“Thank you,” I say. “You really didn’t have to do this.”
“It’s fine.” She side-eyes me. “It’s been months since I’ve gotten roped into one of Pam’s projects.”
“Someday you’ll have to train me in your project-avoiding ways.”
When we get to the Akin Farm, the pumpkins are already organized on the front lawn. The Akin boys help us load the truck, so it really doesn’t take that long. We make the first and second trips, and before I know it, we’re on the third, and we’re loading the last of the pumpkins.
I tic-shrug as Mrs. Akin presses a couple mason jars into my hands. “Thanks for your help. And please tell your mother thank you, too. She’s done such a nice thing, organizing all this.” She nods to the jars. “Can you give those to her? They’re my Brunswick stew.”
“Sure.”
I tic-shrug a couple more times, but she doesn’t even bat an eyelash. All the ladies in Pam’s Sunday school think I’m “just so adorable,” and they like to embarrass me by trying to fix me up with their daughters and granddaughters. Then, we do the super polite southern dance of “You’re so welcome,” and “Oh, no, thank you.” And then we’re off to the church.
We pass the billboard for my dad’s store out on 75. You can tell a lot about a place from their billboards. For example, here is a taxonomy of the ones that dot 75 as it winds down through the southern half of Georgia:
It kind of makes you wonder what the rest of the world thinks about us as they grab their French fries and gasoline on the way to Florida. Sometimes it’s weird how it’s possible to be simultaneously so proud and embarrassed to be from a place.
Pam is already at the church by the time we get there with the last of our pumpkins. She stands with her megaphone, a petite, motherly dictator, directing people on where to take cans for the food drive, and how to make a festive fall wreath, and where to put the ungodly amount of candy apples she spent all last night making. My mouth waters. Pam’s candy apples are basically the best-tasting thing on the planet.
“Your stepmom is kind of a big deal,” says Hope.
“Yeah. She’s a legend around here because she prayed Jane Fonda into the kingdom.”
Hope giggles. “Do I want to know what that means?”
“Jane Fonda is this old, famous lady—”
“I know who Jane Fonda is.”
“Well, she used to not be a Christian, and like, everybody hated that about her or something. And Pam’s Sunday school teacher said, ‘Wouldn’t it be so great if she was a Christian? Think of all the good she could do with her influence.’ And Pam was all, ‘I’m going to pray for that Jane Fonda. I’m going to do it every morning.’ And now Jane Fonda is totally a Christian and uses her powers for good instead of evil, and Pam is famous.”
Hope is full-on belly laughing now. “That. Was everything I thought it could be.”
She checks the pumpkins on her side of the truck. It’s almost time for the festival. If I’m lucky I’ll have a few hours to do stuff with the guys before I have to get ready for Ashley’s Halloween/birthday party. I don’t have to pick Jayla up until right before—she said something about relaxer and an inch and a half of new growth and desperate times. Hope and I unload most of the last batch by ourselves, but it really isn’t bad. A few families are already picking through the pumpkin patch, and a couple kids are watching us.
A little boy jumps up and down. “I think the best ones are still in the truck! Look at that one! I want that one! No, wait, I want that one! It’s big as an elephant!”
I grin at him. “It sure is.”
He laughs.
Half a second later, I tic. “Sure is.”
He laughs again.
“Sure is.”
He stops laughing and looks uncertain.
Damn it. I hate it when I scare little kids. “Sure is!”
The boy looks worried, and so does his mom. I don’t think I’ve seen them at church stuff before. It occurs to me that I forgot to take my afternoon dose of meds. He hops over to where his sister is sitting on a giant lopsided pumpkin.
I touch his mom’s shoulder. “It’s okay. I have Tourette’s syndrome.”
She nods, but her eyes have shut down. As she goes to join her kids, I tic one more time, the loudest of all: “SURE IS.”
The boy startles and peeks over his shoulder in fear.
His mom puts herself in between us like a shield. “Don’t worry. He’s just retarded,” she says.
If she had said it two years ago, I would have wanted to disappear. Now I catch myself. There’s nothing wrong with being intellectually disabled, though there is something wrong with A) completely not hearing me about the Tourette’s syndrome, and B) using disgusting slurs. Some people don’t know how to react to people who are different, I tell myself. And most days I’d probably take it upon myself to go over and educate her, but today I am just bone tired. So, I am going to unload a pumpkin, and then I’m going to unload another pumpkin, and before I know it, a string of moments will carry me away from this one, and it won’t seem so fresh once it’s a memory.
Hope seems to be following my lead, but then she’s standing there, holding her pumpkin to her chest like she’s frozen, and I know what she’s going to do even before she does it. She sets the pumpkin down and traces her way over to the woman. I think she’s going to give her a piece of her mind, but then she kneels by the little boy.
“He’s not retarded.” She cups her hand to his ear like she’s telling him state secrets, but I can hear her stage-whisper from clear across the pumpkin patch. “Also, that's not a nice word, and you really shouldn’t say it. He has Tourette’s syndrome, and that just means he sometimes says stuff or moves a certain way, and he can’t help it. He’s also the nicest boy I know and one of the best wrestlers in the whole school.”
The boy’s eyes go as big as the pumpkins he’s sitting on. “Sometimes my dad lets me watch wrestling with him,” he says in this awestruck voice.
Hope nods seriously. “He’s probably even going to go to state this year.”
“Whoa.”
“Right?” Her voice goes soft. “He’s basically one of the best humans there is.”
Her eyes catch mine, and the way she’s looking at me, it’s like there are little hooks pulling us together or like she’s about to cry or like the me she sees is different from the me everyone else sees or like I’m imagining things because in the next second, she looks exactly like how she always looks.
Then she stands and narrows her eyes at his mother just slightly before she walks back to the truck. The boy can’t seem to pull his eyes away from me for the rest of the time we’re there. I have gone from boogeyman to hero in a matter of seconds.
I’m pulling another pumpkin out of the truck when Hope sidles up next to me. Puts her hand on my arm.
“You okay, Spence?”
“Oh, yeah, sure. I’m fine.” I can’t remember the last time she called me Spence.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I couldn’t help myself.”
I grin. “Can you ever?”
Jayla’s best friends, Emily and Sheree, are hanging out near the dance floor, but Jayla is nowhere to be found.
“Spencer!” yells Emily.
She and Sheree take turns hugging me around the neck.
“Nice costumes,” I tell them.
“I don’t know,” Sheree says, tugging at her jacket zipper. “I feel like people are looking at me.”
“A common side effect of painting your hair white and wearing skin-tight pleather,” says Emily.
“Your Storm costume is freaking awesome,” I tell Sheree. “Have y’all seen my girlfriend?”
“Nope,” says Emily. “Have you seen mine?”
“Negative.”
Emily rolls her eyes. “The hazards of dating leading ladies. Well, at least we know yours is at the party, because we came with her. Mine was ‘almost done with her hair’ half an hour ago.”
“I’m sure
she’ll be here soon,” says Sheree.
“Well, FYI, I’m not telling any of you what my costume is until she shows up.”
Sheree and I exchange confused glances.
“Um, you’re a fifties girl?” says Sheree.
I nod. “Your yellow skirt is kind of a dead giveaway.”
Emily shrugs mysteriously. “Just wait till Caroline gets here.” I assess her costume one more time: yellow skirt, white tennis shoes with white folded-down socks, white shirt, yellow sweater. Her hair is in tiny braids, but instead of her usual long ones, these stop at her shoulders and curl upward in a preppy kind of way.
“I got nothing,” I say.
This guy Ty, from wrestling, walks by dressed as a zombie, and Sheree’s eyes follow him like she’s going to say something. Instead, she sighs.
“You’re never going to get together if you can’t even talk to him,” says Emily.
“Who, Ty?” I ask.
Sheree shakes her head fast, like: Shut up, shut up.
“Hey, Ty!” I call. He comes over, and we do a handshake/hug/back-slap maneuver. “What’s up?”
“Nothing, I was about to go dance.” He jerks a thumb toward the dance floor.
“Oh, yeah? Sheree was about to go dance, too.”
“Yeah?” He takes in her knee-high boots and tight, tight pants. “Hey . . . Hey, you wanna go dance?”
Sheree seems to have forgotten how to speak, but Emily pushes her forward and that seems like enough. She walks off to the dance floor at Ty’s side, turning around to mouth “OH MY GOSH” at us as she goes.
I’m about to brag to Emily about my cupid skills, when I realize that Caroline has finally made her dramatic entrance. Emily can’t stop staring, along with pretty much every guy at the party. Caroline has on black leather pants and red high heels and a very small black shirt that shows off her stomach and shoulders. Her reddish-blonde hair is big-curly-sexy, and she looks . . . different. Hot different. She puts an arm around Emily. “Did you figure out what we are yet? She told me she wouldn’t tell anyone till I got here.”
“Holy crap, you’re Sandy before and after.”
Caroline flicks pretend ash off her unlit cigarette. “Tell me about it, stud.”
She turns to Emily. “Are you so, so mad at me for taking forever?”
Emily is still staring at Caroline’s outfit with her mouth half open. “Nope.”
Just then, Jayla grabs me by the shirtsleeve of my Ash costume.
“There you are!” I say.
“Spencer, I need your help. That toxic wildebeest Bella Fontaine has been talking crap about Emily again, and she and all her basic friends are over there eating cake right now, so we’re going to go eat cake right now, and I’m going to be all, ‘Hi, Bella.’ But in a way that lets her know I know exactly what she said. I can’t wait to see her go all crazy-eyes.”
“Um.” That’s about as far as I get.
I let myself be pulled closer and closer to the three girls, all of whom are dressed in what appears to be Saran Wrap. And I know it’s not going to make a difference, but I pause before we reach them. “Are you sure you want to get into it with her? It’s kind of like having a target on your back.”
She laughs and waves my words away. “You see a target, I see a spotlight.”
Jayla grabs a slice of cake for each of us, which involves her squeezing uncomfortably close to Bella. “Oh, hi, Bella. What are you guys supposed to be?”
Bella points to the sign taped to her body that reads, We go bad October 31.
“We’re leftovers,” she says, like: Obviously. Like: How could you not get this. “And you guys are those Pokémon people?” She pronounces it wrong.
“Ash, yeah.” I’m dressed just like the Pokémon trainer, and Jayla is dressed as the sexiest possible version of his adorable, lightning-bolt-shooting little friend. I’ll be sorting out my unnatural feelings for Pikachu all night.
Jayla looks like she’s gearing up to give the leftovers a piece of her mind, so I jump in real quick. “Hey, sweetie, how about I get us some punch?”
“Thanks, baby, I’d love some.” She smiles, and I kiss her on the cheek and whisper, “Go easy,” and she smiles some more.
I wait in line for punch, and Hudson and Jace get in line behind me. I tic-shrug while I’m standing there, really big exaggerated ones that make people look.
Jace whispers to Hudson, “You think he does that while they’re geting it on?”
They snicker, and Hudson whispers something back, but I can’t hear it. I’m doing a pretty good job ignoring them, until I hear Hudson mutter something about “liking the dark meat.”
I turn around and stare at them. And stare. It’s not so easy when someone’s looking you right in the face, is it? But then it’s my turn for punch, so I just say, “Not cool.” And walk off with a glass of something pink and sparkling that I hope Jayla will like.
I try to shake it off. I’ll be fine. I have an awesome girlfriend, and if I made A Taxonomy of Everyone at This Party, I would totally be in the branch for people that fit in. I just need to find Jayla, and she’ll make me feel normal again. Plus, our costume is like 80 percent funnier when I pop her onto my shoulder. But by the time I get back to the leftovers, she’s gone.
I find her on the dance floor with Justin. The lights shine down on them like beacons. He’s spinning her and flipping her, and they look like the perfect couple from one of those musicals Hope is always watching. And then it’s like I’ve called her into being by thinking about her because Hope appears next to me, dressed as a pretty badass zebra.
“Hey, are you okay?” she asks.
I shrug. “Nothing punch and cake can’t fix. Except, since it’s wrestling season, could you eat the punch and cake and then tell me in excruciating detail how awesome it is?”
Hope picks up a cake plate and wrinkles her nose. “You do realize this is super creepy, right?”
“Oh, totally.”
“Well, as long as we’ve got that established.” She takes a bite of cake, and we both laugh.
“Spencer? Are you over here?”
Jayla’s voice announces her arrival before we see her. Or before she finds us. That’s what it feels like. Because as soon as she spots Hope and me side by side at the cake table, her laughter dies in the back of her throat, and she says, “Oh.”
And it is definitely the bad kind of “Oh.”
Hope brushes nonexistent dirt off her black-and-white leggings. “Well, I better get back to the party. See you guys.”
I will not be escaping so easily.
“I was looking for you,” says Jayla. “It’s a party. And there’s dancing. I shouldn’t be dancing by myself when I have a boyfriend.” She shoots an irritated glance in Hope’s direction.
“I wouldn’t have even been talking to her if you weren’t dancing with Justin.”
She throws her hands in the air. “We were performing a dance from a musical.”
“Yeah, with your arms all wrapped around each other like you’re in love with him. Why do you always have to do stuff like that?”
“Because you won’t do it with me, and I don’t want to not dance.” Her voice goes soft. “What I was saying before, about targets and seeing things differently? I was kidding around, but it’s more than that. I feel like I don’t get to shine as brightly when I’m with you.”
And I go from angry to feeling like shit in 0.2 seconds. “I’m so sorry. I mean, that’s not okay. At all.”
“No, it’s not.” She wraps her arms around herself like she’s cold, even though Ashley’s dad packed the tent with portable heaters. “I’ve got everything against me in this world, and I’ve got so many dreams. I can’t have anything else holding me down.” She’s blinking her eyes so fast, and it makes me realize I don’t think I’ve ever seen her cry. “I love you, Spencer.” She doesn’t say “but,” but I can hear it all the same.
“I love you, too.”
“And I’m spending next we
ekend with you, not Justin.” She wraps her arms around me and squeezes me tight. “Dance with me.”
Next weekend. Everything that just happened seems stupid compared to that. I do really hate dancing, though. I love watching her dance. In the latest school musical or at a party or around her bedroom. She always has this light-up-the-whole-room smile on her face.
“What if I just hang out while you dance?” I ask hopefully.
“Yeah . . . nice try.”
She grabs me by the hand and drags me onto the dance floor.
Part Six
18 years old
A TAXONOMY OF LEAVING
Fact: Forever always ends up being shorter than you think.
Paul slides the last of his Magic cards into his deck and claps me on the back. “We’re going, man. It’s my last chance to see Eva.”
That’s right. Paul “The Perpetual Bachelor” Kravitz has a girlfriend. Unfortunately, she’s moving to another state.
“What if I just stay here and look at all the pictures you guys take? It’ll totally be like I was at the party.”
“Yeah, no.” Paul grabs one of my arms, and Traven grabs the other. “You’re going, and I will force you to have fun if I need to. Senior year is supposed to be our year.”
I gesture to our Magic card empire. “Are you sure you want to leave all this?”
“Yes. Have you seen Eva?”
Traven nods. “I’ve seen her. She is pretty hot, dude.”
They drag me out of my house and down my driveway.
“It’s just the next street over. You can always walk home if it’s awful,” says Paul.
I let them cajole me over to Ethan and Jace’s house, but I stop on their front porch.
“But—”
“Dude, it’s going to be fine,” says Traven, as he opens the door. “Everyone in school is here. What are the chances you’re even going to—” He stops walking. “See her.”
Jayla is standing with Sheree and Emily just inside the front door. Our eyes meet. Our friends scatter. Which, super helpful—thanks, guys.
“Hi,” she says.
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