by Laura Nowlin
It is the moment I reach my door that I realize I left my house keys in my locker. It’s Thursday, the day my mother goes to see her therapist and then to the gym. She won’t be home until five-thirty. It’s two-thirty in the afternoon in early March. The snow is gone but it is still cold out, and it’s about to rain.
I stand facing my door for a moment. I have two options. One is to stay on the porch, hope the rain doesn’t blow on me, and later try to explain to my mother why I didn’t take the second option.
***
“I’m locked out,” I say as he opens the door. Even so, a flicker of confusion passes over his face.
“Oh. Okay,” Finny says. He steps aside and lets me come in. I’m wearing Doc Martens and a new pink tiara. He’s wearing khakis and a sweater. He’s kicked off his shoes already. His socks are green. I nearly say something. What kind of boy wears green socks?
“What time does your mom come home?” I ask.
“Four,” he says. His mother has a spare key. “Where’s your mom?”
“It’s therapy day,” I say. I follow him into the living room, where he sits down on the couch. Aunt Angelina’s house is always just a little bit messy, the lived-in kind of messy where books get piled into corners, and throw pillows and shoes seem to be everywhere. Aunt Angelina has never quite finished decorating either; on the wall above Finny’s head, there are three different samples of paint spread in large splotches. They’ve been there as long as I can remember.
“What do you want to watch?” Finny says. He picks up the remote and looks at me.
“I’m going to read,” I say. I had been planning when I got home to edit a poem I started during history class, but there is no way I could take out my notebook and start writing here, in front of him.
I sit down in the armchair across the room. It’s bright blue, and for years Aunt Angelina has been going to have it reupholstered, as soon as she decides on a color scheme for the room. When I hear Finny start flipping through the channels, I take my book out of my bag and glance up at him.
Finny looks like a Renaissance painting of an angel or like he could belong to some modern royal family. His hair stays blond all winter and looks like gold in the summer. He blushes a lot, partly because he is so fair, partly because he’s shy and gets embarrassed easily. I know that Sylvie must have approached him first and she was definitely the one who asked him out.
Finny never tells anyone how he is feeling; you just have to know him well enough to understand when he is sad or scared. Today his expression does not tell me how he feels about me being over here. Either he couldn’t care less, or he could be annoyed.
We see each other frequently, but we rarely are alone together. And even though we will still sometimes side together against The Mothers over an issue, we never have anything to say to each other that isn’t superficial.
Years ago, Finny and I strung string and two cups across our bedroom windows so we could talk to each other at night. After we stopped talking, we never took it down, but finally the string rotted away.
Finny’s cell phone rings and he leaves the room without saying anything.
I look down at my book and begin to read. The rain has started, and I am distracted by the sound of it. Finny used to ask me to go outside with him to save the worms on the sidewalk. It bothered him to see them drying and writhing on the pavement the day after rain. He hated the idea of anyone—anything—ever being sad or hurt.
When we were eight, we heard his mother sobbing in her bedroom after a breakup and Finny pushed tissues under the door. When we were eleven, he punched Donnie Banks in the stomach for calling me a freak. It was the only fight he ever got in, and I think Mrs. Morgansen only gave him detention because she had to. Aunt Angelina didn’t even punish him.
“Autumn is already here,” I hear him say in the next room. There is a pause. “She got locked out.” There is a longer silence. “Okay,” he says, and then, “I love you too.”
This time he looks at me when he comes back in the room.
“You guys are having dinner over here tonight, so Mom says you might as well just stay.”
“But my dad’s supposed to be home tonight,” I say. Finny shrugs. My dad cancels family dinners frequently enough that I suppose it isn’t worth pointing out to me. I shrug back and look down at my book.
When I look up again, it is because I hear Aunt Angelina coming in through the back door.
“Hello?” she calls out.
“In here,” Finny shouts back. He mutes the TV and his mom walks into the room.
“Hi, kids,” she says. Her long patchwork skirt still swirls around her ankles even when she comes to a stop. She brings her scent of patchouli oil into the room with her.
“Hi,” we say. Aunt Angelina looks at me and smiles with the left side of her mouth. It’s the same crooked smile Finny has when he’s feeling playful.
“Autumn, why are you wearing a Jimmy Carter campaign shirt?’” she asks.
“I dunno,” I say. “Why is your son wearing green socks?”
She looks back at Finny. “Phineas, are you wearing green socks?”
He looks down at his feet. “Well, yeah.”
“Where did you get green socks from?”
“They were in my sock drawer.”
“I never bought you green socks.”
“They were in there.”
“This all sounds very suspicious to me,” I say.
“Agreed. Finny, Autumn and I are going into the kitchen, and when we come back, you better have an explanation for your socks.” Finny and I glance at each other in surprise. I look away and set my book down. Aunt Angelina waits for me at the door. When I reach her, she lays one hand on my shoulder as she walks with me into the kitchen.
“Honey, your mom isn’t having a good day,” she says quietly. “Your dad had to cancel dinner tonight and it really upset her.”
To other kids, this wouldn’t sound like a big deal. But when your mom has been hospitalized twice for depression, you learn to read between the lines.
“Okay,” I say.
Last time Mom was in the hospital, I was in sixth grade. I spent two weeks living with Aunt Angelina and Finny. At the time, it was fun. Everyone kept telling me that my mom was going to be okay. They told me about chemical imbalances and how it was a sickness like any other, and that Mom would get better. So I accepted it, and every night Finny snuck into the guest bedroom and we would draw pictures on each other’s backs with our fingers and then try to guess what they were.
I doubted it would be like that this time. Any of it. For one thing, this time I’ll ask why, if it’s just a chemical imbalance, Dad seems to be causing it.
“She’ll be fine. We just all need to be really understanding tonight, okay?”
“I get it,” I say. She’s saying not to stage a teenage rebellion at the dinner table.
“Your mother loves you very, very much,” she says.
“I get it,” I say again. “It’s okay.”
“All right,” she says, and she squeezes my shoulder. Despite her promise to find out more about the mysterious socks, Aunt Angelina does not follow me back into the living room. When I come back in, Finny mutes the TV and watches me sit back down.
“Everything okay?” he says.
“Yup,” I say. “Isn’t it always?”
He laughs, a quick exhalation through his nose, then his face becomes serious again, and he cocks his head to the side. He’s asking me if I want to talk about it. I shake my head and he looks away again quickly. The sound comes back on the TV and I pick up my book again.
***
Back in sixth grade, he had to sneak into the guest bedroom because we weren’t allowed to sleep in the same bed anymore. We hardly ever broke the rules and I was nervous every time he came, but I never told him not to. The truth of the ma
tter is, if they hadn’t suggested it, it never would have occurred to me that things could be different between us just because we were older. We lay on our stomachs side by side and we only touched to draw on each other’s backs. I drew flowers and hearts and animals. Finny drew rocket ships and soccer balls.
On my last night there, Aunt Angelina came and stood in the doorway. She was silhouetted in the darkness by the light in the hallway. I suppose she could see us better than we could see her.
“Phineas, what are you doing in here?” she said.
“Autumn is sad,” he said. It wasn’t until he said it that I realized it was true. There was a long silence. Finny lay still next to me. I watched her dark form in the doorway.
“Fifteen minutes,” she said, and then she left. It was Finny’s turn to draw on my back. I closed my eyes and concentrated on the shapes he traced over me. It always tickled, but I never laughed.
“Two houses,” I said. “And four people.”
“It’s our houses,” he said. “And our family.”
***
My mother skips the gym and comes straight home. Aunt Angelina orders pizza and we eat in front of the TV, something we never do at my house. Afterward, I claim to have homework and go home. My mother stays. She says she’ll be home later.
When I get home, I call Jamie to tell him everything. I cry, and I tell him that I’m scared. I tell him that I found out that they only hospitalize you if you’re suicidal. I tell him it’s supposed to be genetic.
Jamie tells me that he will always love me and take care of me, no matter what. He says it over and over and over and over again.
11
The field at the bottom of The Steps to Nowhere floods with the spring rain. The boys walk around this impermanent lake together, threatening to push each other in or pretending they are about to jump in to make us scream.
We hear that hardly anyone ever goes to the Spring Fling, so we decide that it must be cool and that we will go.
The girls all come over to my house to get ready. The dance is casual, and we’re all wearing jeans. I’m going to wear the corset I bought with Sasha last fall.
Brooke wants to do everyone’s makeup, so we take turns sitting for her while the other girls watch. I go last, and it’s during my turn that she says it.
“Autumn,” she says, “I’m not going to spend the night tonight.”
“Why?” we all chorus. Everyone’s overnight stuff, including Brooke’s, is all clustered together by my bed. Brooke stops putting foundation on me and takes a deep breath.
“Because Noah’s parents are out of town, and I’m going to his place,” she says. There is a moment of silence.
“Are you…” Angie says, her voice trailing off. Brooke looks around at all of us, and nods. We scream and Brooke covers her face with her hands.
“Guys!” she says.
“Oh my God,” Sasha says.
“Why?” I say, and then wonder if it was the wrong thing to say. Brooke uncovers her face and smiles.
“Because I love him,” she says, “and it just feels right.”
“Awww,” Angie says.
“Wow,” Sasha says. “Now I’m going to be thinking about it all night.” We laugh.
“We’re going to walk to his house after the dance. Tell your Mom I got sick and left early, okay?” Brooke says. I nod. “I’ll come get my stuff tomorrow.”
“You’re going to tell us everything, right?” Angie says.
“Well…” she says.
“You have to!” Sasha says. We all agree that she has to.
When the boys arrive, we all file downstairs together and my mom takes our picture before we all pile into the van to go to the school. Jamie looks hot, and I tell him in his ear on the way there. He smiles and doesn’t say anything, but when I squeeze his hand, he squeezes back.
Out of fifteen hundred students, about sixty show up for the Spring Fling. We have the floor to ourselves and we dance together in the middle and shout requests at the DJ, who actually complies. Because there are so few students, nobody stops us when we start to dance on the tables. It doesn’t matter how we dance because there is hardly anyone to see us, and our dance moves and requests become more and more ridiculous. We make a conga line. We do the Macarena when the Electric Slide is blasting out of the speakers. We exhaust ourselves dancing, drink some punch, and then go dance again. At the first slow song, Jamie asks our principal, Mrs. Black, to dance, and she does amid cheers from all across the room.
We congratulate ourselves and agree: the Spring Fling is cool because nobody goes.
It’s a long time before the DJ plays another slow song. By then my heart is pounding, and I’m so out of breath I practically collapse into Jamie. He looks so handsome that I get butterflies in my stomach looking at him. I wrap my arms around his neck and we sway to the music.
“I love you,” I say, and I’m not saying it to remind myself that I do; at this moment I can feel it.
“Love you too,” he says.
“Did you hear about Brooke and Noah?” I ask. Jamie rolls his eyes and sighs.
“Yeah, he was bragging about it all afternoon,” he says.
“Really?” I ask. “What did he say?” He shrugs.
“He just said that they were gonna do it.”
“And?”
“And what?”
“What else did he say?”
“He didn’t say anything else. He just said they were gonna do it tonight.”
“Well, that’s not bragging”
“Yes, it is.”
“Why?”
“What are you talking about?” Jamie says. “I just told you that he was bragging about it all afternoon.”
“I just don’t understand how he was bragging all afternoon if all he said was that they were going to do it. That’s like, one sentence.”
“Never mind,” Jamie says. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t, okay?”
“But why—”
“Autumn, I don’t want to talk about them having sex, okay?”
“Fine,” I say. We finish the song in silence. Afterward, I ask Angie to go to the bathroom with me. We talk about our hair and how much fun we are having, and a little bit about Brooke of course.
“It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?” she says. “I mean that Brooke won’t be a virgin tomorrow. It doesn’t seem real.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say. We go back outside. I look at Jamie from a distance and try to bring back the good feeling I had before, but I can’t. I wonder if when Brooke kisses Noah, if she sometimes imagines that he’s someone else. I wonder if when she touches herself, he is the only one she ever thinks about.
I tell myself relationships are hard work. No one is perfect. There’s no such thing as happily ever after.
***
On Monday, on The Steps to Nowhere, Brooke says that afterward you don’t feel any different, except you love him so much more than before.
“But you’re not like, ‘Oh my God, I’m not a virgin anymore.’”
“Really?” I say. I think that that would be the only thought I could think afterward. I think that I would look at myself in the mirror and say it over and over again.
“Yeah,” she says, “It’s just like—” She doesn’t finish her sentence; she just looks down at the boys standing by the water. They are seeing who can throw rocks the farthest. I watch Jamie win. I imagine it just feeling right with him.
“Did it hurt?” Angie says.
“Oh yeah,” Brooke says.
12
“So what do you know about Sylvie?” my mother says. I take a large spoonful of ice cream into my mouth and regard her. We are sitting on the outside patio of The Train Stop Creamery, the town’s only ice cream parlor. It is t
he first hot day of May.
“Finny’s girlfriend?” I say. My mother nods. “I dunno,” I say. “Why?”
“No reason,” she says.
“You just started wondering about her all of a sudden?”
“Well,” she says.
“What?” I say.
“Angelina and I were just talking about her the other day, and I wondered what you thought.”
“She’s okay,” I say. “I don’t really know her.” We eat quietly for a while before I ask. “Does Aunt Angelina not like her?”
“Oh, she likes her, but I think she’s never gotten over the disappointment that you and Finny didn’t end up together.” She nudges me under the table with her foot.
“Mom!” I say. I glare at her. “I have a boyfriend.”
“I know, I know,” she says. “We just always thought that’s what was going to happen.”
“Well, it didn’t,” I say. “We don’t even hang out with the same people.”
“I know,” she says again. She sighs. I roll my eyes and eat my ice cream.
Whenever I wonder what it would be like if Finny and I were together, I never imagine that there is anyone else with us. I don’t like to think I would have had to become a cheerleader to be Finny’s friend again. In my imagination, Finny isn’t in my group, and I’m not in his; it’s just the two of us, like it used to be. At school, we eat lunch together and he walks me to my classes. We do our homework together. He takes me to art films in the city. At night, we lie on our backs in the grass and talk. We burn CDs for each other. We pass notes. We hold hands at the bus stop. I imagine adoring him without question. I am certain that I would if I were in love with him.
“Is Aunt Angelina out somewhere with Finny, asking what he thinks of Jamie?” I ask. My mother smiles.
“Yes, sweetie. It’s a conspiracy,” she says.
“Well, if you two were talking about Sylvie, why not Jamie?”
“I like Jamie,” she says. She spoons her last bit of ice cream out. “I can tell he’s a good kid. His parents seem like good people.”
“But you guys aren’t sure if Sylvie is a good kid?” I say. I’m pleased with the direction the conversation is going, but I don’t want to show it.