Brooks’s lopsided left eye was acting up, tears slipping out—a faulty tear duct courtesy of a childhood rottweiler attack. He kept one hand on my knee and, with the other, snagged another chip and asked, “You actually want to go to that party?” Brooks has always hated parties.
“I do,” I said, because maybe if I said it enough, it’d be the truth. “It’ll have a good view of the fire.”
“Let’s hope it’s out by then.” But his hand came off my leg, and he gave himself away. He propped his elbows on the table and toyed with the lighter. Stared at the flame. Brooks wanted the fire to burn long enough for him to be needed.
His cell phone had been at his side all summer long, his station-specific ringtone wailing for fender benders on Antonio Parkway, fatal teenage drag races down in the canyons, and a few structure fires due to poor wiring or sleepy smokers, but no real-deal wild land fires. And Friday night, the air spiked with a peppering of ash, a fire hissing just fifteen miles south, Brooks’s cell still hadn’t rung. The San Juan Capistrano and Coto de Caza crews were handling it. Caspers Fire was 80 percent contained and the trenches were dug.
Everything was normal. No danger lurking under the table. It was Friday night, the first week of October, and Brooks and I were simply eating Mexican food after a somewhat turbulent Thursday, a somewhat turbulent three-month anniversary.
Brooks peeled my quesadilla off my plate and finished it in five bites. I chewed a tortilla chip, slow, careful, the salt sparking on my tongue, while he wiped his mouth with a napkin and shook his head.
“This won’t be it,” he said. “This isn’t my fire.”
3
6:21 A.M.
When he calls, I’m retching into a Starbucks bathroom toilet. His name on the screen is a flying arrow. There’s no time to duck, to reconsider. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand and answer. I can’t say hi, can only say his name. “Brooks.”
“I’m headed to the station.” His voice whooshes, because he has me on speakerphone and his window is down, letting in the new day, the smoke. “They’ll be calling us within the hour. I can feel it.” I picture him easily: sunglasses on, sleep-manic hair, lips split into a grin. “All local responders are on it. Audrey, it blew up.”
“I know,” I say. “I was evacuated.”
He doesn’t respond to this because he’s not listening to me. “I wanted to tell you, need to tell you before I go out there, I love you,” he says, and my chest compresses, a rock in my throat. He loves me. The words melt like ice in my hands. “We’ve got this handled,” he says. “It’ll be out in no time.” He says this as if he’s chief commander, not a volunteer. Not just a boy who likes to play with fire. I’ve never heard him so euphoric. He pauses before asking, “Where are you? Are you safe?”
I guess he is kind of listening to me.
“Starbucks. Puking the night out,” I say. “Maybe homeless.” I meant it as a joke—making light of a dire situation—but my voice cracks on the word. Homeless.
I ache for Maya and my mom and dad, ache so bad to be home on an easy Sunday morning. Dad making scrambled eggs with too much salsa, Maya stretching across the living room floor, me arguing with Mom that I’m old enough to drink coffee—doing nothing, doing everything.
“Oh, Audie,” Brooks says.
I close my eyes. “Stop.”
There is a click in the line, and suddenly his breath is closer, a phone held to his ear. “Hey,” he says. “I need to take this call, but you be safe today. Okay?”
“You be safe,” I say.
“You’re kidding. I was trained for this.” He laughs. He actually laughs. “I’ll call you as soon as I can. We’ll get this figured out. I’ll see you soon.”
As if it’s a normal Sunday, just like any other day.
I want it to be okay. I need it to be okay, so I say, “Yeah.”
“I have a fire to fight,” he says. “I guess it is mine.”
He says, “I love you,” and hangs up before I can respond, before he can hear me say, “Mine.”
Though I’m not sure why I say that. I never wanted a fire to claim.
4
SATURDAY
The party was at Derek Sanders’s place—the first weekend of October paired with his parents being out of town apparently the perfect excuse to throw “the season’s greatest Halloween rager.”
Early afternoon, when the sky was yellow, Derek posted online:
Feel the heat? See those flames? Yeah, gonna be an epic night, girls and boys, so don’t let the smoke scare you away. Come to my place, take swigs on the pirate ship, and embrace the rage. BYOB, witches and bitches!
I wasn’t planning on going to the party. Grace’s Saturday was booked with babysitting and preparing for her girlfriend’s birthday on Sunday. (Quinn had yet to see the Redwoods, and that needed to be remedied ASAP via a camping trip up the central coast.) And if Grace wasn’t going to the party, I wasn’t going to the party. She’s the spine of my social life.
More importantly, Mom had planned a girls’ night in Newport Beach for Maya’s audition. The Orange County Institute of Ballet isn’t even forty minutes away, but Mom’s convinced that treating an audition extravagantly results in dancing extravagantly. I wasn’t interested in the girls’ night or the glitzy hotel—I only cared about being there for Maya. My little sister was doing it, her thing, pursuing her dream.
I had every intention to go to the audition with her and my mom.
But Friday afternoon, as the fire grew, I was wavering and making party plans with Brooks, and by Saturday morning, I knew I absolutely needed to stay home. The fire’s containment had dropped to 50 percent overnight: far too close to out of control. I had to stay. I had to keep watch, though I couldn’t explain it—my need to stay close to the fire.
I broke the news to my mom at the last possible moment, when she was polishing herself for their departure in the cave of her walk-in closet.
“You don’t want to support Maya?” she asked.
I sat on the edge of her porcelain bathtub. “I can support her from home,” I said, running my toes across the cool travertine tile. “The oh-so-distant half hour south.”
“This is a big deal, Audrey.” A slam of a drawer. “How far she’s come.”
“Of course it’s a big deal,” I said. Because it is—three years ago we didn’t know if Maya would still be alive, let alone auditioning for her dream academy.
“Well.” The soft scratch of clothing hangers. “I’m not exactly comfortable with leaving you alone for the night with your boyfriend so nearby.”
“Mom,” I said. “I’m sixteen.”
A drawer rolled closed. “Yes, exactly.”
“Brooks will probably be working anyway,” I said, “and I have to start my psychology project—it’ll take the entire weekend.” Lie. “I’m meeting with Hayden.” Not a lie, though Hayden and I wouldn’t be starting until Sunday night, so I guess kind of a lie. “I want to go, I do, for Maya, but it’d be irresponsible.”
Mom emerged from the closet, a chiffon scarf around her neck. “Is this about you, sweetie? It’s understandable if you’re jealous.” She touched my head, as if checking for a fever, as if a fever would expose my secrets. “It’s okay if this is triggering some regrets.”
I pushed off from the tub’s edge. “Now I’m definitely not going,” I said, heading for the hall. Two years ago, I quit ballet—walked out of the same audition Maya will rock today, and my parents are still convinced that this was a mistake.
“Run it by Maya!” Mom called.
I knocked on my sister’s door, turned the knob. Pop music played loudly from her laptop. She was sprawled out in the splits, her stomach hollow and elbows down on the carpet, texting.
I coughed at the thick scent of vanilla cookie spray. “Hey.”
“I heard you and Mom,” she said.
&nbs
p; I leaned against her mirrored dresser. “You mad?”
Maya looked up. “I thought you were excited,” she said. “Like for-real excited.”
My heart ached. “I am for-real excited,” I said. “I’m beyond excited.”
“But you’d rather get drunk and kissy-kissy with Brooks?”
“I don’t get drunk,” I said. “It gives me hiccups.”
She laughed at that and asked, “Can you keep a secret?”
“What? Why?” I stilled at my response, at my lack of a simple yes.
Maya looked at her hands, her white skin flushing pink. “I need to tell Mom something, but she’s gonna flip—”
Mom jumped through the doorway. “Flip about what?”
“Maya would really love to get a pedicure after the audition,” I said, because sometimes—rarely—I can think fast. “And have a glass of champagne if she so desires. But only a glass. She’s prone to hiccups.”
“Not true!” Maya demanded over her laughter.
Mom beamed at Maya. “Of course, hon! A mani-pedi will be in order. And maybe some bubbles.” She clapped her hands. “Five minutes and we’re on the road, come on, come on, get moving!”
Mom swung back to her room, and Maya gathered her bags.
“You can tell me on Sunday,” I said, assuming that her secret was a crush or maybe the arrival of her delayed period. “The secret.”
She smiled small. “Yeah, okay.” And then, “You’re really not coming?”
“If you need me there—”
“No, whatever,” she said. “I’ll get a bed to myself if you stay home.”
“See, win-win.”
“I agree with Mom though.”
“On?”
“You’re totally jealous.”
“Well, you’re a snot.” A tease—a sister ritual necessary from time immemorial. I pulled her into a hug. “And you’re going to knock the judges dead with your cancer-perfected pirouettes.”
She laughed into my shoulder. “My pirouettes have indeed been proven to be potentially lethal to both me and observers,” she said.
I held her tighter. “You’re dynamite, sis.”
* * *
* * *
So Mom and Maya left for Newport Beach, for their girls’ night before the audition, and I sat glued to the TV in the family room, where flames mere miles away danced on the screen—inching closer to my community. Legs tucked beneath me, I stayed there until Brooks let himself in through the front door. My calves were numb. The sun had set.
Brooks kissed my head and ran a thumb over the wrapped blister on my hand. He said I needed to get my mind off of it. He said the station hadn’t called him in yet, so obviously the fire was under control. He said that I was going to make myself sick. He said Derek’s party would help—hadn’t I said I wanted to go to the party?
“You hate parties,” I said.
“Not if the party makes you happy,” he said. “And it will, because . . . distraction, you know?”
So Brooks and I went to the party.
5
Starry Night
To her credit, Mom isn’t like the other studio moms, or at least she didn’t start out as one. She isn’t reliving her glory toe shoe days through Maya, nor did she gush over my solos out of nostalgia. Mom has never worn a ballet slipper. And unless you count a rather tacky seventies Halloween costume, as far as I know she’s never worn a leotard.
I was five when she asked, “What do you want to do?”
I guess I said be a fairy or a dancer or something, and I guess Mom listened, because it seemed to become her mission to help me live out my ballerina dream. But dancing never felt like a dream—rather it became something required, like school. Ballet was my decision, but I don’t remember making the choice.
* * *
* * *
Me, a toddler in a tutu and tiara. The works: ballet, modern, jazz, tap, theatrical dance. Maya followed close behind. By fifth grade, I was dancing six days a week and growing bored. That was also the year Maya passed out at recess, and three specialists later, a CT scan revealed tumors in her throat and chest.
A high rate of division—up close, the bad cells look like a starry night, Mom explained.
Burkitt lymphoma, stage 3, Dad said.
Will you dance for me? Maya asked, after chemo. Right now, please?
I was ten, and all I understood was that our world was shattering. I would have yanked off my ears if she’d asked. I liked ballet most then—when it wasn’t simply something I did because it was on the schedule taped to the fridge. I loved ballet when every plié was in my sister’s name.
So I didn’t question the next steps, the next class. Autopilot. Me, obsessive, one-track mind, all-or-nothing attitude—that’s what Grace says anyway. Maya was in and out of the hospital, on and off chemo for almost two years. My dancing was the levity. I was the healthy daughter, the strength. It was essential that I succeed. If Maya couldn’t dance, I would dance for her.
Ballet was never my thing. It was hers. My thing was being her light when she was sick. And then she was no longer sick, and I guess, in a sense, I dimmed.
Ultimately, obviously, it wasn’t my dancing that saved the day. Modern medicine kicked ass and Maya kicked ass and she was dancing again by the time she was nine, and then we were dancing at the same time, and it was good, she was happy, it was her passion, her urgency.
The way she smiled after class. That glow. I wanted to feel passion like that too, but I didn’t feel a thing. Actually, no, that’s a lie: I was sad, miserable, wrung out.
I was thirteen—it was the summer before freshman year—and I was still prepping for my Big Deal academy audition, but I wanted to tell Mom that I didn’t want to dance anymore. And I almost did it, I almost quit, but then Maya relapsed and they took out her spleen, and it hurt so much, and Dance for me, Audrey, spin for me, and I couldn’t quit, not when my dancing made Maya so happy, when it gave my parents something good to hold on to.
Fouetté, fouetté, fouetté, show me your mastered fouetté, she’d giggled from her hospital bed as I attempted to jump in the small room, laughing as I landed in the most ungraceful position, and Maya cheered, proclaiming, One day I’m so gonna out-fouetté you, just you wait.
So I kept at it. I pushed and I pushed, empty at the barre, empty all summer long.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a fantastic dancer. My form is enviable, my ease with patterns nearly mechanic. My stubbornness kept me in the studio until I got the choreography down. The structure and discipline made sense to me. I was a machine.
But see, I didn’t have the spark, the passion. Ballet never belonged to me.
And then it was autumn, and my family didn’t need me anymore: Maya was recovering so fast, already dancing again, slowly at first and then full speed ahead. So fourteen and two months old, in the middle of my Big Deal audition, I quit ballet.
Whoop-de-do.
* * *
* * *
What matters is this: Maya’s thirteen now, three years cancer-free, and today she is pursuing her dream. And now that Brooks has his fire, I’m back to looking for my own thing.
6
6:29 A.M.
I’m still in the bathroom at Starbucks. Someone is pounding on the door. I have to leave.
“Sorry,” I say, moving past a woman with frizzy bed hair, a little boy tugging at his Buzz Lightyear pajama pants. I step aside—straight into Brooks.
He’s dressed for the fire, in his turnout gear and boots. All that’s missing is the jacket and helmet. He showcases tousled bedhead that could easily be mistaken for a hard night’s work. I lose my breath. He’s beautiful. He’s making heads turn. He’s blocking my path, and I can’t run away.
“I had to see you,” Brooks says, drawing me into his arms. “I had to say goodbye.”
7
&
nbsp; June Gloom
I met Brooks last June, the Monday night of my final week of my sophomore year.
I’d followed Grace and Quinn, and some of their older friends, to the staging of the senior prank. It was midnight, and the campus was cloaked in June fog. Students tossed caution tape around the one-story stucco buildings and haloed light poles and sycamore trees. Ketchup and sandy gray dirt were thrown, old newspapers and toilet paper flung: a lousy attempt at a fake murder scene.
Grace was eager to lend a hand to the upperclassmen, the majority of whom were drunk, roaming, loud, and sloppy, littering the quad with Budweiser cans and cigarette butts. Watching from a bench, I was content to enjoy the show.
I was mid-yawn when Brooks sat beside me, nearly spinning me into space. He was ready for a bank heist—black jeans, a navy pullover, and a gray beanie framing his thick eyebrows. Something was off with his left eye. It was lopsided, ever so slightly drooping, the green somehow sharper than the right.
That night, damp from June Gloom that teased rain that never came, Brooks sat beside me and said, “I don’t know you.”
My knees shook. “Nope.”
I didn’t know him either, not really, but that’s also not totally true. We all knew Brooks. He’d been the talk of the semester. The mystery troubled kid dropped in from somewhere north after being booted out of his old school, that’s the story we made for him. The older guy with both tentative charm and outbursts in the classrooms to his name, who never showed his face beyond school, keeping wholly to himself in a manner that only elicited more attention. From me included.
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