Again Again

by E. Lockhart

  The man surveyed the bubble-tea card, the gum wrappers, and so on. “These are items that constitute some of your experience,” he said. “Therefore, they constitute some portion of your identity.”

  He placed her items on a scanner and scanned them.

  Adelaide waited in silence.

  He took the items out of the scanner and returned the originals to her. She crumpled her receipts and shoved them in her pocket.

  He took a plastic card with rounded edges and affixed the pattern from the gum wrappers onto it as a background. Then he worked with an X-Acto knife to cut out a phrase from the poem Jack had written her. He put the words in the space where a picture would be. Instead of her face, it read wide eyes, like a lion.

  He cut the word healthy from the bubble-tea punch card. From the taco receipt he took her name, which was listed there so the counter guy could shout it when her order was ready. From the coffee punch card he took the word free. From the vintage-store receipt, the word felt. From the drugstore receipt, the word Twix.

  “Now you’re just getting random,” she told him as he pasted Twix onto her card with the other words.

  “You carried this Twix receipt around with you,” he said.

  “Not on purpose.”

  “It was with you.”

  “I like that you put free on there,” she said.

  “Thank you,” he said. “Do you think it needs anything more to function as your identification?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that,” Adelaide said.

  “That’s all right, then,” he told her. “I’ll just laminate it.”

  He ran the new ID card through a laminating machine, trimmed it and gave it to Adelaide. “You’re a new person now, in some small sense.”

  “Is this your job?” she asked him. “What will you do when the exhibit closes?”

  “It’s one of my jobs,” he answered. “But I have others.”

  Adelaide came out of the exhibit at nine-thirty p.m. to find her bike was gone.

  The bike Mikey Double L had given her. Someone must have cut the lock.

  She stood with her helmet in her hands.

  It was raining.

  She called her father. Levi didn’t pick up. She remembered he was going to dinner with some people from the admissions office.

  The taxi app said it would cost twenty-five dollars to ride back to Alabaster. Because of the drizzle, and it being Friday night, there was surge pricing.

  Adelaide decided to walk. It would be fine. She left the Factory campus following a cobbled path, past a sculpture garden lit for the evening with glowing pink light, through a cluster of old brick buildings to the tall iron gates.

  She wore her bike helmet to keep the rain off her head. And to avoid carrying it. Besides that, she had on a thin cotton shirt and a red knee-length skirt, plus a thick cardigan for the vicious air-conditioning in the Factory. Vans with black and white checks. No socks.

  The Vans had been fine, but now they started to blister her feet.

  Her backpack had been fine, but now it hurt.

  Her phone said the walk was sixty minutes. She made her way through the run-down Victorians at the edge of town to a long main road that didn’t have sidewalks.

  A car pulled up next to her and stopped.

  She picked up her pace.

  The window on the passenger side slid down. “Adelaide.”

  She stopped. Squinted in the dark.

  It was Jack.

  Jack!

  She had conjured him here. When she really needed help, he drove up in a Volkswagen, wearing a white T-shirt. “Adelaide, are you okay?”

  “Someone stole my bike.”

  “Bastard.”

  She got in. She took her helmet off. She worried about her hair. Her clothes were soaked.

  It was hard to breathe, Jack was so beautiful. His silver rings glinted in the streetlight. He was wearing glasses with black rims. She hadn’t seen him wearing glasses before. “Where you coming from?” she asked.

  “Playing poker with the guys from Uncle Benny’s.”

  “Terrance and Oscar?”

  “And some others. Where were you?”

  “The Factory. It’s open late on Fridays.”

  “How was it?”

  “My favorite place in the world. Did you win at poker?” she asked.

  “No, Oscar won, mostly,” he answered. “That guy is a beast. But we’re only talking about ten dollars or so.”

  Adelaide was so attracted to Jack, she had trouble concentrating on what he was saying. She was conscious of his body in the driver’s seat, the way he moved when he flicked on his blinker or adjusted the heat.

  She looked at his hands on the wheel. The car smelled faintly of doughnuts, sugary.

  “What did you see?” he asked.

  She brought her mind back. At the Factory. He was asking about the Factory.

  She didn’t want to tell him about the ID, because she didn’t want to explain his poem being in her wallet, so she told him about a show she’d seen the previous week. “There’s this woman who paints huge canvases with reflecting paint—like, the paint they use to put white stripes down the middle of the road. The light plays across them and seems to move.”

  “What does she paint?” he asked.

  “No pictures of anything. Just paint. The idea is that

  the meaning isn’t on the canvas so much as it’s

  in what the

  light does to the canvas.”

  Jack nodded. “That’s the kind of thing I want to be doing. I mean, I want the meaning of a painting to lie in the interaction of the image with the viewer.”

  “Your church hippo.”

  “Did I tell you about my pictures?”

  Of course he had. The first time they’d met. He’d talked about them in some detail. It bothered her that he didn’t remember. “A little,” she said.

  “It’s not a church hippo.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “Well, it is a church hippo, but it’s also a car,” he said. “The car part is very important.”

  “I’ll remember that. If I get to see it, ever.”

  They pulled up in front of Levi’s house. Jack turned off the Volkswagen. He didn’t idle it. He turned it off. Then he turned and touched Adelaide’s face,

  * * *

  leaned in and kissed her. She leaned into him too, reaching over to grasp his hand, feeling a wave of longing for him surge through her body. She ran her fingers up his chest and felt the warmth of his skin through the thin fabric. She felt shaky and strong at once, and she marveled at how a kiss could make a pair of bodies feel like the center of the universe.

  Jack’s phone buzzed. He pulled away. Dug the phone out of his pocket and glanced at a text Adelaide couldn’t see.

  Then he wrote back, quickly, and hit send.

  “I have to go,” he whispered. “Sorry.”

  Adelaide leaned in and kissed him again. Willing him to stay. Willing him to see her, and to want her.

  “I wish I could,” Jack said, his lips on her neck. “But I can’t.”

  * * *

  leaned in and kissed her.

  Adelaide had wanted to kiss him since that moment of being in the hammock. She had longed to run her fingertips across his abdomen, to press her lips against his and to feel his breath against her cheek.

  Only, now that it was happening, she couldn’t stop thinking about how she was a physical mess.

  Her hair was frizzy from the rain and squashed from the helmet. Her sweater was wet. It made a damp wool smell that filled the car. She wore an unattractive beige bra, because with her white T-shirt, anything else would show through.

  Her mouth tasted slightly of the everything bagel with scallion crea
m cheese she had eaten at five-thirty instead of dinner.

  She hadn’t shaved her legs.

  Did other people think about this stuff when someone kissed them? Or was it just Adelaide, running through a catalog of all the small unpleasantnesses she might be visiting on the other person?

  You would think that since she wanted to kiss him so badly, she wouldn’t think about anything else. Instead, she cataloged what Jack’s experience might be and whether it would be a good one.

  Of course she knew that Jack himself would probably have a more pleasant experience if she actually engaged full throttle in the kissing. Regretting the scallion cream cheese was not actually going to make her mouth taste any nicer.

  He pulled away. “Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

  “No, no.”

  “Are you sure? I don’t want to— Let’s not do anything you don’t want to do.”

  She wanted to do everything.

  Everything.

  But she couldn’t. Because

  Mikey didn’t love her. Because

  Toby was an addict. Because

  of the scallion cream cheese and the ugly bra and the wet sweater smell,

  because of the egg yolk of misery, basically,

  Adelaide couldn’t be present, in this car, with this magnetic boy.

  “I should just go,” she said.

  She hated herself and

  she hated the insecurity that made her hate herself and

  she hated Jack for making all of that come to the surface.

  * * *

  leaned in and kissed her.

  “Wait,” she said. “Wait.”

  “What?”

  She folded her arms and pulled away. “You disappeared for more than three weeks, Jack. Which you’re allowed to do. Of course. But then—well. I don’t think you get to do this, next time you happen to run into me, if you disappear.”

  “I didn’t disappear. I’ve been working at Uncle Benny’s. Painting. I didn’t go anywhere, Adelaide.”

  “You know what I mean. I haven’t heard from you. Since the bacon.”

  He touched her hair. “I was just busy, that’s all. I’m so glad I found you there, on the side of the road.”

  She shook her head.

  “I didn’t mean anything by not being around,” he added.

  But she knew he did. She could see the future like it had already happened: Him disappearing again after kissing her tonight. Her missing him on top of missing Mikey and Toby.

  “Thank you for the ride,” Adelaide told him. “I really do appreciate it.”

  She got out of the car.

  leaned in and kissed her.

  It was like she remembered from the dog run. His kiss wasn’t cozy and conspiratorial like Mikey’s but hungry and somehow appreciative, filled with longing.

  She ran her hands through his hair and it was soft and fine, despite all the waves, and Adelaide felt the

  rush of the party on the rooftop whiz through her, the

  beauty of the poem he’d written, the

  poem that was now part of her identification. She felt she

  knew him and loved him already, somehow, and also that

  all the wonderful unfolding of their new love was just ahead of them.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. It was her father. “Won’t be home till after midnight. Watching Henry V with Matt Kwan from the drama dept.”

  Jack kissed her again, slowly moving his hands down her body until she felt like she could think of nothing else but this moment and the box of condoms she had bought, thinking she and Mikey would use them this summer, still unopened.

  “Do you want to come upstairs?” she whispered.

  “I do,” he said.

  They held hands as they went into the house. They fell dizzily, as they kissed, onto the folded-out bed. The rain ceased and the stars glistened outside the window. The sound of their own breathing was in their ears. Jack’s hands were on her skin, gently and sweetly. The box of condoms got opened. He asked her what she wanted to do and it was awkward to talk about, but her answer was clear.

  In the morning, Adelaide felt bouncy and super aware of her surroundings. She made herself a big thermos of sweet milky coffee and walked the dogs in the gorgeous fresh summer day.

  Stacey S arrived that afternoon to stay for two nights. She had four beers in her duffel bag. She had taken them out of her parents’ fridge when they weren’t looking. The beers were warm, but that evening Adelaide and Stacey drank them out in the soccer field, sitting in the middle of the green. They had a jumbo bag of Doritos and some store-bought guacamole. It was their dinner.

  “I don’t think more love is the answer,” said Stacey, when she had heard about Jack.

  “You have love,” said Adelaide.

  “It’s not love, it’s just summer like. But also, I had no love from Valentine’s Day till school got out. I was a solo Stacey for like, four months. It was very good for me.”

  “It isn’t good for me,” said Adelaide.

  “What’s so great about Jack?” Stacey lay down on the grass and put a chip in her mouth.

  “Everything. Solidly everything. It’s like I knew him before,” said Adelaide. “I mean, I did meet him before, a long time ago, but I mean, it’s like I knew him in another life. In a parallel universe, or before we were reincarnated or whatever.”

  “Do you mean like soul mates? Because I’m not on board with soul mates as a general concept.”

  “Of course not,” said Adelaide.

  But that was what she meant, precisely.

  “I hope you’re not making this into a giant thing because of doing it,” said Stacey. “The whole idea of virginity is just a sham tool of the patriarchy anyway.” This was something Stacey had said before. She said there needed to be some better way to measure experience than virgin/nonvirgin because that crap didn’t apply to lesbians the same way and also actually, it was fuzzy and confusing even for hetero people. And why were we measuring experience anyway?

  “I’m not,” said Adelaide. “It was a giant thing before that. It’s a giant thing for other reasons.”

  Stacey stood up. “I wonder if he’ll remember me. Let’s text him.”

  “Now?”

  “Yeah, now.”

  “I can’t just text him the next day. I’ll lose all my mystery.”

  “Oh my god, this isn’t 1952, Adelaide. Text him.”

  “I totally have texted him lots of times. He just didn’t text back.”

  “He will now. Now he’s realized he’s super into you. Also, there is like, nothing to do in this town. He’s probably sitting at home with his father, bored out of his mind right now. He barely knows anybody. He’ll be SO GLAD we texted him.”

  “Fine.”

  She wanted to text him anyhow.

  * * *

  —

  Jack met them on the soccer field. He loped across it and threw himself down on the grass. “I brought an offering.” It was a bag of gingersnaps. “It was all we had in the house.”

  “It’s perfect,” said Adelaide.

  “Gingersnaps are my jam,” said Stacey amiably. “Are you nervous about starting back at Alabaster?”

  “Kind of.”

  “I’ll clue you in to the terrible people,” said Stacey. “Most people turned out pretty decent, but there are a few seriously terrible human beings, and you’ll find it useful to have a heads-up. Also, don’t eat the chili in the cafeteria, in case you don’t remember that from before.”

  They decided to take Jack’s car to Luigi’s in Lowell, the next town over, where there was a pinball machine. They weren’t hungry, but the soccer field was boring.

  Luigi’s was open twenty-four hours. Counter service. Garlic knots and calzone. Jars of powd
ery Parmesan on every table. A TV set on one wall. There were a number of people clustered around the pinball, so Adelaide, Stacey, and Jack ordered a pizza and slid into a booth.

  “Hey, hey.”

  It was Oscar the piano player. He sat down next to Jack. He was taller than Adelaide remembered, really very tall, and his black curls were unruly. His weight suited him, she thought. His cheeks were flushed in the heat of the pizza place and he had a bright energy about him that contrasted with Jack’s laid-back way. He grinned and looked at Adelaide. “I owe you a beverage. Some water, anyway.”

  Adelaide laughed.

  “I know Oscar from Uncle Benny’s,” said Jack, explaining to Stacey.

  “I take orders up front,” said Oscar. “Jack does stock and busboy stuff. It’s a brutal scene. You can’t imagine.”

  “Like what?” asked Stacey.

  “He’s making it up,” said Jack. “Nothing’s brutal.”

  The horde of pinball players heard their order number and rushed to collect their pizza and sit down. Stacey bolted up and got the machine.

  “I’m going to get quarters,” said Jack, motioning for Oscar to let him out of the booth.

  Oscar did, but he didn’t go sit with the people he’d been with before. Instead, he slid back in across from Adelaide. “He loves pinball,” he said, about Jack.

  “Oh really?”

  “He’s good at it. I don’t know, maybe it’s popular in Spain or something. I was serious about the beverage. Do you want a Coke?” said Oscar.

  “Diet Coke,” said Adelaide.

  “Weirdo,” said Oscar.

  He got up and ordered sodas, then came back and set them down. Then he went to watch Jack play.

  Adelaide realized that if they wanted to hold on to the table, one of them had to sit there. She watched Stacey, Jack, and Oscar screaming over whatever was happening in the pinball machine. She looked at her phone.

  When the pizza came they returned to the table, flushed and happy. Oscar sat down with them as if there were no question at all that he was welcome, although he didn’t eat their pizza. Adelaide put her arm around Jack’s shoulder, glad that he was back. She tried to relax into the evening.