Someone Like You (23 page)

“Wait a second,” I said, but she kept moving, dusting knickknacks like her life depended on it. “I have plans tonight.”

“Well, you don't sound like you do,” she said in a clipped voice, lifting up the Grand Canyon picture and dabbing at it with the cloth, then setting it back on the mantel. “It sounds like you and Scarlett don't even know what you're doing. So I just thought it would be better—”

“No,” I said, and then suddenly realized I sounded more forceful than I should, more desperate, as I felt the net start to close around me. “I can't.”

I half expected her to spin around, rag in hand, point at me and say,
You're going to sleep with him tonight!
proving she had somehow managed to read my mind, and once again making my choice for me before I had a chance to think for myself.

“I just think you and Scarlett can watch TV and hang out over here as easily as you can over there, Halley. And I would feel better knowing where you were.”

“It's New Year's Eve,” I said. “I'm sixteen. You can't make me stay home.”

“Oh, Halley,” she said, sighing. “Stop being so dramatic.”

“Why are you doing this?” I said. “You can't just come in here at five o'clock and forbid me to go out. It's not fair.”

She turned to look at me, the dust rag loose in her hand. “Okay,” she said finally, really watching me for the smallest flicker of wavering strength on my part. “You can go to Scarlett's. But know that I am trusting you, Halley. Don't make me regret it.”

And suddenly, it was so hard to keep looking at her. After all these months of negotiating and bartering, putting up strong-holds and retreating, she'd used her last weapon: trust.

“Okay,” I said, and I fought that sudden pull from all those days at the Grand Canyon and before. When she was my friend, my best friend. “You can trust me.”

“Okay,” she said quietly, still watching me, and I let her break her gaze first.

 

As I got dressed to go out that night I stood in front of the mirror, carefully studying my face. I blocked out the things around my reflection, the ribbons from gymnastics, honor-roll certificates, pictures of me and Scarlett, markers of the important moments in my life. I rubbed my thumb over the smooth silver of the ring Macon had given me. This time, I had only myself and what I would remember, so I concentrated, taking a picture I could keep always.

I stopped at Scarlett's house on the way to Spruce Street, where Macon was picking me up. This was one of the first New Year's Eve we hadn't spent together; I'd made my decision, but for some reason I still felt guilty about it.

“Take these,” Scarlett said to me when I came in, stuffing something into my hand. Marion came around the corner, smoking, her hair in curlers, just as I dropped a condom right on the floor by her foot. She didn't see it and kept going, stepping over the half-assembled stroller—none of us could understand the directions—and I snatched it up, my heart racing.

“Um, I don't think I'll need this many,” I said. She'd given me at least ten, in blue wrappers. They looked like the mints hotels give you on your pillow. I could see Cameron sitting at the kitchen table. He was cutting up a roll of refrigerated cookie dough into little triangles and squares. Scarlett had been scarfing cookies like crazy lately; usually she didn't even wait until the dough was cooked, just eating it by the handful out of the wrapper.

“Just take them,” Scarlett said. “Better to be safe than sorry.” One of my mother's favorite sayings.

She was looking at me as we stood there in the kitchen, as if there was something she wanted to say but couldn't. I pulled out a chair, sat down, and said, “Okay, spit it out. What's the problem?”

“No problem,” she said, spinning the lazy Susan. Cameron was watching us nervously; he'd recently branched into wearing at least one thing that wasn't black—Scarlett's idea—and had on a blue shirt that made him look very sudden and bright. “I'm just—I'm just worried about you.”

“Why?”

“I don't know. Because I know what you're doing, and I know you think it's right, but—”

“Please don't do this,” I said to her quickly. “Not now.”

“I'm not doing anything,” she said. “I just want you to be careful.” Cameron got up from the table and scuttled off toward the stove, his hands full of dough. He was blushing.

“You said you'd support me,” I said. “You said I'd know when it was right.” First my mother, now this, thrown across my path to keep me from moving ahead.

She looked at me. “Does he love you, Halley?”

“Scarlett, come on.”

“Does he?” she said.

“Of course he does.” I looked at my ring. The more times I said it, the more I was starting to believe it.

“He's said it. He's told you.”

“He doesn't have to,” I said. “I just know.” There was a crash as Cameron dropped a cookie sheet, picked it up, and banged it against the stovetop, mumbling to himself.

“Halley,” she said, shaking her head. “Don't be a fool. Don't give up something important to hold onto someone who can't even say they love you.”

“This is what I want to do,” I said loudly. “I can't believe you're doing this now, after we've been talking about this for weeks. I thought you were my friend.”

She looked at me, hard, her hands clenched. “I am your best friend, Halley,” she said in a steady voice. “And that is why I am doing this.”

I couldn't believe her. All this talk about trusting myself, and knowing when it was time, and now she fell out from beneath me. “I don't need this now,” I said, getting up and shoving my chair in. “I have to go.”

“It's just not right,” she said, standing up with me. “And you know it.”

“Not right?” I said, and I already knew something hateful was coming, before the words even left my lips. “But with you it was right, Scarlett, huh? Look at how
right
you were.”

She took a step back, like I'd slapped her, and I knew I'd gone too far. From the stove I could see Cameron looking at me, with the same expression I saved for Maryann Lister and Ginny Tabor and anyone who hurt Scarlett.

We just stood there, silent, facing off across the kitchen, when the doorbell suddenly rang. Neither of us moved.

“Hello?” I heard a voice say, and over Scarlett's shoulder I saw Steve, or who I thought was Steve, coming into the room. The transformation, clearly, was complete. He was wearing his cord necklace, his boots, his tunic shirt, thick burlaplike pants, what appeared to be a kind of cape, and he was carrying a sword on his hip. He stood there, beside the spice rack, a living anachronism.

“Is she ready?” he said. He didn't seem to notice us outright staring at him.

“I don't know,” Scarlett said softly, taking a few steps back toward the stairs. She wouldn't look at me. “I'll go see, okay?”

“Great.”

So Vlad and I stood there together, both of us fully evolved, in Scarlett's kitchen at the brink of the New Year. I heard Scarlett's voice upstairs, then Marion's. On the table in front of me I could see the pregnancy Bible, lying open to Month Six. She'd highlighted a few passages in pink, the pen lying beside.

“I have to go,” I said suddenly. Vlad, who was adjusting his sword, looked up at me. “Cameron, tell Scarlett I said good-bye, okay ?”

“Yeah,” Cameron said slowly. “Sure.”

“Have a good night,” Vlad called out to me as I got to the back door. “Happy New Yearl”

I got halfway across the backyard before I turned around and looked back at the house, the windows all lit up above me. I wanted to see Scarlett in one of them, her hand pressed against the glass, our old secret code. She wasn't there, and I thought about going back. But it was cold and getting late, so I just kept walking to Spruce Street, Macon's car idling quietly by the mailbox, and what lay ahead.

 

The party was at some guy named Ronnie's, outside of town. We had to go down a bunch of winding dirt roads, past a few trailers and old crumbling barns, finally pulling up at a one-story, plain brick house with a blue light out front. There were a few dogs running around, barking, and people scattered across the stoop and the yard. I didn't recognize anyone.

The first thing I thought when I stepped inside, past a keg set up at the front door, was what my mother would think. I was sure the same things would jump out at her: the fake oak paneling, the coffee table crammed with full ashtrays and beer bottles, the yellow and brown shag carpet that felt wet as I walked over it. This house wasn't like Ginny Tabor's, where you knew in its real life it was a home, with parents and dinner and Christmas.

A bunch of people were lined up on the couch, drinking, and beside them the TV was on with just static, a soundless blur. I couldn't hear, the music was so loud, and I kept having to step over people sitting on the floor and backed against the walls, as I followed Macon to the kitchen.

He seemed to know everybody, people reaching out to slap his shoulder as he passed, his name floating over my head in different voices. At the keg he filled up a cup for me, then himself, while I tried to make myself as small as possible to fit in the tiny space behind him.

Macon handed me my beer and I sucked most of it down right away out of nervousness. He grinned and filled it again, then motioned me to follow him down a hallway, past a trash can overflowing with beer cans, to a bedroom.

“Knock-knock,” he said as we walked in. A guy was sitting on the bed, and there was a girl with him, leaning over the side. The room was small and dark, with just a candle lit on the headboard, one with cabinets and shelves, like in my parents' room.

“Hey, hey,” said the guy on the bed, who had short hair and a tattoo on his arm. “What's up, man?”

“Not much.” Macon sat down at the foot of the bed. “This is Halley. Halley, this is Ronnie.”

“Hi,” I said.

“Hello.” Ronnie had very sleepy eyes and his hair was short and spiky, black, his voice low and gravelly. He slid his hand across the bed to the leg of the girl beside him, who gave up on whatever she was looking for on the floor and started to lift her head out of the shadows.

“I lost my damn earring,” she said, as her hair slid across her face, and I could make out her mouth. “It rolled under the bed and I can't reach it.” As she sat upright, her features all falling into place, she looked at me, and I looked right back. It was Elizabeth Gunderson.

“Hey,” she said to Macon, doing that hair swing, so out of place here. “Hi, Halley.”

“Hi.” I was still staring at her. She was wearing a T-shirt that was too big on her and shorts, obviously not what she'd come to the party in. Elizabeth Gunderson worked fast.

Ronnie reached down beside the bed, on the floor, and picked up a purple bong, which he handed to Macon. I sucked down the rest of my beer, just to have something to do, as he took the hit and handed it back.

“You want one?” Ronnie asked me, and I could feel Elizabeth watching me as she lit a cigarette. I wondered what her father, with his Ralph Lauren looks and BMW, would think if he could see her. I wondered what my father would think of me. As she watched me, in the dark, I could have sworn she was smiling.

“Sure,” I said, pushing the thought of my father away as quickly as it came. I handed Macon my empty cup and took the bong, pressing it to my mouth the way I'd seen it done at other parties. He lit it and I breathed in, the smoke curling up toward my mouth, thicker and thicker, until there was a sudden rush of air and my lungs were full, hot. I held it until it hurt and then blew it out, the smoke thick against my teeth.

“Thanks,” I said to Ronnie, handing it back as Macon slid his hand across my back. He'd been wrong. I could fit in here. I could fit in anywhere.

After a while Ronnie and Macon went outside to do something and left me and Elizabeth alone in the dark together. He handed me his beer as he left, which I downed half of because I was suddenly so thirsty, my tongue sticking to my lips. I'd never been stoned before, so I didn't know what to think about what I was feeling. I wasn't about to ask Elizabeth Gunderson, who had taken three bong hits before I lost count and was now stretched out across the bed, smoking, examining her toes. I was still perched at the foot, looking at the shag carpet which was suddenly fascinating, and wondering why I'd never tried this before.

“So,” she said suddenly, rolling over onto her stomach. “When's Scarlett due, anyway?”

“May,” I said, and my voice sounded strange to me. “The second week, or something.”

“I can't believe she's having Michael's baby,” she said. “I mean, I didn't even know they'd hooked up.”

I licked my lips again, taking a tiny sip of beer, then looked around Ronnie's room, at the towels hung over the window for a curtain, at the
Penthouse
magazine by my foot, at the litter box that was by the door. I didn't see any cat.

Then I remembered I was talking to Elizabeth, so I thought back to what we'd been saying, which was hard, and then said, “They didn't hook up. They went out all summer.”

“Did they?” Elizabeth said. Her voice didn't sound strange at all. “I had no idea.”

“Oh, yeah,” I said, taking another precious sip of my beer, which was warm and flat. “They were really in love.”

“I didn't know,” she said slowly. “They must have been awfully secretive about it. I saw Michael a lot last summer, and he never mentioned her.”