it all planned out for us.

  The whistle screeched; the game began. There was the rumble of running and the slams of the ball being dribbled down the court. Everyone was shouting. But I was in that strange place of heightened awareness that makes you feel both more a part of your surroundings and completely lifted out from them. The scoreboard was flashing and Shakti shouted things my way and one of our good friends, Nick Jakes, came over to stand with us, but I felt only that single presence in the room somewhere, his eyes on me, that sense of being watched that makes your every move feel acted out with a charged self-consciousness. He was in the room, I was in the room, and we both knew it.

  I kept scanning the crowd, looking toward the place he’d stood with the girl last time. He wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere. The first quarter was over. We moved toward the end of the second. I was starting to lose my energy for this game, the one I alone was playing. Disappointment and the ways I’d been foolish were starting to sneak in around the edges of all that hope and buildup. I was beginning to rewrite the whole deal. So, we’d said a few things to each other, so what. So, it meant more to me, obviously, than it did to him. That happens, right? No big loss. I was glad I hadn’t worn that other outfit. That outfit would have felt humiliating as I walked back to the car.

  Nick bought Shakti and me a Coke, two sloshy drinks in paper cups. His fingers passed mine as he handed it to me. I hadn’t realized it before, but I think Nick liked me. We thanked him. We stood and yelled stupid jokes about the other team’s mascot, who wore a costume that looked like a gopher on steroids. I said something that made Nick laugh, and he put his thumbs through my belt loops and gave my waist a shake. The clock kept ticking. I was reluctantly letting go of the stupid fantasy I’d had.

  And then I felt a tap on my shoulder, two light hits with a rolled-up program. I turned my head.

  “Still wish you were somewhere else?” he shouted.

  My heart, which had slunk off somewhere safe, now had some catching up to do. It zoomed to its rightful place and started beating madly. Some people can be disappointing when you see them again after spending time with them in your imagination. They can look younger and act it too, or have some strange mole or weird teeth you wish you were generous enough not to care about. But he was not disappointing. Not at all. That silky, white-blond hair, those blue eyes. And he smelled g
ood. Good enough that the warm buzz began again; it started at my knees, worked its way up.

  “Hi,” I said.

  “Hi.”

  We just looked at each other and grinned as if we’d just pulled off something great, some great heist or magic trick. Then he gestured his head toward the door. “Let’s.”

  “I’ll be right back,” I shouted to Shakti and Nick. I still held that Coke Nick had bought for me. It was now a cup of mixed emotions with crushed ice. Shakti looked at this stranger and raised her eyebrows—curious, but also disapproving. We didn’t know this guy. This wasn’t the kind of thing either of us would do. Then again, we had known Dylan Ricks and look what had happened there.

  I admired him from the back—those broad shoulders, snug T-shirt, a butt you didn’t mind one bit walking behind. It was the kind you’d want to put your hands on, let’s just say that. The gym doors were propped open for air, and outside there was the sudden freedom of the cold night mingled with the smell of someone smoking far off. A car engine revved, and a girl shouted something. Someone laid on their horn, yelled Fuckers! and laughed loud.

  As we walked toward the track, the pulsing energy and sounds of the gym fell back. I wasn’t sure who was leading, but it must have been me. It was me. I was leading the whole time, see? That’s what I’m trying to say. The track bleachers were a good place to talk. I led him through the dark ticket gate, and we sat down on a cold metal bleacher seat a few climbs up. He was there right next to me, after being in my head for weeks. It was hard to believe. The air smelled like fall—orange leaves piled upon orange leaves making their own scent that rose up in the October night. It felt surprising and unreal, one of those times you feel like you’re in someone else’s body. It wasn’t how I imagined it going, but it would do just fine. Better.

  “You smell really good,” he said. Ah, that voice.

  “I was thinking the same thing about you,” I said. “Clara. We don’t even know each others’ names. Clara Oates.”

  He didn’t ask about my father, as some people did when I told them who I was. You could tell he hadn’t been here very long. “Christian Nilsson. Do we shake now?” he teased. I saw his eyes laughing. I held out my hand to shake, to tease back, and he took it. Ran a finger down my palm before letting it drop.

  It made me shiver. Christian. The name felt surprising. There was his actual name, who he was, a piece of information that meant there were a thousand other pieces of information about him I didn’t know yet. It felt like a door to another land. “That’s a beautiful name,” I said. My words sounded stupid to me suddenly, and I felt myself blush. It was a beautiful name, it sounded like a designer scarf, and I was just me, and I hadn’t come from anywhere special.

  “Who was that guy you were with?” he said.

  “Nick? Just a friend.”

  “Ah,” he said, as if there were likely more to that story, which there wasn’t. He looked out over the empty track. Dylan Ricks had been on the lacrosse team. I had sat in that same spot to watch him play before. “I was hoping you’d be here tonight. I don’t give a shit about that game.”

  He made the word shit sound luxuriant and striking, something you wanted more of, please. If nothing else, you could love him for that voice.

  “I was hoping to see you too,” I said. I was bold. The moon was big and white. I could hardly believe what was happening. Dylan Ricks had been my only boyfriend before this. I’d gone to the movies with Terrence Hilligan, out for coffee, that kind of thing, but I hadn’t wanted to kiss him. Harrison Daily for homecoming. I’d once gone to a movie with Dean Yamaguchi to be nice. It felt like my life was changing.

  “I don’t normally go hunting down girls like this, just so you know.”

  He looked at me expectantly. I knew what I was supposed to say—that I didn’t do that kind of thing, either. It was the truth, so it was easy. But I could feel his need to hear it, his need for my reassurance, and that need made me feel . . . large, maybe. In a way I hadn’t before. But he didn’t know that. For all he knew, I was always that large. It felt good. Fun. Unexpectedly large is sudden, magic levitation—you’re high, an impervious Balloon of Joy. So instead, I teased. “Well, I don’t go hunting down girls, either. But guys . . .”

  “Oh, I see,” he said. “You’re that kind.” He looked at me with those blue, blue eyes. I kept watching his mouth. You’d want to bite that bottom lip. I wanted to right then. This was the way I had never felt about Terrence Hilligan. I don’t think I’d ever felt that way about Dylan, either.

  “Okay, obvious question,” I said. “Where are you from?”

  “Texas,” he said. He grinned at me, and I laughed. “No, Copenhagen. My mother married an American. She was a journalist. They met here, in California. We moved to the states three years ago, but my mother hated Los Angeles.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I can’t even imagine Copenhagen. But my father is a writer, too. Novelist. Mysteries, crime . . .”

  “We don’t read many paperbacks,” he said.

  I felt my father’s reputation unfairly plummet, from bestselling author with countless fans* to some writer of supermarket books with gold foil covers, sold used at flea markets for a quarter. My own defensiveness prickled, and I was about to blow it all by counting off various honors my father had earned when Christian took my hand. I could see he didn’t mean anything by his comment. He held my hand in both of his. This wasn’t something boys here would do either. He held it like something precious.

  “I’m just glad your mother didn’t like L.A.,” I said.

  He looked into my eyes, way down in, and I was sure he could see all of the important things there. He looked and he understood and maybe even had the ability to know me like no one else had before. I didn’t feel like a seventeen-year-old girl, the sometimes brave but mostly searching girl that I was. I felt fully formed in ways that someone, a man, could respect and desire. I felt all that right there on the cold bleacher seat. I was much more than I normally was, that was for sure.

  And his eyes, blue—if mine were all at once known, his were all things unknown. The wide unknown, long plane rides, a country of Vikings and midsummer, of beautiful blond people and old royal castles and the white, icy shadow of Greenland. Busy streets winding irrationally, brimming with people and the smells of promising new foods. Our own streets were dull and quiet except for the beep of the crosswalk sign that thoughtfully let blind people know they could go ahead. We were vanilla here, and the rest of the world had all the other flavors.

  Those things—they sat there like an invitation. To a party you never thought in a million years you’d be going to but suddenly felt ready for.

  He leaned forward and I could feel his warm breath. He was going to kiss me, I thought. He waited, and so I leaned forward, too. I wanted that kiss. He moved toward me and our mouths met and our tongues entwined and it got hot right away. Jesus. I stopped.

  “I’ve got to get back,” I said. My mouth tasted different.

  “Let’s walk, then.”

  I felt awkward being so suddenly set free. My legs were wobbling walking down the bleachers. The night had seemed almost graceful and fluid, which did not match with the clumping of my shoes on the metal seats as I made my way to the field. Before we got to the gym doors, he stopped.

  “I told myself not to be an idiot and forget your phone number this time.”

  “You’re right. What if we forgot?” It was so new and fragile it could easily disappear like melting snow, like spoken words, like a dream upon waking. You needed ways to pin it to the ground, ways like phone numbers and addresses and plans to see each other again. I looked around in my bag for paper, but no luck. I found the business card of the guy who had just fixed my dad’s transmission, Jake Ritchee, Smith and Gray Auto, where I’d dropped the car off as a favor to my dad. I drew a line across the front, wrote my name and number and e-mail address on the back.

  Christian took my pen, then turned my palm upright and wrote his numbe
r there. “It’s on you forever now,” he joked.

  “Okay,” I said. It was that awkward good-bye place. A kiss or hug would have been too intentional then.

  “All right,” he said as if we’d decided something important. He grinned, but his self-confidence had shifted slightly. He looked stunned, dazed. I had affected him. Knowing it felt vast and shimmery. He thought for a moment. “You let me kiss you.”

  “And I’d let you again,” I said.

  He turned and headed back to his car. He hadn’t cared about that game—he didn’t even return to it. But I did return, with his number on my palm, black ink that looked as permanent as a tattoo. I had forgotten my Coke cup back there on the bleacher seat, I realized.

  I found Shakti where I’d left her. She stood there now with Akello, a friend of ours from Uganda. Nick had moved on.

  “So who was that?” Shakti asked.

  “Christian. He’s from Denmark.”

  “Hmm. Watch out,” Akello said. “Lots of consonants shoved together, those people. And Abba.”

  “Weren’t they Swedish?” Shakti said.

  “‘Dancing Queen, long and mean, give it the Dancing Queen,’” Akello sang. His made his voice really high. He shimmied around a little, with his arms up.

  “Abba Greatest Hits Gold,” Shakti said, in an announcer voice.

  I rolled my eyes at them. Shakti gave me a look that said we weren’t through talking. But I didn’t want to share everything yet with anyone, even her. I needed that time alone with it first, that delicious time where you replay every moment, where you make what has happened more real and also less—it becomes fact the more you repeat it, but it becomes story, too, with all the characters and plot and fictional truths.

  I didn’t even know what the score of that game was. I drove home. I lay in bed in the darkness, bringing the night from start to end in my mind again and again—You let me kiss you. And I’d let you again. My words had felt daring and right (and lucky, too, given how the right words usually came to me only when it was too late), and his had seemed grateful and a little awestruck. It was powerful to make someone feel awestruck. It was new, and I liked it. I was sure that feeling of power could make me bold again and more bold, too. I was not somehow smaller than him, or less interesting. He wasn’t so large to be beyond me—he didn’t see me that way, not at all. This was what confidence felt like. It was swirling upward inside of me, and that was the irony. The biggest feeling I had that night was of my own power.