This Is What I Want to Tell You

by Heather Duffy Stone

  Jessica and I got dressed at her house. I borrowed a black skirt and ankle boots that felt too high to walk in but made my legs look especially long. Jessica piled my hair on top of my head and told me to leave my gray T-shirt on.

  So you don’t look like you’re trying too hard, you know, she said.

  Jessica managed to never look like she was trying too hard, but in secret, I always felt like I looked all wrong when she dressed me.

  Her brother drove us to the bar downtown and introduced us to his friend, Graham, behind the bar. They shook hands and whispered to each other, then Jessica’s brother told us he’d pick us up at 12:30 and don’t be stupid.

  Everything about the bar was dim and sort of slimy and we sat on round stools and a few middle-aged guys in flannel shirts played darts behind us.

  It’s her birthday, Jessica announced to Graham, leaning forward over the bar.

  Well happy birthday, said Graham. Just don’t tell me which birthday it is.

  He put two beers in front of us and winked at Jessica as he walked down the bar to another customer. I looked around me. More middle-aged guys, some blonde girls and a few boys in pressed blue shirts.

  Nobody looked like Parker.

  Don’t worry, Jessica said into my neck. My brother said he hangs out here a lot.

  What! I turned to her. I felt sick.

  And I got his number from your phone. I sent him a text and told him it was your birthday.

  Jessica …

  I could feel a round ball swelling inside my stomach, a sickness in my throat. She didn’t understand. It was a secret. It was unspoken. Nobody could talk about me and Parker. It would ruin everything.

  Oh cheer up, it’s your birthday. Jessica knocked her plastic cup against mine. Let’s play pool, she said.

  Jessica was good at pool. I wasn’t too bad. She had a table in her basement and sometimes we’d play there. I just wanted to be good enough so that none of the sweaty guys with heavy bellies wanted to lean over me and “help” my shot. I didn’t need to worry, really; they were all leaning over Jessica, buying her beers and watching her bend slowly over the table. I hovered near the chalkboard at the wall, sipping my beer, holding my phone against my hip in my pocket. I wanted to be able to have fun without him. I wanted to have so much fun I’d forget about him altogether.

  Jessica seemed to have forgotten I was there. She giggled from inside a circle of flannel-shirt guys. She held her pool cue absently and accepted cold beers before her cup was empty. My beer was warm. It made my head hurt and my eyes feel heavy. I felt invisible. I pretended I was watching a game of darts. I pretended I was watching the hockey game on the TV. Graham refilled my beer.

  On the house, birthday girl. He smiled. I knew he felt bad for me.

  By the time Jessica’s brother came, she was clinging to Graham behind the bar, giggling loudly and her shirt had lost two buttons. Her brother looked embarrassed as he peeled her off Graham.

  I told you guys not to be stupid, he said to me.

  I felt dizzy. I followed him out of the bar.

  At her house, Jessica’s brother carried her to her room and laid her down on the twin bed. I pulled her shoes and jeans off and folded her comforter over her.

  It was over.

  That was my birthday.

  Jessica started to snore as I brushed my teeth and changed. I set up my bed on the floor and pushed her lightly. Her breath caught and then she was quiet. I closed my eyes. I willed myself not to cry. He was busy. He was working. My head spinning, I started to count myself to sleep.

  Hey, Jessica mumbled.

  What? I lifted my head from the floor.

  Your phone, she said, somewhere between sleep and awake.

  It was there on the nightstand. Buzzing. Blinking. I reached for it and clicked it open. The little envelope danced under his name.

  Read. I pressed enter.

  happy birthday, beautiful girl

  I clicked it shut. I held the phone in my fist, tucking my head back onto the pillow. My stomach danced.

  Sixteen.

  It was like that. It could be better than anything else.

  Birthdays were always bigger for my sister than they were for me. The celebrations we had were because of her. In the months before we turned sixteen, I think I knew that this would be the first birthday we didn’t have together. I wasn’t surprised when she said she’d go to Jessica’s. And I was even relieved, because it meant I could spend my birthday with Keeley.

  But part of it didn’t feel right.

  After school, Keeley pulled up alongside the bike rack where I was unlocking my bike.

  Why don’t you leave that thing there, she said, leaning out the window.

  I looked up. She was smiling, her bare arm hanging over the car door, a green scarf wrapped around her neck.

  How will I get home?

  She laughed, and hit the car door with the palm of her hand.

  Get in. I’ll bring you home, birthday boy.

  I slid into the passenger’s seat and leaned in to kiss her. She put her hand up.

  Not here, she said.

  I leaned back, closed my eyes.

  Listen, she said.

  I could feel Keeley turning out of the school parking lot. I kept my eyes closed.

  My parents are out, she went on. There is some big lecture tonight and then a dinner. So I have an idea.

  An idea? I said, raising my eyebrows without opening my eyes.

  Yea. Come over.

  That’s your idea?

  Come over and we can order a pizza and watch a movie.

  Hmm. I opened my eyes and watched her drive. The lowering sun caught on her hair.

  Well? She glanced at me, smiled, then back to the road.

  Not a bad idea, I said. Keeley slowed to a stop at a red light. I leaned over.

  What about here? I asked.

  What?

  Can I kiss you here?

  Keeley smiled, her eyes still on the red light. Then she turned and pressed her lips against mine. A car honked. Keeley pulled back.

  No, she said. You gotta wait.

  Keeley’s house was dark and cool and smelled musty and like old leather. It was piled with carpets and books and the leather furniture was cracked. It always reminded me of someplace old.

  In here, Keeley said.

  I followed her into the kitchen, bordered in blue tiles, the countertops and cabinets spilling magazines and yellowed newspapers. Keeley opened the fridge and pulled out a plate of cheese cut into fat leaning triangles. She emptied a package of crackers into the center of the plate and set it down on the kitchen table, a massive structure that looked like it had once belonged in a medieval hall and instead of chairs, there was a long bench on either side.

  Have some, she said.

  I put my bag down and sat on the bench, slicing a soft marbled cheese with the edge of a cracker. Keeley left the room. I heard her shuffling, then ordering a pizza, paper crumpling, then she came back. The cheese tasted creamy and moldy. I ate another cracker.

  Keeley kneeled on the bench across from me. She leaned over the table and cut a piece of hard yellowish cheese. She ate it without a cracker.

  Mmm, she said. I have a present for you.

  She’d taken off her sweater and her arms were bare. I felt myself wanting to touch her skin. She seemed different in this house—more confident and in charge, somehow.

  Okay. What is it?

  She reached under the table and produced a square package wrapped in newspaper. She must have brought it with her from the other room. She handed it over the table to me.

  Should I open it now? I balanced the package in one hand. I could feel it was a book, heavy and hardcover but square.
<
br />   Of course.

  I pulled the paper back. The cover was dark brown, rough and faded leather. The binding was looped together with thin leather string and I could see the rough yellowed edges of paper peeking jagged from the edges of the book. Painted in black script, it read On the occasion of his 16th birthday. I touched the letters, they felt almost sticky. The paint was thick.

  You made this? I looked up. Keeley was watching me. She smiled.

  Well, she said, open it. I did more than stitch the cover. She was grinning. I could feel the heat in my cheeks.

  I folded the cover open. On the first page, in the same heavy black handwriting, she wrote it started here. The paper was rough and textured. The writing went along the top of the page in Keeley’s looping, tilted script, here in thinner black paint. Below the writing, a photograph—the gatehouse, my house. It was sometime early in the fall; brown-red leaves dusted the steps and the yard.

  Where did you get this? I still held the book in my hands but I was watching her. Her smile seemed different tonight. Like it was just there, not hiding anything.

  I took it, silly. Just keep going.

  I flipped the page. I realized why the delicate handmade paper felt so thick. On the back of each page was taped a section of map, cut to fit exactly. I looked closer at the map.

  Remember, Keeley said, when you were little you were obsessed with Mt. Everest. You said when we climbed Snake Mountain, it was like you were training.

  I looked up at her. The truth was, I hadn’t remembered that. Not until just then.

  Keep going, she whispered. Her cheeks were red. She leaned in closer, her body folded over the table.

  The facing page was the entrance to the Snake Mountain trail, the crooked sign—it was late fall now, the trees bare of leaves. I flipped. The track at school, the outside of the soup kitchen, an M.U.N sign—she giggled when I stopped on that page.

  I had to, she said.

  On the backs of each page, a map. Some maps were of places I’d thought about, some of places Keeley imagined I’d love. Finally, the orchard, the crumbling stone wall, the map on the back of Concord, Massachusetts and as I peeked closer, a tiny blue circle. Walden Pond.

  When did you—? Each page held a million moments I’d walked through and imagined. Keeley had documented a whole life in still pictures and carved up maps. The pages narrated a life I’d both remembered and forgotten, gave truth to places that had been blurry and uncertain.

  Shhh, she said. Just keep going. There’s a little more.

  I turned another page. This map spread across two pages, this time drawn in Keeley’s hand in red and orange, her tiny round script choosing the names of cities, drawings of a mask, boats, mountains, steaming coffee cups, all within the jagged-edged boot of Italy, and blue paint rose up from the page in points, surrounding the peninsula.

  One day, Keeley said, we can go. When you’re ready.

  Her voice seemed far away. I could feel a photograph on the last page—the back cover—and I absently flipped to it. A blurred black-and-white photograph of Keeley standing in her kitchen, her hair tucked behind her ears, her hands holding forth a frosted cupcake.

  I looked up as I closed the book, holding my hands on either side of the cover. Keeley was standing now, her back to the fridge, holding a frosted cupcake in the palm of her hand.

  Happy Birthday, she said.

  You made this, I said. She nodded.

  The cupcake and the book, she said.

  I’ve never gotten a present anything like this.

  I wanted to make you something that was, you know, a testament. Sixteen is a big deal. I mean … Her voice trailed off.

  Keeley, I said. Thank you. This is incredible.

  She shifted, holding the cupcake.

  Can I have it? I asked.

  She came over to the table, holding the cupcake out to me. I took it and put it down. I leaned over the cheese plate and kissed her. She pushed the plate aside and climbed over the table. She sat on the table in front of me, her feet on either side of me. Leaning down she kissed my forehead and my ear. I put the book down on the bench next to me, still seeing its pages even as I put my hands on Keeley’s ankles.

  I just wanted to make sure you remembered everything, she whispered.

  I do, I said. I pulled her off the table onto my lap. I would have told her I remembered just about anything but the truth was, I did see so much more suddenly. I did see us, not just in these familiar places but on the winding roads in the maps. The truth was I could picture it.

  When the pizza arrived, Keeley sent me into the living room. When she came out with the pizza, she’d torn the top off the box and lit a candle stuck in the center of the melted cheese. We ate the pizza cross-legged on the floor and then we moved to the couch and put in a movie, but with Keeley lying on her side, between the couch and me, her bare arms over my stomach. I have no idea what the movie was.

  It wasn’t until I got home that I wondered how my sisters’ birthday had been, that it occurred to me I hadn’t just turned sixteen alone.

  Part of every minute felt like a dream. It was like I was walking around half awake with my head swimming in still water. I didn’t want anything. I didn’t want one bite of any meal or to sit in front of five minutes of TV or more than three sentences with my mom or Nadio or Keeley or Jessica. Everything I started to do felt too heavy to finish. He was all I could think about.

  When I was around him he made me feel like he needed something about me. He made my skin stand up and everything inside me race.

  When I wasn’t around him, when he wasn’t calling, everything stopped moving.

  He did call, finally. I was standing near the front gates of school, waiting for Jessica to pick me up. I held my breath as I looked down at my phone.

  Parker, the phone blinked up at me. The ringer was on silent. His name blinked in green block letters.

  I clicked the phone open.

  What’s up, he said. Like we’d just spoken.

  Nothing.

  So, are you gonna come over sometime?

  Do you want me to? I asked him.

  Yeah, he said. It sounded like he was yawning. Yeah, come over tonight. Come to this party with me.

  When I hung up I could feel my heart in my throat. I went home and took a shower. I put on jeans and black boots and a tank top I usually slept in. It was trimmed in lace. The skin of my chest glared white through the trim. I pulled my hair up into a bun and drew black eyeliner around the rims of my eyes. Look at you all Cleopatra, he had said to me once. That was all I needed. I made sure everything I wore drew out the black in my hair and my eyes, drew out anything that made him compare me to a queen. I just wanted him to say it again.

  He was in the shower when I got there. I sat down at the kitchen table and my hands and breaths were shaking. I tapped my feet to do something on purpose. I stared at the joint he’d left in the ashtray. I didn’t feel bold enough to smoke it. I took deep breaths. Finally I leaned toward the table, listening closely to the rushing sound of water, the hissing of pipes from the bathroom. I snuck two quick hits. I placed the joint carefully at just the angle he’d left it, fanning at the smoke that sat in the air. I breathed in and out. By the time he came out, his jeans hanging just below his hipbones, pulling a T-shirt over his head, I felt high and sleepy.

  I shivered at the sight of him.

  Hey, you, he said.

  He leaned over to kiss me, slipping his hand inside my shirt.

  I like this shirt, he said.

  I missed you, I whispered. I didn’t mean to say it out loud.

  Yeah? He pulled me out of the chair.

  Let’s go, he said.

  Really?

  You wanna go places. Let’s go to this party.

  He held my ha
nd as we walked down the stairs and the whole way to the party, but it was still like I wasn’t even there. His hand felt cold and he barely talked the whole way. The party was at the same house where he first kissed me, only there were way less people there. Right away when we walked in he looked around, nervous. He kissed the top of my head.

  I’ll be around, okay? I’ll find you.

  I felt paralyzed. I stood alone in the hallway for a minute. I didn’t belong here. Should I leave? Why did he even bring me? My mouth felt dry and I wanted to sit down. I walked down the hallway, past a couple whispering in a doorway. They didn’t even look at me. See, I thought. They don’t care. No one even notices I’m here.

  I didn’t know if that made me feel better or worse.

  I was standing in the kitchen.

  The skeleton girl with red boots was standing at the sink. She was holding an empty glass and smoking a cigarette. She was still wearing the red boots, and some kind of short black dress with a thick belt cinched around her waist. In the kitchen light she looked less like a skeleton and more like a tired model with delicate narrow wrists and puffy eyes and bright red lips. Her nails were painted dark purple—like perfect moons. I thought her nail polish would be chipped. It wasn’t. It was flawless.

  Hi, I said.

  She looked up at me. She looked down at her glass.

  Do you want some whiskey?

  Okay.

  She turned around and pulled another glass down from the cabinet. She poured whiskey into both glasses and handed me one. The glass had a film of dust around it. I took a sip and my throat stung. I took another sip.

  Do you live here? I asked the girl.

  Sometimes.

  I’m Noelle. I held out my hand. She held it limply.

  Dana.

  We stood there for a while. She smoked. I looked at my glass.