We Are the Goldens

by Dana Reinhardt

  And it always ends with a standing ovation.

  Well, Isabella Jones didn’t fall suddenly ill, and anyway, I wasn’t Ophelia’s understudy. I can’t sing; plus this Hamlet isn’t a musical. You’d know these things if you’d been there on Saturday night.

  But you weren’t.

  Maybe it’s unfair of me to be upset. After all, you did come on opening night, but lots of people’s families came to all three performances.

  Anyway, that leaves the evening with only one other cliché:

  C. The boy the heroine adores finally confesses his love.

  The play went off without a hitch. Felix got the biggest laugh of the night. There was thunderous applause but no standing ovation unless you count Hugh Feldman, who stood up to cheer for his girlfriend, Ava Price.

  Backstage there was a ton of hugging and high fives and bouquets flying this way and that. There was sweat and smeared makeup and some serious BO. It was exciting. Exhilarating. Democratizing—it didn’t seem to matter what part you played, how many lines you had, the fun was equal opportunity.

  And: Sam kissed me on the lips.

  To be totally honest, I could have been anyone. He spun me around and planted one—quick and delicious—then turned and threw an arm around Austin Baker’s neck, pulling him in for a noogie.

  Dad and Sonia were there. Mom made the matinee. Maybe it would have been less disappointing if you’d just told me you had no intention of coming, but you said you’d try.

  Backstage cleared quickly, the odor retreating with the cast. Everyone had gone to the lobby to find their friends and family, and I suddenly realized that I didn’t know where or when the party started or how I was going to get there.

  But then I found Felix with Angel and Julia, Dad and Sonia. Thank God for Felix. I should make a bumper sticker and a T-shirt and maybe get it tattooed on my wrist. Thank God for Felix.

  “You made everyone laugh,” I said. “That’s not easy to do. You did it. You brought your flair.”

  He turned to Dad. “There’s a cast party downtown. Can I take Nell with me? And would it be okay if she slept over after so that I don’t have to worry about her getting home safely?”

  “Of course.” Dad looked at me. See? I can be reasonable. All you have to do is ask.

  “Thanks, Dad.” I gave him a kiss on the cheek, and then, because I was still on a high from the play and feeling generous, I kissed Sonia too.

  Angel and Julia drove us to Sam’s party. We stopped first at the new retro burger place and slipped into a red vinyl booth. I ordered mine without onions or pickles.

  “You love onions,” Felix said.

  “Not really.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Someone has big plans tonight.”

  I turned red. Angel smiled a half smile at me. “Look at Nell. She’s expecting again!”

  Our burgers came to the table. Five for the four of us. Angel took the extra one, cut it in fours, put it in the middle. “Table burger!”

  Angel ate his burger and the extra all on his own. Felix and I shared a smile. He had his appetite. That could only be counted as a good sign. I crossed my fingers under the table and made a wish for his adrenal cortex—that the spot lived there and only there.

  Do you ever have those moments, Layla, when you know you’re supposed to be enjoying yourself? When you tell yourself you’re happy, having fun, but there’s something gnawing at you? I guess that pretty much describes my life since I started to understand what was happening with you. I sat in that cool new burger joint, surrounded by people I love, while this monologue ran in my head:

  Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. Life is good. Life is great. You’re on your way to a party with the boy you adore, who just kissed you on the lips. Don’t think about Angel and the spots. Don’t think about Layla and what she’s doing. Life is good. You are with your best friend. On your way to a party. Don’t think about it. Don’t think about it.

  Sam lives in a huge industrial loft with 360-degree views of the city. I’ve never been in any place like it. I thought people lived like this only on TV dramas about lawyers.

  Inside the gigantic elevator Felix said, “Relax.” His voice echoed off the steel walls. “This is supposed to be a celebration. You look like you’re getting marched to the gallows.”

  “This may be my last chance.”

  “Drama queen!”

  “No, I mean the play is over. I have no reason to talk to Sam. We’ll probably never see each other again.”

  “Nell, our school has like five people in it. You’ll see him again whether you want to or not.”

  The doors opened into the loft and there he stood, barefoot, holding a glass and smiling like he’d been doing nothing all night but waiting for the elevator to deliver me.

  “You made it,” he said.

  “I made it.”

  “I’m glad.”

  Felix pinched my elbow: Told you so, and then disappeared.

  Sam leaned over to kiss me on the cheek, smelling of tequila.

  “You were great.” I’d already said this to him backstage, but I wasn’t sure he’d heard.

  “Thanks. You too.”

  Generous, but untrue. I was simply there, like scenery.

  “Do you want a drink?”

  I didn’t have to go back to Dad and his nose, so I said yes. I don’t like to drink, you know this, but I also don’t like to look like a loser. Cue the cheesy teen movie. The Girl Who Drank to Impress the Boy. Sometimes you have to follow the script.

  He poured me tequila over ice, added some sort of juice, and squeezed a lime into it. I hated it. I grabbed what was left of the lime and tried to get more out of it, then threw the whole thing in my cup. Not much help.

  You can imagine the scene. Loud music, but bearable. Funk, not techno. Huddles of friends like an archipelago scattered across the living room. Some whispering, some yelling. Laughter. Rehashing of the play’s best moments, already distant memory. White walls. Framed black-and-white photographs of famous people from the sixties I couldn’t identify. Those few sips of tequila prickling sweet and sour beneath my skin. Beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows, the lights of a city I loved twinkled like jewels underwater.

  I felt happy. Like Sam said: I’d made it.

  We walked around together. Sam offered to refill drinks. I complimented people on their performances.

  “Is it hot in here?” Sam asked, his face adorably flushed. I thought it felt perfect, like when you slip into water that matches your body temperature. I’d finished most of my drink.

  “Maybe a little.”

  “I’m going to get a T-shirt.” He grabbed my hand. “Come with me.”

  Here’s the thing about lofts. They’re open and exposed and even the staircase doesn’t have walls, so as we went up it we could be seen by the whole party.

  His room faced east with a full view of the Bay Bridge. I stood with my nose pressed to the glass. It was colder than I’d expected.

  “Nice view.”

  He came up behind me. Close enough for me to feel him, but without any parts of us touching.

  “It’s even better with you in it.”

  He slipped his arms around my waist and started kissing the back of my neck. He pressed his body against me, hard enough that I worried we’d both go flying out that window, in slow motion, with twenty-four floors to fall, like in an action movie.

  He pulled my sweater over my head. I had on a tank top and he quickly pulled that off too. I think I gasped from surprise. Everything was happening all at once.

  This was what I wanted. It was what I’d wanted since the first day I saw him in the hall at City Day, since I first saw that one dimple—I wanted him to want me, I wanted him to want me more than you.

  He took my hand and moved me to his bed. He unbuttoned his shirt, threw it on the floor, fell down on top of me. We kissed like that, skin on skin, for not nearly long enough. I’d have been happy to spend my night just like that. I didn�
��t need, didn’t want anything more.

  Then he started fumbling with the buttons on my jeans.

  I took his hand and moved it away. He cocked his head and squinted at me in a way I’m sure he knew was endearing. He reached out and stroked my hair. “Nell.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Nell,” he said again. “Nell Golden. Nelly G.”

  How could I not love the way he said my name?

  “You know I like you, right?”

  “I guess so.”

  He laughed. “I thought it was obvious.”

  “I can be sort of dim sometimes.” I don’t even know why I said that. What I meant was that it’s hard for me to believe someone like him could be interested in someone like me.

  He laughed again and kissed me. God, his lips were so soft. He took his index finger and he traced it from my chin down my bare chest to the first button on my jeans. He looked at me and smiled. Please?

  I sighed.

  Must I tell you everything that happened? Every detail? Fair is fair, and I don’t ask what happens when you find yourself pressed against Mr. B., so I’ll keep this to myself.

  I don’t know how long we’d been gone, but when I came back downstairs nobody seemed to notice, unless you count Felix who looked at me as if I’d just returned from the war.

  “God,” he said. “Where were you? Duh. Obvious. But God. Did you have to be up there so long? I was worried.”

  “What were you worried about?”

  “You drank tequila.”

  “So?”

  “Tequila is an angry mistress.”

  “I didn’t even finish it.”

  “You’re all flushed.”

  “So?”

  “Can we leave now? We can get back to our Simpsons marathon.”

  I looked around but didn’t spy Sam. In the kitchen? “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know? Do you want to leave?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I really didn’t. What’s the right way to exit a party after you’ve been, you know, intimate with the host? If you’d been there, you’d have told me what to do. For one of the first times, I felt like I couldn’t be totally honest with Felix, but why? You probably could have explained that too, and then, I just started to hate Mr. B. for taking you away from me.

  “I need another drink.”

  “No, you don’t. What you need is Season two, episode twenty: ‘The War of The Simpsons,’ in which Homer gets drunk at a party and embarrasses Marge.”

  “I’m embarrassing you?”

  “Not yet. But we should leave.”

  I scanned the room. No Sam. “Maybe you should leave.”

  He took a step away, stung. “I told your dad I’d take you home.”

  “You’re not in charge of me, Felix.”

  Why? Why? Why?

  Why was I acting this way? Hurting the person I loved?

  And where was Sam? I still had hope that something great was beginning. The way he’d smiled at me. The way he’d said my name …

  But I couldn’t see him anywhere, and he hadn’t held my hand on the way back down the stairs.

  “I can’t leave here without you,” Felix said, and he walked off to join a cluster of cast members.

  I followed him. “Fine. I’ll leave. But I want to go home. To my home.”

  “Which one?”

  He knew we spent our weekends at Dad’s, so I couldn’t help but take this as a dig. He had one home; I had two.

  “Wait here.” I went to find Sam in the kitchen. I couldn’t leave without saying good-bye. I didn’t want to leave without saying good-bye. I wanted to kiss him, out in the open. If this was the start of my spin-around-on-the-sidewalk real love, then it should begin with a kiss in public.

  He was standing with a group of guys, about to take a shot of tequila, lime in one hand, shot glass in the other.

  “I’m leaving,” I said.

  He gave me the finger—the just wait a second one. He threw back his head and drank, put the lime wedge in his teeth, and slammed the glass on the table. He waved me closer.

  Then he put his hand up for a high five.

  I gave him a quick slap and turned to go, hoping he’d say wait or aren’t you forgetting something or where’s my kiss?

  “Later,” he called after me.

  Felix stood by the elevator. We don’t fight. I don’t know the angry Felix, this boy with stiff posture and robot face. I wanted to apologize—try to explain my crippling confusion, but instead I linked my arm in his. He disentangled himself.

  We got a cab immediately. He gave the driver Dad’s address.

  “Well, I guess you got what you wanted,” he said, not unkindly.

  “I guess.”

  “I told you it would happen.”

  I looked out the window. A late-night fog was rolling in, and the streets looked postapocalyptic. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want to tell him about what happened. I wanted to sit and watch the city go by outside my window, and because Felix is my best friend, he didn’t say another word to me until the cab pulled up in front of Dad’s.

  He waved off my attempt to give him some cash. “Good night.”

  “Call me tomorrow?”

  “Sure.”

  “Felix?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You did great tonight. You made everyone laugh.”

  “I know, you already told me that.”

  Dad wasn’t surprised to see me. If he’s learned anything having teenagers, it’s that plans change minute by minute.

  “Good times?” he asked.

  I nodded and yawned. “Good times,” I said, dodging his nose by making a beeline to my room. I took off my shoes and tiptoed past your door, but you have supersonic hearing. You poked your head out and gave me that look: So?

  “You missed the final performance.”

  “I know. Sorry.” You shrugged. “C’mon. Tell me about the party.”

  “The party was a celebration of the final performance that you missed.”

  You rolled your eyes and closed your door.

  I went to my room and crawled under the covers. I wanted nothing but silence. Blankness. White noise. I didn’t want voices: Parker’s, Duncan’s, yours, Felix’s, Sam’s, my own. I wanted to feel without thinking. Sleep without dreaming.

  I wanted to twinkle underwater like the lights of the city.

  WINTER BREAK.

  Felix and his parents went to Mexico City to visit family. The doctors, having determined that his cancer hadn’t spread, cleared Angel to take a trip before the operation to remove his adrenal glands. Everyone else we knew went off skiing in Tahoe or surfing in Hawaii. We weren’t going anyplace because Sonia was waist-deep in trial prep. It was Dad’s Christmas this year, and he decided that we’d stay home and watch her work.

  I was dreading two weeks alone with you.

  But we had a great time.

  Maybe our last great time.

  I slept through half of that Sunday and woke to the memory of Sam’s hands on my body. All things considered, it’s not a bad way to wake up. A decent sleep, four glasses of water, several trips to the bathroom to pee out that tequila, a text from Felix with an xoxo, and I got what I’d hoped for: a better outlook on the previous night. After all, Sam had held my hand on the way up the stairs.

  I found you in your room, flat on your back, staring at the ceiling, throwing a soccer ball in the air and catching it, over and over again. After so many weeks of Chirpy Layla, I was surprised to see Glum Layla.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t make it to the final performance,” you said. “It’s just that George left this morning for New York. It was my last chance to see him.” I sat down at your desk. “You understand, don’t you?”

  I nodded, just trying to swallow the George-ness.

  “Look. He gave me this.” You reached under your covers and removed an enormous book. Mark Rothko: The Works on Canvas. You caressed the spine, ran your fingers o
ver the front of it. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “It’s a book.”

  “We saw the show together.”

  “Right.”

  “Did you know most of Rothko’s paintings are untitled?”

  “No, I can’t say I knew that.”

  You smiled knowingly. “Some things defy definition.”

  I tried not to gag. You placed the book back under your comforter and resumed tossing the soccer ball.

  “Now, will you tell me about the party? Pretty please?”

  “There’s not much to tell. It was a party. Lots of people were there. Oh, and I hooked up with Sam.”

  You threw the ball at me and I ducked. It barely missed your precious laptop.

  “Oh my God.”

  “I know.”

  “Now what?”

  That was the million-dollar question.

  “Now we get a two-week break from each other.”

  “He’s going away?”

  I just looked at you. Of course he was going away.

  “So I guess it’s just you and me, kid.”

  “And Dad, Sonia, and her briefs.”

  “Gross.”

  “Not her underwear, idiot,” I said. “Her legal briefs.”

  Even Mom was abandoning us for the holiday to spend it with Gramma and Gramps in suburban Chicago. I guess I’ll never really understand how Mom and Dad strike their deals. But if anyone had asked, I’d have said I preferred to go with Mom. I wouldn’t even have minded the bitter cold or the soulless suburbs. There’s just something about being around Gramma that’s normal. Gramps is another story—he’s a man of few words, like … three—but somehow he makes Gramma happy.

  Can you imagine it? Christmas in their condo with nothing to do but play Chinese checkers, look at old pictures, and watch the nightly news? With nothing to eat but stale hard candies, Wasa crackers, and those triangle cheeses? Sure, there would be museum trips and visits to the beauty parlor so Gramma can have someone else blow-dry her hair, and maybe a meal or two in a nice restaurant. But when we’re around Gramma and Gramps we’re the grandchildren or the grandkids or the girls, and I guess what I’m saying is I wouldn’t have minded being treated like a child for a little while, even if it wasn’t skiing in Tahoe or surfing in Hawaii.

  After watching TV all day Monday, I woke up Tuesday and went for a run. I’d barely moved my body since the soccer finals. You were still in bed.