This Is What I Want to Tell You (2 page)

It’s strange here too, because in the orchard there is absolute silence, far from everything. Down the hill is the village, where the college claims square houses and brick buildings and a public high school pulls together handfuls of students from spread-out small towns. But if I run far enough, to the end of the orchard, I can see the dim tired landscape of the city. Our teachers and the Shipleys always talk about how the city was once this great industrial capital, but now it isn’t much more than boarded-up windows and gray streets. If I get on a sputtering public bus from the college, I can ride it into the city and walk the spray-painted sidewalks to a few cafés and restaurants and a record store and tall buildings with filmy glass windows. All of these businesses look a little scared to me—their polished windows cowering in between broken glass and plywood.

In the orchard, we’re sort of perched between gatehouse and big house, city and country … but even the country is on the brink of being bigger, and even the city is basically on the edge of falling apart.

Sometimes I feel like I know the orchard better in the dark than in the daylight. That summer I started running at night; there was always some light from the stars, but I didn’t need it. I could feel the ground almost better than I could see the path. The field sloped gradually down to the first row of trees and then, once I entered that first row, I’d hold my arms out, falling a little bit, pushing off from one tree to the next. After I ran, I’d rest, leaning against the crumbling edge of the stone wall—the stone was cool and smooth. I loved this part of night—the darkest part. Some people were scared of it. Some kind of light always filtered through, some kind of sound always reminded you that life was moving around you. Sometimes I’d feel around me for a stone or a twig and throw it deeper into the woods, just to wake up, just to connect to something.

That’s where I was the night Keeley came in. She brushed through a break in the trees and then she was just standing there, like she’d been standing there all along, a long heavy brown sweater wrapped around her. The sweater was thick and old, but inside it she looked leaner and smoother and—different—like someone I was just meeting for the first time. She smiled. She held her hand out then she dropped it.

Hi, she said.

Hi. I took a step forward.

How was your summer?

I looked at her. It took me a minute to realize she’d said something. It took me longer to realize what it was. A piece of hair fell over her eyes, longer and lighter than I remembered.

Oh, it was good. Fine.

She smiled. Her smile was always easy. She pulled her hands inside her sleeves.

Which?

Which what?

Good or fine?

Was she being funny? I tried to smile.

Good. Good, I said.

She pushed her hair behind her ears. She moved closer, sitting down slowly on the stone wall. I turned. I was standing over her now.

And Noelle? she asked.

You haven’t seen her yet?

Well, I came to see her. She gestured behind her without looking. But then I saw you.

She paused.

And I wanted to say hi.

She couldn’t have seen me. It was dark. I was deep into the orchard. But I didn’t want to think about that.

Oh, she’s good. She’s … she’ll be really happy to see you. I’m not sure where she is but, you know, she’s really good. She’s been working at the ice cream place.

I couldn’t sit down. I pressed my foot back and forth, heel toe, pushing the mud down.

I could tell Keeley didn’t believe me.

Will you sit down with me? She patted the wall next to her.

Okay, I said. I sat.

You look good. She looked at me sideways. What did you do all summer?

Oh, I ran.

There was something about her voice. It was like she’d gone away and then she’d come back with some completely other person inside her skin.

She smiled, laughing a little with her lips closed.

From what?

Oh no, I—I stopped.

She was making a joke. She was joking. What was wrong with me?

Me too, she said. I ran every morning—there are all of these fields in Oxford, grazing cows and everything. It made me feel less homesick. Maybe we can run together some time?

How was your summer? I’d forgotten to ask.

She turned away and brought her sleeves up to her face. She stood up and walked back to the line of trees.

It was summer.

Suddenly, I didn’t want her that far away. It was like the air between us was getting thinner and thinner. All of my muscles and joints were heavy, burrowing into the mud, my skin didn’t fit, I couldn’t move. Suddenly, I couldn’t move.

She turned around.

Are you coming back up to the house?

I could feel the mud around my feet. My hands on the cold wall.

She tilted her head.

Nadio?

I couldn’t move.

She looked at me for another second. Then she came back toward me. She knelt down in front of me and pushed her hands down on my thighs. She leaned in. This was a girl I didn’t know. Who was she? She pressed on my thighs until I could feel my feet and started to move them. She kept pressing until my feet and legs and hands came back to life. She kept pressing and looking at me with her hair over her eyes. I lifted my hands up and put them on either side of her face. She breathed against my hands and closed her eyes. I leaned in and kissed her.

I don’t know what happened with my brother that summer. I wish I could explain it. It was like, from the very day Keeley left, we didn’t know what to do with each other.

Do you want to do the Snake Mountain hike? he asked me at the beginning of the summer, the Saturday after she left. We always did the Snake Mountain hike. Lace would pack us granola bars and Keeley would make mozzarella sandwiches and Nadio would carry it all in his backpack.

But I didn’t. I didn’t feel like hiking.

So we rode our bikes into town and got iced coffees and drank them on the porch of the Coyote Café, but we didn’t have anything to say. We sat on the porch, our legs hanging over the edge, plastic cups sweating in our hands, and I looked down: four feet encased in black Converse, and all of a sudden his feet were bigger, his feet were unfamiliar.

I’m gonna see about getting a job at the Cree-Mee stand, I said. I’d never thought about getting a job but right then I knew I needed one.

Okay, he said.

He looked over at our bikes, tied to the post office fence. It looked funny, two bikes tangled awkwardly. We were too old for bikes anyway. Young for our grade, we had to wait until we turned sixteen in October to take our driving test, but we were still too old for bikes.

I’m gonna go for a run, he said.

He kicked his feet to the ground and started toward his bike. He turned around. I was still sitting on the porch.

Hey, Nole. Tonight let’s go get a pizza.

Okay, I said. I felt relieved.

But we never got a pizza. I got a job at the Cree-Mee stand that morning and started work right away. After work, Jessica Marino invited me to get a pizza. Then she gave me a ride home. We left my bike tied to the post office fence.

The night Keeley came home, I know part of me felt like it wasn’t fair that she’d left me and had this whole life. Now I’m sorry I wasn’t there. But I’m not sorry I met Parker.

By the time I came back from the party that night, everyone was asleep. There were no lights on in our house or hers, and I was floating on the feeling of Parker’s fingertips on my thigh.

The next morning Keeley came down the hill for breakfast. When I came downstairs, she was already sitting at the table with Lace and Nadio. Lace was standing over her slicing a peach into her cereal bowl, one sliver at a time, like she did when we were kids, like Keeley couldn’t hold a knife herself. Nadio was sitting on the other side of the table with his chin on his hands. Nadio and Lace were both staring at Keeley like she’d said something amazing. Both of their eyes were fixed on her. No one heard me come in. I don’t even think anyone was talking.

Hi, I said.

Keeley looked up. She was wearing her running shorts and a man’s T-shirt and her hair was in a ponytail. It looked blonder—she looked blonder. I mean she was lighter somehow. I can’t explain it.

She stared at me for a second and then she jumped up.

Noelle!

She hugged me. I could already feel there was something there, something like cold air between us. I hugged her back and then we both pulled away and looked at each other. Lace and Nadio watched us.

Well? I said.

Where were you last night? she said at the same time.

I was out. I’m sorry. I just totally forgot last night was the night …

I sent you like three texts before I got on the plane, she said.

I know, my phone—but I couldn’t even finish.

Nadio was glaring at me.

It’s okay. I’m just happy to see you.

I can drive you all into town, Lace said quietly. To buy—what do you need for school?

Thanks, Mom, Nadio said.

It felt strange, everybody involved in Keeley’s coming home. She was my best friend. Now everybody was standing around, watching us, trying to make plans for us.

I need a new bag, I said.

Keeley looked relieved.

Wait, she said. I can drive!

Keeley had gotten her license just before she went to Oxford. But she’d never had a chance to drive us anywhere. I felt like something was left out of this moment—that the feeling of us driving somewhere, not being driven, should have felt bigger than it did.

Okay, I said.

Great, she said. Lemme just go get some money from my parents.

I’m gonna get dressed, I said.

Nadio stood up.

I’ll go get my wallet, he said.

We all turned.

What? he said. I need notebooks.

I should have known then. We did stuff together, always had. But not shopping. Not on Keeley’s first day back.

In the car, Nadio sat in the back seat and I sat in the front with Keeley. I watched her hands. She looked like she’d always been driving. That was how she was, I thought then, everything was natural for her. It was that way when Lace taught us how to ride bikes. Lace taught us all those things when we were little and Keeley’s parents were working and Keeley, some days, would have breakfast, lunch and dinner at our house. One day after peanut-butter-and-honey sandwiches, we all followed Lace out to the dirt driveway. There was one bike, it must have been Keeley’s, and I pedaled, terrified and wobbling, Lace gripping the back of the seat, and when she let go I just crashed onto my side. But with Keeley, Lace never even held on to the seat. She steadied the bike and Keeley clamped her feet on the pedals and suddenly she was moving, away from us. The three of us watched her pumping her legs up the driveway, upright, no hands, no training wheels. Natural.

Keeley was wearing brown boots and a loose white skirt. I’d never seen her wear anything like that before.

You never wrote back to any of my emails, she whispered. Then she giggled.

I know, I said. I could never sit down long enough to type—you know I was working.

I know, she said. She looked straight ahead.

I turned up the radio.

I tried to go online, I said. Every time I went on, you weren’t there.

The time difference … Her voice trailed off.

She blinked and looked at me, smiling, and quickly turned back to the road.

Anyway, now I’m back! Something in her voice seemed wrong.

What did you DO all summer? she whispered.

Nothing, hung out. You know.

I couldn’t figure out why I felt mad at her.