The Last Time We Were Us

by Leah Konen

  “The great Liz has arrived,” Lyla says.

  “I was working.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She ushers me into my seat.

  Mom hands me a piece of pita. “How was babysitting?”

  Lyla doesn’t waste any time. “I ordered you a chicken gyro and a tea. I have to be back at the office by two.”

  I close the menu in front of me. Lyla’s need to control is annoying, but she does it in such a way that it’s hard to get mad. In all likelihood, I would have ordered the chicken gyro myself.

  Mom’s still waiting for an answer. “Babysitting was fine,” I say, as a middle-aged woman comes by, refills the teas.

  “Anything else for you?” she asks.

  “No, thanks. I’m okay.”

  Mom whacks me on the thigh as soon as the woman’s out of earshot. “No, ma’am,” she says.

  “Come on, Mom,” I say, fiddling with the straw in my drink. “You know I don’t say that.”

  “You do if I’m paying for your lunch.”

  I hate forced formality, especially “sir” and “ma’am.” Mom is well aware of this.

  Lyla lets out a sigh of pure frustration. “Liz, can you please save your grandstanding for a day when my wedding isn’t falling apart?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I say, slurping my tea so it makes a bubbly sound.

  Lyla pulls out her wedding binder and Mom huffs, shaking her head and unfolding and refolding her napkin. The binder is filled to the brim with pages from Southern Bride, printouts from DIY blogs, and pamphlets she and Benny have picked up on their many Saturday outings since he proposed. I almost feel sorry for Benny, a lifetime of being dragged around ahead of him, but then I don’t, because being in the light of Lyla’s affection can actually be pretty fun, as long as you stay in it.

  I narrow my eyes at the fat binder. “You really should have been an interior designer or something.” She could have been like Mr. Sullivan, our town’s unofficial decorator, house filled with binders of fabric and paint chips, before he lost his clients, that is. I wonder if he’s got a whole new set now, if he’s made up the sharp decline in business, the fallout from Jason’s trial.

  “I like my job,” Lyla says, startling me out of my memory. “People are afraid of the dentist. They need a friendly face.”

  I have to admit that Lyla really sells the whole dental thing, with her huge smile and movie-star teeth, making you feel like you’re just one crown, cap, or whitening treatment away from perfection.

  “I’m just saying, it would be easy to go back to school with Benny working. You could do pretty much whatever you wanted.”

  She stares at me like I’ve slapped her, but Mom actually looks pleased that I’ve got the guts to say what she won’t. It’s not that Lyla’s not smart, but college, boy, that was not her thing. She tried East Carolina for a semester, just a couple of months after she and Skip broke up. We thought she was doing okay, but when she went to get her teeth cleaned over Christmas break, the woman at the dentist’s office told her they were hiring a receptionist and she’d be perfect for it. And that was that. She met Benny six months later. They were engaged six months after that.

  “I told you I like my job,” she says indignantly.

  “I was just making a suggestion.”

  She flips a page in her binder. “Well, if you’re going to say anything, Liz, please make it at least a little helpful.”

  Lyla pulls out a paper, all business. “Suzanne couldn’t come but she emailed me a list of backups.” Suzanne is my mom’s best friend and Lyla’s unofficial wedding planner. “We still have the string quartet for the ceremony, thank God. For the reception, there are a few beach bands that are miraculously not yet booked and might not be that bad. These guys play ‘Brown Eyed Girl,’ ‘Sweet Caroline,’ and all the Etta James stuff, of course.”

  Of course.

  The waitress comes out with our food, and I try to win Mom back over by saying thanks in my sweetest and most genuine tone.

  I pop a fry into my mouth and lean over her list. “I’m not sure if Billy Boyd and the Drifters are going to do justice to Etta James.”

  Lyla huffs.

  “Why don’t you get a DJ? Or let me make a playlist?”

  I think Mom actually chokes on her tea.

  “What? It’s a good idea, if you ask me.” I turn to Lyla. “Then you could have whatever music you wanted, not just the usual wedding stuff.”

  I almost think she’s into it, but Mom is absolutely not having it.

  “Why stop there?” she asks. “Why don’t we just skip the quartet while Lyla walks down the aisle? You can pull up the wedding march on your phone. Why should your dad even pay for a reception hall? Let’s just hold it in the community center!”

  “Geez, Mom. It was just a thought.”

  Lyla looks from Mom to me and back again. “Don’t worry, we’ll have a band.” She goes back to the list, ticking through the names, giving us minidescriptions of each.

  I sink my teeth into my gyro and let them hash it out. They’re all versions of the same boring stuff. And they all play “Brown Eyed Girl.”

  Lyla’s on the last name on the list when across the parking lot of the shopping center, I see him. Innis, flanked by Payton and Alex. I don’t have time to decide whether to be flirty or coy, wave happily or pretend not to see him, because he immediately catches my eye and starts walking over. I give him a small smile.

  “Who are you smiling at?” Mom asks, her Mom-Radar getting very clear reception today. She turns her head. “Well, who do we have here?”

  “Mom, please try not to be completely embarrassing.” I take a gulp of tea and pray there are no bits of cucumber skin in my teeth.

  Payton and Alex hang back, but Innis walks right up to us. “Hi, Mrs. Grant,” he says, his voice brimming with gentlemanliness and good breeding. “Lyla.”

  Then he smiles right at me. “Liz.”

  “Hey.” I try to sound cool, calm, and collected as I feel my face go red and hot.

  “You enjoying this gorgeous weather?” Mom asks, employing her go-to conversation starter.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he drawls. “What are you ladies up to this afternoon?”

  Mom’s practically giggling she looks so happy. “Just going over a few last-minute wedding things.”

  Innis nods. “I never got a chance to congratulate you, Lyla.”

  “Oh,” she says. It’s rare to see Lyla flustered, but her hands fidget in her lap. “Thanks.”

  There’s a flicker in his eyes—in a different world, Lyla would be marrying Skip—but as quick as it comes, it’s gone.

  He nods to the boys, then looks right at me. “We’re just walking around if you want to meet up after lunch.”

  Mom nods so vigorously it’s flat out annoying. Lyla smiles in a way that’s at least a little less conspicuous.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “Text me.” Then he looks at my mom. “Nice to see you. Congrats again, Lyla.”

  He’s thankfully out of earshot when Mom turns to me. “Are you going to ask him to the wedding?”

  “Mom, he’s not my boyfriend.”

  Lyla’s eyes are practically glued to her food, and it’s strange, because she was so supportive yesterday. Maybe now she realizes how weird the whole thing is.

  Mom either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “Who says you have to be official to take someone to a wedding? What do you think weddings are for?”

  “Mom,” I say. “Please.”

  “Plus.” She tilts her head towards me, in full girlfriend mode now. “A lot can happen in a few weeks.”

  Chapter 5

  I CATCH UP WITH THE GUYS IN FRONT OF WALMART. Alex is smoking a cigarette and Payton’s eyes are glued to his phone. I squeeze between them, sidle up to Innis.

  “Hey,” I say, in the best tone I can muster, a blend of nonchalance and casual interest.

  “Hey.” He turns to me, leans down and kisses me on the lips, right there in front of Alex
and Payton, like this is a totally natural thing for us to do.

  I die.

  Dirty double doors slide open, and I stumble inside, barely able to handle what just happened. This was not a drunken make-out in his basement. This was in broad daylight. In front of his friends.

  We walk past people sifting through bins of DVDs and kids kicking balls in the aisles. Eventually, we find our way to the hunting section. Innis heads for the binoculars, Payton and Alex drift away to look at the knives, and it’s just us again.

  He meanders down the aisle, without really focusing on any of the pairs.

  “You ever been hunting?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “It’s not really my style. I mean, I know it’s supposedly the most humane way to eat meat and all, but I can’t imagine killing an animal like that.”

  Innis holds a pair of binoculars up to his eyes, then sets them back on the shelf. “It’s exciting,” he says. “You have to wait for the perfect moment, and then, boom, it’s there, and if you don’t take it, you’ll regret it.”

  He looks at me, holds my gaze and gives me one of those smiles that have made more girls than me lose sleep, and it suddenly doesn’t feel like we’re talking about hunting anymore.

  I want so badly to kiss him again.

  I almost think it will happen. He steps a little closer, his eyes still locked on mine, and my heart beats so loud and fast I wonder if he can feel the vibrations, but then a temper-tantrum wail erupts from the next aisle, and he steps back, leaving me hanging there, breathless, and all he says is, “You probably wouldn’t like it.”

  We find the boys in the knife aisle, gawking over about twenty different types of pocketknives that all look the same to me.

  Alex grabs one from the top.

  “What do you think?” He shows it to Innis.

  “Skip it,” Innis says. He reaches into his pocket, pulls out a knife. I’ve seen him use it to shotgun beers in his basement, but I had no idea he carried it on the regular. He flicks it open with his thumb. The gleam of the blade feels bold, dangerous, underneath the fluorescent lights of the store.

  “This one’s the best,” he says. “But they don’t sell it here.”

  I reach out, touch his arm gently. “Shouldn’t you put that away? Can’t you get in trouble?”

  But Innis just laughs, like “trouble” is a foreign concept. When he sees my face is serious though, he flips it down, tosses it to me. Miraculously, I catch it.

  He steps closer, points at the knife in my hands. “It’s inscribed, see? My dad got it for me when I turned sixteen. Skip has the same one.”

  I run my hand over the engraved letters: IET.

  “What’s the E for?” I ask.

  Payton and Alex burst into snickers. Innis actually goes a little red.

  “What?” I ask. “Bad?”

  Innis shakes his head. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  “Come on, dude, just tell her,” Alex says. “It’s too good not to.”

  I rack my head for embarrassing E names. “Elmer?” I ask. “Elwood? Ebenezer?”

  The boys laugh. Innis continues to shake his head.

  “Come on,” I say. “Just tell me.”

  “Fine,” he says, sighing. “It’s Erskine.”

  The laughter comes before I can stop it.

  “You take that name to your grave,” he says. “Not that many people know that.”

  “Roger that,” I say.

  I have to stop myself from skipping as we make our way down the aisle. Because it might not matter, it might be only a middle name, but it still feels like he’s letting me in, just a little.

  And when it comes to Innis Erskine Taylor, that’s a reason to celebrate.

  AFTER ANOTHER FIFTEEN minutes or so, we make our way outside. That’s when it all starts to go downhill.

  I see Alexis, Innis’s ever-present ex, who, until the other night, had been in attendance at every one of Innis’s hangouts. She’s standing there in hot-pink cheerleader shorts and a cute floral cami—the girl makes even gym clothes look good. Her hair is pulled back to show perfect cheekbones, and her bright green eyes practically pop out of her head.

  “Liz!” Her voice is high-pitched and full of forced excitement, as she looks from Innis to me and back to Innis again. She crosses her arms, then uncrosses them, letting them hang at her sides. “Shopping with the boys, I see?”

  Innis doesn’t miss a beat. “We aren’t shopping together. I just ran into her in the parking lot.”

  I feel an instant ache of betrayal in my chest, all the joy from the kiss and the conversation completely sucked away.

  Scratch that. It’s worse than betrayal. He’s not my boyfriend, so there’s nothing to betray. This is indifference. It makes me feel empty, hollowed out.

  Alexis looks beside herself.

  I’d thought he was totally over her, that they were just friends, until now.

  The conversation continues without me for a minute, Payton and Alex either completely oblivious to what’s going on or just completely uninterested, until Alexis says her mom is waiting and she has to go in.

  “Maybe I’ll run into you in a parking lot one of these days,” she says, her hand grazing Innis’s elbow for just a second, before giving me a self-satisfied smirk.

  Payton and Alex quickly disperse for the afternoon’s activities, but Innis hangs back, the metal din of clanging shopping carts our soundtrack. I think he might apologize, but then all he says is, “Where’d you park?”

  I want to rewind everything, to erase the Alexis encounter. I want him to ask me to keep hanging out, to go back to his house, flirt and swim and finally meet his parents.

  I try to hide my huge disappointment because, as Mac-Kenzie says, desperation can make even the prettiest girl look busted. “Down by Athenos.”

  “Come on,” he says. “I’ll drive you.”

  We glide through the parking lot, and I guess that I have three to six minutes until I’m back to my car, wondering when he’ll text, or if he’ll text. I nervously finger the book in my bag, trying to keep my cool.

  “What are you up to the rest of the day?” I ask, like I have genuine interest in his afternoon plans and am not just angling for an invite.

  He’s quiet a minute, like he’s thinking it over, but then he just shrugs. “Not much. Might play some video games.”

  He doesn’t say anything else, and in a minute, we’re in front of my car.

  “Thanks for the ride,” I say.

  “No problem.”

  My hand reaches for the door.

  “See ya around, Liz,” he says.

  “Okay. See ya.”

  I get into my car and slam the door, seething with anger. I rev the engine and back out of my spot, so frustrated I almost run into a cart in the parking lot.

  I can’t decide who I’m more mad at: Innis for being—well, Innis—or me for believing that he could be anyone else.

  THE NEXT MORNING, I decide to break my rule about Jason’s house.

  Maybe it’s because I’m disappointed by what happened with Innis and desperately seeking a distraction. Maybe it’s because I woke up particularly early, and couldn’t even manage more than a page of Heart of Darkness. Or maybe it’s just that the house has been sitting there, taunting me since I found out Jason was released.

  The porch is littered with errant beer cans, a mini-Stonehenge of cigarette butts, a receipt from the liquor store, and specks of what I’d have to guess is vomit. It’s so perfectly representative, I almost want to take a photo: the state of affairs, etched in trash.

  It used to be filled with cozy chairs and a porch swing. Jason and I would sip Cokes and munch on Utz chips, while my mom and Mrs. Sullivan gossiped about the neighbors.

  But that was before Mrs. Sullivan went away. Before Jason went to juvie. Before Mr. Sullivan decided to move. After he did, the place sat untouched for six months or so, but then someone broke a window and the lock on the back door, and people sta
rted partying there. That’s when Mom began nightly surveillance from the back porch, a glass of wine in her hand and an especially big bee in her bonnet. She called the cops enough that kids stopped coming, at least before midnight, but the door was never fixed. The first time I went over was an early morning just like this. By that point, Jason had been gone a year, and the Sullivans were a taboo topic in my house. Their very mention caused Mom to speak in a hushed voice, Dad to shake his head. I’d convinced myself that I needed to check on the place. I did sop up some spilled beer, but I spent most of the time walking around, remembering. How Mr. Sullivan helped Jason and me with our makeshift card houses. The smell of a Crock-Pot full of chili and the artificial cherry taste of our favorite Popsicles. The first time we were no longer allowed to take baths together, had to go into separate corners to change into pajamas.

  I know nostalgia’s a trick of the mind, I know it makes things seem better than they were, but I couldn’t help feeling that what Jason and I shared was truer than any friendship I’d had in my life. We had this history, one that ran so much deeper than watching cartoons and playing cops and robbers. We were like living journals, all of our good and bad memories locked up in each other’s minds. It was such a comforting feeling to have so much understanding reflected back on a face that wasn’t yours. A feeling I knew that no event, no matter how terrible, could erase.

  The knob turns easily, and I walk inside. It’s hot, the room thick with humidity from the day before. I open a window to get the breeze going, running my hands over the gorgeous plantation shutters. Jason and I used to love tilting them up and down, watching the sunbeams dance at our beck and call.

  The wood floors are dusty but still nice, and the house feels enormous in the absence of furniture. It used to be packed, a veritable museum of antiques and knickknacks. Mom always said Mr. Sullivan had a gift, and she hired him to do our house before everything happened. Shortly after Jason’s trial, she got a decorator to come up from Charlotte to finish the job—this hoity-toity woman in pearls and tall, clanky shoes, with brassy auburn hair and too much eye makeup. Mom said Mr. Sullivan wasn’t getting her style. But I knew the real reason. So did he.