by Julie Cross
Tate clears his throat then takes a long drink from his glass of milk. “Oh, yeah. Hockey. It’s going well right now. Mike Steller isn’t playing; did you know that?”
Dad shakes his head and then throws an accusatory look at both Mom and me. Mom holds up her hands. “I can’t possibly keep up with all the neighborhood gossip and the high school hockey team. You know how my memory gets.”
This is true, except that with Mom and me covering most of the O’Connor’s shifts, she’s keeping up with hockey just fine. Especially with all the added Late Nights at O’Connor’s.
“Anyway…” Tate keeps glancing my way, taking deep breaths. “We have Sections coming up soon and I’m playing goalie. The tournament starts next month. The weekend of the fifteenth.” He looks at me one more time and then drops his eyes to the plate in front of him.
Oh shit. Is he trying to start this conversation?
“The fifteenth of next month,” Mom repeats. “Isn’t that the weekend of auditions for the spring musical? That’s too bad. Otherwise maybe you could have made a trip home for the weekend.”
The shell-shocked look I must be wearing sends Mom out of her seat and into the kitchen. She returns with a flier from Northwestern’s theater department. “Opening night for Les Mis is May tenth; auditions are February fifteenth.”
Tate’s eyes are burning a hole in the side of my face. I can practically hear his silent chant: Do it, Claire. Now. Tell them.
But God. They’re doing Les Mis this year. Back when I thought I’d be at school this year, I promised my roommate, Keisha, that I’d at least audition for the big university production this year. And it’s Les Mis.
I’ve been staring so long at the back of the green paper in Mom’s hand that I half expect Tate to kick me in the shin or something, but instead he takes my hand under the table and gives it a squeeze. I look over at him, channeling my thoughts: But it’s Les Mis. My dream show with my dream role.
It doesn’t matter. Because I’m not a student there anymore and I don’t know when or if I will be again.
And God, what is wrong with me? This is all so petty and trivial—the audition, even winter quarter classes. Buried anger rises in me. Instead of lashing out at the town about ridiculous things like winter carnivals, this time I’m pissed off at me. What the hell am I doing even thinking about the audition?
I glance at Tate one last time, then back at my parents. Both are staring at me.
“About winter quarter…”
Chapter 39
–Tate–
“What about winter quarter?” Mrs. O’Connor drops into her seat. It’s like she knows something big is coming.
Say it, Claire.
“I’m not going back.” She squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for the impact.
Silence falls. Dead silence. My body aches from being stiff and not moving.
Finally Claire’s mom lifts a hand to her mouth. “Oh God…you’re pregnant.”
Davin glares daggers at me, his mouth contorting with all the words he can’t spit my way.
I lift up a hand. “I didn’t— I swear—”
“What?” Claire drops her fork onto her plate, causing a loud clank. “No, God, no!”
I release her hand under the table and wipe away the beads of sweat from my forehead. Right above Claire’s parents’ heads is Jesus. Hanging on the cross. For a brief second, Mrs. O’Connor glances at him and then sighs with relief.
Davin finds energy he didn’t have moments ago. His hand is around the marker, the black tip pressing hard against the notepad. Claire and I both tilt our heads to read.
Going. Yes.
Claire lifts her gaze to meet his, and silent communication happens between them. I hold my breath. Slowly Claire shakes her head. “I canceled my registration already. I’m not going.”
Davin’s face twists with anger. He shakes his head much more firmly than Claire had. Claire’s mom speaks up. “I’m sure you can un-cancel. We’ll make some calls.”
“No. It’s over.” Her voice rises, and I reach out my hand to her again, but she tugs it away. “We don’t have the money. We haven’t had the money for a long time. I decided this a while ago.” She looks at her dad. “When you were in the hospital.”
Davin squeezes the marker in his hand, then he pounds the tip against the paper over and over.
“Dad, stop,” Claire pleads. “Please.”
The marker stills, and he tries to get a few words out and when he can’t, he swings his bad arm hard into a glass of water, the saltshaker, and plate with butter on it. All the items fly into various parts of the room.
I jump out of my chair so fast it tips over. Claire’s mom tries to calm Davin, but he fumes a few more seconds and then he storms into the kitchen. Claire must sense my panic during all this because she wraps her fingers around my wrist while looking right at her mom. “I’m sorry.”
“You can’t make decisions like this without us,” Claire’s mom says. “What were you thinking? You could ruin your scholarship eligibility. What about your education?”
“My education?” Claire shouts, surprising both me and her mom with the rise in temper. “My education consisted of analyzing patterns of music notes, contemplating whether or not Tennessee Williams was an alcoholic in a five-to-seven-page paper, and singing show tunes. Jesus Christ, it’s not like I was learning to cure cancer!”
Claire’s mom flinches and gives the Jesus behind her another quick glance. “You’ve worked your whole life for this—we all have. You can’t just throw it away.”
“You make it sound like I’ve decided to develop a drug addiction.” Claire’s face is bright red now, from anger or frustration. “I’m staying here. I’m helping you out, working. There is nothing wrong with that. You and Dad didn’t go to college. You didn’t live in a big city. No one told you you were throwing your life away!”
A look of defeat takes over Mrs. O’Connor’s features. She lowers her voice to practically a whisper. “You’re not us, Claire. You’re special.”
“I’m not you,” she agrees. Most of the anger drops from her voice. “But I’m not special. None of that matters. It’s…inconsequential.”
I look at Claire, waiting for her to add on to that or correct herself. Is that really what she believes? The spark she had while she sang at the ball has dimmed in a short time.
Mrs. O’Connor looks like she has a million things to say, but she just exhales and holds up both hands. “We’ll talk about this again later.” She nods toward the kitchen. “Give him some time to settle down, okay?”
Claire stands and starts to pile up the dinner plates, but her mom lays a hand on top of hers. “Leave me with him for a while.”
A few tears fall from Claire’s eyes, but she nods, and then she’s tugging me toward the front door. The glass plate and saltshaker hitting the wall play over and over inside my head, but I still put one foot in front of the other.
“Claire…” I prompt once we’re inside the minivan. I don’t know what to do.
She closes her eyes and shakes her head. “Just go. Anywhere.”
I start driving even though I have no clue where to take her. Everything is hazy inside my head. Each breath Claire takes beside me is magnified, my ears ringing.
Warm fingers land on my knee, squeezing it gently. “It’s not the same, okay?”
“What?” I glance at her and then back at the road. “What’s not the same?”
“My dad. His…behavior,” she says gently. “He’s not mad at me. He’s not mad at anyone. He can’t speak. It’s like he’s trapped inside himself. You have to understand—”
“He looked mad,” I say, even though I don’t want to admit the reason for my panic. I know Davin O’Connor. At least I thought I did. But people think they know my dad, too.
“He’s mad at himself,” Claire agrees. “I think I broke his heart. I just don’t get how any of that can be so important to them. After everything…”
“But it i
s kind of a big deal,” I say quietly, not wanting to fully open this can of worms right now. “You aren’t just a regular college student.” I catch her eye for a second. “You’re so much more than that.”
“I don’t know,” she mutters. “I don’t know anymore.”
She turns her head to face the window, but I still catch her wiping away more tears. I lay my hand on top of hers and keep driving—another time we’ll dig deeper into this.
“Where should we go?” I ask after a few minutes of driving. She’s gone somewhere else, looking out that window. “Milkshakes at Benny’s?”
I make five more suggestions and get no response from Claire. While I keep glancing her way, waiting for her to say something, I have to clamp my jaw shut to keep from saying the three words I’m dying to whisper in her ear.
I love you.
Something shifted in me—in us—tonight. Or maybe it grew. If she turns the question around, asks me where I want to go, I’ll probably answer with: I love you. And it seems too soon. How long has it been? Two months? Maybe a little longer.
Or maybe it’s been years.
When I’m near explosion from the silence and the guessing, Claire turns her head toward me, her gaze heated. “Let’s go somewhere alone.”
I have to work to keep my focus on the road. I don’t know if it’s tonight’s tension and seeing Claire hurt or the promise inside her words, but next thing I know, I’m pulling up in my driveway, telling Claire to wait in the car.
The kitchen is dark, but the glow of the TV is bright in the living room. Mom and Roger are curled up on the couch. I tiptoe down the hall, but Jody, who is coming out of the bathroom, stops me. I hold a finger to my lips. I don’t want to get caught up in another chat with Roger or a where are you going, who are you going with inquisition from my mom.
Jody nods. She’ll cover for me.
I unlock my bedroom door and wait for her to head down the basement steps before I sneak into my mom’s bedroom. I stare at the silver key for a beat and then snatch it off the nightstand. In my own room, a strip of condoms gleams at me from its place in my top dresser drawer. I go through a dozen different arguments in my head, but eventually, I tear off three condoms and zip them into my coat pocket. Better safe than sorry.
I make it all the way to the kitchen door before my mom calls my name. I freeze, my heart slamming against my chest. I clear my throat. “Uh…yeah.”
“Not too late, okay? Or call if you’re staying somewhere else.”
Jesus Christ. “Okay, yeah. I will.”
I head out the door and drop into the driver’s seat.
“Why do you look like you just robbed a bank?” Claire asks.
“Huh?” I sit up straighter, attempting to wipe the guilt from my face. “Oh…just my mom and her inquisitions.”
Maybe this is wrong. Maybe the timing is off. I look over at Claire before putting the van into drive. “Jody’s home. Would you rather—”
Claire shakes her head. “She’s going out. I don’t feel like being social. Is that okay? I just—”
“It’s fine.” I smile at her. “It’s perfect, actually.”
Chapter 40
–Claire–
I figure he’s taking me to the apartment above the bar, but then we head just outside of the Juniper Falls city limits. Tate pulls off on a side road in the middle of nowhere.
I glance around, bewildered. “Guess I should have specified the words ‘indoor place.’”
“Yeah, I figured,” he says, his tone way too serious for this particular moment.
Through the dark, I can barely make out the outline of a trailer sitting on the very east end of Lake Estella. Roger’s cabin.
“Does he know we’re coming here?” I ask.
Tate shrugs. “You heard him before; he said to let him know if I wanted to come back and fish. He’d give me the keys.”
I decide not to push for details because honestly, this is exactly what I had in mind when I asked him to take us somewhere. No locals to remind me of my life and the turns it’s taken, no bar below us to suddenly have a crisis that needs my attention—like running out of paper towels. That happened last weekend.
Tate pulls the van off to the side of the road before reaching the trailer. He shifts into park but doesn’t cut the engine. I lean back against my seat, my gaze following the headlights pointing into the forest. “Is this why you looked all freaked a few minutes ago?”
“No,” Tate protests immediately. Then he exhales and adds, “Okay, maybe.” He looks at me, so hard and intense, I swallow back more nerves. “Just because I have the key doesn’t mean we need to use it. If you don’t want to be alone here, I completely understand.”
“No, I do.” I turn to face him and let out a breath. “Can we just… I mean, can we not be serious?”
“Not serious?” Tate stares at me, his forehead wrinkling. “Like casual dating?”
He spits the words out with disgust. I shake my head so hard I give myself whiplash. “No, no, no. I’m serious about that. Very serious. I mean right now. This. I don’t think I can handle it with all those deep, intense looks you’re so gifted at and that weight in the air. Especially after dinner tonight. I just want this one thing with us to be easy.”
He arches one eyebrow and then nods. “Yeah. Okay.”
“Let’s not make a big deal of it.” I exhale and open the door.
True to his word, Tate is completely cool after opening the door to the cabin. Of course it’s freezing in here, and he has to get a generator started. He’s outside fiddling with stuff when the lights come on, revealing the nice-size place—it’s much bigger with only two of us in here this time. At one end is a small wood-burning stove with a stack of dry logs beside it. Tate gets a fire going right after he comes back inside. We can still see our breaths, it’s so cold in here.
The fire is blazing quickly, thanks to those useful starter logs. Tate opens a few of the wooden cabinets and pulls out various items—two decks of cards, a Monopoly game, a pad of paper, and a couple of pens and pencils.
“Entertainment,” Tate says simply.
It’s not quite warm enough to remove anything yet, but I take off my coat and shoes regardless and make the climb up to the full-size bed hanging from the ceiling. “It’s stable, right?”
No one tested it out the other day. But the blankets and pillows look warm and clean.
“Oh yeah, the thing can hold, like, a thousand pounds.” He ditches his coat and shoes, too, and then flops onto the bed beside me, stretching out like we’re about to discuss trig homework or something. The comforter is ice-cold beneath me, but the heat from the fire and the generator begins to drift up this way. I can tell he’s working to hide the concern from his face. He probably wants to ask how I’m feeling after the drama.
How am I feeling? Relieved. Because I told them. They know. Heartbroken. Because I told them. Now it’s real.
And then there’s Tate. I’m here with him. I get to stay with him. That’s not exactly the worst thing in the world.
He rests his arms behind his head, relaxed and completely at ease. I smile at him and pat his knee. “You’re doing really well with this non-serious thing.”
“So I shouldn’t light a few candles and draw you a bath?” He rolls on his side and props up on one elbow. His fingers touch the hem of my shirt lightly. “Then I thought maybe after your bath, I could sketch your portrait, and then we could make love, smearing pencil shavings all over our—”
I slap a hand over his mouth even though I’m laughing too hard to hear him finish the sentence. “Stop. Now.”
He fakes disappointment. “Too much?”
“The candles and the bath? Definitely too much. Especially considering the lack of bathtub.” The cabin has an airplane-size bathroom with a teeny-tiny shower that is most likely filled with frozen water. “But the sketching I could handle.”
I only said that as a joke, but Tate leans over the bed, eyes the pad of paper and
pencils that were meant for keeping score in card games, I’m sure. Then he looks back at me. I laugh. “I was kidding.”
“No, I can do this. If this is what gets you off, then who am I to—”
I reach out to shove his shoulder—I said I could handle it, not that it turned me on—but he’s too quick. He flashes me a devious Tate Tanley grin and then hops down from the bed, not even bothering with the ladder. He’s back seconds later with paper and a pencil. He moves down to the end of the bed, near my feet, and leans against the wall. The top of his hair brushes the ceiling.
For some reason, I play along and lay still. “Should I lift my arm up like Kate Winslet in Titanic?”
“No idea what you’re talking about, but whatever you want.” He assesses me like he might actually make an attempt at this request. God, this is weird.
“Do you even draw?”
“All the time,” he says. “In kindergarten. Maybe a little in first grade.” He angles the notepad so that I can’t see it and then instead of drawing, he stares at me for a long minute.
“What?”
“Something’s not quite right.” He scratches his head, then reaches for my foot and tugs off my sock. “There. That’s much better.”
I shake my head when the pencil starts moving.
“Are you seriously sketching me?” I’m waiting for him to stop this charade any second now and start kissing me.
This non-serious Tate is pretty adorable. I kind of needed this, too. An escape from reality. I quickly itch my nose with the sleeve of my sweater and then return to my pose. “You really seem like you know what you’re doing. Am I gonna be shocked by your talent?”
He flashes me a dimpled smile. “Well, I do have a beautiful subject.”
Heat creeps up my neck, but I return the smile.
A bit more glancing and scribbling and shading ensues, along with lines and more lines. Then Tate looks up at me. “I think I’m finished.”
“I have to see this.” I push up to my knees, keeping my head ducked to avoid collision with the ceiling, and move across the bed until I’m close enough to reach for the notepad.