Catch the Light, page 21
“You know why she’s doing this, right?”
“Doing what?” I say, annoyed that Bea is deflecting, right when it felt like she might open up.
“Late nights, weekends. Tuesday nights with us and Wednesday nights at work.”
I think about the blue circles under Mom’s eyes, all of the little signs that she could be drowning again. “I think she’s just struggling right now.”
Bea’s raspy voice is hard when she says, “Keep telling yourself that, Mare.”
I turn my head to the ceiling and lie quietly for a while, watching the bands of light bending up through the thick window glass. In my mind, I take a photograph.
Next to me, Bea sulks and seethes. Sometimes I envy her relationship to anger, so straightforward and clear. But other times it seems like it’s eating her alive.
I pick up a strand of her wavy lilac hair, wrap it around my finger.
“What’s going on with you?” I ask.
“Me?” she says. “I’m fine.”
“You’re never home anymore.”
“So?”
I try to think of something convincing to say. Something sisterly that she won’t hate. But I know that there’s no way to ever outsmart her.
“Just be careful,” I say.
She rolls her eyes. “I will.”
I sit up, feeling like I’m missing a page in the manual they give big sisters on how to avoid calamity. Maybe Hannah accidentally took it with her when she left.
“You want to go downstairs and watch a movie?” I ask, a last-ditch effort.
“Nah,” Bea says. “I’m good. I have some stuff to do.”
“Fine,” I say.
“Good talk,” Bea says.
Then I slink back to my room to waste the afternoon.
For a few hours, I drown my sorrows in three episodes of Top Chef with no Nora on the other end of the line. It’s still morning in California, and she is probably at station 26, bobbing up and down in the freezing-cold water.
The night my dad died, after we had talked to a million social workers and gathered our things from the ICU waiting room—late, when everyone else had gone to bed—Nora came to pick me up. We drove around in circles, through the long, flat streets of our neighborhood, and when I couldn’t stop crying she pulled over and held me and said, “I’ve got you,” again and again and again.
Nora and I have ridden out hundreds of heartbreaks together, both of our families falling apart, boys ripping out our hearts, all kinds of rejections and disappointments and failures. No one else but Nora will ever know what Dad looked like, shrinking in that hospital bed. I’m worried that I’ve ruined the most important friendship of my life.
I feel obsessed with the question of what happened, of what’s going on with me. Last night, every night, I’ve tried to think about next year. I google lists of colleges, art schools, gap-year programs. I look at hundreds of websites, thousands of photographs of people my age who know what they are doing. But I don’t feel like any of them. I don’t feel like anyone.
* * *
• • •
Jesse picks me up at six and we drive an hour to the theater that shows art films. All week long there’s been an energy between us, the space just filling and filling, until it’s overflowing like a broken sink. It’s filling up the car now too, and I have to crack my window and let in the sharp December air so that some of it can escape.
I watch the landscape roll by, the lonely farmhouses and hillsides of naked purple branches. In LA the winter was rain and oranges. Here it’s crisp snow and diffuse light and air so cold it creeps in through all of the seams.
“What did you do today?” I ask, watching Jesse tap his fingers against the wheel.
“I babysat and then worked on some scholarship applications,” he says. “It was pretty dull. How about you?”
“Same,” I say, my fingers tapping too.
He raises his eyebrows.
“You worked on some applications?”
“No,” I say, laughing. “I mean my day was dull.”
“How’s it going though?” he asks.
“Better,” I lie.
In that moment, I want to open the car door and throw myself right out.
* * *
• • •
When we get to the theater, Jesse tries to buy my ticket. But then the bored-looking twentysomething at the counter says, “That will be thirty-seven fifty,” and his whole face turns white.
“What,” she says, snapping her gum. “It’s a double feature.”
“I’ve got it,” I say, grabbing two twenties from my wallet. “Feminism and all.”
Jesse’s face goes from white to red and he gently pushes my hand away from the counter. “No,” he says. “I’m good.”
I feel trapped, like there isn’t any way forward that won’t ruin the evening. But then Jesse smiles his Jesse smile and says, “You can get the snacks,” and we are out of the rough patch, sailing smoothly again.
I get us popcorn and candy and soda and we are practically the only two people inside the theater. We sit in the exact center and our voices seem to echo into every corner, even when we whisper. So we just sit quietly, swimming in electric tension, until the lights go down.
The first movie is Raging Bull, a black-and-white film about a boxer who moves as gracefully as a ballerina. Halfway through, the black and white breaks into a color section of home movies shot on Super 8. The whole world transforms; the young wife jumps into a sky-blue swimming pool.
“See?” I whisper. “How could you not love color?”
He turns to look at me, and a wash of brilliant grass green reflects off his cheek.
“You’re winning me over.”
“Me or the movie?”
His lips stretch into an easy smile.
“Both.”
He tilts his head. Something about the way he’s looking at me sends pins and needles down the length of my spine. It’s one move in a series of moves in a week-long game of checkers, each hop having nudged the line between us ever so slightly toward the unknown.
For the rest of the first film, I’m overwhelmed by Jesse’s physical presence beside me. He shifts and swallows, crosses his ankle over his knee, bumps my leg and tenses. The inches between us feel stiff with potential energy, a rock at the top of a cliff, the ground crumbling.
We’re ten minutes into the second film, Goodfellas, the end of the second excruciating and sweet hour of sitting side by side in the darkness, when his arm brushes mine on the armrest and stays, pressing against me from elbow to wrist. He’s wearing a flannel shirt and I’m wearing a fuzzy cardigan, but I swear I can feel his hot skin, even through all that thick fabric. On the screen, a young Henry Hill runs from a row of cars he’s just set on fire. In the darkness, my cheeks burn.
The next few minutes pass by in a blur of color and breath and the press of Jesse’s arm. And then he lifts his hand and curls his pinkie through mine, like he’s making a promise.
Everything stops, except for the pounding of my heart in my ears, which drowns out Ray Liotta’s voice blaring through the speakers.
And then his hand is moving to cover mine, and somehow, by some magic, my hand is turning itself palm upward. It happens in the slowest of motions, like a lunar landing, the way his hand touches down on mine, all of the fingers in just the right places.
And then we’re holding hands, for real, in the dark.
For the next hour, I am consumed by the point of contact between us. Jesse adjusts our hands so he can stroke my wrist with one finger. I move mine so I can trace the lines on his palm. He tucks his thumb up under my sleeve and my pulse flutters against it.
When the movie is over we look at each other with starry eyes and stumble out to the parking lot, holding hands until the engine turns on and Jesse has to put the car into gear.
It’s late, and the ride home is long and quiet. The moon is a tiny crescent and it follows us, trailing out my window, making a stream of light in the snow.
We’re almost there when my phone rings. It’s Bea. Normally I wouldn’t answer, but Bea never calls me unless she needs something. And she almost never needs anything from me these days.
“Hello?” I say, and my voice feels too loud as it breaks the sleepy silence. Jesse’s eyes flicker over, from the road to me and back.
“Mary?”
Her voice on the other end is hard to hear. It sounds slow and strange, like a warped record. Like she’s drunk. Her breathing is heavy because maybe she’s holding the phone too close. It’s loud in the background, music and the talk-yelling of drunken kids.
“Where are you?”
“I’m at Matt’s house.” She says it like it’s a question, like she’s already forgotten the place where she snuck her stupid self out to and managed to get wasted at.
I’m annoyed, but a swell of worry is rising in my throat. “Are you sure?”
“Maryyyyy,” she says, like a half-asleep valley girl. “I don’t feel good. I need you to come rub my back.”
“Jesus.” I try to keep my voice steady, but I’m starting to freak out. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t do anything stupid.”
I hang up and look at Jesse, feeling the magic seeping out of the moment like air from an old pool float.
“We have to get Bea. I’m so sorry. Do you know where Matt’s house is?”
He nods and puts a heavy, warm hand on my knee.
“Don’t worry,” he says. “We got this.”
He drives the rest of the way as fast as one can while being careful of ice and deer. We pull up at the house and it’s a rager cliché—beer cans and cigarette butts all over the front porch, some ridiculous Top 40 song blasting onto the lawn.
I open the door, and to my relief, she’s right there on the couch—there will be no frantic search through a house full of my drunken classmates. Her head is lolling to the side, trying to bop in time with the music, and her eyes are halfway closed. Her three-quarter-sleeve lime-green dress looks rumpled and is riding up her thigh.
Domino sits on the arm of the couch, talking to Lenny, the third in their ridiculous crew. Both girls have their long, claw-like fingernails wrapped around cans of hard cider. It’s like they barely notice Bea is there, fourteen years old, seconds away from passing out.
I stride over to the couch, anger flaring in my cheeks. For a moment, even with Jesse right behind me, I’m so mad I forget to be embarrassed. I shake my head at Domino and Lenny. “Seriously?” I say.
Then I turn to Bea and grab her hands. “Time to go, Bumblebee.”
“Mary,” she says, stretching the word like bubble gum. “You came.”
“Yup,” I say, unable to look at Jesse, who I can feel standing right behind me. I give her hands a yank. “Time to get up, buttercup.”
She heaves forward, and after swaying a bit, she manages to stand with some support. Jesse creates a path through the bodies that have suddenly started swarming the living room to dance to some song everyone loves. I follow behind with Bea leaning on my shoulder.
We’re out the front door and down the steps before she suddenly crouches down in the snow and says, “Hold my hair, I’m gonna puke.”
I look up at Jesse with hot cheeks and shake my head.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I’ll be in the car.”
I gather her smooth lavender hair into my fist and rub her back while she vomits clear liquid into a puddle at her feet.
“I’m sorry,” she mumbles. “I’m sorry.”
It’s only half a mile to my house, so we manage to make it home without any more puking. But Bea is sleepy by the time we get there and more ornery than before.
“I’ll just sleep here,” she says, sitting on the porch steps. “It’s cool.”
“You’ll freeze to death, doofus,” I say, “and then Mom will come out here in the morning and ground your dead body.”
“I don’t care,” she says, closing her eyes. “She’s probably not even here.”
“I got it,” Jesse says, tugging me aside by my coat sleeve.
“Ready, Bea?” he says.
“For what?”
Then he crouches down and picks her up, like she’s one of his many little sisters, gently cradling her in his arms.
Bea seems to fall asleep almost instantly, snoring quietly into his shoulder, and he somehow gets her up the stairs and into her bed without waking my mom. I get a washcloth and wipe her face while Jesse grabs a mixing bowl from downstairs to leave by her bed. When she’s all tucked in we stand in the doorway and high-five.
“I’ll probably end up sleeping in there,” I whisper. “But I’ve gotta go get my pajamas.”
Jesse nods and says, “Walk you to your door?”
And I thank the universe that he is still being sweet after an hour with my crabby, vomit-crusted little sister.
We tiptoe down the squeaky hallway to my bedroom. He stands on the threshold leaning with his arm above my head, looking like a cowboy/movie star in his plaid flannel shirt, and our bodies are just inches apart. We’d be breathing the exact same air if he weren’t ten feet tall.
“Marigold,” he says, and he draws it out, lingering on the vowels. I watch his chest move in and out, closer to mine and then farther away.
“Yeah?”
“Break up with him.”
I tip my chin upward so I’m looking in his eyes.
“I already did.”
The twinge of guilt from the lie is small and sharp. But it feels more like stretching the truth. Bennett and I are over. I just haven’t been able to say the words yet.
And then whatever force that’s been keeping Jesse and me separate snaps like a toothpick. His hands are in my hair and mine are in his and we crush our mouths together in this way that feels a little unhinged, like we might never get the chance to do this again. But—
0h my god, his lips feel good on mine.
We’re moving backward into my room and he slams the door shut with his foot in this way that is somehow totally silent. And I’m not surprised because I’m realizing that Jesse does everything exactly right: taking pictures, picking flowers, talking about T. S. Eliot, walking through the hallway, kissing. Especially kissing.
My knees hit my bed and we topple over onto it, banging heads and laughing against each other’s teeth. He pulls back just enough to smile and say, “Sorry.”
And then the kiss completely changes. What was once wild and desperate and a little bumbling becomes painfully slow and sweet, a hundred little kisses and then a few deep ones and then he takes my bottom lip between his teeth and it changes again, into this haze of heat and want.
His hands are both sliding up under my sweater, under my shirt, and I don’t even think before I’m tugging it all up over my head, tugging his up over his curls. I can feel the button of his corduroys, sharp against my belly. I can feel his chest, hard and warm against my skin.
I want to say Wow.
But I can’t because we are kissing again and his tongue is sliding into my mouth; his hands are everywhere and I couldn’t get a single syllable out if I tried. My bra is gone and we’re under the covers before I can even think. All that exists is kissing. All that exists are Jesse Keller’s hands on me.
And then—
Wait.
“Wait,” he says, right as I’m thinking it, and I don’t know whether to be relieved or crushed, but another part of me wants to cry in frustration.
“Your mom,” he says.
“Bea,” he says.
And then he says, “I’ve never done this before.”
“I don’t believe you,” I say, thinking of the way his fingers finessed the clasp of my bra.
“No. I mean yes. I’ve done this before. I just haven’t done what comes next.”
Oh.
“Okay,” I say. He’s tracing the line of my collarbone with a long pointer finger, and I’m trying to pretend I’m not still breathless.
“To be clear,” he whispers in my ear, “I want to. With you.” I shiver. “Maybe in this very bed.”
I nod, vigorously. Yes, Jesse Keller, I want that too.
“Just maybe when your mom isn’t home.”
I nod again, speechless from the little kisses he’s pressing to my eyebrow, the circle he’s traced around my belly button.
“And maybe when this”—he motions between us—“has had a little more time to sink in.”
“Okay,” I say, unable to come up with any more words right now.
“I like you, Marigold. I really, really like you.”
I smile. “I really, really like you too.”
“Then it’s settled.”
He presses one more kiss to my lips and then pushes up from the bed. It sends a little gust of cold air over me and I burrow down under the covers.
“Night, Marigold,” he says, and I’m mesmerized by the way his long fingers push the little shirt buttons back through their holes. If I were brave, I’d reach under my bed for my camera and swallow up the lamplight glinting off his square fingernails.
“Night, Jess,” I say, closing my eyes as the door to my bedroom clicks shut.
As I stumble around my room, lips still stinging, looking for my pajamas, a little seed of guilt starts to take root. But I push it down, down, down, not willing to ruin the feeling of Jesse finally being mine.
Tomorrow, I promise myself. I’ll talk to Bennett tomorrow.
24
All the next morning I float around like a lovesick cartoon character, my feet drifting inches above the ground, a little circle of hearts flying around my head. Bea, in contrast, is a thumping, grouchy, hundred-pound rhinoceros. She’s pale yellow with gray circles under her eyes, and even the lavender of her hair seems faded.
