Where the Staircase Ends (9 page)

“Dunno,” I answered with a shrug. “Sunny wants to, so maybe.”

“So you’re not going with Justin?” His hand was on his hip and his face pinched into a judgmental scowl.

“No, of course not. What’s with the interrogation?”

He made another face and shook his head instead of answering.

“I think I’m going, too,” he said after a few seconds of staring off into space with his face scrunched up.

What I wanted to say was “ARRGG!” or “GAH!” or something similar so he’d know how frustrating he was, but instead I forced a smile so he’d think I was happy and couldn’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday night than with him at The Fields.

“I thought you hated going to The Fields?” I asked innocently, inspecting my nails so I wouldn’t look bothered that he was behaving like Emily Dickinson’s interposing fly by butting into my plans with Justin.

“Yeah, well, what kind of boyfriend would I be if I didn’t hang out with my girlfriend on a Saturday night?” He said
boyfriend
and
girlfriend
with a little more force than I thought was necessary. “See you after class,” he added, leaving me standing there in front of history class with my jaw working overtime.

Sunny sat at her desk watching me with rapt attention, having seen the whole awkward exchange from the classroom. My butt was barely in my seat before I felt my cellphone buzzing. I slipped it stealthily from my bag, and sure enough, it was a text from Sunny.

Sunny: WTF WAS HIS PROBLEM?

I shook my head at her, trying to look too upset to talk about it, but the worst thing you could do to Sunny was not answer her when she wanted to know something. After she threw the twelfth piece of wadded up paper at me, I finally gave in.

Me: He wants to go to fields w us Saturday.

Sunny: ? why? thought he hated the fields?

Me: Dunno. Guess he changed his mind.

Sunny: Liar.

Me: >:-(

Sunny: Spill. BTW, U -> boogie

I rubbed my nose.

Me: He heard Justin say he was going … do i really?

Sunny: !!! No was just F ing w you. U deserve it for holding out.

Sunny: Justin is going to be at the Fields??? HFS need to go shopping.

Sunny: Want to go shopping Saturday?

Me: Can’t. Have to study.

That wasn’t entirely true. My mom would probably tether me to my books for at least a few hours, but I didn’t have anything due the next week. Even she couldn’t force me to do work when there wasn’t any work to do. But I would rather spend the afternoon reading encyclopedias for my mother’s benefit than helping Sunny find and squeeze into some slutty H&M dress she bought for Justin’s visual benefit. No thank you.

Sunny: Ur mom is a slave driver. Pre-party @ my house?

Me: k. Will come over after dinner.

Sunny: Amber and Jenny r coming so you can prob come later if you need. Those bitches r always late.

Me: Good point

* * *

After school we made our usual trip out to the water tower, nodding at all the familiars and adding to the growing cloud of smoke that hovered over the area like a fog. The water tower was located right off school grounds, far enough from the prying eyes of teachers to make it interesting and close enough to school to make it convenient. We had to crawl through a rip in the chain-link fence surrounding the school parking lot to get to it, which was annoying because only one person could crawl through at a time, and a line started to form shortly after the final bell rang.

We missed the line that day, thank God, because it was totally embarrassing when I had to shimmy through the small space while an impatient line of people watched from behind. There was no way to do it gracefully, and God forbid you should decide to wear a skirt the way I happened to do on that particular day.

“So, what gives?” asked Sunny, leaning into one of the surrounding hedges so she could light her cigarette without interference from the wind. She exhaled through her nose, and the smoke swirling out of her nostrils made her look like an angry bull getting ready to charge. “Why were you and Logan fighting before class?”

I was surprised it took Sunny so long to ask me. I’d waited for the question since leaving class. As a general rule, Sunny didn’t like not knowing things, and when said
things
involved a guy she was interested in (namely Justin) she
really
didn’t like not knowing the details.

“We weren’t fighting,” I said, taking the cigarette from her when she passed it to me. I tried to make my eyes big and innocent the way I did when my mom caught me in a lie, but Sunny knew me too well to fall for my act.

She rolled her eyes and ran a hand through her hair, surveying the growing crowd to see if there was anyone worth talking to. I did the same so I wouldn’t have to look at her.

“You were fighting, don’t lie.” She snatched the cigarette back from me and took another drag. “Why did Logan care so much that Justin asked you about The Fields?”

I could tell by the way she blew her smoke in my direction she was only getting warmed up. And I also knew she didn’t give a crap about Logan. What she was really asking me was, “What did Justin do that made Logan so jealous?” Sunny might have acted stupid sometimes, but she was far from it.

“He was just making conversation. God, you sound like Logan.”

I didn’t think about what I was saying, and if I had any hope of holding something back from Sunny, I blew it with that one sentence.

“I knew you were fighting,” she said, her voice turning all know-it-all as she blew another puff of smoke toward my face. She tried to make it look like an accident, but there was nothing accidental in the motion. Classic Sunny.

I opened my mouth to say something back, but in that moment I saw Justin crawl through the hole in the fence, and I forgot whatever it was I planned to say. It was as if the air softened and the fog of secondhand smoke lifted to let the sun shine down on the patch of grass below the water tower. Even the plastic bottles and discarded cigarette packs littering the ground seemed to twinkle with new light at the sight of him. Maybe that made me sound like a cheesy Hallmark card, but I swore the earth heated up fifteen degrees when he came through the fence.

“Jeez, Taylor, put your tongue back in your mouth,” said Sunny, dropping her Camel to the ground and crunching it under the toe of her shoe. She narrowed her eyes at me as if to say, “Game on, bitch,” and gave me final a smirk before heading in Justin’s direction, her hips swinging the way they did when she wanted something.

I turned away from her so I wouldn’t have to watch her flirt with him. I didn’t want to see his reaction in case he decided to flirt back. And really, why wouldn’t he? What was there to stop him? She was a pretty girl, and boys liked pretty girls. It made me feel silly for getting so excited about his invitation to The Fields, or for thinking there was some deeper meaning behind the way he stood up for me in English class. What was I to him besides just another girl in the crowd of girls hovering around the base of the water tower waiting for someone to notice her? Suddenly my inkling that his stares were a sign that he
might
like me seemed an ocean away from one hundred percent certainty. And that made me feel pretty crappy.

I wandered over to the far edge of the fence, where people were busy admiring Jenny Schlitz’s arm cast. She had wrapped a multi-colored scarf across the sling and pinned little rhinestones all over the fabric so it twinkled and shone in the late afternoon light. People were
oohing
and
ahhing
like it was the cleverest thing they had ever seen. I
oohed
and
ahhed
with them, even though I didn’t really see what the big deal was. Granted I felt a little crabby about the whole Justin/Sunny thing, but whatever. Anything was better than watching Sunny lean in close and whisper in Justin’s ear, her long lashes fluttering against his cheek the way they were probably doing at that very moment.

Instead of thinking about Justin/Sunny, I talked to Amber about her spring formal dress, Lindsay about what a perv Mr. Thomas was, Mark about why he smoked Marlboros instead of Camels, Sara about the upcoming pre-calc test (although I did this at a whisper so no one would hear), and eventually I forgot about where Sunny was. I even smiled a bit when Logan’s wet lips pressed against my cheek. When Sunny finally came back to join the rest of the circle, I didn’t pause to think about where she’d been or why she was gone so long. I didn’t ask myself why she had that stupid grin on her face; the grin she only got when she’d gotten her way. I let her link her arm through mine and laughed with everyone else when she told Jenny Schlitz how stupid the rhinestone-covered scarf looked wrapped around her cast.

I didn’t know that Justin would still be standing by the rip in the fence when I finally turned around to look for him, but I’ll admit I was curious. Not because I only pretended not to be bothered that he’d been engaged in a half-hour long
tête-à-tête
with Sunny, but because I was curious to see if he’d stuck around. Really, there was no other ulterior motive behind my decision to turn around and look for him. But I’ll be damned if he wasn’t staring right at me with that is-he-or-isn’t-he-grinning look, like he’d been staring at me the whole time. He didn’t break his gaze when he saw me, even though Logan had his arm around my shoulders and Sunny stood in plain sight. It was
ballsy
, like he couldn’t give a crap who saw him or what people thought. I added that to the growing list of things I loved about him, because really, who was I kidding? There was no getting over Justin Cobb. Not for me.

ALANA JAMES AND WHY I MAY BE GOING TO HELL

My mind turned to dark things, but it was hard to stay positive when my backdrop was a sea of unending blue and gray, the two colors blending together until I could barely tell the difference between them anymore. For one crazy moment I imagined the sky was an ocean and the stairs a rock tied to my foot, pulling me down into an empty sea where no one would ever find me. Maybe I was being pulled into the cold, steely fingers of hell, and hell was a lonely creature waiting to slide its arms around me in an icy greeting. Maybe hell was not a place where fire burned after all.

Then I imagined the staircase was not a staircase at all, but rather my tombstone—a bleak monolith marking my ending. I was six feet below the ground, my fingers curling into the dirt as I tried to dig my way out, as I opened my mouth and screamed an earthy, silent scream.

Here lies Taylor Anderson, dead
.
Dead like a fly under a swatter. Dead like a fish in a toxic lake. Dead like a Thanksgiving turkey. Dead, dead, dead.

But I didn’t feel dead. That was the horrible thing.

I shook my head, trying to clear away the dark thoughts before they consumed me. Instead I tried to see the sky for what it was—a perfect blue heaven marking a beautiful, clear day. It was the kind of day when the parks would have been filled with sunbathers and the sidewalks filled with people pushing strollers and holding hands. The kind of day when Sunny and I would’ve slathered on baby oil and stretched out on the green-and-white striped lounge chairs circling the pool behind her house. I wondered if she was out there now, staring at the same cornflower sky and feeling guilty about what she’d done to me. Or maybe word about the car crash reached her, and she felt guilty
and
sad. That is, assuming she could feel anything at all. Maybe she wouldn’t give a crap that I’d been hit by a car. Maybe she’d feel relieved, because her secret died with me.

A few times I tried to trick the stairs. The first time, I raised my foot and acted like I was going to keep moving forward, and at the last second I tried to jerk it back and turn around. Then I attempted to walk backwards, thinking maybe I could make it back down to the bottom and away from the steps that way. But no matter how hard I tried, I simply couldn’t do it. I was stuck facing forward with only two choices: climb the stairs or stand still, and I was too ramped up about everything that had happened to stand still.

It was hard not to think about where the steps might really be taking me. I joked about the hell thing, but I had to admit it was a real possibility. Not that I was some terrible person—I hadn’t killed anybody or anything. But I wasn’t exactly perfect, either.

Like church. I only went to church on the big holidays or when my grandmother came to visit and insisted the whole family attend mass with her. I grumbled about it the whole time, complaining that I didn’t even think I was Catholic and it wasn’t fair to make me go against my will. It just seemed like if God really wanted us to all go to church, he would have found a way to make it more entertaining instead of all sad and somber. Or at least picked some better music or something, right? But what if I was wrong? What if God was mad at me for not going to church?

Then there was the other stuff you’re not supposed to do, like coveting. I totally coveted. Like the time Sunny got two pairs of those amazing jeans that make everyone’s butt look fantastic, or when her dad caved and bought her the black bag we’d both drooled over for months. I was so jealous I could’ve spit green right then and there.