Coming Back to Me

by Caroline Leavitt

  Suzanne lifted up the thick chain. She slid the locket over her head. I’ll never take it off, she had told Ivan. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever given her. She had been terrified to tell Ivan she had lost it, and when she had, weeping, he had merely shrugged and kissed her. “Oh, you’re always losing something,” he said. She had thought he was wonderful, being understanding like that, but she should have known what that shrug meant. She should have realized that the something she was losing wasn’t just the locket.

  She clicked the locket open. His image struck her, like a slap. And there her face was, too, young and beautiful, and so stupid, it was a crime.

  Suzanne clicked the locket shut. How had Molly gotten this? And why had she kept it? Suzanne didn’t think Molly even knew Ivan. At least not really. Ivan had only come to the house once or twice, and then it was just to get Suzanne or to drop her off—and all of it was as quickly as possible because Suzanne didn’t want to spend a minute at home she didn’t have to. And then after a while, Suzanne was with Ivan all the time and she had stopped coming home altogether. She had stopped caring what might happen if the laundry didn’t get done, if the groceries weren’t bought and put away, if Molly were alone in the house.

  The first time Suzanne saw Ivan, she had been fifteen years old. It was a bright, shiny hot summer day, and Molly and Angela were at the dentist. Suzanne had two loads of laundry to do and the kitchen floor to mop, but as far as Suzanne could see, she really had the whole day to herself and she was going to make the best of it. She could get home before Angela and Molly did and splash water on the floor. She could say the washer was on the fritz again, buy herself some time.

  She had put on her shortest cutoffs. She had tied a red kerchief around her chest like a halter top, and spritzed herself with Angela’s perfume, and slathered on sun block because she liked her pale skin. She stared anxiously at herself, wondering if she was really pretty, the way all the boys were suddenly telling her. No one had ever told her she was pretty before they moved to New Jersey, but now, to her astonishment, boys followed her all over school and cars beeped when she walked down the street. She kept thinking this was like some great gift, this beauty, that she could use it so she wouldn’t be lonely, but to her surprise, the other girls treated her with distrust or with coolness, as if she were competition they couldn’t afford to be too friendly with. The boys saw her glossy hair, her luminous skin, but they didn’t see her. They never asked her what she thought or what scared her or what she might want more than anything in the world, and every time she tried to talk about any of it, the boy she was with would get all glassy-eyed. “Shhh. Don’t talk,” they always said and then they’d kiss her and touch her, and tug her close, and Suzanne would feel more alone and lost than she ever had in her entire life.

  She hightailed it to the park, where some bands were playing. Everyone was going to be there, and by the time she got there, they were. The whole field was dotted with blankets, swarming with kids and mosquitoes. Guys were prowling around, their shirts off, their feet bare. Frisbees, like kamikazes, whizzed dangerously close to Suzanne’s head. Everything smelled of suntan lotion and sweat.

  Suzanne stretched like a cat. She flipped her hair back and tugged it forward back over her shoulders. She recognized a few faces, and someone even waved at her, but she kept to herself. The band playing now wasn’t so hot. They got off the stage to a smattering of applause. She was thinking she might sit down, or maybe she’d go get herself a soda. Or maybe she’d just find someone with some spare sun block because it was getting so hot she almost couldn’t stand it, when suddenly a voice boomed out, “Let’s hear it now, one more time, for Ivan Troon and The Touch!” The world exploded. A wave of people stormed the stage. Girls began screaming. An ankle bracelet zipped by Suzanne’s head. “Oh, my God, that’s him!” a girl shrieked.

  Curious, Suzanne got closer. And there, on the stage, was the handsomest boy she had ever seen. He wore black sneakers and black jeans and a black T-shirt with a white dot right where his heart would be. His hair was a slide of black silk to his shoulders, his skin was sweet cream, and his eyes—my God, his eyes were this eerie electric blue she had never seen before and she couldn’t stop looking at them.

  A tide of people moved and pushed against her. Hands waved in the air, feet stomped. Suzanne stood perfectly still.

  The girls screamed again and Touch began playing and the handsomest boy Suzanne had ever seen began to sing, so that a jolt zipped through Suzanne. She felt as if he were singing right to her, telling her something important. “Surrounded by people, and lonely as glass—” he wailed, and a tremor ran through Suzanne. She tried to move closer, so she could see him better. So she could hear more. “Don’t you ever feel like the wind is in your soul?” he sang. He leaped up and slid back across the stage; he threw his head forward and back, tossing that glorious hair. Suzanne couldn’t take her eyes off him and if anyone had told her that you couldn’t fall in love at first sight, she would have told them they were nuts, because that was exactly what was happening to her.

  The girls behind her pushed her another step forward, and then another, until she was in the front lines, and then suddenly, the boy’s blue eyes shone on her like a spotlight. There was just him and her. She could no longer hear the music, she could no longer feel all the kids trying to crowd her out of their way.

  The music snapped off. The boy dropped down to a crouch and sprang back up, his hair flicking back. The crowd screamed “More! More!” Someone shrieked out, “Ivan! Ivan! I love you, Ivan!” and then the emcee came out and waved his hands. “See ya next week!” he called. “That was Ivan Troon and The Touch!”

  The band began packing up. The kids dispersed, and for a moment Suzanne just stood there, the spell breaking up all around her, just like shattered glass. Things felt ordinary again. Boring. She noticed her arm was jeweled with mosquito bites that itched. She had a sunburn, sun block or no sun block. Her white sneakers were scuffed with dirt. Maybe she had just imagined him singling her out. Maybe his eyes weren’t that great. Maybe his hair was ordinary. Just because someone sang something that got to you, didn’t mean they really felt it themselves. She sighed, turning away, when suddenly she heard, “Hey, there! You with the long black hair!” It was a voice full of Texas, and she turned to see the boy and all the miracle of him came right back at her. He smiled, making her feel bathed in light. “Ivan Troon,” he said. “So, you need a lift?”

  She got into his blue Chevy. It smelled of cigarettes and had a tiny plastic key ring that said TOUCH ME hanging from the rearview mirror. She started to lift her hand toward it and then let it flop back down on her knee. He looked at her and smiled, as if he knew something she didn’t, and then he dug in his pocket, pulling out a rumpled pack of Luckies. He tapped two out, put them both in his mouth, lit them, and then handed one to her. “It killed me when I saw this in an old movie,” he told her.

  Suzanne pretended she knew what movie he was talking about. She didn’t watch movies much anymore, and she had never had a cigarette in her whole life. Had never wanted one, really, preferring sugary candy and salty snacks, if you wanted to know the truth. But the cigarette in her mouth had been in his mouth just seconds before. It seemed as intimate as a kiss, and she sipped in a breath of smoke. Her lungs crackled like paper. They burned. She coughed, nearly spitting the cigarette out, and felt instantly mortified.

  Ivan laughed. “Not your brand, huh? Sorry.”

  He drew the smoke deeply in, watching her, even as he drove, which made her a little nervous. His hair kept sliding into his face, but he never once pushed it back with his hands. Instead, he tilted his head up, as if he were contemplating the stars, let it fall away all on its own. He had a scent to him, too—pine, she thought—and it was making her feel so crazy she didn’t know what to do.

  And then he began to sing. “Struck down by you,” he crooned. His voice was clear and full of feeling and she could have listened to it forever. He glanc
ed at her sideways, grinning, waiting. “Struck! Down!” he abruptly wailed, throwing his hands up dramatically, startling her, so she inadvertently jumped. She blushed. He thinks he’s the cock of the walk, Suzanne thought, but it didn’t make her like him one bit less. It didn’t change anything.

  “That’s so pretty.”

  “You like it?” He beamed. “I wrote it.” He made a right turn. “Maybe I wrote it for you.”

  “Me? You don’t even know me.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “What do you mean? How do you know me?”

  “You haven’t seen me around school?” His gaze washed over her. “I’ve sure seen you.”

  She looked at him, confused. “You go to my school?”

  “I go to the Voc,” he said defensively. “Transferred in a month ago from Dallas.”

  She nodded. The Vocational School. A whole separate building set back from the school. Fifty kids at a time, just about all of them guys. She had heard the stories. Everyone said the Voc was for kids who were too stupid to attend the regular school, the remedial programs. Everyone said the Voc was for kids who were misfits. She was like everyone else. She walked past the Voc on her way to school, past the kids hanging outside when the weather was good, working on cars, wiping their hands on their greasy coveralls. They could wire your whole house if they felt like it. They could take apart a whole car and put it together again. She didn’t give any of them a moment’s thought. Not until now.

  She gave Ivan a sidelong glance. He wrote songs. He had a clear beautiful voice that could break your heart just to listen to it. No one in a million years could ever call him a misfit. No one could ever call him stupid.

  “So, you didn’t see me?” he repeated.

  She shook her head.

  “Well, my very first day, I saw you. Right in front of the regular school. Surrounded by guys.”

  Suzanne flushed.

  “I knew none of them was worth your little finger. I knew none of them understood anything about you.”

  “How’d you know that?”

  “I’m an artist. An artist watches things. He observes.” Ivan tapped his head. “I saw you, so completely beautiful I was getting a heart attack just looking at you. But there was something shy about you, too. Something unsure. The way you were standing. And none of those guys was noticing. They were just getting louder and louder, when really, they should have shut up for a minute. They should have given you a little silence. A little respect.”

  Suzanne blinked at him. She thought of all those guys, flirting with her, cracking lame jokes, laughing too loud, flirting so hard it was a wonder they didn’t explode in front of her. Ivan pointed a finger at her. “You—” he sang, his voice rolling up. “Strike me dow-own!” He grinned and put his hands back on the wheel. “This song, ‘Strike Me Down.’ It was like a dream the way it came to me. I was just sitting there thinking about you and the words just spilled out. Like you were my muse or something.”

  “I bet you have lots of muses.” She felt ridiculous as soon as she said it. It was like saying, I bet you say that to all the girls, but his face was serious.

  “No. I don’t,” he said simply. He frowned. “A lot of people don’t even understand about music. They don’t get it. Like my parents. They’ve never been to one of my gigs. Not one. When I ask, my father says”—Ivan made his voice deep and gravelly—“‘Get an A on something, then I’ll be impressed. Get into the real high school, not the goddamned Voc.’ Like I was stupid. He doesn’t get it that the main reason I go to the Voc isn’t because I can’t cut it in regular school, but because a musician’s life can be unpredictable. Maybe there are years I’ll want to take a break, just let the creative juices percolate a little. And you got to do something. And Jesus, everyone needs mechanics. You can always work, and you can work anywhere. Not that I’ll ever have to. But to treat me like I’m nothing—”

  “You’re not nothing,” Suzanne said so fervently she surprised herself a little.

  “And my mom—all I hear from her is she can’t come because she’s busy—but busy doing what? Shopping for more clothes? Playing bridge and eating party mix?”

  “That sounds like my mom,” Suzanne said quietly. “Not the bridge or the shopping, but I mean I could be exploding in flames and she would still be looking for her good earrings to go out. The only things she knows about me is how I do the laundry, how I take care of the house and my sister.”

  Ivan looked over at Suzanne. He held her gaze. “See?” he said, quietly. “We’re more alike than either of us could ever know. It’s like fate, you and me.”

  By the time he pulled up in front of Suzanne’s house, he knew all he needed to know about her. That Suzanne didn’t have a boyfriend and wasn’t allowed, under any circumstances, to date. That she liked him. And that they would start seeing each other every chance they both got.

  Ivan courted her. Every day he managed to sneak from the vocational school into her high school and leave a love note poking out of her locker. All she had to do was see that wedge of white and her legs turned to jelly. Her breath stopped. His notes sounded like songs to her. You’re like a wild bird in my heart. I’m missing you like a long, lonely river. She wasn’t sure what half of the notes really meant, but she carried all of them in her purse and sometimes all she had to do was touch the paper to feel a thrill. He poured out his heart and he not only liked it when she poured out hers to him, he expected it.

  He waited for her after her classes. Walking down the corridor with Ivan was like being with a god. Kids parted to let them pass. They stared admiringly. They acted like Suzanne was something they couldn’t ever hope to aspire to.

  He always had money in his pocket from doing gigs. He bought her things. A soft red angora sweater. A book of poetry wrapped in tissue, and better than that, he wrote her love songs. “I told you you were my muse and I meant it,” he told her. “We’re both going to be famous.” He swung a rope of her hair. “I can see it now,” he said. “My first album cover.” He let go of her hair and looked dreamily into space. “Best. That’s what I want to call it—something simple, you know? Something people can hook on to for a review—like Best is the best. Or Pneumonia. Like once you catch it, you never get cured! And on the cover—” He grinned at her. His eyes gleamed. “You. Your beautiful face.” He touched her cheek, making her shiver. “Just a head shot, with your black hair hanging down, and then in each of your pupils, clear as day, will be my face. Me in you. Get it?”

  Suzanne nodded. He could have told her that he was putting a plucked chicken on the album cover and she would have thought it was wonderful. She couldn’t visualize the album cover the way he could. All she could think of was, Me, he wants me on the cover, and to her, that seemed like everything.

  He sang the songs about her at the gigs where he played, the school dances, the sweet sixteens kids hired him to play at, and he always brought Suzanne, whether she was invited or not—and usually, she wasn’t. It was always the same thing. Girls swarming around him, screaming, carrying on, throwing their bracelets at him, their car keys, and sometimes their panties, and there was Suzanne perfectly still in the thick of it. And Ivan singing his love songs right to her, for all the world to see.

  The first time they made love was in the field behind the high school, hours after school had shut down. Ivan bought a soft blue blanket and a bottle of wine. He brought along a tape player and clicked it on, and there was his voice singing to her. “I would have brought my guitar but even I can’t do two things at once,” he apologized. “Hope that’s okay.” He treated Suzanne like a piece of fine silk, lowering her onto the blanket, slowly taking off her clothes. He knew it was her first time. When she was naked, shivering and embarrassed, he shook his head, admiring. “I have never seen anything so goddamned beautiful in my whole life,” he said. “And that’s a fact.” Behind him, on the tape recorder, his voice crooned, “My life is you, you, you—” and Suzanne shut her eyes.

 
“Okay?” he said. “Is this okay?” He kept asking her questions as he touched her breasts, as he slid her pants down over her thin hips, but she wished he would just be quiet, that he would just hold her. She had heard enough about sex to know the first time wasn’t supposed to be so hot, and she hadn’t expected much, and she hadn’t really cared, because all that mattered was that she was with Ivan. He took his time. He pushed into her. “Me in you,” he whispered, and before she had time to think whether she liked this or didn’t like this, Ivan rolled off her, flopping on the ground beside her. It was way faster than she had expected, and she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. She snuck a peek at his face, wondering if he was disappointed, if it hadn’t been any good for him. His eyes were moist, and she sat up, alarmed. It hadn’t been a good thing. She had been too clumsy. She hadn’t known the right moves. Maybe she should have moaned more or something. Been more encouraging. “Did I do something wrong?” she said, and he shook his head, swiped at his eyes.

  “You’re a song. The most damned important song of my whole life.”

  Then he reached up for her, and pulled her to him, and the tape recorder suddenly clicked off so all you could hear was a whir.

  Ivan made something happen to her mind and she couldn’t control it. She forgot everyone and everything but him. She came home and heard Molly weeping in her room, and for a moment her heart ached. She headed for the room to see what was wrong, before her heart hardened. Was her sister’s happiness always going to be her responsibility? Didn’t she deserve some fun herself? She was finding her own way; why couldn’t Molly make friends or find a boy or simply rely on herself instead of Suzanne? Suzanne pivoted and left the house.