“I do too!” I say. But she’s right. I don’t really remember. Stupid beer. “Something about anthropology and cheerleaders that was very, very unpleasant.”
“So you need to go talk to him,” she says. “That’s why we went on this trip, remember?”
“I’m not going to grovel at his feet after he didn’t call me for two weeks,” I say.
“It’s not groveling,” argues Mel. “You guys are in love.”
“Correction,” I say. “We were in love. It’s over.”
“I don’t think so,” says Mel.
What does she know? She’s only seen Brady when he comes into the Waffle. She doesn’t know whether he loves me or not. “Were you driving?” I say, to change the subject. “Why isn’t Jesse in the driver’s seat? Jesse, was Mel driving?”
Jesse shrugs.
“I was in the driver’s seat because I was driving.” Mel speaks to me like I’m delusional. “And this is where I, as driver, thought we should go.”
She wiggles her shoulders in satisfaction. Like a little I’m-in-the-driver’s-seat joy dance.
Really. At a time like this.
“She went through the toll booths like a champ,” says Jesse, getting out of the car and fussing over Waffle, who’s still in the front seat.
“Oh, kick me when I’m down,” I moan. “Throw my failures back at me.”
Mel snorts.
“I can’t believe you two are ganging up on me like this,” I complain. “All I ever wanted was to see the Coral Castle.”
Jesse reaches into the car and yanks me up and out. “Go talk to your boyfriend,” she says.
“I thought you didn’t condone the kind of ‘talking’ we do,” I mutter.
“So? You love the guy, right?”
I nod.
“And any fool can see he loves you back.”
“I—”
“And you’re my friend, so I’m trying to help you out. Even if we disagree on like seventy-five percent of the world.”
“Eighty-five,” I say.
“Well, this time I’m right.” She pauses. “Actually, I’m right all of the time.”
“Except when you’re not.”
She gives a funny little half smile, and the fact that she doesn’t push it registers despite my agitation. Jesse is learning to back off. Jesse is learning to back off.
“You have to talk to him, Vicks,” Mel says.
And Mel has suddenly taken a course in assertiveness training. Great.
“I’m all bedraggled,” I say. “There’s papaya salsa on my T-shirt.”
“There! See?” cries Jesse. “You want to see him or you wouldn’t care what you look like.”
“Put on a clean shirt,” says Mel.
“And I stink,” I add.
“So put on deodorant,” Mel says. “And before you complain about your breath, I have mints in my bag.”
Jesse pops the trunk and starts rooting through my duffel. She pulls out a dark green camisole top. “Here, you haven’t worn this yet, and it makes your boobs look good. I’ll do your makeup if you want.”
“It’s the middle of the night,” I protest.
“You should wear the other shorts,” says Jesse, looking me up and down. “The other shorts look better on you.”
“Brady likes these ones,” I say. “And besides, I’m not even going to go see him.”
“Brush your hair,” Jesse orders, handing me a brush.
“No! You guys, I just want to go back to sleep and wake up at Coral Castle,” I tell them. “That’s what our plan was. Can’t we just do that?”
“Old Joe would not be happy with you,” says Jesse.
“What?”
“Old Joe.”
“What do you mean? Old Joe is crazy about me.”
“He is not. If he could see you now, he’d be like—”
“He’d be proud of me for kicking that other gator’s ass, that’s what,” I say. “And saving you from the jaws of death.”
“No,” says Jesse. “I mean, yes. But I also think he’d be saying”—she lowers her voice to try and sound like a gator—“Lookie here. Jesse told everyone about her mama, right? Brave. And Mel took a swing at someone twice her size—double brave—plus she scored a hot new boyfriend. But Vicks—Vicks is running away from her life like a big scaredy-cat.”
“But you haven’t called your mama yet, have you?” I say.
She ignores me. “And you know what I do with scaredy-cats?” she says in her Old Joe Gator voice. “I eat them for breakfast, with a side of chicken.”
“Ha-ha.”
She goes on in a normal tone: “You act like it’s—okay, I’m gonna cuss here, and don’t go thinking it’s a regular thing—but you act like it’s badass to dump Brady first time anything goes wrong—”
“Because he can’t treat me like that!” I cry.
“But it isn’t. It’s running away.”
“It is not.”
“It’s not being honest. You don’t tell Brady how you feel ’cause you’re scared of how he’ll react. You don’t tell me you’re not a virgin ’cause you’re scared of how I’ll react. Do we see a pattern here? I think we do. How do you expect to be in love with people and be friends with people if you’re scared of what they’ll do if you really let them see you?”
“You should call your mother,” I say.
“We are here, Vicks,” says Jesse. “This is the U, and we drove you all the way down here, and it’s time for you to talk to your man.”
“Where does Brady live?” asks Mel, looking at a map. “That’s what I need to know.”
“Hecht College, 1231 Dickenson,” I say wearily.
“See? You know you want to see him, or you’d never have told me,” Mel says.
I stand on the grass in front of Hecht, look up at the second floor, and wonder which room is Brady’s. The Opel is in a parking lot two blocks away.
This is the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do.
Because he might not want me to call.
And he really might not want me to be here. He’s called my cell a few times, but he never left a single message.
It’s 4:42 in the morning on a Sunday. I don’t know what I’ll do if he doesn’t answer.
“Why didn’t he call me?” I say to Jesse.
“I don’t know,” she says. “But if you don’t go find out, you’ll always wonder.”
“Why are you a wise lady all of a sudden?”
Jesse laughs. “It’s just a new variation.”
“On what?”
“On bossy.”
“Ha!” I laugh.
“Stop procrastinating,” says Mel.
“Oh, now you’re bossing me too?” I say.
“Just dial,” she says. They stand up and she links her arm through Jesse’s. “We’re gonna go sleep in the car.” They walk away, out of sight.
Brady picks up on the second ring. “Vicks,” he says, his voice thick. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Is everything all right?”
“It’s fine. I mean, nothing’s wrong except—”
“I was hoping you’d call. I was sleeping with the phone by my bed.”
“Sorry it’s so late.”
“Hold on, I’m waking my roommate up. Hold on, okay? Please don’t hang up.”
“Okay.”
“Say you’re not going to hang up, all right?”
“I’m not going to hang up.”
There is a scuffle and then Brady says, “Okay, I went down the hall to the bathroom. Sorry about that.”
“Brady, I have to ask you something.”
“Okay.”
I take a deep breath. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“What? I texted you Friday night and you called me back and broke up with me!” He sounds defensive.
“First of all, that was a text, not a call.”
“But I’ve been calling you ever since then. You wouldn’t pick up!”
“I called you at home,” he said. “Didn’t Tully give you the message?”
“No.”
“I called and talked to him at your parents’ place on like, Wednesday.”
“He never told me.”
“Yeah, he was over there to watch a game with your dad, I think, right? And you were at the movies.”
Tully. He is the worst brother. “You didn’t call again,” I say to Brady. “You didn’t text me back all those times I wrote you. You didn’t call me after all those messages I left. You know that’s true.”
Brady grunts. “I know.”
“Why wouldn’t you just call my cell and at least leave me a voice mail? Anything. Because I was like so, so lonely for you,” I say, choking. “And I would check my phone every hour to see if I’d missed your call, and I’d check it when I woke up in the morning and you wouldn’t have called, and I’d put it by my bed every night to see if you’d call, and you never did!” I am angry now. “You never called me and I just felt worse and worse, until I couldn’t stand it anymore. I mean, what kind of way is that to treat your girlfriend that you supposedly love?”
“I do love you.”
“Well, you have a stupid, mean way of showing it,” I tell him.
“But, Vicks, you always sounded so happy in those messages,” Brady protests. “You were like, hey, we’re at the Waffle and that guy ordered fourteen sausage patties again. Or hey, you will not believe what T-Bone just told me, call me back.”
“Yeah, call me back,” I say. “What part of that didn’t you understand?”
Brady sighs. “I understood. I just—I didn’t want to tell you what it’s like here. I didn’t want to call you back and then moan and cry on your shoulder.”
“What?”
“I don’t know anyone here, Vicks. My roommate thinks I’m a jerk, like he’s way too good for me. He’s like a necklace-wearing surfer guy and every time I put any music on he rolls his eyeballs at me. The guys in football are huge. Really, they’ve all got like twenty, thirty pounds on me and there’s no way I belong on the Hurricanes. I’m so out of my league.”
“Oh.”
“I got a C-minus on my first comp essay, I can’t understand half of what they’re saying in most of my lectures, and apparently I can’t even do laundry properly because all my shirts are now pink.”
I have to laugh.
Brady sighs. “I wanted you to think I was—I don’t know. I can’t describe it. Something better.”
Oh.
He was unhappy.
He was ashamed.
That never even crossed my mind, but now that he’s said it, I know what he means. Brady was the center of everything at school. The man on campus. The one who had the Fourth of July party. The one who brought people together. He doesn’t want to weigh anyone down with bad news. Doesn’t want to be the needy one.
Like Jesse. Like me.
“You have to call me back,” I say. “I can’t do this if you don’t call me back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You should be.”
“I am, Vicks. I am really, really sorry.”
Okay. “I’m sorry you dyed your shirts pink,” I say.
“I am very, very sorry about that, as well,” Brady says, and there’s a laugh in his voice.
“I bet you are.”
“You’re not running off with a guy from that party you went to?”
“Nah.”
“God, Vicks, I wish you were here.”
“Do you?”
“So much. I so wish you were here.”
“Look out your window.”
“What?”
“Look out your window.” I am standing on the lawn, looking up at Hecht. There are a few lights glowing from the second floor, and I study them, my heart thumping, anxious to see Brady’s form darken the frame.
“There’s no window in here, I’m in the bathroom,” he says. “And a floor of freshmen guys makes that a way disgusting place, in case you were wondering.” He pauses. “What window?”
So much for my big romantic gesture. “I’m downstairs.”
“You are not.”
“Yes, I am.”
“No.”
“Yes. Jesse and Mel drove me down here. They’re down the street in the car.”
“You’re outside the dorm?”
“That’s what I’m telling you.”
“I’m on the stairs,” he says. “I’m coming down.”
“Actually, they pretty much kidnapped me and made me come. I’m kind of smelly.”
“I’m going down the hall toward the lobby.”
“I’m smelly because we almost got eaten by a gator, I kid you not.”
“I’m sure you could give any gator what for,” Brady says, probably not believing me.
“Damn straight.”
“And you’re never smelly.”
“That’s what you think,” I say.
“Well, you were smelly that one time after touch football. Oh, and when the car broke down that time and it was like a hundred degrees out. But really, you’re hardly ever smelly.”
“Are you in the lobby yet?” I ask. “Where are you?”
His only answer is to hang up—and then he’s in the illuminated doorway of the dorm, pushing through the double doors, and running down the path to where I am. I think he’s going to sweep me up and twirl me around, but instead he just bangs into me, grabbing on, and we stumble around on the grass for a minute, and it’s so good to put my arms around him again. He’s wearing warm-up pants and a stupid-looking pink T-shirt.
We get ourselves vertical and he touches my face, and then we kiss, and it’s me and Brady, like we’ve been all year. All year, and his feelings haven’t changed.
We love each other, and I know it.
We’re in the love bubble.
31
JESSE
WHILE VICKS IS away, me and Mel fix up a little house for Waffle. We rip the top off the Dunkin’ Donuts box and Mel hands me her super soft white T-shirt to put inside, the one she wore the day we left. When I feel it, I’m brought back to that night at the museum, how Vicks heaved Mel up and I held her steady so she could reach through the open window and unlock the door.
That was the night we met Old Joe. And Marco. And, piecing it together, I reckon it was the night Vicks broke up with Brady. Was that really only two days ago?
“Are you sure about this?” I say to Mel, fingering the shirt. “It’s kinda fancy for a duck.”
“It’s soft,” Mel says. “Waffle will like it.”
“But it’s the shirt you wore when…you know.”
She looks perplexed.
“When you met a certain special someone?” I prompt. “Brown eyes, nasty habit of sneaking up on folks, name rhymes with Sparko?”
Mel giggles. “‘Sparko,’” she repeats. It’s adorable how happy she gets just saying his not-even-real name.
“We can use Vicks’s salsa T-shirt,” I say. “She won’t mind, and your shirt’ll stay pure.”
“Pure?” Mel says. “It’s a shirt, Jesse. A soft cotton shirt that’ll keep our Waffle snug and cozy, so that you can stop worrying and get some sleep. And if you go to sleep, then maybe I can finally go to sleep.”
“But—”
Mel holds up her finger and shakes her head. “What is ‘pure,’ anyway?” She continues to hold up her finger, but no words spill forth.
“I’m waiting.”
“Um, I have nothing more on that, actually,” she says, dropping her hand to her lap. She giggles. “Except, come on. What’s a little duck poop between friends?”
So I accept the shirt. I fluff it just so in the bottom of the box, place Waffle inside, and set the makeshift bed on the floor. I stretch out on the seats above
and try to go to sleep. But below me, Waffle quacks and patters about, nipping at her soft white blankie like it’s nice, but it sure isn’t her mama’s warm body.
Mel groans when I sit back up. From the rear seat, she says, “Jesse? I want you to put your hands above your head and leave the duck alone.”
“Oh, hush,” I say, scooping Waffle up and cradling her against my chest. “You sound like that itty-bitty policeman.”
But Mel doesn’t hush, and neither do I. Maybe ’cause we’re in an unfamiliar parking lot in the middle of an unfamiliar city? Maybe ’cause we’re anxious for Vicks, who by now is either sealing the love deal or saying her final good-byes. Or maybe we’ve gone around the bend from bone-deep exhaustion to gritty-eyed wakefulness, the sort where you can’t even relax your eyelids.
Whatever the reason, sleep won’t come.
So I ask Mel if she believes in heaven. I don’t know how anyone couldn’t believe in heaven, but then again, look at Vicks.
Mel hesitates. Then she says, “Are you thinking about your mum?”
I stroke Waffle’s soft feathers. She’s quiet now, and peaceful. “Yeah.”
“Jesse,” Mel says softly, “she’s not going to die.”
“How do you know?”
“Because…well, I don’t. I guess I just said it.”
“Bad things do happen, just like Vicks said.”
“I know. But good things happen too.”
“Huh,” I say. I stare at the Opel’s cracked ceiling. “Is that a Jewish thing? Focusing on the positive?”
“Maybe,” Mel says, laughing a little.
“Why are you laughing?”
“I don’t know. I just am. But, Jesse…”
“What?”
“It’s great that you believe so strongly in God, but I feel like sometimes you worry about the wrong things, like what’s pure and who’s a virgin and what the rules are for being Christian or Jewish or whatever.” The seat squeaks as she shifts. “Isn’t it possible that God’s bigger than all that?”
No, I think. God is God is God.
But then something in my brain shifts, opening the tiniest crack of…something. I don’t mean for it to. It just does. And I’m not saying yes, but I am just possibly saying maybe. Maybe to the idea of one big God, expanding in all directions, reaching people however He can. Like the sun, which is officially over the horizon now.
How to Be Bad Page 20