The Beginning of After

by Jennifer Castle

  When we reached the end of Joe’s sketch pad, we sat there for a moment. I didn’t want to leave yet.

  Then he said, “I hear you and a whole bunch of other girls have something fantastic planned for the Halloween dance.”

  I’d been wanting to find out whether or not he was going, but was afraid that if I asked, he’d think I wanted to go with him. Which I was sure would have been a terrifying prospect, given our history. Some things are just too scary even for Halloween.

  “Yeah, it’s a secret,” I told him. “You’ll have to see for yourself.”

  Joe looked down. “Unfortunately, I have to work that night.”

  I swallowed my disappointment. “I’m sure there will be pictures after the fact,” I said casually, then started busying myself with my book bag in preparation to leave.

  “I’m trying to get out of it.” He still didn’t look at me.

  “Okay,” I said, not looking back.

  “Are you parked in the senior lot?” he asked, and when I turned to him and nodded, he made an After you gesture with his arm toward the door.

  The hallways were mostly deserted, and only a few people saw us walking out together. I knew it would be enough to start the rumor mill chugging again.

  “Thanks again for agreeing to do this,” said Joe as we approached my car.

  “It’s going to be fun,” I said. “Plus, I can put it on my applications, if I don’t get in early to Yale.”

  “I’ll take photographs of the finished pieces so you can send them in.”

  “That would be great,” I said. I stepped up to the car door and dug the keys out of my bag, then turned to wave good-bye, thinking that he’d stopped several feet behind me. But he hadn’t, and now he was closer than I expected.

  “Have a great night, Laurel,” he said. Then he paused, and for half of a half of a fraction of an instant, I thought he might kiss me.

  Kiss me, Joe. I won’t shatter.

  Instead, he leaned away from me, like he was afraid it might happen accidentally, and spread his arms wide. I copied him and we tilted into each other for the briefest of hugs. Not even a hug, really. More like a body brushing.

  Seriously, Joe, you can touch me without breaking me. In fact, you might even put me a little bit back together.

  Then he was stepping away from me and waving, and I waved back with the most normal smile I could muster.

  As I drove home, I thought of Joe’s lips by Adam LaGrange’s pool, and how his hands had felt on me. Not this brushing nonsense, but planted firmly, with a sureness. How could I ever get that back?

  And then I wondered about Mom. If she were waiting at home for me, would I ask her advice? Would we make tea and talk about what to do about Joe? I’d never gotten to the point with her of needing real boy guidance. But then, if she were alive, Joe and I would still be virtual strangers.

  The sad and twisted irony of that made me suddenly furious. I turned up the radio as high as I could and then screamed into the oncoming traffic. It was a trick Suzie had taught me. Anyone outside the car would just think I was rocking out to a really great song.

  Meg sat with me in the middle of the New York Yankees rug on the floor of Toby’s room. Lucky lay purring crazy loud between us as I rubbed her belly and Meg scratched under her chin. She liked taking a break from the kittens, who were sleeping in a pile at the back corner of the dog crate Eve had lent me.

  “She looks good,” said Meg.

  “I know, I can’t believe how much weight she’s gained in just three weeks. Eve gave me the recipe for a cat power meal that makes a big difference.”

  “Eve knows all,” said Meg sarcastically, but I didn’t respond and instead, glanced up to the solar-system mobile on the ceiling, which was twirling slowly and almost halfheartedly.

  When I came into the room the day I saved Lucky’s life, it was the first time it had been opened since Nana had to find Toby’s good suit for him to be buried in.

  While I had been able to go into my parents’ bedroom a few times to look for things, neither of us could open Toby’s door. We never talked about the stuff issue, even though Suzie occasionally asked me about that.

  The air was stale but for a second, I thought I could smell that combination of Head & Shoulders and light sweat that would always be my brother. He had some new posters up: a few bands that he’d just started listening to and one of a blond model in a bikini, straddling a Vespa scooter, that made me laugh. There was a blank sheet-music book on the desk, with notes scratched out in Toby’s crooked, struggling handwriting. I had glanced up at the electric piano in the corner, then back at the sheet music. All I could make out were the lyrics, Tell me why, you want to cry.

  Toby was always good at making up songs, even if he had trouble writing them down. When we were younger, before my going to high school seemed to turn the three years between us into twenty, we’d put together shows for my parents. He did the music, I made the sets and costumes, and we just goofed through the rest of it.

  Even though his room now smelled of cat, not teenage boy, I imagined Toby thought what I was doing was cool.

  “Are you working on your Joe stuff?” Meg asked, changing position and stretching.

  She meant the drawings, of course, but those teased a larger, Joe Stuff world of possibilities.

  “Yeah, a little. The show’s not until December, so there’s time.”

  “I’m glad you guys are . . . friendly now.”

  We paused, and I almost started to tell her about David’s postcards. They weren’t something I should be keeping from her, I knew that, but how could I explain them?

  Then we heard Masher scratching and whining at the door, and the moment was gone. It drove him crazy that there were animals in here that he could smell but not see.

  Lucky looked toward the door with disdain, then climbed into Meg’s lap. “She must think you need a little sugar today,” I said.

  Meg frowned for a second and the tip of her nose twitched, like she had something to say about that, but then she just bent down and gave Lucky a big wet kiss on the head.

  I wanted the Magic Wok for my birthday. I got the Magic Wok and the big round table in the corner, with the Lazy Susan on it, which I always loved when I was little.

  Nana and Megan sat on either side of me. Meg’s parents sat next to her, and Eve sat next to Nana. Everyone ordered the mai tais, which came in a ceramic Buddha with a ridiculously long straw, including Meg and Eve and me, although we got the alcohol-free versions that tasted like Slurpees.

  “To Laurel,” said Meg, raising her Buddha. “May this year be as awesome as possible.”

  Everyone raised their Buddhas. “To Laurel!”

  We ate dumplings and egg rolls and everyone got along, except maybe Mr. Dill, who didn’t seem to like Chinese food because he asked the waiter to get him a steak sandwich, and Mrs. Dill rolled her eyes and tilted her chair away from him.

  Also there was the sadness. I could feel it right there under the table, about to crawl out on hands and knees into my party. Maybe if I kept my legs together and my feet pressed to the ground, it wouldn’t have room to escape.

  But it came anyway, no matter how loud everyone laughed at Eve’s jokes or the way Nana tried for the first time in her life to use chopsticks.

  It was my birthday, and I wanted my mom and dad. My mother always tried to do something a little alternative for my parties, like buying old hats at the secondhand store and letting my guests and me decorate them with felt flowers and beads. Dad gave me a book every year, inscribed inside the front cover. I’d always thought, Why can’t she just hire a magician or a bounce house like everyone else? Am I supposed to read this book and pretend that I love it even if I don’t?

  Every time I felt like I was going to lose it, I took a sip from my Buddha and stared at the green cap of the low-sodium soy sauce bottle as it sat in front of me on the Lazy Susan. Or I just smiled and laughed and nodded whenever everyone else did.

  It
felt right, the people who were here (except maybe Mr. Dill). Fortunately, Andie and Hannah had an away field hockey game and couldn’t come, and I knew that when I invited them. Things with Joe were still so unformed, shapeless. That was an awkwardness I didn’t want in the mix.

  After the appetizers, I got up to go to the bathroom, and Meg rose to go with me. As we walked away from the table and down the hall, I heard Eve ask, “So where are Laurel’s folks tonight?”

  A hush came over the table, but I didn’t turn to look over my shoulder.

  “Keep walking,” said Meg, and she pulled me toward the restroom door.

  When I was done peeing and Meg was done peeing and we had both washed our hands, I knew I was going to have to go back and look at Eve’s face and see that she knew now.

  Screw it. It was my birthday.

  Meg went back to the table first, and I followed her. They were all talking about their favorite “food movie moments,” and Mrs. Dill was describing some scene from a Jack Nicholson film where he was ordering an egg salad sandwich, and everyone made sure to keep the conversation going when I sat back down.

  But as soon as I did that, Eve started crying. Nana put her arm around her as Eve raised her eyes to me, and I looked away. Then, fortunately, the food came, and soon everyone was too busy using eating as an excuse not to talk.

  Later, they brought out a big cake and made the whole restaurant sing “Happy Birthday,” and I opened gifts. For a second, I remembered the Tinker Bell bubble bath David once gave me for my birthday when we were little kids, and wondered where he was at that very moment.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  I don’t get it,” said Meg. “This is supposed to be the rice part?”

  “Yeah. Doesn’t it look like rice?”

  We were standing in front of the full-length mirror in her mom’s room, with big slabs of white Styrofoam hanging off our backs. The Styrofoam was attached to straps that hung over our shoulders, which were attached to big colored sacks of material hanging down the front of our bodies. I don’t think either of us was prepared to admit how moronic the whole thing was.

  “No, and these don’t look like pieces of fish.”

  “I think it’ll be better once we put on the seaweed,” I offered, pointing to the green felt sashes lying on the floor, which we were supposed to wrap around our middles.

  “Tell me again why we agreed to do this?” asked Meg, trying to make her rice slab hang straight.

  “You’re the one who likes them so much. And Andie said they really needed a full sushi platter. How could we do that to them? Make them go to the Halloween dance without shrimp and yellowtail? They’d be laughed out of town!”

  Meg giggled, then gave me a sideways glance. “You don’t like them?”

  “I guess I do. I don’t not like them. They’re nice.”

  “Yeah, they are,.” What she didn’t say was, and they’re popular, and she didn’t feel the need to mention that by hanging out with them, my social score has skyrocketed. And I didn’t feel like reminding her out loud that this is all because they want to look like saints for befriending poor Laurel Meisner.

  There was so much that Meg and I weren’t saying to each other these days.

  “You’re right,” announced Meg, to her reflection in the mirror. “It’ll look better with the seaweed. And Gavin will complete the effect.”

  Gavin was going as a giant pair of chopsticks. I just smiled at her and thought, If things were different with Joe, what would he go as? Maybe wasabi? Would a guy ever like me enough to dress up as wasabi? And how exactly would that work, anyway?

  It was a Friday night and Halloween itself was the following Thursday, which meant I had just five more days to write my essay for Yale and submit it before the November 1 deadline. I still had no idea what to say, especially whether or not to write about my family. Without that, I was having a hard time finding something to say that mattered, something that would make the Yale admissions department think I was special. I knew I should have been home working on it, but all of this somehow seemed much more important.

  “You’ll come up with something in time,” Nana had said confidently. “You always do.”

  Downstairs, Meg’s parents and Nana waited with their cameras. Mrs. Dill had changed her mind about “those girls” when Meg brought Andie home for dinner one night, and they all got along famously. Nana had changed her mind the day after my birthday, when Andie came to the house with a card and a gift certificate for a mani-pedi at Happy Nails “from all of us.” If there was a way to Nana’s heart, it was through good grooming.

  More photos in front of the staircase. Nana didn’t really get the sushi thing, but she made a big deal out of us anyway. Then she took Meg into the kitchen, just the two of them, and I heard her whispering something about not leaving my side. The whole scene was such a flashback to prom—we all felt it, I could tell—that I couldn’t blame Nana. I was even a little grateful, and glad she’d postponed her trip home yet again to be here.

  We neatly folded the costumes and loaded them into Meg’s car before driving to school for the dance. We were both wearing white head to toe, and glowed a little in the fluorescent light above the Dills’ driveway. Before we climbed in, Meg and I stood on either side of the car, looking at each other over its glossy black roof.

  “I feel like we’re going to a mime party,” I said, unable to hide the shaky nervousness in my voice.

  “You’ll be fine,” said Meg, but she sounded unconvinced.

  We’d been worried about being late, but as soon as we pulled into the school parking lot I realized we were going to be among the nerds who showed up first. There were only a handful of other cars there.

  “It’s okay, we need the time to get dressed,” said Meg.

  So we stood behind the Toyota, yet again putting on the Styrofoam and the green felt belts, hoping nobody saw us until we were together with the rest of our platter. And then we waited, huddled in the shadows between the car and a tree, just a pair of raw delicacies watching other kids arrive.

  Meg offered commentary.

  “Luke Trumbull is Frankenstein. That’s old school. Oh, look! Somebody’s Thing One and Thing Two from Cat in the Hat. Can’t tell who yet, they’re too far away.”

  Finally, we saw Andie’s Beetle swoop in, and we made our way to where she was parking.

  “You guys look yummy!” she said, then Hannah and two of their friends climbed out. We helped them get their costumes on, and together, we looked less stupid. Hannah had designed and made them, so she was extra proud as she herded us toward the school, snapping pictures of us from behind.

  “Let’s get a group shot before we go in,” said Hannah as we reached the main entrance. We arranged ourselves on the steps, our arms around one another, while Andie flagged down a sophomore to snap the photo for us. He looked thrilled at the opportunity and made a big deal out of positioning the camera.

  “Say ‘sake’!” he said.

  “Sake!” we all echoed, smiling.

  He took a photo, then said, “One more, the other way.” As he was turning the camera, something caught my eye off to the right, near where the squat, round auditorium building sat like a big tuna can in front of the school.

  The bear statue appeared to be moving.

  No wait. Not the bear statue. A person standing in front of the bear statue, shadowed in silhouette.

  A person who looked like he could be David.

  “Say ‘sayonara’!” said the sophomore, trying so hard to be cool.

  I was afraid to turn my eyes away, in case what I saw disappeared, but Meg tightened her arm around me and I glanced at the camera long enough to get blinded by the flash.

  Now I couldn’t see anything by the auditorium except white sparks. Meg and the rest of the platter headed into the school, but I just stood there on the steps, watching the sparks fade from my vision.

  The David-person moved again, and I started to move toward him, walking across the we
t grass in my white sneakers, not caring about how muddy they were getting. Finally I reached pavement again, the walkway in front of the auditorium, and now I could see him unshadowed. He saw me, too.

  “Laurel,” he said simply.

  His hair was longer now, brushing the tops of his shoulders, and the weight of it made it hang straight and shiny. He’d lost more weight and gotten kind of tan. He looked about five years older.

  And then there was me, dressed as sushi.

  “Hi, David.”

  His eyes swept up my costume, but stopped before they got to my face.

  “Don’t tell me. Yellowtail, right?”

  “How did you know?”

  David smiled sideways. “In California, there’s sushi everywhere. I ate a lot of it.”

  “There you are!” I heard Meg’s voice behind me and spun around. She was panting. “I thought you were with me, I’m sorry. It was so crowded it took me a few minutes to realize—”

  Meg caught sight of David and her mouth dropped open.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” she asked angrily. It was what I had planned to say, once I’d decided which was weirder: David showing up like this, or David knowing what kind of fish I was supposed to be.

  “I’m here to see Laurel,” said David, now raising his eyes to mine. They were perfectly round and completely open, telling me it was okay to let my gaze lock on. “I just got in tonight and I went to your house . . . to see Masher . . . and nobody’s home. And I knew there was a dance here so I figured I could find you. . . .”

  He wanted to see his dog. Well, of course. I dropped my eyes away.

  “Laurel, maybe you can give him your house keys? Your grandmother’s probably still at my place.”

  I looked at Meg, then behind her at the lights of the school as they seemed to quiver from the energy of the dance. Music boomed from the gym, where no doubt the rest of our sushi platter was looking for us, and Gavin was wandering around as a big pair of chopsticks with nothing to pick up. Joe was miles away ripping ticket stubs at the movie theater, and I had nobody hoping to see me.

  “Meg, just go in,” I said.