Forever Innocent (19 page)

“Have you been up here before?” Corabelle asked as the doors slid open.

“Nope.”

“Good.” We stepped out into the hall. A dozen or so students were waiting to get in to go down. I recognized a couple from the row in front of me. “27 degrees,” a tall guy in a hipster fedora said.

“I got 28,” countered a girl.

“It’s 27,” said another girl.

“I say let’s go with 27 and head out,” I said to Corabelle.

She shook her head and tugged on my arm, past the growing horde and through the glass doors.

The garden was still blooming, chaotic with flowers and bees, and a few straggling students who were all saying, “27 degrees, don’t bother measuring” and moving back up the path.

We waited by a pair of Adirondack chairs for the rest of them to move through and walked up the steps to the house. Inside, a woman with a badge led an older couple around the small interior room. “Sorry about the crowd,” she told them. “Sometimes professors require their students to come up here.”

“What are those blue flowers by the door?” the woman asked, and the three of them stepped outside the house to look.

I pulled Corabelle into the corner by the fireplace, catching her as she stumbled into me. “This is very disorienting,” she said.

The floor was slanted, and the walls were at opposite angles, the pictures hanging to complete the unsettling sense that you were the one off-center. Corabelle clutched my arm. “Are you feeling sick?”

“It’s strange.” My head couldn’t quite wrap around the disconnect between the tilted floors and slanted walls and the way my body tried to hold itself.

“Look up at the chandelier,” she said, still trying to find her footing.

I pulled her closer and examined the metal loops hanging from the apex of the ceiling. Seeing a straight line that matched what my brain said was up and down calmed the sensation that I was falling sideways.

“It’s like finding true north,” Corabelle said.

We still held on to each other as though we were lashed to a ship’s mast in a storm, but she no longer seemed like she was going to fall. I knew if we looked anywhere else, to the sides, or down, or even straight ahead to the door, we’d lose our balance again. But as long as we focused on the right spot, the world was manageable.

The tour guide stepped through the door. “It’s calming, isn’t it? Some people actually feel sick inside here, like the last poor couple. But if you just stare at the chandelier, you find peace within your discomfort.”

“Who built this?” Corabelle asked.

“It was installed by Do Ho Suh, an artist from Korea,” the woman said. “He wanted others to feel the disorientation that he felt coming to a new country.”

“It certainly works,” Corabelle said. Now that she had looked away from the chandelier, she gripped me hard, already starting to sway. “Do you get used to it?”

“I only volunteer here once every two weeks, so I have to adjust all over again every time. After about half an hour, I can manage. Are you here for the assignment?”

“Yes,” Corabelle said.

“The picture your professor wants you to measure is that one.” She pointed to an image of a baby, allegedly one of the deans.

Corabelle tried to step toward it and stumbled into me. I managed to catch her, but my stomach began to turn. The angled walls seemed to be falling inward. I tried staring at the floor, but the position of my feet made the confusion in my brain hit a fever pitch.

I wanted out of there, back to normal ground, where I could control things again. Screw the assignment. “Come on, Corabelle,” I said. “It looks like 27 degrees to me.”

The guide looked displeased with us, and Corabelle almost protested. But when she turned to me, something in my face changed her mind. She just said, “Thank you” to the guide as I led her out.

Once we were back on a level surface, I expelled a huge breath. “Not my thing,” I said. “Thanks for not being the usual you and insisting we do the assignment the right way.”

“You were turning kind of green.” She squeezed my arm.

I glanced back at the house. It seemed perfectly normal from the outside, well, other than the fact that it teetered on the edge of an eight-story building. Funny how something so ordinary could knock you sideways.

We reentered the hallway and waited for the elevator. “Can I make dinner for you tonight?”

“Since when do you cook?”

“I’ve got the internet. I can figure it out.”

Corabelle harrumphed. “I’ve got to see this. When do you get off?”

The doors slid open and I pulled her close to me. “As soon as you get there.” As the elevator closed, I lowered my mouth to hers.

Chapter 30: Corabelle

“Girlfriend, you have to SPILL.”

Jenny hadn’t let me so much as tie my Cool Beans apron before peppering me with questions about Gavin.

The shop was quiet midafternoon, just a few regulars. Austin was conspicuously missing. He probably decided to stop coming. Jenny perched on a stool in front of the counter covered with little table signs. She was switching the summer specials out for the fall coffees. I winced when I saw “Hot Pumpkin Spice,” which Jason had threatened to re-nickname me with.

“About time we switched out the menu,” I said.

Jenny pointed a finger at me. “No stalling. I want to know everything.”

“We seem to have gotten back together, that’s all.” All sorts of torrid scenes flashed through my head, the car, the shower, on his weight bench. But I didn’t need to share all that.

“Will you return to the dish room for a grand finale?”

I laughed. “I don’t think so.” Although I silently thought,
maybe
.

“Huh. Corabelle laughs.” Jenny stuck another cardboard sign into a metal frame. “Maybe this hunk boy isn’t such a bad thing.”

“We always used to be good together.”

“Until he walked, right?” Jenny snatched up a handful of the table signs. She handed several to me, and I followed her out into the main room.

Jenny was always quick to the point. “He did. It was bad.”

She set a frame down, cutting her eyes at me. “And you think he’s changed his ways?”

I moved to the other tables, dropping the signs in the center of each one. “We’re not teenagers anymore.”

“Doesn’t mean we grow up.” Jenny pointed to her cotton-candy hair. “I mean, look at me. Who’d guess that I’m legal to drink?”

Anger started simmering. What did Jenny know about Gavin or how he might have changed? I smacked a couple more signs on the far tables.

“Don’t start getting upset, Corabelle. I’m only worried about you. The whole time I’ve known you, you’ve been crazy cautious, ignoring anyone who glanced your way.” She slid the last frame across the corner table, the one Austin used to sit at. “Now you’re jumping in with both feet. Just strikes me as sudden.”

She weaved through the chairs. “What do you really know about Gavin, as he is right now? People can change a lot in four years, especially after something like that.”

I had changed too. Jenny didn’t know that I was the one with everything to hide. But I’d crossed that line, just like Gavin told me to, and I wouldn’t think about it anymore. It didn’t matter now. My future would not be stolen.

“I don’t know what I’m risking here, exactly,” I said. Although I did. Another pregnancy. My heart. Another disaster.

“Okay. I get it. He’s worth it.” Jenny headed back to the counter as a family of four entered the shop. “I’ll be here if it turns out he isn’t.”

Dang it. Now I was blue. I walked to the back room to check on how many beans were ground and what desserts might have been delivered for the evening shift. I didn’t appreciate being dragged from my happy-cloud, but it had to happen sometime. Gavin and I had only been back together for a day. We hadn’t exactly been put to any tests.

•*´`*•*´`*•

Gavin opened his apartment door. “Breathe the fantastic aroma of my cooking,” he said.

I yanked the price tag off his immaculate oven mitt. “I have a feeling you’re new at this.”

“I’m hoping for beginner’s luck.”

I walked inside. The old smell of sweaty socks and gym equipment had been replaced with garlic and warm bread. “I stand corrected. Maybe you can cook.”

The living room was mostly clear of workout gear, and a tablecloth covered the crates that he used as a coffee table. On it was a fat candle and two mismatched plates. “Wine for my lady?” Gavin asked, handing me a plastic stemmed cup filled with something red.

“You’re outdoing yourself,” I said.

“Not really. It’s a frozen lasagna and store-bought garlic bread. But it’s a start.” He clinked his plastic cup against mine.

I sniffed. “Something might be burning.”

He stuck his wine glass on the shelf of a listing bookcase and hurried to the kitchen. I tried not to giggle.

Gavin brought out a cookie sheet with a loaf of garlic bread, blackened on the edges. “We can eat the middle,” he said.

“Absolutely.” I moved out of his way as he set the tray on the coffee table.

“Let me check on the lasagna.”

I followed him into the kitchen. He pulled the aluminum dish out of the oven. “Looks right,” he said.

“Let me see.” I picked up a spatula and poked the surface of the noodles. The edges were bubbly and soft, but the middle was still frozen solid.

“I wrecked it, didn’t I?” he asked.

“You can put it back in.”

“But the bread is done.”

I laughed. “Don’t worry. We can eat around the edges.”

Gavin went for the plates, and I pushed through the layers to find the thawed parts. He had a microwave at least, so we could heat up the pieces if necessary.

“I’m not used to cooking anything more than leftover pizza,” he said.

I plopped a lukewarm slice of lasagna onto one plate. “You did great.”

He handed me the second plate. “You were always diplomatic.”

“Just where you’re concerned.”

We returned to the living room. “Drink faster,” Gavin said. “Then everything will taste perfect.”

“Sounds like a plan.” I lifted my glass. “To making the best of things.”

Gavin picked up his cup. “To making the best of things.”

The dinner reminded me of those two months we’d lived together, other than the wine, which made me feel light and loose before we’d finished eating. When Gavin leaned back on the sofa, drawing me into him, I let out a happy sigh. “We’ve got this now,” he said. “It’s going to be like it should have been.”

My heart rebelled. “It will never be like that. Finn changed things.”

“You’re right,” he said. “Of course. But we’re here. We’re together. We can go on now.”

I wasn’t sure if it was the wine, or the mention of the baby, but suddenly I felt like weeping. I turned my face into Gavin’s shoulder, trying to bring back my happiness, to stay on his side of the line.

“Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to act like he didn’t exist.”

I shook my head against his shirt. I didn’t want to talk about it. I didn’t want to talk at all. Instead I put my hands on either side of his face, holding him firmly, and kissed him. Gavin knew the places to go to make me forget. I could hate him for leaving, for taking away my escape. But I had him now, and I didn’t have to do this alone any longer.

He lifted my legs and swung them across his lap. “You’re wearing entirely too many clothes,” he said.

“So, take care of it.”

Gavin slid his arm beneath my knees and stood, lifting me with him. He’d always been strong, but now the workouts and mass of muscles eclipsed the body of the boy he’d been at eighteen. I held on to his neck as we moved down the hall to his bedroom, ready to revel in another night where I didn’t have to think about anything but each moment as it came.

•*´`*•*´`*•

Sometime in the night I awoke with a pain in my side, like a stitch, but lower, in my abdomen near my hip. I crawled from the bed and padded to the bathroom, wincing at the light. On the birth control shot, I didn’t bleed often, but sometimes it came lightly. I wiped carefully, grimacing at the tiny smear of pink. That wasn’t typical.

I flushed the toilet paper, trying to calm my panic. Maybe Gavin should wear a condom, make doubly certain nothing happened. I had no idea when to expect cycles and wouldn’t know if I got pregnant any more than I had the first time.

Remembering the positive test, just a week after the SAT and that period where I’d smoked more weed than a 1960s stoner, made my breath speed up out of habit. I gulped in air, trying to slow it down. I’d just drunk a half bottle of wine, and that was no better if I got pregnant and didn’t know. I hadn’t learned anything. I hadn’t grown up one bit.

I knelt on the hard tile, trying to pull myself together. But my body was used to this, and as soon as my mind wandered, I realized I was holding my breath again and my vision dissolved into black and white.

I sucked in a fast breath. I didn’t need to hit the floor here at Gavin’s. I was done with that, totally finished. I had crossed the line, and I didn’t need this anymore.

The bed squeaked. Gavin. He might come in here, see me. I scrambled to my feet, wavering when the sudden movement made the spots come. I turned on the water and splashed my face. Control. I had to get in control.

Gavin’s head poked into the doorway. “You okay, baby?”

“Yes. All good.” The towel was rough against my skin. “Time to teach you about fabric softener.”

“That’s an extra fifty cents at the laundromat.” He wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “But I guess you’re worth it.”

I turned in to him, accepting the comfort of his arms. I’d bring up the subject of condoms tomorrow.

Chapter 31: Corabelle

The week settled into a pattern. On my late work nights, we stayed at Gavin’s and he made dinner. On his late nights, we stayed at my apartment and I made something for him. We went to astronomy class together since it was our only class that day and we had time to get home and go to work separately. Tuesdays and Thursdays were my longer class days, and I stayed on campus since I was taking more coursework than him.

I started to recognize what he’d already seen that night of the ruined lasagna. We were back to where we were meant to be.