First There Was Forever

by Juliana Romano

  • • •

  I took a fish taco off of one of the caterer’s trays and ate it while I walked around the party. Mom and Dad’s friends were a mix of neighbors and people that Dad worked with. I had known most of them my whole life.

  “Lima?”

  I turned and was momentarily stunned. Meredith Hayes was standing in my living room. And next to her was her twin brother, Walker.

  I knew who Meredith and Walker were because everyone did. They were the most aloof, most gossiped-about, most mysterious seniors at our school. But it surprised me that Meredith knew my name. I was a nobody. She was Meredith Hayes.

  The twins dressed like celebrities. Meredith wore high-waisted bell-bottom jeans and lots of bulky, exotic jewelry. Walker had a beard and long hair and always wore perfectly beat-up corduroys or vintage suits. You never saw one twin without the other. All kinds of rumors circulated about them. The weirdest one I ever heard was that they liked to have sex with the same people. I wasn’t even sure how that would work, but I didn’t want to sound naive so I never asked.

  “Hey, hi,” I stammered. “I live here.”

  “I know,” Meredith said, beaming. I’d never been up close to her before, and she was startlingly pretty and exotic looking, with a wide face, large, almond-shaped brown eyes, and dimples. Her elbow-length brown hair was pin straight and parted in the middle.

  “Your house is amazing,” she said.

  I marveled at her sweet, benevolent manner. She wasn’t at all scary like I’d imagined.

  “Our dad is a client of your dad’s. He’s out of town but he forwarded us the invitation,” she continued. “And we decided to come in his place.”

  “A Peruvian-themed party in Malibu sounded weird and awesome,” Walker added.

  I almost laughed. I couldn’t imagine my parents’ anniversary party sounding weird and awesome, but I liked that they saw it that way.

  “Give us the tour,” Meredith said.

  “This is pretty much it,” I said. “The whole first floor is just this one room.”

  “There must be a secret room somewhere,” she said slyly. “All houses have secrets.”

  They were being so nice to me and I didn’t want to say anything that might burst the bubble, so I said, “Follow me,” and led them upstairs.

  Meredith looked around Dad’s office in the dim lamplight. “This is totally the magic room.”

  “Good music,” Walker said, scanning Dad’s record collection. “Lots of hippie stuff.”

  I laughed. “My parents love that kind of music. So do I.”

  “You do?” Meredith cocked her head. “Like who?”

  “My favorite singer is Joni Mitchell,” I said, feeling my face flush. Talking about music felt like sharing something private. “My parents saw her in concert when my mom was pregnant with me. They say that’s why I love her so much.”

  Meredith wrinkled her nose. “That’s sweet.”

  “Joni’s cool,” Walker said. “That stuff is actually really musically complicated. Hard to play.”

  “Have you heard Court and Spark?” Meredith asked.

  “I love Court and Spark!” I said, getting excited. “That’s my favorite Joni album.”

  And then, without any prompting, Meredith starting singing the words to one of my favorite songs. She sang as naturally as if she were speaking. Her voice fluctuated between being raspy and clear in the most mesmerizing way, like a violin.

  Walker picked up Dad’s whiskey bottle and examined it.

  “That’s my dad’s,” I said quickly. “He’d notice if we drank it.”

  Meredith laughed. “He’s not gonna take it, don’t worry.”

  Walker opened the lapel of his jacket and a metal flask caught the light. “See, Court and Spark? Relax. I brought my own.”

  “Let’s go drink that by the water,” Meredith said.

  • • •

  Sounds of the party drifted out to the beach. As we sat outside, the sky changed from a pastel dusk to a black night. After the twins finished their flask, they sent me back in to get something else. I brought them back a bottle of red wine that I snuck off the caterer’s bar.

  The twins passed it back and forth, taking long sips that dripped down their chins. They talked aimlessly. They weren’t like other people. They didn’t talk about school or gossip or their parents.

  “What would you rather: no music for the rest of your life, or no stories?” Meredith asked at one point.

  “No stories,” Walker said, taking the bottle from his sister.

  “Me too,” Meredith said. “Lima?”

  “No stories,” I agreed.

  “What would you rather,” she started again, “Africa or India?”

  “India,” Walker said.

  “Me too!” Meredith said, sounding surprised. She gave her brother a high five. “Lima?”

  “It’s impossible to choose,” I said. “I want to go to both.”

  “You are so right,” Meredith said sincerely.

  Walker nodded slowly and handed the wine to me.

  They watched as I took my first sip of the night. It tasted like warmth. I lay back and listened to the loud crashing of the waves. I took a deep breath and felt the cold night air crawl all over my body. Tonight had turned out to be amazing. Hailey was really missing out.

  “Lima!” Meredith called. She was standing now, and had to shout to be heard over the ocean.

  I propped myself up on my elbows. “Yeah?”

  “We like you a lot!” Meredith shouted into the night air. She was barefoot, and stumbling, the bottle of wine swinging from her hand, catching and refracting little bits of moonlight.

  “You do?” I asked.

  “We do!” she shouted, dropping the bottle in the sand. “And we’re going swimming and we want you to come!”

  Walker stood up and started pulling off his clothing.

  “No!” I screamed, laughing. “It’s too cold! You’ll die.”

  Walker started singing a song I didn’t recognize at the top of his lungs, his voice cracking and disappearing beneath the sounds of the waves. Meredith stripped down to her bra and underwear. She was more fragile and skinny than I had imagined, her wrists and calves as thin as forks and knives.

  She darted toward the ocean. Walker, pulling his pants off, ran in behind her in his boxers. They disappeared out of my view into the blackness until I couldn’t see or hear them at all. I walked down closer to the shore, to the place where the sand feels cold and wet from the lapping water.

  Ten long seconds later I saw them splashing and running toward me, and I heard their shrieks.

  “Fuck!” Walker screamed.

  Meredith ran to me, shivering, and put her hand on my cheek. It was like ice. Her skin was goose bumped and pale, almost blue. “Can you feel that?” she asked, through chattering teeth.

  • • •

  Later, I walked them to their car. They smoked a joint as we wove through the line of parked cars on the Pacific Coast Highway. “Want some?” Meredith asked. Her hair was a wet coil, twisting over her shoulder.

  I shook my head no.

  “Tonight ruled,” Walker said when we got to their car.

  “I know,” Meredith agreed. “It was magic.” She was looking right at me, but somehow I felt as if she was seeing someone else. Someone cooler, wilder. Someone unforgettable.

  chapter

  thirteen

  “My parents’ party ended up being really amazing,” I told Hailey at break on Monday. I knew it wasn’t nice of me, but I wanted her to feel a little left out.

  “Sure,” she said absently, bored already. “My night sucked. Nate never even showed up.”

  I ignored her. “Meredith and Walker Hayes came. I guess their dad knows my dad.”

  Hailey grabbed my forea
rm, her jaw hanging open. “WHAT?! The Hayeses came to your party? Did they steal anything?”

  “No, stop it!” I scoffed. “They were—”

  “Honestly, Lima,” she said, “you should check your cabinets. I heard they’ve stolen a ton of stuff, like clothes and jewelry from the end-of-the-year party at Hannah Kelley’s house.”

  “You’re wrong,” I said. “They were cool.”

  Hailey rolled her eyes, “I give that friendship five minutes.”

  Hailey was making it really difficult for me to explain how exciting Friday night was. Feeling flustered, I stormed off to get a Coke from the vending machine.

  I pounded quarters into the machine, our conversation echoing in my head. Hailey didn’t know anything, I decided. The twins were fun and too cool for her anyway. She probably just felt threatened.

  My Coke banged its way out of the machine. I bent down to grab it, and when I stood up Nate was standing next to me.

  I froze. I wanted to just say hi, or walk away, but I felt somehow caught.

  “Coke, not Pepsi?” he asked.

  I smiled, relieved by his lightness. “Always,” I said. I looked down at my Coke and popped the tab. It fizzed up.

  “Can I . . .?” He gestured to the vending machine, and I realized I was still standing right in front of it. I scooted out of the way. Why did I always act like such an idiot around him?

  I hurried away from the vending machine and, after about a minute, I glanced quickly back over my shoulder. He was gone.

  chapter

  fourteen

  I wasn’t sure if the Hayes twins would ever talk to me again, but Meredith surprised me by offering to give me a ride home from school the next day. She was wearing a Fair Isle sweater, high-waisted skinny black jeans, and her hair was pulled back into a neat ponytail. She looked ordinary and glamorous at once.

  “This place is amazing in the daylight,” she cooed when we got to my house. She crossed the living room, walked up to the back doors, and pressed her palms against the glass. “Can we go down to the ocean?”

  The late-afternoon sky was getting white, but the sun setting on the water turned the clouds an electric pink. It was a postcard-perfect California sunset.

  Meredith and I rolled up our jeans and walked barefoot in the cold, damp sand.

  After a moment she said, “I hope Walker and I weren’t too weird the other night.”

  “You weren’t weird,” I lied.

  “Well,” she said. “We were very wasted.”

  “You were fun,” I said.

  Meredith laughed. “Yeah, people are fun to be around when they’re high on something.”

  “I’m not,” I said. “I’m really awkward.”

  “You?” she asked.

  “I’ve tried smoking pot a couple of times,” I said. “But I don’t think I really like it. The last time I did it was at this guy’s house with some people from school, and I had to go home. I felt like I couldn’t be around anyone.”

  “I get that. I used to hate getting high when I had to do it in big groups and be around people who I didn’t even like,” she said. “But once you get older, it’s different. Walker and I just smoke on our terms now, like at home or on a hike, or with really good people. Drugs can be really magical. You just have to be with people you love and trust.”

  I thought about this for a second. Meredith had described the other night as magical, too.

  “Magical? Do you believe in magic?” I asked.

  “Don’t you?” she asked cryptically.

  “I don’t think so,” I said.

  Meredith laughed. I liked her laugh. It was very knowing.

  She put her hands on my shoulders and pointed me toward the ocean and the brilliant setting sun. “What would you call that?”

  The sky was neon pink and lavender, and I breathed in a deep ocean-y breath. Maybe Meredith and I weren’t so different after all.

  • • •

  I was doing homework in my room later that evening when Hailey called.

  “Lima. What are you doing for community service this year?”

  Rustic required fifty hours of community service a year. Last year, I worked at a soup kitchen in Santa Monica. I actually sort of liked it. This year, Mom had done some research and found out that we could help plant gardens in public schools in downtown LA. Mom said she would do it with me, and I was really looking forward to it. I rarely got to venture to the east side of LA, and I loved gardening, so the whole thing seemed cool.

  “I’m gonna work at a garden,” I said. “Why?”

  “Have you signed up yet?” she asked.

  “No. Why?”

  “Fantastic! Because we are doing Clean the Bay! Together! And so is Nate!” she said excitedly. “It starts tomorrow.”

  I groaned. “I don’t think so, Hailey. I love you, but I really don’t want to do Clean the Bay.”

  Clean the Bay was the worst community service. It was community service for slackers. You just rode the school bus down to the beach and spent a few hours picking up trash.

  “Please, Lima,” Hailey continued in a baby voice. “I really think if I can spend some quality time with Nate, doing something that doesn’t involve booze or weed, we can get closer.”

  “But why do I have to be there?” I asked.

  “If I sign up by myself, he might think it’s because I like him ’cause I know he knows. But if you sign up with me, I can say I’m doing it because you’re doing it!”

  “What about Skyler?” For once I wanted Hailey to choose Skyler over me.

  “Skyler’s dad donated all this money to some foundation in the school’s name, and it got her out of community service for, like, forever,” she said. And then she added, “But that’s a huge secret, so don’t tell anyone.”

  I sighed.

  “Come on, Li. I need you. You promised you’d help me get Nate.”

  “I did?” I said meekly. I could feel myself starting to give in.

  “You promised by virtue of our friendship. It’s implicit in the best-friend contract.”

  I really didn’t want to do Clean the Bay. And I had a queasy feeling about spending all that time with Nate and Hailey, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.

  “Honestly,” she said, her voice a little softer, “I just feel more comfortable when you’re around.”

  Hailey obviously wanted this really badly. And I could put Hailey first this one time. If the tables were turned, I told myself, she’d do the same for me.

  chapter

  fifteen

  The bus to Clean the Bay was full of just the kinds of people I’d expect to sign up for it. Hailey insisted that we try and find a seat in the back of the bus, even though I would have much preferred to sit in the front row across from the supervisor, Leo.

  Leo had a bushy beard and glasses. He wore khaki shorts and a hemp necklace and rode his bike to work every day. We had him for American History in ninth grade, and he was a really good teacher. Hailey made fun of him for being such an eco-nerd, but I thought he was interesting.

  When Nate darted onto the bus at the last minute and sat in the second row, Hailey’s eyes burned with disappointment.

  “See,” I said. “We should have sat in the front.”

  Hailey rolled her eyes at me and sulked the whole way there.

  At the beach, Leo told us we could go as far north as the lifeguard stand and as far south as the Santa Monica Pier.

  Beach cleanup wasn’t as terrible as I’d thought it would be. The beach down here was different from the one near my house—it was bigger and louder and dirtier. There were tourists walking on the sand with cameras and knee-high socks, and police officers on bikes.

  I liked the way being near the ocean made me feel a little dirty and earthy. The air coming off the water was thick with miner
als, and the wind wrapped itself around me and climbed inside my clothes.

  The class was spread out over the whole beach. I could make out Nate, about a hundred yards away, bending over and depositing little bits of trash into his plastic orange “Clean the Bay!” sack.

  At one point Hailey ran up to talk to him, and I watched but couldn’t hear them. The wind and waves swallowed their voices. She returned a few minutes later, walking toward me in the slow, painful way people do when they’re walking in sand, like it hurts to move.

  “He’s in a terrible mood,” she declared. “What an asshole.”

  I didn’t ask.

  • • •

  “You’re unusually quiet, Hailey,” Mom said, glancing at her in the rearview mirror as she drove us home that afternoon. “Is there something on your mind?”

  “I hate boys,” Hailey grumbled.

  “I doubt that,” Mom teased.

  “You’re right. I don’t hate boys; I love boys,” Hailey said. And then she added, “Well, I actually love one boy.”

  “The same one you’ve told me about?” Mom asked. “Nick?”

  I shifted around uncomfortably in my seat. It always annoyed me when Hailey talked to Mom about Nate.

  “Nate,” Hailey corrected. “I’m so confused. Like, he’s nice to me one second and then he’s all mean and weird the next. I can’t tell what he wants.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know what he wants,” Mom said. “Boys at your age are different from girls. And in your case, it’s especially true. You’re a romantic. I can pretty much guarantee you spend more time thinking about love than this boy does.”

  “Maybe,” Hailey agreed. “I mean, I do think about him like twenty-four/seven. I just want him to like me as much as I like him. I like him so much it, like, physically hurts.”

  “I know, sweetie,” Mom said. “And he probably does feel the same way as you, whether or not he can show it. You’re such a wonderful, fun, fantastic girl. If he can’t see that, well, he might not be worth liking.”