These Dreams Which Cannot Last

by Matt Flickinger

  Charlotte scrolls through the list again, considering what she could add or delete for the twentieth time. The doorbell rings. She stands back and looks over the songs, hesitating, self-conscious. Such an intimate, important list requires perfection. The doorbell rings again and Charlotte flips the computer lid closed, jogging out of her room. She bounds down the stairs, excited, giddy.

  It is always the same, Zain thinks, and always new. The sight of her face makes his chest tight, takes his breath. Not in an exhale, just makes the air disappear. The breath is gone, like it was never there at all. Charlotte glows in the doorway, clear eyes excited and thrilling. Over her shoulder, the house sits empty, uninhabited, and private. She kisses him quickly and pulls him up the stairs.

  Charlotte opens her laptop and introduces the list. “This is a necessary experience, my gift to you,” she says, before clicking the triangle play symbol on the screen. After each of the first few songs, she gives a brief intro to the next, then goes back to swaying. As the fourth song starts, Zain pulls off his shoes to dance barefooted with Charlotte. He’s never seen her without shoes and watching her bare feet feels like looking into a medicine cabinet. So mysterious and stirring. Her toes spin on the carpet. Centered on each nail is a spot of deep red chipped fingernail paint. Bare feet moving over the space below her bed, dancing, just the two of them, he’s sure this is something that has been missing from his life for too long. And as happy as he is to discover it now, he can’t help feeling sad about everything he will miss by leaving. He wonders briefly about his classmates. Have they been dancing all this time, in rooms all across the city? Probably, he thinks. Free for the weekend, with nothing to hold him back, he jumps and spins with Charlotte through so much music he’s never heard. Each song is better than any of the others before, better than they will ever be in any other time after this. They dance and smile and yell over the music.

  Before Zain can ask about the next song (from the 80s, 90s maybe), Charlotte moves in. The seam of her pants resting on his thigh as she sways, she squeezes his leg between hers. He moves with her, careful not to separate from her body. Charlotte turns and pushes her back against his chest. Their bodies touching chest to back and everything else feels incredible. Zain tries to keep up, rolling his body with hers, nose in the hair at her neck. Her skin and hair smell sweet, better than flowers. He can’t help his reaction. She feels it too and turns back around without losing the connection. Still swaying, she kisses his neck. They move around to the side of the bed. Zain falls back, pulling her by the hips with him. They land, Charlotte’s full weight on his body, their lips meeting before his head hits the bed.

  Some boys you have to teach, some are lazy, some scared, but Zain isn’t any of that. He’s a natural. It is definitely not what she had planned for, or not planned for. And Zain definitely isn’t stopping. His hands are even more insistent than his lips, stronger and softer. Every inch of skin he touches leads them deeper into places they haven’t been. Every second making her more sure they could keep going. Her bra is already off. Unbutton his jeans, and it would go there, she knows. And she wouldn’t stop. Sealed deal. But things are different now. He’s leaving. His breath on her neck tickles and warms her already flushed face. He is not just some boy, she reminds herself. And he’s leaving. Charlotte opens her eyes, sets her hands on his face, pulling her head away, “hold on.”

  “What?” Zain says, sitting up beside her, breathing hard. “Did I do something wrong?”

  “No. Not at all. You’re actually—”

  “What?”

  “It is really amazing…We just need to stop.”

  Zain pinches the wet from his lips, looking around the room. He exhales and shivers. The Counting Crows sing goodnight to Elizabeth through the warm, wet air. Charlotte hopes he’s not listening to the lyrics. How could she have picked this song, she thinks, about missing someone, saying goodbye?

  “Have you ever…” Charlotte doesn’t need to finish the question to know his answer, even if she needs to hear him say it.

  “Have I ever what?” Zain says. He cocks his head, like a puppy. A really cute, sexy puppy. Can puppies be sexy? she thinks.

  “Have you ever had sex?” she says, shrugging her bra straps back up onto her shoulders under her t-shirt.

  “No,” he says, without hesitating, without shame. He actually seems surprised. Not at the question or his answer, she realizes. More like he’s surprised at her bringing it up at all. She watches as it settles on him that the path from dancing to falling on the bed, to (sweet, intoxicating breath) on her neck, to undressing wouldn’t end at this result. The eventuality has somehow escaped him until now.

  Zain grabs his shirt from the foot of the bed and pulls it back over his head. “It’s okay,” she says, not meaning it to sound like a consolation. She gets up and clicks pause on the screen.

  “No,” he says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things weird.”

  Jesus, she thinks. What kind of boy is a gentleman in this moment? Definitely not just some boy. “You do not need to apologize for anything,” she says.

  “Oh. Okay,” he says. He pulls his arms through the sleeves of his t-shirt and sits quietly. His face creases in a look of concentration, like when he’s trying to figure out what to draw next.

  “What is it?” Charlotte says.

  “It’s because I’m leaving, right?” Zain says, with the confused, sexy puppy look again.

  Charlotte doesn’t know how to respond. What, she thinks, can you say to that? Yes? Because it is true even if she definitely wanted (wants) to keep going? If you were not leaving we would? Definitely would? Not kissing you right now is nothing like keeping from smoking or turning down a hallucinogen because fuck it, who knows what can happen and let’s see what’s on the other side? Taking not just some boy’s virginity, but yours, feels wrong now. It’s not like drugs, or with Michael, because there is no other side here. If there is, everything after is just her. Just him. Each of them alone. Thinking about so much, on two separate sides of whatever wall comes next. “It sucks,” she says, settling on something simpler than all that. “It definitely sucks.”

  Zain nods and shifts his hips, trying to bury them in the blankets. Like it will hide the rest.

  “I need a drink,” Charlotte says. “You?”

  Zain looks down briefly at the bed, then his lap, “Umm…after you.”

  It’s so cute Charlotte almost laughs.

  Charlotte pours two glasses of wine from a half bottle she pulled from the fridge door and checks her phone. They promised to text on their way home, but there is nothing from her parents. Halfway up the stairs, Zain whispers from behind her, “I hope your parents don’t come back soon.” The way he whispers reminds Charlotte of sneaking back from a late night kitchen raid at a slumber party as a kid. “I want to hear the rest of your songs,” he says. She stops to look back at Zain, but can only make out his shape in the dark.

  “What?” he says, stopping. “Did you hear something?”

  “Just you. I kind of really like you…” She doesn’t say the rest, though. Not yet. Through the dark she sees his ears lift. He must be smiling extra big.

  “Same here. Can we keep dancing?” he says.

  “Totally.”

  40

  So Simple

  With his mother home, actually out of her room, sneaking out has been impossible. Zain has spent every night packing up the living room, or the kitchen, or in his room working more on his homework than he has all year. At least his grades won’t be terrible when they leave, he thinks. Since coming back from El Paso, his mother has been working in the real estate office as a secretary during the day. No more late appointments or after work get-togethers. Every time Zain walks in from school, she is there. She packs late into the night, her only breaks taken in the living room to stare at the boxes, or at nothing at all. School has actually been a welcome escape for Zain. Meeting Charlotte every morning for a few laps aro
und the track, before they jog out into the neighborhood looking for places to sit alone and talk and kiss, has helped eliminate some of the pressures of leaving. Even if it has made some of the leaving thoughts heavier.

  On the way out of Geography for lunch on Friday, Zain checks his phone. He has one text, from Michael. “Team ritual tonight. Time to hang Meat!” It has been almost a month since Zain has talked with any of his teammates. The word “team” sticks out. He assumed the end of cross country season meant the end of the team. He heard some of the guys talking about track a few times, but it sounded like not everyone would be coming back for the spring season. He adds the River Valley team to his things-to-miss and things-to-hope-for lists. He hopes earning a spot on a team that goes beyond the end of the season will be something he can have at his next school.

  It is nice to hear from them, but now he’ll have to tell them about leaving. He had planned to send Michael a text from El Paso, maybe talk to coach before Christmas break. Big maybes on both fronts. He thinks about texting back that he can’t go, too busy studying for semester finals. The promise of another night at home packing in silence in the strange and empty house, though, is unbearable. Zain texts back, “What time?”

  “8 oclock til late. B there. details later.”

  Considering how it all worked out, the Beer Pool Mile wasn’t a total fiasco (gaining a girlfriend, even if he lost the race). But, showing up to another team ritual unaware of what dangers wait for him isn’t something Zain wants to experience again. He needs more than just “details later.”

  Charlotte isn’t pissed about cutting their last lunch of the week short (even if he feels bad about it), just tells him to do what he’s got to do. Zain walks into the athletic hallway five minutes before the end-of-lunch bell. He steps through a tangle of big football players’ legs, mostly freshmen, some of them nodding, others scowling. He heads down toward the track locker room, not looking back. Up ahead, a familiar group of boys and girls is spread out across the hallway. The skinniest of any of the groups, the runners are easy to distinguish. Almost the whole varsity team is there, a few JV and freshmen too, boys and girls. Watching them eating and laughing, stretching their legs across the tile, Zain thinks about the past few months, eating alone in the cafeteria or sitting under his locker. He thinks about the lunches he spent wandering around the school, looking for Charlotte. He never came over to this side of campus. How different lunchtime would have been with this group, he thinks. He was never invited, but he could have hung out around the edges of the crowd. Watching the way they all laugh and talk now, Zain is sure of it. He could have just sat down and eaten with them until the day someone asked him something. How different everything might have been, he thinks. Too late now, though. Michael sees Zain before anyone else. Making a big production of standing, he stretches out his arms like he owns the hallway. “The prodigal son returns!” Michael shouts. Most of the group turns and looks down the hall at Zain, smiling or raising their hands. Even John Forester nods.

  The end of lunch bell rings as Zain steps through the circle, nodding at his teammates (former teammates) as they pack up for their afternoon classes. “Can I get the details now?” he asks. Michael slaps Zain’s outstretched hand, grinning. “I guess,” he says. “I just hope you’re ready to haaaang.”

  As she looks over the list of terms and dates and timelines she should remember, and should have taken better notes on, Charlotte knows she is screwed. It should be illegal to schedule AP classes on Friday afternoons, she thinks. Not that she would do any better in AP US History if it were a morning class. It is the hardest class Charlotte has on her schedule. The hardest class in school, probably. Mrs. Norris details the finer points of the semester final exam review as the other students dive into their notes. First Creative Writing, now this.

  She was hoping Ms. Bridgford would show movies the rest of the semester, let them slide until the final, then give the class an easy prompt she wouldn’t even read. Just average out their semester grades for the final exam grade. But she just had to give them one last assignment. She walked in after the bell with a paper hat clutched in her bony hands and made each student draw a slip of paper from the hat. Each one with a single word to inspire a short short story to be turned in on the final day. “Bonus points for reading your flash fiction piece aloud,” Bridgford said. Charlotte drew and unfolded her slip, “escape.” Starting back for her desk, Bridgford stopped her, “I hope you can finish this assignment, Charlotte. Don’t hold back,” she whispered. “You’re so close. Let your characters breathe. Get personal.”

  As her history classmates thumb through their notes and books, Charlotte checks her phone. There is a text from Zain, “Team ritual tonight. You should come. Already got it okayed with the team.”

  Charlotte asks to go to the bathroom. Their last weekend together and he wants to hang out with “the team?” As soon as she’s out the door she starts her response. When she gets to the water fountain, she pushes the handle, thumb of her other hand hovering over the send arrow. She watches the water stream down to the metal drain, recalling the last couple weeks of lunches with Zain. His excited face waiting at their table every day, looking around the courtyard. He skirted the subject when she’d asked about where he usually eats, but she could tell his lunches before this week have been spent alone. She deletes her passive aggressive words on the screen and takes a sip from the fountain. “Cool. What time?” she texts back.

  Zain responds before Charlotte gets back to class, “be at your house at 7:35. Wear your new running shoes. We’re gonna hang.”

  Whatever that means, she thinks.

  His backpack full of clothes slung over his shoulder, heading out the door at 7:30, Zain still can’t believe his luck. Any of it. His mother agreeing to the flimsy lie of one last sleepover at Jackson’s, even if he hasn’t mentioned him in weeks (not that she would have suspected), Charlotte agreeing to join him and the team, without any details (the crazy details), and Michael agreeing to a non-team member joining in (with a weird look when he mentioned Charlotte’s name). It has all just worked out, so far.

  Zain stops jogging at the end of the street to run through Michael’s instructions again in his mind. After the end-of-lunch bell rang, Zain walked alongside Michael as he detailed the annual pre-Christmas-break team ritual like it was just another race strategy. Michael pausing the story intermittently to nod at or shake hands with different people in the hallway. When the tardy bell rang, Michael slapped Zain’s hand goodbye at the door of his fifth period class. Looking at Zain’s face (noticing his reaction to the whole crazy idea no doubt), Michael added one last thought, “we haven’t been caught yet, so don’t fuck it up.” Thinking about it now, Zain should’ve written the steps down as soon as he sat down in class. Charlotte might want details. And as crazy and complicated as the Beer Pool Mile was, Hanging Between Seasons is totally nuts. Everyone will risk not only being arrested, but suspended too, expelled even. He definitely doesn’t want to fuck it up, or Charlotte to.

  Throughout his breakdown of the plan, Michael kept using the word “simple.” Yeah, right, Zain thinks. The history of the tradition is simple enough. An alumni runner, an Army Ranger named Fernie, will meet the team at the Radley House a block from school. Zain didn’t need to ask about which house Michael meant, the place is notorious. Empty forever with its overgrown yard and busted out windows, the house was named for the one in To Kill A Mockingbird, which Zain probably won’t finish now (unless they read it at his new school). The house is perfect for planning a risky night. Close enough to the school to keep bums from sleeping there, and too often checked by the cops during the day for kids getting high, the house will be empty at night. Probably. Army Sergeant First Class Fernie Dominguez started the tradition when he was on leave after boot camp one Christmas. It started out as an only senior guys on the team thing. Then morphed into a varsity guys’ ritual. Over the last two years, he’s allowed the girls’ team to come along too. T
he whole ritual is meant as a metaphor, the team hanging between seasons, looking past the school they will soon leave for everything after.

  Fernie will have the ropes and gloves and harnesses laid out by eight o’clock sharp, ready to instruct. How to clip in, where their hands go, how to slow down, it will all be explained. Zain reviews the steps Michael gave about what to do once they reach the stadium. They will enter through the south gate, then up the east staircase (like fast-ass ghosts, Meat) to the top of the stadium where Fernie will secure the ropes to the top bleachers. Zain can’t remember the hand and footholds he’ll need to reach the top of the press box, so he’ll just have to hope he doesn’t go first. As he walks on, ticking off the details he’ll give Charlotte on his fingers, he tries to picture the press box. Always there at the top of trips up the stadium when they run stairs in cross country practice, he can’t recall much about the metal building. There isn’t much to recall. A flat tanned metal box, a few stairs up to a plain metal door, tall flat windows on either side of the door, then more flat wall up to a tilted, sharp roof. Not exactly ideal for climbing, he thinks.

  The first time the team did a stadium stair workout, Zain stopped briefly at the top to look down at the empty stands. He pictured screaming fans, packed into the stadium, standing as he made the last turn, kicking down the straightaway, leaving the competition behind him as he won the 1600 meter district championship race. A race he won’t have now. Not here. It is his last weekend in this town, in this place, with this team. Maybe, he thinks, this can be the perfect goodbye. Hang between what was and might have been and what will be. It works on a number of levels. After all, he thinks, the races with the team aren’t the only ones he has run.