by Jen Klein
Ella partakes, but I’m pretty sure she has only one beer, which she shares with Paul. They drift in and out of my orbit and appear to be in a heavy discussion about music. Tuck alternates between hanging out with the guys and talking to me. I try to pay attention to what he’s saying—which is mostly about our upcoming senior year at Dobbs High—but I keep getting distracted by thoughts of Milo. By wondering what scary thing he’s doing today…
And yet when the sun is high and the fire is lit, I allow the inevitable to happen.
Tuck strolls up and hands me a hot dog on a bun. It’s wrapped in a napkin and drizzled with mustard and ketchup. “I guessed on condiments. You like?”
Actually, I can’t stand mustard, but it seems rude to mention, since he’s gone to the trouble to make it for me. “Thanks,” I tell him, and take a tiny bite.
We sit in silence for a moment, both of us chewing, and then Tuck leans close. “Rainie.”
I swallow and meet his gaze. Those blue eyes are very bright. And also very, very close to me. I don’t answer, because he hasn’t asked a question. He glances around at the dozens of people throwing Frisbees and cooking meat and generally ignoring us. Then, with no further preamble, Tuck tilts his head and kisses me. His mouth is cool from his beer, and slick with lip balm. When he pulls back, I can still taste the coconut residue he left on me.
“I shouldn’t have waited so long to do that,” he says. “You were right from the very beginning.”
Was I?
“But like I said in the monologue,” he continues, “you can’t see the path until you’ve walked it.”
Except here I am, walking around and still not knowing a damn thing.
Because I’m so frequently wrong, because I seem to possess an uncanny ability to march straight down every wrong path, I decide to change my tactic. I decide to—once again—mix things up. This time, I do the exact opposite of what feels right and good and true.
I lean forward, I grab Tuck by the front of his T-shirt, and I yank him to me. I kiss him: hard, long, and with plenty of tongue. When I finally pull back, he looks dazed.
“Wow.” He blinks at me. “You’re amazing.”
“Thanks,” I say, because I just confirmed the undeniable fact that I’ve been a zillion percent wrong from the moment Tuck spoke on our high school stage.
I don’t want him.
I don’t want him at all.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Tuck Brady. “But I have to go.”
Ella—stomping along the path in front of me—is furious. “I suppose you think I should thank you.”
“For helping you escape from a place you never wanted to go in the first place? Sure, I’ll take some gratitude.”
“I told you that now I wanted to stay.”
“We had a deal,” I remind her. “One wants to leave, we both leave.”
“That wasn’t the deal. We said if I wanted to go, we’d go. But of course, who am I talking to here?” She throws her hands up in the air. “Rainie! And we all know who makes the rules. Rainie!”
“Please! What rules have I ever gotten to make?”
“Oh, let’s think about that.” I don’t need to see Ella’s face to know how mad she is. Even her back looks squared and angry. “You decide when we go to work, when we come home, when we do or don’t hang out…which God forbid we ever do, because you hate it so much.”
“I don’t hate hanging out.” That’s about the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. “Why would I hate hanging out?”
“Oh. Sorry. I wasn’t specific.” I’m almost surprised Ella’s voice can carry back to me, since it’s so weighted down with sarcasm. “What I meant was how much you hate hanging out…with me.”
“Hanging out with you is fine!” It bursts from me like a small explosion. “At least, when it’s my choice to do it. When you’re not blackmailing me into it. Or guilting me somehow. I’ve spent the entire summer hanging out with you!”
“Seriously? You can’t see what you’ve been doing? God, you can’t see anything.” A burst of hard laughter echoes back to me. “You just walk around in your fifty pairs of shoes or driving in your fancy car, doing whatever the hell you want—”
“My car isn’t fancy!” What is she even saying? My dad got it used from some dude he knew on the arts board. “And talk about doing whatever you want! All you want to do is control me.” I allow my voice to go high and whiny in an exaggerated version of Ella’s. “ ‘Rainie, where are you going?’ ‘Rainie, when will you be back?’ ‘Rainie, can we glue ourselves together?’ ”
“Oh, that’s nice.” Ella pauses to glare back at me before taking another turn on the path. “I help you get a job, I help you get friends, and the second you have what you need, you’re nowhere to be found. It would be awesome if you would actually behave like a human being and help out now and then.”
“Help out?” My voice scales up. “Who drove you out here? Who drives you everywhere?”
“I don’t have a car!” Ella is yelling now. “And that’s not my fault. But you have one, and you don’t even care. You take off without it and just leave it with no explanation and no keys, so I have to walk to pick up our groceries!”
“I never asked you to get our groceries!”
“Because you don’t need to! Because I always get them while you’re off with Milo.”
“Oh, there it is.” I almost laugh at that one. “Milo. I’m not allowed to be friends with Milo.”
“Is that what you call it? Friends?” Ella shakes her head. “Although it is highly amusing, the way you throw yourself at him—”
“What?! I’m not—”
“—since the summer started off with your whole sob story about Tuck. You already have everything, so of course you need the guy everyone wants. Are you going to throw him away, too, the same way you throw everyone away? Or keep trying to get Milo, because one prize is never enough for you?”
“What the actual hell are you talking about?” I stomp faster until I’ve caught up, and now we’re storming along beside each other. “What prize do I ever get? I can’t help it that I have a car—”
“And your own room. And you don’t have to have a job, like, ever. You don’t need anything.” Ella’s cheeks are stained dark red. “I thought maybe you finally did need something, like just a little bit. But no. Same old Rainie. You never need anything. You never needed—”
She breaks off in the middle of the sentence, taking another turn so she’s once again ahead of me, pacing along the trail. For several minutes, I follow her. The path has inclined and it’s gotten hotter, if that’s possible. There’s a trickle of sweat rolling down my spine. I push my damp bangs out of my eyes, trying to work through what Ella is really mad about. So maybe I wasn’t always aware about the car—I get that. But Ella also could have said something. If she had asked to borrow my car, I would have let her. No big deal. And as far as Tuck goes…
“I screwed up.” I direct the words toward Ella’s back. “I followed Tuck here without thinking anything through. It was stupid and I was embarrassed and then I basically threw myself at him in his truck and…” I’m furious about the tears welling up in my eyes. “You knew. You knew what it was like here. You knew what he was like. You let me come up here and make an ass out of myself and…why? Did you just think it was funny? Was I, like, your big practical joke?”
“No!” Ella pauses, and I almost bump into her before she starts walking again. “I thought it would be cool to have you here. I knew Annette wasn’t going to hang out with me. And you—” Now her voice sounds suspiciously thick. “We used to hang out.” I don’t know what to say to that, so we just walk in silence. After a while, Ella’s arms move like she’s wiping away tears. “And then you just bailed on me. You were gone.”
Okay, now I don’t know what to think anymore. She’s talking about seventh grade. Or eighth. Or whenever it was that we stopped hanging out. “I didn’t bail,” I tell her. “We grew apart. People do that, you know.”
“I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did!” It’s not fair for her to act like a martyr, years after the fact. “You started auditioning and going to theater club. You were wearing all black and hanging out with Bradley and Traymor and that girl with the nose ring—”
“Sabrina.”
“Yeah, her.” I remember how I felt at the time, how Ella stopped caring about all the things we used to talk about, like what boys were cute and the Who Wouldja game. How she was doing her own thing, so I started doing mine. How I became friends with Marin and Sarah because they thought I was fun. “You acted like what I said was stupid, like I was stupid.”
“I needed a distraction,” Ella tells me. “My parents were—” She pauses, and again I see her hand rise to wipe her face. “My mom cheated on my dad. They split up.”
“What?” That is shocking indeed. “But they were fine when we drove up here—”
“They are fine now. Or at least they act like it.” Ella shakes her head. “But they weren’t. Not at first. It was bad for a while. There was so much screaming and crying. My sisters and I talked about it a lot—at least Annette and I did, because Olivia was too little—but I wanted someone who wasn’t a part of it, who wasn’t all mixed up in it and…” She pauses. “You were with Marin and Sarah.”
“You should have told me.” I’m not psychic, after all.
“If you’d been around, I would have.” This time, Ella stops walking. It’s so abrupt that I almost bump into her before I can stop too. “And then I thought part of why you were coming to Olympus was to be friends again.” She stops and lets out the smallest laugh. “It’s stupid.”
“No, it’s not.” I say it automatically, but a half second after it flies out of my mouth, I know it’s true. “We are friends.”
Ella shifts so she’s facing me. “Are we?”
I stare into her gray eyes, peering at me from beneath the edge of her thick bangs. We stay that way—looking at each other—for a long time, with the sun beating down on us even as it slides toward the side of the mountain.
Finally, I open my mouth. Finally, I drop some actual truth.
“I’m freaked out,” I tell her. “Everyone else seems like they have their crap together. They take pictures of their food and their clothes and their vacations, and they post it online like it’s all perfect. Like it’s correct. And I can’t do anything right. Every time I try to do something new, I change my mind. Either I don’t like it the way I thought I would, or I suck at it, or it’s just wrong. I’m tired of being wrong all the time.”
“Why did we leave the gorge?” Ella asks. “Why were you so desperate not to stay down there?”
“Because Tuck and Gretchen broke up.” I sigh. “So I kissed him.”
“And you didn’t like it?”
“No.” Impossibly, a giggle creeps up my throat. “I didn’t.” The giggle comes out between my lips, turning into a full laugh. After a second, Ella joins in.
“Wait, wait,” she says, trying to pull it together. “Was it bad? Is Tuck Brady a bad kisser?”
“You should know,” I remind her. “You kissed him once.”
“I know, but…I don’t remember what it was like.”
“Being unmemorable is hardly the hallmark of a good kisser,” I tell her, and then we’re laughing again.
“Hey, guess what I did back there,” Ella says between snorts.
“What?”
“I kissed Paul.”
“What?!” I stare at her. “How was it?”
“Really good!”
We’re still laughing when we reach the parking lot.
Ella and I were so starving last night that we stopped for dinner on the way home. We were considering Bel Giardino (family discount!) but saw a steak chain on the edge of town and decided we couldn’t wait. By the time we trudged up the stairs to our apartment, we were exhausted and pretty much insta-crashed.
We didn’t set any alarms, which means we both slept until almost noon. Ella showers first, so I dork around on my phone until she’s done. Then I shower and get dressed, once again spending a little extra time on fixing my hair. Presumably, when we get to the theater, Milo will tell me all about the brave thing he did yesterday. Even though my heart is broken that it’s not about me, I can’t let him know that. I’ll listen to his story. I’ll be there for him…as his friend.
Just as his friend.
•••
Ella and I are perched on opposite ends of the sofa, sipping coffee, when it happens. First, Annette wanders out from her bedroom, yawning. Then she disappears into the bathroom. We hear water running, and a little later she emerges in a robe, her hair wet. “Morning,” she says as she heads back into her bedroom. But only a second passes before she pops her head out again. “Rainie, did you see the thing that guy dropped off?”
What.
Thing.
What.
Guy.
I make eye contact with Ella a split second before we both leap off the couch. “Where?” we ask together.
“I put it in the kitchen,” Annette tells us as she goes back into her room.
Ella and I have a mad scramble into the kitchen, where we see exactly nothing. “Where is it?” Ella yells.
We get a muffled response from Annette’s room, but it doesn’t matter, because I’ve already spotted the scrap of blue on the floor, sticking out from between the counter and the refrigerator. I swoop down to pull out the…
Flyer.
It’s a flyer advertising Barney’s current gallery opening: a photography exhibit by local artist Milo Cabrera.
I suck in my breath and flip the paper over. On the other side, written in black marker, is my name followed by the vagabond symbol for “safe place.” At the bottom of the page are the words “Scared Shitless,” and then Milo’s signature.
Ella grabs the flyer from me at the same time my phone buzzes. It’s a text…but it’s not from Milo. It’s from Tuck.
Back from camping. Okay to come over?
I look at Ella, panicked. She brandishes the flyer at me. “Milo’s opening was yesterday.”
Dammit.
I fast-type a text to Tuck:
No, about to leave for coffee. C U @ the theater.
Later, I’ll deal with the aftermath of kissing him. Right now, I need to go see Milo’s exhibit.
•••
The little bell over the door of Barney’s Bagelry makes its familiar ching-ching when Ella and I enter. I was hoping that none of our crowd would be there, but of course there’s Gretchen, picking up a coffee from the counter. When she sees us, she comes over. “Hey, you guys took off early yesterday.”
“We remembered we hate nature,” Ella says, which makes Gretchen laugh. I only stand there awkwardly, since—after all—I bolted after kissing her newly exed ex.
“I need coffee,” Ella says, and heads for the counter, leaving me alone with Gretchen.
“Hey.” Gretchen nudges me. “You know we’re cool, right? About the Tuck thing. I don’t do gross girl competition.” Panic rises in my throat, nearly strangling me. Apparently, Tuck told people about our kiss. Or maybe she saw us. It’s hardly like we were hiding at the time. Gretchen grins. “Go with God. Seriously. He’s fun.”
“Thanks.” I manage a weak smile, zeroing in on the rear door, the one with the Gallery sign overhead. “I’m going to check out the exhibit,” I tell her. My voice sounds high and reedy in my ears.
“See you onstage,” Gretchen says with another grin.
I don’t wait for Ella to get her coffee. I just make my escape.
The rear gallery is small, but there’s enough room for white partitions, just like the one in Greensboro. I walk through the display of pottery by the entrance, past a row of silver jewelry, and to the back wall. There they are, Milo’s photographs marching in a row down the center. I start on the left side, where there’s a scattershot of small black-and-white images laid out in a star pattern on the wall, each of them a c
lose-up of a single rock bearing a crude chalk drawing. I don’t recognize any of the symbols. Milo must have made them up himself and sketched them onto the stones. Telling a story in a language only he can read.
Farther along, he’s done something different. There are several photos of clouds, except he’s used a computer program or maybe some kind of photography paint to swirl forms into the formations. There’s one with the figure of a ballerina, and another with a faceless bride holding a bouquet of flowers. In another, what looks like a young boy rides a horse. The card stock beneath them proclaims the group to be Daydreams, which makes sense to me. They’re all images of things someone might fantasize about while looking up at the sky. Never in a zillion years would it have occurred to me to explain that phenomenon in such a visual way, but as I’ve learned during this summer, Milo’s mind works differently from mine.
More interesting.
Better.
I walk slowly past his other photographs, drinking in each: a bridge; a crumbling church; an empty road…
Until I reach the very last one.
The one that means the most.
This photograph is also a black-and-white, but it’s larger than the others. It’s framed in gray wood and set off from everything else, so you have to work just a little harder to get to it. I center myself in front and breathe slowly, taking it in.
Milo took the picture in front of the abandoned train station we visited. I can tell because the crumbling brick foundation is visible in the background of the photo, and because a loop of Milo’s canvas backpack is curved in the corner. But mostly I can tell because I’m the star of the picture. That’s my arm, stretched across the foreground. My fingers, curved against my palm, the polish on two of them chipped. My leather bracelet tied around my wrist.
But it’s Milo’s handwriting that is scrawled down the length of my arm.