by Sarah Dessen
“Mmm-hmm,” she said sympathetically.
“It’s just weird,” I said, wondering why I was telling her all this, and yet fully unable to stop, “I don’t know what to do.”
She took in a breath, and for a second I thought I might actually get a full sentence. But then she sighed and said, “Uh-huh. ”
Clearly, this was not what I needed. So I said my good-byes, leaving Monica still flipping channels, and drove back into town. And there, at a traffic light by the Lakeview Mall, I finally found what I was looking for.
Wes. He was across the way, facing me, and I flicked my lights at him. When the light changed, he pulled into the lot in front of Milton’s Market while I turned around and doubled back to meet him.
“I thought you were grounded,” he said, as I got out of my car and walked over to where he was standing in front of the truck. I couldn’t believe how happy I was to see him.
“I am,” I said. “I’m at yoga.”
He looked at me, raising his eyebrows, and I felt myself smile, suddenly feeling reassured. Of course I wouldn’t go back to Jason. Of course I wasn’t the same girl again. It had just taken seeing Wes to remind me.
“Okay, so I’m not at yoga,” I said. I shook my head. “God, this night has just been . . . I don’t know. Weird. I just needed to get out. Too much to think about.”
He nodded, running a hand through his hair. “I know the feeling.”
“So what are you doing?” I asked. “Working?”
“Um,” he said, glancing at the truck, “not really. I took the night off. I have a bunch of stuff I have to get done.”
I looked at my watch, then said, “I’m have another hour before I’m due home. You want company?”
“Um,” he said again. I noticed this, for some reason. In fact, as I stood there, I noticed that he was jumpy, nervous even. “Better not. I’ve got to meet with this client at seven-thirty. You’d be late.”
“Oh.” I tucked a piece of hair behind my ear, and neither of us said anything for a minute, a silence more awkward than any I’d ever felt between us. Something’s going on, I thought, and immediately I flashed back to that night at the hospital, when I’d cried. Maybe it had been too much, and had freaked him out. We’d only talked on the phone since then, hadn’t seen each other. For all I knew, this change had happened ages ago, and I was only just catching up with it now.
“It’s just,” he said, as I turned my head, watching a car pass by, “just this thing I have to do. You wouldn’t want to come.”
I felt my body reacting, my posture straightening, as I shifted into the defensive mode I knew so well. “Yeah, I should go anyway,” I said.
“Well, hang out for a second,” he said. “What’s been going on?”
“Not much.” I looked at my watch. “God, I’m gonna go. It’s stupid for me to even be risking this, with everything that’s happened. And I have this email from Jason to answer.”
“Jason?” He looked surprised. “Really.”
I nodded, flipping my car keys in my hand. “I don’t know, he’s having some problems, we’re in touch. He wants to get back together, I think.”
“Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know,” I said, even though I knew it wasn’t. “Maybe.”
He was looking at me now: I had his full attention. Which was why I turned my back and started walking to my car.
“Macy,” he said, “hold on a second.”
“I really have to go,” I told him. “I’ll see you around.”
“Wait.” I was still walking, but I could hear him coming up behind me, knew he’d put his hand on my shoulder even before he did. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” I said, and started walking again. “I’m fine.” Even when I got to my car and opened the door, he hadn’t moved, stayed there as I drove away. I would have thought this would make me feel better, for once getting to be the one to leave and not the one left behind. But it didn’t. Not at all.
I was almost all the way home when I turned around.
But he was gone. I sat at the light for a second, the big time and temperature sign at Willow Bank blinking above me: 7:24, 78 degrees. I kept looking from the red stoplight to the numbers, then back again, and all of a sudden I knew where to go.
Call it a gut feeling, but all the way to the World of Waffles I was sure that somehow, I could fix this. Maybe I’d just been too sensitive. He had a lot on his mind. It probably had nothing to do with me. But he had been acting so weird, checking his watch. That I knew I hadn’t imagined. But regardless, he needed to know why I’d been so cold to him, how important he was to me. Maybe that would freak him out, too. But it was the Truth. And we’d always held to that.
As soon as I saw his truck parked in the lot, I felt myself relax. I can do this, I thought, as I pulled in two spaces down and cut my engine, then pushed my door open. The air was full of that sweet, doughy smell, and as I started toward the front door, I reminded myself that this, too, was proof that I had changed. Once, I would have just let Wes go. But I was different now.
I was different all the way across the parking lot, to the edge of the curb, almost to the door. But then I saw him, sitting in the same booth against the window. He wasn’t alone.
Gotcha, I thought, and it was weird that it felt exactly the same way, a sudden shock, a jump of the heart, like your entire system shuts down, and then, as you stand there gasping, somehow reboots. Somehow.
I hadn’t heard a lot about Becky, but I recognized her with just one look. Like Wes had said, she was skinny, angular, with a short haircut, the ends of which barely touched her collar-bone. She had on a thin black tank top, a rosary necklace, and dark red lipstick, which had already stained the rim of the coffee mug she was holding between her hands. Wes was sitting opposite her, talking, and she was looking at him intently, her gaze steady, as if what he was saying was the most important thing in the world. And probably it was. Maybe he was telling her his deepest secrets. Or asking her the question I’d been waiting for. I’d never know.
I got back in my car, starting the engine, then drove off. It wasn’t until I pulled onto the highway that it all really sunk in, how temporary our friendship had been. We’d been on our breaks, after all, but it wasn’t our relationships that were on pause: it was us. Now we were both in motion again, moving ahead. So what if there were questions left unanswered. Life went on. We knew that better than anyone.
Chapter Eighteen
For weeks, my mother had been concerned about me. Now, it was my turn to really worry.
My mother had always worked hard. But I’d never seen her like this. Maybe it was just that I was up close now, for six or seven hours each day, where I could hear the constant string of phone conversations, the clattering of her answering emails, and watch the constant stream of contractors, realtors, and salespeople coming in and out of her office. It was now July twenty-third, which meant the townhouse opening and the gala celebrating it were a little over two weeks away. Everyone else seemed to think things were going well, but my mother wasn’t happy with the presales. Or the marble tubs that had been installed so far. Or several of her contractors, who, at least in her view, cared more about little things like sleeping and the occasional Sunday off than getting everything done exactly right, ahead of schedule. I’d been aware for awhile of how tired she looked, and how she hardly ever seemed to smile. But all of a sudden, I began to see that things were worse than I’d realized.
Maybe I should have noticed earlier, but I’d been distracted with my own problems. After what happened with Wes, though, I’d stopped resisting my punishment. It was weird how, with things pretty much done between us, I could so easily go back to the life I’d had before. I found myself forgetting the girl I’d become, who’d been, if not fearless, not as afraid.
My life was quiet, organized, and silent. My mother’s however, was fast and frenetic. She never seemed to sleep, and she was losing weight, the dark circles under her eyes cle
arly visible, despite her always careful application of concealer. More and more I found myself watching her, worrying about the toll her stress was taking on her body. Sometimes you had signs: sometimes you didn’t. But I kept a close eye anyway.
“Mom,” I said one day, as I stood in her open door, the chicken salad sandwich I’d ordered for her in my hand. It was now two-thirty, which meant it had been sitting on the corner of my desk, the mayonnaise in it certainly courting food poisoning, for almost three hours. “You have to eat. Now.”
“Oh, honey, I will,” she said, picking up some pink message slips and flipping through them. “Bring it in, I’ll get to it as soon as I finish this.”
I came in just as she started talking on the phone again, clicking away at her keyboard. Arranging her sandwich on a paper plate, I listened as she talked with the chef she’d hired for the gala, who called himself Rathka. He’d come highly recommended, but so far he and my mother had butted heads repeatedly, about his erratic schedule (he never seemed to answer the phone), the expensive china dishes he insisted she rent (because only they allowed the full culinary experience), and the menu, about which he’d so far declined to give specifics.
“What I mean,” my mother was saying as I poured her a Diet Coke, putting it next to her sandwich, “is that because I am inviting seventy-five people, and because this is a most important event, I’d like to have a bit more of a concrete idea of what we’ll be eating.”
I folded a napkin, sliding it under the edge of her paper plate, then nudged both closer to her elbow. Only when they bumped it did she look up at me, mouthing a thank-you. But then she only took a sip of the Diet Coke, ignoring the sandwich altogether.
“Yes, I understand there will be lamb,” she said, rolling her eyes. Lately it seemed like my mother was battling with everyone. “But lamb does not a full menu make. . . . It means, I need more details.” There was a pause. “I understand that you’re an artiste, Rathka. But I am a businesswoman. And I need some idea of what I’m paying for.”
I went back to my desk and sat down, swiveling in my chair, and punched a few keys, calling up my own email account. While working for my mother kept me busier than the info desk ever had, there was the occasional bit of downtime. It was then that I always seemed to find myself staring at another email from Jason.
The night I’d seen Wes, I’d come home to find Jason’s message still on my screen. While my first thought was to just delete and ignore it, I reconsidered. So I sat down, my fingers poised over the keyboard. Being pushed back to this life was one thing. Now at least I felt like I was choosing it. And it wasn’t like I had other options, anyway.
I wrote to Jason that I hated the info desk, that I just felt like it wasn’t the job for me, and I probably should have quit right away instead of staying. I told him how his other email, announcing our break, had hurt me, and how I wasn’t sure how I felt about us getting back together at the end of the summer, or ever. But I also told him I was sorry about his grandmother, and that if he needed to talk, I was here. It was the least I could do, I figured. I wasn’t going to turn my back on someone in their moment of weakness.
So now we were in contact, if you could call it that. Our emails were short and to the point: he talked about Brain Camp, how it was stimulating but a lot of work, and I wrote about my mother and how stressed out she was. I didn’t worry so much about what he thought of what I wrote, what he might read between the lines. I didn’t race to answer him either, sometimes letting a day or two go before I replied, letting the words come at their own pace. When they did, I’d just type them up and hit Send, trying not to overthink. He always wrote back faster than I did, and had even started hinting about us seeing each other the day he got back, the seventh, which was also the day of the gala. The more I pulled back, the more he seemed to move forward. I wondered if it was really because he cared about me, or if now I was just another challenge.
I still thought about Wes a lot. It had been about two weeks now, and we hadn’t talked. The first few days afterwards he tried to call me on my cell phone, but when I saw his number pop up on the screen I just slid it aside, letting it ring, and eventually turned it off entirely. I knew what he’d think: we’d just been friends, after all, and we’d always talked about Becky and Jason before, so why not now? I didn’t know the answer to this, just as I didn’t know why it had bothered me so much to see him with Becky. She’d come back to him, just like Jason had come back to me, and I knew he was probably happy about that. I should have been happy, too, but I just wasn’t.
Occasionally I heard from Kristy, who had in this interim gone from smitten with Baxter to positively lovesick. “Oh, Macy,” she’d sigh in my ear, sounding so wistful and happy I could have hated her, if I hadn’t thought she so deserved it. “He’s just extraordinary. Truly extraordinary.”
I kept waiting for her to bring up Becky, and her and Wes being back together, but she never did, knowing, probably, that it was a sore subject. She did, however, say that Wes had been asking about me, and she wondered if something had happened between us. “Is that what he said?” I asked her.
“No,” she’d replied, switching the phone to her other ear. “It’s Wes. He never says anything.”
Once he had, I thought. Once he’d said a lot, to me. “It’s nothing,” I told her. “We just, you know, don’t have that much in common.” And maybe this was true, after all.
It was a Friday, which was supposed to be a good thing. For me, though, and the concrete guy in my mother’s office, things were just going from bad to worse.
“. . . and I will not be paying any overtime for a job that was guaranteed to be done over a week ago!” I could hear my mother say. This was the fourth meeting she’d had with a subcontractor today, and they’d all gone pretty much the same way. As in, not well.
“The weather,” the concrete guy inside said, “was—”
“The weather,” my mother shot back, interrupting him, “is something that you, as a professional who deals with it as a factor in all jobs, should take into consideration when submitting a bid for work. This is summer. It rains!”
My mother’s voice, so brittle and shrill these days, sent a chill down my spine. I could only imagine how the concrete guy felt.
There was a bit more back and forth, and then their voices dropped, which meant this meeting was almost over. Sure enough, a second later the door opened, and the concrete guy, heavyset and irritated-looking, mumbled past my desk and slammed out of the office, the windows rattling in his wake.
My phone buzzed, and I picked it up. “Macy,” my mother said. She sounded exhausted. “Could you bring me a water, please?”
I reached into the small fridge beside my desk to get one, then pushed out my chair and walked to her door. For once, my mother was not on the phone or staring at the computer screen. Instead, she was sitting back in her desk chair, looking out the window at the sign across the street advertising the townhouses. There was a truck parked in front of it, so you could see only the last part: AVAILABLE AUGUST 8TH. SIGN UP FOR YOURS NOW!
I twisted the cap off the water, then slid it across the desk to her. I watched her take a sip, closing her eyes, then said, “You okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said, automatically, unthinkingly. “It’s always like this at the end of a project. It was like this with the houses, and the apartments. It doesn’t matter if it’s fifty million-dollar townhouses or one spec house. Everything always gets crazy at the end. You just have to keep going, regardless of how awful it gets. So that’s what I do.” She sipped at her water again. “Even on days like this, when I’m sure it’s going to kill me.”
“Mom,” I said. “Don’t even say that.”
She smiled again, a tired smile, the only smile I ever saw from her lately. “It’s just an expression,” she said, but I still felt uneasy. “I’m fine.”
For the rest of the afternoon, I busied myself with the gala guest list. At four forty-five, I sat back in my chair, grate
ful I only had fourteen minutes and counting before I got to escape. Then, though, two things happened. The phone rang, and my sister walked in.
“Wildflower Ridge Sales,” I said, waving at her as she shut the door behind her and walked up to my desk.
“Meez Queensh pleeze es Raffka,” the voice on the other end said. Rathka, besides having an accent that made him almost completely incomprehensible, always seemed to talk with his mouth pressed right up to the receiver.
“Right, hold please.” I hit the button, then looked up at Caroline, who was standing in front of me, hands clasped together, her face expectant. “Hey,” I said. “What’s up?”
She took a breath to answer, but then my mother opened her office door, sticking her head out. “Is line one for me?” she asked, then saw my sister. “Caroline, hello. When did you get here?”
My sister looked at her, then back at me. Clearly, she was working up to something. She took in another breath, smiled, then said, “It’s done.”
There was a second or two of silence as my mother and I processed this. On the phone in front of me, the red light was blinking.
“It’s done,” my mother repeated slowly.
Caroline was still looking at us, expectant.
“The beach house,” I said finally. “Right?”
“Yes!” Caroline clapped her hands, three times fast, like this was a game show and I’d won the showcase showdown. “It’s done! And it’s fabulous. Fabulous! You have to come and see it. Right now.”
“Now?” My mother glanced at the clock, then back at my blinking phone. “But it’s—”
“Friday. Quitting time. The weekend.” Caroline, clearly, had thought this through. “I’ve gassed up my car and bought sandwiches so we won’t even have to stop for dinner. If we leave in the next half hour, we might even get there for the last of the sunset.”
My mother put her hand on my desk. I watched her fingers curl around the edge. “Caroline,” she said slowly, “I’m sure it’s just wonderful. But I can’t get away this weekend. There’s just too much work to do.”