Well, except for the dinner thing I promised Mom I’d ask Luke about.
I stand and stretch, turn on the lights in my dark room, and grab my phone so I can text him.
I’m shocked that it’s not even that late—only eight p.m.
I’m even more shocked to see that I have not one, but three texts from Luke.
I feel a well of anxiety as my thumb hovers over the phone. What if something happened to Mel while we were gone? What if she’s in the hospital again—or worse?
We should never have gone on that trip.
For so many reasons, but especially this.
My hands clammy with sweat, I force myself to open the first message.
And am thoroughly confused.
At three, probably only an hour after they dropped me off at home, he wrote: Hey.
That’s it. Hey.
Then, thirty minutes later, another text.
Come over?
And only about ten minutes ago, he added, Mom wants to see you.
Is she ok? I write back.
He answers almost immediately. Hey. Yeah, she’s fine.
Then a second later: Are you?
I settle back on my bed. Yeah, I’m good. Why?
Didn’t hear from you.
Just fell asleep, I write.
Okay, he texts back.
So Mel wants me to come over?
Only if you want to.
I’m not entirely sure I want to see Luke again today, so soon after our camping trip, but how can I say no to Mel?
I hop in the shower, wash my hair, and break out one of the summery dresses I haven’t had much time to wear. I hear Mom humming in my parents’ bedroom. I stick my head in the doorway and tell her I’m popping over to the Cohen house.
“I thought you’d have a quiet night at home for a change,” she says.
“I’m just going to see—”
“Melanie. I know,” she says, looking up from the magazine she’s reading in bed. Everything from the mattress to the bed frame has been replaced in the past couple of weeks. “But you just got home. You’ve worked all week, and you’re over there so much to begin with. I thought we were past you spending every waking minute in that house.”
My head spins in confusion. “Mel wants to see me.”
“I think she understands your having a life that includes more than just her.”
I stare at my mother, trying to figure out what’s going on. There’s a strange bitterness in her voice, like I’m doing something wrong by spending all this time with Mel.
“I’ll be back soon,” I assure her, and shut the door before she can offer any more resistance.
The whole way I’m driving to Mel and Luke’s, I can’t get the weirdness of my mother’s reaction out of my mind. Mel is dying. Mom knows this; she knows I didn’t see Mel at all after Ro died, and she knows how guilty that makes me feel. She should get why spending time with Mel is a priority for me.
As a kid, one of my favorite things to do was imagine that Mel was my mother. I imagined having her flowing black hair, her raspy voice, her double-jointed elbows. This was something I told no one, but now, for the first time, I wonder if my mother knew. I wonder if some days, in the dark of her room, she was thinking about the secrets I’d told Mel, thinking that it was Mel’s phone voice I imitated, Mel’s clothes I played dress-up in, the sight of Mel’s tears and not her own that could make me dissolve into a puddle.
The thought of this—the possibility that my closeness with Mel might bother my mother—floors me. For most of my life, it felt like she hardly even noticed it.
“What’s wrong?” is the first thing Luke says when he opens the door for me.
I shake my head, trying to snap out of my daze. “Just something with my mom.”
One of his brows skirts up. “Another bad spell?”
“Not exactly,” I say, but don’t elaborate. I slide past him into the foyer and then go into the living room.
“Hey, Mel! Sorry I didn’t come sooner. I wiped out after our trip.”
Mel gives me a puzzled look. “Come sooner?”
“Yeah, you wanted to see me?” I throw Luke a worried look, but his face is impassive. Is Mel starting to lose her memory?
“You said Jessi knows how to make your red velvet cupcakes, remember?” he says.
“Hmm . . . but that was days ago,” Mel says. “Or maybe I’m losing track of time. It all kind of blends together after a while.”
“That’s okay,” I say. I glance at Luke again, but he doesn’t seem worried, so I try not to be either. “You want me to whip up some cupcakes?”
“If you’re up for it, that would be amazing. Though I have to be honest, I might take one bite and not be able to get down any more. And it won’t be because of your baking.”
I laugh. “You have too much confidence in me.”
“No. You have too little confidence in you,” she insists.
“I really have never attempted it without you, Mel,” I tell her now.
“Well, if Luke brings my wheelchair out from the guest room, maybe I can come and offer you some moral support.”
“I’d love that,” I say.
Baking means I’m spending at least a good hour here, probably longer. I know Mom wants me back home right away, but there’s finally something I can do for Mel, even though it’s small, and I’m not leaving until I finish.
While I’m in the kitchen finding Mel’s recipe book and pulling out ingredients, Luke wheels Mel in to a spot beside the counter.
Mel is still insisting that her presence is not needed. “I’ll eat whatever you make,” she says. “I’m already on death’s door. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“Mom,” Luke sighs.
Mel motions for him to bend down in front of her. She holds his face in her palms and says, “At some point it’s okay to laugh about it.”
I see Luke swallow, and I can tell he’s trying hard to fight tears.
He straightens and turns to me. “What do you need me to do?”
“You wanna help?” I ask, surprised.
“Of course he’s going to help,” Mel says. “Honestly, if I didn’t think he would accidentally poison us all, I’d have gotten him to make the cupcakes.”
Luke rolls his eyes good-naturedly and comes to stand next to me, looking expectant.
“Oh, um, okay,” I say, then glance away from him as, unbidden, a memory of his hands all over my body flashes through my mind. “Do you wanna beat the butter and sugar?”
“Sure.”
I’m clumsy at first, distracted, and still replaying last night in my head way too much. But before long, we fall into a rhythm of mixing and beating, then spooning batter and cleaning up.
Luke insists on washing up because he feels his contribution has been “minimal,” so I plop down on the counter and talk to Mel the way I did so many times when I was growing up, the way I always wished I could with Mom. We talk about my jobs, about Sydney and the videos her new family has sent Mel. We talk movies and books and music. The only difference is that tonight Luke is listening in. I wonder what he thinks, whether he’s silently judging me. Whether he feels like I’m monopolizing his time with his mother, the way Rowan seemed to sometimes.
We pull the cupcakes out of the oven, let them cool down, and get started on the frosting. Mel doesn’t believe in making cake out of the box, but she’s all for buying premade frosting. Luke and I stand side by side as we slather the cupcakes with an excess of vanilla cream cheese. Since neither of us is particularly gifted in the area of putting on frosting, we decide to have fun with it, trying to make patterns and write words.
“Mom, yours is gonna have your name on it,” Luke tells Mel.
“What? I’m making Mel’s!” I protest. “This one has been hers the whole time.”
“Nope.”
“Yes,” I insist.
“Guys, there’s enough of me to go around,” Mel says.
“Let’s offer both t
o her and see which one she wants,” Luke suggests.
I hustle across the kitchen, and I’ve almost reached Mel when I feel myself being lifted from the ground and plopped back down a good five feet away from where I was.
“Hey!” I protest.
Luke laughs as he hurries toward Mel, who is laughing. I tug at the back of his shirt in an effort to stall him, but he outmaneuvers me and is soon holding his cupcake out to her. Scowling, I catch up and offer her my own.
“Sorry, baby, but Jessi’s actually looks edible,” Mel says.
“Wow, the truth comes out,” Luke says. “All this time and she’s still your favorite?” I’m relieved he didn’t call me the chosen one.
“She didn’t make me push for eleven hours.”
I laugh and triumphantly present my cupcake to Mel. Luke hands her a spoon, and she takes a small bite. Now that I’m standing closer to her, I notice her pale color and the way her eyes seem weighted. She’s more than exhausted, but she’s putting up a brave front for us.
“You can have the rest tomorrow,” I say with false brightness when it becomes apparent that she is not going to be able to swallow much more than that bite.
“Let me try Luke’s,” Mel says, and Luke hands her his cupcake.
“Both excellent,” she says. “Almost as good as mine.”
Luke laughs, and I try to be heartened by this. Maybe Mel’s pallor is all in my head.
I go back to the counter to finish icing the rest of the cupcakes while Luke finishes cleaning up. When I’m done, I bite into what’s left of the cupcake I gave Mel. I’m still eating when Luke joins me to eat the one he frosted.
“Good?” I ask as he takes his first bite.
“Mmhmm,” he says.
“You know, you . . .” My voice trails off as he kisses the corner of my mouth, almost in the exact same spot where he kissed me this morning when they dropped me off after camping.
“You had some frosting,” he says now as I try to hold on to any of my thoughts. I have no idea what I was about to say. At this point, I’m downright confused. Does he hate me or does he not? Is everything he does for the benefit of the people watching us, or is it possible there’s something else?
“I think I’m going to turn in for the night,” Mel says, distracting us from the staring contest we’re having.
“I should get going, too,” I say, because frankly I’m a little afraid to be alone with Luke right now. If last night (or the way every cell in my body jumped at his kiss just now) was any indication, I will not be able to keep my hands to myself. And we’ve already established that that is a bad thing.
Luke is apparently not going to make this any easier on me. “Mom, is it okay if I walk Jessi out? I’ll come help you out after.”
“Of course.”
I walk over and kiss Mel’s cheek.
“Love you, Jessi-girl,” she says.
“Love you, too. Good night.”
Luke and I are mostly silent as we walk to my car, my mind whirring with a hundred thoughts. In the end, they amount to this: He loves me. He loves me not. He loves me. He loves me not.
And then I remember my mom’s constant reminders about asking him to dinner.
“What?” Luke asks. I guess my groan was audible.
“It’s silly.”
“So?” he says.
“So, you won’t want to do it.”
One of his eyebrows skirts up. “Do it? Do what?”
“Dinner with my family. My mom keeps telling me to ask you.”
“Why wouldn’t I want to do it?” he asks, and I seriously don’t even know who I’m talking to. Luke doesn’t mind having dinner at my house?
“It’s more pretending,” I say.
He shrugs. “Tell me when.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah. It’s not a big deal.”
I get the urge to throw my arms around him then, but I control myself. Maybe it’s really not a big deal to him. After all, I’ve spent something like half my waking life in his family’s presence. Surely he can spare one night to hang out with mine.
Even if we’re significantly . . . less.
“Okay, cool,” I say. “Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.” He takes a step closer to me as we stand outside my car. For one second I think he’s going to lean down and kiss me, but all he does is sweep a tendril of hair off my face.
“Night, Jessi.”
“Good night, Luke.”
16
NOW
It’s Monday, the start of a new week, and things are already off to a strange start.
Willow and I are setting up for the day when Eric enters the rec room. I immediately go back to unstacking chairs, expecting him to ask Willow for whatever he needs. Instead, he stops in front of my stack of chairs.
“Do you need something?” I ask.
Behind him, Willow shoots me a look that says she has my back.
“Yeah. I actually thought we could talk,” Eric says, scratching his head.
I blink at him. “You want to talk?” Is that code for something? Is this a setup?
“If you don’t mind,” he says, then throws Willow a look over his shoulder. “And could it be in private?”
Maybe it’s the complete unexpectedness of the request, or maybe I’m just a tad curious to know what’s going on, but I nod in the direction of the door, and we start toward it.
“I’m here if you need me!” Willow calls after me.
I give her a grateful smile, which gradually turns back into a frown once I’m outside the building with Eric.
“So the thing is . . .” Eric begins, his eyes darting all over the place, like he’s looking for a way out. Which makes no sense, since he instigated this. “I know Ro considered you his best friend.”
Not the words I’m expecting to hear.
I stiffen at the name.
“Hear me out,” Eric says, sensing that my walls are up. “You were his best friend—but for me, he was mine.” He looks down at the ground. “We were competitive, yeah, but in a good way. We made each other better.”
“I’m glad to hear it,” I say now. “Is there a point to this?”
“The point is, I always had his back. I still do, and for the longest time, I’ve thought that meant giving you shit for what happened.”
He scuffs his shoe on the pavement. “Anyway, I’m sorry for that. It wasn’t—isn’t—my place. Ro wouldn’t have wanted me to treat you like this.”
“You don’t know what Ro would have wanted—” I spit out, too late to catch myself. I hate when people speak for people who can’t speak for themselves.
“I do know,” Eric says without hesitation. “He’d do anything for you.”
My stomach turns at those words, so similar to what Luke said to me on Saturday, and guilt is wrapping itself around my intestines like a noose. “Is this because of Luke? Is it because we’re . . .”
Eric shakes his head. “I mean, kind of, but not really. I just started to wonder whether maybe what happened that night was more complicated than I thought. And really, even if it wasn’t, he was still your best friend. He would kick my ass for being such a dick to you.”
I force myself to keep an even expression, though my chest feels tight.
“So . . . I’m sorry,” Eric says. “And that’s it. That’s all I wanted to say.”
He looks like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders, but I feel like I’m carrying it now. It always made sense to me why Eric was so awful to me. He knew Ro better than almost anyone. He also knew more about that night than most people did. So why is he apologizing?
Everything he’s thought about me for the past nine months is true. As much as it has hurt, there’s almost been a tinge of relief, knowing that someone was saying what needed to be said.
“Thanks,” I say belatedly. “That’s . . . thanks.”
He nods. “No problem.”
“I better get back to work,” I say, and he says something
about doing the same, and then he’s gone.
Back inside, Willow looks at me with expectant eyes. “Well?”
“He wanted to apologize,” I say.
“That’s great!”
“It’s weird.”
“No, it’s great! It’s about time. All those comments and just over some old middle-school grudge?”
“Yeah,” I lie.
We don’t have time to talk more about it before the first set of kids arrive. We welcome them and fall into our usual routine. At lunch, Luke sits next to me, his hand on my shoulder or back the whole time. I don’t know what it says about us that it has become so easy, so natural to pretend. By day, we are Duke and J.J. By night, we’re the old Luke and Jessi, but neither version of us is even close to the truth.
On Wednesday night, after spending a couple of hours after camp with Ernie, I’m in my room, rifling through my closet, trying to find something for tonight. I know it’s just dinner, that it will only be my parents and Luke, who is used to seeing me sweaty, drab, and makeup-less in my Camp MORE uniform. Still, I can’t get myself to not care.
It’s all an act. He’s only coming to keep up appearances, I tell myself over and over, but my brain is relentless. No matter how many times I tell myself to relax, I still find myself tapping my fingers on any available surface. It takes me five tries to decide on the off-the-shoulder shirt and black jeans. I paint my fingers and toenails. I’m wearing perfume, for God’s sake.
“You look nice,” Dad says when I enter the kitchen. He is chopping up ingredients for a salad, and Mom is pulling out garlic bread from the oven.
“Thanks,” I say. “Do you need any help?”
“No. I think we’ve got everything,” Mom says. “Just double-check that I put out enough glasses on the table.”
I go to the dining room and have just finished surveying everything when the doorbell rings.
“I’ll get it!” I call, and hurry for the door. Luke is standing there, one hand in his pocket, the other around a bouquet of roses. He looks good in his light blue button-down shirt and gray slacks, but his eyes keep jumping all over the place. Like he’s nervous or something.
Some Other Now Page 22