“Call you tomorrow?” Michael asks.
“Sure,” I say, making the effort to sound upbeat. But he’s already gone.
My mom is sitting at the kitchen table, working a crossword puzzle, when I come in.
“Hi, honey,” she says. “How’d it go?”
“As well as it could have, I guess. Is there pie?”
“In the fridge,” she tells me, putting her pencil down. “So you got him to talk to you?”
“Yeah. We went for a walk.” I spot the pie behind a gallon of milk and pull both out of the refrigerator. My mom stares me down as I cut myself a slice.
“Mom. What?”
“Did you really not know that Michael was his brother?”
I contemplate continuing the truth trend, but know that will add a level of complexity to my life that I don’t need right now. “I really didn’t,” I tell her. “Since Michael never mentioned a brother, it honestly didn’t cross my mind that he might have one.”
“And you never thought to look up Josh’s brother when you got to school? Josh didn’t suggest it?”
“Josh asked me not to,” I tell her, with a hunch that this might be true.
“Not an especially good relationship, is it?” she muses, handing me a knife. I cut a hefty slice, then double it. It’s been a rough twenty-four hours. The familiar peppery pumpkin spice is instantly calming. I shove another forkful into my mouth. This is why they call them comfort foods.
“So what’d you think of Michael?” I ask with my mouth full, not sure I want to know the answer. Both of my parents were pretty quiet after he left last night.
“He seemed very confident,” she replies. “And he’s obviously very smart.” Confident? That’s like saying a girl has a good personality when asked how she looks.
“So you hated him.”
“We didn’t hate him! Don’t be silly.”
“But you like Josh better,” I say.
“We know Josh,” she replies. “We don’t really know Michael yet. But we’re looking forward to getting to know him.” She smiles.
Let’s hope you get the chance.
I’m about to bury my anxiety under another piece of pie when the doorbell rings.
“Sorry to just show up,” Josh says when I open the door. “I tried calling, but it went straight to voicemail.” He’s wearing the fleece I had on an hour ago, the collar flipped up around his neck. It smelled like him when I put it on . . . did it smell like me when I took it off? “Am I interrupting dinner?” he asks.
“Nope. I was just in the process of spoiling it.” I hold up the plate I’m still holding in my hand. “Want some?”
“Nah, I should get home. I just wanted to give you this.” He pulls his hand from his pocket, and Caitlin’s gold bracelet slips to the ground beneath his feet.
“Oh! Where’d you find it?”
“It was stuck to the sleeve of my fleece,” he tells me as he kneels to pick it up. I watch as he drapes the delicate gold chain across his left palm, then extends his hand up toward me.
Suddenly, swiftly, I am bowled over by memory. An image—this image—of Josh, kneeling in front of me, his left hand open and raised. Except, in my mind, the ground he’s kneeling on is a beach, and there isn’t a bracelet in his outstretched hand but a ring. And Josh, wearing khakis and a short-sleeved maroon polo shirt, looks different somehow, older. Why can’t I place when that was?
Because it isn’t a memory.
I grab the door frame to steady myself, my legs no longer sturdy beneath me. Why do I have a mental picture of Josh, down on one knee, holding a diamond ring? Where did that image come from? I wonder, but at the same time I know.
It came from the future. But whose?
“Abby? What’s wrong?”
Oh, nothing. I just pictured you proposing to me in elaborate detail, down to the precise shade of you shirt.
I feign calm and smile, taking the bracelet from his outstretched hand. “Josh to the rescue,” I tell him. “Caitlin would’ve killed me if I’d lost it.”
“No problem,” he says, getting to his feet. He reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a folded postcard. “I also wanted to give you this.” He unfolds the postcard and hands it to me. On the front is Dali’s Persistence of Memory. The painting that brought my parents together. The only painting that survived when the surrealist wing at MoMa caught fire after the collision. A painting whose name perfectly describes what I’m living with now. I run my thumb over the slick surface of the glossy image, marveling at the coincidence and connectedness.
“Where did you get this?” I ask.
“You gave it to me,” he replies, not bothering with the us/them distinction. Something in his face tells me it’s a conscious choice. “We went to your mom’s Dali exhibit the night before you left for school,” he says. “We were on a tour, listening to the docent describe the surrealist view of the subconscious. ‘Dreams are more real than real,’ the woman said. Right after she said it, you leaned over and whispered, ‘We are more real than real.’”
“I did?” I whisper, even though it wasn’t me who said it. We both know that.
“That postcard was in my locker the next morning,” Josh says. “You must’ve gotten it in the gift store after the tour.” He reaches forward and flips it over in my hands. There, on the back, are my handwritten words. We are more real than real.
I just stare at the smudged ink, my throat too tight for an audible response. More real than real. Something inside me reaches out and grabs hold of the idea. Are there things that transcend our perception of them? Things that are true no matter what? If so, what does that mean for me and this boy I barely know but can’t stop thinking about, despite the fact that I’m supposed to be in love with his brother?
“I should probably get going,” I hear Josh say. “Early flight tomorrow.”
“You’re going back to L.A. already?”
“We play UCLA tomorrow,” he replies. “Big game.”
“Well, it was good to see you,” I say awkwardly, holding out the postcard. My hand trembles slightly. Why don’t I want him to leave?
“Keep it,” he replies. “To remember.” He smiles sadly. Without thinking, I throw my arms around his neck. At first, his body feels tense against mine, like he’s bracing against the hug. But then, the tension gives way and he hugs me back. Only for a few seconds, though. Then he pulls away. “Bye, Abby,” he says, turning to go. “Take care of yourself.”
“Do you think things happen for a reason?” I ask suddenly. Josh turns back around.
“Absolutely.”
“Do you believe in soulmates?”
“Ask me tomorrow,” he says. Then he turns and walks away.
At quarter past one, I’m still awake, waiting for the refuge of sleep. The moon is bright outside my window, casting its light inside my room.
I sigh, rolling over for what must be the ninetieth time since I got in bed, and repeat what I’ve been telling myself over and over again ever since Josh left. She’s not going to meet him. There’s nothing to worry about. She’s already told Josh she can’t make it. The day will come and go, and Michael will leave early Friday morning to fly up to Boston like he always does. Nothing will change. I tell myself these things and pretend to believe them, but I am afraid. I don’t want to lose Michael. Not now.
Lying on my side, my face inches from the Post-it note I stuck to my nightstand reminding me to “remember Thanksgiving” as soon as I wake up tomorrow, I say a silent prayer that my parallel’s holiday will happen exactly the way it’s supposed to. I imagine her at the table with my parents and grandparents, eating my grandma’s turkey. I imagine her in the kitchen with my mom, washing dishes at the sink. I imagine her on the couch with my grandfather, watching the black-and-white version of It’s a Wonderful Life, a movie I’ve seen so many times I can recite the entire thing by heart. I close my eyes, playing back my favorite scene.
George Bailey’s words echo in my mind as I finally dr
ift off to sleep: What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I’ll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That’s a pretty good idea. I’ll give you the moon, Mary. Except it’s not Jimmy Stewart’s face I’m seeing behind my eyelids but Josh’s. And the name that echoes is my own.
13
THERE
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2008
(Thanksgiving Day)
I’m on a sidewalk, walking along the side of a stone building that runs the length of the block. The sidewalk is crowded with people dressed in jackets and scarves, arms full of books and notebooks, hands wrapped around giant cups of coffee, bustling here and there. The air is cold on my nose. “Abby!” I hear someone call. I turn to my right and am facing a black wrought-iron gate beneath a tall stone archway. On the other side of the gate, a guy—dark hair, chiseled cheeks, perfect teeth—smiles at me. Suddenly, there’s a beep and the gate opens. The guy comes toward me. “Hi,” he says as he gets nearer. “I brought you something.” I look down. There’s a box in his hands. “It’s pumpkin pie.”
I wake up with a start.
The air in my bedroom is heavy with the spicy sweetness of my mom’s Pepper Pumpkin Pie, her one contribution to the meal my grandma insists on cooking every year—in our kitchen. “Thanksgiving isn’t a time for recipes,” goes Grandma’s annual refrain, aimed directly at my mom, who doesn’t like to make anything twice. “Thanksgiving is about tradition.” Apparently, adherence to tradition requires a modern gourmet kitchen. Grandma refuses to have Thanksgiving any place but ours.
Still in my pajamas, I pad down the back stairs.
“There she is!” my grandpa announces when I enter the room, opening his arms wide for a hug.
“Happy Thanksgiving, Grandpa,” I murmur into his neck. “I’m glad you told me about the stars.” I went to bed thinking about all those nines, wondering what to make of them. He squeezes me tighter, and I hold on, not wanting to let go yet. When I finally do, I walk over to where my grandmother is standing, her manicured hands covered in cornbread crumbs.
“Your mother forgot the sage,” she tells me, leaning over to let me kiss her cheek. I do, glancing over at my mom in the process. Mom just shakes her head. Don’t ask.
“Want me to run get some?” I ask cheerily, setting my phone down on the counter and heading for the coffeepot. “Whole Foods is open till two. Fresh, not dried, right?”
“That would be lovely, dear,” Grandma says. “And could you get some scotch? Your mother forgot that, too.”
“No, Rose, she cannot buy you scotch,” my mom answers before I have a chance to. “She’s seventeen. And since when do you drink scotch? There’s a bottle of Jack Daniels in the cabinet.”
“Scotch has fewer carbs,” my grandmother retorts. “But bourbon will do.”
“Okay, so fresh sage.” I dump vanilla creamer into my coffee, then dig around the Tupperware drawer for the lid to my travel mug. “Anything else?”
“Who’s Josh?” I hear my grandfather ask. “And why will he ‘miss you today’?” Grandpa has my phone in his hands, the screen lit up with a new text.
“Josh is my boyfriend,” I reply. “And he’ll miss me because I told him I’d be hanging out with a nosy old man all day.” Grandpa swats me on the butt with my phone, then hands it to me.
“Do we get to meet this boyfriend?” my grandmother asks.
“Eventually,” I tell her. “Before I marry him, for sure.” I blow her a kiss, then dart up the back stairs with my coffee before the inquisition can continue.
“Is it really that serious?” I hear my grandmother ask.
I return to my room just long enough to put on jeans and throw my hair into a ponytail. As I’m passing my desk on my way back out, I hit the space bar on my laptop, illuminating my screen. With my grandparents’ unexpected arrival yesterday, I forgot to check my email when I got home from the picnic last night. My acceptance email could be in my in-box right now. Heart pounding, I click on my mailbox icon, and a pop-up box appears:
Server error. Your message was not sent.
What message?
I click on my out-box, and an email opens.
No.
I stare at my screen, dumbfounded. It’s an email to the Yale admissions office with a document attached. There’s only one person other than me who uses my laptop.
She didn’t.
With shaking hands, I click on the attachment. It’s the file I dragged to the trash yesterday morning. The Yale application I never intended to send.
Oh, yes. She did.
Fury rips through me. So searingly hot that it burns everything else out. I yank the power cord out of my laptop and storm down the back stairs into the kitchen.
Mom doesn’t look up from the mixing bowl she’s washing. “Would you mind also getting so—”
“How could you?” I demand, cutting her off. She looks up in surprise. Her face falls when she sees my computer.
“Abby, I just—”
“You just what, Mom? You just needed to know whether I could get in? Whether your precious daughter was good enough for an Ivy?” My voice is shaking and my eye sockets are radiating heat. The edges of things are starting to blur.
“No! It wasn’t about that. I—”
I don’t let her finish. “You went through my files? Who does that?” I slam my computer down on the counter, not caring whether it breaks. My grandparents gape at me, stunned into silence. I don’t behave like this. I’m not careless with expensive electronics. I don’t scream at my mother.
I am screaming at her now.
“I didn’t go through anything,” she says quietly. “I needed to send an email yesterday, and I’d left my computer at the museum. Your trash file was open on your screen.”
“My trash file. TRASH. What were you planning to do if I’d gotten in?”
“What’s going on in here?” My dad enters the kitchen, hair still wet from the shower. “What’s all the shouting about?”
“Did you know about this?” I demand, pointing at my laptop. “Did you know that Mom fished my Yale application out of the trash and sent it in without telling me?” From the look on my dad’s face, it’s pretty obvious that he didn’t.
“She filled the entire thing out,” my mom tells him, immediately defensive. “When I saw it in the trash, I thought maybe she’d gotten cold feet at the last minute, and I didn’t want her to miss out on a life-changing opportunity out of fear that she wouldn’t get in. She’s worked so hard, I just thought—”
“But that wasn’t your decision to make!” I shout.
“Abigail, don’t talk to your mother that way,” my dad says sternly.
“No, Robert, she’s right. Abby, I—”
I don’t wait for her apology. Before she can finish, I spin on my heels and fling open the back door. “You should eat without me,” I announce just before the door slams shut.
My car steers itself toward Caitlin’s, even though I haven’t made a conscious decision to go there. But when I pull up in front of her house, I know exactly why I’ve come, and it’s not to vent about my mom. It’s to apologize. And for the first time since we said those horrible things to each other, I’m not worried about what I’ll say to her.
I’ve rung the doorbell twice when it occurs to me that the Moss’s family Volvo is gone, and Caitlin’s Jetta is parked in the garage. Yesterday’s newspaper is still on the porch.
Charleston. Duh. That’s where Caitlin’s grandmother lives and where her family spends every major holiday.
Disappointed but not defeated, I sit down on the porch step and dial her number. This time, I leave a voicemail.
“Hey, Caitlin. It’s me. Abby. I’m at your house, sitting on the porch, wishing you were here so I could say this in person.” I take a breath, certain of what I want to say, but not sure the order in which to say it. “I’m so sorry, Cate. I’m sorry for what I said to you in the cafeteria, and for bringing up Craig—that was totally bitchy and awful and
I’m sorry—but I’m really, really sorry for telling Tyler you liked him. For assuming I knew what was best for you. For thinking it was up to me. I can’t even imagine how angry you must be. Well, actually I can, because—” I start to tell her about the Yale application, but stop myself. This isn’t about what my mom did. This is about what I did. “Please let me make it up to you,” I rush on. “I’ll do whatever it takes.” I pause, wondering whether this message is still coherent, as it’s morphed into words spewing out from a mesh of tears and sniffles. I’m debating whether to beg her to call me back or just apologize again when I hear the second beep.
The line goes dead.
Suddenly, the depth of the chasm between us is unbearable. I don’t want to be in a fight with her anymore. She’s my best friend. She’s part of who I am.
I’m not Abby without Caitlin.
Please, God, give me my best friend back.
I’m redialing her number when she calls me back.
“I’m so sorry,” I say instead of hello. “Please don’t hang up on me.”
“I called you,” she points out.
“Oh. Right.” I say lamely. I can’t tell her from her voice if she’s listened to my message or not. “I’m sorry,” I say again. “Not that you called me,” I add quickly. “For what I did.”
“I’m sorry, too,” she says, and then her voice breaks.
“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” I tell her, tears streaming down my face now. “I’m the one who lied to Tyler, and who said those awful things.”
“I said awful things, too,” she says. “And, in a way, I lied, too. I didn’t tell you why I was really mad. It wasn’t just the Tyler thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“My Yale application was due the next day, and—”
“Oh my God. Your essays.” I completely forgot. An excuse almost as bad as the offense itself. What kind of friend forgets something like that? I knew how important it was to her that I read them. Her dyslexia has made her super self-conscious about her writing, and these essays meant everything to her. “I’m such an asshole,” I say. “No wonder you were mad at me that day.”
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