I'm Not Missing

by Carrie Fountain

  I checked myself in the hall mirror. “Laters,” I called, looking at my phone one more time to confirm that my Syd plan was still, thus far, a total failure.

  “What time?” my dad called back.

  “Not late.” I opened the front door. But then I thought about She likes you. I thought of how I’d asked Nick if the note was awful and he’d said no. Did no mean, no, it wasn’t awful if I liked him? Or did it mean, no, the note itself wasn’t awful, as in it wasn’t riddled with profanities and threats against his life? “I’ll text if I’m going to be later, okay?” I called down the hall. “I think some kids from class are going. I dunno. We might go out after.” I knew it was stupid, but even making a little space for the possibility made me woozy.

  “Okay, but no coffee, Mir.” Most parents hoped their teens wouldn’t smoke meth or get pregnant. Mine hoped I wouldn’t drink coffee after 7:00 P.M. because he knew it kept me up and had more than once left me dangling on the edge of a panic attack.

  “All right, warden,” I said.

  “Warden my ass,” he called back. “You’re the one who wakes me up complaining of heart palpitations. And you haven’t slept all week.”

  “Okay, whatever, I love you, bye,” I said as I closed the door behind me.

  “Love you too,” I heard him call back from inside the house.

  In the car, I wondered if I should text Nick and warn him I’d be at the movie. I decided it was better not to. He might’ve decided not to go. Anyway, it was best if he thought I’d forgotten he was going to be there. It was best if he thought I wasn’t thinking about him at all, even if I was thinking about him all the time, even if I’d applied eyeliner and hoped he’d ask about my T-shirt. I’d already rehearsed what I’d tell him, about how my parents traveled to music festivals all over the country and how they’d been at Lollapalooza—the first one ever, and the second, and the third. About how then my dad went to MIT and my mom stayed here, but for some reason he came home senior year and graduated from NMSU. (Hint: reason was born nine months later. So awkward.) About how he married his high school sweetheart and got a job at NASA and got stuck designing what I called his thingies, which were boring and complicated, made almost entirely of math, and had absolutely no practical application in the field of aerospace technology—that is, until they were selected to replace the ineffective thingies on the high-gain antenna on the Kepler space telescope, which launched when I was eight, and discovered Kepler-186f, the first viable Goldilocks planet in a distant galaxy. The discovery was confirmed officially the night of my fifteenth birthday. Someone called to tell my dad and he started crying right there at our table at Cattle Baron while Syd and I and the rest of the restaurant stared. Then he got a big promotion and became head of a team working on thingies for the James Webb Space Telescope. Like every single part of that telescope, the thingies he was making weren’t like any other thingies before. They’d never been conceived of. He’d started Skyping with the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He made better thingies, more efficient thingies, more durable thingies. But he’d stayed here, at the tiny NASA facility in southern New Mexico, two thousand miles from where the Webb was being built. He’d never gotten an award. He’d never sat in at a NASA press conference. He just kept his head down and made his thingies and sometimes, in the evening, he listened to R.E.M. or the Smiths or the Violent Femmes while he cooked the two of us dinner.

  Well, okay. Maybe I wouldn’t tell Nick all of that if he mentioned my T-shirt.

  Maybe I’d just say thanks and nothing else. Why did I feel like I needed to talk to him anyway? I didn’t need to tell him anything. I still regretted blurting out my sob story at the ditch. I had to remain vigilant.

  I parked at the far end of the lot behind the Fountain, and before I got out, I pulled down the visor’s mirror and looked myself in the eyes. “Be strong. Don’t be a dumbass. Don’t be a fool.” I squinted at my reflection, feeling strong, but then it dawned on me: these were words Syd would say. I was Syd-ing myself. The urge to text her was stronger than ever, but I sat there and let it wash over me. “Fuck me,” I said loudly to no one. That was when I heard a rapping on my window and turned to find myself staring at Nick’s lower body. Of course. Why did this keep happening to me? For eight months I’d successfully avoided any meaningful contact with this person. Now I couldn’t seem to stop making contact.

  He stooped to peer into the window. “Hey.” His voice was distant through the glass though his face was only inches away from mine.

  I flipped up the visor and grabbed my purse. I reached for the door handle but realized I was still buckled into my seat. Come on, I thought. Really? I breathed. I reached over and unbuckled my seat belt and then swung open the door so suddenly, Nick had to jump out of the way.

  “You came,” he said. Was he happy about this?

  “I had to.” I felt awful being rude. Then I felt stupid for feeling awful. If Syd were here, she’d have already spit a fireball of insults into Nick’s face and dragged me away. I tried to help myself out by willing forth the memory of how I’d slipped out of my dress on prom night last year, how I’d returned it to the hanger and zipped it up in its garment bag and wondered if I could return it. Has this been worn? the salesclerk might ask. And how would I answer?

  “Spencer told me this was my only hope for an A,” I said, hitching my purse up.

  “Have you heard anything from Syd?” he asked.

  “No.” I hated the sound of my voice. It reverberated in my skull like a bad note.

  “Can I walk with you?”

  My heart swayed inside my chest, weak. “Whatever,” I said as dully as I could. Why did he have to be this way? So gentlemanly? So fucking decent? And why did he have to be wearing his forest-green hoodie, my very favorite of his garments?

  We walked in silence, but I noted anyone viewing us from a distance would conclude objectively that we were together, we were a pair, a couple. The thought of it dazzled inside me, as bright as the sky full of stars above us. I hated it.

  “So what’s this movie about anyway?” I asked.

  “Life being crap, I believe,” he said. “It’s in black and white.”

  “Oh great,” I said.

  The movie was about life being crap. Literally nothing happened in it. Nick and I were two of only five audience members, and we were the only two people sitting next to each other in the whole theater. I quickly became so preoccupied sitting next to Nick that I wasn’t able to pay much attention to the movie. I gave in and allowed myself to be perverse. There was no harm in it. I could think of anything while I stared at the screen, looking bored. I could think of what it’d be like to reach over and touch Nick’s hand, for example. It was sitting right there. What would happen if I did that? What would it cost me in pain and humiliation if he recoiled from my touch? Or, on the other hand, what if instead I slipped my upturned palm beneath his, and I heard his breathing change? What if he opened his fingers and laced them with mine? What if he looked at me? Or what if he was too shy—he was so shy! Baseline weird and embarrassed!—and so just swallowed hard and blinked and looked straight ahead? I liked very much thinking about this while he was so close. It felt good and dangerous and bad and creepy all at once. My brain, full of my thoughts, was just a foot away from his brain, full of his thoughts.

  I couldn’t do all that weird stuff and also read subtitles. So I let go of my grasp on the plot. I thought of other things too. I thought of Syd and wondered if she’d noticed I’d gone nearly twelve whole hours without texting. I wondered when exactly Ray was going to turn off her phone, cutting off my only possible connection to her. I wondered if she’d heard from Stanford. But my mind kept returning to the person beside me. I was touching his hair. He was putting a tentative hand on my waist and his fingers were slowly moving past the hem of my R.E.M. T-shirt. By the end, I’d lost track of everything. In the last moment of the film, something happened. It must’ve, because Nick looked at me as if to ask if I could bel
ieve what we were seeing on the screen. I shrugged, faking bafflement. And then the movie was over. The lights came up and I was forced back to reality. I scrambled to stand before Nick did. He stood and stretched his arms behind his back and asked very casually if I wanted to go get ice cream across the street at Milagro. I wanted to say no, but I couldn’t. It was, after all, the very fantasy I’d concocted in telling my dad I’d text him if I were going to be late.

  The streets were empty and quiet. We walked across Main Street and down the sidewalk. “That movie was whack,” he said.

  “I thought it was a classic example of French existential nihilism,” I said.

  He turned to me. “Really?”

  “No,” I said. “I zoned out so much, I lost track of the characters.”

  “Wait, there were characters?” he asked. We laughed.

  Against my better judgment, I found myself on the verge of having a good time. I tried to resist but couldn’t. Syd would find me pathetic. She’d question my morality, my self-worth, and probably even my feminism for laughing with a guy who’d gone out of his way to hurt me. He wasn’t just hurtful, I could hear her now. He was abusive! But I couldn’t resist. Maybe I was weak. Maybe I was a terrible feminist who hated herself. But while Nick considered his ice cream choice, I made the decision to enjoy the rest of this one evening. Not everything was an emergency. Not everything was an ordeal to be survived. There was such a thing as two people getting ice cream, no strings attached.

  I was carrying out this argument in my mind when Nick asked what I wanted.

  “Oh, sorry. Chocolate,” I said to the woman behind the counter. I dug around in my purse for my wallet, but by the time I had it out, Nick was handing her a twenty. The Syd in my mind went nuts. Do you see? He’s trying to buy you for the price of a fucking ice cream cone!

  “Wait no.” I held up a ten-dollar bill like an idiot. The woman behind the counter stopped plunking the keys on the cash register. “I can pay for my own ice cream,” I said to her, accusingly. She blinked once and looked at Nick. Nick looked at me. I looked at him then back at her. I didn’t know what to do.

  “I’ll buy your ice cream.” He knocked my shoulder lightly with his. My resistance returned. He knocked my shoulder and I was standing again in my dress, peering out the kitchen window to the dark driveway, waiting. Because they’d started to hurt, I’d slipped my shoes off and left them by the door, thinking I’d slip them back on when I saw headlights.

  I waited.

  I thought of texting, but I’d texted earlier in the afternoon to make sure our plan was tight. Our plan was tight. It was perfect, like something out of a movie. I wasn’t even supposed to go to prom with Nick. Syd had arranged for me to go with Quinn Johnson, a friend of Matt Martinez, the guy she was taking. I didn’t like Quinn or really even know him. In fact, I couldn’t be sure who he was when Syd first suggested it. Syd only knew him because he was on the tennis team with her. I had to look him up. Most of his photos were of him shirtless on the hood of his father’s Mercedes. He had so much product in his blond hair, it looked sharp to the touch. Then I remembered. We’d been in American literature together. All I remembered about him was that he used the word literally in every sentence. But I agreed, nonetheless. I had no one to blame but myself for Quinn. I’d chickened out asking Nick. I made a plan. I set a deadline. And then, the morning I was supposed to do it after French, I got so nervous, I ended up rambling about our homework assignment instead. Then I scrammed. Nick might’ve been weird and embarrassed, but I was a chicken and prom with Quinn Johnson was literally the price I’d have pay for it.

  But that was when the miracle happened. It was Ryan Gosling Saint Jude, I was sure of it. I’d been reading about him before bed the night before. Two days before prom Quinn was diagnosed with mono (along with Marissa Torres, who happened to be Philip Vigil’s girlfriend. Oops). I heard the news and began scheming, emboldened by the idea that it was destiny. That Friday morning I told Nick about Quinn, how it stunk, since I’d already bought a dress and I really kind of wanted to go. He did just what I’d dreamed he’d do: he asked if I maybe wanted to go with him. He didn’t have a date. In fact, he was planning on going camping with Tomás and some other guys. He’d cancel. “Oh, totally,” he’d said. “No problem.” And a sweet smile came so readily to his face, I had to look away or I’d faint.

  Syd was pissed. She said I should have checked first, since our prom plans had been carefully devised by her and this would throw everything off. How? I didn’t know. But I was too happy to argue with Syd. I told her we’d have a great time, and eventually she shut up about it.

  I’d texted him earlier that afternoon to say I’d had Quinn’s tickets transferred into my name. If he’d gotten a tux, we were set. He texted back that he’d rented the last tuxedo on Earth. He’d be at my house at seven o’clock. He volunteered to be our designated driver. Not a big drinker.

  I gave him my address.

  I thanked Saint Jude.

  I praised the God of mono.

  I started waiting for the best night of my life to begin.

  Later, when it became so late that I knew we’d miss dinner with Syd and Matt, I texted Syd we’d meet them at the dance. He hasn’t shown. I’m starting to freak. Should I text him? I wrote her. No! Chill! she’d written back. Boys are idiots. I wished she’d offered more advice. I sat down with my father on the sofa, both of us puzzled. We started watching Dateline. Some wife had killed her husband by locking him in the freezer at their butcher shop and leaving him in there for days. Or was it the wife? That was what Dateline was going to find out. My dad was trying so hard not to let me know how bad he felt for me. After a while he went to the kitchen and made popcorn. He set it down between us, but then he started stress-eating it himself.

  I didn’t cry. Even after I’d gone into my room and unzipped the dress and hung it back on the hanger. I didn’t cry because I didn’t want to mess up my makeup. Just in case. Pathetic.

  At nine thirty my dad started asking what he could do. What could he do? By that time I was wearing pj’s and crying freely.

  “Do you want me to call his parents?” he asked.

  “Oh god, Dad, no.” I laughed at him through my tears. When he looked so pathetically happy to see me smile, I fell back to sobbing. I’d texted Syd and she told me she’d be over as soon as she dropped Matt off at the dance. I told her no. I didn’t want to ruin her night. She texted, SHUT UP, I’m on my way. She walked in at 9:45, looking radiant, her hair down in all its wild, curly glory, a corsage pinned to the amazing red dress she’d found at a consignment shop. Her anger was the only thing that made me feel better that night. She said she texted Nick herself, but he hadn’t texted back. I asked what she’d said. “I told him I was going to destroy him.” She put her arms around me and let me weep into her hair.

  Has this dress been worn? my imaginary salesclerk asked. It was a beautiful dress, deep green, strapless, ankle length with a full, flowy skirt. When I stepped out of the dressing room to show Syd, her eyes bulged. “That dress was made for you,” she said. “Your boobies are defying gravity right now.” I looked in the mirror and knew it was the one. But instead of Quinn Johnson, I imagined Nick seeing me in it. Maybe he’d be at prom too. Maybe I’d at least lay eyes on him, even if he was with another girl. “Oh my garsh,” Syd had said. “Quinn’s gonna cream his shorts.” She laughed at her own joke and went back to looking at her phone.

  Has this dress been worn?

  It was too much to forget.

  The woman dug the scooper into the untouched surface of the chocolate ice cream. “You know what?” I said, and she looked up. “I don’t want ice cream. I’m sorry.”

  I stared through the glass case at the vats of pastel colored ice cream. I felt disoriented, as if I’d been teleported against my will into this moment. “God, what I am doing?” I said, to myself mostly. I turned to Nick. “I can’t.” I willed myself to say no more. I turned again to the woman, who now lo
oked happily shocked, as if she couldn’t wait to text someone about this weird experience as soon as she could get her hands on her phone. “Sorry,” I said again. She fumbled out a “no problem.”

  “See you in French.” I tried not to look at him too long. I turned and made a beeline for the door and walked out into the cold night and down the block and across Main, past the Fountain, and into the now empty parking lot. Not until I got to my car did I turn to make sure Nick hadn’t followed me. He hadn’t. I was alone, completely and utterly. The last tuxedo on Earth.

  The only other car in the lot was Nick’s, parked a few spots over. Above me, a streetlamp hummed its one dull note of electricity. The night sky bloomed with stars. That streetlamp was the only thing standing between me and the universe. (Multiverse, Miry, I could hear my father say in his teasing-not-teasing way, always so eager to expand my horizons, to correct my small-town concept of reality.) I knew I couldn’t just stand there looking up, especially now that tears had ruined my eyeliner and were pouring out of my face.

  * * *

  I never returned the dress. It still hung at the back of my closet, zipped up in its gray garment bag. I’d forgotten what it looked like, really, and why I’d loved it so much. Now all I thought of when I thought of that dress was my father shoveling popcorn in his mouth and the butcher shop freezer cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. Syd showed up before the end of Dateline. I never even found out who killed that poor butcher. But I knew who killed the dress, zipped up like a body in a body bag, a reminder of the worst night of my life. It was Nick Allison.

  Has this dress been worn? I imagined the salesclerk asking.

  And that was why I never returned it.

  I couldn’t stand the idea of answering.

  No, I’d have to say. Never got the chance.

  8

  “Home.” I tossed my keys into the bowl. I didn’t want to walk down the hall and have to explain my puffy eyes to my dad, though this week had been so monumentally crappy, I had any number of reasons to be crying. He’d never guess it was about a boy. Especially not That Boy. That Boy was how my dad referred to Nick when he brought him up. Did That Boy ever apologize to you? Did That Boy ever explain himself?