Besides, the important thing was we’d reconnected. We were back in touch, and we wouldn’t let ourselves get out of touch ever again. Talley had done that.
So I made my peace with the fact that I was cutting my visit short, but I still kept putting off telling Aunt Elise. I thought I’d tell her while she sat by the kitchen island as I cooked dinner. Then I thought I’d tell her during dinner. Then I thought I’d tell her when the dishes were cleared and we were sitting together on the couch.
“Great dinner, Sloane,” she said.
I’d made pasta with butter and parmesan, along with a side of broccoli for Aunt Elise. (Personally I was not a huge broccoli fan. I didn’t even know how to cook it, but Aunt Elise had walked me through the steps.) “It was nothing,” I said.
“It was something,” she said. “It’s been such a gift to have you here.”
Uh-oh.
“I wish I had cake to offer you for dessert,” she went on. “That is, if you still love it.”
“I do.”
“I figured,” she said. “‘Cake’ was your first word.”
“I didn’t know that,” I said.
“It must’ve been your mom’s influence,” Aunt Elise said. “She had very specific feelings about birthday cake. She thought it shouldn’t only be for birthdays, and she thought there should be a rose on every piece, so that every piece was the best piece.”
“Oh, wow,” I said. “That rose thing used to stress me out so much at other people’s birthday parties. The parent would bring out the cake. The roses would only be on the corners, and kids would start to shout out claiming them. I never shouted fast enough, so I never got a rose—one time I missed getting a rose at my own birthday party.”
“It wouldn’t have happened under your mother’s watch,” Aunt Elise said with a smile. But then her smile fell. I knew we were both missing my mother at that moment—I was missing what might’ve been, and Aunt Elise was missing the real sister she knew, which of course brought me back to Talley. I was missing her most of all.
“Talley said that all these years, your dad hasn’t ever really dated,” Aunt Elise said.
“Here and there, but nothing serious,” I said. “When I was little, Talley said it was because he was damaged. I thought she meant his finger.”
“His finger?”
“His left pinky got slammed in a car door when he was five,” I said. “The top half was sliced off.”
“Oh, right,” Aunt Elise said. “I remember your mom once told me she loved to hold his hand and find that little imperfection. She found it soothing.”
“I found it terrifying,” I said. “Fingers aren’t supposed to come off, and I wondered where the missing part was. Did they throw it away, or did they keep it? Was it in a glass jar in a lab somewhere—and did it get its own jar, or did it share a jar with other people’s missing fingers? Was there a finger-obsessed doctor somewhere who collected and performed experiments on them? And was it just fingers, or was he into toes, too?”
Aunt Elise shook her head, laughing.
“Mostly, I worried that something bad would happen to my pinky finger, too. Or to even more of my fingers. Sometimes I’d have to ball my hands into fists and feel for them, to make sure they were still intact. And when they were, I’d think: I love you, my fingers. I’m so glad you’re here.”
“With that imagination, no wonder you’re a writer. It’s very impressive.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” I said. “But thank you.”
“Have you talked to your dad much since you’ve been out here?”
“Not really. We’ve texted a little bit.”
He’d written to see how the first day of classes had gone. I wrote back: Great! Teacher is almost as good as Dr. Lee. Learning a lot!
“Well, you’ll be back to Minnesota soon enough—too soon, if you ask me. But I know you must have a lot to get back to.”
“Aunt Elise, I have to tell you—” I started.
But then my phone buzzed. Phew. Saved by the proverbial bell. I’d take all the extra seconds I could get to avoid telling Aunt Elise my change of plans. Though I figured the text was from Juno, reminding me that I needed to decide about my plane ticket.
But it was Adam’s name on the screen. I hadn’t heard from him since he’d dropped me off the day before, not that I’d expected to. It had only been a day. It felt so much longer. Time bends in such strange ways. Yesterday can feel like a year ago, and a year can feel like yesterday.
“What is it, sweets?” Aunt Elise asked.
“Hang on. Adam just texted.”
What r ur plans for the wk, he’d written.
Me: Heading home tmrw
I still hadn’t given the official word to Juno to change my ticket, and it was getting late back in Minnesota. Juno was a night owl, but the clock was still ticking.
I’d wanted to tell Aunt Elise my revised plans first. The words were on the tip of my tongue when my phone buzzed with Adam’s next text: Thought you were staying the week?
Me: Change of plans.
Adam: Well, good I caught you. Can’t let you leave without trying ice cream sandwiches at Cream. Can I pick u up in 10?
Me: Yes
Chapter Twenty-Four
I TEXTED JUNO TO TELL HER I STILL WANTED TO FLY OUT tomorrow, but I hadn’t had a chance to tell my aunt yet. There were a couple different flight options online, and I wanted to ask Aunt Elise which was more convenient for her.
Me: Do you need to know now or can I meet Adam for ice cream first?
Juno: Meet him & TREAT HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Me: Planning on it—w MY money
Juno: Pls use my card. Remember, I’m monitoring you.
Adam showed up twelve minutes later, and we drove to Cream, which was in Palo Alto, on University Avenue. “Is that University, as in Stanford?” I asked.
“That it is,” Adam said.
University Avenue was a happening street. There were lots of restaurants and stores, and a couple hotels. The sidewalks were crowded with people—many of whom looked like they could be college-aged, or high school students at Stanford for a week of writing classes. We brushed past a tall girl with an olive complexion. She could’ve been the roommate from Spain that I’d made up for dad. What had I said her name was . . . ? Oh, Isabella Lopez.
It was nice to put a face with a name, I thought. Then I remembered that I was only putting a face with a name I’d made up. I’d done it countless times, walking through the Nicollet Mall with my friends. Juno said she could tell when my attention shifted and I started crafting stories in my head, because I’d get a fuzzy look in my eyes. I’d look at the people—the strangers—and imagine whole lives for them, and then I’d go home and write them down.
This was different. I hadn’t made up the name Isabella to write a story later. I was just collecting details that I could bring back for Dad, in case he wanted any: these are the people who lived in my dorm with me, and here were the places we walked into on University Avenue.
Not that he’d care about any of those details, once I told him that I’d dropped out.
The menu at Cream gave you a choice of cookie base (I picked chocolate chip—as standard as it gets), ice cream filling (I went for vanilla), and a topping (plain chocolate chips). Adam did a waffle base, rocky road, and Nutella.
“And may I please order another one?” I said to the guy behind the counter. He had a shock of red hair underneath his Cream-issued baseball cap.
“Double-fisting?” Adam asked.
“It’s for my aunt,” I said. I’d decided I’d do the birthday-cake-flavor ice cream for her, for obvious reasons.
“It’ll melt if you get it now.”
“It’s only like ten minutes to get back to her house. It may be a little mushy, but still good.”
“You don’t want to eat ours here first?”
“I don’t think I should be out too long if it’s my last night.”
“I’m not talkin
g about a late night out,” Adam said. “I can eat ice cream pretty fast. What about you?”
“Yeah, but the line,” I said.
As I said it, I felt the press of customers behind me, waiting for their turn.
“We can wait on it again—as long as you can stand a few extra minutes spent with me.”
“Sure.”
“Great.” Adam grinned, and I dug into my pocket faster than he did to pay for our ice cream sandwiches.
“Aw, man!” he said.
“You snooze, you lose,” I said.
“Actually, I won a free ice cream. But isn’t it sexist for me to accept it?”
“You’ve done all the driving,” I said. “So we’re even.”
There were only a couple tables inside Cream, and they were both taken, so we headed outside, just kind of randomly walking.
“Thank you, by the way,” Adam said, tipping his ice cream sandwich toward me.
“You’re very welcome. Oh, hey—do you mind if we go into that store?”
“Where? Retro Planet?”
“Yeah, I want to get something for my best friend before I go home. She loves vintage things, so . . .”
“So something from Retro Planet is perfect,” Adam said. “Let’s go in.”
But when we walked through the door, the guy behind the counter took one look at us and our ice cream sandwiches. “No food or drink,” he said. We walked back out.
“Let’s sit for a couple minutes,” Adam said. He pointed toward a bench that was built around the base of a tree.
“This is a redwood tree, isn’t it?”
“It is. You know your trees.”
“Not really. It’s just when I was googling stuff about the Bay Area, there were a bunch of links about the redwoods. They’re smaller in person than I expected.”
“That’s just because the old trees aren’t here in Palo Alto. You should go to Big Sur if you want to see really big redwoods.”
“Is that far from here?”
“A couple hours south,” Adam said. “Maybe three. We used to go when we were kids.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and other kids from school. It’s a popular field trip destination because of all the trails you can explore. The redwoods have got to be like two or three hundred feet tall, and their trunks are like ten or twenty feet around. Some of the trees are a thousand years old, maybe more.”
I stood up from the bench and pitched my head back, looking at the top of the redwood in front of me. My guess is it was about forty feet high. Would it still be here a thousand years from now, and how tall would it be? I stood up and walked along the perimeter of the circular bench. There were a couple dozen flyers tacked up to the other side of the tree. Talley suddenly came rushing back to me.
It was always surprising to realize she’d slipped to the back of my brain. When she was alive, I could take her for granted, and it was okay when she wasn’t at the forefront of my thoughts all the time. But now that I’d lost her, holding her memory close felt like my particular responsibility.
Adam came up behind me. “Talley once told me that posting flyers is bad for the trees,” I said. “Bark is a protective layer, like skin, and when you put nails or staples through it, it makes the trees vulnerable to disease.”
“Well,” Adam said. He’d reached forward to smooth down a crease on one of the flyers. “I suppose we could lead a protest about it, if you want. But then we’d have to make signs, and signs require paper. Wouldn’t wasting paper on our protest be a little hypocritical, if our mission is to save the trees?”
“We’ll use recycled paper,” I said, giving him a small smile.
He smiled back. “And then we’ll recycle the recycled paper. An endless cycle of environmental awareness.”
“I like that. Talley would approve.”
“Excellent, it’s a plan.” He paused. “In all seriousness, do you think we should take down the flyers that are up here now?”
“It’s definitely better for the tree if we take them down. The bark can heal. But then, the people who put these up probably didn’t know they were doing any harm.”
“You’re such a good person, Sloane Weber,” Adam said.
I could feel the heat in my cheeks. I didn’t want Adam to see me blushing, so I turned away to face the tree again. There was a flyer advertising piano lessons. A flyer for a student-run moving company that guaranteed safe passage for your belongings or your money back. A flyer for all your photography needs, courtesy of NHL Photography.
It took a beat for that last one to register.
“Oh my God,” I said, bringing my hands to my mouth.
“What?” Adam asked.
I shook my head and pointed. He read from the flyer: “Want an expert to photograph your special day, but you don’t want to break the bank? Want to learn to be an expert yourself? Text or call NHL Photography for all your (reasonably priced) camera-related needs.”
The top and sides of the flyer were bordered with small photos, ostensibly taken by the experts at NHL—a bride with a ring of flowers in her hair, a little kid blowing out birthday candles, a family sitting in a field, a close-up of a man laughing. He had scruff on his face and longish hair. His eyes were covered by someone else’s hands, and each finger was adorned with a different ring.
Talley’s rings.
They were her hands.
I could barely contain myself. “It’s Talley!” I nearly cried.
“What?”
“NHL Photography,” I said. “Those are her hands! I can’t believe I almost didn’t come for ice cream with you! I can’t believe I thought we should take our sandwiches and get right back in the car! Oh, I knew she didn’t mean the National Hockey League. I knew it! She’d never been to a hockey game in her life!”
The flyer had tabs on the bottom with a phone number repeating, the kind where you’re supposed to tear off just one. But I pulled down the whole damn thing.
“Do you want me to call for you?” Adam offered.
“Oh no,” I said. “I can do it.”
I pulled out my phone and dialed. The phone rang once, twice, three times, and then there was the click of a voice mail picking up. “If you’re looking for Nicole, you found her. Please leave a message. If you’re looking for NHL Photography, you found that, too. Please leave a message with your name, number, and your photography needs, and I’ll get back to you as soon as possible.”
I hadn’t even thought of what I was going to say. The adrenaline was racing through my body like a brush fire, and the words came: “Hi, Nicole. My name is Sloane. I found your flyer and I wanted to talk to you about an event I’m planning. It’s totally last-minute and urgent and I need a photographer. Please call me back.”
I recited the digits of my phone number. Then I pressed the button to end the call.
“A last-minute event, huh?” Adam said.
“I know,” I said. “Does it make me a bad person to have made that up, when I know full well I’m not going to be a paying customer?”
“I just told you what a good person you are,” he said.
“I didn’t know what else to say. I just wanted to make sure she’d call me back.”
“I know. And plenty of people call several photographers before they hire someone for an event. Leaving a message doesn’t guarantee business, you know.”
I nodded. “I know,” I said.
“Okay, then,” he said. “Do you want to hang out here for a bit and see if you get a call back?”
“Yeah. Thanks.” I still had the flyer in my hand, and my ice cream . . . where was my ice cream? “I lost my ice cream sandwich,” I said. “How does someone lose something like that?”
“You dropped it,” Adam said. “When you saw the flyer, you said ‘Oh my God,’ and you moved your hands to your mouth.”
I looked down—there were the remains of my ice cream sandwich, melting into the dirt. “I don’t even remember that,” I said.
“I c
an get you another.”
“No, it’s okay. Let’s sit.”
Though it was hard to sit, feeling as jumpy as I did. Adam tried making small talk while we waited. Had he orchestrated this? The list, his phone number, my trip out here, and now coming here to this redwood tree and finding this flyer—were these pieces of a puzzle that Talley’d designed, and Adam agreed to help with? How much had she planned out, and how much had been left to chance?
The phone rang, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. But my phone was set to vibrate, not ring. It was Adam’s phone. The word Dad popped up on his screen. He pressed the Ignore button. A minute passed, maybe two, and his phone rang again. “Hi, I’m alive,” Adam said. “You don’t need to worry about me.” There was a pause, and then he said, “I don’t need to tell you where I am all the time. I’m not a frickin’ five-year-old.”
His eyes slid toward me and I looked away, as if to give him privacy. I guess if he really wanted privacy, he could’ve gotten up.
“I’m in Palo Alto with a friend, okay?” Adam said. “I don’t know when I’ll be home, but I’m not the one who . . . I’m not totally disappearing on you, okay? I’ll see you when I see you.”
“We can go if you need to go,” I said, once he’d ended the call.
“Nah, it’s fine.”
“Seriously,” I said. “It’s not like waiting here in close proximity to where the flyer was posted will make Nicole call back any faster. It doesn’t matter where I am. She has my number.”
“Well, that’s true,” he said. “You okay?”
“I was just thinking it’s not fair of me to keep this flyer. Nicole put it up to get customers, and I should put it back, even if it means piercing the bark again. But I don’t want to give up this photo.”
“You can take a photo of the photo,” Adam said.
“Yeah, I’ll do that.”
I centered my phone over the picture of Talley’s hands and took a picture. There, now I’d have it forever. A picture of Talley’s hands. It made me wish for more pictures—of her ankles, her earlobes, her elbows. Pictures you never think about taking when someone is alive. If you did take them, it’d be accidental, and you’d delete those photos from the camera roll. But now that Talley was gone, I wanted to keep all the different parts of her close to me. I missed all of them.
The Survival List Page 13