Parallel

by Lauren Miller

  “She’s the best,” I say, and leave it at that.

  We’re quiet for a minute as we survey the sardine can that was once Ilana’s living room. People are jammed into the oversized space, their voices reverberating off the vaulted ceiling above. Tyler is dancing now, twirling our slaphappy hostess. I glance back at Caitlin and see her watching them out of the corner of her eye. She doesn’t look like a girl who doesn’t care who Tyler dates. She looks like a girl who cares very, very much.

  Josh touches my arm. I jump, as if electrified.

  “Wanna take a walk?” he shouts.

  “Outside?”

  “Nah. I figured a stroll around the living room might be a good way to spend the next thirty minutes,” Josh teases, still shouting to be heard. “Yes, outside. Where I’ll actually be able to hear you, instead of just pretending that I can.” He sets his beer down on the coffee table and nods at the door.

  My heart has sped up again at the thought of being alone with him. I put my half-empty bottle down next to his full one and follow him out the front door.

  The air outside has cooled off quite a bit, and the sky is perfectly clear. “Which way?” Josh asks when we reach the street.

  “Left?” I suggest.

  “Left it is.”

  We walk in silence for a few minutes, but it’s not awkward silence. It’s more like this-moment-is-going-so-well-I-don’t-want-to-ruin-it-by-talking silence. On my end, at least. I glance over at Josh. He has his head back, looking up at the night sky. His hair is damp, and there’s a tiny piece of soap tucked under the top rim of his ear. It strikes me how recently he must’ve showered. How recently he was naked. Get ahold of yourself, Barnes.

  “We’re about three days too early for a good moon,” I hear Josh say. I tilt my head back. There’s a thin sliver of light hanging low in the sky.

  “But in three days, there won’t be a moon,” I point out.

  “Exactly. No light pollution.” He looks over at me and smiles. “This probably isn’t something you’re supposed to say at a moment like this, but I think the moon is seriously overrated.” A moment like what? I bite my cheeks, taming the grin that threatens to take over my face.

  “And the stars?” I ask, once the smile is under control.

  “Wildly underrated,” he declares with a grin. He looks up again. “The sky is a storybook,” he says then. “Every constellation’s like its own fairy tale.”

  “Do you have a favorite?” I let my arm drift away from my body, until my elbow grazes his forearm. It’s awkward to hold my arm like this, but I do it anyway, liking how it feels to be touching him.

  “Cygnus,” he replies, pointing. “The Swan.” I squint, trying to make it out.

  “Here, stop for a sec.” Josh comes around behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders, turning me slightly. “Okay, now look up. See that really bright star right there?” I nod, so rattled by being this close to him that I don’t trust myself to speak. “That’s his tail,” he says, pointing, his arm just inches from my cheek. His skin smells like Irish Spring. I inhale deeply, letting my eyelids flutter closed for a just a second as I breathe him in. “Imagine him diving at a forty-five-degree angle, facing down, his wings outstretched,” I hear Josh say. His breath is warm on my ear. “There’s his neck, his beak . . . and those are his two wings.” I force my eyes open, and the figure he’s describing leaps out at me.

  “Wow,” I whisper. “He’s big.”

  “He’s huge. See that star there, at the tip of his beak?” Josh points. “That’s Albireo. You can’t tell without a telescope, but it’s actually a double.”

  “A double?”

  “Two stars orbiting around the same center of gravity,” he explains. “All double stars are pretty cool, but this particular one is especially cool because of its colors. Albireo A is bright gold and Albireo B is sapphire.”

  “I don’t think I knew that stars could be different colors,” I say, turning to face him.

  “Hang out with a stars guy and you’ll learn all sorts of stuff.” We’re standing really close now, just inches apart. I suck on my gum, trying to extract whatever remains of its original mintiness. Josh, meanwhile, has delicious cinnamon breath. How can a person smell so manly and so sweet?

  “So what’s the swan’s story?” I ask. “What’s he diving for?”

  “His best friend,” Josh replies, his eyes still on the sky. “Phaethon was a mortal like Cygnus, but his father, Apollo, was the god of the sun. Somehow, Phaethon convinced his dad to let him drive the sun chariot. Phaethon, a typical teenager, drove recklessly, nearly destroying Earth, so Zeus, angry in a typical Zeus way, hurled a thunderbolt at him, and Phaethon fell from the sky into the Eridanus River. Cygnus was devastated. So, determined to give his friend a proper burial, he dove into the water to retrieve Phaethon’s body. But he couldn’t find it. So Cygnus kept diving and diving, refusing to give up. Eventually, the gods took pity on Cygnus and changed him into an immortal swan.”

  “How sad,” I say. “And beautiful.”

  Josh drops his eyes to my face and smiles. Neither of us says anything then. As we stand there, inches apart, neither of us moving, it crosses my mind that this would be a perfect first kiss moment. He just needs to lean in ever so slightly . . .

  A car taps its horn. I look over, prepared to be annoyed at the interruption, then realize that we’re standing in the middle of the street. We quickly move to one side to let the car pass.

  “So how’d you get into astronomy?” I ask when we start walking again. “Through your stepdad?”

  “Nah, I was into it before Martin. I think it started with a really bad episode of Futurama when I was nine. And an old cosmology textbook my dad gave me for my tenth birthday.”

  “Is he a scientist, too?”

  Josh shakes his head. “He was an English teacher,” he says. The “was” hangs heavy in the air.

  “And what about you?” I ask. “What do you want to be?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” he says thoughtfully. “I’ve got time to figure it out.” But what about picking a college and choosing a major and getting ahead? I can’t ask these questions, of course, so I just nod in assent. “What about you?” he asks then. “Do you know what you want to be?”

  “A journalist,” I say. “Newspaper.”

  “You sound very sure,” he observes.

  I shrug. “I am. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to be.”

  “My older brother’s like that,” Josh says. He looks back up at the sky. “I don’t have that clarity of vision. Not yet, anyway.”

  We’ve reached the end of Ilana’s street. Josh points at the unfinished house on the cul-de-sac. “What’s your guess about Ilana’s future neighbors?” he asks, stepping up to what will eventually be their driveway. “An aging entrepreneur and his trophy wife? Two lesbian doctors? No, wait—an ex-NFL player and his three pit bulls.” I examine the house, which is essentially just foundation and studs at this point. Tyler and I used to play this game in elementary school, guessing who his future neighbors would be when his subdivision kept expanding and expanding.

  I examine the house. “Easy,” I say. “A rapper and his baby mama. He bought her the house to convince her to keep the baby. Unfortunately, it’s not his, but he doesn’t know that yet. He’ll find out the day they move in.”

  “Poor guy,” Josh says, playing along.

  “Oh, don’t feel too bad,” I tell him. “After they break up, he’ll write a song about the experience. And a couple of years from now, he’ll win a Grammy for it.”

  Josh laughs. “Are you sure you want to be a journalist? Maybe you should write fiction instead.”

  We step to the side as an SUV pulls into the driveway where we’re standing. The driver, Eleanor, is the photo editor of the Oracle. She rolls down her window and waves. Led Zeppelin’s “What Is and What Should Never Be” is blaring from her speakers, a song I only know because my dad sings it in the shower.

  �
�Hey! Which house is it?” Eleanor asks.

  I point. “Just follow the horrible hip-hop,” I tell her.

  Eleanor turns down her music to hear it. “You weren’t kidding,” she says with a grimace. “See you guys in there?”

  “Yep!” I reply, eager for her to leave.

  Eleanor backs out of the driveway and parks on the street just a few yards away. The line of parked cars is nearly four houses long now, in both directions. Either Ilana is more popular than I thought or tonight is a particularly lame Friday night.

  The mood of our moment now broken, Josh and I just stand there, watching Eleanor make her way toward the party, which is beginning to spill out onto Ilana’s front lawn. “So should we head back?” Josh asks me. Back to the overcrowded house, too-loud music, and disproportionate number of annoying people? Why would we do that?

  “Sure,” I say, waiting for him to suggest that we stay. He doesn’t. He just puts his hands in his pockets and turns back toward the party.

  I take two steps and stop. I don’t want to go back. It’s a beautiful night and a really lame party. I don’t want to be there. I want to be here.

  “Let’s go inside,” I say suddenly. Josh looks confused.

  “I thought we were.”

  “No. I mean here.” I point at the house-in-progress. “Let’s see what our baby daddy is getting for his money.” Josh gives me a skeptical look. “C’mon. It’ll be fun.”

  “You’re wearing heels,” he points out.

  “So I’ll take them off,” I say, pulling them from my feet as I walk. “C’mon!” I’m already halfway up the driveway. Josh is still at the street, hanging back. I can’t tell if he thinks I’m cute or crazy. I keep walking, determined not to look back again.

  I’m almost to the wooden plank leading to what will become the front porch. Please let him follow me, please let him follow me, please let him—

  “Barefoot on a construction site. I can’t believe I’m authorizing this.” Josh is standing just a couple of feet away, my shoes in his hand. My grin is back with a vengeance. I do my best to rein it in.

  “This way, sir,” I say, stepping onto the plank. It’s wobblier than it looks. Josh puts his hand on my hip, steadying me. My entire body goes to liquid. I force myself to keep moving forward.

  The house seems even bigger from the inside. We wander around, guessing which room is which. “Our house in Worcester would fit inside this one room,” Josh says as we make our way through what we assume is the living room. “No joke. The whole thing.”

  “The stairs are done,” I say, pointing at the grand spiral staircase in the center of the room. “We should go up. From outside it looked like there was a balcony off the bedrooms. I’ll bet the stars are awesome from up there.”

  “Only if you let me go first,” Josh says. “If one of us has to fall through the stairs, I want it to be me.”

  “Okay . . . but be careful!”

  He points at the ground. “Says the girl with bare feet.”

  I look down at my toes, which are now covered in sawdust. “Yeah, the no-shoes thing seemed like a better idea out on the driveway,” I admit.

  “Nah, it seemed like a pretty terrible idea out there, too,” Josh says, starting up the stairs. “But you were too cute to stop.”

  Fighting it is futile. The grin takes over.

  He climbs the stairs slowly, testing each step before putting his full weight on it.

  I’m two steps behind him, texting Caitlin as I ascend.

  W JOSH. DONT LEAVE WITHOUT US.

  “Watch out for those nails,” I hear Josh say. Slipping my phone into my back pocket, I sidestep the two-by-four lying across the staircase. There are four nails sticking out of one end, pointing straight up.

  “Talk about an accident waiting to happen,” I remark. “Someone could step on that.”

  “Hence the ‘Authorized Personnel Only’ sign on the fence at the end of the driveway,” Josh replies. He reaches the top of the stairs and looks around. “I think this is the end of the road, boss.”

  I step up beside him. Although we couldn’t tell from down below, only the landing has been floored: The rest of the second floor is still just beams and rafters. So much for our romantic rendezvous on the balcony. I look over at him, willing him closer, but he’s already headed back down the stairs.

  As I’m following him down, my phone vibrates with Caitlin’s response.

  WHERE R U GUYS?

  I’m looking down at my phone, writing her back, when the nails pierce my skin. The sensation catches me off guard. I inhale sharply, bracing for the pain. A moment later, it comes. Sharp, swift, intense. Crying out in agony, I jerk my leg up, but the nails—and the two-by-four—are still attached to my left foot. I reach for the railing to keep from losing my balance, then realize there isn’t one. The next thing I know, I’m lying in a heap at the base of the stairs, free from the offending two-by-four, which clatters to the ground beside me.

  “Abby!” Josh leaps to my side.

  “Stepped. On. The nails.” The pain is radiating up my leg, and there is sawdust in my eyes. “I’ll be fine, I jus—”

  Before I can finish my sentence, Josh has pulled me up into his arms and is carrying me toward the front door.

  “Really, I’m f-fine,” I manage. “You can p-put me down.”

  “Abby, you’re bleeding all over the floor. I’m not putting you down. I’m taking you to the hospital.”

  I consider arguing with him but decide that I don’t have the mental stamina. The pain is all I can think about right now. It’s blinding out everything else.

  I force myself to look at the wound, then immediately regret it. The nails went all the way through the ball of my foot, leaving four ragged holes beneath the knuckle of my big toe. Blood is seeping out from the bottom of my foot, leaving a trail in our wake. Looking at it, I get light-headed.

  When we reach Ilana’s house, Josh sets me down on the curb next to Caitlin’s car and sprints inside to get her. I close my eyes and lie back in the grass. The music from inside is even louder now, so loud that the yard vibrates beneath me. My foot throbs in sync with the thumping bass. I focus on that instead of the pain radiating up my leg. It hurts so much it’s hard to breathe.

  “I shouldn’t have let her take off her shoes,” I hear Josh saying.

  “My guess is she didn’t ask for permission,” Caitlin replies.

  I open my eyes. Josh and Caitlin are standing over me. “You weren’t kidding about the blood,” Caitlin says to Josh, inspecting my foot.

  “I’m calling her parents,” Josh says.

  “Do it from the car,” Caitlin says, popping the trunk. “We’re going to the hospital. Someone has to clean those holes out, and it isn’t going to be me.” She walks around to the back of the car and disappears from view.

  “What about Tyler?” I ask as I try to stand up, which isn’t impossible so much as really awkward. With one leg out of commission, I have to sort of heave all my weight forward, then push up with my good leg to get to standing. I possess neither the coordination nor the leg strength to pull this off gracefully. Fortunately, Josh grabs me before I topple over.

  “Tyler can fend for himself,” Caitlin retorts, still hidden behind the trunk door. There’s that catty tone again. A few seconds later, the door slams, and Caitlin emerges with a stack of textbooks, all business now. “Here, prop your foot on these.”

  “You’re letting me bleed on your books?” I joke, then grimace from the effort of smiling.

  “Let’s not get crazy now,” Caitlin says, slipping out of her sweatshirt. She wraps it tightly around my foot, then uses the sleeves to tie it off. Only Caitlin would ruin a Helmut Lang hoodie to save a stack of books. “Hand me those,” she instructs, pointing at the wad of plastic grocery bags tucked into the pocket behind the driver’s seat. She drapes the largest one over my foot, knotting it loosely at the ankle. “There,” she says. “Now elevate.”

  I obey, propping my foo
t up on top of a worn copy of Advanced Quantum Mechanics.

  “Give me your phone,” Josh instructs as we pull away from the curb. “I’m calling your parents. We’ll need their insurance information when we get to the hospital.”

  “I’ll call them,” I say, knowing that Josh will tell them the truth about what happened and wanting to give a more parent-friendly version instead. I’m dialing my home number when we pass a police car with its lights on, headed toward Ilana’s house. Followed by three more. Josh and I turn in our seats, watching as the first two pull into Ilana’s driveway and park. The third one turns into the driveway of the unfinished house and turns on its spotlight. Josh and I look at each other. “Looks like we left at the right time,” he says.

  Unless Northwestern’s definition of a well-rounded applicant includes a police record for trespassing, then yes. We certainly did. I feel a momentary surge of gratitude for the four holes in my foot, but the feeling is quickly replaced by the dull throbbing that has taken over my whole body.

  “So there was a two-by-four in the middle of the street?” my dad asks when I tell him the censored version of what happened. “Just lying there? With nails in it?”

  “Yeah, it was crazy,” I say, keeping my voice casual. “They’re building a house next door, so maybe it fell off a truck or something.” Josh watches me as I relay this concocted story, then looks away. Does he think less of me for the lie? I can’t tell.

  My parents are understandably concerned, especially since none of us can remember when I had my last tetanus shot. They agree that I need to go to the hospital and say they’ll meet us there.

  “Drop Josh off,” I tell Caitlin. “It’s on the way.” This outing has already taken a weird turn. No need to cap it off by spending hours in an ER waiting room. Plus, it really is on the way—we’ll literally pass his house. Still, I expect Josh to protest, to insist on coming with me, but he doesn’t.

  “So should we assume Tyler’s sleeping at Ilana’s tonight?” I ask, munching on a pretzel. I really mean “with,” not “at,” but for some reason the euphemism feels necessary.