The Darlings in Love

by Melissa Kantor

  At the thought of Colin’s being her boyfriend, two things happened simultaneously. First, her stomach lurched in a now-familiar way. Second, a new window popped open on the lower-right-hand corner of her screen.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: Hey.

  Natalya was shocked. Totally and completely shocked. She could not have been more shocked if Colin had suddenly materialized in her room.

  Her amazement at seeing his name on her computer made her forget to respond, and a minute later, he wrote again.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: Um, hey?

  This made no sense. Why was he writing to her if he had a girlfriend?

  Cbprewitt@thompson: Hello? Hello? Is this thing on?

  Of course, Natalya realized, he’d always already had a girlfriend. It wasn’t like Alison was a new discovery for Colin the way she was for Natalya, who’d assumed Colin hadn’t contacted her since Saturday because now that she knew he had a girlfriend, there was no point in talking to her anymore.

  But why was he talking to her? What did he want? Natalya squinted at the words on her screen as if they were a slide and she were one of the girls in her class who didn’t know how to use a microscope.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: Is this thing on? Testing. 1. 2. 3. Testing.

  Deciding without deciding, Natalya typed a response.

  Npetrova@gainsford: hi.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: Wait, is that a smoke signal on the horizon?

  Npetrova@gainsford: Try binary.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: I always knew u were cutting edge.

  This was, without a doubt, the strangest conversation Natalya had ever had in her life. She’d pretty much given up on ever hearing from Colin, but when she’d let herself imagine their having a conversation, it would have gone more along the lines of, Hey, sorry for not telling you about the whole girlfriend thing. Instead, here he was, acting like nothing had changed between them.

  And maybe nothing had. Being at Gainsford, she often felt like she was visiting a foreign country, one where the natives had their own language with phrases like my country house and my driver and my investments. Maybe what seemed flirtatious to the rest of the world was just simply friendly banter on Park Avenue.

  As if to confirm her theory, Colin asked casually:

  Cbprewitt@thompson: what r u up 2?

  If Colin hadn’t been flirting with her, Natalya knew she should feel relieved. It meant he wasn’t a total sleazeball like Jane had said. She should be happy that her friend’s boyfriend wasn’t flirting with her.

  But all she felt was a strange emptiness.

  She realized she hadn’t responded to his question and quickly typed:

  Npetrova@gainsford: not much. learning about the roots of the crisis in the middle east.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: is there a crisis in the middle east?

  Npetrova@gainsford: I guess u don’t get out much.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: I try not to. that’s what I love about chess. u don’t have 2 leave the house.

  Npetrova@gainsford: u left the house 2 play Saturday.

  As soon as she hit return, Natalya inhaled sharply and held her breath. She shouldn’t have mentioned Saturday. Saturday had been the day of THE BIG CONFESSION.

  But as if to confirm that his telling her he had a girlfriend meant nothing, Colin wrote back:

  Cbprewitt@thompson: Speaking of Saturday, want to play a quick game?

  She exhaled, not sure if she was relieved or disappointed by his being unaffected at the mention of Saturday.

  Npetrova@gainsford: I have a paper to write.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: u think I don’t?

  She smiled. What was it about Colin that made it possible for her to hear his voice even though she was just reading his words? But then she shook her head roughly. He had a girlfriend. Why didn’t he play chess with Alison if he was so desperate for a game? She imagined Alison sitting in her ginormous bedroom with the private terrace, admiring a bouquet of roses Colin had sent her that morning with a note. I kind of love you. Colin. The picture in her head made Natalya feel irritated and guilty.

  Npetrova@gainsford: im not playing.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: one game.

  Npetrova@gainsford: no thanks.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: speed chess. ten minutes a move.

  Npetrova@gainsford: nope.

  Cbprewitt@thompson: five minutes.

  Npetrova@gainsford: NO!

  Cbprewitt@thompson: Well, Petrova, u drive a hard bargain. I’m afraid we’re going to have to have this rematch in person. What about Saturday afternoon @ 3. My house. You, me and our well-matched wits. You game?

  Okay, wait a minute.

  He was inviting her to his house? His house?

  She gently slid her fingers over the keys on her computer, not typing anything, just thinking. She thought about how much fun she’d had hanging out with Colin. And she thought about how happy she’d been walking through the emptying corridors of Gainsford with Alison and Jordan on Friday afternoon, how comfortable it was to be with them, how glad she’d felt that Alison thought of her as an invite-you-to-my-birthday-party friend.

  Did she really have to choose? Couldn’t she be friends with Colin and with Alison?

  There was no reason that just because Colin kind of had a girlfriend (whatever that meant), Natalya couldn’t be his friend. And it wasn’t like just because she was friends with Alison’s kind-of boyfriend Colin, she couldn’t be friends with Alison too. That wasn’t some kind of a rule. There were no rules.

  That was Natalya’s whole problem.

  Though it was only three words long, Natalya’s response seemed to take forever to type. And even after she hit return, and the sentence was up on the screen, she couldn’t believe it was she who had written it.

  Npetrova@gainsford: OK. It’s on.

  JACK HAD TOLD her it was a nine o’clock concert, but at a quarter of ten, the warm-up band was still going strong. Nobody but Victoria seemed to notice the late hour; Jack, Lily, and Rajiv were debating whether some group Victoria had never heard of had sold out with their latest album. Jack said he liked a bunch of the songs, but Lily kept complaining that it was overproduced, and Rajiv kept saying, “It’s the principle of the thing.” Actually, he wasn’t saying it so much as screaming it, because the club practically pulsated with the warm-up band’s (The Crying Babies? The Lying Ladies?) tooth-rattling music.

  Victoria kept checking her phone, and not just because she couldn’t believe how much time had passed without the concert’s starting; even though her mother thought Jane’s mother was sitting at a production of Hamlet, Victoria was completely paranoid that any second now she’d get a text from her mom saying,

  i just talked to Jane’s mom & i know u lied!!!!

  On her way to Act Two with Jane to see the feathered dress, Victoria had taken a deep breath, then called to ask her mom if she could go to Hamlet with Jane and her mother. She’d expected her mother to say something generic like, That sounds like fun, or maybe, Aren’t they sweet to invite you, or even, Are you sure you want to go? It might be boring. She’d actually scripted the plea she’d have to fake, all about how she was really getting into Shakespeare.

  But her plans to convince her mother she should be allowed to go to the play had proven to be completely unnecessary. As soon as Victoria said Jane’s mother had offered her an extra ticket to Hamlet, her mom had gone nuts!

  “Hamlet at The Public?”

  Victoria wasn’t actually sure it was at The Public, but she just said, “Um, yeah.”

  “Oh my god!” her mom cried. “That’s incredible.”

  As her mother went on and on, Victoria gleaned from her enthusiasm that this was the best production of Hamlet since, like, the Renaissance, that it was sold out for the entire run, and that somebody’s having an extra ticket was luckier for Victoria than if she’d won the lottery. “That is just soo generous of Anne,” Victoria’s mom said, about ten thousand times, and each time she said it, Victoria could practically h
ear her dialing Jane’s mother to say thank you.

  “I’ll tell her thank you!” Victoria shouted, nearly hysterical. “I’ll buy her some flowers to say thanks.” Literally sick with anxiety, she pressed her hand against her stomach to quell the nausea. What had she done? Why had she lied? This was insane. Her mother was totally going to say something to Jane’s mother. Her parents were never going to trust her again.

  She’d just have to go to the play. She’d tell Jack she couldn’t go to the show, that her parents wouldn’t let her.

  But then she remembered she couldn’t go to the play, that Simon had already taken Jane’s extra ticket. So what was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like she could tell her mother that Jane’s mother had offered her the ticket and then rescinded the offer. If she didn’t go to the concert, was she supposed to wander around the city by herself until eleven thirty, at which point she could probably claim the performance had ended?

  Her mother’s voice broke through the ocean of panic swirling in her brain. “Are you at Jane’s now? What about homework?”

  “We’re running a quick errand, and then we’re going back to Jane’s to do homework.” Uttering the first truth of the entire phone call, Victoria breathed more easily.

  “Listen, sweetheart, I’m sorry, only I don’t want you going out for dinner with Jack and going to this show, okay? That’s too much on a school night.”

  Dinner with Jack. Had her conversation about dinner with Jack taken place only that morning? It felt like a million years ago. “Right, Mom. I totally understand. I’m just going to eat with Jane and her mom before the show.” Was her mother going to be suspicious that she was acquiescing on the dinner thing too easily? But she couldn’t bring herself to start a fight with her mother about an entirely fictitious dinner with Jack.

  Her mom was still talking. “And don’t wear jeans. It’s awful to wear jeans to a play. Borrow something nice from Jane, okay? And you’ll take a cab home. Do you have enough cash? Ask Anne for some and then I’ll pay her back.”

  “I’ve got money!” The idea of getting caught because her mother offered to give Jane’s mother twenty dollars for Victoria’s imaginary cab ride home from downtown made her stomachache return a million times more intense than it had been earlier. She couldn’t believe how many ways there were to get tripped up in this lie.

  “Okay, sweetheart. I love you. Have a wonderful time tonight.”

  At her mother’s gentle, generous good wishes, Victoria felt her eyes swimming with tears. What kind of horrible daughter was she? How could she reward her mother’s trust and love with a complete lie?

  “I love you too, Mom.” As she spoke the words, she hoped her mother could sense that they were true, even if every other sentence Victoria had uttered over the course of their phone call had been a complete lie.

  She hung up and looked at Jane, who was standing next to her in front of Act Two, her eyes full of sympathy. “That sounded kind of brutal.”

  Victoria nodded, then added, “Do you have anything I can wear to a rock concert that will look like I could have worn it to go see Hamlet?”

  Jane gave her friend a tight hug. “Totally.” Then she pulled away and smiled encouragingly at Victoria. “And listen, forget everything I said before, okay? Tonight is going to be awesome!”

  “God, they so totally stole this melody!” Rajiv yelled, and Jack and Lily laughed.

  “What melody?” asked Victoria, who could barely hear a melody. But she’d asked her question too quietly for anyone to hear, and besides, Rajiv had just said, “They’re here!” and pointed at a tall, curly-haired guy standing over by the bar.

  By the time the opening band had left the stage and Lost Leaders had finished tuning their instruments, it was ten thirty. Victoria put her hand on Jack’s arm. “I’ve gotta go.”

  Jack cupped his hand around his ear and leaned down toward her. “What?”

  She pointed at her wrist, though she wasn’t wearing a watch, and said again, louder this time, “I. Have. To. Go.”

  Jack’s face was concerned. “Are you sure? They’re just starting.”

  As if to underline his point, the curly-haired guy stepped up to the mike and said, “Hey, everybody!”

  Should she tell Jack the entire story? Explain how she’d lied to her mom and how if she got home even a second later than she was expected, her mom would be on the phone to Jane’s mom and the jig would be up?

  The crowded room erupted into enthusiastic cheers; even if she’d wanted to explain to Jack, she didn’t have the energy to shout the entire story into his ear.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go.” He gave her a hug, then said in her ear, “You didn’t have a very good time, did you?”

  For a second, Victoria considered admitting he was right, but it was crazy to try to discuss their night when they couldn’t even hear each other. So she just said, “I had a great time.” She held up the single, long-stemmed white rose Jack had given her when she walked into the club. “And I love my flower.”

  Jack squinted and gave her a look that said, Are you telling me the truth? but Victoria stared him down. “Okay,” he said finally. “You had a great time.” He kissed her and said quietly, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Vicks. I love you.”

  “I love you too,” she said, glad she could at least be honest about that. Then she quickly made her way to the door of the club and onto the street.

  Victoria was sure she’d arrive home to a lengthy interrogation, so she was amazed to find a note from her mother on the kitchen table apologizing for her being too tired to stay up and hear how the show went. At first she was relieved, but as she lay in bed watching the numbers on her clock count down the hours until she had to lie to her mother’s face about the play she hadn’t seen the night before, she wished she’d just been able to get their conversation over with.

  She finally dozed off just as it was getting light out, then dragged herself out of bed to her blaring alarm after hitting snooze several times, and stood, bleary-eyed, under a scalding shower in an attempt to wake up.

  “Good morning!” Her mother, a morning person, came into the kitchen practically singing her greeting, and Victoria felt a welcome surge of adrenaline rush through her veins at the thought of all the lies she was about to have to utter. “So, tell me everything! Was it as wonderful as everyone’s saying?”

  “Oh, it was,” Victoria said. She shook her head in amazement, as if the memory of the acting she’d enjoyed the previous night was more than she could find the words for.

  Her mom poured herself a cup of coffee. “And did you understand the story? It can be hard when you haven’t read the play.”

  The question threw Victoria into a complete panic. She didn’t have the faintest idea what Hamlet was about, and she cursed herself for not having read at least a plot summary when she was at Jane’s yesterday. “It was a little confusing,” she admitted.

  Her mother suddenly furrowed her brow and stared at Victoria. “Honey?”

  I’ll never lie to you again. Please, please, please, this one time, please, don’t catch me.

  Victoria’s mouth was dry. She couldn’t part her lips to speak.

  Her mother looked at the wall behind Victoria. “Aren’t you going to be late for school?”

  Victoria could have cried with relief. “Yeah, I should go.” She kissed her mother and flew to the front closet. She felt awful and guilty, and for a split second, as she was zipping up her coat, she felt furious with Jack. Why had he put her in this position? Why had he made it so she had to lie to her parents?

  But then she stopped herself. Jack hadn’t made her lie to her mother. She remembered how in the fall she’d claimed to her parents that she’d only lied to them about sneaking out to a party because Natalya and Jane had pressured her to go.

  Well, Jack certainly hadn’t pressured her into going to the concert. In fact, it had almost seemed like he barely wanted her there.

  First period, Victoria and Jack had B
io together, but Jack wasn’t there. Either his parents had let him sleep in or they’d left too early to know he wasn’t at school in time for his first class. Victoria handed in the lab she’d finished at Jane’s, trying not to think about how unfair it was that Jack was probably sleeping in and would have an extra night to work on the lab. She couldn’t decide which she was more jealous of: his getting to hand in the homework tomorrow or his being asleep. The thought of sleep made her head feel even heavier than it had before; she had to jerk herself upright more than once during the period to stop herself from dozing off.

  When Victoria came out of class, Georgia was waiting for her by her locker. “So where should we meet later?”

  “Wait, what?” Victoria did a quick mental check. It wasn’t time to go to the community center again.

  “We have to write up that summary of our work. Tomorrow’s the deadline, remember?” Georgia smiled. “I know, payback sucks.”

  Was that today? All Victoria wanted to do after school was sleep. How could she possibly write up a report?

  Georgia gave her a funny look. “You’re not going to bail on us, right?”

  The word again wasn’t spoken, but it was definitely implied. Quickly, Victoria shook her head. “No. No. Of course not.” She gave Georgia’s arm a quick, reassuring squeeze. “I’ll meet you in the library after school.”

  “Cool. I’ll see you then.” Georgia was clearly relieved, and Victoria felt bad at the idea that someone who counted on her might think of her as the kind of person who couldn’t be counted on.

  She gave a little wave and headed down the hall, so bleary-eyed she almost didn’t see Jack, who was walking toward her with Rajiv and Lily. They were all eating egg sandwiches and laughing about something.

  “Hey!” called Jack, stopping in front of Victoria.