Neighborhood Girls

by Jessie Ann Foley

  “You know, Wendy,” she said, “believe it or not, you’re not the first teenager I’ve ever come across who has questioned her faith. I know you’re hurting right now. And I’m not asking you to believe in God. All I’m asking is that you believe in love. I know that you already do. Alexis knew, too. I’m quite sure that when she died, she died knowing that you loved her.”

  I stared down at my hands, at the dried paint caked under my fingernails.

  “But how do you know that?” I whispered.

  “Because,” she said, reaching across the desk and squeezing my hand, “I’ve been around a long time.”

  30

  IN THE MORNING, STUDENT COUNCIL MADE an announcement during chapel that this year’s prom was being opened up to all grade levels, not just seniors, because it was the only way they could sell enough tickets to afford a ballroom. The entire chapel collapsed into a frenzy: this meant we underclassmen had one week to find dates and buy dresses and make hair appointments and order boutonnieres and rent limos. Of course my mind immediately went to Tino, to the phone number he’d left in A Farewell to Arms, but how could I just call him up out of the blue and ask him to my prom when I hadn’t seen him in over two months? What if he’d already forgotten about me? What if he had a girlfriend? The thought of inviting more hurt upon myself at the end of such a crazy, awful school year was unthinkable. I’d rather just not go at all.

  The second announcement was that the dance was being held in the Florentine Ballroom at the Hotel Belvedere. When I called Aunt Kathy to share this news, she actually shrieked into the phone.

  “Did you say June sixth? That just so happens to be the anniversary of Lady Clara’s wedding day! Please tell me I can be a chaperone! I promise I’ll be discreet with my ghost hunting equipment!”

  “Save your excitement,” I said, laughing. “I’m not going.”

  “Not going? To prom? And just why the hell not?”

  “I don’t have a date!”

  “Spare me,” Aunt Kathy yelled. “Even I went to my prom. It’s a high school rite of passage.”

  “I can go next year when I’m at Lincoln, Aunt Kath. I’m still a junior, remember?”

  “Oh, phooey,” she said. “I swear I don’t know what’s wrong with you girls today.”

  Later that same week, Sister Dorothy told us we didn’t need to dress for gym class. Instead, she brought us down to the Sister Xavieria Schmidt Memorial Swimming Facility. At first we thought she was going to brutalize us one last time with an impromptu lap session. But instead, she just told us to sit down in a circle on the moldy tiles and “bear witness” as a crew of workmen drained the pool. I don’t know what was so sad about it—we hated that pool—but as our class sat in the clammy dimness with the painting of Saint Adjutor glaring down at us and the big drain gulping down the water, lower and lower until that notorious pool was nothing but a tile-lined hole in the middle of the room, we put our arms around one another and cried. Only Kenzie remained dry-eyed, standing at a distance from the rest of us with her arms crossed tightly, her face pinched in annoyance—if there was one thing she hated, it was these kinds of cheesy emotional displays—but when the bell rang and I headed toward the locker room door, I turned back and saw that she was still standing there, looking down at the empty pool and blinking and blinking.

  I went home that night and finally finished A Farewell to Arms. When I read the last line, I was so angry I threw the book against the wall, and my mom had to knock on my bedroom door and ask if I was all right.

  Too upset to be nervous anymore, I scrolled through my phone’s contact list, found Tino’s number, and fired off a text message.

  I can’t believe you made me read that book. Why did Catherine and the baby have to die? Why did you make me read that? Don’t you know that people die in real life? Why would I want to read about it in books, too?

  I went into the kitchen and poured myself a glass of lemonade to try and calm down. I drank it standing in front of the refrigerator because our third-floor apartment was already so hot that my tank top stuck to my skin, even though it was only the beginning of June. By the time I got back to my bedroom, he’d already called me three times.

  We talked for hours. First about the book, but then about other things. I told him about Alexis. I told him about how I’d gone to visit my dad in prison, and about how the Saints Corridor had been erased with thick white paint to make way for vintage elegance in the heart of the city. When the time came for us to hang up, all I wanted to do was talk to him some more. Which is how I think I ended up asking him to prom.

  I found a last-minute dress at Marshalls. It wasn’t exactly my dream gown, but it was a pretty shade of lavender, had a high neckline that covered up my tattoo, and was on clearance for $29.99. The dance was held on a beautiful blue June day, and in the afternoon Aunt Colleen came over armed with a tote bag full of styling tools, sat me on the toilet, and wrangled my long hair into a complicated updo while my mom ran around the apartment, aggressively vacuuming and tidying in preparation for the arrival of the mysterious Tino. I did my makeup with the Chanel stuff Aunt Kathy had given me for Christmas, and afterward, when I put on my dress and heels and earrings and stepped out of my bedroom into the front room, my mom and Aunt Col both got sort of emotional.

  “Look at you,” Aunt Col croaked, holding my hands in hers. “How dare you go and grow up on us like that?”

  “I wish Daddy was here to see you,” my mom said before bursting into tears and hugging me for so long I had to gently peel her off me when the doorbell rang. I buzzed Tino up, my stomach a tight ball of nerves. He was wearing a lavender tuxedo to match my dress, accessorized with a shimmery silver tie and pointy white patent-leather shoes. If any other guy had shown up at my door dressed like that, I’d think he was either a circus ringleader or a pimp. But all I thought when I saw Tino was, God, he’s so adorable and God, purple really is his color. Which, of course, made me realize how much I liked him.

  “Wow, Wendy,” he said when I opened the door, two spots of color rising on his cheeks. “You look really beautiful.” The sincerity of his words, so different from the fake compliments Kenzie and Sapphire and Emily and I used to hurl at one another, sort of made my heart explode.

  The Florentine Ballroom didn’t feel nearly as haunted when it was filled with girls in bright-colored dresses and a DJ was blasting hip-hop from the balcony where Lady Clara had spent her last moments.

  I had agreed to let Aunt Kathy chaperone the dance, and when she saw Tino and me walk in, she waved furiously. She hugged me, then held me out by the arms so she could examine me.

  “Stunning,” she said approvingly. “Are you wearing your Chanel?”

  “Of course,” I grinned, extending a perfumed wrist for her to sniff.

  “Excellent. And who’s this dashing fellow?”

  “Aunt Kathy,” I said, “this is my friend Tino.”

  “You’re a vision in purple,” she said, shaking his hand.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I like your outfit, too.”

  “Do you?” She spun around, showing off the tassels along the sleeves of her tunic. “They say that brocade is a winter fabric, but I say rules are made to be broken.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Tino said solemnly. When we walked away to find our place cards, he leaned over and asked, “What the hell is brocade?” We both found this question hysterical and laughed all the way to our table.

  Kenzie walked in just as a gaggle of waiters burst out of the kitchen, staggering under the weight of their enormous silver trays. She wore a gold strapless mermaid gown and a dangly pair of earrings that caught the light from the chandeliers overhead. Her skin was golden, her black hair piled up on top of her head, her eyes framed in thick faux lashes, and her signature pink lipstick perfectly in place. The guy she was with was no one I’d seen before. He was predictably gorgeous, older, wearing an immaculate black tuxedo with a coat and tails. They both looked like movie stars. But I didn’t
feel awed or intimidated or even jealous. Marlo had informed me that Kenzie’s dad was making her go to Cherrywood Academy for her senior year. Rumor was, she hadn’t even fought him on it. Maybe Alexis’s death had sucked some of the venom from her heart. Whatever it was, I didn’t have the energy to hate her. In spite of everything, I wished her well.

  Just before the waiters opened the lids of their huge silver trays, Tino reached out a warm hand under the table and placed it over mine. He kept it there until they served the salads, when he had to let go to pour his dressing. This was probably the first time in human history that a girl has been jealous of a cup of ranch.

  After dinner, Tino got up to use the bathroom, and the DJ began to play the big summer song. The dance floor filled up, but I stayed put at our empty table. I hadn’t danced with anyone since Josh Gonzalez had taught me how to salsa at David Schmidt’s eighth-grade graduation party, and I wasn’t about to start now. I sat and picked at my ice cream while trying to ignore Aunt Kathy, who was stooping around the perimeter of the dance floor with her EMF meter, the tassels of her tunic dragging along the carpet. As I watched my classmates whirl around the parquet, I thought about all those unimaginable cities on the flight boards at O’Hare. I thought about where I’d go to college. What I’d learn there. Who I’d meet. I thought of my dad, painting his way through those long, flat, Nebraska prison days. And I thought of Alexis, which led me, as it always did now, to think about God. About whether He existed. And if He did, how could He deny her all those years ahead, the years where she was meant to play her violin in the Vienna Philharmonic, and fall in love, and dance in the goddamn rain? God is not a ‘He’, I heard Sister Dorothy saying in my head. God transcends gender. Okay, I thought. Not He. Not She. You. And then my thoughts shaped themselves into a prayer. How could You take that away from her? How could You take her away from me? What have You done with my only ever friend? I sat there through that stupid pop song, trying not to cry, and it was just as Ola Kaminski began organizing the girls from our Honors English class into polka lines that I felt the faintest, faintest wind stirring my hair.

  I turned around and no one was there. Then I remembered what Aunt Kathy had said about what happens when you sit alone at a table in the Florentine Room. And so, when it came stirring again as I sat watching my classmates on the dance floor, I wasn’t surprised. It’s no Sibelius, I heard Alexis say. But I still think you should dance.

  By the time Tino returned, I was on the dance floor, sweaty and laughing and trying to keep up with Ola’s polka steps. I ran out, grabbed him by the hand, and pulled him onto the dance floor with me. It was as if the self-consciousness had fallen away from me like a coat that didn’t fit. I finally understood that it was possible for contradictory feelings to exist side by side in the same heart. I could feel hopeful about the future while still aching about the past. I could feel deep happiness while still harboring deep sadness. I could move on and still miss someone forever.

  Prom had turned into one big dance party. And I mean a dance party: Sister Dorothy doing a two-step with Sister Mary-of-the-Snows. Sister Paulette lifting up the skirts of her habit to do the Irish Jig. Veronica the Vegan twirling in circles, the tulle of her homemade gown spreading around her waist. Even Kenzie and Sapphire and Emily were grinding and twerking and shaking it like their lives depended on it. Everyone was laughing and hugging, all forty-two members of the junior class, and the seniors and freshmen and sophomores, too. We were dancing our last moments as ASH girls, dancing because Alexis couldn’t, dancing with our memories, dancing alongside the invisible ghosts. By the end of it all we were soaked in sweat and our faces hurt from laughing and even Aunt Kathy was so taken by the joy that had filled the room that she stood smiling against the wall, her EMF meter hanging forgotten by her side.

  After it was over, Tino and I drove back to the neighborhood.

  “Hey,” I said suddenly. “Do you want to see my old house?”

  I directed him through the quiet streets. The cicadas were buzzing in the trees and we drove with all the windows open, the damp heat of early summer soft on our faces. When we pulled up to the house, I saw it: a FOR SALE sign.

  “Looks sort of abandoned,” Tino said.

  “Let’s go look in the windows,” I suggested, and we parked at the curb and got out of the car, closing the doors softly. We went through the gangway to the side of the house and peeked in. There was no furniture anywhere, and the whole place had been completely redone. The buyers must have gut rehabbed it to flip it for a profit. The cluttered, cozy front room of my memory was now clean and modern and barely recognizable, which was sort of a relief. I couldn’t feel nostalgic for something that was so different from what it had once been.

  We went through the back gate, closing it carefully behind us—it still squeaked on its hinges just as it used to. But when we stepped into the backyard, the small square of lawn where we’d barbequed and played beanbags had been transformed, taken up almost completely by a huge octagonal above-ground pool.

  “They cut down my tree,” I murmured. “With my tree swing.”

  The reflection of the alley streetlights floated in the middle of the pool’s surface, lighting up the blue inner walls.

  “Care for a dip?” Tino raised an eyebrow at me, and the pool light reflected in his brown eyes.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Why not? Doesn’t look like anybody even lives here.” He had a point. The house was dark and mute, emptied of furniture. A thick nylon cover, dusted with leaves and debris, was pulled over the gas grill on the deck.

  “You go first.”

  “Okay.” He shrugged out of his lavender tuxedo, unbuttoned his shirt, and loosened his tie, folding each piece carefully and placing them in the grass. In the light from the alley I could see the faint ladder of his backbone, the wings of his shoulder blades, the neat hairline where his dark hair ended and his smooth neck began. William Shakespeare and Michael Jordan gazed at me from their perches on his chest. A strange, lovely ache bubbled up inside of me as he unzipped his pants and stepped out of them, leaving them in a pool in the grass next to his shirt. He climbed up the steps in his boxer shorts, which had red-and-white checks on them, looked down at me and winked, then slipped quietly into the water, coming up a moment later with his hair slicked to his head.

  “You coming in?”

  “Turn around,” I commanded, and Tino shot me a thumbs-up, took a huge breath, and plunged underwater, while I hastily shimmied out of my prom dress, leaving it in a pile next to his clothes, and hurried up the ladder in my underwear and into the water.

  The pool water was sun-warmed, almost no cooler than the air, and now that we were both in it, we were suddenly shy with each other. We kept our distance, swimming by ourselves along the edges of the pool, asking each other polite, formal questions—“So, what classes are you taking next year?” “What’s the best book you’ve ever read besides A Farewell to Arms?” “How many brothers and sisters do you have?”—as if this was a normal conversation between two teenagers who just so happened to be floating in an abandoned pool wearing nothing but their saturated underwear.

  But eventually, after so much time had passed that our fingers had gone prune-y, we began to circle closer, letting our legs brush up against each other beneath the surface of the water, then pushing away again, both of us pretending it was an accident. Finally, I let my legs drift toward him underwater, tangling with his, except this time neither of us pulled away. I breathed deeply, trying to remember everything—the blooming lilacs on the bushes, the charred smell of a smoldering grill somewhere close, the cicadas, the sky. I was face-to-face with Tino, and his dark hair was slicked back like an otter’s, and his eyes were two gloaming stars before me. I wanted him to kiss me but then I didn’t, because I knew that the moment he did, it would forever be something that happened to me in the past and not something that was happening now, not something to look forward to with delicious anticipation. Maybe he felt the sam
e way, because we stood there in the middle of the pool, submerged up to our shoulders, just looking at each other, not speaking, not laughing, waiting, and finally when he moved closer I closed my eyes and told myself to remember this, to remember everything, and all the shyness of a few moments ago was entirely forgotten. He reached his hands out of the water and gently began to take the pins out of my hair, one by one, until it fell first in pieces and then all at once around my shoulders, and we floated there, kissing beneath the waterfall of my hair. It was like we had discovered an opening in the fabric of the everyday and found beneath it a secret world that was ours alone, and I wondered if this secret world was what people meant when they talked about love.

  Clouds gathered, blotting out the moon. The air began to shift; soon it would collapse under the weight of itself, and the sky smelled like rain. We could see forks of heat lightning flashing in the sky beyond the trees and garages and houses. Thunder rumbled low, from far away, lightning snapped across the air above us—one . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . CRASH!—and then the rain swept in, pinging off the gutters and blacktop roofs and needling the water all around us. It was prom night and I was here in my old backyard with a boy named Tino and the raindrops pelted the pool water, dappling our faces with cold drops while our bodies were immersed in warm, still water, and I prayed Alexis was here with me somehow, feeling two kinds of water at the same time, one cold and moving and fresh and one warm and still, but both clean.

  I thought to myself, floating there with Tino, that maybe it was time I revised my opinion about kissing. Kissing, I had now decided, is not overrated.

  In fact, kissing is a miracle.

  There’s something I forgot to say about that last family vacation out to California, something that I’ve never told anyone. We’d spent the afternoon sightseeing down the 101 from Klamath to Fortuna, stopping for dinner at a brewery in McKinleyville. On the drive back to the hotel, as my dad sang along to the Tom Petty song on the radio and my mom fiddled with the GPS, Stevie Junior and I sat in the back seat looking out the window at the gray Pacific. The sky was spreading in gradations of twilight and the ocean was calm and shimmering when I saw the puff of vapor about a half mile out from shore. Then, a spinning dark shape rose from the water, turning like a screw, and the gray whale breached into the purpling sky. By the time I had fumbled for my phone to take its picture, the whale was gone, leaving no proof of itself but the rocking waves. I opened my mouth to tell everyone what I had just seen, but then my mom started talking about how fresh the avocado in her Cobb salad was, and Dad said the waitress kind of reminded him of that actress with all the DUIs, and Stevie Junior started laughing like crazy at some stupid video his frat buddy Meatwagon had sent him, and by the time I had a chance to say something, I had convinced myself that maybe all I’d seen was just another boulder.