by Sarah Dessen
“I’m sorry,” my father said to me, first thing that night. I ignored him, walking up the stairs. “I really, really am. It just kind of came out, Halley. Really.”
“Brian,” my mother said. “I think you should just keep Halley’s life off limits. Okay?”
This from the woman who wrote about me in two books. My parents both made their livings humiliating me.
“I know, I know,” he said, but he was smiling. “It was just so funny, though. Wasn’t it?” He giggled, then tried to straighten up. “Right?”
“Real funny,” I said. “Hysterical.”
This was just one example of how my parents were suddenly, that fall, making me crazy. It wasn’t just the statewide shame on the radio, either. It was something I couldn’t put my finger on or define clearly, but a whole mishmash of words and incidents, all rolling quickly and building, like a snowball down a hill, to gather strength and bulk to flatten me. It wasn’t what they said, or even just the looks they exchanged when they asked me how school was that day and I just mumbled fine with my mouth full, glancing wistfully over at Scarlett’s, where I was sure she was eating alone, in front of the TV, without having to answer to anyone. There had been a time, once, when my mother would have been the first I’d tell about Macon Faulkner, and what P.E. had become to me. But now I only saw her rigid neck, the tight, thin line of her lips as she sat across from me, reminding me to do my homework, no I couldn’t go to Scarlett’s it was a school night, don’t forget to do the dishes and take the trash out. All things she’d said to me for years. Only now they all seemed loaded with something else, something that fell between us on the table, blocking any further conversation.
I knew my mother wouldn’t understand about Macon Faulkner. He was the furthest I could get from her, Noah Vaughn, and the perfect daughter I’d been in that Grand Canyon picture. This world I was in now, of high school and my love affair with P.E., with Michael Sherwood gone, had no place for my mother or what she represented. It was like one of those tests where they ask what thing doesn’t belong in this group: an apple, a banana, a pear, a tractor. There wasn’t anything she could do about it. My mother, for all her efforts, was that tractor.
Chapter Four
Macon finally asked me out on October 18 at 11:27 A.M. It was a monumental moment, a flashbulb memory. I hadn’t had a lot of incredible events in my life, and I intended to remember every detail of this one.
It was a Friday, the day of our badminton quiz. After I handed in my paper, I pulled out my English notebook and started to do my vocabulary, at the same time keeping a close eye on Macon as he chewed his pencil, stared at the ceiling and struggled with the five short questions of the same test Coach had been giving out for the last fifteen years.
A few minutes later he got up to hand in his test, sticking his pencil behind his ear as he passed me. I braced myself, reading the same vocab word, feuilleton, over and over again, like a spell, trying to draw him over to talk to me. Feuilleton, feuilleton, as he handed his test to Coach, then stretched his arms over his head and started back toward me, taking his time. Feuilleton, feuilleton, as he got closer and closer, then grinned as he passed me, heading back to where he’d been sitting. Feuilleton, feuilleton, I kept thinking hopelessly, the word swimming in front of my eyes. And then finally, on the last feuilleton, the sound of his notebook sliding up next to me, and him plopping down beside it. And just like that, I felt that goofy third-period P.E. rush, like the planets had suddenly aligned and everything was okay for the next fifteen minutes while I had him all to myself.
“So,” he said, lying back on the shiny gym floor, his head right next to my leg, “who invented the game of badminton?”
I looked at him. “You don’t know?”
“I’m not saying that. I’m just asking what you said.”
“I said the right answer.”
“Which is?”
I just shrugged. “You know. That guy.”
“Oh, yeah.” He nodded, grinning, running a hand through his damp hair. “Right. Well, that’s what I said too, Muddy Britches.”
“Well, good for you.” I turned the page of my English notebook, pretending I was concentrating on it.
“What are you doing this weekend?” he said.
“I don’t know yet.” We had this conversation every Friday; he always had big plans, and I always acted like I did.
“Big date with old Noah?”
“No,” I said. Noah’s P.E. class had come in for a volleyball tournament with ours, and of course when he grunted hello to me I had to explain who he was. Why I said he’d been my boyfriend I had no idea; I’d been trying to live it down ever since.
“What about you?” I asked him.
“There’s this party, I don’t know,” he said. “Over in the Arbors.”
“Really.”
“Yeah. It might be lame, though.”
I nodded, because that was always safest, then lied, which was second best. “Oh, yeah. I think Scarlett might have mentioned it.”
“Yeah, I’m sure she knows about it.” Scarlett was our middle ground. “You guys should come, you know?”
“Maybe we will,” I said, having already made up my mind we would be there even if God himself tried to stop us. “If she wants to. I don’t know.”
“Well,” he said, looking up at me with a shock of blond hair falling across his forehead, “even if she can’t make it, you should come.”
“I can’t come by myself,” I said without thinking.
“You won’t be by yourself,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
“Oh.” That was when I looked at the clock, over his head, marking this moment forever. The culmination of all those badminton matches and volleyball serves, of laps run around the gym in circles. This was what I’d been waiting for. “Okay. I’ll be there.”
“Good.” He was smiling at me, and right then I would have agreed to anything he asked, as dangerous as that was. “I’ll see you there.”
The bell rang then, loud and jarring and bounding off the walls of the huge, hollow gym as everyone stood up. Coach Van Leek was yelling about bowling starting on Monday and how we should all come ready to learn the five-step approach, but I wasn’t hearing him, or anyone, as Macon grabbed his notebook and stood up, sticking out a hand to me to pull me to my feet. I just looked up at him, wondering what I could be getting myself into, but it didn’t matter. I put my hand in Macon’s, feeling his fingers close over mine. I let him pull me toward him, to my feet, and my eyes were wide open.
After school Scarlett and I went to her house, where Marion was busy getting ready for a big date with an accountant she’d met named Steve Michaelson. She was painting her fingernails and chain-smoking while Scarlett and I ate potato chips and watched.
“So,” I said, “what’s this Steve guy like anyway?”
“He’s very nice,” Marion said in her gravelly voice, exhaling a stream of smoke. “Very serious, but in a sweet way. He’s the friend of a friend of a friend.”
“Tell her the other thing,” Scarlett said, popping another chip in her mouth.
“What thing?” Marion shook the bottle of polish.
“You know.”
“What?” I said.
Marion held up one hand, examining it. “Oh, it’s just this thing he does. It’s a hobby.”
“Tell her,” Scarlett said again, then raised her eyebrows at me so I knew something good was coming.
Marion looked at her, sighed, and said, “He’s in this group. It’s like a history club, where they study the medieval period together, on weekends.”
“That’s interesting,” I said as Scarlett pushed her chair out and went to the sink. “A history club.”
“Marion.” Scarlett ran her hands under the faucet. “Tell her what he does in this club.”
“What? What does he do?” I couldn’t stand it.
“He dresses up,” Scarlett said before Marion even opened her mouth. “He has this, like, medieval a
lter-ego, and on the weekends he and all his friends dress up in medieval clothes and become these characters. They joust and have festivals and sing ballads.”
“They don’t joust,” Marion grumbled, starting on her other hand.
“Yes, they do,” Scarlett said. “I talked to him the other night. He told me everything.”
“Well, so what?” Marion said. “Big deal. I think it’s kind of sweet, actually. It’s like a whole other world.”
“It’s, like, crazy,” Scarlett said, coming back to the table and sitting down beside me. “He’s a nut.”
“He is not.”
“You know what his alter-ego name is?” she asked me. “Just guess.”
I looked at her. “I cannot imagine.”
Marion was acting like she couldn’t hear us, engrossed in buffing a pinky nail.
“Vlad,” Scarlett said dramatically. “Vlad the Impaler.”
“It’s not the Impaler,” Marion said snippily, “it’s the Warrior. There’s a difference.”
“Whatever.” Scarlett was never happy with anyone Marion dated; mostly they were men who stared at her uncomfortably as they passed out the door on weekend mornings.
“Well,” I said slowly as Marion finished her left hand and waved it in the air, “I’m sure he’s very nice.”
“He is,” she said simply, getting up from the table and walking to the stairs, fingers outstretched and wiggling in front of her. “And Scarlett would know it too, if she ever gave anyone a fair chance.”
We heard her go upstairs, the floor creaking over our heads as she walked down the hall to her room. Scarlett picked up the dirty cotton balls, tossing them out, and collected the polish and the remover, putting them back in the basket by the bathroom where they belonged.
“I’ve given lots of people chances,” she said suddenly, as if Marion was still in the room to hear her. “But there’s only so much faith you can have in people.”
We sat in her bedroom and watched as Steve arrived, in his Hyundai hatchback, with flowers. He didn’t look much like a warrior or an impaler as he walked Marion to the car, holding her door open and shutting it neatly behind her. Scarlett didn’t look as they drove off, turning her back on the window, but I pressed my palm against the glass, waving back at Marion as they pulled away.
When I went home later, my mother was in the kitchen reading the paper. “Hi there,” she said. “How was school?”
“Pine.” I stood in the open kitchen doorway, my eyes on the stairs.
“How was that math test? Think you did okay?”
“Sure,” I said. “I guess.”
“Well, the Vaughns are coming over tonight for a movie, if you want to hang around. They haven’t seen you in a while.”
Noah Vaughn was in eleventh grade and he still spent his Friday nights watching movies with his parents and mine. I couldn’t believe he’d ever been my boyfriend. “I’m going over to Scarlett’s.”
“Oh.” She was nodding. “Okay. What are you two doing?”
I thought of Macon, of that clock in the gym, of the momentous day I’d had, and held back everything. “Nothing much. Just hanging out. I think we’re going out for pizza.”
A pause. Then, “Well, be in by eleven. And don’t forget you’re mowing the lawn tomorrow. Right?”
My mother, deep into writing a book about teens and responsibility, had decided I needed to do more chores around the house. It enhances the sense of family, she’d said to me. We’re all working toward a common goal.
“The lawn,” I said. “Right.”
I was halfway up the stairs when she said, “Halley? If you and Scarlett get bored, come on over. The more the merrier.”
“Okay,” I said, and I thought again how she always had to have her hands in whatever I did, keeping me with her or herself, somehow, with me, even when I fought hard against it. If I’d told her about Macon, I could hear her voice already, asking questions: Whose party was it? Would the parents be there? Would there be drinking? I imagined her calling the house, demanding to speak to the parents like she had at the first boy-girl party I’d ever gone to. I knew I had to keep him to myself, as I’d slowly begun to keep everything. We had secrets now, truths and half-truths, that kept her always at arm’s length, behind a closed door, miles away.
Scarlett and I pulled up at the party at nine-thirty, which we figured was fashionably late since there were already lines of cars up and down the street, parked haphazardly on the curbs and against mailboxes. It was Ginny Tabor’s house, Ginny Tabor’s party, and the first thing we saw when we walked up the driveway was Ginny Tabor, already drunk and sitting on the back of her mother’s BMW with a wine cooler in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
“Scarlett!” she screamed at us as we came up on the front porch, which was white and chocolate brown like the rest of the house. The Tabors lived in what looked like a big ginger-bread house, all Tudor and eaves and flower boxes.
Ginny was still yelling at Scarlett as she jumped off the back of the car, dragging Brett Hershey by the hand.
“Hey, girll” Ginny said as she came closer, stumbling a bit, past a big fountain that was in the middle of the circular driveway. She was in a red dress and heels, too fancy for just a Friday night beer bash. “You’re just the person I want to talk to.”
Beside me I heard Scarlett sigh. She had a cold and hadn’t wanted to come out anyway. It was only because I’d begged her, not wanting to make an entrance by myself, that she’d gotten up off the couch where she’d been comfortable with her tissue box and the television. And that was only after I’d had to dodge Noah Vaughn, who sat sulking in our kitchen as I said good-bye, glaring at me, as if he’d expected me to suddenly decide to be his girlfriend again. His little sister, Clara, clung to my legs and begged me to stay, and my mother reminded me again to bring Scarlett over if I wanted. I half expected them to tie me down and force me to be with them, keeping me from what I was sure would be the most important night of my life.
I only hoped that Macon could appreciate what I’d been through to meet him.
I kept trying to look for him without being obvious, while Ginny threw her arms around Scarlett. Brett stood by looking uncomfortable. He was a steely kind of guy, an All-American jock, with broad shoulders and a crew cut.
“This has been the best night. You would not believe the stuff that has happened,” Ginny said into Scarlett’s face, and I could smell her breath from where I was standing. “Laurie Miller and Kent Hutchinson have been in the guest bedroom like all night, and the neighbors already called the police once. But our housekeeper is chaperoning, so they couldn’t do anything but tell us to keep it down.”
“Really.” Scarlett sniffled, reaching in her pocket for a tissue.
“And Elizabeth Gunderson is here, with all those girls she’s been hanging out with since Michael died. They’re all up in the attic drinking wine and crying. I heard they had some shrine set up to him, but I’m not sure if that’s just a rumor.” She took another swig of her wine cooler. “Isn’t that weird? Like they’re trying to bring him back or something.”
“We should go in,” I said, grabbing the back of Scarlett’s shirt and pulling her behind me. Inside, the music had stopped suddenly, and I could hear a girl laughing. “We’re looking for someone.”
“Who?” Ginny shouted after us, as Brett wrapped his arms around her waist, holding her back. The music came back on inside, bass thumping, as we got closer. She yelled something I couldn’t make out, words half slurred and unfinished, as we went inside.
I pushed the half-open door with my hand, then stepped in and promptly bumped right into Caleb Mitchell and Sasha Benedict, who were lip-locked next to the grandfather clock. In the living room, I could see some people dancing, others lying across the couch in front of the TV, an MTV VJ talking soundlessly on the wide screen. Further back, in the den, a group of girls were playing quarters, bouncing a coin across the coffee table. I didn’t see Macon anywhere.
&n
bsp; “Come on,” Scarlett said, and I followed her down the hall into the kitchen, where a bunch of people were perched on the bright white counters and sitting at the table, smoking cigarettes and drinking. Liza Corbin, who had been the biggest geek before a summer of modeling school and a nose job, was perched on some linebacker’s lap, head thrown back against his shoulder, laughing. Another girl from my homeroom was sitting on the floor, knees pulled up to her chest, holding a wine cooler and looking kind of green. Scarlett walked down a side hallway and pushed open a door, surprising a Hispanic woman inside who was sitting on a twin bed watching a Falcon Crest rerun and doing needlepoint.
“Sorry,” Scarlett said as the woman looked up at us, eyes wide, and we closed the door again. She shook her head, smiling. “That must be the chaperone.”
“Must be,” I said. I was beginning to think this whole night had been a mistake; we’d seen just about every member of the football team, all the cheerleaders, about half the school tramps, and no Macon anywhere. I felt stupid in the clothes I’d so carefully picked out to seem thrown on at random, as if I went to parties to meet boys all the time.
We went upstairs, still looking, but he wasn’t there. I felt like a fool, searching for him when he was probably miles away, on the way to the beach or D.C., just because he felt like it.
I could tell something big was happening before we even got back downstairs; it was too quiet, and I could hear someone screaming. As I peered around the corner, I saw Ginny in the living room, standing over a pile of broken glass on the carpet. A red stain that matched her dress was seeping into the thick, white pile. She was unsteady, her face flushed, one finger pointed at the door.
“That’s it, get out!” she screamed at the group of people huddled around her, who all stepped back a couple of feet and kept staring. “I mean it. Now!!!”
“Uh-oh,” Scarlett said from behind me. “I wonder what happened.”
“Someone broke some precious heirloom,” a girl in front of us, who I recognized from P.E., said in a low voice. “Wedgwood or crystal or something, and spilled red wine all over the carpet.”