Her Name in the Sky (12 page)

Clay and Baker are both in there, but they’re not sleeping. They’re making out.

Clay stands against the bed, the backs of his legs scraping against it, and Baker stands with her body pressed into him, her hands rubbing over his shoulders while they kiss. Hannah ducks away from the door before they can notice her, her heart beating hard in her chest, but even as she hurries quietly back down the hallway and down the stairs, the image of them kissing burns itself on her mind: all she can see is Clay’s mouth on Baker’s, and Baker’s mouth on Clay’s, and the way their bodies had moved against each other. 

“Hey,” Wally says when she returns to the kitchen. Then, upon seeing her, he says it again. “Hey,” he says, his voice softer and more concerned. “What’s up? You look upset.”

“Oh—nothing. I thought I saw a stain on the hallway carpet. I thought somebody had spilled.”

“But it’s all good?”

“Yeah,” Hannah says, her heart aching. “It’s all good.”

Baker never mentions the kiss to Hannah. They go all through the following school week without her saying anything about it, even though Clay flirts openly with her and tries to grab her hand when they all hang out in the parking lot. Hannah thinks back on the previous conversations they’d had about boys—after Baker kissed Joey Dietzen, and that boy Lance in New Orleans, and Luke’s cousin who came to visit; after Hannah kissed Ryder Pzynski, and Jonathan Owens, and Wally at the end of last summer—and Hannah wishes desperately that they could talk to each other now. She wants to talk about it, wants to hear it from Baker herself, even though at the same time she wants to push it from her mind, wants to remove it from her memory forever.

“Want to go to Sonic?” Baker says after school on Friday, and Hannah assumes that Baker wants to tell her now.

“Only if you let me pay this time,” Hannah says, and then they’re in the car and on their way.

They park at the Sonic on Perkins and roll their windows down to the smell of grease and fried food. Baker orders a Butterfinger Blast and Hannah orders a chocolate shake, and they trade the desserts back and forth while the traffic rushes past behind them.

“I’m surprised you got Butterfinger,” Hannah says. “I thought you liked Oreo better.”

“Yeah, but you like Butterfinger better,” Baker says.

They talk about school and the test they had in Ms. Carpenter’s class yesterday and what they’re going to do on spring break. Hannah waits for Baker to tell her about Clay, but Baker never does.

“Want to hang out later tonight?” Baker asks when she drops Hannah off.

“Can’t,” Hannah lies. “I promised my mom we’d do a mother-daughter night.”

Baker’s expression falls just the tiniest bit. She licks her lips before she speaks. “That’s great,” she says. “Your mom will love that.” 

“Yeah.”

“Okay, well, text me tomorrow.”

“I will.”

“’Bye, Han,” Baker says, and then she puts on her sunglasses and backs out of the driveway.

Want to hang out?
Hannah writes.

Wally replies seconds later.
Yeah, I’d love to. What do you want to do?

They end up on Wally’s back porch, his little brothers asleep in their room inside, his mom still out with her speech therapist friends. It’s a cool night and Hannah shivers from the breeze.

“Here,” Wally says, scooting closer to her. He wraps his arm around her shoulders, and she feels warmer.

“Thanks,” she says.

They are quiet for a minute. Hannah can smell Wally’s deodorant, musky and boyish, carrying her back to last summer when they made out on the dock.

“I’m glad you wanted to hang out,” Wally says. “I love hanging out with all our friends, but it’s nice to hang out with just you.”

“Yeah,” Hannah says. “Same.”

He wraps his arm tighter around her, and she looks up at him, and then they start kissing. And it’s exactly as she remembered: a series of motions, a mouth pushing against a mouth, a tongue sliding against a tongue, and that desperate voice, somewhere in the depths of her heart, wailing in panic.

Why aren’t you liking this? Why aren’t you liking this?

They make out for long minutes, and Hannah holds onto the hope that she will feel something, that something will trigger in her lower body, that she will respond like any other girl. She remembers how Baker looked when she was pressed up against Clay, so Hannah places her hands on Wally’s shoulders and leans into his kiss, telling herself
She liked doing this, and so do I.
 

They don’t stop until they hear Wally’s mom’s car in the driveway. They jolt away from each other, and Wally says “Wow,” and Hannah wipes at her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Where’ve you been?” Joanie asks when she gets ho
me.
“Nowhere.”

Joanie tilts her head, narrows her eyes. “Were you with Wally?”

Hannah busies herself with opening the refrigerator. She scans the items inside—orange juice, chocolate pudding, leftover jambalaya—before she answers in a deliberately distracted voice.

“Yeah, we were just babysitting his little brothers.”

Joanie says nothing. Hannah grabs the orange juice for something to do. She pours the juice into a glass, still pretending like she’s just breezed in with nothing on her mind. When Joanie still remains silent, Hannah turns around to look at her. Joanie has her eyebrows raised high and her lips pulled into her mouth.

“What?” Hannah asks.

“You know
what
, dummy. Wally. And you. Did something happen? Was there a
love
connection?”

Hannah can feel her face heat. “Shut up, Joanie,” she says, meaner than she meant to sound. She shoves the orange juice back into the fridge and stalks out of the kitchen. By the time she reaches the top of the stairs, her throat is thick with unexpected tears.

The last days of March hang full with anticipation. At school, the whole student body seems to be holding its breath, waiting for Easter break. The seniors are especially on edge, waiting for their decision letters from colleges all across the country.

On the last Tuesday of March, Hannah pulls two envelopes out of her family’s mailbox. The first, from Duke, contains a letter telling her she was not accepted.

The second envelope contains a letter from Emory. Hannah reads it carefully, her face pulled tight in concentration.

“What’s it say?” Joanie asks.

Hannah looks up from the letter to see Joanie leaning breathlessly over the kitchen counter.

“I got in,” Hannah says, the words vibrating in her throat as she laughs with relief.

She calls her mom and dad even though they’re both at work. “Oh, Hannah!” her mom says, her voice louder than it ever is when she’s at the office. There’s the sound of something hitting wood, and Hannah pictures her mom smacking her palm against her desk. Her dad, when she calls him, reacts with quiet joy. “That’s beautiful, honey,” he says, his voice warm with pride just like it was when she would bring home her report cards in elementary school. 

She texts her friends after that.

BALLERRRR, Luke replies.
Way to go han!!

So awesome
, Clay writes.
But this better not mean you’re ditching us!

I’m not surprised at al
l
,
Wally writes.
Congratulations!

Baker responds separately from the group thread.
You are amazing
, she writes, so that only Hannah can see.
I am so unbelievably proud of you.

Hannah re-reads Baker’s text message seven more times that night. She falls asleep with her phone clutched in her hand and Baker’s face in her mind.

She wakes the next morning with a pit in her stomach.

She knows she should feel excited about her acceptance to Emory and the promise of spring break. She should feel infinite and hopeful, like the growing earth around her. Like the sunlight, which stretches longer each day, asking for one more minute, one more oak tree to shimmer on. Like the late March mornings, which arrive carrying a gentle heat, rocking it back and forth over the pavement in the parking lot, letting it crawl forth over the grass and the tree roots, nurturing it while it is still nascent and tender, before it turns into the swollen summer.

But while the whole earth prepares for spring, Hannah feels a great anxiety in her heart, for something dangerous has grown in her, something she never planted or even wanted to plant.

It’s there. She knows it’s there. If she’s truthful with herself, she’s probably known all along. But now, as the days grow longer and the Garden District grows greener, she can actually see it. It has sprung up at last, and it refuses to be unseen.

She tells herself it’s passing. It’s temporary. It’s intensified only because she’s a senior and all of her emotions are heightened. It’s innocent. It’s typical for a girl her age. It’s no more or no less of a feeling than everyone else has had at 17.

But deep down, deep below the topsoil of her heart, she knows it’s not.

Still, she pushes it down inside of her, buries it as far as it can go, suffocates it in the space between her stomach and her heart. She tells herself that she is stronger, that she can fight it, that she has control. That no one has to know.

I can ignore it,
she thinks.
I can refuse to look at it. I can stomp on it every time it springs up within me.

So she lies to herself that everything is normal. That she is normal. She carries herself through the end of the school week by refusing to acknowledge it. By refusing to align her heart with the growing sunlight and the nurturing heat and the flowering plants and the tall, proud trees.

“You alright?” Baker asks, when Hannah says goodbye to her after school on Friday.

Hannah stomps, buries, suffocates, wishes for death. “Yeah,” she says. “I’m good.”

Chapter Six: Spring Break

On the first day of spring break, Hannah steps outside to a mild blue sky. She stands still on the front porch, holding her sunglasses in one hand and her travel bag in the other, until Joanie lumbers out behind her and says, “Move your dumb ass, can’t you see I’ve got an economy-sized duffle bag here?”

Baker shows up right on time, swinging her car into the driveway with country music pouring out of the open windows. Hannah drums her fingers on the hood of the car and offers her a smile. “Are you pumped?”

“So pumped,” Baker says, stepping out of the car with her long legs and long hair.

She wears her favorite white shorts from Banana Republic and the old Raybans she inherited from her brother, and Hannah tries not to look at her for too long.

Hannah’s mom steps out onto the porch behind them. “Do you have everything, girls?”

“I think Joanie has everything and then some,” Hannah says, watching Joanie struggle to zip up her bag.  

“And I think Hannah has
such
a great sense of humor,” Joanie pants.

“Did you print out directions?” their mom asks. “You know where you’re going?”

“We’ll use our phones, Mom.”

“Okay. Well, be safe. Call me when you get there. Use your manners and make sure you help Mrs. Landry with everything. And
no
drinking.”

“We
know
, Mom,” Hannah and Joanie say in unison.

“Drive carefully, Baker.”

“I will, Mrs. Eaden.”

“And if these two start fighting, just give me a call.”

“I will,” Baker laughs.

They all hug Hannah’s mom goodbye, and she gives them
the look
and tells them to behave, and then they’re in the car and on their way to meet the boys, and Hannah feels the promise of spring break growing in her belly.

“Adventure,” she says, turning to grin at Baker.

Baker keeps her eyes focused on the road, but her mouth curves into a smile. “Adventure.”

“I think we’re
Destin
ed for greatness this break,” Hannah says.

“I think you’re right,” Baker says.

“I hate both of you,” Joanie says, and they all laugh. 

They pick up Luke from his mom’s house—she kisses him goodbye and waves at them from the porch, still wearing her bathrobe—and then drive to the Landry’s to meet Clay, Wally, and Clay’s parents. They park in the driveway behind Clay’s dad’s Audi.

“Hold on,” Baker says, grabbing Hannah’s arm to stop her from getting out of the car. “He wanted us to text him first.”

“Why?”

“He wants to stash his alcohol in here before his parents come out.”

“Genius,” Joanie says.

Clay takes forever to come outside. Hannah, Baker, Joanie, and Luke sit in the car, their windows rolled down and their legs pulled up on their seats, swapping guesses about what’s taking him so long.

“He’s pooping,” Joanie says.

“Stop projecting, Joanie,” Hannah says.

“He probably lost his wallet again,” Baker says. “But we’re being rude just sitting here. We need to go in and say hi to his parents.”

“I’m texting him again,” Hannah says.

Clay walks out of the house a minute later, small duffle bag thrown over his shoulder and winning smile on his face.

“That’s it?” Joanie says. “Look at the size of that bag. There’s no way he fit all the alcohol in there. What’s he bringing, those dinky little sample sizes of Firefly?”

Baker hangs her arm out the window as Clay strides up to the car. “Feel like going to Destin?” she asks.

“Absolutely,” Clay says, his voice loud and rumbling. “Sorry I took so long. My mom made sausages.”

“Where’s the stash?” Joanie says, leaning forward from the backseat to address him.

“I have to go around to the backyard to get it. Hold on.”

He disappears around the back of the house, then returns a few minutes later with a navy blue booksack in hand, Wally at his side this time. Clay waggles his eyebrows and gestures at the bag. Wally walks with his hands in his pockets, squinting behind his glasses. Hannah, Baker, Joanie, and Luke get out of the car and meet them on the driveway.

“This better?” Clay asks, opening up the booksack for them to see. Inside, Hannah can see two handles of whiskey and a fifth of vodka.

“Much better,” Joanie says.

“We’ll have to be careful,” Baker says, “with your parents around and everything.”

“We’ll keep it hidden in our room,” Clay says, gesturing to Wally and Luke. “Don’t worry.”

They stow the booksack in Baker’s car, right in the middle of Luke and Joanie’s seats (“It’s like our baby,” Joanie says; “Our beautiful, boozy baby,” Luke says), and then head into the house to help Clay’s parents bring their things out to the car. Mrs. Landry greets them warmly, pulling each of them into a hug, and says, “Look at this beautiful day—can it get any better?”

After the Landry’s car is packed, their phones are set with the Destin address, and Clay has doubled back inside to use the bathroom, their caravan of cars reverses out of the Landry’s driveway and heads toward the interstate. Hannah settles into the passenger seat, tucking her legs up underneath her, watching Clay and Wally’s heads bob against the seats of Dr. Landry’s car in front of them. 

They cruise down I-12 East, laughing and joking and arguing over the music. Joanie convinces Baker to lower the windows so they can “appreciate the rush of the oncoming air and how it makes our hair blow in the wind like models.” And then for a while they all sit quietly, subdued by the music and the stretch of the bright sun. Hannah picks up Baker’s iPhone, connected to the stereo through the auxiliary jack, and scrolls through the playlists until she finds the one she wants—the one she discovered by accident a few months ago, and which made Baker blush and steal the phone back.

Songs han loves
.

She plays Coldplay’s “Strawberry Swing” and leans back against the leather seat, letting the sound and lyrics wash over her. No one says anything—they all sink into the song with willing submission—but Baker turns the stereo volume up, and Hannah glances over at her, at the way she looks behind the steering wheel, sunlight on her neck and shoulders, dark hair spilling over her cotton tank top.

“Perfect song,” Baker says, her voice soft in the way it is when her mind is far away. 

Hannah doesn’t respond for a long beat. The lingering notes of the song echo in her head, until she blinks hard against the sunlight and shifts in her seat.

“Truth,” she says, and scrolls through the playlist to find another song.

Their rental house is four stories tall, narrow, stucco, with windows that look out over the wrap-around balcony. Baker parks on the driveway behind Dr. Landry, and the four of them step out of the car and stretch in the sunlight, mimicking Clay, Wally, and the Landry’s as they stare up at the house. Hannah can smell and taste the saltwater air all around them.