There’s my mom, in her mom hair, pulled back with a plastic headband, and a cable-knit sweater, neither of which manages to disguise her angular features and lithe figure, the look that got her in so many glossy magazine fashion spreads. And then, on the bottom, she’s wearing my—yep, she’s definitely wearing my dark wash Rock & Republic jeans. She’s lost a lot of weight since Dad died. I hadn’t noticed how much, until now.
“Oh,” Mom says, looking down. “I just wanted to try them on, to see how these skinny jeans fit. Um, I thought, you know, maybe I’d buy myself a new pair of jeans. But jean shopping is just so daunting, and …”
The fact is she looks, like, hot. She’s 40, but the jeans make her look like a cool 40. Definitely not the mom of a 16-year-old. And I can see that what my mom needs is for me to tell her she looks great, or she can borrow them, or that we should go shopping together, or something nice, but I can’t bring myself to, not this morning. “I’m going to go garage saling,” I say instead, downing the rest of my juice and getting up from the table.
“Oh,” she says. “I was going to make waffles.”
“Sorry Mom,” I say, heading to the front door.
“I’ve got to work at noon,” she calls after me. “Maybe we can watch a movie when I get home tonight?”
“Maybe,” I say, checking my phone to see if Dylan’s texted back yet. I texted him before I went to sleep, just to say goodnight and that I was at Dace’s. But my screen’s blank.
I slip on my boots, my coat, a wool hat and fingerless gloves for shooting pictures when it’s cold out. I haven’t been garage saling since before the holidays, but in Spalding there’s this weird tradition of continuing garage sales throughout winter—people just move them into their actual garages. It’s still cold, but the snow has melted on most people’s driveways and it’s super sunny, which isn’t ideal for shooting but it’s great for walking around.
The first garage has bins and bins of baby toys and racks of kids clothes on one side, and on the other are long tables set up with old-fashioned record players, and those plastic milk crates filled with records. In the middle are knick-knacks, mismatched teacups, silverware and glasses. It’s pretty much the standard garage-sale fare, a little bit of everything. Feels like my photography right now. I still haven’t found my focus. I thought it was going to be portraits, but since Tisch I’ve found so much I like about shooting inanimate objects. The stories they hold are too intriguing. But it doesn’t mean I don’t like shooting people too. One of the instructors at Tisch said finding your niche is like having a feeling. You can’t overanalyze it, you just keep shooting random stuff until you get that feeling—your calling. The thing you want to shoot above all else.
“You in the market for baby stuff?” a woman says. Her hair’s blonde, with streaks of gray. I realize I’ve been hovering over the land of stuffed animals. “A little sister or brother on the way?”
I shake my head and smile. “Uh, no. Just looking around.”
“Our daughter’s done having kids; the youngest is seven. And they moved to Texas. We only see them once a year and they’re past all this stuff. No more grandkids on the way.” There’s wistfulness in her eyes. Her husband comes and puts an arm around her.
I think about Mom, how she only has me, and when I leave for New York (hopefully) in a year and a half, how she’s going to be alone. Is she going to sell all my stuff? Is she going to cry to strangers? But what can I do to help her? I can’t exactly have babies just so she has grandkids—I’ve seen Teen Mom, no thank you. And I don’t want to stay home just so that she isn’t lonely. I spy a bunch of books tucked behind a rocking chair. “Do you have a copy of Catcher in the Rye?” I ask, and the guy scratches his chin.
“I thought I was the only crazy one up this early on a Sunday morning,” a voice says behind me.
I turn and see Ben standing by a crate of records.
“Hey,” I say.
“What are you doing here?” he asks.
“It’s kind of my thing.” I hold up my camera. “What are you doing here?”
“My mom’s birthday’s coming up and I was awake anyway. My little brothers wake up at like 6 a.m., so there’s no sleeping in even if you want to.”
“You have brothers?”
“Yeah, well, half-brothers. Alex and Aidan. Anyway, I’m on the hunt for a cool album for her. I know I could just look online but I figured this was as easy and it’s actually more peaceful than being forced to watch another episode of SpongeBob.”
I realize then that I’m on his street, a few doors down from his house.
“You have fun last night?” he asks, rifling through the albums.
“Yeah.” I say. “So Gemma, huh?”
He shrugs but doesn’t say anything, instead keeps sorting through the albums. He pulls off his wool hat and I notice the word BOB embroidered on the back.
“Who’s Bob?” I say, thinking he’s going to say the hat was his grandpa’s or something.
“Oh, my initials. Benjamin Owen Baxter. My mom’s super into monogramming. You should see our front hall closet. It’s like an L.L.Bean showroom.”
“So, can I call you Bob?”
With Gemma on the horizon, I already feel less pressure to make sure Ben doesn’t think there’s anything between us. It’s like I can be myself again.
“Please don’t.”
“I’m calling you Bob.” I grin.
“What’s your middle name?”
“Isabelle.”
I can see him working it out in his head. “PIG? Your initials are PIG and you’re making fun of BOB? Oh Wilbur …” He tosses his hat at me. I flip it over in my hands, thinking.
I’ve always wondered why Mom and Dad clearly didn’t consider my initials when naming me, but it dawns on me now, my initials weren’t meant to be PIG. Mom was with David: I was meant to be PIW.
“Are you OK?” Ben asks. I hand him his hat.
“I just thought of something. My initials. They should’ve been PIW.”
“Whoa.” Neither of us says anything for a moment.
“Hey, how about you call me Ben and I call you Pippa and we forget we ever had this conversation?”
I half-smile. “Deal. So. Your mom’s into records?”
Ben flips through the crate of albums from the ’70s. “My mom has a vintage wood Crosley. She got me a NAD 533 for my birthday last year. Are you into records?”
I shake my head. “Not really. I’m quite happy with the modern technology of iTunes.”
He laughs and nods at the milk crates. “I’ll show you the difference the NADINATOR makes sometime.” He adds another LP to the pile he’s accumulated on the table beside the crate. “Hey, what are you doing after this? Want to shoot some photos for the alumni mural?”
“I’m not sure. I was … probably going to hang out with Dylan,” I say even though he still hasn’t texted me back yet, which probably means he’s still sleeping. His parents will be home by tonight. If we’re going to do it, we’re losing our opportunity. I wonder if he’s mad that I didn’t come over last night. Or leave the party with him. What’s his deal anyway?
“You know,” I say, changing my mind. “I’m actually free right now.”
“Great. Are you hungry? I’m hungry. We could eat somewhere Spalding kids eat,” Ben says. I nod. “Let me just pay for these.” He hands the woman a few dollars and then we head down the driveway. “Wanna just go back to my place, I can dump this stuff off and we can grab my car?”
“Sure.” We turn left and walk a few houses up the street to Ben’s.
“How about the Orange Turtle? A bunch of alumni listed it on the Facebook page as their favorite spot,” he suggests as we get into his car.
Thoughts go to Dylan and our last breakfast together there. I’d kind of pictured us there again this morning, eating pancakes after our
farewell-Virginia sleepover.
“It’s an institution,” I say. “Tradition dictates that everyone meets there morning after senior prom. It’s been happening forever. Even my mom and her friends did it,” I say, buckling my seatbelt. He starts the car and turns on the radio. “But we should text Gemma too, so she doesn’t feel left out.”
“Yeah, sure,” Ben says. “You want to text her?”
She says she’s still in her pajamas but to go ahead without her and she’ll catch up to us in an hour or so. Ben pulls into the parking lot and we walk inside. The smell of greasy bacon and pancakes fills the air. The diner is only half full. It’s in that limbo morning time: later than the early birds but too early for late-morning brunch types. I purposely avert my gaze from the far corner—where Dylan and I always sit—and grab the first booth by the door. I slide into the red vinyl seat across from Ben. A waitress wearing a white apron over a red gingham dress, her hair in a bun, comes over and hands us two worn, plastic menus. “Coffees?”
“Sure,” Ben says, then nods to me. “Can you put chocolate syrup in hers?”
The waitress pours coffee in both our mugs and then grabs some creamers from her apron pocket and places them on the table. “I’ll see what I can do.”
“You’re still doing that I assume?” Ben says, adding milk to his coffee. “What’s wrong?” he asks and I realize I’ve just let out a big sigh. It’s not that Ben remembers my whole “chocolate syrup in coffee actually makes it drinkable” experiment from New York, which is something David introduced me to. It’s that Dylan doesn’t even know that. I came here with Dylan last Saturday, but when the waitress went to pour coffee in our mugs, instead of me asking for chocolate syrup and telling Dylan about it—or seeing whether he wanted to try it too—Dylan just told her we didn’t drink coffee and would have water instead. And I went along with it, because I liked the idea that we had that in common—Dylan and me, McCutter and Greene, we don’t drink coffee like everyone else. It was stupid, but it was a little thing I wanted to preserve, even if it wasn’t true anymore.
“I don’t think I can talk about this with you. It’s weird,” I say.
“Dylan stuff? I can give you the guy perspective—if you want.”
I grab a white sugar packet from the small square metal container.
“Dace says girls and guys can’t be friends. It’s the law of attraction.”
“What are you saying—you’re attracted to me?”
“No. I’m not! But I think you’re …” My face reddens. “Nevermind.” The sugar packet becomes fascinating.
“You think I’m into you,” he says matter of factly, then sips his coffee.
“No. I know you’re not. Anymore. You’re into Gemma.”
“Exactly. Gemma.” He folds his hands on his lap as the waitress returns with a stainless steel creamer filled with chocolate syrup.
“Go nuts, sweetheart. You two ready to order?” I order the #1 special and Ben says he’ll have the waffles, and the waitress takes our menus and shoves them in the front pocket of her apron.
Ben leans forward. “We’re going to the dance together.” He smiles.
“Oh, great,” I say, acting relieved. But I also feel something else. Dylan and I really haven’t even talked about the dance since he shrugged off the band thing. Of course we’ll go together, he’s my boyfriend. He doesn’t have to ask me. And it’s not like I really asked him. Huh.
“Dylan was in a band, right?” Ben asks, as though reading my mind. “Are they playing at the dance?”
“Yeah, Rules for Breaking the Rules. But I’m not sure. He’s …” My sighs are uncontrollable.
“Come on. You’re killing me. Spill it. Pretend I’m Dace. Wait, better yet, pretend I’m Dr. Judy.” He clears his throat. “Tell me how things are going with Dylan.”
I laugh nervously.
“Is this funny to you?” he says, in the exact way Dr. Judy asks questions. While we were at Tisch, Ben and I discovered we both go to see the same therapist, Dr. Judy. Ben, because of his dad, stepdad, mom, moving issues and rebellious ways, and me, because of Dad dying mostly, and the ensuing panic attacks. She helped a lot, and aside from one check-in over the Christmas break, I’ve been pretty much Judy-free for a few months.
“We’re just off. I feel out of sync with him and … I don’t know, he seems sort of distant. And there’s this girl, Muse. Who I was jealous of, but then I found out she had a boyfriend, but then I think she just broke up with her boyfriend and …”
“Hmm,” Ben says. “Wait, what’s Dylan doing this year anyway?”
“Well, that’s the thing. Nothing really.”
“Is he doing a gap year?”
“Kind of,” I say.
“Maybe that’s it,” he says. “Maybe he’s trying to figure next year out or something and it has nothing to do with you or this Muse girl. Or maybe it has everything to do with you. Like maybe he’s thinking about where to go next year and how that’s going to work with you.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I say unconvincingly. “Of course, selfishly I wish he’d stay here, but he can’t have another year like this year, just hanging out. And he deferred Harvard, so I assume he’ll go …”
“Dude got into Harvard?” Ben watches me. I look down at his hands.
“Well … yeah.”
“So why’d he defer?”
I bite my lip. “Long story.”
“Come on. I can’t help you if you don’t give me all the information.”
I’m not sure if he’s being Dr. Judy or Ben, but I shake my head.
“Come on, Pippa. I’m your friend.”
The waitress brings us our food. I take out my camera, then focus in on my plate, and snap a few pics. “Wait,” I say. “Don’t eat yet. Your plate may come out better than mine.” He puts his fork down and leans back in his chair as I snap away. I pull the camera away from my face and check the results. “Not bad.” I put my camera down on the seat beside me and wave my hand. “OK, you may now waffle it up.” I stab a pancake with my fork then cut it into bite-sized pieces.
“Come on. Spill it sister,” he says while pouring syrup on his waffles.
I bite my lip and look around. “Well … you can’t tell anyone. He would kill me if he knew you knew. Or anybody knew.” I put my fork down. “But the reason he’s still here, and not at school—he had non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.” I pause. “Cancer.” Ben’s eyes widen slightly, but then he regains composure. “He’s fine now, but I still worry about it. Like, what if he’s not?”
Ben’s silent for a moment. “Whoa.”
“I know.” I take a sip of water.
“You know what? I think you cut the guy some slack. That’s a lot to deal with. And he loves you. That’s for sure. Give him some time. If something’s wrong, he’ll tell you. Otherwise, just go about things as if they’re normal.”
It’s not like Ben’s said anything profound, but it sticks. He’s right. I just have to assume everything’s fine. Great. I pull out my notebook and we start brainstorming for the alumni project. Before I know it, the waitress comes back to clear our plates. “You hardly touched yours,” she says to me, then asks if I want it to go.
“Sure,” I say, then stand. “I’m going to get some shots of the décor.” Wanting a few options for the mural, I snap some pics of the counter, the soda machines, the tile backsplash behind the grill then return to our booth just as Gemma walks through the front doors. She looks cute, in a matching gray wool cap and mitts, which she pulls off, waving to us and hurrying over.
“Hey guys,” she says and slides into the booth beside Ben. He puts his arm around her and kisses her on the cheek.
“Hey yourself.”
They seem happy. Ben’s right. I need to just act like nothing’s wrong. If Dylan hasn’t told me differently, then we’re good. “Do you mind if I go?” I s
ay. “I think I’ll head over to Dylan’s. Bring him the rest of my breakfast.” I hold up the takeout box. “See you two at school tomorrow.”
CHAPTER 11
There’s no answer when I knock on Dylan’s front door, and he doesn’t answer his phone, so I figure he must still be asleep, even though it’s creeping up on noon. Despite having the key I’ve never actually used it—either Dylan or one of his parents have always been there when I’ve popped over unexpectedly—but this time, the door’s locked so I use the key to surprise him with breakfast in bed, even if it is my leftovers.
Dylan’s boots are kicked off inside the front door, and in the kitchen there’s an empty pizza box and a bunch of beer bottles. But the house is quiet. I head up to his room but find it empty. Messy, but empty. And it smells different—that familiar mix of boy and Eau Savage, his cologne, is replaced with … incense? Since when does Dylan do incense?
I scan the room for other clues, but come up short. I place the takeout breakfast on his desk and sit down on the edge of his bed, thinking back to the first time Dylan brought me here. When we first kissed on his bed, when we first laid side by side, our bodies touching. How we fell asleep and woke up with just enough time to scramble to get me home before my curfew.
Voices downstairs interrupt my thoughts. I stand, suddenly nervous. What if it’s his parents, home early, and I’m here in his room, alone with a box of cold pancakes? Too weird for words? But the sound of Dylan’s familiar laugh erases that thought. It’s him, and … a girl? Callie, maybe? I don’t have time to figure it out before their voices get closer: Dylan’s coming down the hallway, toward his room. Behind him is the girl. Muse. They’re laughing and completely oblivious that I’m watching them for a good three seconds. And then they both see me. Muse stops laughing, but doesn’t stop smiling. She looks at Dylan, whose face turns red. He coughs and regains composure.
“What are you doing here?”
I expected those words, in some form, I suppose, but not like that. Like, Wow, you’re here, I’m so happy to see you. Not the tone he has.
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