“Want me to come?”
She shakes her head. “It’s fine. He actually came over for dinner last night.” She shrugs.
“Things any better?”
“We’ll see,” she says, a little too grimly, a little more devoid of the forgiveness I wish she had for Tyler’s best friend, who’s not such a bad guy, but who may have made a marriage-ending mistake by fooling around with his office manager in her car after a very happy happy hour and having the poor sense to do so in his driveway when she dropped him off, just in time for Susie to catch a glimpse out their bedroom window. Not that I don’t understand her bitterness; I do. But I don’t want them to shatter, not the two of them. Not the four of us who have clung together, barnacles, since high school.
I watch her wander off and then scope around for Tyler, but the crowd is too packed to get a real sense of the landscape, so instead, I head for the ice-cream stand.
“Hey, Mrs. F.”
I spin around to see one of my favorite students, Claudette Johnson, behind me, in slightly too-short shorts and a slightly too-clingy T-shirt with a winking Mickey Mouse decal, which surely holds some sort of irony that’s over my head. She is lean and tanned and well rested, and if you didn’t know her, you’d never imagine that her prettiness has nothing to do with how she defines herself.
“Hey, CJ, how’s your summer going?”
“Well enough. Last real summer before I’m out of here.” She flashes me a genuine smile that illuminates her entire face, taking her from small-town beautiful to anywhere-in-the-world breathtaking. The same smile I see whenever she comes into my office to discuss launching her life on a bigger stage than Westlake can offer.
I wish she wouldn’t be in such a rush. I always tell her that. “I wish you wouldn’t be in such a rush, CJ!” That there are a lot of wonderful things about planting her roots here in town, near her father, who I know will despair at seeing his only child head out into the world that could swallow her whole; near the community who rallied around her and her dad when her mother skipped out seven years ago. But CJ never considers it, never considers a secondary option.
“And are you ready for prom planning? We’re starting next week.”
“I got your e-mail.” She nods. “And I heard you might be doing the musical too.” I notice several of the football players lingering behind her, taking in the view.
“Guilty as charged.” I smile. “Don’t worry; you’ll be the first to hear about auditions.”
The line inches us toward my awaiting Nutty Buddy.
“How’s your break going?” CJ asks. “Do anything major?”
“Nothing much,” I say, thinking of how Tyler has just expressed his regret that we once again didn’t take advantage of my summer off, didn’t take that virgin trip to Europe or at the very least, a drive down the coast to California.
“I wish we’d done it,” he said a few nights ago, shortly after I hung up with Principal Anderson. “I’ve always wanted to surf in San Diego. We should have at least done San Diego.”
I laughed as I stirred the tomato sauce for dinner. “I’ve never heard you mention that before.”
He shrugged, flipping the channel from one baseball game to another. “I’m feeling old. Feeling like I’d like to try new things. Why not surfing?”
“Why not?” I agreed amicably, already relieved that he hadn’t mentioned trying to squeeze it in during August, mulling over how difficult it would have been to find time for our baby-making sex, considering who would have watered the plants, who would have looked out for the house, how I would have organized prom and now the musical. It’s so much easier that we didn’t go, I thought. Tyler can learn to surf another time. But I swirled the sauce with my wooden spoon and said nothing. I almost blurted out that we’d see Paris at the prom, but I suspected he’d just turn up the volume on the TV. Not that Tyler doesn’t enjoy prom; every year he dutifully holds my hand and slow-dances, but just last year, he mentioned that he was starting to feel a little too old for this stuff, a little more like a chaperone than an alumnus, and last week at dinner, when I announced the City of Lights theme with unhinged giddiness, I could detect the disinterest painted across his face. Though Susanna later said, “Who could blame him? He’s thirty-two. Who still wants to go to prom?” I twitched and supposed she was right, all the while thinking, Well, I do!
I fork over three bucks for my ice cream and wave good-bye to CJ. The Nutty Buddy stands no hope against the swelter and starts melting down my hand as soon as I tug off the gold wrapping, so I swirl my tongue over the edges of the cone in a frantic race against the heat and suck in the flawless taste of vanilla ice cream, hardened chocolate sauce, and peanuts.
I roam toward the bumper cars, the squeals of toddlers growing louder over the bluegrass band that plays on the stage behind me. I spot Susanna with her six-year-old twins, negotiating a cotton candy purchase, Austin hovering near their huddle, but I let them be.
I’m wiping the sticky ice-cream residue off my hands when I notice a tent just behind the hot dog stand. It’s a compelling, rich shade of purple with an elaborate fabric door dotted with gold stars that shimmer in the glare of the sun. I start toward it and feel the pad in my underwear shift. Please don’t be my period. A silent prayer. Please, please, please don’t be my period.
I pull back the velvet curtain and poke my head inside. The air is cool, so much cooler than the fairground, and for the first time in hours, my body calms itself, my pores shuttering, my pulse slowing in my neck. Incense burns in the corner, and a cloying scent of vanilla and clove overwhelms my nostrils.
“Hello?” I say, my vision taking a moment to adjust to the darkness.
“Just a moment.” A voice calls out from beyond yet another swath of fabric hanging behind a wobbly folding table. “Yes, hello.” A woman with a wrestler’s body emerges, squat, compact, almost lithe but too bulky to be graceful. Her hair is so black, it’s almost purple, and her skin, alabaster against it, is nearly translucent. She’s about my age, though her overuse of eyeliner reminds me of some of the Westlake students who are still learning the art of makeup application. Suddenly, she is familiar.
“Oh my God, Ashley Simmons?” I say, squinting to make out the recognizable face.
She steps closer. “Silly Tilly Everett.” Her lips purse together into a half smile. “I’m not surprised.” Silly Tilly. My nickname from a lifetime ago.
“It’s Tilly Farmer now,” I say, then double back to her statement. “You’re not surprised to see me here?”
“Not really.” She shrugs. “You were always an easy read.”
“I thought you moved away.” I deflect, because I have no idea what the hell she’s talking about. Ashley was the third part of my best-friend trio with Susanna up until the seventh grade. When puberty attacked, we—all hormones and budding breasts and boys, boys, boys—dismembered our triangle. Ashley gravitated toward the kids who lurked outside the middle school, cat-calling at the nerds, unmerciful in their teasing, and later graduating to the stoners and crew who smoked cigarettes in the parking lot, while Susie and I stuck to the jocks, the cheerleaders, the prom court. Last I’d heard, after two years at community college and then beautician school, she headed south to Idaho.
“I came back a few months ago,” she says. “Quietly. Didn’t make a big announcement.” She pauses. “My mom got sick. Coronary heart disease.”
“I’m so sorry to hear that,” I say, because I am. “Please send her my hellos.” Ashley’s parents were always kind to me, even when she and I had long outgrown each other. In high school, when my family was fraying at all edges, they both showed up on our front porch, toting tuna casseroles and an offer for a home-cooked dinner at their place. I thanked them for their generosity but turned them down, saying we were coping and doing just fine. I’m not sure if I ever did return their Tupperware.
“What’s up with the tent?” I say, glancing around.
“I do readings,” she says, like this is
supposed to make sense.
“Readings?”
“Yeah, you know, of people’s destiny, of their future.”
I feel my upper lip curl, my forehead wrinkling in bemusement, but then sift through my memory for a vague recollection of her saying much the same in high school—that she could read palms, predict when someone would die, eerie incantations that eventually branded her an outcast, even among the dweebs who were already outcasts enough. She’d brush by me in the hallway and whisper in my ear, “Tilly Everett, do I have something to tell you!” a hint of foreboding, a tickle of glee in her voice. I could never figure out if she was doing it because she resented me for becoming popular or if she still remembered our friendship and was only playing me, that tiny fragment of our childhood still a shared spark.
“Let me read you,” she says. “You never let me in high school, and now’s the time. I can feel it.”
“Um, that’s okay.” I pause. “I have a pretty great life.”
Her face morphs into a sneer. “You always thought that. You were always oblivious.”
“I’m not oblivious!” I say, instantly defensive. “I love my life. I married Tyler, by the way. We’re trying for kids.”
“As if that’s the answer to anything. As if Tyler and a baby are the answers to anything,” she says, moving behind her makeshift table.
“Well, I think they are,” I say. “Not that I’m looking for answers.” I stop, annoyed at myself. “What’s your point, Ashley?”
“My point, Silly Tilly, is that you need a little clarity, a little insight. And I’d like to help you get it.” I wish she would stop calling me that, stop making me feel like I’m nine again.
“Sit,” she commands, gesturing to a weather-beaten chair in front of her table. Inexplicably, I obey. She walks over with a glass bowl of water, two small candles, a vial of gray powder, and what appears to be some sort of vegetable root.
She drops in the chair opposite me, all of the lines on her face pointing downward, the sweat pooling above her lip into round, beady drops, and interlaces her fingers into mine, then closes her eyes. I wonder if I should follow her example, so I press my eyes shut, but then I open them again when she whisks her hands back from me, as if she received an electric jolt.
“Oh,” she says with a firework of alarm. “Oh my.” Then she smiles as if to mask her horror, reminding me exactly of the Cheshire cat. “I always knew there was something special about you, Tilly Everett.” She reaches for a set of matches on the corner of the table and lights the tea candles.
Farmer, I want to correct her. It’s Tilly Farmer now. Tyler and I got married and we’re having a baby, and that’s all I need in the word to make me happy!
“Tell me the most important thing about yourself, something that I wouldn’t know, something that maybe no one knows,” she says, her tone guttural, ghostly almost, a shell of what it was before.
“I don’t have any secrets,” I say without hesitation. “I said it before—I love my life. There’s nothing to hide.”
“Everyone has something to hide,” she says, meeting my eyes roundly.
“Well, I don’t. I’m happy. That’s all that matters,” I reply, half-wishing I’d never agreed to this in the first place. Yes, why did you agree to this in the first place?
She grunts in response, indicating absolutely nothing, and sprinkles the charcoal-like powder into my hands, tugging my arms closer, nearly pulling the elbows straight from the sockets and ignoring my protests of discomfort. She presses the vegetable root into my palms, inhaling and exhaling sharply. The scent of the incense mixes with her stale breath and the charred aroma from the powder, and I’m overcome with pulsing nausea, which winds its way up from the core of my stomach, and I swallow hard, certain I’m going to vomit. But then, just as I’m on the cusp of heaving, she pulls the root off my hands and dips the tips of my fingers in the bowl of cool water, and the sensation passes.
“Oh!” she says again, her voice a mix of alarm and euphoria, her eyes fiery as she stares, bearing down, boring into me.
“What? Oh, what?” I say, matching her panic because all at once, this seems a little too real, a little more creepy than I bargained for. I can feel the baby hairs on my arms prickling, at full attention. “Did you see my future?”
Don’t be ridiculous, Tilly! I think. No one can actually see the future. Blood rushes to my cheeks, a visual confession of embarrassment at the stupidity of my question.
“It doesn’t work like that, Tilly.” She smiles, though it’s all teeth, the affection gone.
“What do you mean? You said you could tell my fortune. So what is it?” Leave! Just get up and leave. Ashley Simmons is a train wreck who can derail anyone who gets in her track.
“Sometimes I can see something, other times, something else presents itself,” she says, as if this is an answer to anything. “You might not understand.”
“I don’t,” I say. “Honestly, Ashley, is this some sort of karmic payback because we weren’t friends in high school or something?” I stand to leave.
“Sit down,” she commands. “I’m not done. And not everything is about high school, Tilly.”
Her bark surprises me, and my knees buckle into the seat.
“Close your eyes,” she says. I hear her scurry behind me and then feel her rubbing that root of God-knows-what over my temples, then into the base of my neck, where my blood palpably beats. Her hands form a web over my scalp, and her fingers press, like staples, into tiny points along my forehead. I hear a vertebra pop in my spine, and my equilibrium is disrupted, and even behind the veil of darkness in my eyes, I feel myself spinning, being pulled down by gravity to the straw-covered makeshift floor.
But then she whips her hands off of me, and my vertigo is gone, whisked away, and when I open my eyes, the tent around me looks different, brighter, clearer in a way that I can’t define at all.
“Now, we’re done,” she says through a heavy, broken breath. Sweat stains splatter across the collar of her shirt. “I won’t charge you. Consider this a gift.”
“A gift of what?” I ask. “You haven’t told me anything.”
“A gift of clarity, Tilly. It’s what I always thought you needed.”
“I don’t get this at all,” I say, rising to go, my legs unsteady below me.
“You will,” she says. “You will get it, I’m sure.” Then she moves to disappear behind her curtain without so much as a formal good-bye. “You’ll understand soon enough, and then the next time you see me, you’ll thank me for being so generous.”
I start to reply, but she is gone. So I fling aside the fabric opening to the tent, squint my eyes to adjust to the sunlight, and head off in search of Tyler, already intent on shaking off Ashley Simmons, her ominous prophecies, the idea that she could somehow intuit the future, my future.
As if! I snort to myself. Give me a break! I think as I meander by the carousel, ignoring my shaking fingers, my anxiety flaring like a rocket grenade.
I scavenge around the grounds, putting it behind me.
Never once does it occur to me that Ashley Simmons might be on to something, might be the very thing that will unhinge me from the present and send me down a slippery slope of time.
two
Two hours later, just before the sun finally begins to tuck itself behind the horizon and grant us a small reprieve from the suffocation of steamy air, Ty and I have reunited near the Skee-Ball machines, and having gorged ourselves on turkey drumsticks and popcorn, we make our way back home.
As Ty drives, we wind our way through the town whose back roads, faded awnings, and seasonal crosswind scents are as familiar to me as a second skin. Past the elementary school where Susie and I spawned our sisterhood, past the Chevrolet dealership where my father bought me my first car, past the Italian restaurant that CJ’s father has run since she was a baby, past the electronics store that my dad opened before I was born and nearly lost when he drank too much to know the difference between a washer
and a dryer. Ty and I fall into a comfortable silence, the silence that is born from knowing each other for two decades, and I calculate how quickly we’ll be home so I can check to see if the pad in my underwear is still spotless.
I know that I shouldn’t be so obsessed. Ty tries to reassure me every time I really come undone over it, over another month of failed opportunity. He’ll say, “Everything happens for a reason, babe,” which I know he means to be endearing, but it sort of irritates me all the same. As if everything in my life has happened for a reason! What an idiotic notion. As if I wouldn’t rewind so much of it if I could. But I can’t, and I know this, and I have lived my life knowing this, so whenever he espouses such things, I wrap my palm around the curve of his cheek and thank him. Because at the root of it, he’s only doing his best.
Ty turns down our cul-de-sac, its elm trees bursting with flourishing leaves, sporadic wildflowers at their trunks, occasional tangled rosebushes nestled beside them, and as we coast into the driveway, I spot my youngest sister parked on our front steps, a bouquet of irises in her hand.
“Oh, damn it,” I say, unsnapping my seat belt and opening the door in one fluid motion, the crest of air-conditioned comfort sucked dry immediately.
“What’s she doing here?” Ty kills the engine.
“We forgot.” I turn to look at him, but I can tell he has no recollection. “My mom’s birthday. We totally forgot.”
“Oh, shit,” he says, though it’s more of a sigh than an actual lament, and he readjusts his baseball hat, a microscopic delaying technique before we face the enemy. We both disembark from the giant steps of our Ford Explorer, bought used and at a discount, and drop onto the graveled ground.
“I’ve been waiting here for two goddamned hours,” Darcy snaps as a greeting. “Do you know how long two goddamned hours can be when you’re sitting by yourself with nothing to do?”
“Why didn’t you call me?” I ask.
“Phone’s dead.” She shrugs. Of course it is, I think. Darcy never goes anywhere adequately prepared or equipped for the circumstances. “Besides,” she continues, “I can’t believe you forgot.”
The One That I Want Page 2