Once and for All

by Sarah Dessen

  But these were thoughts that only came in the middle of the night, when I allowed myself to retrace that Saturday of Maya and Roger’s wedding, going over each moment for clues of how, in some way, I could have done things differently. It wasn’t like the way I’d savored my night with Ethan, everything perfect from start to finish. With this, I could see nothing but the places where I could or should have done something else, all the way up to that moment on the dance floor, when everything had gotten to be too much and I’d chosen to run. What had I been thinking, in that moment? Even now as I replayed it, I wasn’t sure. It was like Ethan suddenly being conjured was what it took to make it finally clear Ambrose and I were already too messy and strange to ever be anything else.

  What I had with Ben, instead, was neat and tidy, easy. I saw it now, as we started across the parking lot, away from Jump Java, toward his car so he could go to work. It was the way we were reflected in the glass of the stationery store, his hand holding mine, how we walked in rhythm, not rushing or dragging, just right. Because of all those pictures, I knew just how we appeared. A good-looking boy, tall with broad shoulders, in jeans and a Jumbo Smoothie polo shirt; a girl wearing a sundress and flip-flops, dark hair in a messy bun, sunglasses parked on her head. When the reflection stopped, it seemed odd to me that we didn’t, as well.

  “Of course I do,” Jilly said, popping open another tube of sunscreen. “And we still have plenty of time.”

  I watched her, skeptical, as she squeezed a dollop into her open palm. “It’s already July fifteenth. You leave in a little over a month.”

  “Exactly,” she replied, pulling Bean, clothed in a swim diaper and a sunhat, closer to her. As she began to slather on the cream with one hand while keeping her in place with another, she added, “From the way you’re talking, you’d think it was tomorrow.”

  To this I said nothing, watching as Bean squirmed in her grip. Ahead of us, some kid leaping into the pool did a cannonball, splashing water everywhere. “You are coming to my birthday dinner, though, right?”

  “Louna.” She looked at me. “Of course. Why are you being so weird about this?”

  “I’m not the one being weird,” I told her, meaning it. “I’ve been with Ben for three weeks and you haven’t even hung out with us once. I met Michael Salem, like, immediately.”

  “I know Ben,” she said, finally unleashing Bean, who immediately started across the beach chair between us. “Remember? We went to school together?”

  “You don’t know him as my boyfriend.”

  “Is he really that different?” she asked. “And besides, with all those pictures he’s tagging you in on Ume I basically feel like I’m hanging out with you guys anyway.”

  Hearing this, I felt stung enough to sit back in my chair, busying myself with another coat of sunblock. I was just starting on my legs when Crawford, sitting fully clothed on Jilly’s other side reading a thick novel, said, “She’s right, you know. You are avoiding her.”

  Jilly sighed, adjusting her bathing suit straps as she sat back on her chair. “Crawford, shut up. How can I be avoiding her? She’s right here.”

  “Avoiding her with her boyfriend,” he said in his flat, nasal tone, not looking up from the page in front of him. “You told her you guys had plans last night and couldn’t do dinner. But you sat on the couch and watched TV all night.”

  Silence. If shame was audible, however, Jilly’s face would have been at high volume. “Is that true?” I said finally. “You lied to me?”

  “Yes,” Crawford answered for her.

  “No,” she said at the same time, then sighed out loud, turning to face me. “Okay, fine. Maybe I’ve been reluctant to embrace you with Ben. But it’s only because I feel so awful about everything that happened.”

  “She wasn’t working at the truck a couple of nights ago when you wanted to go bowling, either,” Crawford added from her other side. “She was just sitting around.”

  Jilly whipped her head around to face him. “Will you stop?”

  “Sure,” he said agreeably, turning a page as Bean, another bottle of sunscreen now in her grip, started over to his chair.

  I swallowed, still taken aback by what I’d just heard. Finally I said, “I don’t get it. What do you feel so awful about that you don’t even want to hang out with me?”

  “I don’t want to hang out with you and Ben,” she corrected me.

  “Is that different?”

  “Yes,” she said emphatically, her entire body heaving with the word. She sat back again, putting her hands to her face, then dropped them. “Look, Louna. If I hadn’t opened my big mouth about Ethan, you’d be with Ambrose. I screwed everything up for you. If I go out with you and Ben, it’s like I think that’s okay.”

  “I’m saying it’s okay,” I replied. “Also, you didn’t screw anything up for me. Ambrose and I were never meant to be anything other than friends.”

  “See, I don’t believe that though,” she said.

  “Well, I do.” I sat up, pulling my legs to my chest. “I’ve told you a million times, you didn’t do anything wrong by telling him about Ethan. You were just looking out for me.”

  “And I did it by giving him information he then threw back at you, scaring you off, and now you’re with some other guy you barely even know.”

  “You were with Michael Salem after one night at a party!”

  “Because he’s my true love! You barely even talk about Ben except when you’re pressuring me to make it so you don’t have to be alone with him!”

  “You guys are yelling,” Crawford said.

  He was right. Jilly sat back, smoothing her suit. I cleared my throat. Another kid did a cannonball. Splash.

  “Not every relationship,” I said slowly after a moment, “is the hot, heavy love story. Some of them are just, you know, more mellow.”

  “Mellow,” she repeated. “That’s what all those Valentines and love songs are about, for sure.”

  “Why do you care so much?” I demanded. “All you wanted was for me to be back out there. I’m out. I have a boyfriend.”

  “You’ll notice,” she said, “that you did not include happy in that list.”

  “Ben is a great guy.”

  “Not the same thing.”

  I exhaled, frustrated. “You understand that most of the time I was with Ambrose, he was driving me nuts, right? That we are total opposites?”

  “What I understand,” she said quietly, “is what I saw with my own eyes. He might have made you crazy. But when you were with him, there was a spark. It wasn’t ever just mellow.”

  “Also we were completely wrong for each other,” I said. “That’s why it never would have worked out.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Or maybe not. And it’s that maybe that is killing me. Maybe I denied you what I have with Michael Salem. And sitting and watching you pretend you have it now with someone else . . . I just can’t do it. I’m sorry.”

  “Come on,” I said now. “There was and is no chance for me and Ambrose. I haven’t even seen him since that night, and I’m with Ben now. I’m sure he’s moved on. You can, too. I promise.”

  “Okay, fine. I’ll try,” she said. Then she sighed, loudly, as Bean crawled back over to her, pulling up on the side of her chair. “And I’ll go out with you and Ben, if that’s what you want.”

  “It is,” I replied, thinking how simple and easy this sounded. Just as quickly, I thought of Ambrose that first day we met, his own honest response: I hate not getting what I want. I wasn’t what he wanted, though, not really. Just a fleeting thought for a moment, I was sure, despite what Jilly said. And I wanted mellow. Or, at least, I’d take it.

  CHAPTER

  25

  MY MOTHER was not one to apologize unless the situation truly warranted it. In the last three minutes, by my count, she’d told me she was sorry at least five times.


  “It’s just,” she continued, as I moved quickly around my room, finding my shoes and keys, “once you’ve promised clowns, you can’t really walk back from it.”

  “It’s fine,” I told her again. “Just tell me where they are.”

  “On the I-15 off ramp, apparently. They say you can’t miss them, as they’re—”

  “—clowns,” I finished for her. “Got it. I’m on my way.”

  “I’m so sorry!” she said again. “If you can just get them here, that’s all we need. Give Ben my apologies.”

  “I’m not even meeting him until seven thirty,” I said, checking the clock just to be safe. It was six fifteen. “I’ll see you soon. I’ll be the one with the carful of clowns.”

  “Bless you.”

  Ten minutes later, I was pulling up behind a broken-down blue polka-dotted microbus where six men in jumpsuits and wigs, sporting various versions of red noses and carrying water bottles, were milling around. I unlocked my doors, they jumped in, and we headed to the Amber Dashwood reception, which was slated to begin in mere minutes at the Derby Estate across town. When we pulled up in front, William was waiting.

  “Oh, thank God,” he said, as they all exited, grabbing their bags of gear. “All right, everyone, follow this path here around to the patio area and await further instructions. We’ll need you to greet arriving guests momentarily.”

  The clowns took off, adjusting rainbow wigs, big shoes slapping the pavement. As we watched them go I said, “I know it’s crazy, but I kind of miss this job.”

  “That’s crazy,” he said, pulling out his phone and quickly typing a text. “But if you really mean it, feel free to stick around. I’ve got a whole group of performing dogs that need to behave during the passed appetizers.”

  “Dogs? I thought you guys were joking about Ira.”

  “Oh, it’s not Ira,” he said. “This is a professional dog circus your mother had come in from Virginia. You should see the dancing schnauzers.”

  “Wow,” I said. A couple of cars turned into the Derby Estate lot, driving slowly, obviously looking for spaces. “Looks like you have some early birds.”

  “They probably didn’t even wait until the vows were done,” he grumbled, as one sedan parked, a couple in dress clothes climbing out. “I’ll never understand people who are that desperate to get to a reception. Do they not get out much?”

  I smiled, having heard this many times before, as another car drove past us, finding a spot. Despite my time away, I could still feel it, that slow simmer of excitement/dread in my stomach that always hit in the moments an event began. You just never knew how the night would go.

  William’s phone beeped. “Your mother is reporting surly bartenders,” he reported, after looking at the screen. “I guess it’s time for my patented attitude adjustment.”

  “I’ll pray for them,” I told him, as he straightened his tie.

  “You just get out of here,” he replied, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. “Save yourself.”

  “Will do.”

  As he disappeared down the path, though, I stayed where I was, watching as a few more guests arrived. Around the house, I could see tables set up with white cloths and flower arrangements that even from a distance I could tell had come from Kirby’s. I wondered if Ambrose had gone to fetch them, maybe with Ira, and if Mrs. Kirby had asked about me. They’d get used to my absence soon enough, though, and probably Ambrose’s as well. Summer was almost over. After Bee’s wedding, he had his own life to get back to. Wherever that would be.

  “Excuse me,” I heard someone say from behind me, “but is this the way to the Dashwood event?”

  I turned, facing an older man in a dark suit and red tie. “Yes. It’s around back.”

  He peered down the path, as if not sure he believed me, then looked back at the lot, as if reconsidering attending at all. Now that I noticed, there really wasn’t clear signage. “Why don’t you follow me,” I told him. “This way.”

  Around back, I found my mother standing by the table assignments, lighting a candle. When she saw me, her eyes widened. “This gentleman is a guest,” I said, nodding at the man behind me. “The route isn’t totally clear. You might want to have someone out front, just FYI.”

  “Oh, right,” she said, smiling at the man as he approached her table. “Ambrose? Can you go around front and direct traffic?”

  Up until that second, I hadn’t even seen him. Suddenly, though, there he was, in a blue dress shirt and navy tie, standing right in front of me. He looked as uncomfortable as I suddenly felt.

  “Hi,” I said, feeling like it was my job to start whatever conversation, hopefully minimal, that was necessary.

  “Hey,” he replied, then immediately looked at my mom. “You need me out front?”

  “Just wave people in this general direction,” my mom told him, lighting another candle. “And make sure Louna leaves; she’s got a hot date.”

  At this, I felt my face flush. I hadn’t told my mom or William anything about what had almost happened between me and Ambrose on the dance floor. What was the point? You don’t start stories that have no middle or end, and this one barely had a beginning either. Just a couple of sentences, messy ones, trailing off into nothingness. Period.

  “Right,” Ambrose said, turning and starting up the path. “Come on, Louna. You don’t want to keep your man waiting.”

  “That’s the spirit,” my mom called out, totally oblivious. “Have fun, honey!”

  Now even more uncomfortable, I kept my gaze focused on the back of Ambrose’s shirt as I followed him up the path to the parking lot where, sure enough, a clump of guests were gathered, trying to decide if they were supposed to go through the main house, around, or some other route.

  “Reception is this way, everyone,” Ambrose called out, and, like lemmings in formal wear, they all headed toward us. “You’ll find your table assignments just around back. Enjoy!”

  I stepped aside on the grass as one woman in a purple dress and squeaking shoes, clearly intent on hitting the appetizers first, barreled past me, her obviously embarrassed date following along behind. Soon, everyone had followed, and it was just me and Ambrose again on the sidewalk, as more cars pulled into the lot.

  “I can stay awhile, if you need help,” I said, feeling like I should offer, well, something.

  “I think I can handle pointing people in a certain direction,” he replied, his voice cool. “But thanks.”

  Just go, I told myself, as a couple with two little girls in stiff pink dresses began to head our way, their voices carrying above us. He doesn’t want you here any more than you want to be. But then I thought again about the short time remaining before I departed for school, and how everything already felt like it was wrapping up. Who knew when I’d have another chance to do the same with this?

  “Look, Ambrose,” I began, after he’d waved the family to the path. “I know this is awkward.”

  “Awkward?” he replied, shaking that curl out of his face. “Why, because I basically declared my undying love for you and you walked away, never to be seen again until, well, now? How is that awkward?”

  This was a lot to hear at once, so it took me a second to unpack it. Finally I said, “You didn’t declare your undying love. You asked me about Ethan.”

  “I was working up to it,” he replied. “I had to apologize first. I was processing the information I’d just heard.”

  “Ambrose—”

  “It was a two-pronged approach,” he continued. “I didn’t think you’d take off before I had a chance to finish.”

  “Two-pronged?” I said. “You make it sound like a utensil.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me it wasn’t a bad breakup you were reeling from?” he demanded. “I didn’t know what I was up against. I had no idea what you needed.”

  “It’s not your job to give me w
hat I need,” I said. “And—”

  “Excuse me, is the reception in this building?” a man in a seersucker suit asked from behind us.

  “Around back,” Ambrose said immediately, jabbing a finger. The man, looking apologetic, scurried off.

  “Don’t take this out on the guests,” I said. “It’s me you’re mad at, remember?”

  “But that’s the thing, Louna. I’m not.” He sighed, shaking his head. “Look. I know this isn’t the time or place for this, but I’m going to say it anyway. I liked you from the start. Okay? That first day, my mom’s wedding, when you grabbed me and dragged me inside, that was the beginning for me. It’s why I asked you to dance. It’s why I went out on the floor at that stupid party when Jughead was mauling you. It’s why I did everything: the job, the bet, all of it. If I won, I was going to pick me for your next date, even if I was supposed to still be with someone else. I figured if there was no other way, then you’d have to give me a chance.”

  I blinked, trying to process this. “But you were so into Lauren.”

  “She was—is—great,” he said. “And we had a couple of great, epic nights together. But it was you I looked forward to seeing every day, you I wanted to hang out with even when this job was boring and stressful. I just didn’t know how to tell you, until that night at the dollar store when you said we were friends and you wanted me to be happy.”

  “You knew we were friends,” I said softly.

  “I hoped we were,” he replied. More cars were coming into the lot now, the bulk of the guests arriving. “When you said it, though, I saw a chance. Like an opening, big enough to wriggle through. That’s what I told Jilly, at the truck, that I’d been crazy about you all summer, but I knew you’d been hurt and wanted to be careful, to do things right. And she said it would be hard to compete with Ethan, for all kinds of reasons, so I should just be myself. I didn’t get what she meant. So I asked her to explain.”

  Again, Ethan was there with us. It was like I could feel it. “I loved him so much,” I said. “No one can ever understand what losing him was like.”