Every Other Weekend

by Abigail Johnson

  “Who are you going to ask for the recommendation?”

  “I have no idea. I’ll find someone though.” I was glad he wasn’t asking about the short films, especially the one he was in, because I wasn’t ready to show it to him yet.

  “I think my dad said there’s a new guy in the building who’s some kind of movie critic.”

  I grabbed one of Adam’s arms with both of mine. “Are you serious?”

  “I think so. I’ll try to find out.”

  “I will seriously love you forever if you find him for me.”

  “And just yesterday you made me watch a movie about how I can’t buy me love.” He shook his head, and I threw mine back with a laugh.

  “Okay, my turn for questions.”

  “Ask away.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Little town called Telford,” he said. “It’s a thirty-minute drive north from here without traffic. What about you?”

  “My mom’s house is in the city. We could go later if we want to forge a suicide pact.”

  Adam stopped walking. “Are you saying that because of the house or the occupant?”

  “Both lately.”

  Adam got that uncomfortable look on his face that meant I’d made him feel sad and guilty.

  “Not because of my mom, at least not completely. I told you about the guy from her gym that she’s seeing. He claims to be a financial expert—maybe he is, I don’t know. He’s got her all worked up about the money my dad is hiding from her.”

  “Is he? Your dad, I mean?”

  “Totally. Before the divorce, my dad could buy and sell the entire Oak Village apartment building ten times over, and now he’s living here and claiming that he can’t afford anything nicer—no offense to your dad, the place is better since he started working on it.” I stopped walking. “I’m starting to sound like Tom. He’s trying to get my mom to hire a forensic accountant to look through my dad’s finances and get more alimony out of him. My dad isn’t an idiot though, so I doubt they’ll find anything, which means that if she wants more money, then she’ll have to get a job and do something besides work out and drink. Maybe she’ll grow up and care about someone besides herself. Maybe they both will.” I was breathing like a bull, steam billowing in and out. Adam hadn’t known half the stuff I’d just unloaded on him. No one did.

  I needed to get back to safer, less-uncomfortable-for-both-of-us ground. “Just forget I said all that. My point is that until we can drive, we won’t be hanging out anywhere except here.” We’d come full circle and were approaching our building again. We passed the sign, and neither of us looked at it.

  Adam’s response was to nod his head and shove his hands into his pockets.

  “Let’s just do more questions,” I said. “Favorite color?”

  “Red. You?”

  “Purple. Candy?”

  “Jelly beans. You?”

  “Fireballs. Holiday?”

  “Halloween. You?”

  “Same. Candy and costumes for the win.” We went back and forth until we both shook off the unwelcome heaviness of my earlier confession. A pair of squirrels with fluffy gray tails darted right in front of us, chasing each other up a spindly birch tree. We laughed, and it was okay again.

  “More serious questions. What’s your favorite song?”

  “Of all time? ‘Classical Gas.’”

  I smacked him in the chest. “That’s mine, too!”

  He grinned. “Really?”

  “No. Who puts the word gas in a song title?”

  “Mason Williams. And seriously, don’t knock the song.”

  I held my hands up in surrender. “It’s pretty, okay. But the title...” I shook my head.

  “What’s your favorite song?”

  “‘Jolene’ by Dolly Parton.” I lifted a shoulder when he side-eyed me. “What can I say? I’m a narcissist.” Plus nobody puts pain to lyrics like Dolly Parton. “Book?”

  “Lord of the Rings.”

  I made a face.

  “What?”

  “It’s just so long. And all the songs?” I made a gagging sound in my throat. “I gave up.”

  Adam came to an abrupt halt. “Wait, you haven’t read Lord of the Rings?”

  “I started to read Lord of the Rings and decided I would rather do literally anything else. Okay, you look like I just kicked you in the nuts.” He was pale, even for him. “Oh, come on. I saw the movies, okay? Apart from Peter Jackson’s penchant for endless close-ups, I liked them.”

  “The movies are great, but they’re nothing compared to the books.”

  “Well, I didn’t like them.”

  “You said you started and gave up. When did you stop? Was it before Return of the King?”

  I gave him a blank expression, in response to which he growled a little.

  “The third book.”

  I would have laughed if he wasn’t being so serious. “More like the third chapter of the first book.”

  That kicked-in-the-nuts expression was back on his face. To his credit, he recovered quickly and started walking again. “I’m bringing you my copy of The Fellowship of the Ring next weekend. We’ll find somewhere quiet and I will read more than the opening chapters to you.”

  There was so much determination in his voice that I didn’t argue with him. I liked the idea of listening to his voice for a few hours. Even if he was going to be talking about elves and wizards. “You know, I’m afraid to ask you what your favorite movie is. We almost just killed our friendship over a book about trolls.”

  “I know you know they’re called hobbits. But yeah, I’m never telling you my favorite movie.”

  I bit back a smile.

  We walked for a little while after that, frowning at passing cars that weren’t ours. “Oh, I got one. Do you have a girlfriend?” As I predicted, the question made Adam blush. But his answer shocked me.

  “Yeah.”

  My entire body flash froze in place, even my heart stopped beating. “You do?”

  He stopped, too, and his Adam’s apple bobbed when he swallowed. “Yeah. Is that weird for you?”

  “No.” It totally was. My heart started up again, but it was beating too fast, too hard. “You never acted like you had a girlfriend.”

  Adam swallowed again but he was clearly trying to act like our relationship hadn’t just undergone a huge, monumental shift, which my hammering heart insisted it had. “How does someone with a girlfriend act?”

  “I don’t know.” We were walking again, my limbs moving jerkily as I tried to hide how unsteady the ground suddenly felt to me. I trailed behind him and stepped into the footprints he left behind, aware of how much bigger his feet were. “Does she know about me? That we hang out for seventy-two straight hours twice a month?”

  “We only just got together. She knows I visit my dad, but I haven’t specifically mentioned you. It’s, um, Erica, the girl I’ve been working on that school project with.”

  I remembered our odd text conversation when he told me about her. He’d been weird, and then he’d left me hanging. I thought he’d been excited about doing homework, but it had been about seeing her. I shivered, and my lungs hurt when I breathed deep. “It’s going to be weird now.”

  “Only if you make it weird, weirdo.” He tried to bump my elbow with his but I surged ahead, letting my feet break the snow first.

  I was being weird, but I couldn’t help it. My insides didn’t know what to do with this decidedly unwelcome information. “No, it’s going to happen. You’ll tell her about this amazing girl you spend your weekends with, and she’ll get jealous, and you’ll end up having to choose between us and of course you’ll choose the girl who kisses you over the one who stuffs snow down the back of your jeans.” Adam had no clue that I was spiraling and not just playing up the drama for effect. I mean, I w
as a little, but my heart still felt inexplicably wounded.

  “That is her best and your worst selling point.”

  My stomach sank at the thought of him kissing her. “What was her name again?”

  “Erica.”

  “Erica. When you tell her about me, tell her I hate her.” I turned, walking backward in front of him. “Not her specifically, just what she represents.”

  Adam laughed. “I’m sure she won’t care.”

  “And I’m now sure you’ve never had a girlfriend before.” She was absolutely going to care. Adam wasn’t even my boyfriend, and I felt a choking jealousy for this girl who got to claim the parts of him I’d never really thought about. And now, suddenly, it was all I could think about. “Hey, what about our pictures? Does your mom know about Erica?” I stopped walking again, this new thought stampeding over the rest. “Now you’ve got me thinking not-nice things about your mom. We sent her a picture of us yesterday!”

  It was really cute, too. We’d set the timer, then hung upside down off my couch so that our heads were inches from the floor and our legs were bent over the backrest. And he was ruining it. I couldn’t get my eyelids to close, and my pulse had to be scarily high based on how twitchy I felt.

  Adam was in chest-poking range, so I poked him. “Is your mom fine with you having girlfriends at every port?”

  “Hey, ow. You have a really bony finger.”

  I kept poking him. “Answer the question.”

  “No, she doesn’t know about Erica. Now quit it.” He stepped away; otherwise, I’d have kept on poking him. It was either that or hit him. And I couldn’t do that, because he hadn’t done anything wrong. Not technically. I hated technically.

  “So you lie to all the women in your life?” I was sort of playing with him, but sort of not. He usually enjoyed my dramatics, and I was feeling particularly inspired. What choice did I have?

  “No, but I’m going to now. Hey, did I tell you about the girlfriend I don’t have?”

  I let out a breath that sounded wounded when I meant it to sound insulted.

  “Look who’s the sensitive one now. Why are you making a big deal out of this?”

  “I’m not.” I was. How could he not see that it was a big deal? Wasn’t it big to him, too?

  “For all I know, you have a boyfriend.” His voice sounded ever so slightly off when he said that, and his gaze shot to my face as though he was searching for a reaction before I answered. That made my stomach twist tighter.

  “I would have told you. I would have said something like ‘Hey, Adam, I know we don’t kiss or anything, but I have a guy that I kiss now.’”

  His face flamed red. “Are you saying you want me to kiss you?”

  “No! I’m just saying...” Heat crept into my own face, and I turned away. I had no idea what I was saying, and for once I didn’t know if he was blushing because I’d embarrassed him or because he was embarrassed for me. “I would have given you a heads-up.”

  “In case I wanted to kiss you?”

  I threw my arms up. “For one, yes. But mostly, no.”

  The color began receding from Adam’s face but lingered on his ears. Another burst of jealousy shot through me as I thought about how much Erica probably loved that, too.

  “I don’t know what to do with that.”

  “Well, it doesn’t matter now. She’s already here.”

  “This is the strangest conversation we’ve ever had.”

  “I blame Erica.”

  ADAM

  I ran into Dad in the hall leaving Jo’s apartment on Saturday night. He was working on one of the normally flickering sconces that he’d turned off. I raised an eyebrow at the couple of lanterns evenly spaced on the floor behind him.

  “Trying not to kill myself with a live wire,” he explained, climbing down from the small stepladder. “It’ll be a late night, but I want these all rewired and replaced by morning.” He pulled his cell phone out and tapped the screen. A second later I heard Jeremy’s voice on the speaker.

  “Ready?”

  “Yeah,” Dad said. “Go ahead and hit the breaker for the sixth floor.”

  A series of steady, bright lights flicked on down both sides of the hall. Dad grinned.

  “Did it work?” Jeremy asked.

  “One floor down, five more to go.” Dad surveyed the perfectly working new sconces, then addressed me as he bent to fold the ladder with one hand and pick up his toolbox with the other. “We could use your help.” He was careful not to look at me when he asked. I don’t know if he didn’t want to see my face when I refused, or if he thought that, if he avoided eye contact, I might say yes.

  “Okay,” he said when I didn’t answer. “I gave you a chance to answer like a man, but if you’re going to be silent like a boy, then I’ll decide for you.” He walked by me like we were strangers passing on the street. “Grab the lanterns and meet me on the fifth floor.”

  * * *

  We worked in silence for the whole right side of the floor—four lights—and, despite myself, I was impressed with my dad. I knew he and Mom had practically taken our house down to the studs and built it back up again, but the bulk of that had been done when I was too little to understand all the hats he had to wear. Electrician, plumber, architect, carpenter. And he wore them well. Mom handled the design side, though she did a lot more than pick out paint colors. She refinished floors and restored fireplaces; she made furniture and laid tile. Looking around this hallway, I couldn’t help thinking how much she would have loved to be here, working with us.

  My expression must have revealed something about my thoughts, because Dad halted in the middle of capping the wires of the next light. “What’s that look?”

  I handed him another cap, and it was either too late or I was too tired, but I decided to answer him honestly. “Mom would have loved this.”

  I saw a smile play at his lips as he resumed working. “I ever tell you what we did on our honeymoon?”

  “Dad,” I said, making sure he heard the warning in my voice.

  “No, no.” He waved me off before relaying the story. “We’d just bought the house, so we had no money to go anywhere. We decided to drive to the Poconos and get a little cabin by the mountains—this was in the summer, so it wouldn’t have been crowded with skiers. We took our time on the drive, taking back roads and stopping whenever we wanted. So we’re an hour into the drive when your mom suddenly grabs my arm and yells for me to stop. I slam on the brakes so hard that we both get seat belt bruises across our chests.”

  “Did she see a deer dart into the road or something?” I asked, curious despite my desire to remain indifferent to him.

  “Somebody had the doors open to a big old barn, and somehow she happened to be looking over at the exact right second to see what she swore was a nineteenth-century quartersawn oak dining table set.”

  I laughed, because that was exactly the kind of thing I could imagine Mom doing. “Our dining table?” I asked, already knowing the answer.

  “It took her less than twenty minutes to convince the owner to sell it to us for the money we were going to rent our cabin with, and we spent that night back at the house eating pizza and drinking cheap wine while I stripped the table and she tore the ripped caning out of the seats.” He smiled again. “We didn’t have any other furniture yet, and the upstairs was missing a good chunk of its roof, so we slept on blankets in front of the fireplace. One of the best nights of my life.” Then his voice cracked. “And nine months later we had Greg.”

  And just like that my chest felt too tight, like there wasn’t enough room inside me. I didn’t like seeing my dad get choked up. It felt like he was betraying something by showing me his weakness, like he was robbing me of the anger I still held so close. All he had to do was tell one story, let me hear the pain that he felt even as he smiled, and the glare I normally graced him
with was gone. Instead I rotated my jaw and squeezed the cap in my hand, all my muscles coiled tight so that I didn’t crack with him, for him, as I watched him grieve his son.

  He didn’t try to hide it from me the way he had in the past. This time, there was no getting up and going into another room; he stood on the stepladder and clapped a hand on my shoulder, tight, like it was the only thing in the world keeping him upright when my eyes flooded and I’d never felt weaker in my life.

  I couldn’t cry in front of my dad—that would have felt like an intrusion. More than that, I knew that if I did cry with my dad, I wouldn’t be able to hate him again in the morning.

  IN BETWEEN

  Adam:

  You didn’t text me with a million exclamation points so I’m guessing the finals didn’t go your way.

  Jolene:

  Is that your diplomatic way of asking if my team lost?

  Adam:

  Yeah.

  Jolene:

  We lost.

  Adam:

  That sucks. Sorry I couldn’t be there.

  Jolene:

  My own parents weren’t there. Trust me, you’re off the hook.

  Adam:

  Was it close?

  Jolene:

  I’d like to be able to say yes, but lies are unbecoming, aren’t they?

  Adam:

  Must have been up against a good team.

  Jolene:

  Nope. We beat them early in the season and by all accounts we should have won today.

  Adam:

  What happened?

  Jolene:

  No one played great, least of all me, which means if you keep texting me I’m gonna slip and say something mean.

  Adam:

  It’s okay. Lay it on me.

  Jolene:

  No, it’s no fun when you’re nice about it.

  Adam:

  I can be mean. I’ll just imagine what you’d say.