Confessions of an Almost-Girlfriend (2 page)

“Rose is a runner. She plays the French horn, too,” Robert answers for me, like I’m a kindergartener who needs positive reinforcement for her cookie choice at snack time.
It pisses me off.
“Actually, I’m not playing French horn this year. I’m trying
out for the musical,” I tell Holly.
Robert could win an Academy Award for the series of looks
that cross his face in the next five seconds. First startled, then
stunned, then irritated, then worried and then falsely happy. I
feel like I scored a point or something.
I believe that would qualify as petty.
“You’re auditioning? That’s great!” Holly says. “Maybe we’ll
all be in it together. It’s
Anything Goes.
Do you know it? Maybe
you could be Reno Sweeney! Can you tap dance? Reno’s the best
part. Although Hope is a great part, too. Ooh, but then there’s
the funny one…what’s her name? She has that great number,
right, babe?”
It’s then, when Holly turns to Robert, that I see Regina. She’s
with Anthony Parrina, the huge hockey player she’s dating just
to make Jamie mad. For a second, I’m worried about retaliation.
But then I just feel…shame.
After Regina had Jamie arrested, I decided to finally tell Principal Chen that Regina was my graffiti stalker. The principal
personally stopped Regina and Anthony at the entrance to the
prom. I heard Regina threw a fit in a sequined blue tube dress
and four-inch heels, and it actually caused her up-do to fall down.
It must have been some fit, considering how much hairspray she
uses. She was suspended and banned from cheerleading, and she
missed finals and had to go to summer school so that she’d be
able to graduate on time this year.
The thought of Regina leaving the prom in disgrace made me
smile for a few hours. Then it made me feel pathetic, like I’d just
gone running to the principal. Which I had.
When Regina turns toward me, my first instinct is to get a
very important phone call. But it actually doesn’t matter what
I do because she doesn’t notice me. She’s staring at the freshman who is now pinned against the house by the garden-hosewielding swim thugs, who claim that they are helping him by
rinsing the chlorine off his clothes.
Anthony bursts out laughing so loud that some of the thugs
turn to see who’s making all the noise. When their eyes land on
Regina, they actually step back, like they’re trying to distance
themselves from what’s happening, terrified of facing the Wrath
of Regina. But Regina is standing stock-still, her face frozen.
“Do you want some, Rose?” I hear Holly ask.
Holly hands a joint to Robert as she exhales. The smoke settles in a kind of halo above her head as I decide not to remind
Robert that his stepmother once said she’d kick Robert out of the
house permanently if he ever came home smelling of pot again.
Robert takes a hit off the joint and then gives it back to Holly,
intentionally bypassing me.
“Rose isn’t that kind of girl,” he says, giving me a condescending wink.
I want to punch him. I’m actually considering it—even though
my mom’s therapist, Caron, told me I need to start curbing my
violent instincts and redirecting them to “a positive place”—when
a howl rises up from the crowd.
Matt has grabbed the hose from his teammates and redirected
the water so it hits the freshman right in the mouth. He is choking and sputtering, trying to move his face away from the stream
so he can get some air, but Matt keeps walking toward him,
bringing the hose closer and closer to the freshman’s mouth as
if he intends to jam it in there.
Suddenly, Regina’s frozen face cracks. She’s in front of Matt
in two steps, shoving him backward as she yanks the hose out
of his hand. She tosses it away, spraying the cluster of freshman
girls, who shriek and scatter in every direction, their hands flying up to protect their hair. Matt lands on his butt, unsure what
just happened.
“Who is
that?
” Holly asks, her big brown eyes already redrimmed from the pot.
“Rose can tell you all about her, can’t you, Rose?” Robert says
drily.
Matt grabs the hose off the ground and struggles to stand up,
nearly falling into the pool. He loses track of the spray, drenching his own shoes.
“Conrad, are you really gonna let your sister mess with your
initiation?” he asks, staring at Regina.
His
sister?
The party punching bag is Regina’s
brother?
Matt looks back at Conrad.
Conrad says nothing.
Matt turns the hose on him.
Regina goes for Matt but Anthony catches her, pinning her
arms and spinning her around. He leads her away and she doesn’t
put up a fight, her face blank, her body slack as he talks into her
ear, his dark eyes hard.
I can’t believe Regina is walking away while the swim thugs
are drowning her brother. If anyone could take them on, it would
be her. What’s she doing?
Matt and two thuglets grab Conrad and hurl him back into
the pool, even though he’s still choking. As soon as Conrad hits
the water, Matt spits out one final “Faggot!” then loses interest
and wanders off. His brainless underlings trail after him.
“What’s with all the homophobia?” Holly asks, looking up at
Robert for an explanation. “Is it always like this out East?”
“Union’s special,” Robert answers. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Um, shouldn’t we do something?” she says, turning toward
the pool.
“We’ll just end up in there with him, and you’re too stoned to
swim, darling,” Robert replies. I nearly gag for multiple reasons,
not the least of which is Robert calling his girlfriend
darling
like
he’s a 1940s movie star. “The guy’s a swimmer,” he continues.
“I’m sure he can find his way to the surface of a pool without
our help.”
“Okay,” Holly says uncertainly.
I follow her gaze to the water and see that Conrad is making
zero effort to swim—in fact, less than zero. He’s letting himself sink.
“See ya, Rose,” Robert says, taking Holly’s hand.
I look at the cup Robert’s still holding. “Wait, you’re not going
to drive right now, are you?” I ask.
For a second, I see the old Robert, the one who was always
looking for my approval, even after I kept not giving it to him.
But the new Robert surfaces quickly. “Holly’s driving the vintage Mustang tonight.”
I look at Holly, who seems embarrassed again, then at Robert.
“So she’s too stoned to swim but not to
drive?
”
“It’s okay,” Holly says. “We can just walk to my house from
here.” Holly glances one last time at the pool. “So cool to meet
you, Rose! See you at school on Tuesday,” she adds as Robert pulls
her into the crowd that has no interest whatsoever in the fact that
Conrad Deladdo is intentionally drowning himself.
Although, to be honest, drowning oneself is not a surprising
response to one’s first Union High party.
I should do something.
The thing is, after last year, I want to keep a low profile, and
I definitely do not want to be the party buzz-kill again.
Plus, he’s not
really
drowning—he’s just messing around.
Right?
I look at the pool. I can’t see him anymore from where I’m
standing.
I wait a second for him to come up. I wait another second.
Nothing.
I go to the edge of the pool and look in. Conrad is still drifting down, as if he’s being pulled to the bottom by some current
I can’t see. He looks up at me and it seems like our eyes meet
through the water for a second. Then his close.
I drop to my knees and reach into the water to grab him but
of course I can’t get to him. I lean forward a little more, and the
inevitable happens.
From across the pool, Tracy yells my name but it’s too late.
Someone shoves my shoulder and I fly face-first into the glowing blue water.
My first thought is, I’m destroying the dry-clean-only silk
T-shirt Tracy lent me after practically making me sign a contract
in blood, promising that nothing would happen to it.
My second thought is, I didn’t realize how much the noise
of the party was making my brain hurt until I ended up in the
pool. It’s so peaceful down here—all the music and the yelling get lost beneath the sound of my pulse and the blood in my
veins. It’s perfect.
I haven’t felt this calm in more than a year. For a while after
my dad died, I had these weird episodes that my mom said were
panic attacks—they felt more like rage attacks to me. They’re
mostly gone now, but sometimes, out of the blue, I’ll be doing
something totally normal when suddenly I see these crazy-violent
images. I have no control over it.
Here, under the water, I don’t feel like that can happen. Maybe
I need to spend my life floating around in a pool.
Conrad looks like he feels the same way. But he also looks like
he might be turning blue from lack of oxygen.
I swim down to him and reach for his arm. He yanks it away
and gives me the finger.
So much for underwater tranquility.
What did I ever do to him?
I grab his arm and pull as hard as I can. Conrad fights me for
a second but then lets me win. As we break the surface, a crowd
of people at the edge of the pool is watching Tracy calmly shred
Matt, who, of course, is the one who pushed me. I know that
without having to watch the instant replay.
“…and get her and that freshman out of the pool or I’ll throw
you in myself.”
A big chorus of “Oohs” goes up from the crowd. Matt is too
drunk to formulate any kind of retaliation, so he just does as he’s
told, stumbling to the edge and reaching for Conrad. Conrad is
lifting himself out of the pool for the second time in less than an
hour when someone shoves Matt aside, sending him sprawling
again, and holds out a hand. Conrad looks up and half laughs,
half snorts, like he’s disgusted.
“Go help your savior-complex girlfriend,” he says. “Leave me
the hell alone.”
I’m trying to figure out who the savoir-complex girlfriend
is and why she needs help when I’m lifted straight out of the
pool and set down—dripping wet, mascara running, silk T-shirt
and white capris probably see-through—on the deck. The warm
hands feel familiar on my arms, and I know who it is instantly.
But even though I’ve been waiting an entire summer to see him
again, it still takes me a second before I can look up into the
beautiful, furious face of Jamie Forta.

IT’S A STRANGE FEELING TO BE STANDING IN A DRIVEWAY
at a keg party, fully clothed but soaking wet and wrapped in an
oversize towel, talking—or not talking, as the case may be—to
the guy who may or may not like you and who you haven’t seen
in months, who is standing next to your worst enemy, who may
or may not be his ex-girlfriend. Throw in the pacing, wet victim of a Union High hazing and a few onlookers, and you’ve officially got a three-ring circus.

I’m shivering as I wait for Tracy to get our stuff so she can
drive me home. Jamie Forta is two feet away and he looks totally different. He’s tan, his arms are super cut and his hair is
sort of dark gold—he looks like he spent the entire summer at
the beach. He looks…beautiful.

I imagined a bunch of scenarios for when I finally saw Jamie
again, but I didn’t think he would ignore me, which is what he’s
been doing for the past few minutes. But why would I think
that he’d do anything else, when that’s exactly what he did all
summer?

He didn’t return my calls after the night he spent in jail, and
he wasn’t allowed to come back to school to finish the year. After
a few weeks, I started to think that I’d imagined him. I could almost convince myself I had, until I thought about the kiss. That
kiss was the most real thing ever—there’s no way I could have
made that up.

Which takes me back to wondering why he didn’t call. It’s
infuriating.
But no matter how hurt or mad or
whatever
I’m feeling, Jamie
looks amazing and I can’t stop staring at him.
Neither can Regina, which Anthony Parrina has just noticed
as he heads up the driveway on his way back to the party from
a beer run.
He doesn’t look too happy about what he sees.
Anthony puts down the case of beer he was balancing on one
massive shoulder and wraps a possessive arm around Regina.
“What, no chain gang for you tonight, jailbird?” he says to Jamie.
“Oh, right, they only let the juvie kids work road crew during
the day. I honked at you once on the highway in your little orange vest, but you didn’t wave to me,” Anthony says, making a
fake sad face.
I can’t tell if there’s any truth to what Anthony is saying because Jamie’s face is a mask. Jamie’s dad is a cop—a cop who left
his son in jail overnight to teach him a lesson—and I wouldn’t
be surprised if he arranged for Jamie’s community service to involve spending his whole summer in the blazing hot sun fixing
the town’s potholes.
I look at Regina. She is staring hard at Jamie, as if she’s trying
to tell him something, but Jamie keeps his eyes on Anthony. I
have no idea if Jamie and Regina have talked about what she did
to him. But they do live next door to each other, so that probably answers my question.
“What, you got nothin’ to say, Forta?” Anthony challenges.
Jamie and Anthony have unfinished business. Jamie used to
play hockey for Union with Peter until he got kicked off the team
during the big Union vs. West Union game for high-sticking Anthony in the neck. I saw it happen, and I always figured it was
some stupid trash-talking thing. But now I’m starting to think
it was something bigger.
And Anthony
is
dating Regina, who Jamie grew up with and
has…what? Liked? Gone out with?
Been in love with?
Jamie slowly turns to Regina, not taking his eyes off Anthony
until the last second. When his gaze meets hers, concern fills his
face. How can he possibly look so worried about her after what
she did to him?
What
is going on?
“You okay?” Jamie asks Regina in a low voice, as if they’re the
only two people in the driveway. That weird, blank look comes
across Regina’s face again as Anthony tightens his grip on her
and smiles like he won a prize.
“She’s fine,” Anthony answers for her. “It’s Conrad who don’t
look so good.” He sort of chuckles.
Anthony is a total meathead.
Jamie turns to watch Conrad pace back and forth on the same
spot, water still dripping off his rolled-up jeans.
“Conrad,” Jamie calls out.
Conrad stops. “Don’t
you
fucking talk to me.”
“Don’t swear at Jamie,” Regina warns. It’s the first time I’ve
heard her speak all night.
“Oh, that’s great, ’Gina, stick up for the guy who treats you
like shit. Should I start calling you ‘Mom’?”
Conrad is shivering in his wet red shirt, which is bleeding
pink streaks on his white jeans. His eyes land on Anthony, and
I’m hoping Conrad will just keep his mouth shut, for his own
sake. I can’t tell whether he has tears or pool water on his face,
but the overall effect is the same—with the bleeding shirt and
the streaked face, he looks like he’s slightly out of his mind.
“Take him home,” Jamie says to Regina.
“You know what, Forta?” Anthony interrupts. “You don’t get
to tell her what to do anymore.”
Jamie takes a step toward Anthony. “And you do?”
“Stop acting like you actually give a shit about us, Jamie,”
Conrad snaps.
“I said watch your mouth,” Regina says.
“All right, kids, don’t make me send you to your rooms.” Anthony suddenly sounds annoyed and bored. “I’ll drive you home.
Just don’t get my interior wet.”
“Why would I get in a car with you? You’re even more of an
asshole than Jamie.”
“Conrad, if you don’t stop talking shit about Jamie—”
“Why you gotta defend Forta, Regina?” Anthony asks.
I can answer that. Because she loves him.
But of course she’s not going to admit that to Anthony.
Regina goes mute again. Anthony grabs her arm hard enough
to change the color of her skin, forcing her to turn toward him.
For one weird moment, I actually want to pry his hand off her.
“Let go of her,” Jamie warns.
“Fuck off, Forta,” Anthony says. He takes a step toward Jamie,
his chest puffed out, fire in his eyes.
Jamie doesn’t budge. It occurs to me that someone who has
just finished community service probably can’t afford to get into
trouble again. I should get between them, like Jamie did for me
last year with Regina. But based on the way Anthony just grabbed
her, I’d say the presence of a girl between him and the person he
wants to punch isn’t much of a deterrent. So instead I just blurt
out the first thing I can think of.
“Conrad, your shirt is staining your pants.”
Everyone turns to look at me as Conrad looks down at his
pants. The red is now more of a general pink wash than individual streaks. “How symbolic,” he says.
“Tracy and I can drive you home if you want to get those in
the wash before they’re ruined.”
The wash?
I’m talking about washing pants right now? What
is wrong with me?
He snorts. “
You
are the reason this all got so fucked up in the
first place,” he says, waving in disgust at Regina, Jamie and Anthony. “I’d rather walk.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Anthony says, looking at Conrad. “What are
you talkin’ about? Who’s the reason everything got so fucked up?”
Conrad gestures to me with his chin. “Her.”
Anthony points at me, his eyes practically bugging out of his
head. “
This
is Forta’s little freshman? The girl who went screamin’
to the principal?”
He looks like he can’t figure out whether to laugh or punch
me. In my head, I’m telling him that I’m actually a sophomore
now, which, if you pass your classes, is what happens after you’ve
been a freshman, generally speaking. But in reality, I’m totally
embarrassed and freaked out. It never occurred to me that someday I’d be face-to-face with West Union’s hell-on-ice star hockey
player and would have to answer for getting him thrown out of
the prom after he went to all the trouble of taking off his skates
and putting on a tuxedo.
I wonder if Jamie will come to my defense if Anthony decides
to kill me here and now.
“Matt just passed out,” Tracy says as she comes around the
corner of the house with our bags. She takes one look at Conrad’s
now-pink pants and visibly cringes. “Were those Marc Jacobs?”
Then she looks up at his face. “Are you okay?”
I don’t realize I’m expecting Conrad to smile at Tracy gratefully and thank her for asking until he glares at her like she’s an
idiot. “Do I
look
like I’m okay?” he asks.
I want to tell him that I know how it feels to be targeted. But I
know it’s not the same thing. I kissed someone I shouldn’t have
kissed. Conrad, on the other hand, was just being himself at a
team party—a team that he’s supposedly a member of.
“Is somebody going to drive you home?” Tracy asks.
“Why does everyone keep asking me that?” he snaps.
“Probably because no one wants to fish you out of the pool
again,” she says.
“Well, I’m not getting in a car with either one of them,” he
replies, referring to Jamie and Anthony, who are still standing
face-to-face with about an inch of space between them.
It is simultaneously totally hot to see Jamie like this—is that
weird?—totally depressing to know that it’s not me he’s defending and totally awful to think that the school year hasn’t even
started and already Jamie is in a situation that could land him
in serious trouble.
“Fine.
I’ll
drive you home,” Tracy says. No one moves. Tracy
looks around at our cozy little group and then back at Jamie.
She raises her eyebrows in surprise and possibly approval of the
new-and-improved version—Jamie 2.0, I bet she’s going to say
later—that she didn’t notice by the pool because she was too
busy yelling. Without taking her eyes off him, she asks, “You
coming with me, Rose, or…?”
Jamie turns away from Anthony and makes eye contact with
me for the second time tonight—or rather, for the second time
since June. I can’t read anything in his expression to give me a
single clue about where I stand with him.
What else is new.
“Uh…” I eloquently begin.
Jamie looks at Regina and says, “You call me if you need me.”
He gives Anthony another long, hard stare, and Anthony bares
his teeth in what’s supposed to be a grin. Jamie heads down the
driveway. Regina watches Jamie go, a flicker of desperation in
her eyes as if she wants nothing more than to go with him. Anthony grabs the case of beer at his feet, slings his arm over her
shoulders and drags both the beer and Regina back to the party.
Jamie gets in his car, slams the door hard enough to set off
the alarm on the SUV he’s parked in front of, and takes off down
the street.
I watch his taillights get smaller and smaller.
The first time I rode in Jamie’s old, green car was when he
drove me home on the third day of school last year. He did it
only because Peter had asked him to look out for me, but I didn’t
know that at the time and I thought maybe, just maybe, Jamie
Forta might think I was cute or something. It was kind of a terrifying prospect. I babbled like an idiot the whole time.
When I realized Jamie knew where I lived without me having to tell him, my stomach dropped out like I was on a roller
coaster. Sitting close to him made me so nervous I couldn’t put
a sentence together, but I still managed to memorize every detail I could about that ride. The car smelled like rain. The hood
had been polished with something shiny and when the sun hit
it, the glare was so bright it hurt my eyes. The seats and the floor
were clean enough to eat off. It was clear that Jamie loved his car.
Now that I think about it, I bet Jamie cares more about that
car than most of the people in his life.
Possibly more than
all
of the people in his life.
But definitely more than me.

Conrad, standing next to the red Prius that Tracy’s dad got
her for her sixteenth birthday in July, points at me. Tracy rolls
her eyes and leans into the backseat, clearing away some junk.
Tracy wouldn’t appreciate my calling her magazines
junk,
but
they’ve been stomped on and sat on, and pages have been torn
out and folded over and marked up, so they’re junk in my book.
Last year was all about
Teen Vogue
and
Lucky,
but this year Trace
is reading
Vogue
and
Elle,
with the occasional
InStyle
thrown in,
“because not everyone gets couture.”

Thanks to my trusty PSAT app, I surreptitiously learned that
couture
means custom-made, high-fashion clothes. I have to admit
that there are some occasional topic-specific gaps in my vocabulary. My dad—Mr. Vocabulary himself—would not have been
pleased. But the fact that I have a PSAT app on my phone would
have gone a long way toward redeeming me in his eyes, I’m sure.

“Conrad,” Tracy says as she extricates herself from the backseat to move her magazines into the trunk, “Rose ended up in
the pool for you. So maybe try a little gratitude. Sit,” she commands, pointing to the mostly clean backseat and dropping several torn-up
GQ
s in the process. “Love your shoes, by the way.
Stuff paper towels in them when you get home so they dry in
the right shape. They’re Gucci, right? And those pants
are
Marc
Jacobs, aren’t they?”

Conrad doesn’t miss a beat. “Stop talking about my clothes.
You’re making me self-conscious.”
Tracy looks shocked, like she can’t conceive of a world in
which Conrad wouldn’t want to talk about fashion. I think this
is actually less about stereotyping and more about Tracy forgetting that not everyone cares as deeply and passionately about
fashion as she does. Whatever she’s into takes over her entire
worldview. She was like that with cheerleading last year. And
Matt, unfortunately.
Getting dumped by Matt after she lost her virginity to him
was the best thing that ever happened to Tracy. Well, okay, not
the
best
thing. Actually, it was terrible. But as soon as she was
forced to accept what a loser Matt had become, she realized she
was spending too much time worrying about what he—and everyone else—thought of her. She vowed never to do that again,
and she hasn’t looked back since. Her obsession with fashion
isn’t just about magazines and being pretty. Tracy wants to be
a designer someday, or an editor at a fashion magazine, or a…
something. According to her, her education has already started.
She reads every fashion magazine she can get her hands on, follows about twenty different blogs, and spends more hours on
Lookbook than most gamers spend playing
Call of Duty 17,
or
whatever number they’re up to.
I envy her. She found her thing and is already figuring out
how to do it.
Actually, if I think about it, I’m not
that
far behind her—at
least not in terms of knowing what my thing is. I just have to…
start doing it.
When I was thinking of auditioning for
Damn Yankees,
I sang
in front of the mirror and discovered that I look like a giant freak.
When my mom’s shrink, Caron, asked why I hadn’t auditioned
after I’d said I was going to, I just shrugged. Then she declared
that I’m depressed.
Brilliant, right? But Ms. Shrinky-Dink had a point. I
was
excited about auditioning. And I was disappointed—in myself—
when I chickened out. So I’m going to that
Anything Goes
audition,
even if I look like the world’s weirdest weirdo when I sing.
“What are you doing with all this shit?” Conrad says, looking
down at the issues of
GQ
that Tracy dropped.
“I like fashion,” Tracy answers, sounding a little peeved as she
grabs the magazines and puts them on top of her pile. She dumps
the magazines in her trunk and takes out the blanket from the
monstrous roadside emergency kit that her dad bought for the
car—there are enough supplies in there to survive simultaneous
natural disasters. “Here,” she says, handing it to him.
Conrad wraps the blanket around himself and with one more
nasty look at me, slides into the backseat. Tracy slams the trunk
shut and gets into the driver’s seat. I barely have my seat belt on
over my wet towel when Conrad starts in.
“So was it guilt that made you pull me off the bottom of the
pool?”
Tracy eyes Conrad in her rearview mirror. “If anyone should
feel guilty, it’s your sister.
She
was the psychotic maniac last year.”
“That’s not what I heard,” he mutters.
“Two sides to every story,” I reply.
“All right, let’s hear your side. How did someone like
you
manage to steal my sister’s boyfriend?”
Conrad’s question rings in my ears as I turn off the airconditioning that came on full blast when Tracy pushed the
car’s power button. My teeth are chattering because my skin is
still wet. I hope my mother isn’t waiting up for me when I get
home. If I have to explain to her how I ended up fully clothed
in a pool at the party, she’ll probably call Caron to schedule an
emergency midnight session. That’s Kathleen for ya.
I’ve been calling my mom by her first name—Kathleen—
in my head. It makes me feel better for some reason. Less “depressed,” you might say.
“Hello?” Conrad says, still waiting for an answer.
If I were a different person, I would see this as an
opportunity,
as Caron likes to call complicated situations. An opportunity to
tell my side of the story, or something like that.
But really, it just sucks to hear Conrad ask a variation on the
very question I spent most of the summer asking myself: What
would a hot guy like Jamie Forta ever see in someone like me?
“I think the real question is how did
you
end up in a pool with
the swim team trying to drown you?” Tracy asks.
“Oh, please. I saw the YouTube video of your initiation last
year, pretending to be Beyoncé in your bra in the freezing cold
after homecoming. You don’t need me to explain a damn thing
to you.”
Tracy didn’t see that coming. Conrad is giving her a real run
for her money, and she’s not used to it.
“Dancing in a parking lot and practically being killed by your
teammates are kind of different, don’t you think?” I ask.
“Being straight in Union and being
me
in Union are kind of
different, don’t you think?” he mocks in a high, girly voice that
sounds nothing like me. Then he sighs, more annoyed than defeated. “Your ex went the extra mile with me because the thought
of me looking at him naked in the locker room scares the panties off him. God, what a fucking cliché.”
Tracy doesn’t respond. Neither do I. Ms. Maso would not be
pleased with our inability to be supportive of someone who just
came out to us. Even if he did do it in a way that was carefully
crafted to make us feel as stupid as possible.
Conrad misinterprets our silence. “I’m
gay,
” he says with exasperation.
“We know,” Tracy responds with ice in her voice.
“You mean someone in Union actually has gaydar? Shocking,”
Conrad grumbles. “Although if anyone would have it, it would
be the girl with back issues of
GQ
and
Vogue
in the trunk of her
Prius. Everything about Union is so typical.” Conrad slouches
down, jabbing his knees into the back of my seat. “So, Rose—
that’s your name, right?—are you and Jamie together or is he
just doing his usual dark-and-brooding, now-you-see-me-nowyou-don’t thing where he shows up at your door every once in
a while and does something sexy just to make sure you’re still
dangling on the line, waiting for him?”
Tracy and I are both stunned into silence, for different reasons.
I’m sure she’s not surprised by my inability to keep up with Conrad, but it’s pretty rare for Tracy to be without a good comeback.
I’m also marveling at Conrad’s ability to go right for the sweet
spot and stick a knife in it. It’s a gift. Must run in the family.
Suddenly, I’m angry. Sure, it’s true that Conrad was just humiliated in front of half of Union High, but that’s no reason
for him to take it out on me, especially after I just dove, fully
clothed, into a pool for him. Well, okay, I was pushed. But the
whole reason I was close enough to get pushed was because I
was going to dive in.
Snark doesn’t come naturally to me, but I just happen to have
some deep inside. I take a breath and let it fly. “I have no clue
what’s going on with Jamie because we haven’t talked since your
batshit-crazy sister had him arrested for committing the apparently horrific felony of attempting to take
someone like me
to the
prom.”
Tracy takes her eyes off the road to look at me. She stops just
short of giving me a thumbs-up. I feel Conrad’s knees in my
back again.
“So, Jamie didn’t call you once this whole summer? After
standing you up for the prom?” He lets out that angry laugh
again that sounds like it should come from someone a lot older.
“Wow, that is
cold
. Well, he was busy chasing after ’Gina in summer school.” Conrad pauses, knowing full well that this is information I didn’t have. “Of course,
she
was busy throwing herself at
that puck-head Anthony, just to drive Jamie crazy. And it worked.
He totally wants her back. ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave.’
Is that Shakespeare? I think that’s Shakespeare.”
“Sir Walter Scott,” I correct, trying to sound unfazed although
my brain is reeling.
So Jamie was avoiding me all summer
and
hanging out with
Regina. That’s fantastic. Well, at least now I know why he doesn’t
want anything to do with me. Apparently, the way to Jamie’s heart
is to have him arrested. I’ll have to remember that.
But what about Anthony Parrina? If Regina just wanted Jamie
back and now Jamie wants Regina back, what is Regina still
doing with Anthony?
This is all so far over my head it’s not even funny.
“Where am I going?” Tracy asks Conrad impatiently.
“Take Hill to Barry and turn left. My house is halfway down
the block. Next to the Fortas,” Conrad says pointedly.
All three of us fall silent, which is kind of a relief. We leave
the fancy part of Union, where all the houses are huge with perfectly edged bright green lawns, and we drive into the next neighborhood, where the houses are smaller—some nice, some not
so nice. We pass one with dark metal siding and an American
flag hanging over the front door, with a “Support Our Troops”
banner tacked up beneath the windows, practically glowing in
the dark because of all the floodlights trained on it. If Conrad
weren’t here, I’d ask Tracy to stop so I could take a picture for
Vicky, who likes to post photos of troop-support banners from
all over the country on her son’s memorial site.
Kathleen hates it when I say it, but Vicky is my friend. Her
son, Sergeant Travis Ramos, was one of the people who died
with my dad when the convoy they were traveling in blew up. I
discovered Travis’s memorial site last fall, and it inspired me—
eventually—to start designing the one for my dad. One night
when I couldn’t sleep, I posted a comment on Travis’s site, explaining who I was and asking for advice about how to—and
whether I should—launch my site. And that’s how I met Vicky.
She emailed back right away, full of reasons why a memorial site is a great way to honor someone. It was Vicky who suggested I launch the site on the first anniversary of the explosion,
and Vicky who later contacted everyone on her mailing list to
let them know that there was finally a site up for Alfonso Zarelli, which is how I ended up getting tons of posts on the anniversary. And how I learned that my dad had decided to stay
in Iraq for a year, when he’d promised me that he was coming
home after six months.
I kind of got a little obsessed with the posts for a few days, but
Vicky and I emailed a lot, and she helped me. She understood
what I was going through.
The day after the anniversary, my mother came to my room
and flipped out about Vicky, claiming that I didn’t need to expend my “emotional resources” on a grown woman who was
grieving. I knew right away my mother had been reading my
emails, which wasn’t hard for her to do—she’d set up my account for me in middle school, and I’d never changed the password. I’d never thought I needed to.
She doubled our therapy sessions that day.
To be honest, I think my mother was jealous that I’d said more
to Vicky about missing my dad than I’d said to her. That’s probably why I didn’t change my password right away after I found
out she was reading my email. In a way, I sort of liked that she
was jealous.
Sometimes it’s just easier to talk to people you don’t really
know.
When we pull up in front of the Deladdos’ place, it takes exactly one second to figure out which house is Jamie’s. The house
to the left of the Deladdos’ is perfectly maintained and lit up like
the Fourth of July. I can see a TV on the wall and a dog bouncing up and down on the couch, barking and wriggling furiously
as we idle on the street in front of his territory.
The house to the right of the Deladdos’ is small and rundown.
The lawn is scraggly with bald spots where grass refuses to
grow. Brown shutters droop on their hinges and white paint has
peeled off the house and landed in half-dead shrubs, creating a
dirty-snow effect. The gutters are bursting with dead leaves and
branches that look like they’re sprouting from the house itself.
There are no lights on and no one seems to be home.
This is where Jamie lives with his dad.
Jamie turned eighteen this summer. Technically, he doesn’t
have to live here anymore. And considering what his father did
to him when he got arrested, it’s hard to believe that he’d want
to. But I’d be willing to bet that Jamie won’t leave his dad alone
unless he has to.
Jamie can be loyal to a fault.
I wonder what Jamie’s mother would say about his father leaving him in jail overnight.
I saw Jamie’s father from a distance last Thanksgiving at a
restaurant, and he seemed way more interested in the football
game that was on than in talking to Jamie. I don’t know a lot
about him—I know that he’s a cop, and that he went a little
crazy for a while and Jamie actually had to live with the Deladdoses for a few months, which I try not to think about because
it drives me crazy.
But I know even less about Jamie’s mother. Only that she didn’t
live with Jamie and his dad because she was in some kind of institution near Boston. I also know that it was soon after she died
that Jamie got kicked off the hockey team.
Which is when he became one of my mom’s patients.
Yes, I am the very lucky daughter of an adolescent psychologist who is in therapy herself. No wonder I avoid conversation
with her at all costs.
It drives me nuts that my mother knows more about Jamie
than I do. Although, at this point, that would be true of anyone
who actually had a conversation with Jamie this summer—the
cashier at the grocery store, the guys he worked with on the road
crew, his probation officer.
Regina.
“What do you want me to do with this blanket?” Conrad asks,
unbuckling his seat belt. Before Tracy can answer, the Deladdos’ front door opens. A woman looks out at us, her hand hovering over the screen-door handle as if she’s unsure what to do.
She shields her eyes against the glare of the light above her front
steps in order to see us better.
“Shit,” Conrad mutters. He runs his hands through his hair
and looks down at his ruined pants and his red shirt, which now
looks vaguely tie-dyed.
“Just leave it there,” Tracy answers.
Without another word, Conrad gets out of the car, slams the
door too hard and starts up his front walk. As I watch him, he
seems to physically transform, like he’s trying to become invisible. He ducks his head and looks at the ground, pulling his shirt
down as far over his pants as he possibly can and then giving
up and jamming his hands into his pockets. The woman holds
open the screen door for him and he slides in sideways so as not
to touch her or let her touch him. She asks him something and
he shakes his head while moving past her as if his life depends
on it. She watches him take the stairs two at a time and then,
after he has disappeared from her sight, turns back to us. She
lifts one hand to shield her eyes again, and then gives us a hesitant wave before slowly closing the door.