Nothing Left to Burn

by Heather Ezell

  “Are you kidding?” Brooks laughed, swigging from his beer. “I can barely tolerate Orange County’s fiesta bullshit. If I were going to spoil you, I’d take you somewhere quiet. The mountains, Alaska, or something.”

  “Alaska,” I echoed, and the words tasted like butter, thin slivers melting on hot toast. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  Brooks squeezed my hand. “Inside first? This air quality is shit.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Baby steps.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Brooks and I played a round of beer pong against Rich and Mikey. We lost but still cheered them on as they attempted a celebratory break-dance in the foyer. I hugged Rich four times because I was kind of tipsy and I’ve missed Rich and I guess Grace isn’t my only friend.

  “You’re here,” he said, his light-brown skin gleaming with sweat. “And you’ve been here for over an hour! What a miracle.”

  I glanced at Brooks, who was smiling, talking to a guy I didn’t know.

  “It really is,” I said.

  Rich grinned. “Will you watch my new move—offer your thoughts on it?” And he started spinning his ass across the marble floor, only to pull me down with him, collapsing in laughter.

  “It’s perfect.” I grinned.

  Brooks was wearing an Orange County Fire Authority crew shirt. Word spread that he’s a firefighter. Word did not spread that he’s a volunteer. He answered questions about the fire, explained that the greatest hope was digging trenches, creating a strong fire line. He managed to slip in the woes of his oh-so-breezy pack test—a three-mile hike carrying a forty-five-pound pack in forty-five minutes or less. He completed the test back in June, yet still in October, he tosses it into conversations. You ever heard of a pack test? Fighting fires—it’s nothing compared to that.

  His smile grew and grew. After a summer of resisting, he was finally enjoying a party—his social anxiety waning with his new respected popularity. It was his night. He didn’t know it yet, but his fire was gaining momentum outside.

  “You must be so strong,” Anela—a volleyball player, tall with a perfect spray tan—said, her glossy hair pulled back in a ponytail. I sit next to her in English. She gawked at him, looked down at me. “Audrey, what’s it like to have a boyfriend who saves lives?”

  He held my hand, his skin—his callouses, new and old—against my own. His palm can cover my closed fist like a sheet. Over six feet, built from manual labor and bouts at the gym, he is twice my size. Brooks makes it easy to hide. I love him for this.

  But as far as I know, he hasn’t saved a single life.

  * * *

  * * *

  A few hours into the party, Brooks snagged a bottle of rum from the liquor cabinet and led me up the stairs. He opened the double doors to the master suite. I was surprised it hadn’t already been claimed.

  “Don’t think I can handle much more of that shit,” he said. “Is this okay?”

  The room was dark and cold. Plum drapes partially concealed the balcony doors. The air conditioner wheezed from the overhead vent. It didn’t smell like smoke. It smelled like Chanel perfume and clean sheets. I wished Grace had bailed on babysitting. The roar below rang in my ears, and the hot night was sticky on my skin.

  Brooks was watching me. His left eye dropped a single tear. He rested his head on my shoulder, his hair tickling my neck. “Felt like I was drowning,” he said. “I only want to be with you, alone with you.”

  We were standing just inside the room, the light from the hall a broken stream. Every cell of my body was lit. I closed the door.

  * * *

  * * *

  We drank spiced Captain Morgan on the balcony. Two beers alone would have rocked me into a breeze, but I went past that. As I pushed beyond tipsy, we watched ash blow in the wind—the day and night already spiraling beyond familiarity.

  From the top tower of the pirate ship, a stone slide whipped down to the glittering pool. Girls in miniskirts and Daisy Dukes unbuttoned their blouses and howled the entire way down, emerging from the water with eyeliner raccoon eyes.

  “Maybe I’ll go down later,” I said.

  “You’d never have the guts.” Brooks wrapped his arms around me from behind and brushed my hair to one side, fixing the clip that held back my bangs. He was seeping back into his summer ways. He was familiar. He was safe. He was nothing like he was on Thursday.

  “The guts to climb a fake pirate ship and go down a slide?”

  “The guts to strip for all of the school to see.” He nudged me around so that I faced him. “But that’s why I love you. Your shyness means you’re all mine.”

  I’ve never thought of myself as shy. I just like alone time. There’s a difference, right?

  * * *

  * * *

  On the bed. His hands slick and fast. The silk duvet was cold on my back. I tingled from the beer and rum, and my ears hummed from the bass downstairs.

  Fingers under the edge of my jeans. In the backyard, a girl screamed. A splash in the pool. Cheering, more shrieking. The ceiling chandelier glinted from the torchlights and pool lights and back porch lights outside. He kissed me and I kissed him and the fire grew fast and, last night, everything was fine.

  14

  8:12 A.M.

  Dad calls when I’m crossing Antonio Parkway, approaching the gates. Grace also lives in Coto—more than half of our school does—but the white picket fence horse-haven gated community is large enough to be its own town. Her house is a fifteen-minute drive away from mine.

  “Audrey, honey.” Dad’s voice is piped fast. “How’s it going?”

  How does he think it’s going?

  SUVs stream out of Coto’s gates, abandoning the dark sky. There isn’t a line to get inside. The gate detects the pager stuck to my windshield, and the prong rises. I drive through, past flashing lights, my phone nudged between my ear and shoulder.

  “I only have a few minutes,” Dad says. “Communicate, please.”

  Foot on the gas, I say, “The fire is still doing its thing. The sky is disgusting. I drank too much coffee. Mom never called me back. I think everything is going fine.”

  A cop is on my tail. Talking on your cell while driving is a major no-no. My head has been cocked to the side for a suspiciously long time. I drop the phone and pull over by a brass fence, a fence sheltering a colonial estate with a sprawling green lawn—the size of two football fields, I swear, and always green, even now when land beyond the sprinkler lines is cracked and shriveled. Even now, when California is in a record-breaking drought, and a fire burns just miles away.

  The cop drives on by. I nod as he passes. Nothing to see here; please don’t let me waste your time. He doesn’t even glance my way. I pick up my phone. Hold it to my ear.

  “So,” Dad says. “Really still no word from Mom?”

  “I think it’s for the better,” I tell him. “Maya—it’d freak her out.”

  Dad ultimately agrees Mom’s annoying phone habits are for the best. No reason to raise alarm. I gathered the important items when I evacuated—all crucial documents are safe in my truck. I’m safe in my truck. Dad explains that he’s already booked a room at the Ayres Hotel & Spa in Foothill Ranch, closer to home than where Maya and Mom stayed, yet far enough away that there’s no threat of being evacuated again. So it’s all good. It’s all dandy. He flies into Orange County later this evening, and soon we’ll be reunited as a family. Maya is very sensitive to emotions, Dad and I both agree, so we can hold off sharing the news a tad longer. My legs are shaking because he won’t stop talking, and I don’t think this ten-minute call is necessary, especially when I have a cat to save.

  We’re about to say goodbye, and I’m about to click on my blinker, but then Dad asks, “Is Brooks out there?”

  I drop my head. Dad is Brooks’s number-one fan. Brooks is a solid boy, such a passionate worker. A volunteer? A volu
nteer firefighter? Saving lives. Working his way into college, hoping to go into forestry law or whatever. If only he was better in social situations, probably should work on his networking charm, so Dad says, but otherwise: yay, Brooks!

  I’m not being sarcastic. I promise. Dad thinks I should try to learn a thing or two about commitment from Brooks. Dad is probably right.

  “Yeah, he’s out there,” I say. “As of this morning.”

  When I was fourteen, newly ballet-free, Mom and Dad sat me down at the kitchen table, because they’d called me when I was sleeping over at Grace’s house and heard boys in the background, and, boys, when did Audrey start hanging out with boys?

  Really, I’d only started hanging out with boys that night.

  It wasn’t the birds and the bees talk. We were way beyond that. No, this was a bumbling reminder chat. Dad slurped his wine and Mom tried to meet my eyes, but I was rather perplexed with the view outside.

  “Audrey, we want you to be happy, to be safe, okay?”

  They said hormones make boys wild.

  They said to present myself like the beautiful young lady I am.

  They said, Don’t be stupid.

  And me, fourteen, never been kissed, never so much as hugged by a boy, scared of so much as having my skin accidentally brushed by a boy, I nodded, only understanding one clear message: don’t have sex. And if you have sex, whisper-caution-whisper.

  “We trust you on this, sweetie,” they said. “You understand, right?”

  Understood: yes. No sex. Because sex would break Mom’s heart, and sex would raise Dad’s blood pressure high.

  And now Dad asks, “Is Brooks excited?”

  “Excited?” I repeat. Excited, yes, of course, Brook is excited, because he had sex with your little girl, because your not-so-perfect little ex-ballerina didn’t use the magic chastity word. “Dad,” I say. “He’s probably choking on smoke.”

  And not even a year after that bumbling reminder, he and Mom met Brooks for the first time. That night, Dad said, He’s a good kid, respectful—nervous, understandably—a good kid would be nervous. And Dad said, he actually said, despite Brooks being eighteen, I’m not concerned.

  “I bet he’s excited,” Dad says now. “Finally the chance to show he’s up for the job. Use the skills he’s trained for.”

  “He’s spraying water on a fire,” I say.

  “You sound upset.”

  “Well, I’m kind of worried about the house. You know, the evacuation.”

  “I’d think you’d know from Brooks,” he says. “Evacuations, even mandatory, they’re just a precaution. I think it’ll all be fine.”

  Dad sounded concerned this morning—when our computer was at risk, the photos, the file box. He sounded convinced our house would burn. It was okay to be dramatic then. I want to remind him of this. I want to tell my dad a lot of things, but I don’t know how to say what I don’t yet understand.

  “Yeah,” I say instead. “I know.”

  “Unnecessary dramatics are the last thing we need,” he says.

  Because I am always so goddamn dramatic.

  “You’re not here,” I say. “I’m just—” I inhale. When I exhale I will be calm. I will not be on the edge of Mt. Sobbing Dramatics. I will be calm, an adult safe in the Valley of Maturity. I exhale and say, “I am just kind of afraid.”

  “I know,” he says. “I’ll be there soon.” He thanks me for being such a champ, tells me that, by the way, it’s okay to feel sad if I’m having some ballet regrets, Mom and I understand. “Don’t worry,” he says, and then, “I love you.”

  “Love you too,” I say.

  But he doesn’t ask, Are you okay?

  But even if he had, I don’t think I would have been able to say it.

  I don’t think I would have been able to lie and say yes.

  15

  SATURDAY

  And last night, still last night, I pushed through the sweaty mosh of the party to the front door. Outside, the dirty sky glowed. Through the swaying palm leaves and sycamore limbs, music ricocheted from the backyard.

  I held my bare arm to my mouth and bit my skin. I tasted like salt. I passed Brooks’s Audi. I listed the cars in my head. A Mercedes-Benz, BMW Z, lifted Avalanche, convertible Mini Cooper, Land Rover with silver rims, an orange Eclipse. Ash dusted each one. The muffled party noise, the acrid air, the wind spiraling beer cans down the street.

  I looked at my phone. Maybe Grace was home from babysitting. Maybe she could steal her mom’s car and come get me. I sent her a text. It was past one. My house was at least an hour’s walk away. I ducked my head against the hot wind and considered collapsing on the white jasmine bordering the driveway, but I ached for my mom’s bed, where I could pretend to still be six.

  “Audrey!”

  Hayden jogged from the house. He smiled when he reached me. I tried to smile back but failed. I didn’t know how to stand in a way that didn’t hurt. He wore a black shirt with thick white letters spelling RIDE—broadcasting his being a volunteer for Safe Ride, a student group with the sole purpose of lurking weekend parties and driving drunk teens home.

  Of course he was working last night.

  In the past month we’d gone from little sister’s friend/best friend’s brother to two bumbling desk partners in AP psychology. We talk in class and sometimes study together after school, much to Grace’s chagrin. And sometimes he makes me laugh, and sometimes I make him laugh. So I think he’s now my friend too.

  A friend I maybe kissed on Friday.

  And last night, after I left Brooks in Derek Sanders’s parents’ bedroom, after Hayden’s sprint down the driveway, all I could say to him was, “Hi.”

  “You okay?” he asked. “Saw you bolt back there.”

  I stared at his shirt. Focusing on the letters. The R and the I and the D and the E.

  “Is Brooks here?” he asked. When I didn’t answer, Hayden pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up his nose—glasses that have been lopsided and loose since I’ve known him—and he asked, “You need a ride?” And it was like we were back in class. We weren’t breathing ash. We were clumsy and tongue-tied, only he had the upper hand. He was sober and I wasn’t, and I nodded what must have been a confusing nod because he laughed and said, “Affirmative, yeah?”

  “If you don’t mind.”

  He looked over his glasses, smiled, and said, “Anything for my Round Table Lady.”

  A recycled joke from September—from the second day of psych, a random math pun I didn’t get at first, which inevitably fell flat. So, let’s say our desk is a round table, and you’re, uh, the lady of the round table, who would be your, um, most well-rounded knight? He’d had to explain it to me, had to backtrack and explain, I just had trig, was on my mind, dumb, I know, do not repeat that to Grace, and then I’d smiled. Oh, no, I get it. I’d said, No, it’ll be our thing.

  And last night on Derek Sanders’s driveway, though I didn’t laugh, I felt myself smile, remembering the simplicity of that September morning. And somehow, right then, a warm inhuman instant, the leaves stopped flying and the trees stood still and the ache behind my ribs eased, and in that moment, that single entity of a second, I was okay.

  “Well, Sir Cumference,” I said. “Lead the way.”

  He beamed. “It shall be my honor.”

  Grace would have puked if she’d heard us.

  Hayden drives an Accord. He turned and reached to the backseat, to a case of water bottles. His hair brushed my cheek. I leaned against the passenger door. Breathed deep. He handed me a bottle. It was Kirkland brand, an environmentally friendly plastic bottle—if such a thing can exist—less plastic, more flimsy. I clasped and twisted, and water gushed out onto my jeans.

  “Thanks for this,” I said.

  He shrugged, pulling out onto the street. “It’s the only reason I go to parties.”

&
nbsp; “What?”

  “The Safe Ride thing,” he said.

  The pick-up-sloshed-idiots thing. “Right.”

  “Water,” he said. “Seriously. Drink it.” I finished the bottle, the plastic crinkling.

  He coughed. “Would this be a bad time to ask you about yesterday?”

  “Did you tell Grace?” I asked.

  “Did you?”

  “I haven’t been telling her a lot of things these days,” I admitted.

  My arms tight against my stomach, I dug my fingers into my waist. I stared out the window at the cracking leaves in the dry gutters. I breathed through my nose, breathed in the stringent lemon and the lingering scent of peppermint. It calmed my nerves, made me think of when I was a kid and couldn’t sleep and Dad would make me Sleepytime tea and I’d lower my nose into the mug and breathe in the scent.

  Hayden didn’t turn on the music, and he didn’t ask questions. Grace would have asked me what happened, why I was leaving the party early, why I was leaving without Brooks—insist that talking would help. Hayden didn’t. I adored him for this.

  “You know,” Hayden started, “they say dancing helps prevent Alzheimer’s.”

  I thought of my grandma at Leisure World, her own history unraveling. Did Grandma ever dance? “Are you suggesting I have a memory problem?” I asked.

  “I’m just saying,” Hayden said, “maybe you can show me your moves sometime.”

  I bit my tongue. “I thought you only went to parties to drive the drunks home.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of swing dancing, for our project.” He cleared his throat. “Ms. Bracket would love it if we did something like that. Real live research. We’re still on for tomorrow, right?”

  “Of course.” And I was about to ask him where he wanted to meet, confirm the time, but I was cut off, jolted, when Hayden slammed on the brakes.