by Sarah Dessen
“No,” I said.
“Yes. Now, I’ve been telling him to just come over here and tell you, and ask you if you feel the same way,” she said. “But he’s not like that. He has to do it in his own way. In his own time.”
Like the final question, I thought. He wasn’t waiting to torture me, or because he didn’t know it. He just wanted to get it right. Whatever that means.
Everyone was looking at me. Once, I thought, my life was private. Now the entire world was into my business, if not my heart. But, I thought, looking across their expectant faces, this wasn’t really the whole world. Just mine.
“He came over today,” I said slowly, all of this sinking in. “This morning.”
“So what happened?” Kristy asked.
I glanced at my mother, waiting for her to realize I’d broken her rules. Instead, she was just looking at me, her head slightly cocked to the side, as if she was seeing something in me she hadn’t before.
“Nothing,” I said. “I mean, he just asked me if this, the way things are now, was what I wanted.”
“And what did you say?”
“I said it was,” I told her.
“Macy!” Kristy smacked her hand to her forehead. “God! What were you thinking?”
“I didn’t know,” I told her. Then, more softly, to myself, I said, “It’s so unfair.”
Kristy shook her head. “It’s tragical.”
“It’s time,” Delia said, nodding at the window. The rain had let up some, finally, and people were now starting to emerge from their cars, shutting doors and unfolding umbrellas. Regardless of everything else, the show had to go on. “Let’s get to work.”
Everyone started to move away from the window, toward their various tasks: Kristy picked up her tray of wineglasses, Bert and Delia headed toward the kitchen, and my mother moved to the mirror in the foyer, taking one last look at her face. Only Monica stayed where she was, staring out the window as I tried, hard, to comprehend everything that had just happened.
“I can’t believe this,” I said softly. “It’s too late.”
“It’s never too late,” she said.
For a second, I was sure I’d imagined it. After a summer of monotone, one-word answers or no answers at all, here, from Monica, was a complete sentence.
“But it is,” I told her, turning to look at her. “I don’t think I’d even know what to do if I did have another chance. I mean, what could I . . .”
She shook her head. “It’s just one of those things,” she said. Her voice was surprisingly level and clear. “You know, that just happen. You don’t think or plan. You just do it.”
There was something familiar about this, but it took me a second to realize where I’d heard it before. Then I remembered: it was what I’d said to her that night at the party, when I’d been trying to explain why I was holding Wes’s hand.
“Monica!” Kristy yelled from the living room. “There’s a tray of cheesepuffs in here with your name on it. Where are you?”
Monica turned from the window, starting across the foyer with her trademark slow shuffle. “Wait,” I said, and she looked over her shoulder, back at me. I didn’t know what to say. I was still in shock that she’d spoken at all, and wondered what other surprises she might have up her sleeve. “Thanks for that. I mean, I appreciate it.”
She nodded. “Um-hmm,” she said, and then she turned her back and walked away.
Chapter Twenty-One
I’d catered enough jobs to know the signs of a good party. You had to have plenty of good food, for one. A crowd that was relaxed and laughing a lot, for another. But then there was that other thing, the indefinable buzz of people talking and eating and communing, a palpable energy that makes little things like shredded tents or pouring rain or even the end of the world hardly noticeable. An hour in, my mother’s party had all of these things, in spades. There was no question it was a success.
“Great party, Deborah!”
“Love the bistro idea!”
“These meatballs are divine!”
The compliments kept coming. My mother accepted each one gratefully, nodding and smiling as she moved among her guests. For the first time, it seemed to me that she was actually enjoying herself, not focusing on getting literature to every person or talking up the next phase, but instead just mingling with people, wineglass in hand. Every once in a while she’d pass behind me and I’d feel her hand on my back or my arm, but when I turned around to see if she needed me to do something, she’d have moved on, instead just glancing back over her shoulder to smile at me as she moved through the crowd.
My mother was okay. I was okay, too. Or I would be, eventually. I knew one night wouldn’t change everything between us, and that there was a lot—an entire year and a half’s worth, actually—for us to discuss. For now, though, I just tried to focus on the moment, as much as I could. Which was working fine, until I saw Jason.
He’d just come in and was standing in the foyer, in his rain jacket, looking around for me. “Macy,” he called out, and then he started over to me. I didn’t move, just stood there as he got closer, until he was right in front of me. “Hi.”
“Hi,” I said. I took a second to look at him: the clean-cut haircut, the conservative polo shirt tucked into his khakis. He looked just the same as he had the day he left, and I wondered if I did, too. “How are you?”
“Good.”
There was a burst of laughter from a group of people nearby, and we both turned at the sound of it, letting it fill the silence that followed. Finally he said, “It’s really good to see you.”
“You, too.”
He was just standing there, looking at me, and I felt hopelessly awkward, not sure what to say. He stepped a bit closer, lowering his head nearer to mine, and said, “Can we talk somewhere? ”
I nodded. “Sure.”
As we walked down the hallway to the kitchen, I was dimly aware that we were being watched. Sure that it was Kristy, glaring, or Monica, staring, I turned my head and was surprised to see my mother, standing by the buffet, her eyes following me as I passed. Jason glanced over and, seeing her, lifted his hand and waved. She nodded, smiling slightly, but kept her eyes on me, steady, until I rounded the corner and couldn’t see her anymore.
Once in the kitchen, I saw the back door was open. In all the commotion, I’d hadn’t even noticed the rain stopping. As we stepped outside, everything was dripping and kind of cool, but the sky had cleared. A few people were outside smoking, others clumped in groups talking, their voices rising and falling. Jason and I found a spot on the stairs, away from everyone, and I leaned back, feeling the dampness of the rail against my legs.
“So,” Jason said, glancing around. “This is quite a party.”
“You have no idea,” I told him. “It’s been crazy.” Over his head, I could see into the kitchen, where Delia was sliding another pan of crab cakes into the oven. Monica was leaning against the island, examining a split end, with her trademark bored expression.
“Crazy?” Jason said. “How?”
I took a breath, thinking I would try to explain, then stopped myself. Too much to tell, I thought. “Just a lot of disasters, ” I said finally. “But it’s all okay now.”
My sister stepped through the door to the deck. She was talking loudly, and a group of people were trailing along behind her, clutching drinks and canapés in their hands. “ . . . represents a real dichotomy of art and salvage,” she was saying in her Art History Major voice as she passed us on the stairs. “These pieces are really compelling. Now, as you’ll see in this first one, the angel is symbolic of the accessibility and limits of religion.”
Jason and I stepped back as her group followed along behind her, nodding and murmuring as their lesson began. When they disappeared around the side of the house, he said, “Did she make those or something?”
I smiled. “No,” I said. “She’s just a big fan.”
He leaned back, peering around the house at the angel, which Carolin
e and her people were now encircling. “They are interesting,” he said, “but I don’t know about symbolic. They just seem like yard art to me.”
“Well, they are,” I said. “Sort of. But they also have meaning, in their own way. At least Caroline thinks so.”
He looked at the angel again. “I don’t think the medium works well for the message,” he said. “It’s sort of distracting, actually. I mean, regardless of the loftiness of the vision, in the end it’s just junk, right?”
I just looked at him, not sure what to say to this. “Well,” I said. “It guess it depends on how you look at it.”
He smiled at me. “Macy,” he said, in a tone that for some reason made something prick at the back of my neck, “junk is junk.”
I felt myself take a breath. He doesn’t know, I told myself. He has no idea, he’s just making conversation. “So,” I said, “you wanted to talk about something?”
“Oh. Right. Yes, I did.”
I stood there, waiting. Inside, the kitchen was empty now except for Bert, who was traying up a pan of meatballs, popping the occasional one in his mouth. He looked up, saw me watching him, and smiled, sort of embarrassed. I smiled back, and Jason turned his head, looking behind him.
“Sorry,” I said. “You were saying?”
He looked down at his hands. “I just,” he began, then stopped, as if he’d thought of another, better way to phrase this thought. “I know I handled things badly at the beginning of the summer, suggesting that break. But I’d really like for us to begin a conversation about our relationship and what, if we do decide to continue it, each of us would like to see it evolve into in the coming year.”
I was listening. I really was. But even so, my mind kept picking up other things: the laughter from inside, the damp coolness of the air on the back of my neck, my sister’s voice still talking about form and function and contrast.
“Well,” I said. “I don’t know, really.”
“That’s okay,” Jason replied, nodding, as if this conversation was going exactly how he’d expected it to. “I’m not entirely sure either. But I think that’s where this dialogue should begin, really. With how we each feel, and what limits we feel need to be put in place before we make another commitment.”
“. . . a real sense of perspective,” Caroline was saying, “with the artist making a clear commentary on the events that happen within the frame, and how the frame affects them.”
“What I was thinking,” Jason continued, apparently not as distracted by this as I was, “was that we could each draw up a list of what we really want in a relationship. What we expect, what’s important. And then, at a predetermined time, we’ll sit down and go through them, seeing what corresponds.”
“A list,” I said.
“Yes,” he said, “a list. That way, I figure, we’ll have a written record of what we’ve agreed upon as our goals for our relationship. So if problems arise, we’ll be able to consult the lists, see which issue it corresponds to, and work out a solution from there.”
I could still hear my sister talking, but her voice was fading as she led her group around the house. I said, “But what if that doesn’t work?”
Jason blinked at me. Then he said, “Why wouldn’t it?”
“Because,” I said.
He just looked at me. “Because . . .”
“Because,” I repeated, as a breeze blew over us, “sometimes things just happen. That aren’t expected. Or on the list.”
“Such as?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said, frustrated. “That’s the point. It would be out of the blue, taking us by surprise. Something we might not be prepared for.”
“But we will be prepared,” he said, confused. “We’ll have the list.”
I rolled my eyes. “Jason,” I said.
“Macy, I’m sorry.” He stepped back, looking at me. “I just don’t understand what you’re trying to say.”
And then it hit me: he didn’t. He had no idea. And this thought was so ludicrous, so completely unreal, that I knew it just had to be true. For Jason, there was no unexpected, no surprises. His whole life was outlined carefully, in lists and sublists, just like the ones I’d helped him go through all those weeks ago.
“It’s just . . .” I said, then stopped, shaking my head.
“It’s just what?” He was waiting, genuinely wanting to know. “Explain it to me.”
But I couldn’t. I’d had to learn it my own way, and so had my mother. Jason would eventually, as well. No one could tell you: you just had to go through it on your own. If you were lucky, you came out on the other side and understood. If you didn’t, you kept getting thrust back, retracing those steps, until you finally got it right.
“Macy?” he said. “Please. Explain it to me.”
I took in a breath, trying to figure out a way to say there was just no way, but then, over his head, coming into the kitchen through the side door, I saw Wes. And I let out that breath and just looked at him.
He was running a hand through his hair, glancing around at the people grouped in the living room and on the other side of the island. As I watched, Delia came bustling in, carrying a trayful of empty glasses. She put it down, kissing his cheek, and they talked for a second, both of them surveying the party. He said something, and she shrugged, gesturing toward the living room. You sure? I saw him ask and she nodded, then squeezed his arm and turned to the oven door, pulling it open. Then he glanced outside, and saw me. And Jason. I tried to keep my eyes on him, willing him to just stay there for another minute, but he turned around and went out the side door, and I watched it fall shut behind him.
“Macy?” Caroline came around the side of the house. “Can you come here a second?”
“Macy,” Jason asked. “What—”
“Hold on,” I told him. I started across the deck, dodging around groups of people, and went down the other steps, coming out right by the side door. I could see Wes at the end of the driveway.
“Do you know anything about this?” Caroline asked. For a second I thought she meant Wes, until I turned around to see her and her group standing in front of a sculpture.
“What about it?” I asked, distracted. I’d lost sight of him now.
“It’s just,” she said, looking up at it, “I’ve never seen it before. It’s not one of mine.”
“Macy?” Jason came up behind me. “I really think we should—”
But I wasn’t listening. Not to him. Not to Caroline, who was still circling around the sculpture, making her Art Major noises. Not to the sounds of the party floating through the window. All I could hear was the slight tinkling noise of the sculpture as it moved, this new angel. She was standing with her feet apart, her hands clasped at her chest. Her eyes were sea glass, circled with washers, her mouth a key, turned upwards. Her halo was circled with tiny hearts in hands. But most striking, most different, were the things that arched up over her head, made of thin aluminum, cut with strong peaks at the top, sweeping curves at the bottom, lined with tiny bells, which made the chiming noise I was hearing. That we could all hear.
“I don’t get it,” Caroline said, bemused. “She’s the only one with wings. Why is that?”
There were so many questions in life. You couldn’t ever have all the answers. But I knew this one.
“It’s so she can fly,” I said. And then I started to run.
I’d thought it might be like my dreams. But it wasn’t. Running came back to me, as easily as anything else that had once been everything to you. The first few steps were hard; it took me a second to catch my breath, but then I found my pace, and everything fell away, until there was nothing but me and what lay ahead, growing closer every second. Wes.
By the time I reached him, I was breathless. Red-faced. And my heart was thumping hard enough in my chest that at first, it was all I could hear. He turned around just as I got to him, looking surprised, and for a second neither of us said anything as I struggled to catch my breath.
“Ma
cy,” he said. I could tell he was shocked by my running, by the very fact that I was standing there in front of him, gasping for air. “What—”
“I’m sorry.” I put my hand up, palm facing him, and took another deep breath. “But there’s been a change.”
He blinked at me. “A change,” he repeated.
I nodded. “In the rules.”
It took him a second: he had no idea what I was talking about. Then, slowly, his face relaxed. “Ah,” he said. “The rules.”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t notified,” he pointed out.
“Well, it was pretty recent,” I said.
“As in . . .”
“As in, effective right now.”
Wes ran a hand through his hair and I saw the heart and hand slip into view, then disappear again. I had so much to tell him, I didn’t even know where to start. Or maybe I did.
“Macy,” he said softly, looking at me closely. “You don’t have to—”
I shook my head. “The change,” I said. “Ask me about the change.”
He leaned back on his heels, sliding his hands into his pockets. “Okay,” he said, after a second. “What’s the change?”
“It’s been decided,” I told him, taking another breath, “that there’s another step to winning the game. And that is that in order for me to really win, I have to answer the question you passed on, that night in the truck. Only then is it final.”
“The question I passed on,” he repeated.
I nodded. “That’s the rule.”
I knew, in the silence that followed, that anything could happen here. It might be too late: again, I might have missed my chance. But I would at least know I tried, that I took my heart and extended my hand, whatever the outcome.
“Okay,” he said. He took a breath. “What would you do, if you could do anything?”
I took a step toward him, closing the space between us. “This,” I said. And then I kissed him.
Kissed him. There, in the middle of the street, as the world went on around us. Behind me, I knew Jason was still waiting for an explanation, my sister was still lecturing, and that angel still had her eyes skyward, waiting to fly. As for me, I was just trying to get it right, whatever that meant. But now I finally felt I was on my way. Everyone had a forever, but given a choice, this would be mine. The one that began in this moment, with Wes, in a kiss that took my breath away, then gave it back—leaving me astounded, amazed, and most of all, alive.