The Beginning of After

by Jennifer Castle

  I knew what Joe was asking. Was there anything going on between David Kaufman and me? There was no way I could answer that question.

  The way Joe smiled now, relieved and protective, made me realize how much he really did like me. And how being with him made me feel the most like myself that I had in months.

  But I had a question of my own. “Speaking of prom night . . .” I paused to take a deep breath, not looking at him. “When you invited me to the prom. Was that . . . was that something somebody set you up to do?”

  Joe frowned, confused. “Like who?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe Meg . . .” When I said it out loud it sounded so small and stupid, and I wished I hadn’t said it. “You have to understand that I would think about that. At the time, I didn’t want to know the answer. But now I do.”

  Joe looked at me for just a second and had to flick his eyes away to some far corner of the sky. “No, nobody set me up to do that. But I will tell you that if what happened . . . your parents . . . if that hadn’t happened, I probably never would have gotten the nerve.” He paused, then looked at me briefly again. “I know that’s messed up. But I wanted to. I’d wanted to for a while.”

  But inside, I started to feel so mad. If he’d just had the guts to ask me out when he first wanted to, maybe this part would have been long over by the time the accident happened. And maybe we could have been strong enough together—why wouldn’t we have been?—to survive those first hellish months afterward.

  “You should have gotten up the nerve,” I finally said, trying to spin it with a smile.

  “I know. I just kept telling myself I had time.”

  “Life is short, Joe.”

  A painful look crossed his face. After a few long seconds, he simply said, “You’ll be late for work, and I should get going.”

  He bent toward me and tilted his head a bit to glance at me sideways, almost in admiration. Again, that halfway moment when something could happen. That now familiar feeling of More! More!

  Suddenly, I was just so sick of it.

  When Joe started to wrap his loose, lazy hug around me to say good-bye, I turned my face up and kissed him square on the mouth. Too quickly, like I’d smacked him. His lips weren’t ready and felt stiff, formal. They weren’t the lips I remembered, but then again, there had been other lips since. Was it that hard to keep track?

  Joe turned red and sputtered, “Whoa.”

  Then he smiled. So maybe these lips would stick around.

  “I’ll see you soon,” I just said, then walked as fast as I could into work.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Two weeks went by. Fortunately, I had midterms to study for and my other college applications to start, and didn’t have time to be obsessed with much else. For instance, Joe sending me a text message every afternoon with a proposed superhero identity for one of the teachers.

  margulis = algeBrawn!

  (Mr. Margulis in the math department was huge and a former bodybuilder.)

  It seemed like his way of keeping the status quo, of reserving his spot for something.

  At Ashland, Eve set out a straw cornucopia filled with turkey-shaped chocolates on the front desk, and I strung up a HAPPY THANKS GIVING banner on the wall. I used the wrong kind of tape and the next day it fell down and got chewed up by a dog. Eve didn’t say a thing about it; she just went out and bought another. So it was, now that she knew about my family. She had become less bossy but less friendly, too; we never went to lunch or even talked about ourselves anymore.

  “The first holiday season since the accident will be a tough one, Laurel,” said Suzie. We were down to once-weekly visits. “Let’s talk about strategies.”

  So we talked, about trying yoga and me possibly going to some weekend camp for grieving teens. She asked me to start a list in my journal titled “Thanksgiving: Things I’m Thankful For,” and encouraged me to write anything that came to mind over the next few weeks.

  I hadn’t told her about my visit to Mr. Kaufman or about smack-kissing Joe. The truth was, I was getting tired of talking about myself. Suzie knew it too. Our sessions were starting to end early, because we’d reach the point of me just shrugging and giving her one-word answers, and she’d say, “That’s enough for today.”

  laurel

  wilmington, nc now. 2 gigs but I think everyone’s going to stick around for a couple of weeks bcuz of the holiday. they have to bunk down at friends’ houses but fortunately i can swing the comfort inn for myself. swanky, i know. i found that if you open a minibar beer bottle the right way, without bending the cap, you can fill it back up with water and you won’t get charged for it.

  david

  The email caught me unexpectedly on a Saturday, when I was just doing a quick check before heading out to meet Joe at the library.

  I started pulling together some phrases in my head to answer him with. Something witty and cute. A joke about minibars? Or beer bottles filled with cloudy hotel water?

  But when I read it again, and then again, I realized the email was not asking for an answer. It was just there. A record of where he’d been, like dropped bread crumbs along a trail. So I just let it be, thinking that maybe there would come a time when I’d need to follow those bread crumbs to find him.

  And I had Joe to think about today.

  The library had scheduled our art show—I felt okay calling it ours now—for the second week in December. It was going to be eight pieces hanging downstairs in the community room, where they held story hour and Pilates for Seniors and the book club my mom used to go to.

  Joe and I planned to meet there, during a one-hour gap when nothing was going on, to go over sketches once more before committing to ink and paint. “This way, we can see how they might work in the space,” he’d said. But really, it was just a square underground room with white walls and fluorescent lighting. I knew he’d suggested the location because it was neutral territory. Private enough so that nobody would be watching us, and public enough so that certain touching-type things were just not an option.

  “Howdy,” Joe said as I came down the stairs to the community room with my sketch pad under one arm. I’d finally gotten a large one like his.

  I flashed on how David always began his emails with simply “laurel,” without even a comma or proper capitalization. There was no “howdy” in David’s universe.

  Joe was standing with Ms. Folsom, the head librarian, who’d invited Joe to show his artwork. Now, suddenly, I realized that she was his neighbor. It was one of those useless, small-town facts I’d always known but stored away until now, when it explained why Joe was doing all this.

  “Hi, Laurel,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I was so happy to hear that you guys are collaborating on this project. We can’t wait to see the results!”

  Her eyes danced a bit, and I wondered if my involvement was some kind of extra selling point for her. Maybe she thought people would be more interested in coming to see the art if they knew half of it was by Laurel Meisner.

  “Thanks,” was all I said.

  “I’ll leave you two to work . . . let me know if you need anything!” She patted Joe on the shoulder but not me, and moved past us back up the stairs.

  “Good day so far?” said Joe, holding out his hand to take my sketch pad from me. I handed it to him but noticed him cringing a bit. “I’m sorry,” he added. “That sounded like a therapist or something. I was just, you know . . .”

  I wondered if there would ever be a time when he’d be able to just talk to me, without worrying that it would come out strange, without his words getting snagged on the Tree of Unfinished Sentences.

  “Don’t worry about it. You could never sound anything like my therapist.”

  He raised his eyebrows involuntarily. Oops! I’d just told him I saw a therapist. As if he didn’t already think I was some fragile Christmas ornament you had to hang up high on the tree so it was less likely to get knocked off.

  “Can we put our stuff over there?” I divert
ed, pointing to a table at the front of the room.

  We went through our sketches for the eight pieces. His drawings made me laugh, especially TurboSenior, who looked not unlike Joe himself, and fortunately a couple of my backgrounds cracked him up right back. For the Incredible Sulk—a goth girl with a sour expression doing a karate kick—I’d drawn a frilly pink and green bedroom.

  With Joe being so tall, I kept feeling his breath on my neck, smelling of spearmint gum. I was careful not to turn to look at him when I knew his face was close. I couldn’t take the uncertainty of another near-moment.

  “I think it’s safe to take this to the next level,” said Joe when we were done.

  Now I let myself look straight at him, surprised. This? Did he mean, us?

  “Ink and paint,” he stammered, realizing.

  “I’m ready if you are,” I said as lightly as I could.

  I heard Joe swallow hard and looked up again. Don’t be afraid, I thought loudly, and wondered if I was saying it to myself, or to him.

  “There isn’t going to be some chic gallery opening or anything like that,” he said. “But my parents want to bring in some sparkling cider and cheese and crackers on the first night. I thought it would be fun for us to be here, you know, together.”

  Joe nervously bit his lower lip. We’d already made out and then I’d kiss-tackled him. Why did this have to be so hard? This was like baking cookies from a premade mix, not from scratch. All the hard work was already done.

  “I mean, I’d pick you up, and take you home after,” he finally said.

  I smiled at him, saying nothing.

  “Like a date,” he added with a smile back at me, then we both took the deep breaths we needed.

  When I got home, there was a stack of unassembled cardboard moving boxes sitting outside the front door.

  “Nana?” I called, walking into the house.

  “Can you grab some of those boxes?” she said, coming down the stairs to meet me. “I had them delivered, but I need your help carrying them in and putting them together.”

  After I brought them inside, I watched Nana as she examined the boxes, waiting for her to provide more information. But it seemed like she wanted me to ask.

  “What are they for?” I finally said.

  “Coats,” she replied matter-of-factly. “You know I do that every year, up in Johnstown. We collect old coats during the holidays and distribute them at the Rescue Mission.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “So I thought we’d do the same here.” She paused, and swallowed. “With your father’s. And your mother’s. She had so many.” I didn’t say anything, so she also added, “I found a foster children’s group that will gladly take your brother’s.”

  Nana went straight to the front closet, opened it, and started rummaging around. “You can keep anything of your mother’s that you want, of course. You should. Some of it was expensive, and it would look nice on you.” She pulled out a long brown cashmere coat that Mom often wore into the city and handed it to me. “Like this one.”

  I took it silently, the fabric collapsing into my hands. I raised it to my face and inhaled.

  Musty, but laced with flowers and some kind of sweet spice, like cinnamon.

  “I don’t think I can do this, Nana,” I said.

  She was holding one of Toby’s down parkas, petting it. “I don’t know if I can either, sweetie. That’s why we should do it together and do it fast, before I change my mind.”

  “Just the coats?”

  “Just the coats. For now.”

  I nodded, biting my lip as the tears came burning through, and laid the cashmere coat on the dining room table.

  I said, “This will be the Keep pile.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  On Thanksgiving morning, Nana and I were prepping to make stuffing by hand and sweet-potato casserole, when she discovered, with horror, that she was missing something.

  “How could I forget the marshmallows?” she asked, planting her arms on the kitchen counter as if she might faint from shock. “I’ve been making that casserole for forty years!”

  “Nana, relax. The store’s still open, and I’ll go get some,” I told her.

  “And why doesn’t your mother own a Dutch oven? Did she never make anything for more than four people at a time?”

  “What do you think?” I said, trying to make her laugh, but she didn’t, so I added, “I’m sure one of the neighbors has one you can borrow.”

  I knew Nana was mostly stressed because she’d hoped to do her trip home during the past week, to get it done before the holidays. We’d spent a half day rounding up every coat we could find and donated eight boxes’ worth to people who’d need them. She felt like she was on a roll, and ready to do the same thing at her own house. But at the last minute, she said she wasn’t feeling well and didn’t want to travel. “Besides,” she’d told me, “nobody’s going to rent a house or buy a condo before January anyway.” I agreed with her but knew it was because she didn’t want to leave me alone.

  We were going to the Dills’ for Thanksgiving dinner. It was never discussed, just simply assumed.

  Last year, I would have been thrilled to be invited to the Dill Thanksgiving. My family didn’t do the holiday well. I guess with no aunts or uncles or cousins to share it with, the pressure was off. Usually we drove up to Nana’s and ate at the Holiday Inn, where Toby and I could hang out in the arcade until the turkey arrived. Or on rare years when I could convince my mother to have dinner at home, she always went upstairs to lie down for fifteen minutes before dessert. We never played games and we never had friends over, or even went around the table saying what we were thankful for. Traditions like that never seemed important to my parents.

  But down at Megan’s, Mrs. Dill was serving up dinner for twenty-five, and I was ready for the Great American Thanksgiving I’d never had.

  “If you leave right now,” said Nana, “you can pick up the marshmallows. I’ll go down to the Mitas’ and see if they have a pot for us.”

  Twenty minutes later, I was driving home from the grocery store with two bags of marshmallows on the passenger seat, thinking about how the checkout clerk had laughed at my purchase and said, “Thanksgiving is just awesome.”

  I came up our hill a little fast, not paying attention, and swung into the driveway.

  But where I was going, there was already another car parked.

  I had to swerve to avoid hitting it, and once my car stopped, I sat for a moment, letting that adrenaline subside.

  The day was overcast and with no sunlight, at first the car looked colorless. As I caught my breath, I could see what it was.

  Mr. Kaufman, I thought, blinking hard.

  No, you idiot. Mr. Kaufman’s car. Which means David.

  A new adrenaline shot through my body, this one a little different, and I forced myself to sit there for another few moments, wanting yet not wanting that excitement.

  Finally, I checked myself in the mirror—unshowered, wearing sweatpants, but I’d looked worse—and got out of the car. The Jaguar was splattered with fresh mud, and as I approached it I touched my finger to the rear bumper. It left a dirty wet smudge on my hand that I didn’t wipe off.

  Through the window, I could see David passed out in the front seat, his hands still on the steering wheel.

  I watched him for a few seconds, wondering what to do next. Finally, I knocked twice softly on the window.

  It was strange to watch him wake up. David’s eyelids fluttered, and I noticed for the first time how long and thick his lashes were. Then his eyes popped open, that surprising roundness. He saw me and startled, and a laugh jumped out of me that I instantly regretted.

  David sat up and threw open the car door. “Not funny!” he whined.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  He scratched his neck for a moment, looking confused.

  “What time is it? When I saw nobody was home, I decided to crash for a bit,” he said slowly. I st
ayed quiet, hoping he’d find his way to an answer. But he just added, “I was driving all night.”

  “Driving all night, from where?”

  “Somewhere outside Washington, DC.” He scrambled out of the car. I stepped back to give him room. Maybe now that he was standing up, he’d be able to make more sense.

  “I was going to have dinner with the band at a Cracker Barrel,” said David. “But I woke up in the middle of the night and started thinking about . . . things . . . my parents . . .” He choked on the word and took a deep breath, then looked at me. Then put his hand on my shoulder and breathed out. “I didn’t want to spend Thanksgiving with a bunch of guys I barely know, eating something barely edible, at a place that stays open just for all the losers who have nowhere else to go.”

  He took his hand off my shoulder, but I could still feel the weight of it.

  “I remembered that I did have somewhere to go,” he said, then glanced at the house. It was a hungry look.

  I didn’t know what to say, but fortunately David started talking again, faster than I’d ever heard him.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call . . . I just hopped in my car and drove and it was the middle of the night and I didn’t want to call and wake anyone. And then before I knew it, I was here. The car was gone and there was no answer at the door. I still have a key, but that felt creepy to walk in so I figured I’d just wait. . . .” His voice trailed off.

  And then he gave me the same look he’d given the house. It was pure want. He must have sensed how desperate he seemed, because he added a sheepish grin and a head tilt, like he couldn’t dare offer a hand again.

  It felt safest to stay with the facts.

  “You came to spend Thanksgiving with us?” I asked carefully, with no emotion.

  “Yeah,” said David, almost surprised. “I guess I did.”

  I just pointed down the hill for a moment, then said, “We’re going to the Dills’ house, but I can call Mrs. Dill. . . . I’m sure you’d be welcome there.”