carefully everywhere descending (10 page)

Scarlett doesn't arrive the next morning. Everything's still gray from yesterday's rain, but the skies are clear, if cloudy. I try to engage myself in various activities, but nothing holds any appeal. I'm restless, and my skin feels itchy and too tight as I wander the house, peering out the windows at the slightest sound. Jimmy scowls at me, and Sam sleeps off his sickness in his room. My parents seem not to notice my antsiness, chatting mildly about chores and leaving to get groceries and some home-repair supplies that may likely never be used. The afternoon starts to slip by, and I debate e-mailing her. I don't have her number to call or text.

I've almost broken and decided to pull up a blank e-mail when, passing a window on one of my perambulations, I spot her slowly approaching our house, head down so her hair is falling forward and hands in the back pockets of her jeans. I don't know what to do and hover at the window in my uncertainty.

I'm about to let her come up and ring the doorbell, so as not to appear overeager, when I see Jimmy go into his and Sam's room. I take a second to fully appreciate just how mortifying him chaperoning this talk would be. Then I sneak to the door and silently open it and slip outside as Scarlett rounds our driveway. I soundlessly close the front door, releasing the handle in centimeters so it won't alert Jimmy that I've left.

I meet Scarlett by her car. “Hi.”

She looks pretty bad. Not only is she wan and tired, but she doesn't immediately look at me. A sick, niggling feeling settles in my stomach.

I clear my throat. “How are you feeling?”

She snorts, though the sound carries no amusement. “Like I've got the flu. It's not pleasant, Audrey.”

She finally raises her head and meets my eyes. Hers are bloodshot, but I think they're still beautiful, lined with those lashes. The features I'd spent so long analyzing I now adore. It amazes me.

She doesn't look happy. I tell myself it might be because she already broke up with Carolina.

But that feeling in my stomach won't let me believe it.

Tears prickle my eyes. “You've changed your mind.”

She lifts a hand and rubs the skin between her mouth and nose.

“There's nothing to change, really,” she says in a dead tone. I think I know what she means. Nothing happened after all, did it? Did she promise me anything?

“Why?” I ask.

“Why what?”

“Last night, you said Carolina wasn't me,” I say.

She flinches. I'm being brutal, but to myself as well as her. Maybe I could just turn and walk inside and ignore her, but my brain doesn't work like that. I can't turn it off and on, or will myself to forget something that I know is true. Last night she almost kissed me, I'm suddenly positive of this. I would swear to it in a court of law. Last night, she wanted me.

“What changed?” I ask.

She returns her hand to her back pocket, puts her head back to look up at the slate-gray, clouded sky. She sighs, seemingly from the depths of her soul.

“I like Carolina,” she says. “I like her a lot. I might love her. We've been going out for nearly seven months. We've even talked about what would happen if we both get into colleges. Which ones we're interested in, where they would be, how far apart. That's a lot, Audrey. I can't just… walk away from a relationship like that.”

“And last night, everything you said—you were just drunk, I suppose.”

“I was!”

“How convenient.”

She glares at me with acute fury. “Yes, very
convenient
. Very convenient I almost cheated on my girlfriend with you. Very convenient my head feels like someone's hammering at it, and my stomach feels like it's going to climb out my throat and mouth any moment. This is all so
convenient
for me.”

At that, all the fight goes from me and I just nod to myself. Maybe I never really believed her last night. It was all too good to be true, after all. I'd never had anything as good as her in my life. It was only keeping with the course of my existence that I would not be enough to hold someone like Scarlett West.

“You should get home,” I say dully. “Drink lots of water. Eat something, if you haven't yet. My dad always has toast when he feels hungover. It seems to help. I'll see you around, Scarlett.”

I turn and this time I leave her. Every step back to the house is agony, and when I close the door, not caring about sound this time, the click of the latch sounds like a knell.

 

 

J
IMMY
IS
standing awkwardly in the middle of the living room, fumbling with the remote control. I get the impression he just bolted there after standing at the window, watching me talk with Scarlett. I'm too sore and aching from what just happened to feel any outrage about the invasion of privacy or his nosiness.

“Can I have the keys to the car?” I ask. We also have a 2002 Mercury Sable that Jimmy primarily uses for work, but I drive if I desperately need a car for something.

I feel pretty desperate right now.

“Please, Jimmy, I won't go far or anything. I just need to get out for a while and be by myself.”

He looks at me sympathetically, but to my gratitude, doesn't bring up Scarlett.

“Sure, bean,” he says. He hasn't called me that in years. “I'll get them.”

He disappears into his room and returns with the keys held aloft, dangling from his thumb and index finger.

“It's got a full tank of gas,” he says as he hands them over. “Just… don't use up the whole thing, okay? I can't refill it until Friday. And I really need it this week.” He has a job interview tomorrow for shipper/receiver in a supplies warehouse, and one Thursday for a sales position for a furniture company. He'd hate both.

“I won't,” I say.

Scarlett's car is long gone as I leave by the side door, but I still look warily around for her before opening the driver's door and getting into the forest-green car.

I back out of the driveway and keep it under the speed limit until I'm at the edge of the city. Then I push in the gas pedal and just drive, the houses and people fading behind me and the fields of grain spreading open and clear in every direction.

I let the speed of driving take over my mind until my thoughts are looser, and I'm not thinking about any one thing in particular. I remember Scarlett's face from last night; I remember the way her eyes squint when she laughs. I spend my time in memories and not thinking about anything else.

Eventually I slow and glance at the gas tank. I'm not surprised to see nearly a fourth is gone; I'll have to turn back now to make sure I don't use too much by the time this little joyless-ride is over.

I come back to myself gradually as I return to Reedsburg. My mind starts up again like a rebooted computer, and I think,
Now what?
Being without a plan makes me edgy, and I stave off the feeling by thinking through the rest of the school year and all the college prep work I can do. Amber would probably encourage me to branch out and see if there are other girls I'm interested in, but the thought holds no appeal for me.

Though perhaps I'm being unfair to Amber. It occurs to me that she may be home and would be a good sounding board at this moment. I try calling her phone but get her voice mail. Discouraged and not wanting to return home just yet, I slow to a dawdling pace as I reenter the city limits. I take random side streets.

Eventually I end up near a park and on an impulse pull into the parking lot and stop the car. A stroll around is both a good way to delay going home and to save gas. I wonder why I didn't think of it sooner.

The day isn't the prettiest; the sky is still mostly gray and the air is chilly due to yesterday's rain, but it feels good to walk through the path lined by slowly blossoming trees and leafy plants. A couple of joggers pass by me, and one Rollerblader, but otherwise it's quiet. Peaceful.

I'm approaching one of the benches that are positioned every so often on the walking path when I see a hunched-shouldered man occupies it. He straightens as I get nearer and takes a long slug of clear liquid in a plastic Coke bottle. His Adam's apple bobs as he swallows.

I recognize him, though I can't immediately place from where. It hits me with a bolt of shock about the same time he looks over and catches sight of me: it's Mitchell, from the gelato shop. He does a small double take. I see recognition likewise dawn on his face, and I know he can tell that I recall him and how I last saw him.

For a few heartbeats, I stare at him and he stares at me, each of us uncomfortably aware that we're acquaintances, sort of, who last saw each other under unsavory circumstances and neither sure how to proceed.

Finally, I go to the bench and sit gingerly on the opposite edge from him.

“So… how are you?” I say.

He snorts bitterly and takes another swig from his bottle. “Just dandy. You?”

“Oh. Same.” He gives me an assessing look at that.

“It's strange seeing you again, kid,” he says. “What's your name?”

“Audrey,” I say and then wonder if I should have given even that much personal information away to a virtual (maybe unbalanced) stranger. But I know
his
name, after all, so this makes it an even playing field.

“It's peculiar seeing someone I only know from a brief, chance meeting on the worst day of my life, Audrey,” Mitchell continues. “I didn't even want to go to that damn place. I hate ice cream, for f—for pity's sake. That should have tipped me off, when Greg suggested it. ‘We won't be there long,' he said. ‘I just want to talk.' Ha! He wanted to get me to a public place where he thought I wouldn't make a scene.”

Part of me wants to say “
You sure showed him
,” but I get the feeling he wouldn't think that was funny right now.

“It was weird, sitting at those dinky tables with my best friend from college.” Mitchell seems to have an almost pathological need to keep talking and explain himself. I wonder if he has anyone else in his life he's talked to about this yet. Or if he has anyone else in his life he can talk to at all. “In a bizarro-universe way, it reminded me of being at college and going out to the local pub together. Just this hole-in-the-wall place, overrun by stupid college students. Talking about our classes, talking about the
girls
in our classes….”

I try to gauge how old he is. Late thirties? Early forties? His general unkempt air—messy hair, and a slight beard that looks like it was grown out of a disregard for shaving rather than a conscious grooming choice—all make him seem a little older than he probably is.

“Greg handed me my ring on my wedding day, did you know that?” he says suddenly. His eyes are red-rimmed and bloodshot. “He stood right behind me, right at my back, and handed me the ring, knowing….”

He takes another drink.

“I'm sorry,” I say softly.

“I don't know how you can do that to someone you say you care about,” he says. “And worse, how she could…. How my… Kathryn, m-my wi—” He stops and stares unseeingly off into the distance for a long pause, jaw working. His red eyes are damp.

“When I first saw her,” he starts but can't seem to finish the sentence. After a long pause, he continues. “We were talking about painting the master bedroom blue last week. Just last week, she was going over paint strips with me and talking about base coats, all the while—” Another stop. Another swig. “Maybe they'll end up painting the room blue together. God knows I can't stay in that house. I thought I would raise my kids in it with her.”

I have a lump in my throat, and I say “I'm sorry,” again, but Mitchell doesn't acknowledge it.

“I quit my last job because she wanted me to,” he continues relentlessly, painfully. “It wasn't a bad job, but she thought I spent too much time there. I learned how to grill steaks just the way she liked them, and never to buy tuna because she couldn't stand the smell of it. I learned about different cuts of diamonds for her, to learn what kind of jewelry she'd like. I learned to live with the house temperature ten degrees hotter than I'm comfortable because she always felt cold. I just— Goddamn, I loved that woman.”

He raises a hand and pinches the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut. He takes a wavering breath. Then he drops his hand and peers at me.

“What about you? What about that girl you were with?”

My own eyes cloud with tears, but unlike his, mine overfill and slide down my cheeks.

“She didn't want me,” I say and sob once.

“Love is a misery, Audrey,” Mitchell says. He offers me his Coke bottle. “Vodka?”

I decline with a shake of my head.

He and I sit in silence. Each of us imagining blue walls, I think.

 

 

I
SAY
I have a lot of homework to do, which is true, and go to my room with the intention of settling in for the rest of the night. I'm not as productive as I usually am. My thoughts are more prone to wandering, and the fourth time I catch myself staring off into the distance uselessly, I curse my lost laser focus.

Finally, I'm down to the English Poem That Is Causing A Perpetual Headache, courtesy of e. e. cummings.
At least now I know for sure that poetry is not a viable career option for me
, I text to Amber, who quickly responds with a
:)
.

I roll into my favorite thinking position—half off the bed, feet on the wall—and pull the monstrously thick English Anthology textbook to my chest to reread “somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond.” This must be my twelfth time reading the poem, but suddenly, I understand it differently. The same way the world had appeared new to my eyes after I realized all Scarlett meant to me, I now feel a depth in each line that before had been missing.