The sky was a crisp shade of blue, and you could almost watch the leaves turning colors. This time last year, we’d decorated the junior class float out at Brian Sorenson’s house, and afterward he and his father had built a campfire for us down by the pond. It was an afternoon just like this, and Lacey and I had wandered away from the group around sunset to go walking along the uneven shore. Hung in mist, the trees looked blue against the pink sky, like the mountains in Kentucky and Virginia. Lacey and I ambled out to the edge of a small wooden pier, where we sat down and took off our shoes without discussion. I remember we laughed about that, how we just knew. We dangled our feet in the water and smoked cigarettes, flicking them into the pond. She’d just been dumped by this guy Jason, who’d graduated the previous spring and gone off to Iowa State, breaking up with her less than two weeks into his freshman year. Though normally Lacey never talked about her feelings — we always used to joke that she had a heart more like a guy’s, getting mad but never sad, punching things but never crying — on the pier that day she let down her guard for an hour, admitted that she had been completely shocked when Jason dumped her. I was surprised by the raw honesty in her voice as she ground another cigarette into the wood. “I really think my heart’s broken, Paige,” she said. “I’m not sure what to do about it.” I pushed our shoes aside so I could scoot across the boards and sit next to her, my shoulder pressed against hers. We sat like that until the last cigarette was gone and the sun was low on the water.
Ethan was teaching me how to skip stones across the surface of the water when a group of tanned guys carrying water bottles and Frisbees called his name. He looked up in surprise, and I watched as his face relaxed into recognition. “Hey!” he yelled back, waving. “I played Ultimate with those guys this summer,” he explained. “Do you mind if I . . . ?”
“Oh, of course,” I said. He grinned at me and jogged after the Frisbee guys, and I watched him for a moment, his green T-shirt clinging slightly to his broad shoulders. . . . I blinked, shook the dust out of my head, and wandered off to find Shanti.
She was sitting near the top of the hill, her back resting against a wide oak tree. Her notebook lay open in her lap, and the pen in her hand rested slack against the pages. A yellow leaf balanced in the book’s gutter. Though I couldn’t see her eyes behind her giant Audrey Hepburn sunglasses, I could tell that she was gazing off to some unseen horizon.
I walked up the hill slowly, my hands wrapped around the strap of my messenger bag. Despite the connection I’d felt with Shanti earlier, I was shy, worried I’d disturb her or disrupt her thoughts. As I watched her, she abruptly reappeared in the present moment, and her face lit up. “Hey!” she said, patting the grass beside her. “Did you get dumped?”
“Ha,” I said, wondering why the word gave me a pang.
“I saw those guys playing Ultimate earlier,” Shanti said. “I figured it was only a matter of time before they found Ethan.”
“Hmm.” I dropped my bag in the grass and eased myself down beside Shanti, following her gaze to the edge of the river. We tracked Ethan as he loped along the path, throwing and catching a red Frisbee in increasingly challenging ways as the boys worked to impress one another.
“This reminds me of this summer,” Shanti said. “I can’t even tell you how much time I spent watching Ethan play.”
For the first time, I wondered if there was — or had been — something more between Shanti and Ethan. I studied her, looking for clues.
“That sucks,” I said. The disc flew between the boys like a special effect in a school play, as if suspended by fishing wire from some invisible ceiling. The tallest of Ethan’s friends jumped up with his arm stretched all the way over his head, and the disc seemed to slow in its approach until it was just floating there, hanging obediently above his head for him to pluck, effortlessly, from the air.
“Not really,” Shanti said. “I got a ton of writing done.” Absently, she fingered her notebook. “After this summer, there’s a part of me that could totally see myself going here for college, but then there’s the part of me that always vowed I’d go as far away as possible for school.”
“Yeah,” I said. I tried to imagine myself here as well, writing under trees overlooking the endless parade of jogging strollers and squirrel-chasing dogs, but in my family it had always been a given that I would go to Northwestern, as my parents had. I imagined telling my mother that I wanted to go somewhere else for college. She’d tilt her head like a spring robin and the skin would crinkle between her eyes. “I don’t understand,” she’d say carefully. “Why would you want to go anywhere but Northwestern?” I sighed.
“You guys were pretty cute down there, skipping stones.” Shanti’s dark eyebrows rose over the black frames of her sunglasses. There was something in her voice that I couldn’t quite read. Was it jealousy?
“It’s funny,” I said neutrally, “how we grew up around so many lakes, and yet I never learned to skip stones.” On the other shore, a large black dog threw itself into the river after a tennis ball. I ripped the grass at my side into little piles, scanning the bushes and trees along the river. In my peripheral vision, I could see Shanti taking up her pen again, the nib hovering above the handmade page for a moment before scratching its lines of ink across the surface.
Without looking at her, I said, “Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” Shanti said, stopping her pen.
“You aren’t —” I started, and tried again. “I mean, you’re not — you and Ethan aren’t —”
“A thing? A couple?” She smiled. “No. Not at all.” She paused, as though weighing her words. “Actually, I have a boyfriend.”
“You do?” I asked, unable to temper the surprise in my voice.
She didn’t seem offended. “I met him at the summer writing workshop. He and Ethan were roommates, actually.” She smiled behind her glasses. “He lives near Omaha, but we’re talking about going to school together next year.”
“Omaha,” I repeated lamely. “That’s . . . not close.”
She smiled again. “No, but we write each other almost every day. He writes the most incredible emails.”
“Why don’t you ever talk about him?” I asked.
Shanti shrugged. “I don’t know. I guess I don’t feel the need to shove my personal life in people’s faces. I mean, like those people at school who are always making out in the hallways, pushed up against lockers. . . . It’s like, what are you trying to prove?”
“Um,” I said, unsure of whether she was insulting me.
She noticed my look. “Not you.”
Down near the river, Ethan was drinking from his teammate’s water bottle while the guy next to him stretched his quads.
“And he doesn’t mind about Ethan?” I thought grimly about my own relationship. “He’s not jealous?”
“No,” Shanti said. “He’s very enlightened. And anyhow, he knows I’m not Ethan’s type.” Her voice was dryly amused, sweetly self-deprecating, as if she were making an inside joke with herself.
I couldn’t help myself. “What’s his type?”
Shanti raised an eyebrow. “Princesses,” she said, and went back to her writing.
We were quiet for a while, Shanti writing while I people watched. We’d been sitting in sun, but now the tree’s wide shadow stretched across us. I shivered, wishing for more than my thin hooded sweatshirt. Shanti looked up. “Ethan probably has an extra jacket in the Jeep,” she said. “He usually does.”
“Oh, I don’t —”
“I’ll go with you,” Shanti said, and yelled down to Ethan. “We’re going on a walk!”
He looked up and waved.
“We’ll come back for you!” she called.
He cupped his hand around his ear, shook his head, shrugged.
Shanti just waved and turned back to me. “I’ll text him.”
She hummed as we walked, and her steps were bouncy, but she was more subdued than she’d been earlier in the day. “So.” Our feet
stepped off the curb together. “Can I ask you something?”
My breath caught in my throat. She was going to ask me about kissing Ethan. Had he told her? “Maybe?”
“What’s up with you and Jake? Half the time you look like you want to push him into traffic, and the other half you’re like, three seconds away from jumping him.”
“Oh!” I said. “Jake!” My mind ran a quick montage of his face: winking from across the room, gritting his teeth as he dug a grave for the Austins’ cat, softening the moment before he kissed me, wincing in the thunder of his dad’s voice, looking down at Lacey, protective.
“Jake,” I said again. “I don’t know.” Shanti was quiet, and I knew she was going to respect my privacy and leave it at that. But I found myself elaborating, telling her about Jake and Lacey and Mrs. Austin and my mother and how easy it all used to be, and how hard it had been since I got back. I talked and talked, realizing that I hadn’t talked to anyone, not really, not like this, for weeks. It was such a relief. I felt my shoulders loosening as we strolled around Iowa City, aimlessly now, turning random corners and wandering down side streets. Shanti asked questions but didn’t say much else, and I talked until we’d gone all the way to the Jeep and back and the sky had turned smoky blue with dusk.
Driving home, Shanti glanced at me as we passed beneath the glow of a streetlight. “What are you thinking about?” Ethan shifted in his seat to look back at me.
I dug my chin into my knees, pulling them more tightly to my chest. My thoughts were pictures rather than words, a whole reel of scenes and moments from the day. “You know,” I said slowly, the realization moving through me like sunrise, “I think I’m actually . . . happy.”
Ethan laughed. “You sound so surprised.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess I am.”
As we drove through the quiet center of town, I felt all the years I’d spent there, all the versions of myself layered inside me like Russian nesting dolls. I saw myself like a ghost, years earlier, walking with Lacey on a night just like this one. We wandered to the school yard, swinging idly and talking about everything in the world as the moon crossed the sky above us.
“I’m dropping myself off first,” Shanti announced a moment later, passing my house. “My car’s still at school.”
“That was my house,” I said, pointing behind us.
“Sorry,” Shanti said, not sounding very sorry at all. A few minutes later, she pulled up next to her car in the school parking lot. We all hopped out of the Jeep, and Shanti hugged me. “Thanks for coming with us today, Paige.”
“Thank you for kidnapping me,” I said.
She drew her eyebrows together, looking stern. “Yes, and as your kidnapper I demand that you write at least three pages tomorrow. I want them on my desk Monday morning, Sheridan!”
I laughed, holding my hands in the air. “Okay, okay, just don’t hurt me.”
Shanti handed the keys to Ethan and kissed him on the cheek. “Thanks for letting me drive.”
“No prob. See you tomorrow.” He swung up into the driver’s seat and looked at me, standing awkwardly in the nearly empty parking lot. “You didn’t drive today?”
“Sometimes my global warming guilt complex kicks in,” I said, and shrugged. “It’s only a ten-minute walk.”
“Well, the planet thanks you,” Ethan said.
“I can walk now, actually,” I said, “if it’s too much trouble . . .”
“The planet doesn’t thank you that much.” He grinned. “It’s my pleasure.”
I hopped into the passenger seat. He waited until Shanti was safely in her car and pulling away before he shifted the Jeep into first and pulled out after her. Moments later, we were pulling into my driveway. Ethan shifted into neutral and set the parking brake. My house was dark, save for the dim light in my sister’s bedroom window. Green numbers glowed on the Jeep’s dashboard. 11:31. My parents were probably sleeping; they’d stopped waiting up for me years ago.
“Well,” Ethan said. “Here we are.” The cool night air smelled like campfires and pumpkin spice, and the Jeep’s speakers still murmured the sounds of Shanti’s mix.
“Thanks,” I said finally. “For everything.”
He nodded. “It was a great day, wasn’t it?”
“It was.” A long crack across his windshield caught my neighbor’s porch light and flashed like a diamond ring. “Are you going to the bonfire tomorrow night?”
“Probably not,” Ethan said. “I offered to work tomorrow afternoon, so I’ll probably be pretty tired by then.”
“Mr. Tremont will be there. He’s chaperoning.”
“I know,” Ethan said. “Jeremy told me.”
“I’ll be there.”
He looked at me. “With your boyfriend.”
I hesitated. “Well . . . yes.”
Ethan reached for the volume on the stereo, turning it up a notch.
“You know,” I said. “I never interviewed you.”
He looked up, squinting. “Hmm. True.”
“Well, I’m not doing anything right now.”
“Fair enough.” He turned the key in the ignition so the engine turned off but the radio stayed on.
Unbuckling my seat belt, I grabbed my notebook and a pen and turned toward him. “Okay.” I hunched over my book like he had that day in class, playing the ambitious cub reporter. “First question: Are you or are you not a freshman?”
He laughed, as I’d hoped he would. “We’re still dwelling on that?”
“Answer the question.”
He laughed. “Sorry, Ms. Reporter. No, I’m not a freshman.”
“But you’re new to Willow Grove?”
“Yes.” He turned the radio back down. “We moved over the summer.”
“From?”
“Just outside of Omaha.”
“Isn’t that where Shanti’s boyfriend lives?”
Ethan nodded. “Yeah. Aaron. He’s my best friend. We grew up together.”
“Why did you move?” I asked quietly.
He looked away, through the driver’s side window to the rippling shadows of dark trees moving under streetlights. “My mom. Her boyfriend moved and she followed him. He had a buddy here who could get him a job, he said, so my mom sold the house we’d been living in since I was a baby and dumped almost all our furniture and clothes and my brothers’ toys at a garage sale. I was in Iowa City at the time, at the summer intensive. She told me she thought I’d be happy.”
I bit my lip.
“She thought I’d be happy that she got rid of my entire childhood and traumatized my brothers so she could be closer to Ed.” He shook his head.
“What was the job?”
Ethan’s laugh was ragged. “Yeah, the job. I can’t say I know, because so far Ed hasn’t done a goddamn thing but lie on the couch and drink beer and yell at my brothers while my mom busts her ass working double shifts at the hospital to support him.”
“She’s a nurse?”
“Yeah.” He leaned back against the seat. “I’m going to take my little brothers and raise them myself. After college. I’ll get an apartment and a job, a real job, and I’ll take them to school in the mornings and help them with their homework at night. Dave Eggers did it, he raised his little brother. I’ll be like that.”
My notebook sat slack in my lap, all pretense of cub reporter forgotten. “How old are they?”
“Andy’s six and Sam is four. Their dad left after Sam was born, said he couldn’t take the commitment.” Outside it had started to rain, and Ethan flicked the windshield wipers on. “I know Starbucks is the corporate man, blah blah blah, but they do health insurance, and if I stay with them all through college they might give me my own store when I graduate. And then once Andy and Sam are old enough to watch themselves, in eight or nine years, maybe I’ll have time to go to grad school and get my MFA.”
“God, Ethan. I’m sorry.”
He looked away. “It’s not your fault.” The rain faltered and the windshield wip
ers groaned against the glass. “Hey, I’m sorry,” he said abruptly. “Way to put a damper on a great evening, huh?”
“No.” I reached for his hand without thinking, but then stopped halfway, my fingers hanging in the air above the stick shift. He glanced down and I tucked my fingers into my palm. “I’m glad —”
He cut me off. “Don’t tell anyone, okay? I don’t want anyone to feel sorry for me. I don’t want sympathy.”
“Of course.”
He sighed. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” He shook his head. “Just forget it, okay?”
“Hey,” I said.
“It’s late.” He closed his eyes, massaged his head between his fingers and thumb.
I got the hint. “Okay.” I swallowed hard and swung from the Jeep, landing lightly on the driveway. “Thanks for the ride.”
“Oh,” he said. “Sure. Of course.”
“Well.” I hung in the door for a second, looking back at him. “Drive safe.”
“Yeah.” His voice was thick and his hands wrapped around the steering wheel. “Have fun at the bonfire, Paige.”
I bit my lip and shut the door. I stood watching as he backed out of the driveway, wondering what I’d done wrong, how I’d managed to ruin the only good night I’d had in months. Even as he pulled to the end of the street and turned out of sight, I stayed frozen in place, staring at the empty spot in the driveway.
In class on Friday, we did our first round of workshopping with Ethan’s and Shanti’s stories. Mr. Tremont led the discussions, facilitated them, but didn’t contribute that much about any of the stories. His rule was that the writer couldn’t talk, couldn’t defend her piece or explain anything, until everyone was finished discussing it. He had this way of completely validating everything we read. He didn’t make many comments, but the few he did make about each piece brought them to life in new ways. It was like putting glasses on for the first time, when the world you thought you knew is suddenly clearer and more beautiful than you’d ever imagined. I almost wished I’d turned my bat story in after all, even though it was so stupid and banal compared to what Ethan and Shanti had written. But I almost believed Mr. Tremont could find something worthwhile even in my dumb little piece.
The Princesses of Iowa Page 20