The Leaving Season (21 page)

“Meredith.”

“No big deal, right? I was just calling you because it was funny.” I twirled my finger in my hair and felt it pull against my scalp. “I thought you'd think it was funny.”

“Meredith.”

“What? What! You keep saying my name.”

“Don't call me.”

“Don't . . .”

“Don't call me.”

“But—”

“And don't use Nate's phone. Jesus.”

My mind spun. We were friends. He'd said we were friends, so it was okay that I called him. What was his problem? “It was funny,” I said for the hundredth time. “The girl with the pink hair . . . looking at me . . .”

I heard Lee breathing on the other end of the phone.

“Lee, I—”

“Don't call me. Don't.”

And then the call ended. I pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at the screen. It didn't say Call Failed or Call Lost.

Call Ended. Lee had hung up on me.

I had only meant to share a joke between friends. He was wrong. I pressed call again on Lee's number and waited. It went immediately to voice mail. “Yo, it's Lee. Leave a message.”

Was that all I'd wanted from him? No. I wanted—no,
needed—I needed to talk to him. About us. About what had happened between us.

But we weren't friends. Lee and Nate were friends. Lee and I were not. I felt my cheeks grow hot and my eyes sting with tears. How stupid could I be? Calling Lee? And from Nate's phone? God, what an idiot! I stared at the phone in my hand as if I'd never seen a cell before.

Bodies swarmed around me, jostling me out of my reverie; the previous showing's audience emptied out of the theater, voices rising as they poured into the lobby. They laughed and cheered and whistled to each other. In groups and on dates, they checked their phones and took selfies in front of the movie posters.

At the other end of the theater, I saw Nate leave the concession stand, his arms filled with treats. I quickly erased the two calls from his phone's recent history and shoved it in my pocket.

I felt so alone. Shut out by Nate, shut off by Lee. What did I have? What did I want?

Our school's winter formal was more “semi” than “formal.” Girls wore calf-length dresses, rather than floor-length, and boys wore jackets and ties, not tuxes. It was held in a decorated gym, not off-site, which made it similar to the homecoming dance, but we did traditionally have a buffet table and a live band. This year's formal had an '80s theme, but there was no way any of us were going to wear frosted hair or dresses with giant shoulder pads.

Haley's date was Brett Miller, a shy running back who had asked her out by text.

“Is that bad? That's not bad, is it?” Haley had called me one night the week before the dance. It was a welcome
interruption from my studies.

“He seems like a nice guy. You like him?”

“I do. He's cute, and I like his blond crew cut and his freckles.” Haley giggled over the phone. “And he says he likes to dance. And you know how I like to dance.”

“Is he boyfriend material?”

I could sense her shrug. “Maybe. I don't know. Can we double with you and Nate?”

“Are you sure? It's your first date.”

“I know! Maybe we should do a test run.”

I laughed. “You'll be fine.”

“You know what you're wearing?”

I stepped over to my closet and found the dress I'd worn last year, when Nate was a senior. It was a forest-green satin, just below the knee-length, with a scoop neck and cap sleeves. I'd paired it with green satin flats, although it had been raining that day so I'd ended up bringing the shoes with me in my purse and wearing boots in the car. Nate really liked the dress: simple and elegant. He probably wouldn't mind if I wore it again this year.

But
I
would.

“. . . big fat curls with a curling iron,” Haley was saying. “Corey Sanchez said she would loan me hers.”

“I'm sure curls will look great on you.”

“I hope so.” Haley sounded worried, which was very unlike her. “I want to look good for my
date
,” she said with a nervous giggle. “Ack! Date!”

“You'll be fine,” I told her again. “We'll be there to help.”

“I need you to be good role models!” she said.

“For Brett?”

“For me!”

By seven o'clock on Saturday night, the gymnasium had been transformed into a winter wonderland, complete with disco ball and dance floor, live band on a raised stage, and buffet table under one of the basketball hoops.

As soon as we arrived, Nate was swarmed by fans and friends, students and teachers, and even a few of the chaperones. Everyone wanted his attention. They all wanted to hear his story.

I found seats at a table not far from the dance floor and then took Haley with me to get food and drinks for all of us.

“Isn't this kind of cliché?” she asked me as we scooped pink punch from a bowl into paper cups. “The girls getting the guys food?”

“Nate's really tired, so I thought he should sit for a while.”

“Ohh, you're being nice, not submissive. That's different.”

I glanced down at the plate in my hands. I'd filled it with Nate's favorite foods: Doritos and cool ranch dip, BBQ spareribs, chicken nuggets and spicy mustard. That wasn't being cliché, was it? That was being nice.

I finished filling the plate and turned to look for Haley to walk back with me, but she was at the gym entrance with
Katrina and Debra. The three were comparing their dresses and shoes, taking photos and laughing. They spotted me and waved me over. I glanced at Nate, but he was deep in conversation with one of the chaperones. A few minutes with the girls wouldn't be a big deal.

“Middie, get in the middle!” Haley said.

“Hey, that rhymes!” Debra said with a slightly tipsy giggle. She leaned into Katrina and the two began laughing.

“Get in, get in!” Haley held up her phone and we all squeezed our faces together, getting as close as possible. “Say cheese!”

“Naked cheese!” I said, and immediately the girls roared with laughter. I clapped a hand over my mouth. That was Lee's, I remembered, from the skinny dip. I had no idea why it popped out, but—

“Feet selfie!” Debra said, and we all put our shoes next to each other so Haley could snap her phone over them.

“Lip selfie!” Katrina said, and we all mooshed our mouths side by side.

“Booty selfie!” Haley shouted. The four of us wiggled our butts next to one another and someone—not Haley—snapped a photo or ten.

By then, others had noticed us and had their phones out too, aimed at the four of us. Haley held her hand in front of her rear end. “Please, respect our butt privacy,” she said and began laughing hysterically.

I held my hands in front of her butt too. “No more
pictures, please.” And then we were all trying to cover each other up, arms and shoulders and backs and legs bumping into one another and we couldn't stop laughing. It was stupid silly, and maybe these pictures might end up on someone's Instagram, but who cared? It was senior year and this was winter formal, and we only got one chance at it, so why not make it fun?

I looked up and caught Nate's eye across the room. He was watching us intently, so I gave him a little wave and blew him a kiss, expecting he would at least grin back, but he frowned and went back to his conversation. I felt my enthusiasm flag a bit.

Well, okay, then.

“. . . must have been a nightmare,” the chaperone was saying to Nate when I got to the table with the plate of snacks. He had his foot on a chair and was leaning in toward Nate. “Damn, son, you were lucky the Devil had one eye closed.”

“Yes, sir, it was pretty harrowing,” Nate said. As usual, he appeared confident and comfortable in the presence of his fans, old and young.

“Maybe I should hang out with—” I started to say, but Nate pulled me down into a chair.

“Sit, Middie. I just want to be with you tonight.”

Eventually the chaperones gave way to current basketball players, some of whom had played with Nate during his senior year. The conversation became a lot livelier and Nate loosened up.

“That play was
not
my idea,” he told a former teammate. “Do you think I would ever send Jake up the center—you remember the size of that point guard! He was huge!”

The group laughed, but I was restless and bored. I searched the room for Haley and found her on the dance floor with Brett. Not far from her were Debra and Katrina, both of whom were dancing with guys I didn't know. The band was playing '80s covers, everything from Madonna and Michael Jackson to Culture Club and The Police.

The girls' skin glistened with sweat and their smiles lit up the small dance floor. I felt their energy and longed to join in. I turned to Nate, half rising from my chair. “Could you manage a dance?”

“Oh geez, I don't think so, Mid,” he said to me. “Not my thing, you know that.”

I did know that, but that was the past, the way it had always been. Couldn't we try something new, something a little more fun than sitting on the sidelines? “But you said you wanted to be with me tonight.”

Nate's gaze flitted over my shoulder. “Maybe Lee will dance with you.”

“Lee?” I whipped my head around to see Lee approaching the table. Alone. What was he doing here? Alumni didn't come to these dances, and Lee couldn't have been invited by a current student. Could he? I searched the room behind him but didn't see Liza anywhere either. I turned back to Nate. “I really don't think so.”

“Lee? Hey, man, you want to dance with Middie?” Nate called to him.

I held my hand up, as if I could stop Lee in his tracks. I didn't even want to make eye contact. “I'm good. I can dance by myself.”

He paused at the outer circle of the table. He was dressed completely inappropriately, as if he were headed for a concert instead of a formal: a powder-blue Captain America T-shirt under a slate-gray suit jacket, and, of course, jeans and his Converse low-tops.

He sipped from a paper cup that looked insanely small in his hand, as if he were suddenly a giant in the land of the little people. But it was only a Dixie cup, not a full-size one. He caught me looking at the cup. “They ran out of the regular ones,” he explained. “And now I'm Gulliver in Lilliput.”

I smiled. That was exactly what I was thinking. I was about to comment, but then I saw the blank look on his face and in his eyes, a vacant expressionless stare that told me he could not care one iota less than he did at that very moment. I felt my grin melt away.

We stood like that for another long minute, awkward and weird. He was swaying a bit, and I wasn't sure if he'd had a couple beers or if he wanted to dance.

I hadn't ever seen Lee dance. I had no idea if he could. Or would.

Haley and Brett came at us then, giddily hopping and goofing around. They both looked so ridiculous, but they
were having such fun that I couldn't stop laughing. Beside me, Lee couldn't resist either; a sliver of a grin pierced his cold veneer. Haley and Brett grabbed us, pulling us out onto the dance floor with them, and then, miraculously, I was dancing with Lee.

Kind of. He didn't dance so much as step-touch, step-touch, and his arms sort of swung by his sides. We danced about three feet apart, our attention anywhere but on each other: Haley, Brett, the band, the disco ball, the crowd at the buffet.

My friends cheered and shouted for more just as the song ended.

“We've got a couple more songs coming up before we take a break,” the lead singer of the band said into his mike. He looked a little like the '80s himself: spiky gelled hair, oversize shiny sports jacket with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, skinny black pants and sneakers. “So why don't we slow it down a notch, okay, kids?”

Kids?
Ugh. Even I groaned at that.

“One, two, three, four . . . ,” he said, off mike, and the band began to play a soft ballad.

Just as Brett and Haley collapsed into each other's arms, I glanced at Lee, who met my gaze and then quickly looked away. My cue to leave. But the crowd wouldn't let me: suddenly there was a surge of slow-jamming couples on the dance floor, squeezing me in place. My back was up against Brett, and my front . . .

“Excuse me,” Lee said. He was talking over my shoulder as he tried to maneuver around me, but it was nearly impossible. The couples were moving us closer and closer together, pressing us hip to hip, thigh to thigh. My face was inches from the lapel of his jacket, the slightly frayed edge brushing my nose and cheeks as I breathed. I could smell sweat mixed with deodorant, shaving cream with beer, and the sickly sweet scent of the pink punch on his lips.

I felt his hands on my elbows, guiding my arms around his waist, even as his gaze was far beyond me and the dance floor. I was stunned—after all he'd said on the phone? In the blink of an eye, our knees touched, our legs parted, our hips swayed. The heat between us was undeniable.

“I know this much is true . . .”

I glanced around at the couples on the floor: each of them was absorbed in the starry glow that surrounded them; they whispered and giggled, some wore goofy smiles, others were moon-faced and swoony. No one kissed—that was a no-no, along with grinding and twerking and any other vulgar displays—but I could feel the
wanting
to kiss and the
longing
to be kissed. It was like a virus being passed from couple to couple. I wondered if it would infect Lee and me.

“I know this much is true . . .”

My fingers interlaced at the small of his back, under his jacket. I could feel his heart thundering behind his rib cage and down his spine. My own pulse raced in rhythm with his, and I felt my skin tingle and tremble when he pressed his
palms on my waist. From the neck down, we could not have been closer or more intimate, but . . .

“I know this much is . . .”

Suddenly he wrenched himself out of my arms and took off, his thin frame easily winding among the couples until he reached the edge of the dance floor.

Wait, Lee!
I thought, but I couldn't call to him, couldn't shout his name.

So I ran.

I tried not to call attention to myself, tried not to make it appear as if I was running after him. I followed him past the buffet, through the gym entrance, and out the front door of the school.

As soon as we were out at the semicircle, I called his name. He stopped but didn't turn around. His arms hung by his sides and he looked off toward the parking lot.
Inches from a clean getaway,
his body language seemed to say.

I caught up to him but kept my distance. Fog swirled around the hem of my dress like wisps of smoke. “Lee, I—”

His cheeks were flush and his eyes red-rimmed. “Leave me alone, Meredith. Leave me. Alone.”

“But we were just dancing—”

“Just stop, okay? Tell yourself whatever the fuck you want, but you were not
just
dancing with me.” He snorted and shook his head. His hands twitched and trembled.

“Me?
You
were the one who—”

“Do you want me to tell Nate you cheated on him?” His
voice was cruel and his words clipped.

I felt my stomach drop to my feet. “I never cheated. We both thought he . . .”

“And after he came back, after we
knew
he was safe,” Lee said, “what about then? What about your calls and texts
since then
?” He pulled his phone out and held it aloft.

“I didn't cheat,” I said softly, casting my gaze away from the phone, away from the evidence. My eyes followed the trails of fog that spun around my legs and feet, tangling the lace edge of my skirt.

“You did and you still are,” Lee replied.

“You're wrong. I love Nate.”

Lee waved his hand back and forth between us. “Then what is this? Huh? What the fuck are you doing?”

“I . . .” I didn't know. I heard the words “I love Nate” and I knew they were true—