Shuffle, Repeat

by Jen Klein

  Mom, with the way she bounces from thought to thought, and with wares from friend to friend…nothing about her is direct. Nothing is specific.

  But we have a life together that works anyway, so I can’t complain.

  • • •

  Cash arrives right on time with steaks and corn and aluminum foil. Marley shows up half an hour late with three bottles of wine and a slow cooker full of zucchini soup. “I thought you were bringing dessert,” Mom says.

  Marley sets the bottles on the kitchen counter. “This is dessert.”

  “I’ll make brownies,” I tell them, and Marley gives me an approving smile.

  “You raised her right,” she says to Mom. “Where’s your wine opener?”

  Mom eyes the bottles. “I don’t think we need all three of those.”

  “Probably not,” Marley agrees. “However, they’re the three best bottles in Bryant’s collection, so we’re going to at least taste them all.”

  Mom laughs. “You’re terrible.”

  • • •

  By the time dinner is over and I’m pulling brownies out of the oven, all three of the bottles are open…and one is empty. Cash only had a glass and I was given a tiny sip of each flavor (although I couldn’t tell the difference between them). The rest was all Mom and Marley. Now they’re taking turns between the other two bottles while huddled over one of their phones, looking through photos on some sort of social media site and occasionally cackling.

  Cash gestures to my pan of brownies. “I’ll take one to go. This is feeling more and more like a ladies’ night.”

  “You can stay!” Mom calls out, and blows him a kiss.

  “I know.” Cash winks at me. “But I’m still going to go.”

  I can’t exactly blame him, especially when Marley leaps off her stool, knocking it over. “Indigo Girls!” she calls out. “Let’s listen to the Indigo Girls.”

  As the moms start comparing playlists (apparently this isn’t something one grows out of), Cash swings around the counter and picks up the stool. He sets it in its place and looks at me. “My advice is go up to your room, close the door, and put on some decent music.”

  “You got a suggestion?”

  “Something loud,” Cash says. “I’d go with Petty, myself. Tom.”

  “You and Mom belong together,” I tell him, and watch as his face cracks wide open into the happiest of grins.

  “Thanks, June.”

  “Have a good night, Cash.”

  Cash kisses my mom and says good-bye to Marley. He’s almost to the front door—which I know because he’s a stompy walker—when he turns around and comes back into the kitchen. “Hey, June.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t let them drive anywhere.”

  “Closer to Fine” blares to life from the living room and I nod. “Good call.”

  And it is a good call, because an hour later, while I’m up in my room listening to the Pogues, there’s a knock on my door. I open it to find my mother standing there, waiting to deliver a world of justification to me. “You should know that, yes, Marley and I are drinking, but it’s okay because it’s rare and because we are adults.” All her words are very clear and she almost wouldn’t seem drunk, except she points at me when she says “rare,” and her right elbow clonks into the doorjamb. “Ow.”

  I’ve seen my mother buzzed a couple times before, so I smile at her, because I know that’s what she wants. “It’s fine, Mom.”

  She counts on her fingers. “One: we would never get behind the wheel of a car in this condition. Two: we would never make sexual decisions while inebriated. Three…dammit. I had three a minute ago.”

  “I got it, Mom. You’re in your house and you’re over twenty-one, drinking with your best friend. Seriously. It’s fine.”

  “I love you,” she tells me.

  “I love you, too.”

  “And I have to tell you something,” she says. “You gotta learn to drive, baby.”

  My insides twist. “What?”

  “Marley wants to go home.”

  • • •

  By the time Oliver arrives, Mom and Marley have moved on to The Jesus and Mary Chain. When we walk into the kitchen, the moms are wild dancing to “Between Planets.” They have their eyes closed and they’re waving their arms in the air while they bounce around. Oliver shakes his head and goes to Marley, catching her arm in mid-gyration. “Hey, Mom.”

  “Ollie!” She beams up at him and then immediately gets super serious, like she’s just gotten busted. “I understand you might have some questions about why your mother needs to be chauffeured….”

  Except she says “needsh.”

  My mom elbows her in the ribs. “Marley, chill. Our kids are cool.”

  Marley looks at her and then back at Oliver. He nods. “We are, Mom. We’re really, really cool.”

  He glances at me and I hurry to back him up. “So cool, Mrs. Flagg.”

  “Let’s go, Mom,” Oliver says.

  “I’ll walk you out!” my mom singsongs, and we all start toward the door together.

  We’re almost there when I remember Marley’s slow cooker. “Your mom left something,” I tell Oliver. “I’ll be right back.”

  The big pot is in the sink, right where my mom put it. It’s mostly scrubbed out, so I make the executive decision that in this case, half-assed is better than no-assed. I shove it into a grocery bag before trotting back through the house and out the front door onto the porch.

  Oliver stands patiently by his car while Mom and Marley—their arms linked together—sway toward him, singing a Prince song. I’m pretty sure it’s the dirty one. Oliver and I trade amused glances and I head to the rear of his car. I set the grocery bag on the ground so I can figure out how to open the behemoth’s trunk. I’ve just found the button under the handle and yanked up when I hear Oliver shout.

  “Don’t! Stop!”

  I look up, startled. “Stop or don’t stop?” I ask him, but he doesn’t answer, because he has run over to me and is now looking all big-eyed and blinky. I follow his gaze into the behemoth’s trunk.

  Aluminum foil.

  His trunk is packed with boxes of aluminum foil. Completely full. All different brands.

  The first thing I say is “No wonder the store was out!”

  The second thing is “What the hell?”

  Oliver shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it.”

  And the thing is I might not have worried about it if he hadn’t said that. As it is, my hands fly to my hips and I glare at him. “What’s going on, Oliver?”

  At least he has the grace to look chagrined. “It’s for the prank.”

  “The senior prank?”

  “Is there another one?”

  My glare intensifies and he withers under it. “What is this?” I say.

  “Don’t get mad.”

  “That’s what people say to someone with a legitimate reason to be mad.”

  “It’s tonight. The prank is happening tonight.”

  “What?” Indignation blazes up inside me. “Why don’t I know about this?”

  “Why would you want to know?”

  “Because I’m a senior!”

  “But you’ve dismissed it since the beginning of the year,” he reminds me. “You hate it. Why would anyone think you’d want to be involved? Why would we think you wouldn’t narc us out?”

  We.

  That’s all I hear. If there’s a “we,” it means there is an “us” and a “you,” and I’m the “you.” I’m separate. I’m not one of us.

  I stare at him, my mouth open but nothing coming out, because I’m so offended. No, I’m not offended. I’m angry.

  I’m sad.

  I’m about to say something—I don’t know what, but something—when a loud blast of the behemoth’s horn makes us both jump. “Our mothers are out of control,” Oliver says as we hear a gale of giggles from the front of the car.

  Oliver slams the trunk and heads to the passenger side. I follow
and watch him settle Marley into the seat. Once she’s buckled, he looks at me. “I’m taking her home and then I’m driving to school. I’ll come right past your house, so if you change your mind and actually want to be a part of it, call my cell.”

  “I’m not calling you.”

  “Well, you should.” He says it quietly, but it lands hard.

  “If you really thought that, you would have told me about the prank in the first place.” Hurt threatens to close my throat. “I’m not part of this. I’m not a part of anything.”

  Oliver stares at me for a long moment. “Don’t move,” he finally says. He closes Marley’s door and then nods to my mother, who is standing nearby, looking super happy and super buzzed. “I need to talk to your daughter.”

  “Go ahead,” says Mom. “I might not remember it tomorrow anyway.”

  “Cool,” says Oliver.

  “Cool,” says Mom, shambling off toward the house.

  I feel like I should say something, too, but “cool” doesn’t seem appropriate.

  Oliver walks over and stares down at me. Even by moonlight, those eyes are lethal. “Here’s the thing: once we’re out of here, we won’t come back. Most of the time, we won’t even remember who we used to be.”

  “I’ll remember.”

  “No,” he says. “You won’t. Trust me on this one. I’ve seen it.”

  This time, I don’t answer, because I don’t know what to say.

  “When we get those few chances to remember, this will be the time we come back to,” Oliver tells me. “It’ll be now, tonight. Do you know why?”

  I wish I had a smart-ass comment, but I only shake my head.

  “Because we’re young enough to break the rules. This is one of our last moments of freedom, and guess what.”

  “What?” It comes out in a whisper. Oliver leans down to me. He’s close—so close that even though we’re in the moonlight, even though I can hear his mother singing from inside his car and my mother tromping around on the porch, I am viscerally aware of the warm, minty smell of his breath and the hard angles of his jaw.

  “You get to taste it,” he tells me, also whispering. “You get to live it.”

  I stare at him, and all I can see is his goodness. Because Oliver Flagg is good and real and true….

  “Get in the car,” he tells me. “You know you want to.”

  He’s right.

  And still I can’t.

  • • •

  I’m standing in the front hallway, looking out the window, when Oliver drives back past my house. I see the behemoth cruise down Callaway. It slows down, almost coming to a halt, and then finally speeds up. It keeps moving and disappears down the road.

  Pain rises inside me. I can’t explain it, can’t define it. It’s something that makes no sense whatsoever. It’s loneliness. I miss something I’ve never had.

  Crap.

  I lean my forehead against the glass, aching for Oliver’s brake lights, which have receded into the distance, when I hear my mother’s voice. “You should go.”

  I turn to look at her. “You’re encouraging vandalism?”

  Mom leans against the wooden storage bench, smiling at me. “It’s not like you’re going to kill someone. It’s a prank.”

  “I don’t even know what it is,” I tell her.

  “I do,” she says, and I stare at her, not sure if I’m pissed or upset or amused. My freaking mother gets to know about the prank, and I don’t? But then Mom shakes her head. “Not the details. I have no idea what you kids are up to, but I do know it’s okay to be involved in something bigger than yourself, even if it’s just a goofy joke with a bunch of teenagers you might never see again after graduation.”

  “But why?” I say. “Why should I do it?”

  Mom walks over to me and I can tell she’s moving slowly so she won’t wobble. She reaches out to stroke my hair. “June,” she says in a voice that is all kinds of loving and gentle. “I think the real question is, why not?”

  Yet again, I don’t know how to answer. Mom smiles at me. “I’m going to bed,” she tells me. “Do what you want but just know that, tonight only, you have no curfew.”

  I watch her walk up the stairs before I turn to look out the window again, and what I realize as I stare into the blackness is that I wish I could still see Oliver’s headlights approaching, because if I could, I would run out into the night and flag him down.

  But unfortunately, there are no headlights.

  There are no lights at all.

  It’s midnight when Shaun finds a spot two blocks from campus, far away from any streetlights. When we’re both out of the car, he grabs my hand and pulls me toward the school. “We’re already late,” he reminds me.

  “Thank you again,” I tell him as we head down the darkened sidewalk. “I didn’t know if you’d come get me. Most of the time, you don’t even answer your phone.”

  “Most of the time, you don’t have anything important to say.” He grins at me and I grin back.

  “Did you text Lily and Darbs?”

  “Yep, but I don’t think they’re coming.”

  We circle the flagpole and go down the east side of the school, away from the main entrance. A couple of “guards”—Danny Hollander and Sara Francis—are stationed outside the art suite. They beckon us over and explain that we’re going in through a window several yards down, behind a pair of spruce bushes. “Don’t turn on any lights,” Sara tells me. “Feel your way through the room and close the door behind you. Things are happening on the second floor.”

  Getting through the window is easy. Getting through the pitch-black art room—slightly less so. Edging our way down the hallway toward the staircase is downright terrifying, but by the time we reach the steps, we can hear laughter from upstairs and it starts to feel more like a fun caper and less like a low-budget horror movie.

  We arrive on the second floor to find lanterns placed all around and students everywhere. There are tons of senior athletes and—surprisingly—tons of nonathletes, too. Ainsley is there (natch). She is at a table piled high with combination locks and is handing them out to a line of perky cheerleaders. She waves me over. “Bo Reeves scored the universal key. We took the locks off every single locker in the school and now we’re mixing them up and putting them back.”

  I stare at her—“That is genius.”—and she beams in return.

  “I know, right? Everyone will have to try all the lockers in the school just to find their own lock. We could use some more hands, but before you jump in, go check out the third floor. It’s seriously magical.”

  “Go on,” Shaun tells me. “I’ll help with the lockers.”

  I hesitate only a second before running off.

  • • •

  Apparently I’ve been kept in the dark for a long time, because a lot of work has been done. A lot. It looks like our seniors have enjoyed some major crafternoons, because there are zillions of snowflakes stuck to the walls and dangling from the ceiling. Shaun will love it. Students are going in and out of several open classroom doors, so I peer inside one of them.

  It just keeps getting better.

  The first thing I see is a glittery silver disco ball that I’m sure was once a globe of the world. It sits beside several glittery silver pens and what appears to be a stack of individually wrapped glittery silver documents. All of those are perched atop a glittery silver desk, which is beside a glittery silver trash can.

  Suddenly, I understand why Cash had to make a special trip to his local market on the way to our house for dinner. This is why there was no aluminum foil at the store near school. Everything in this room—like, everything—has been individually encased in foil. Desks, whiteboard, wall hangings, dry-erase markers. Everything.

  I walk all the way inside and stare around. Not only is it pretty—in a strange, spacey kind of way—but absolutely nothing was hurt in the creation of this prank. No property—school or personal—and definitely no animals.

  There’s a noise at
the doorway and I look over. It’s Itch. “Oh, sorry,” he says, and turns to leave.

  “Wait!” I say really fast and a little too loudly. Itch stops moving but he doesn’t come any closer. He slumps against the doorframe and waits. “I haven’t seen you around,” I tell him.

  “Really? Because we go to the same school.”

  I try again. “I’m surprised you’re here.”

  He folds his arms. “Oh, you can suddenly be a joiner, but I can’t?”

  “Itch.”

  “Let me guess,” he says. “You want forgiveness. You want us to be all friendy.”

  “I broke up with you,” I remind him. “I didn’t stab you.”

  Itch lets out a short bark of pissed-off laughter. “Right. No stabbing, no big deal.” He shakes his head. “Forget it, June.”

  This time when he turns to go, I let him.

  • • •

  I finally find Oliver after Theo points me in his direction. (“You know his girlfriend’s here, right?” “Bite me, Theo.”)

  There are orange traffic cones placed at the entrances to North Hall. Oliver is there alone, in the lobby, threading yellow caution tape around the entire area. He smiles really big when he sees me. “How’d you get here?”

  “Shaun.” I watch Oliver loop the tape around the radiator twice and tie it so it stays in place. “Do you need help?”

  “No. I’m almost done.”

  “Oh. Okay.” I’m disappointed but I can’t complain. After all, I’m the one who showed up late. “I’ll see if they need anything on the third—”

  “Don’t go,” Oliver says, so I don’t. “How do you like it?”

  I duck under the caution tape and join him in the center of the North Hall lobby. There are snowflakes taped to the walls here, too. “It’s pretty.”

  “Pretty? That’s all I get?”

  “Someone spent a lot of time with paper and scissors.”

  “For sure.” He stretches his right hand toward me and points to his index knuckle. Because he seems to expect it, I run my fingertip over the small hard spot. It’s polished smooth. “I cut roughly a million snowflakes while waiting for you to take your turn in Mythteries.”