As Is

by Rachel Michael Arends

  “Gwendolyn Golden! Should I put her through?”

  I used to be so good at playing it cool. Of all the attributes I was born with and those I conjured practically out of thin air and honed, my ability to appear calm on the outside when my feelings coursed wildly on the inside has served me best. Unfortunately my emotions tend to run much closer to the surface now. I look down at Gwen’s blurry photograph and back up to Jessie, who seems like she might very well burst with excitement.

  “Well, I guess I’ll take the call.”

  I wait for Jessie to disappear before I pick up the phone and attempt to muster my coolest cowboy tones. “This is Smith Walker.”

  “It’s Gwen Golden.” She says her name like she’s confessing something terrible. “I’m sorry to bother you.”

  “No bother at all.” Possibly the biggest understatement of my life. “What can I do for you?”

  “My sister Megan said you might be able to help me find a house here in Riveredge. I need one right away.”

  OK, breathe. “I’d love to help you. Want to come by my office now and we’ll talk about what you’re looking for?”

  “Now?” she asks.

  Shoot, I overshot. “If you like.”

  “I’d be bothering you. It’s a Friday evening…”

  She sounds like she wants to come. She sounds tired. She sounds like she’s having the worst day of her life. “Do you have a rental car to get over here?”

  “Megan can drop me off. If you’re sure it’s okay.”

  If I’m sure it’s okay? “I’m sure it’s okay. Will I see you soon?”

  “Yes. Thanks so much, Smith.”

  She sounds so grateful, so sweet, and so genuine. “My pleasure,” I say. The second she hangs up, the conversation already seems unreal.

  Jessie is flushed, and her eyes are so bright with excitement that she almost looks pretty when she pokes her head into my office again. She must’ve been perched over the indicators on the phone to fly in here the instant mine went dark. Jessie’s face tells me that if that call was a figment of my imagination, then I’m sharing her dingbat fantasy. In order to infuriate her, I try to look as if I’m bored, as if this is a very, very boring day.

  “What’s the matter, Jessie?” I ask. Boredly.

  “What did she say? How do you know her? Oh my goodness! Is she coming here?”

  “I didn’t know you were such a fan of Gwen’s.”

  “Well, I don’t know that I’m a fan, really. But she’s so famous! And today she’s more famous than ever! This is the most exciting thing that’s happened in Riveredge in ages. And she called you, Smith Walker!”

  If the mere idea of a famous person calling has gotten Jessie this loopy, I certainly can’t risk her seeing Gwen in person.

  “Listen,” I say, trying to make an impression on Jessie, which is about as easy as making an impression on a slab of cured concrete. “I don’t want you mentioning that phone call to anyone. She’s not coming here,” I lie. Unfortunately I am a really bad liar.

  “Not ever?” she asks with her eyes narrowed.

  “Probably not. Why would she?”

  “She called you.”

  Jessie suspects I’m lying, I can tell.

  “Well, if she ever did visit here when you’re working, I’d want you to treat her like anyone else coming through the door. Okay?”

  “I could ask for her autograph, right? And have my camera handy, just in case?” Jessie’s forehead is wrinkled in concentration.

  “No, Jessie!”

  “Are you sure she’s not coming now?”

  “No,” I lie again. I only lie when it seems kinder than the truth. I want to spare Jessie the pain of knowing she’ll miss seeing a real life celebrity, though she’s already proven she’d act insane if given the chance.

  “Okay, she’s coming,” I admit, because Jessie’s got her arms crossed in that infuriating way she sometimes does, like she might just stand there and block my way all evening if I don’t fess up to what’s really going on. “But you have to leave,” I add.

  Her sudden smile falls into a comically exaggerated frown.

  “What are you doing here so late anyway?” I ask.

  “I was finishing the paperwork for the deal you closed today! And this is the thanks I get? Do you know what it’s like day in and day out working for you, Smith Walker, you arrogant ass?”

  I don’t know that I have ever heard Jessie swear before. I’m impressed. “Unpleasant?” I suggest.

  She chortles and I’m afraid she might cry. I watch a crazy set of emotions race each other over her mousy face before she settles on barely-controlled, hurt-feelinged hysterics. “The one time there seems to be a perk and you’re making me go home!”

  “Bye now, honey,” I say. “And make sure everyone else has gone home before you let the door close behind you.”

  For a mouse, Jessie makes as much noise as twenty elephants as she packs up and gets ready to leave. I hear her yell at a straggler by the big conference room and drop a coffee mug in the kitchen before she stomps up to my door again.

  “Yes, dear?” I ask. I find it annoys Jessie to use terms of endearment when she’s angry. It’s the only time I use them.

  “At least get an autograph for me!” she demands. “And one for my mom.”

  I sigh heavily. I was hoping she’d swear at me again.

  Just when I thought I was alone in our offices, Taylor appears in my doorway.

  “I saw your light on.” He holds out a fancy little box and opens it to show me a diamond ring.

  “Carmen will love it,” I say.

  He beams. “Let’s go have a drink to celebrate.”

  “Sorry, but I just got off the phone with a beautiful woman who says she’s on her way over to see me,” I say.

  Taylor frowns.

  “Really! Gwen Golden needs some real estate help,” I tell him, because the line of joking just wasn’t working out. He was looking sad, and I was starting to feel it.

  “You’re kidding!” he says, seeming nearly as star struck as Jessie.

  Since she’s been a celebrity, I guess I have also thought of Gwen as the Gwendolyn Golden, the So Perfect one. I have regularly seen her on television, just like everyone else in Riveredge has. On the phone, though, Gwen sounded like herself—not a personality, but a person I’ve known most of my life.

  “She looks like a supermodel,” Taylor says.

  “Well she was always as tough as she was pretty,” I say. “On my first day at Riveredge Academy, she actually stood up to a bully and kept me from getting expelled.”

  “Is that right?” he asks, pulling up a chair like I’m going to tell him a nice long story. I’m ready to shoo him out when his phone rings. “Sorry, I’ve got to take this,” he says, stepping into the hall.

  But now that I brought it up, I can’t seem to get that first day of school out of my mind.

  I was nervous at the newness of everything, from the students, to the teachers, to the buildings. I had been admitted to prestigious Riveredge Academy on an academic scholarship to begin sixth grade. An ethic of the school was to court the very best students in the region, whether or not they had the means to pay. The year I started, I was the only newcomer attending on a full scholarship. My parents had nothing but love and five sons, of which I was the oldest.

  Most of my fellow sixth graders had attended Riveredge Academy from preschool on. Scholarship kids were admitted only in sixth or ninth grade, so I was easy to spot.

  There was a lot of talk about confidentiality from the admissions director at my personalized orientation. She said everyone would do their best to make me feel at home. But adults see the world differently than adolescents. Before our homeroom teacher came in that first day, one of the country club, academy-since-preschool kids cornered me.

  His name was Elton Jorgensen, and to this day I attribute my extreme distrust of men with dimples to him. He smi
led with only his mouth, his eyes were as cold as I’d ever seen on a kid. He said, “I’m Elton Jorgensen. And you’ll be known around here as Scholarship.”

  “Smith Walker,” I said in a calm voice, holding out my hand for him to shake. Inside, I was already boiling. I willed my hand to be steady, though, and it was.

  Jorgensen’s voice was calm, too. Calm and mean. “You’ll answer to ‘Scholarship.’”

  “Smith Walker is my name.” I put my hand on my hip and turned to face the rest of the class who had gathered around as if we were a television set. I looked in every pair of eyes that were willing to meet mine, which amounted to most of the kids, except those who stood close to Elton and seemed to be waiting for him to tell them how to act.

  I was used to a tough set of characters in my part of town, and I was tall for my age. I thought Elton Jorgensen with his turned up collar and dimples was probably just a smug jerk. I still didn’t like how cold his eyes were.

  Jorgensen fell to the floor just as the teacher entered the room. He said I’d hit him, and my stomach sank. He was quite a convincing actor and this was almost literally his turf; I had noticed on my orientation tour that morning a new football field and six-lane running track called Jorgensen Field. The boys who had appeared to be awaiting orders a moment before immediately backed up Elton.

  “He hit him.”

  “We all saw it.”

  Before I had left that morning, my parents said I needed to be on my very best behavior. I could tell they were nervous for me. I knew part of it had to do with money and opportunity, and being proud of me, and hoping I liked it there for my own good and for my future. My dad worked a factory job, often taking double shifts for the overtime pay. I knew my parents wanted me to have more options than they’d had.

  I saw that my mom was apprehensive for me, but she was proud, too, that I was selected to attend Riveredge Academy despite the fact that we were poor. Looking at Elton Jorgensen, I feared that my parents’ pride would be short lived and I’d be sent home within the hour, making room for someone who’d remember his place.

  Then I saw Gwen Golden for the first time. She was almost as tall as I was, I remember, and her hair was very blonde and quite short. She had a look of quiet determination on her face that was formidable. For a moment I thought she was going to stick up for Elton, too, thus ensuring my expulsion.

  As she strode over, I backed up to get out of her way but was stopped by a desk. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned. I was scared the frown was meant for me.

  “Elton insulted this boy, Mr. Morton! He threw himself on the floor to get Smith Walker in trouble. I saw the whole thing,” Gwen told the teacher in a fiery voice.

  While a few others found their tongues and seconded Gwen’s version of events, and Elton and his friends tried to stick to their story which was rapidly falling apart, Gwen turned to me.

  “It’s good to meet you, Smith Walker,” she said with a warm smile, offering her hand to help me up.

  “You need to get out of here,” I tell Taylor when he steps back into my office.

  “I’ll stay and let your old friend in first,” he says like it’s necessary, like I need him to do something as simple as that.

  “Bullshit!” I mean to end the conversation, not to hurt my baby brother’s feelings. I make an effort to smile in a way that says I’m sorry without actually having to say it. “Go bring that ring to Carmen,” I tell him.

  I know that Gwen should be arriving soon, so I begin to make my way to the vestibule as soon as Taylor leaves. I suppose I must have warmed up my reminiscing muscles because more memories of Gwen vie for my attention with every step. And for whatever reason, the night of junior prom takes over my mind as I slowly walk down the hall.

  The junior prom was traditionally a lavish affair at the school, with most kids arriving in limousines or their parents’ best cars. The boys rented tuxedoes and bought their dates flowers and took them to the most expensive restaurants. I couldn’t compete with any of that, but I was too young and too proud to try and explain it to Gwen. Instead, I simply didn’t ask her to go with me. She didn’t seem hurt but perhaps she was. We never discussed it, but as the prom neared we spent less time together. I think the feelings of teenagers are like icebergs—only about ten percent actually break the surface.

  I’d heard Gwen had been asked to the prom by several guys but had turned them all down, and that she planned to go with a group of girls. I had been spending junior prom night at home, ostensibly studying, but really wondering if I should have just explained my situation to Gwen, or if she hated me now, or what it would be like to be rich and able to do what the other kids at school did.

  Mrs. Closs, our next-door neighbor, was a waitress at the Riveredge Country Club. Sometimes she brought extra food home, and if it happened to be chicken, she brought it over to us. She had grown up on a chicken farm in West Virginia and had lost her taste for it. Our family always had plenty to eat, but with five boys, my mother didn’t turn down free food from the Riveredge Country Club. It usually went straight from the container into our growing bodies without touching plates or a warming oven.

  Mrs. Closs had been working the prom that night, but when she tried to leave the club her car wouldn’t start. My dad was on third shift at the time, and my mom was already asleep, so I answered the phone when Mrs. Closs called. She asked if I would please come and get her.

  Sometimes I remember growing up as one embarrassment after another—like a comedy of errors without any humor. I know that’s not really the way it was, because I have wonderful memories of family times and there was a tremendous amount of laughter in our small house. I think spending my days with rich kids was just hard for me, being different and proud, and feeling so responsible to my brothers and parents. Every morning I went from from being a big deal at home, to being less than nobody at school, then back to important again by the end of the day.

  I didn’t want to pull through the enormous wrought iron gates of the Riveredge Country Club in my beat-up car that I was never sure would start, but I had promised to bring Mrs. Closs home. It was the right thing to do, the honorable thing, so why with all these years between that earnest, embarrassed boy and my grown-up self does my face still turn red and my pulse quicken when I think back to that night?

  I stood in the doorway of the ballroom that looked like something from another world to me, so ornate and sparkling, like a scene from a magical book. I tried to adjust my eyes so that I could quickly find my neighbor and get out of there before I was discovered and maybe broke the spell.

  I looked along the sidelines, expecting to see Mrs. Closs at one of the refreshment tables, serving from one of the enormous punch bowls. Elton Jorgensen pointed me out to his date, smirking, while I continued to look around for my neighbor. I saw Jorgensen’s face fall and turned to look where he looked.

  I caught my breath. Gwen was coming toward me, like a vision. Her hair was long by then, with more shades of gold woven through it than a sunrise. She wore a strapless silver gown and long white gloves. They were satin; I remember the way the cool fabric felt when she put her hand in mine.

  “I can’t believe it!” she said. She seemed amazed to see me. “It’s the last dance, so come on,” she said, tugging me toward the dance floor.

  “I’m not going out there like this.” I nodded my chin down to indicate my clothes, but didn’t take my eyes from hers.

  “You have to. I just saw a falling star out the window and I wished for you. When I looked up, there you were!”

  It would be nice to say that I danced gracefully and forgot about my ripped jeans, old shirt, and dirty tennis shoes. That Gwen and I marched to the center of the floor while everyone parted to behold this couple who were so clearly meant for each other. But I’ve never been much of a dancer, certainly not now, but not then either, and I couldn’t forget how out of place I was. I let Gwen lead me out to the floor, but only to the periphe
ry, where I’m sure we were either invisible or derisively acknowledged by those who noticed us.

  But for those few minutes, I closed my eyes and concentrated on how Gwen’s satin dress felt under my hands, how her hair smelled like I imagined a tropical garden might on a moonlit evening, how her beauty made the other girls just look plain and silly, and most of all how those words had sounded when she said them to me: I wished for you.

  I think those were the best moments I’ve ever had. Maybe it’s sad for a grown man to admit that his adult life has been trumped by a few minutes when he was just a skinny kid of seventeen. I don’t know. But when I thought my life was ending on that awful night more than three years ago, as I lay bleeding on the pavement, those were the very moments I tried to conjure. Not a round of happy birthday sung over a lit cake when I was four…or fishing with my Grandpa on the glinting-in-the-sun waters of Lake Huron when I was twelve…or watching my mother’s face when I bought her the condo of her dreams a few years prior…but that one dance. When I thought I was having my last thoughts on this earth, I wanted to remember holding Gwen Golden’s satiny waist with her white-gloved hand in mine, looking into her smiling eyes, and hearing her say, “I wished for you.”

  Chapter Six

  Armand

  Looking out from my rental car onto the big paved lot, I swear I see kids jumping and laughing. My hung-over mind is playing tricks. It’s January, which means winter even in Praiseville, South Carolina. It’s too cold for jumping today. It’s already dark, and it doesn’t seem like a single soul is out and about.

  I probably wouldn’t recognize anyone even if it was a nice June evening and people were sitting outside. I’ve lost touch with my old neighborhood. The only thing that brings me back is when my mother calls and says I have to get over here. That doesn’t happen too often.

  I hear those kids that aren’t really there again. Maybe the cold is freezing out my brain cells while I sit in this tiny car watching my breath, making me remember things I’d long since forgotten. Making me think of jump rope, of all the crazy things I could be thinking of on such a crazy day as this. Now that I dove in, I may as well swim a little.