Fireworks

by Katie Cotugno

  “Stop,” I interrupted, holding my hands up. “That’s not even . . .” I trailed off, trying to articulate what was bothering me about it, trying to understand it myself. It wasn’t about him missing my performance. And it wasn’t about him talking to some random girl. It was bigger than that. “It’s just, today I’m here, you know? So of course nothing was going to happen. But what if I hadn’t been?” I shrugged, and then I said it. “What’s going to happen to us if I get cut?”

  Alex shook his head. “That’s not going to happen.”

  I frowned—that was his automatic response to everything, and I was tired of it. “What if it does, Alex?”

  “It’s not,” Alex said again, putting a hand on either side of my face. “But even if it did, we’d work it out, you and me. I would never do . . . anything.”

  “Anything.” I scoffed.

  “Anything,” Alex reiterated, sounding hurt. “Dana. Come on, hey. It’s me.”

  “I know,” I said quietly. It wasn’t like I thought Alex would cheat on me. He was right—he wasn’t the type. But now that I’d said it out loud, I couldn’t stop thinking about it: Alex out on the road with Hurricane State, and me back home at my mom’s. What would that possibly look like? How could it possibly work?

  I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I didn’t even want to think. “Come on,” I said, standing up abruptly and taking his hand then, pulling him through the crowded tent. “Let’s get a drink.”

  That night I lay awake just like always, tossing and turning on the scratchy hotel sheets, headachey and out of it: I’d never slept alone in a hotel room in my life. Every time the AC kicked on or off, I startled. There wasn’t anything worth watching on TV. I remembered sharing the big hotel bed with Olivia the night of our auditions in Orlando, how lucky and content I’d felt as we flipped through the channels and chattered about nothing in particular. It felt like it had happened to someone else entirely.

  I thought I’d get up and rehearse until I tired myself out, maybe, but there wasn’t enough floor space to do the routines. I’d seen a sign saying the hotel gym was open twenty-four hours, though, so finally I shoved my sneakers onto my feet and took the elevator down to the basement. At the very least, I could tell Charla I’d gotten a workout in. But when I got down there, Olivia was already on the treadmill in a pair of shorts and a tank top, running like she was being chased. I saw her before she saw me; when she noticed, she stumbled just the slightest bit, not quite a missed step. Good, I thought. I hoped she’d break her ankle, except for the part where I didn’t actually hope that at all.

  Probably the smart thing to do would have been to turn around and walk right back out, but instead I put my chin up, a challenge. I had just as much of a right to be here as she did, after all, even if she didn’t think so. It was the first time we’d been alone together in weeks. “Hey,” I said, tucking my key card into the waistband of my shorts.

  Olivia looked at me for a moment. “Hey,” she said. I couldn’t help noticing that her collarbones and elbows looked sharper than they had a couple of weeks ago; I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it, or if her eyes seemed sunken in. I tried not to worry about the fact that she was exercising in the middle of the night, about whether she was eating. She’d made it clear she didn’t want my help.

  I shook off the thought and walked over to the free weights, trying not to wonder what she was doing down here—if she couldn’t sleep like me, if something was bothering her. What it was that had her running so fast. I tried not to think about the dozen years we’d been best friends back in Jessell, how I’d felt like I could tell her anything and it would be okay. I missed her, badly. I wanted that not to be true.

  Olivia slowed just a bit as I picked up a couple of fifteen-pound free weights, trying not to wince when they were way heavier than I thought. “You know what you’re doing with those?” Olivia asked.

  “Yup,” I said, which wasn’t strictly the truth—I’d used them with Charla a few times back in Orlando, but never without her coaching me. Still, how hard could it possibly be? They were weights. You lifted them. “I’m good, thanks.”

  Olivia wasn’t buying. “You’re going to hurt yourself,” she said.

  “I’m fine,” I assured her, heaving a weight up in either hand. Fuck, who would have thought that thirty pounds was so much to lift at once? Not that I’d ever let Olivia see me put them down. Not now. I curled them a couple of times, the muscles in my arms crying out in protest.

  Olivia hit the button to stop the treadmill, slowing down to a walk. “Okay,” she said, “but I just—”

  “Can you not be such a know-it-all, possibly?” I asked, whirling to face her, and of course that was the moment I dropped one of the fucking free weights onto the industrial carpet and almost took my whole foot off. “Shit!” I said, dropping the other one and jumping backward, my whole face getting tight and swollen-feeling. I knew if I breathed I would cry. You should have just stayed in Jessell, I remembered her saying. Why are you even here?

  For a second, neither one of us said anything; the only sounds were the whoosh of the air conditioner and the news on the TV mounted in one corner of the gym, a CNN anchor yammering obliviously away.

  Olivia broke first. “Dana—” she started, but I cut her off.

  “Enough,” I said, bending down and picking the weights up, returning them to the rack with a clank. “Just go, okay, Olivia? Just leave me alone.”

  Olivia looked at me for a long minute, and I thought I probably imagined that she looked like she was about to cry, too. “Yeah,” she said quietly, and slipped out the door without another word.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I think Guy could sense that things were getting close to boiling over, because he sent both of us home the following weekend to see our families and regroup. Olivia didn’t say a word to me the entire five-hour ride, listening to tape after tape on her headphones in the back of the shiny black car Guy had arranged. I thought of the trip down here in Olivia’s Toyota, how excited both of us had been, and stared out the window at the highway rushing by.

  “See you Sunday,” Olivia said when we got to my house—pulling her headphones off for a moment, not quite meeting my eyes.

  I nodded. “See you Sunday.”

  Jessell in August was a different kind of hot than Orlando: browner and drier, less unrelentingly swampy. I was half expecting my mom’s house to look smaller, but it was the same as it had always been: chain-link fence and aluminum screen door, stringy weeds growing up between the cracks in our front steps. I bent down and yanked a couple of them out by the roots, then dug my keys out from the very bottom of my bag and let myself inside.

  The house was dark and stuffy, a still, stale smell like nobody had opened the windows since I’d left for Orlando seven weeks ago. Elvis met me in the hall. “Mom?” I called, reaching down and scratching him behind his matted ears. His fur felt sticky, like he’d been rolling around in maple syrup. “Mom! I’m home.”

  No answer. In the kitchen, dishes were stacked up in the sink and on the drainboard, garbage piled high in the bin; a basket full of dirty laundry sat overflowing in the middle of the hall. I frowned. Our house was never going to win any decorating awards, but it had always been pretty tidy. It occurred to me all of a sudden that maybe that was because I’d been here to clean it up.

  My mom’s bedroom door was cracked open; I knocked twice, loudly, then eased it open. She was lying facedown on the mattress, the sheets twisted around her legs. For one insane, terrifying, heart-stopping second, I thought it was possible she was dead. “Mom,” I said, reaching out and laying a hand on her shoulder. “Mama, hey. It’s me.”

  My mom stirred slowly at first, then woke up all at once, gasping, suddenly alert. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, eyes wide.

  “I told you I was coming, remember?” I asked, taking a step backward, catching sight of myself in a baby picture on the bureau. “I’ve got the weekend off.”

  �
�Oh,” she said, blinking, rubbing her face for a moment. Her eyes were the same blue as mine. “Yeah, of course. Hi, baby.”

  I smiled, heart slowing down to normal again. “How you doing, huh?”

  “Fine,” she said. “I thought you were coming on Friday.”

  “It is Friday,” I said.

  My mom looked irritated at that. “I don’t have anything to feed you,” she said, getting up and heading out of the bedroom.

  “That’s okay,” I said as the bathroom door shut. “We can go out to lunch or something.”

  My mom made noises of assent, but when she got out of the bathroom she said she didn’t feel well and it was too hot out, so instead we sat on the couch drinking Diet Coke and watching People’s Court, Elvis snoring loudly between us. It felt like a different universe entirely from Orlando. I couldn’t help but wonder what Alex would think if he saw this place—Elvis’s kibble scattered across the linoleum in the kitchen, the pair of empty vodka bottles standing at attention on the counter next to the fridge. There were a pair of men’s socks balled up on the armchair across the room, gray and dingy; I wanted to ask my mom who they belonged to, but I didn’t know what to say.

  In fact, I wasn’t sure how to talk to her about much of anything, all of a sudden: we sat mostly in silence, commercials flickering by. I’d thought she’d be excited to hear about the routines I was working on—she’d always loved anything resembling celebrity gossip, and she’d done pageants when she was a kid—but she didn’t sound particularly interested in my stories about Charla and Lucas. In fact, she sounded almost annoyed. “Is he Jewish?” she interrupted, halfway through my description of Guy’s pool party, the big house and the hissing bidet.

  I felt my eyebrows knit. “I don’t know,” I said. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  My mom shrugged. “He hasn’t tried anything funny with you, has he?” she asked, crossing her arms. “You’re not taking off your clothes or anything like that?”

  “Mom!” I said. “God! No, nothing like that. Besides, I’m with Olivia all the time.”

  My mom scowled. “Well, Olivia,” she said, like that was all the explanation necessary. I didn’t say anything in reply.

  She hadn’t been exaggerating when she’d said she had nothing to feed me; when I looked, the fridge was empty except for a thing of yellow mustard and the half-drunk two-liter bottle of Diet Coke. What had she been eating?

  “Mom,” I called. “I’m going to run out to the store for a second, okay?”

  The cool, antiseptic supermarket was a relief, the neat uniformity of the products lined up along the aisles and the quiet Muzak tinkling overhead. It felt like nothing bad could happen to me here, like I’d left all my problems on the other side of the sliding doors. I took my time, trying to balance some semblance of Charla’s diet with stuff my mom would actually eat; I had just tossed some iceberg lettuce into my basket when I turned around and came face-to-face with Olivia and Mrs. Maxwell, who was pushing a cart packed full of groceries.

  I felt myself go as cold as the freezer section, but Mrs. Maxwell’s face broke open in a grin. “There’s my other famous girl!” she crowed, wrapping her arms tight around me. She was wearing capri pants and one of her Moms “R” Us blouses, a geometric pattern in purples and blues; she smelled familiar, like Olivia’s house. I felt my throat tighten up unexpectedly at the endearment—I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed her. “How are you, sweetheart?” Then, before I could answer: “We’re just picking some stuff up for tomorrow. What do you think, should I get sausages? Or just regular hot dogs?”

  “Tomorrow?” I asked dumbly, realizing even as the words came out of my mouth that I’d made a mistake.

  “For the party.” Mrs. Maxwell looked at Olivia, curious. “You told Dana about the party, right?”

  “I—” Olivia faltered, her eyes going wide like they always did when she was caught. “I—”

  “Oh, yeah, of course she did,” I lied, wanting to save all of us the awkwardness. The handle of the basket was digging into my arm. “But my mom wants to spend some time with me while I’m home, so. I don’t think I’ll be able to make it.”

  “What! Just bring her,” Mrs. Maxwell said. “I’ve got plenty.”

  Well, that definitely was not about to happen. “I don’t know,” I hedged. “I mean, you know my mom, she’s . . .” I trailed off.

  Mrs. Maxwell shook her head. “I mean it, Dana,” she told me, and though her tone was breezy in that moment, there was something about her that reminded me, weirdly, of Guy—this overwhelming sense that she was pulling the strings here, that she knew more than she was letting on. “Come by for an hour, have a hamburger. We’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  I looked from Olivia to her mom and back again, the rock and the hard place. “Maybe for a little while,” I finally said.

  “That’s a girl,” Mrs. Maxwell said, smiling. Olivia examined the pears.

  It was late afternoon by the time I made it home with the groceries; I’d planned to fix my mom something for dinner, but she was in the bathroom putting on eye shadow, getting ready to go out. “Sorry, baby,” she said, shrugging like there was nothing she could do about it. “If I’d known you were coming, I wouldn’t have made plans.”

  You did know I was coming, I didn’t say.

  “Okay,” I told her instead, ignoring the sting of it. “Have fun.”

  I sat alone in the house for a little while. I took Elvis for a walk around the block. I called Alex and Trevor’s apartment in Orlando; it rang and rang but nobody answered, and finally I hung up with a sigh. There were a million places he could be, I told myself firmly. Not picking up the phone didn’t mean he was off somewhere having the time of his life without me.

  This was ridiculous; I was being ridiculous, sitting home alone and feeling sorry for myself on my one weekend off. Finally, I combed my hair and caught the bus that went downtown, then walked the seven blocks to Burger Delight. It was Friday, after all.

  There they all were, just like I’d known they would be, in our usual booths at the back: Sarah Jane and Becky and Jonah, the whole noisy crowd. “Hey,” I called as the bells above the door chimed my arrival. “Got room for one more?”

  Sarah Jane let out a squeal when she saw me, jumping up and flinging her arms around my neck. “What are you doing here?” she exclaimed. She looked honestly delighted to see me—everybody did, actually—and I felt like kind of a jerk for not keeping in better touch. Aside from a couple of quick phone calls, we hadn’t talked at all since SJ and Becky and Kerry-Ann had shown up on their way to Miami.

  “I missed you guys,” I told them, and it was the truth.

  Tim was sitting on the outside of the booth, baseball cap perched just like always on top of his head. “Here,” he said quickly, scooting over to make room for me, his knobby knee bumping the underside of the table, rattling the cheap metal silverware and almost spilling a soda. “Have a seat.”

  He sounded so eager that I almost laughed—and Sarah Jane actually did, a full-throated bray that echoed across the restaurant. “Don’t even try it, Timothy,” she scolded.

  “I’m just letting her sit down, SJ.” Tim frowned. “Jesus.”

  I smiled, sliding into the tattered booth beside him. “Hi, Tim.” There was a quality to him that reminded me of Mikey, but a little scruffier around the edges, and I wondered if that’s what it would be like if I came back to Jessell for good: everything here reminding me of something from Orlando, nothing quite measuring up.

  I caught up on everyone’s headlines, filled in everyone’s blanks: Kerry-Ann’s sister’s wedding, Jonah’s mom’s latest round of chemo. Becky had gotten a new job at a clinic in town and I listened eagerly as she described the doctors there, the outreach they were trying to do in the poorer parts of Jessell. For a second I remembered what I’d told Alex, how I’d thought about doing something like that when I was younger.

  “So what about you, pop star?” Sarah Jane a
sked, pointing at me with a French fry. “How goes it with the hundred-dollar T-shirt committee?”

  “Kristin and Ash?” I made a face. “They got cut, actually.” I gave them the highlights of the last few weeks, leaving out the part about how Olivia and I were barely speaking. I’d been worried it would be weird, trying to explain to these guys what my life was like back in Orlando, but the reality was, aside from one or two questions, everybody seemed kind of uninterested. It wasn’t something they could relate to, I realized; I might as well have been talking about my recent trip to Mars.

  Sarah Jane smelled blood, though: “So it’s just you and Olivia competing now, huh?” she asked when I was finished explaining, looking at me shrewdly across the table. “What’s that like?”

  “It’s fine,” I said quickly, then shoved a handful of onion rings in my mouth so I wouldn’t have to say anything else about it. Sarah Jane fixed me with a gaze that let me know she thought I was full of shit, but she didn’t press. She probably didn’t need to, I realized: after all, the fact that Olivia wasn’t here tonight said more than I ever would have.

  We ordered another round of sodas; we talked about what we were watching on TV. It was easy to be with them, to fall back into our old familiar rhythms: gossiping about people we’d gone to high school with, do you remember the time . . . ? I even told them a little bit about Alex. I hadn’t been able to talk about him to anyone since we started dating, and it felt good to say his name out loud to people who knew me—some kind of validation that he really existed, that what we had between us was real.

  Still, as the night wore on I couldn’t shake the constant awareness that I might be staring directly into my future. This was exactly what it would be like if Guy chose Olivia instead of me. Liv had a failsafe—worst-case scenario, she’d go off to college in September just like she’d always planned. But I’d be right back here at Burger Delight every Friday, Tim trying to slip his arm around my shoulders and the smell of fry grease sticking in my hair.