Again Again

by E. Lockhart

  Oscar worked at the sandwich shop most days. He didn’t want Adelaide to come by and talk to him while he worked. He said it was embarrassing and distracting when he was trying to do a good job.

  She said that was insulting.

  He said, “Please, just let me concentrate at work.”

  He said, “It’s my thing. I don’t come to the classroom and watch you build your model.”

  He said, “No, it’s not that I care more about sandwiches than you, it’s that I’m concentrating. I’m taking orders. I can’t do that and have a conversation, or host your afternoon so that you’re not bored. If we don’t have customers, I’m supposed to be cleaning the counters.”

  He said, “It’s not girlfriend time in the sandwich shop!”

  Adelaide said, “I’d be happy if you came to the classroom. But you don’t want to come.”

  She said, “You could come on your days off, do stuff on your laptop or whatever.”

  She said, “Am I your girlfriend?”

  He said, “I’m all in, I am, but I don’t think you should come to my job, that’s all. Let’s have some boundaries, for god’s sake.”

  He said, “Yes, you’re my girlfriend. You absolutely are. But no Uncle Benny’s. Please.”

  They had quite an argument.

  Oscar showed up at Kaspian-Lee’s classroom the next day, on his break from the sandwich shop. He had run over and he was breathing hard. In his hands he had a Lego kit called Heartlake City Pet Center. It had tiny Lego dogs and included a vet clinic and a grooming parlor. He gave it to Adelaide and then ran back to work.

  Adelaide wanted Oscar not because he had suffered and not because he was beautiful. Although she did find him beautiful.

  And she didn’t want him because he fit an idea in her head that was labeled boyfriend. In many ways, he didn’t fit.

  She saw him clearly, with no distortion.

  She wanted him, also, because he loved something else so much: his music.

  Some evenings, Oscar holed up playing piano in a soundproof room in his family’s basement. Adelaide thought about him those nights, teetering on something like obsession, thinking about his hands on the piano, the way he gave the instrument his complete attention.

  Many weeks into the summer, Adelaide finished the model and showed it to Kaspian-Lee.

  “When you tell me how hard you worked, you miss the point,” said the teacher. “The work you put in is irrelevant. The result is what matters.”

  “I think the work people put in is relevant,” Adelaide said, putting a protective hand on her model. “The process of making something changes a person.”

  “It is not an A-grade design,” said the teacher. “It’s self-indulgent.”

  “Ms. Kaspian-Lee?”

  “Yes.”

  “We could talk about

  why it’s gold, and

  why the bed is where it is, and

  why the dirt is out the window.

  No matter how much you hate it, you could take the time to see it, instead of complaining that

  my design doesn’t measure up to the

  imaginary A-grade design that’s in your mind.

  You could let that

  imaginary version

  go and

  see what’s in front of you.”

  Kaspian-Lee sighed. “Your glue is very neat and everything is to scale and level.”

  “Thank you.”

  They were silent for a moment.

  “Perhaps,” said Kaspian-Lee finally. “Perhaps I have neglected to tell you that I think there’s something unique about your vision for this play. I have given this assignment for four years in a row. Your gold motel room with its desperately sad, unusable throne of a bed, it’s not a workable set. It doesn’t serve Shephard’s text. But it is something. In fact, it made me both feel and think. Are you taking sculpture senior year?”

  “I haven’t registered yet.”

  “Take sculpture. The instructor is good. And then take my puppet-building course.”

  Adelaide nodded.

  “I apologize,” said Kaspian-Lee. “I have been dealing with an extreme situation in my personal life. Shall we call it a B-plus, with points off for self-indulgence and failure to serve the play? I’ll submit your grade to the office.”

  * * *

  —

  Adelaide took the model home. She lit it carefully. She took photographs of it.

  Her phone pinged.

  There was a text from Mikey Double L. It was a picture.

  They were dressed for the spring formal.

  Another picture, a selfie of the two of them kissing.

  And then a third text:

  Us.

  The phone rang.

  “I miss you,” Mikey said when she answered.

  “Hi, Mikey.”

  “I owe you seventeen apologies. I wish I could see you right now and say everything that needs saying in person. It’s so awkward on the phone.”

  “I was on academic probation last term,” Adelaide said.

  “You were?”

  “I never wanted to tell you. And I didn’t do my work. I had to get an extension in Set Design. I just finished my project defense with Kaspian-Lee.”

  “How did it go?”

  “I’m proud of it, actually.”

  “I love you,” said Mikey.

  “What?”

  “I made a terrible mistake, breaking up with you.”

  Adelaide didn’t say anything. She kind of wanted to talk about her model some more.

  “I’m such an idiot,” Mikey said. “It was just stupid. I got scared of being together all summer. Without our friends. It seemed too intense.”

  “That’s nice of you to say, Mikey.”

  “It’s the truth. I was scared of being connected, I think. Of love.”

  Adelaide sat down on the floor. She noticed her arms had light sprinkles of gold from carrying the model. She and Mikey were silent on the phone.

  “I don’t think it was a mistake to break up,” she said finally. “I wasn’t happy.”

  “You weren’t? You seemed happy.”

  “I thought I was happy.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing? I’m sorry, Adelaide. Please tell me I haven’t ruined everything between us forever.”

  “You can think you’re happy and not be happy.”

  “Could I come see you this weekend? Could we talk about it? I miss you so much.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Just to talk.”

  “No.”

  Mikey paused. “Is there another guy?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “There is.”

  “And this other guy, he makes you happy?”

  “It’s not his job to make me happy,” she told him.

  * * *

  —

  Adelaide didn’t often think of Mikey after that.

  She texted her brother more and more, and

  as the summer went on, she began to trust that the

  Toby she knew now was Toby.

  That he could stay sober.

  That he genuinely wanted to, and had the tools.

  That they could be

  brother and

  sister in

  something of the way they once had been.

  Or in some other way, some way they hadn’t invented yet.

  * * *

  —

  The last two weeks of the summer, Oscar’s parents were taking him on vacation. They weren’t going far; it was about three hours to Maine, where relatives had a house. It was okay. Adelaide knew he’d be back at the start of the school year.

  She wouldn’t be returning to Baltimore until Thanksgiving br
eak. Some of the dogs needed her until move-in day on campus.

  She said goodbye to Oscar the night before he left. They stood on her porch and he hugged her long and tight.

  “It’s not goodbye,” Adelaide said.

  “It’s not.”

  “Hello.”

  “Hello.”

  Then they made out like the lucky young people they were, until Oscar’s curfew.

  Toby came to visit. The plan was that he’d stay with Adelaide and Levi for a week, and at the end of that, Rebecca would come for a short time, then drive Toby home to Baltimore. In the meantime, she would visit a friend in Boston.

  When Adelaide picked up Toby at the bus stop, he had only a backpack with him, no suitcase. She offered to take the pack, but he said it was fine. It wasn’t heavy.

  She didn’t know what to talk about in person. In a rush, her fear for Toby came back, that he would

  hurt himself again, that he would

  not be

  okay,

  that the disease would

  take him over when he came off the bus.

  He seemed so young. She could see the

  little boy he used to be, in his face. She thought,

  We shouldn’t be allowed to have him here.

  He’s away from his sponsor and his appointments.

  Mom shouldn’t have let him come.

  What if he gets into trouble on my watch? What if he relapses and it’s my fault?

  He held up a bag from a doughnut shop. It was squashed. “There were doughnuts at the bus station layover,” he said. “I got you Boston cream.” He opened the bag and peeked in side. “The cream has blooped out, though.”

  Adelaide took the bag and looked inside. “It’s the worse for wear,” she said. “But I could eat it.”

  “It’s a couple hours old,” said Toby. “I’ve been on the bus for a while.”

  She tore off a hunk of doughnut and tasted it. “I’m super into it,” she told him. “Thank you.”

  She walked him down to the lake. Toby took off his shoes and waded in. Adelaide did too, though no one ever swam in the lake. It wasn’t allowed.

  “Can we have a zucchini battle?” asked Toby. “While I’m here.”

  “For real?”

  “Yeah. I feel like it might be nice to just solidly whack each other with vegetables. For old times’ sake.”

  “I guess we can.”

  “Maybe carrots, instead of zucchini,” he said. “I feel like a carrot battle might work even better.”

  “You’re on.”

  The next day, Toby and Adelaide finished painting Levi’s bathroom and the hall. Toby was a sloppy painter, though. Adelaide didn’t let him do the trim. He did cleanup and made sandwich runs.

  The day it was complete, they walked to the supermarket while Levi was at work. They planned to take a cab back. It was icy inside the store. There was a buzz from the white lights. The broccoli there was sad and yellow at the tips. Levi had given them money, and Toby chose all kinds of food Adelaide would never have thought about: granola with dried blueberries, multiple mangoes, cake mix and a tub of fake-vanilla frosting, pasta sauce with spicy peppers.

  They got four extra-long carrots for a battle (two weapons and two backups). Then they got inspired and added two eggplants, two seedless cucumbers, and two heads of tragic broccoli.

  * * *

  —

  Adelaide texted Oscar, who was in Maine.

  My brother and I are staging a vegetable battle.

  Nice.

  We can’t decide on a soundtrack.

  Are you thinking classical or pop?

  Well, it’s a comedy.

  It would be funny with serious music.

  Are you filming it?

  …

  Yes, filming. We just decided, but yes.

  Maybe some of it in slow motion, Toby says.

  Then you’ll edit the score in later.

  The question for now is, what is the set design?

  Toby says a location shoot in Dad’s backyard.

  Oh! Wait!

  The vegetable battle will be staged in my solid gold set model for Fool for Love.

  Perfection.

  Re: score. I think Chariots of Fire.

  It’s so hot when you say score instead of music.

  Ha.

  What is Chariots of Fire?

  Good music for a vegetable battle. Classical-ISH. But not.

  (Opening app. Listening)

  I just played Toby the Chariots of Fire soundtrack and he is laughing so hard he knocked over several oranges. They went rolling through the produce department.

  Now he is in danger of knocking over a watermelon.

  Oh damn. The watermelon is down. Rolling!

  The manager just came over and said that we should not pollute the airspace of the Stop & Shop with our music and that is just basic manners.

  And I was like, but it’s Chariots of Fire!

  And he was like, watermelons and oranges are not toys. They are fruits, and there is a price on them, and this is a place for serious shopping behavior.

  Did he really say “behavior”?

  No.

  I can help w/film if you want.

  We have to do it before Toby leaves.

  I could come tomorrow.

  From Maine? Would you seriously?

  I would.

  I would come to see you, Adelaide.

  I want to see you.

  They were unloading the groceries at the house by the time Adelaide got to Oscar’s “I would.”

  She did want him to come help them make a movie.

  She wanted him to take her,

  just her,

  down to the lake at the edge of the campus, underneath the big old oak tree, and

  press her up against the rough bark.

  She wanted him to push against her as the temperature dropped and the moon went up into the sky.

  She wanted to take his shirt off in the cold night air and have him stand there shivering before her, to let her touch him with her warm hands, her nails painted blue, their breaths loud.

  She wanted Oscar to play the Chariots of Fire song for her on the piano, and to help her move her things out of storage and into her new dorm room, the single she’d have for senior year, hanging fairy lights around her window.

  She wanted him to adore Toby, and she wanted Toby to adore him, and for Oscar and her to start the school year together, finding one another Friday nights as soon as classes were done, playing ridiculous invented card games in the secret café behind the juice bar. She wanted to lie on the floor in his living room, listening to him play piano and doing her homework. To eat weird salads with his parents and to talk late into the night and—

  Adelaide wanted Oscar to come down from Maine so that she could believe, as she had believed with Mikey, that this thing between them was permanent.

  He’d surpass Mikey Double L, become more legitimate than Mikey had ever been, because he, Oscar, had made the gesture to come back for her, the gesture Mikey never would have made.

  That wasn’t a good reason for Oscar to come.

  * * *

  —

  Toby and Adelaide put away the food. They stored the vegetables for their film in gallon-size Ziploc bags.

  Then they ate potato chips and watched old Saturday Night Live episodes until six.

  They walked Lord Voldemort and the Great God Pan. All the other dogs had been reclaimed by their owners, who were back from summer vacation.

  As they walked past EllaBe
lla’s house, the dog looked at Adelaide from her spot at the window. Just her soft black head peeked over the ledge.

  “That’s EllaBella,” Adelaide told Toby. “She was with me all summer.”

  “She has a good face,” said Toby. “I remember her photo. Can we take her out?”

  Voldemort and GG Pan turned instinctively toward EllaBella’s door.

  Adelaide rang the bell.

  Mr. Byrd answered barefoot. He wore jeans and black-rimmed glasses. She could see his suitcases were still in the hall, even though he’d been home for three days. EllaBella wagged.

  “Adelaide. Hi. EllaBella’s glad to see you.”

  “This is my brother, Toby.”

  “Hello, Toby.” The teacher reached out and shook hands. “And who are these guys?”

  He knelt, and GG Pan snarfled his face while Lord Voldemort hid shyly behind Adelaide’s legs.

  It seemed so strange that Derrick Byrd had never even seen these dogs. They were EllaBella’s friends.

  “Could we take EllaBella to the dog run?” she asked.

  “You want to? I just walked her.”

  “I miss her,” Adelaide said. “And Toby wants to meet her.”

  Toby nodded.

  “Come in for a second while I find her leash.”

  They followed him into his house, which Adelaide had been in so many times without him. Pieces of it seemed out of place. Books had migrated across countertops and into smaller piles. There was a half-eaten plate of Nutella on toast next to a laptop. Byrd was—Adelaide glanced at his work—prepping a course on precolonial African history.

  He bent down to attach the leash to EllaBella’s collar. “Let me get your key for you again,” he said. “I’m going out at seven.”

  He tried pay her for the walk, but Adelaide told him this one was on the house.

  At the dog run, Adelaide and Toby ate cough drops she had in her backpack, even though they didn’t have sore throats.