Everything, Everything (23 page)

ZACH

BACK AT THE
hotel, Olly calls his friend, Zach, from our room phone. Half an hour later he’s at our door.

Zach has dark umber skin and enormous dreadlocks and a smile that’s almost too big for his face. He immediately begins playing air guitar and singing a song that I don’t know. Olly grins from ear to ear. Zach thrashes his head dramatically while he “plays” and his hair keeps time with the “music.”

“Zach!” Olly says, and pulls him into a hug. They slap each other’s backs loudly.

“It’s Zachariah now.”

“Since when?” asks Olly.

“Since I decided to become a rock god. It’s Zachariah like—”

“Messiah,” I pipe in, getting his joke.

“Exactly! Your girlfriend is smarter than you are.”

I blush and look over to see Olly blushing, too.

“Well that was cute,” Zach says, laughing and strumming air guitar strings. His laugh reminds me of Carla’s—unself-conscious, a little too loud, and full of mirth. In that moment I miss her desperately.

Olly turns to me. “Maddy, this is Zach.”

“Zachariah.”

“Dude, I’m not calling you that.
Zach
this is Maddy.”

Zach takes my hand and gives it a quick kiss. “Fantastic to meet you, Maddy. I’ve heard a lot about you, but I didn’t think you were really real.”

“That’s OK,” I say, examining my hand where he kissed it. “Some days I’m not.”

He laughs too loudly again and I find myself laughing with him.

“Wonderful,” Olly cuts in. “Let’s move this along. There’s a loco moco with Maddy’s name on it.”

A loco moco is a mountain of rice topped with a hamburger patty topped with gravy topped with two fried eggs. Zach’s taken us to a mixed plate restaurant for a late lunch. We sit at a table outside, the ocean just a few hundred feet in the distance.

“This place is the best,” Zach says. “It’s where all the locals eat.”

“You tell your parents yet?” Olly asks him in between bites.

“About the rockstar thing or the gay thing?”

“Both.”

“Nope.”

“You’ll feel better once it’s out there.”

“No doubt, but the difficultly level is a little high.”

Zach looks over to me. “My parents only believe in three things: family, education, and hard work. By ‘family’ I mean one man, one woman, two children, and a dog. By ‘education’ I mean a four-year college, and by ‘hard work’ I mean nothing involving art. Or hopes. Or rockstar dreams.”

He looks back to Olly now and his brown eyes are more serious than before. “How am I gonna tell them that their first-born son wants to be the African-American Freddie Mercury?”

“They must suspect,” I say. “The rockstar part at least. Your hair is four different shades of red.”

“They think it’s a phase.”

“Maybe you could write them a song.”

His laugh booms. “I like you,” he says.

“I like you, too,” I say back. “You could call the song ‘This Apple Has Fallen Very, Very, Very Far Away from the Tree’.”

“I’m not even sure I’m an apple,” Zach says, laughing.

“You guys are funny,” Olly says, almost smiling, but obviously preoccupied. “Dude, let me borrow your phone,” he says to Zach.

Zach hands it over and Olly immediately starts typing.

“What’s going on with you? Dad still a bastard?”

“You thought that would change?” He doesn’t look up from the phone.

“I guess not,” says Zach, a shrug in his voice. How much does he know about Olly’s family? His dad is so much worse than just a bastard.

“What about you, Madeline? What’s wrong with your parents?”

“It’s just me and my mom.”

“Still. There must be something wrong with her.”

My mom, my mom. I’ve barely given her any thought. She must be crippled with worry.

“Well, I think there’s something wrong with everyone, don’t you? But my mom’s smart, and she’s strong, and she always puts me first.”

I know I’ve surprised them because neither one speaks.

Olly looks up from Zach’s phone. “You have to tell her you’re OK, Mad.”

He hands me the phone and leaves for the restroom.

From:
Madeline F. Whittier

To:
[email protected]

Subject:
(no subject)

Do you have my daughter? Is she OK?

From:
Madeline F. Whittier

To:
[email protected]

Subject:
(no subject)

I know you she’s with you. You don’t understand how sick she is. Bring her home.

From:
Madeline F. Whittier

To:
[email protected]

Subject:
(no subject)

Please tell me where you are. She could get severely ill at any minute.

From:
Madeline F. Whittier

To:
[email protected]

Subject:
(no subject)

I know where you are and I’m on the next flight. I’ll be there first thing in the morning. Please keep her safe.

I stop reading, cradle the phone against my chest, and close my eyes. I’m guilty and resentful and panicked all at once. Seeing all her worry and pain makes me want to go to her and reassure her that I’m OK. That part of me wants to let her keep me safe.

But another part of me, the newer part, isn’t ready to give up the world I’m starting to know. I resent that she’s logged into my private e-mails. I resent that now Olly and I will have even less time than I thought.

My eyes are closed for too long because Zach finally asks if I’m OK.

I open my eyes and take a sip of pineapple juice, nodding around the straw.

“No, really. Are you feeling OK? Olly told me—”

“He told you I’m sick.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m fine,” I say, realizing that I really do mean it. I feel fine. I feel more than fine.

I look back down at the phone. I need to say something.

From:
[email protected]

To:
Madeline F. Whittier

Subject:
(no subject)

Please don’t worry, Mom. And please don’t come here. I’m really OK and it’s my life too. I love you. I’ll see you soon.

I hit send and hand the phone back to Zach. He pockets it and stares at me.

“So you really bought pills off the Internet?” he asks.

I’m still so shaken up from my mom’s e-mails and worrying that Olly and I don’t have enough time for each other that I’m not prepared to hear my lie coming out of his mouth. I do exactly what you’re not supposed to do when lying to someone: I don’t meet his eyes. I fidget and blush.

I open my mouth to explain, but no explanation comes.

He’s already guessed the truth by the time I finally meet his eyes.

“Are you going to tell him?” I ask.

“No. I’ve been lying about myself for so long. I know what it’s like.”

Relief washes over me. “Thank you,” I say.

He just nods.

“What would happen if you told your parents?” I ask.

His answer is immediate. “They’d try to make me choose. And I wouldn’t choose them. This way, everybody wins.”

He leans back in his chair and strums. “All apologies to The Rolling Stones, but my first album’s going to be called
Between Rock and Roll and a Hard Place
. What do you think?”

I laugh. “That’s terrible.”

He grows serious again. “Maybe growing up means disappointing the people we love.”

It’s not a question and, anyway, I don’t have an answer.

I turn my head and watch Olly as he walks back toward us.

“Doing OK?” he asks before kissing my forehead and then my nose and then my lips.

I decide not to tell him about my mom’s impending visit. We’ll just make the most of the time we have.

“I’ve never felt better in my life,” I say. I’m grateful at least that I don’t have to lie about this.

THE MURPHY BED

IT’S LATE AFTERNOON
by the time we get back to the hotel. Olly flicks on all the lights and the ceiling fan and then does a diving somersault onto the bed.

He lies on one side and then the other. “This side is mine,” he says, meaning the left side closest to the door. “I sleep on the left,” he says. “So you know. For future reference.” He sits up and presses down on the mattress with his palms. “You know what I said before about Murphy beds being the height of comfort? I’m going to take that back.”

“Are you nervous?” I blurt out. I turn on the lamp on the right side of the bed.

“No,” he says, too quickly. He rolls over, drops off the side of the bed to the floor, and stays there.

I sit down at the edge of my side and bounce an experimental bounce. The mattress squeaks at me.

“Why do you sleep on the left when you sleep alone?” I ask. I move onto the bed and lie down. He’s right. It’s breathtakingly uncomfortable.

“Maybe it’s anticipation,” he says.

“Of what?”

He doesn’t answer, so I roll over to peer down at him. He’s lying on his back, one arm flung across his eyes.

“Company,” he says.

I retract my head, blushing. “You’re kind of a hopeless romantic,” I say.

“Sure. Sure.”

We slip into quiet. Above us the fan whirs softly coaxing warm air around the room. Through the doors I hear the ding of the elevators and the low murmur of passing voices.

A few days ago just a single day outside seemed like it would be enough, but now that I’ve had one, I want more. I’m not sure if forever would do.

“Yes,” Olly says after a while. “I’m nervous.”

“Why?”

He takes a breath that I don’t hear him release. “I’ve never felt about anybody the way I feel about you.” He doesn’t say it quietly. If anything, he says it too loudly and all in a rush as if the words have been wanting to tumble out for a long time.

I sit up on my elbows, lie back down, sit up again. Are we talking about love?

“I’ve never felt this way either,” I whisper.

“But it’s different for you.” There’s frustration in his voice.

“Why? How?”