The Rest of Us Just Live Here (22 page)

She stops because she’s seen Tony Kim. He’s coming over to us. I feel her immediately soften.

“Hey, Henna,” he says.

She gets a really tender smile on her face. “Hey, Tony.”

I know Tony came to the prom with Vanessa Wright, the ex of mine and the girl who I lost my (and her) virginity with, but he’s not with her right now. It’s kind of a shock to see him. He really dropped away after Henna broke up with him.

“Long time no see,” I say.

“Hey, Mike,” he says, his face tight. I know how it must look, me here with Henna on this couch. He must have known – since everybody does – how much I’ve mooned after Henna all these years. And here we are, together, at prom. Looking like dates. Part of me actually wants to explain that, no, really, I have no idea what’s going on with me and Henna, that I think she’s still after this Nathan guy, that I’m even more confused now than ever, that Henna herself probably doesn’t even know how she feels and from what she’s told me, she’s kind of okay with not knowing right now.

I don’t say any of that, though.

“You look incredible,” Tony says to her.

“Thanks,” she says, warmly. “You look great, too.”

This is true. Tony is stupidly handsome but not in an arrogant way. He was always a nice guy. Always good with Henna and to her. They were really beautiful together. Even now, because I can see how hurt he still is without her.

Well,
tough
, though. Right?

“So,” he says, sticking his hands in his pockets, looking a little uncomfortable. “Prom, eh?”

“Yeah,” Henna says.

He looks over to me but doesn’t say anything.

“We’re not here together,” Henna says, maybe a little too firmly. “I mean, we
are
, but we came as a group. Mike and his sister. Jared.”

Tony nods. “Saw you guys dancing.”

“Where’s Vanessa?” I ask. Everyone frowns at me for this.

“Getting a drink,” Tony says, looking around as if he could see her. “I think. Listen, Henna–”

“Tony–”

“I just wanted to–”

“I can’t do this, Tony.”

“I just want to call you sometime,” he gets out. “Just to talk. That’s all. No pressure, nothing. I just… I miss you.”

Henna bites her lower lip. “I miss you, too, Tony.”

He smiles, really sadly.

“It’d be great if you called me,” Henna says. “Before I go to Africa. That’d be great.”

He nods. “See you,” he says, shuffling away.

Henna watches him go. “Poor guy.”

“I guess so,” I say, a little too hard.

“For someone I’ve never dated,” Henna says, rising, “you feel entitled to
way
too much jealousy.”

I have to rush after her to catch up.

The Hummer waits for us. Our driver is called Antonio, and he opens the doors while we’re on our way over. Henna and I get in and wait for Jared and Nathan, still dancing inside.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“It’s okay,” Henna says, leaning against me in the giant Hummer seat. “Actually, it was pretty nice having everyone think you were my date.”

“Yeah.”

She puts her arm through mine. “So why don’t we just say that you were?”

“What about Nathan?”

She looks up at me. She smiles, then shakes her head.

“What?” I say.

But then she’s looking past me, out the open door. I assume it’s Jared and Nathan coming, but she points to the far exit of the gym where the dance is being held.

A door is open in the dark. A girl I recognize from school whose name I can’t remember comes out, crying. A boy I’ve never seen before has his arm around her, comforting her.

Blue light flickers in the doorway behind them, then vanishes.

“They’re not in prom clothes,” Henna says.

“You know what?” I say, getting out of the seat. “I’m going to go find out what the hell is going on–”

“Mike, don’t–”

“Where are you going?” Jared says, showing up with Nathan and accidentally blocking the exit.

“To talk to them,” I say, looking over his shoulder.

But when we turn to look, they’re gone.

“I think I want to get out of here, Mike,” Henna says, pulling at my arm, getting me back in my seat. “I think I really do.”

And I can’t argue with her.

I never could.

“There’s a smell,” Nathan says, entering the cabin.

“Otter,” Jared says. “Sorry.”

Nathan winces. “No, I didn’t mean… It’s not a
bad
smell–”

“Just musky,” Mel says, handing everyone a beer, which Mr Shurin stocked up for us. I know that lots of children of alcoholics become alcoholics themselves and maybe that’ll happen one day to me or Mel, but we kind of figure with her eating issues and my anxiety issues, we’re already covered. (We hope for the best with Meredith, like we do with everything else.) I wasn’t kidding before, though; none of us really like to drink all that much.

Except Nathan, it turns out. He downs his beer in one like it’s a challenge, does that end-of-drinking gasp, and reaches for another. He sees us all staring at him. “What?” he says. “Oh.” He takes the second one and sips it.

“Music?” Mel says, taking a phone out of her bag and plugging it in. Tunes start to play, quietly, not dancy, just good stuff. The cabin has a small main room with a sofa and a little kitchen. There are two tiny bedrooms, which means at least some of us are going to have to sleep on the couch. I already assume one of them’s me.

“What is there to do up here?” Nathan asks. “Not being a dick, just genuinely wondering.”

“Eat, for one thing,” Jared says, opening the fridge.

“Oh, God bless you, Mr Shurin,” Henna says, next to him, taking out some steaks.

Call Me Steve and Jared end up doing the cooking. The rest of us change out of our formal wear. Everyone but Nathan switches to soft drinks. None of us has eaten for about eight hours and the steaks smell so ridiculously good, we hover in the main room like incredibly serious hyenas. “I will start gnawing on your shoulder if this takes much longer, Jared,” Henna says. “I’m not kidding.”

“Ask and ye shall receive,” says Steve, dishing up a bunch of plates. I should probably stop calling him Call Me.

The dinner is, in its own way, better than anything we’d have got in a restaurant. Mr Shurin is so awesome he remembered everything: steak sauce, napkins, salt and pepper. Even salad and salad dressing.

“I wish he was
our
dad,” I say.

“You get who you get,” Mel says.

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I know.”

There’s a TV in the cabin, though it’s so old it’s not even flat. Hooked up to it is – are you ready for this? – a VCR. An actual VCR that you put cassettes into. I’m pretty sure you can’t even buy those any more. There are a few cassettes at the cabin, too, all of which I remember from when I started coming out here to the cabin with Jared as a kid.

“We’ve got
Pretty Woman
,” Nathan reads, drinking another beer. “Or
Tremors
.”

“
Tremors
,” five of us say at once.

So for a while, it’s just steaks and
Tremors
. The sound of people eating and the sound of people being eaten.

Who’d have thought that would actually sound sort of happy?

“Are you kidding me?” Call Me … um, just plain old
Steve
says, when Jared comes out of one of the bedrooms in his swimsuit.

“It’s almost summer,” Jared says, smiling.

“It’s May,” says Steve. “At night. And that lake is fed by a glacier.”

“It’s June tomorrow, and I’ve been swimming in that lake my entire life, Doc,” Jared says. “Who’s with me?”

“I’m not allowed yet,” Henna says, patting her tattoo.

“You’re also wearing a cast,” I say.

Henna looks at her arm, almost in surprise. “I’ve gotten so used to it, I forget it’s there.” Her eyes widen. “I’m going to have to walk down the graduation aisle with it.”

“I’m up for a swim,” Mel says, standing.

“Are you sure?” Steve says. “You don’t really have the body fat.” There’s an awkward pause at this. Steve back-pedals. “I’m just speaking
medically
–”

“That’s okay,” Mel says. “It’s sweet. You can apologize by getting in the lake.”

“I didn’t bring a swimsuit.”

“Oh, we don’t wear suits in the lake,” Jared says, mischievously. “This is just for show.”

“It’s dark,” Mel says. “You’ll be fine.”

“Seriously?” Steve says.

“I’ll come, too,” I say.

“And me,” says Nathan, but he wobbles a little bit and has to sit back down.

“I don’t think so,” Jared says, in a way that Nathan doesn’t disagree with.

We head out to the water’s edge, even the non-swimmers. There are a few other cabins along the shore, but ours is the only one with a light on. It’s a bit early in the season, and even that word, “season”, isn’t quite right. These are cabins for people who probably can’t make it out on a Friday night to begin with because they’re working late to pay for the cabin they can’t quite afford. Mr Shurin inherited his from his father, but even then, it hasn’t had a new paint job in my lifetime.

Nathan and Henna sit on a log, huddling next to each other, even though it really isn’t cold out here. He even puts his arm around her.

“Quit staring,” Jared says, dragging me down to the little dock that serves this cabin and a bunch of others. He’s the first one in, shucking off his swimsuit and jumping into the black water in a cannonball of his big, hairy body. The splash hits us on the dock and is unbelievably cold. Jared pops up, gasping. “Now,
that
will wake you up.”

I take off my clothes and jump in next, keeping my back to my sister and Steve to give us all some privacy. The water is a shock, it’s true, but not as bad as I was fearing. I surface and start to freestyle swim out a ways to warm myself up. By the time I swim back in, Steve and Mel are in the water, Steve not too happily.

“My family is from Honduras!” he shouts. “Where the ocean is
warm
!”

“Have you ever been to Honduras?” Mel asks him, her teeth chattering.

Steve smiles. “Shut up.”

I swim over to where Jared is treading water. He’s watching Nathan and Henna. They’re just leaning against each other, talking, lit up by the single outside light from Mr Shurin’s cabin. “Hey, Henna!” Jared calls. “Turn off the light. Let’s just have the light of the moon!”

“Ooh, good idea,” she says, leaving Nathan on the log by himself.

“Thanks,” I say to Jared.

He looks a little surprised. “For what?”

The light goes off and the effect is sort of incredible. The sky is clear aside from just the fewest clouds lingering around the summit of the big Mountain. Otherwise it’s just the moon, not even full, but when that’s all there is, nothing else competing with it, it’s bright enough that our heads cast shadows on the water.

“I think I’ve endured enough fun,” we hear Steve say, and he climbs back up on the dock. His body is a little heavy but almost completely hairless. He’s got a little paunch that I bet he’ll never get rid of. It makes him seem like the most normal guy in the world. I kind of love him for it. He wraps a towel around himself quickly, then holds one open for Mel to step into as she gets out of the water, too.

“
Is
this an endurance test?” I say to Jared. He smiles and splashes me with his hands. I’m enjoying it, but I can already feel how I won’t be in five minutes. I start to swim back to the dock to get out. That’s when Nathan stands up from the log.