Just Visiting

by Dahlia Adler

  But no. It’s closed. I look at the sign on the door. It closes at eight. Nightly.

  What kind of college library closes at eight? If Reagan had been remotely considering Halsing before, I know this will kill its chances.

  “What’s the matter?” she asks from the base of the stairs.

  “Closed,” I admit. I’m out of ideas. I don’t know where else Dave would be or how to find him. Heck, I know he’s not even there, that it was a stupid choice to begin with. I just wanted to do something nice for Reagan, and instead I’ve dragged her out into the middle of nowhere for no reason.

  I turn and sit on the steps, feeling like an idiot. “I’m sorry, Rae. This was a stupid idea. Do you want to go home?”

  She surprises me by walking up the steps and taking a seat next to me. “Vic?” she says, putting her head on my shoulder.

  “Yeah?”

  “What are we doing here?”

  I exhale slowly. There’s no point in lying. I don’t like doing it anyway, especially not to Rae. “I thought we might find Dave if we went to another prospectives’ weekend at a school with aprogram,” I admit quietly, and wince in anticipation of a freak-out.

  But there’s no response. She’s quiet, and one minute of silence stretches into two. Finally, she asks, “What’d you think would happen if we did?”

  I shrug, just slightly so as not to displace her head. “I don’t know. You just seemed happy with him. You never seem happy with anyone.”

  “I’m happy with you.”

  “I don’t count.”

  She loops an arm through mine and squeezes. “Of course you count, Vic,” she says softly. “More than anybody.”

  A lump forms in my throat, and I realize we’ve already moved off the topic of Dave. But she hasn’t actually said it was a bad idea, or that she doesn’t care about seeing him again. I decide to let it go, but I haven’t given up on finding him. Not yet. Instead, I glance at my watch. “Hey, the hayride doesn’t leave for another ten minutes. You wanna go?”

  She laughs. “May as well, right?”

  I give her arm one last quick squeeze and stand. “Definitely.”

  An hour later, we teeter up the hill back toward the dorm where Rae’s staying, cracking up at nothing and everything and picking straw out of our hair. It sort of blends in with Rae’s sunshine-colored curls, and I crack up all over again at the thought of it just hanging out in her hair until her next shower.

  She makes a face as she yanks out yet another piece of hay. “This is so gross,” she moans. “I feel like I’m covered in horse dung.”

  “You’re not,” I assure her. Then I grin wickedly. “You just reek like it.”

  She yelps and tosses the hay at me, and I toss it back, and we run like that up the hill, so wrapped up in our little straw war that I don’t even notice when I practically trample on a guy playing Frisbee with his buddies in the fading light of the sunset. “Whoops!” I blurt, jumping away. It’s easy to see from the smile on his face that he’s not exactly upset to have been interrupted by two cute girls. “Sorry about that,” I say, instantly slipping into flirt mode.

  “No apology necessary,” says another one of the guys, even cuter than the first. “You ladies wanna join?”

  Reagan just looks at me and laughs, so I shrug and say, “Sure!” After all, we have nothing else going on that evening, so we may as well take whatever comes. If that means Frisbee with a cute male trio, so be it. This super-random weekend is all about saying yes!

  Three hours later, we’ve said yes not only to Frisbee, but to joining the guys and their neighbors for a late-night barbecue in their shared yard, followed by beer, ice cream, and a game of tackle football in the bright lights of the quad. The others were mystified by Reagan’s and my ability to communicate plays to each other via sign language, and that little advantage went a long way.

  “Okay, you have to admit,” I say to Reagan as we wash the mud from our faces and arms in the bathroom of the house the guys—Lawrence, Robbie, and Tyrique—share. “This weekend isn’t a total wash.”

  “My knees hurt,” she grumbles in response, but she can’t help smiling as she presses a wet napkin to them. “I can’t believe we just played football. I thought Robbie was going to actually kill me.”

  It was brave of her, considering he’s about twice her size. “He totally wouldn’t have,” I say, examining myself in the mirror one last time. I need a shower. Badly. “He clearly thinks you’re cute.”

  She rolls her eyes. “You think everyone thinks I’m cute.”

  “Well you are,” I point out, wiping at a stray fleck of dirt on my collarbone.

  Her silence makes me smile. Reagan Forrester is so incapable of taking a compliment, it makes me want to shower her with them, just to watch her cringe.

  “I mean,” I add, because I can’t leave well enough alone, “Dave obviously thought so.”

  “You’re obsessed,” is all she says in response. Disappointing. Maybe it’s because I’m feeling extra positive about our friendship tonight and how we’ve turned a night that could’ve sucked into one of my favorite ones in recent memory, but I feel the urge to get more out of her. So I go back to that place I know I shouldn’t.

  “Fitz obviously thought so too.” I sit down on the edge of the tub and peer at her in the mirror as she dabs a spot of mud from her cheek.

  There’s a tic in her jaw at the sound of his name, nothing more. “Fitz had a lot of thoughts that were stupid.”

  “He loved you.”

  She closes her eyes, her knuckles going white as she grips the tissue in her hand as if it’ll hold her steady. “Yeah,” she says on an exhale. “In his way. Which was a little too much.”

  She doesn’t offer any more, and I don’t ask. I can see her physically bracing herself for more questions, and her obvious discomfort is enough to shut me up…for now.

  “Tori!” a voice hollers down the hall, and I’m pretty sure it’s Tyrique. When I hear it again, I know for sure.

  “We’re coming!” I call back.

  “We’re going to the lake to set up a bonfire. You guys in?”

  I glance at Reagan. She seems lost in thought, but then all at once, she sees me looking, and she snaps back into herself. “Yeah,” she says with a slight smile. “I’m in.”

  There’s no being polite about it—the next morning, we look like complete and total horse dung, and we still smell like hay. We’re not even hungover, unless still feeling the weight of three hot dogs in my stomach counts. We’d stayed at the guys’ house until well after three, then gone back to find ourselves locked out of our guest dorms. We ended up returning to the guys’ house and sleeping on their couches. If you can call tossing and turning while looking for lice and cockroaches “sleeping.”

  “I’m scared to ask for my stuff back,” Reagan confides as we approach her guest dorm room the next morning to change our clothes before the campus tour.

  “Oh, don’t be silly. Are you sure this is the right room?” She nods, and I rap on the door, my chunky rhinestone flower ring making an extra-loud knock that echoes down the hallway, causing Reagan to wince.

  A minute later, Brittany—Bethany, maybe? Bella? Isabella?—comes to the door, scowling behind her headgear. “You,” she says in a voice dripping with acid. She steps back and points to Reagan’s bag in the corner, as if it’s a puppy who’s been bad. Then she turns on the heel of her bunny slipper, leaving Rae to slip in, grab the bag, and run out like the wind.

  Fortunately, my hostess seems a lot less pissed off that I never showed up, and it’s a slightly less painful process retrieving my stuff. By the time we grab breakfast for some much-needed caffeine and sugar before heading out to meet the rest of the prospectives for the tour, we’re both cracking up laughing at Brittany-Bethany-Bella and her bunny slippers.

  Then, abruptly, Reagan’s laughter stops.

  I follow her gaze, but I have no idea what she’s looking at. “Rae?” I wave a hand in front of her
eyes. “Everything okay there?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She waves her hand dismissively and tries to refocus on our conversation, but it’s way too late; I obviously have to know what captured her attention. It takes me another minute, but finally, I see it too.

  The high-school sweatshirt Dave was wearing the night I saw him by the soda machine at the motel.

  Being worn by a stocky blond kid.

  Dave wasn’t wearing the sweatshirt to the party, so either he was wearing it when he and Reagan first met or she recognizes the name of his high school on the back. Regardless, although Dave’s obviously not the one wearing the navy-blue hoodie, it’s the best lead we’ve had so far.

  “Just admit that you want to find out if that kid knows Dave, and I’ll do it,” I say, keeping my voice low.

  She presses her lips together and says nothing, just like I knew she would. Sometimes I think there’s stubbornness in her actual bloodstream. But this time, I plan to be just as stubborn.

  “You have thirty seconds to take me up on my offer, and then you’re on your own.”

  “You are a horrible excuse for a best friend.”

  “Oh, please. This is the best thing I could possibly do for you and you know it.”

  She twists her white curl around her finger, yanks it straight, and lets it bounce back. “Fine.”

  “Fine what?”

  “Fine, I wouldn’t mind if maybe you found out if that kid knows Dave,” she mumbles, so incoherently that if I hadn’t been waiting for exactly those words, I wouldn’t have understood a single one. I’m feeling nice, so I don’t give her the smug smile that’s practically forcing itself onto my lips, and instead I simply waltz over to navy-hoodie boy and ask if he indeed goes to Chaplin Prep.

  “I…sorry, what?” He looks back and forth between me and Reagan, then returns his eyes squarely to my boobs.

  I reach out and snap my fingers in front of his face. “Up here, Chaplin. Do you go there or not?”

  “Uh, yeah.” His eyes slip back to checking me out, but I can tell he’s trying really hard not to, so I let it go.

  “Do you know a guy named Dave Shah?”

  “Dave?” His blond brows furrow. Well, it’s more like one brow.

  “Tall? Skinny? Indian?” Reagan offers.

  “Ohh, Dev, yeah.” Chaplin looks proud of himself. “I know that kid. Little goofy, ain’t he? You could do better. A lot better.”

  As if I would touch that—or him—with a ten-foot pole. “Say I wanted to get in touch with Dave—uh, Dev. How would I do that?”

  Chaplin shrugs. “I dunno. I don’t have his number or anything.”

  “What about an e-mail address?” I press. “Do you have school e-mail addresses or something?”

  “We’re all first initial, last name at Chaplin Prep,” he says. “Like I’m SPowalczyk at Chaplin Prep because my name—”

  “I got it,” I say, reaching into my purse for a gum wrapper or receipt. I fish one of the former out just as Reagan hands me a pen and then I turn Chaplin around and use his back as a surface to write down Dave’s e-mail address. “Thanks, S.”

  “It’s Scott.”

  “Of course it is,” Reagan says sweetly. “Goodbye, Scott.”

  He mutters something under his breath and walks off with a scowl, but I couldn’t care less.

  Mission accomplished.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  REAGAN

  I swear, I can still smell that goddamn hay in my hair when my internal alarm clock wakes me up at five on Sunday morning. It’s taunting me, trying to shove someone in my brain who wasn’t even there for the stupid hayride. It wafts into my nose in curly wisps that read, “E-mail him, Reagan. You know you want to.” It converts into sound midair, and it sounds an awful lot like Victoria freaking Reyes, whose snoring is thunderous in my ear right now.

  “Damn you, Vic,” I mutter aloud, reaching onto the nightstand next to my side of her bed and crumpling up the gum wrapper with Dave’s e-mail address on it in a pathetically false act of defiance to nobody, as I’ve already got it completely memorized. “You’re the one who got it into my head that there’s even anything there. He’s going to think I’m insane.”

  I know as soon as those words leave my mouth that I’m going to do it, though why, I still have no idea. I need something—anything—to distract me. Unfortunately, after a week of steady computer access at Casa Reyes, I’m actually caught up on work, including the extra assignment Mr. Phelan grudgingly gave me to allow me to pull my grade back up to a solid A. My shift doesn’t start for another hour, and nothing on this planet could wake up Vic for another three.

  I groan and swing my legs over, sliding out from under the covers to pad over to her computer and boot it up.

  Deep breath. Compose new e-mail. Dear Dave.

  Dev. Why had that kid called him Dev? Is that his real name? Did I even have the right guy? Was it possible this was all a weird coincidence?

  Shut up, Reagan. Ugh, Inner Vic Voice. I hate that voice.

  “Dear Dave.” Or Dev. No, Dave. Why would I call him Dev if he called himself Dave? He had said Dave, right? Yes, definitely. Probably. I’m almost sure.

  Backspace backspace backspace.

  Hey.

  Perfect.

  You probably don’t remember me, but… Pathetic. Backspace backspace backspace. I met someone who knows you this weekend at Halsing. Thought I’d say hi.

  Now that I’ve had my best friend freakishly pry your e-mail address from a total stranger.

  I take a deep breath and force myself not to delete; I know I’ll be there all damn day if I do, and I have corned beef hash to sling to construction workers. Also, I’m sorry if I was kind of a bitch.

  I contemplate my next line for twenty minutes, and after endless deleting, I just sign my name, click Send, and promptly hate myself.

  It’s hard to wash off the grime of self-loathing without using all the hot water, but I do my best and then get dressed for work. It’s only after I pull my newly washed Joe’s polo over my wet hair that I realize there’s a new e-mail in my inbox.

  From Dave.

  Holy shit.

  I check my watch, certain that it must be later than I think, but nope, seems he gets up ass-early too. I click open the e-mail.

  Hey! Definitely did not expect to hear from you, but glad I did. I was gonna apologize for…whatever I did at breakfast the next morning, but then you weren’t there, so…anyway, hi. And sorry. For whatever it is I did. You being pissed at me didn’t keep you from reading Lord of the Rings, right? There’s a quiz attached to this e-mail.

  I glance at the header to the e-mail; there’s definitely no attachment. I go back to the message.

  Please tell me you actually looked. That would make my day.

  Dave

  Oh, crap. I can feel myself smiling uncontrollably. How does he do that?

  I hit reply.

  Of course I looked. And no, for your information, I have not read Lord of the Rings, because it is a massive, stupid book. And also because I’ve been spending every waking minute either working at Joe’s or trying to keep my GPA at scholarship level, but he doesn’t need to hear that. How do I even know you have decent taste? Send.

  His response comes less than two minutes later. What, Battlestar Gallactica didn’t do it for you? My fancy clothes? My taste for fine beer? Man, you are an impossible woman to please! I had a feeling when we met that you were one of those ;)

  My fingers fly across the keys as I write back, and by the time I catch a glimpse of my watch again, I’m twenty minutes late for my shift. I type a frantic explanatory goodbye and race out the door, praying I haven’t totally screwed Freckles.

  As if enough people in this town don’t already hate me over a guy.

  “You can stop going insane now, Pepe. I got it. You’re sorry you were late. You don’t have to scrub down every single table and refill the salt shakers every time someone uses a few grains to prove to me you’re a decent
worker.” Freckles smiles as he points out a spot I’ve missed, and I immediately attack it with the mildew-y rag in my hand. “Simply giving me half your tips would be plenty.”

  “Dream on.” I toss the rag at his face and then move over to the big sink to wash my hands with soap. I hate that mildew smell; it smells far too much like the trailer after a storm. “But I really am sorry. It won’t happen again.”

  “I know it won’t, because you’ve said that thirty times. I appreciate it, but seriously, covering for you occasionally really isn’t that big a deal. Lord knows you’ve done it for me enough times.”

  Have I? No instances comes to mind. Regardless, it does help to put my mind at ease.

  And with my mind at ease, I start drifting into… thoughts.

  And then, without warning, that stupid, stupid smile.

  I immediately push past Freckles into the kitchen to get more lettuce for the salad tub, hoping he missed any show of happiness I might’ve expressed, but the knowing grin on his stupid face when I return tells me A) he definitely did not and B) I’m about to pay for my comments about him and Vic last week.

  “Somebody looks mighty cheerful all of a sudden,” he notes, hefting the bowl from my hands onto the counter. “Does this have something to do with why you were late this morning?”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh, I think you do. Did you really think we needed more lettuce? When’s the last time anyone in this town ate the side salad? You’re trying to avoid my eagle eyes.”

  “Your eagle eyes see nothing. I had a good weekend away, that’s all. It’s nice to get out of this place sometimes. Not that you would know.”

  “Hey, I happen to like this town, thank you very much.”

  “The town where no one eats a salad?”

  “The town where everyone knows me, I have the most chill employer ever, and I’m getting a decent education fifteen minutes from home.”