I started to feel slightly sick, and I wasn’t sure it was the beer. “Um . . .”
“And yet all these girls just passing up their ride on the C train! Their loss, though. Am I right or am I right?” He took a big bite of cake and ended up with frosting on his nose.
I reached over, held his face steady, and wiped it off while Collins blinked at me, surprised. It was another thing that I did when I’d had a bit to drink—I acted without thinking first, without running through possibilities and outcomes, and just did. “I don’t know,” I said, thinking back to the girl he’d been hitting on earlier that night, and all the girls he was forever making a spectacle of himself in front of at school. “Did you ever think about asking out someone maybe a little less . . .” I paused. I had a feeling that I was going to insult him if I kept going and said something along the lines of “on your level.” But my brain at the moment wasn’t coming up with any other alternatives. “You know,” I finally said. “Someone that you’re maybe already friends with.”
Collins shook his head. “Dawn said the same thing last week,” he said dismissively. “But you can’t help who you fall for. The heart wants what it wants.” I didn’t feel up to arguing with that at the moment, and just looked around at the dwindling crowd.
“Too bad she couldn’t make it,” I said.
“Yeah,” Collins agreed. “I tried my best, but apparently she had to ‘work.’ ” He put air quotes around the last word, shaking his head dismissively. Dawn had been invited, but her manager apparently had been calling into question how long she was taking with her deliveries ever since she’d started hanging out with us, and so she didn’t want to push her luck.
“I think that was the last of them,” Frank said, coming to join us as he waved at two guys—they’d been convinced I worked at IndoorXtreme and seemed insulted when I’d said I couldn’t get them free passes—as they headed to the cars.
“Did you have fun?” Collins asked, like he couldn’t have cared less what the answer was, but I knew him well enough by now not to believe it.
“It was great, man,” Frank said, hitting him on the back as I rolled my eyes. I had no idea why boys, when they became affectionate, got violent. “Thanks a lot.”
“Yes,” I said, carefully standing up, but still somehow managing to lose my balance and catching myself on the table. “Really . . . great.”
Frank looked at me, levelly. “Keys,” he said, holding out his hand for them.
“Have you had anything?” I asked, even as I was digging in my purse for them.
“Just a month’s worth of sugar,” he said, glancing at the remains of the cake. “Nothing to drink, only water.” I handed Frank my keys, very relieved I hadn’t had to call Dawn or my parents or a taxi—the possibilities I’d been running through in my head, none of which I’d particularly liked. “I’ll meet you by your car,” he said. “Collins and I are just going to clean this up.”
Collins turned to him, looking surprised. “We are? I mean, I am?” He sighed and gestured to the picnic table with the remains of the cake and empty red cups scattered on the ground. “But I organized all this!”
“I’ll help,” I said, bending down to get a cup, but losing my balance halfway and having to brace myself on the picnic table.
“Car,” Frank said, placing his hands on my shoulders and turning me in the direction of the parking lot. “I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“This is going to take five minutes?” Collins grumbled as he bent down to pick up a cup.
“I’ll see you there,” I said, somehow not even feeling embarrassed that this was happening. I knew I would probably feel it in the morning—along with a splitting headache—but for the moment, I was just vaguely relieved that things were working out.
I focused on making my way back to the car, wondering why I never normally had to concentrate this hard on walking, since it was actually very challenging. It wasn’t until I reached the Volvo that I realized I couldn’t get in—I’d given Frank the keys. So I carefully pushed myself up to sit on the trunk, feet resting on my back bumper. I leaned back to look up at the stars, amazed at how they were taking over the whole sky. “Emily?” I sat up more cautiously than usual to see Gideon standing by the driver’s side of an SUV parked a car away from me. He must have unlocked the car, because the interior lights flared on, suddenly very bright against the darkness. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I said, pronouncing the word carefully enough that I might have undercut my intention. “I mean, I’m not driving or anything,” I assured him. “But it’s being handled.”
“Do you need a ride?” he asked, his brow furrowed, and I could see why he was confused—when someone is sitting on the trunk of a parked car, it would seem to indicate they’re having some transportation issues.
“No,” I said, shaking my head once to each side—things started to get a little spinny if I did more than that. “My—Frank is driving me.”
“Frank,” Gideon said, shaking his head as he looked down at the keys in his hands. “You sure didn’t waste any time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, but not in the sarcastic way people generally asked it—I honestly didn’t know what he meant. A moment later, though, I caught up and felt my jaw drop. “No, no,” I said. “No. We’re not—he has a girlfriend. A really serious one. And I was supposed to pick her up this afternoon, but . . .” I trailed off when I realized Gideon probably didn’t need to hear about the details of my day. “Where’s Sam?” I asked. Not that I wanted to see him, but seeing Gideon twice without Sam’s presence was just surprising.
He gestured back to the Orchard. “He wanted to stay a little longer.” He looked at me for a long moment, his expression unreadable. “Where’s Sloane?”
I shrugged, feeling how loose my shoulders were. “She . . . left,” I said. “At the beginning of the summer.”
“Where?” Gideon asked, and the force of that simple word—and the fact that I still didn’t have an answer—hit me hard.
“I don’t know,” I said, hating that I had to, that I didn’t have any other answers. “But I’m working on it.”
Gideon just shook his head, looking down at his keys. “The two of you,” he said. “You just leave people behind, no explanations, don’t care if—”
“Wait,” I said, getting down from the car. “I don’t—” Gideon ran his hand over his close-cropped hair, and it was then that I saw something peeking out of his T-shirt sleeve. It was something I never would have done if I hadn’t had two beers on an empty stomach. But without thinking it through, I was crossing to him and pushing up his shirtsleeve to see what I knew would be there.
It was the last Sharpie tattoo I’d given him, the night everything had fallen apart with the four of us. And though I’d given it to him in May, months ago, it looked freshly done, the waves still endlessly cresting. And since Gideon didn’t smell terrible, he’d obviously been bathing, which meant . . .
I looked up at him, and he took a step away, but not before I saw where I’d signed my name just to the side of his tricep—Emily xoxo. He’d been coloring it in ever since—those lines I’d drawn without any real thought to them, just to kill some time. It felt like someone had just punched me, and I felt dizzy in a way that had nothing to do with the beer.
He slowly rolled his sleeve down, and I finally let myself see it—the pain I’d caused him, the damage I’d left behind. “Gideon,” I started. “I’m sorry—” But he was already turning away from me.
“Sure,” he said, his voice flat and sarcastic.
“I am,” I said, taking an unsteady step closer to him, resting my hand on the hood of his car. I wished that I was more sober for this, because getting my thoughts in line was a struggle, but I knew I had to at least try. “Listen. I shouldn’t have ended things like that.” As soon as I said it, I realized that I probably also shouldn’t have been dating him in the first place, but wasn’t sure that would be helpful to say. �
��I never meant to hurt you. Really.” I searched his face, trying to see if this had gotten through, these words I should have said months ago.
Gideon looked at me for just a moment before shaking his head, pulling open his door, and getting in his car. “See you,” he said, not looking at me. Then he pulled out of the Orchard, his lights briefly lighting up the old faded sign, with its ever-hopeful, twinned cherries.
I watched his taillights until they got more and more distant and then faded from view entirely. I realized, in that moment, that I hadn’t needed to destroy Bryan’s sunglasses in the Paradise parking lot. Because it was clear to me now that I’d already broken something.
Frank arrived at the car a few minutes later and unlocked the doors. I got into my passenger seat, where I wasn’t sure I’d ever sat before. I looked at him as he adjusted the seat, pushing himself back from the steering wheel, then starting my car and pulling out into the night.
“So who was that guy earlier?” Frank asked after a moment, glancing over at me. “The one you clearly wanted to get away from?”
“Gideon,” I said. “My . . . ex, I guess.” I wasn’t sure I had the right to call him that, since we’d never been official. But he was really the closest thing I had to one.
“Oh yeah?” Frank asked, looking away from the road for longer than I would have advised. But somehow, in my slightly fuzzy state, it didn’t seem to bother me that much. “What happened?”
I shrugged, really not wanting to go into the whole thing—and not only because I had behaved in a way I wasn’t proud of. “We weren’t right for each other,” I said, realizing as I said it that it was true. I took a breath. I was starting to talk again before I’d even worked out what I was going to say. “You wouldn’t do that,” I said, shaking my head. “Not without asking me.” Frank glanced over at me, baffled, but I didn’t stop to explain. “Of course you wouldn’t.” I could feel myself start to laugh at the thought of it. Frank wanting me to date someone like Sloane had was crazy, but if he did, I knew he’d be checking with me constantly, making sure I was okay with it. Frank drove me home when I had too much to drink, and scheduled horseback rides for me, and had seemed really alarmed that I’d never heard of a band called the Format, and made me a mix to correct it. He looked out for me. “But I wouldn’t do it now, either,” I said. I wouldn’t agree to it now. The fact that I’d just let Sloane set me up with Gideon, barely asking any questions, seemed like it had happened a long time ago now.
“You know I have no idea what you’re talking about, right?” Frank asked as he made the left onto the street that would take me home.
“I know,” I said. I thought about trying to explain it to him, but then just decided to let it go. “I’m sorry about Lissa.”
Frank glanced over at me, then back at the road again. He leaned forward slightly, and moonlight from the open roof spilled across his face, lighting him up. “It was okay,” he said slowly, like he was trying out these words, in this order, for the first time. “It turned out fine. And I had a great birthday.”
“Really?” I asked, a little doubtfully, thinking of Lissa bailing, of Wanda’s cake, of having to drive me home.
“Really,” he said firmly. “I mean, I started off the day being serenaded by donut shop employees, so it was pretty fantastic.”
“I’m still just sorry about this—making you drive me on my birthday.” He glanced over at me, one eyebrow raised, and it occurred to me after a moment this wasn’t quite right. “Your birthday,” I said, trying to get my thoughts in line. “Drive me on your birthday.”
“It’s really not a big deal,” he said. “It’s the least I could do after you trekked down to New Jersey to get Lissa.”
“Not all the way,” I said. “She called me about halfway there.” Frank nodded, and I leaned back against the passenger-side door, curling my legs under me. I stretched my hand up through the open roof, feeling the warm night air rush around and through my fingers, looking up at all the stars that were visible tonight. In the dark car, with only the dashboard light, it looked like I could maybe reach them, if only I tried hard enough.
I leaned my head back against the window. My neck felt liquid and relaxed; despite what had just happened with Gideon, I was feeling somehow peaceful as I watched Frank driving me home. “You’re driving my car,” I said, shaking my head. “Nobody ever drives my car but me. It feels like I’m always driving other people around.”
“How am I doing?”
“Good,” I concluded after a moment. “It’s acceptable.”
Frank smiled at that, and when we reached my house, he pulled the car into the spot I always parked in, and as he killed the engine and handed my keys to me, it hit me that he knew where I parked my car. He knew where I lived, and didn’t need directions to bring me home.
We just sat in the car for a moment, looking ahead at my house, which was dark and quiet. Even all the cicadas seemed to have signed off for the night, and it was like the whole world was sleeping, the moon above out in full force and lighting everything up.
“Wait,” I said suddenly, turning to him.
He smiled. “I’m not going anywhere, Em.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “I mean, how are you going to get home?”
“I’ll walk,” he said. “It’s not that far. I do it every day, after all.”
“But that’s during the day,” I pointed out. “It’s nighttime now. There could be vagrants. Or coyotes.”
Frank just shook his head, still smiling. “I think I’ll be okay.” He got out of the driver’s seat, and I scrambled out of the passenger side to follow him.
“Well, then I’ll walk with you,” I said, and Frank stopped in the driveway and shook his head, turning to me.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he said, his voice patient. “Because then you’d have to walk back here, and I’m not letting you do that in your present state.”
“Oh my god!” I said, maybe more loudly than I should have, since it seemed particularly loud against the quiet of the night, and Frank glanced toward my sleeping house. “Present! I forgot to give it to you! Hold on.”
“Still not going anywhere,” he pointed out, and I could hear a laugh somewhere in his voice. I walked back to the car and yanked the wrapped package out from where I’d hidden it behind the front seat.
“Here,” I said, walking back to him and holding it out.
“You really didn’t have to do this,” he said, shaking his head.
“Of course I did,” I said, reaching out and giving his arm a small push. But it didn’t quite work out like I’d hoped, and my hand lingered a little too long on his arm before I got my thoughts working and pulled it back again. Somewhere in the more lucid part of my brain, I knew that was something I would have not ordinarily done, but it had already happened before that part of my brain could catch up to things.
Frank unwrapped the package slowly and carefully, and as he got closer to seeing what it was, I suddenly wondered if I’d chosen the wrong thing, or if he would think this was stupid. “No way,” he said as he pulled back the final corner and held up the CD I’d had to track down online. Curtis Anderson—Bootlegs and B-Sides. It was a comedy CD that had a tiny printing and hadn’t done well, but from everything I’d been able to glean, it was considered his best. I’d had to bid against anderfan2020 on eBay in a heated auction, but I’d gotten it in the end.
“I just thought,” I said, wishing I wasn’t so worried about his reaction, “that, you know, in a well-ordered universe, you would already have this. So . . .”
Frank shook his head and looked up at me. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“You can return it if you want,” I said, even as I said it, wondering if that would be possible. But I was pretty sure at the very least, I could probably sell it to anderfan2020.
“Are you kidding?” he said, turning it over to read the back. “This is fantastic. Thank you.”
I felt myself start to
yawn, and Frank tucked the CD under his arm. “You should get some sleep,” he said, starting to head toward the road.
“I’ll walk you,” I insisted, falling into step next to him.
“Then I’m just going to have to walk you back,” he pointed out.
“Stop halfway?”
Frank looked at me for a moment, then nodded. “Deal,” he said, and we walked together down the driveway, and turned left onto the road. Since it was totally deserted out, we could walk down the middle of the road, each of us taking one side of the center yellow line. The moonlight was so bright that it was casting our shadows onto the asphalt, and we walked in silence that felt totally comfortable, like maybe we didn’t need to talk just then.
I yawned again, and Frank stopped walking. “I’m walking you home now,” he said, changing direction.
“What happened to halfway?” I asked, even as I turned around as well and started walking back toward my house.
“I was never going to actually do that,” he said. “I mean, there could be coyotes out here. Or vagrants.”
“Good point,” I said, trying to stop myself from smiling but not really succeeding. “Hey,” I said, suddenly thinking of something that I’d been wondering all night. “What do you think Wanda did?” When Frank just stared at me, looking baffled, I added, “Cake Wanda?”
“Oh,” he said, as understanding dawned. “I was wondering about that, myself. Maybe she broke out of prison.”
“Or she won the lottery,” I suggested. “And her friends realized she could afford a much better cake.”
He laughed. “She rid the town of its chronic vagrants-and-coyotes problem.”
I smiled at that, and we walked in silence for a moment before I said, “Maybe she didn’t do something big. Maybe she just told someone something.”
Frank looked over at me, more serious now. “Like what?”
I shrugged. “Something they’d been needing to hear,” I said. I thought it over for a moment, then added, “I don’t think you have to do something so big to be brave. And it’s the little things that are harder anyway.”
Since You've Been Gone Page 25
