The Sweetest Thing You Can Sing (20 page)

Gage gives me a pointed look. “If we’re just friends we don’t need to be alone, do we?”

Friends can cuddle, maybe. But I’m scared to say it in case he thinks I really mean something else.

I grab the ketchup and flip the lid open for no particular reason. “I just miss being close to you,” I admit at last. “I didn’t mean anything else.”

Gage spreads his legs out under the table so that they’re touching mine. “I miss that too.” I feel the full weight of his stare on me. It feels like sunshine. He reaches out to hold my hand on top of the table and he’s warm like sunshine too.

I squeeze his fingers and say, “If you start going out with someone else during the next two months I’m going to kill you.”

Gage flashes a broad grin. “Where am I going to find someone who’ll put up with me?”

“Good point, but what do I know, I’m not even old enough to drive.”

Gage groans and covers his face with his fingers, smile still visible between the cracks. “Thanks for the reminder, Serena. Am I going to hear about how young you are every time I see you for the next two months?”

“I’d actually prefer if you forgot about that but I guess that’s not going to happen any time soon.”

“Nope,” Gage says confidently. “It’s not.”

“You never told me when your birthday was, you know.”

“September ninth,” he says.

That means there’s three and a half years between us. The number doesn’t sound like that big of a deal to me, but if you’re the kind of person to worry about numbers I guess I could see why three and a half would ring more alarm bells than two.

I grab the bill from the middle of the table and announce, “It’s on me this time.”

“No, it’s not,” Gage counters, reaching for the bill too. “C’mon, you didn’t even eat anything.”

We both cling stubbornly to the diner bill, which doesn’t even amount to ten dollars, like it’s profoundly meaningful.

“You always pay,” I tell him. “It’s not fair.” So he’s older than me and he’s a guy; I’m not going to allow those things to define every single aspect of our relationship. “I’m not planning on letting go, so unless you want to sit here all night …”

Gage looks me in the eye, judges me serious, and releases his hold on our bill. “All right. Thanks.”

There’s still another hour before I have to be home and Gage says if it wasn’t so cold we could just walk around or something. “I wish people would keep Christmas lights up all winter long,” he adds. “Not the reindeer and other decorations, just the lights. Maybe then winter wouldn’t seem so long.”

“You don’t like winter?”

“I don’t mind the cold,” he says. “I just don’t like the short days. By the time I get off work the sunlight’s gone.”

“I hate that too, but we can walk for a bit if you want. It won’t be any colder than skating.”

Gage nods but says, “We can go back to my place and hang out there if you want — just, you know how it is, right?”

I nod solemnly, but I guess part of me thinks he’ll back me up against the kitchen counter and kiss me until my lips are numb anyway because I’m surprised when it doesn’t happen. Instead we sit on the couch and flip channels. Gage is different from other guys I’ve known in lots of ways but he’s exactly the same when it comes to the remote.

He says it’s because there’s nothing good on and hands the remote over before heading off to the bathroom. There’s an open
DVD
case on top of the
TV
stand and I amble over to check out what it is. Someone has printed “
AC-JAN
” on the
DVD
in black marker. Akayla Cochrane? Curious, I slide the
DVD
into the player and it immediately starts playing.

Akayla’s standing in her bedroom, her hair in twin braids, grinning toothily at the camera. Her room, which I’ve never seen in real life, is decorated with perfect painted likenesses of Babar characters — Babar, Celeste, Zephir, Pom. I’m surprised I remember their names, and now that I’ve seen their images on screen I know I won’t be able to resist taking a real life peek at the bits of the room I can’t see on the
DVD
.

“I don’t know what to sing,” Akayla squeals, hopping up and down. “You sing with me, Dad! You start.”

Gage laughs from behind the camcorder. “I’m the cameraman,” he says. “You do the singing. You’re better than I am.”

“But you sing with me,” Akayla insists, and that’s all it takes to get Gage (invisible behind the camera) to sing a duet of “Nobody Likes Me (Guess I’ll Go Eat Worms)” with his daughter. Akayla does an uncoordinated little dance as she sings, stretching her arms out to suggest the girth of the big fat ones and later dangling tiny invisible ones into her mouth and chomping down on them.

By the end of the song she’s collapsed, face down, into giggles on her bed and Gage is laughing louder and saying, “That’s a gross song. Who wants to eat worms? You don’t even like to look at them. Sing something nice.”

“Like what?” Akayla looks up at the camera. “I know!” She begins singing “On Top of Spaghetti”
substituting the word
poopses
for
meatball
. I start to giggle at the ridiculousness of it myself, and by the time Gage joins me in the family room again I have tears streaming down my face from watching Akayla sing her icky but hilarious poopses song. It’s not so much what she’s saying that’s funny, but how much it’s cracking her up.

Gage shakes his head as he sits down next to me, the trace of a smile on his lips. “She’s obsessed with everything related to poo,” he comments. He doesn’t seem to mind that I’ve stuck in the
DVD
and adds, “The next part is actually good. Here …” He swipes the remote from the coffee table and fast forwards a bit.

“This time something sweet, okay?” off-screen Gage suggests from the
TV
. “What’s the sweetest thing you can sing?” He answers his own question. “Okay, I got something. I’ll get you started again.”

Oh, I know this one too. He’s started into “Sing,” which is one of those songs you grow up feeling like you’ve known all your life. He’s right; it probably is the sweetest thing
anyone
can sing, and when Akayla joins in she does a good job, like she’s taking this one seriously. She sways gently on her heels, tilting her head as her big brown eyes stare earnestly into the camera.

The two of them sound so adorable together that I want to throw my arms around Gage and crush him in an everlasting hug. He stops the
DVD
just after he and Akayla deliver the last line. “She’s really cute,” I say, restraining myself admirably, “even when she’s singing about poop.”

“Believe it or not, that does get old,” Gage says, making a face. “But yeah, she’s cute.”

“I guess she must get that from Christabelle,” I tease.

“She must,” Gage agrees, but his eyes are sparkling. “How come I’m getting the feeling the next two months are going to be the longest on record?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

~

GAGE DID KISS ME
good night but it was short …
and different, like he was making it clear there was no chance it would get out of hand. He let me look at Akayla’s room too. Her ceiling’s painted with puffy white clouds against a blue sky backdrop, and the walls, like I described before, are filled with Babar characters and a landscape of mountains and trees. Gage told me Akayla’s uncle, Damien, did it for her and that he’s in his second year of art school.

Later I dream about that blue sky, but the second I wake up the rest of the dream is swept away, only that single image remaining. This is the day that I’m going to tell my friends about Gage; somehow I know it when I open my eyes, a corner of my mind still meditating on calm blue skies.

No excuses. Today I’m not coming home with my secret.

The first person I see at school in the morning is Aya, and I want to troop over to her and start blabbing my secret history of the past thirty days, just to get the initial telling over and done with. But she’s not alone. Aya and Joyeux Maduka are strolling down the hall together, looking like shiny happy people, and I wave at them as I pass, not wanting to interrupt. Izzy’s in my first period history class, but telling her before Genevieve or Nicole doesn’t seem right so it’s lunch before I get anywhere near the subject.

I hang out by the cafeteria door and nab Genevieve when she approaches. “I have to talk to you,” I yelp. “Have you seen Nicole?”

“No.” Genevieve squints as me. “Are you okay?”

“I’m good. I just want to talk to you two — alone.”

“Sounds serious,” Genevieve comments, flicking her hair back behind her ears as her eyes try to pin me down. “What’s going on?”

“Let’s wait for Nicole. I just want to do this once.”

We don’t have to wait long for Nicole, whose deep frown doesn’t disappear at the sight of us lounging around outside the cafeteria. “What?” she asks in a wary voice. “Why are you guys looking at me like that?”

Genevieve shrugs and glances at me. “Serena has something she wants to talk about.”

“Can we go to your car?” I squeak, focusing on Genevieve.

The three of us zoom towards her Honda, Genevieve and Nicole eyeing me carefully, like they expect me to burst into tears. We climb into the back seat together, because it seems like the easiest configuration for conversation. Then Nicole, her frown replaced by an expression of concern, says, “Is it Devin? Did you hear something?”

“It’s not Devin.” My lips feel like they’re cracking. If my friends weren’t staring at me with such high-definition intensity I’d ask whether either of them had lip gloss. “And it’s not something bad.”

Genevieve and Nicole swap confused looks.

“I met a guy,” I confess. “At the store. And I know we had this thing about not seeing anyone because most of the guys we know happen to be dicks but he’s not like that.” I can’t seem to stop talking. “At all. He’s really nice. And he’s not even interested in having sex. In fact, he
won’t
. And we’re at a point now where he’ll barely even touch me so —”

“Back up,” Genevieve commands. “What do you mean you’re
at a point now
? How long have you been seeing this guy?” Her blue eyes are a frosty match for her tone, and Nicole, on Genevieve’s other side, is staring at me with her mouth open.

“Not that long.”

“
How
long?” Nicole asks, clenching her lips shut as soon as she gets the words out.

“About a month, I guess.”

Genevieve slides her right hand under her chin and says, “So that means you were single after Jacob for an entire two months.”

I fold my hands tightly over my abdomen. “I knew you’d say I told you so. Why do you think it took me a month to mention it?”

“It’s a bit hard to avoid saying I told you so when you turn around and act like a cliché,” Genevieve retorts.

“Wait!” Nicole exclaims. “That guy in the car! Orlando was telling the truth and you let me stand there and go off on him for no reason. You let us stick up for you, acting all self-righteous when you knew all along he was telling the truth.”

“He wasn’t telling the truth,” I protest. “We were in Gage’s car but nothing happened. Seriously. Orlando could’ve spotted us together but he didn’t see anything else.”

“That’s kind of beside the point anyway,” Genevieve says to Nicole. “Even if she did blow him in the car it doesn’t give Orlando the right to make her sound like a slut. You, of all people, should know that.”

Nicole’s eyes blaze. “Me of all people? Who put you on your pedestal? God, Genevieve, you really think you’re miles above us all, don’t you?” This isn’t the kind of thing Nicole would normally say to Genevieve but she’s clearly pissed.

Genevieve tosses her hair back and levels a
don’t bother screwing with me
look at Nicole. Then she slings her gaze back to me and says, “Did you just say Gage? Gage
who
?”

“Gage Cochrane,” I reply, my fingers cold and my stomach sinking. “He used to go to school here. He graduated a few years ago.”

“I was afraid you were going to say that.” Genevieve blinks steadily at me. “Do you know he has a kid?”

“I know.” My stomach gurgles.

Genevieve’s face crumbles like I’m beyond hope. “You
know
? You know the
oh so amazing perfect gentleman
you’ve been talking about has a kid with someone else and you don’t see that as some kind of issue?”

“I never said he was perfect. But you don’t know him — he’s a really nice guy.”

“I know
you
, and after Jacob I would’ve thought you’d know better than to hook up with someone that’s only going to dump a whole other set of problems on you.” Genevieve shakes her head. “A
nice
guy who barely sees his kid for years — uh, I don’t think so, Serena. Sorry, but it doesn’t sound like you have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“You don’t know him,” I repeat, but now I’m not so sure. Genevieve and Gage would’ve had a year’s overlap in school and obviously she’s heard certain things. Bad things.

“I don’t care about him,” Genevieve says. “You’re the one I’m worried about.”

Nicole wriggles abruptly in her seat, her forehead flushed. “I’ve heard enough. I’m getting out of the car.”

“Nic?” I swing the door open and follow her. “Don’t be mad. I wanted to tell you earlier. I just … we’ve been so …”

“
We
haven’t been anything,” Nicole says. “You’ve been off doing your own thing, which is …
whatever
… you still could’ve said something.”

Genevieve catches up with Nicole and the two of them stalk off across the parking lot leaving me in the distance feeling lost and alone. Eventually I end up back inside the cafeteria where Nicole and Genevieve are sitting with Izzy and Marguerite, giving me heated looks.

I scan the room for somewhere else to sit, knowing that I won’t be able to eat a bite. Aya waves at me from a table near the middle of the cafeteria, tossing me a life preserver, but I’m not emotionally prepared to spill my story all over again. I bolt into the hall and head for the only truly quiet spot I can think of.

A clump of people are sitting near the library sign-out desk and I hurtle past them, grab a horror paperback, and plunk myself into a chair near a window. I knew telling Genevieve and Nicole the truth would be hard. I guess I even knew it could be
this
hard, but then I think about what Genevieve said about Gage barely seeing his daughter for years, and I have to wonder, once again, if I really know a damn thing.

***

After school I curl up in the high-backed office chair in Mom’s den and stare at her army of Swarovski figurines. Maybe if I’m still sitting here when she gets home she’ll ask what’s wrong and I’ll actually tell her. I cradle a crystal Dalmatian puppy in my palm and try to imagine how possessing it, or hundreds like it, could fill the hole inside me.

Some days the hole seems bigger than others. I used to think that if Devin came back it would seal up instantly, but now I think it was there before he left. I miss him, but he didn’t create the emptiness inside me. Maybe he just recognized it better than other people did.

I get restless waiting for Mom and slip my cell out of my knapsack to check for messages. Nobody’s called, and for the second time in less than a week I dial Jimmy on impulse. “Hey you!” he says brightly. “You know, I was just thinking we should have you over for dinner soon. What’s your favourite food?”

“Italian stuff I shouldn’t really be eating,” I tell him.

“You can indulge for one night. I’m not going to be pushy and suggest you bring Gage but how’s that going?”

I bite my nails and repeat my earlier conversation with Genevieve and Nicole, complete with Genevieve’s comment about Gage hardly seeing his daughter for years.

“Oh dear!” Jimmy says. “They’re incensed you didn’t share with them earlier.”

“Just a little.” What would I do without sarcasm?

“But about his daughter,” Jimmy begins. I hear another voice in the background, and then Jimmy says, “Morgan just came in. Have you told him any of this yet?”

“It’s like I said before, we just don’t talk like that, Jimmy. He knows I’m seeing someone, but I haven’t shared the details.”

That’s the moment when my mother strides into the den and stares down her nose at me. I’m holding my cell in one hand and her precious crystal Dalmatian in the other and I glance at her displeased expression, pull the phone away from my ear, and tell her I’ll get out of her way. “Here,” I say, pressing the Dalmatian into her hand.

I feel like crying as I walk away, which is how I’ve been feeling on and off for the past few hours only I’ve made up my mind that I won’t let myself break over a difference in opinion. If my friends are my friends they’ll get over their anger, and if they don’t, they never really were. And if Gage isn’t the person I think he is all the hoping and wishing on my part won’t change him. Maybe being a better version of myself means caring less about all of them and how they see me.

“You’ll come over, though?” Jimmy asks. “If I suggest having you over for dinner to Morgan?”

“I’ll come,” I promise, taking the stairs to my room two at a time. “But please don’t do Italian food unless it’s chicken breasts or salad, okay? I’ll only eat too much and then be mad at myself later. And don’t tell Morgan anything about Gage.”

“I won’t breathe a word! And we’ll be good and have low-fat everything if that’s what you want.”

Apparently that’s what I want. Maybe I should be okay with being fat again too, should that happen, but I’d really rather not. I’m not sure whether the hole inside me is a result of being chubby for years and feeling people judge me for it or vice versa. When you spend so long inside a situation the facts surrounding it blur and swirl so that all you can see is haze.

I tell Jimmy goodbye, and when I turn around my mother’s standing in the hallway in a long burgundy cardigan she bought on sale last winter. “Are you all right?” she asks, studying my face. Mom’s already put on her cozy slippers and I stare down at her feet and nod. Aside from her ever-expanding crystal collection she hasn’t bought anything new for herself since June. Doctor Berkovich should advise her to go shopping.

“You’re not still angry with me, are you?” she ventures. I spy the apprehension in her eyes, and I can’t remember the last time I gave my mother a hug for no special reason. Surprising myself, I step into the hall and wrap my arms around her back.

She sensed I was upset and followed me out of her den today. That’s occasion enough.