What Happens to Goodbye (17 page)

Read What Happens to Goodbye Online

Authors: Sarah Dessen

“Hey,” I called out. “Deb!”
Beneath the table, Heather kicked my shin, but I ignored her. As for Deb, she was clearly so unused to being casually addressed at school that she visibly jumped at this, the sound of her own name, then whirled around to look at me, surprised, her mouth a tiny O shape. She was wearing jeans, a pink cardigan sweater, and a navy jacket. The ribbon in her hair matched her lip gloss, which mtched her quilted purse.
“Yes?” she asked.
“Um,” I said, realizing I had no plan past this first greeting. “How’s it going?”
Deb looked at me, then at the rest of the group at the table, as if weighing whether this was a trick or not. “Fine,” she said slowly. Then, in only an incrementally more friendly tone, she added, “How are you?”
“Do you want to sit with us?” I asked her. I felt both Riley and Heather look at me, but I kept my eyes on Deb, who looked so surprised—shocked, even—that you would have thought I’d asked her to lend me a kidney. “I mean,” I continued, and now Dave was looking at me, too, “there’s, um, room here. If you do.”
Deb, no fool, looked at Heather, who was staring at me, an incredulous look on her face. Forget borrowing a kidney: by her face, you’d think I’d offered to eat one. “Well,” she said slowly, pulling her purse a little closer to her side, “I—”
“She’s right,” Dave said suddenly, scooting a bit down from me to create a bigger space between us. “The more, the merrier. Have a seat.”
Riley narrowed her eyes, twisting the top off her water again. Meanwhile, Deb was looking at me, so I tried to convey with one look both reassurance and confidence. Somehow, though, it worked, because she came over—slowly—and slid onto the bench beside me, parking her purse in her lap and folding her hands over the top of it.
This time, I did have to say something. I’d pulled Deb into this, so the least I could do was try to make her feel welcome. But my mind just went blank, then blanker still as I began trying desperately to come up with any conversation starter. I was just about to say something about the weather—the weather!—when she politely cleared her throat.
“I like your tattoo,” she said to Dave, nodding at the circle on his wrist. “Does it have special meaning?”
I knew I was not the only one surprised that this was the topic she chose to broach: Heather and Riley were staring at her, as well. But Deb was giving Dave her full attention as he glanced down at his wrist, then said, “Yeah, actually. It, um, represents someone I was very close with, once.”
Hearing this, Riley closed her eyes, and I thought again about the matching circle on her own wrist. You didn’t just get a tattoo with someone for nothing.
“What about you?” Heather asked Deb suddenly. “Do you have any tattoos?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Really?” Heather said, raising her eyebrows. “I’m so surprised.”
“Heather,” I said.
“I would actually love to have one,” Deb continued, glancing at me. “But I haven’t found anything I feel passionate enough about yet.” To Dave, who was watching her with an attentive expression, she added, “I think it’s important that it really have meaning to you if it’s going to be a part of you forever.”
Heather’s eyes widened, and I felt like kicking her in the shin but restrained myself. Dave said, “That’s very true, actually.”
Deb smiled as if he’d paid her apliment. “Yours looks kind of tribal to me, with the thick lines and the black.”
“You know about tribal tattoos?” Dave asked her.
“A little,” Deb replied. “Although personally, the Japanese designs are my favorites. The fish, and the foo dogs. The artwork is so imperial and classic.”
“Are you
kidding
me with this?” Heather interjected, incredulous. “How do
you
know about tattoos?”
“My mom had a friend who had his own shop,” Deb said, either unaware of or just ignoring her tone. “I used to stay there after school until she was done at work.”
“You,” Heather said, her voice flat, “hung out at a tattoo shop.”
“It was a while back.” Deb smoothed her hands over her purse. “Very interesting, though. I learned a lot.”
Dave, on Deb’s other side, suddenly caught my eye and I was surprised to see him smile at me, like we were the only two in on a joke. Even more unexpectedly, I felt myself smile back.
“So, Deb,” I said. “Hypothetical situation. Your boyfriend cheats on you. Do you grant him another chance, or end things?”
Heather rolled her eyes. Riley, though, was watching us.
“Well,” Deb said after a moment. “Honestly, I’d need more details before I could say.”
“Like what?” Dave asked her.
She thought for a moment. “Length of the relationship, first. I mean, if it’s really early days, it doesn’t bode well. Better to move on.”
“Good point,” Riley said quietly. Heather looked at her, raising her eyebrows.
“Also,” Deb continued, “I’d have to consider the circumstances. Was it a fling, with someone he hardly knew, or a person he actually cared about? The first could be explained as a misstep . . . but if real emotions are involved, it’s a lot more complicated.”
“True,” I said.
“Finally, a lot would depend on his behavior. I mean, did he confess, or did I find out some other way? Is he actually sorry, or just mad he got caught?” She sighed. “Really, though? The bottom line I always ask myself is: if I look at everything I’ve had with this person, good and bad, am I better or worse off without them? If the answer is better . . . well, then, that’s the answer.”
We all just sat there, looking at her. No one said anything, and then the bell rang. “Well,” Riley said, blinking a few times. “That was . . . very informative. Thank you.”
“Sure,” Deb said, friendly as ever.
Riley and Heather both got to their feet, picking up their bags and trash, while on our side, Deb and I did the same. Only Dave stayed where he was, taking his time screwing the cap onto his water bottle. When he finally got to his feet, he looked at me.
“You never answered,” he said as Deb unzipped her purse, looking for something inside.
“What?”
“The question. Stay or go. never answered.”
I looked over at Riley, who was pulling on her backpack, smiling at something Heather had just said as she did so. “I’m not good with advice,” I said.
“Ah, come on,” he said. “That’s a cop-out. And this is a hypothetical.”
Everyone was starting toward the main entrance now, Heather and Riley ahead, with me, Dave, and Deb bringing up the rear. I shrugged, then said, “I don’t like complications. If something’s not working . . . you gotta move on.”
Dave nodded slowly, considering this. I thought he might push further, or maybe counter, but instead, he turned to Deb. “It was very nice talking to you.”
“And you, as well!” Deb said. “Thanks for the invitation.”
“That was me, actually,” I said.
Dave laughed, glancing at me, and I felt myself smile again. “See you around, Mclean.”
I nodded, and then he turned, falling in beside Riley and sliding his hands into his pockets.
People were moving all around us, en route to different buildings, as Deb and I just stood there together. Finally, she said, “He’s very nice.”
“He’s something,” I replied.
She considered this, zipping her purse shut. Then she said, “Well, everyone is.”
Everyone is something
, I thought now as I stood upstairs at Luna Blu, looking across all those boxes. For some reason, this had stuck with me, simple and yet not, ever since she’d said it. It was like a puzzle, as well, two vague words with one clear one between them.
Looking closer, I saw now that one of the boxes had been opened, some packing materials loose on the floor around it. Inside, it contained stacks of plastic sheets of house and building parts. There were pieces with cutouts of doors and windows, and others printed to look like brick and wooden facades. Fronts and backs of small houses, block-like stores, and longer buildings with rows of windows that had to be offices or schools. There were dozens of sheets in the box, with the parts for a couple of structures on each one. So many pieces.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I heard Opal call out from behind me. When I turned, I saw she was signing the last of the sheets, for a heavyset guy who’d been leaning against the wall. When she was done, he took it without a thank-you, then trudged off to the stairs.
“And what is that?” I asked.
She stuck her pen behind her ear, then came over to stand beside me. “That this is an impossible amount of work, an undoable task that will, mostly likely, never be completed in a million years.”
I didn’t say anything, because she was kind of right.
“Or maybe,” she continued, reaching down into the box to pull out one sheet printed with brick house parts, “that’s just what
I’m
thinking.”
“At least you have a lot of help,” I told her.
She gave me a flat look. “I have a lot of
people
. Not the same thing.”
I watched her for a second as she turned the piece in her hand, studying it. From downstairs, I could hear the sounds of the restaurant getting ready to open: chairs scraping as they were pushed aside to be swept under, the voices of the staff laughing and chatting, the clinking of glasses being stacked behind the bar. It was as familiar to me as a song I’d been hearing my whole life, covered by various people but the basic tune the same.
“I mean,” she continued, “can you even imagine how hard it’s going to be to put together all these tiny houses, and then find the right places for them, not to mention each tree and streetlight and fire hydrant?”
“Well—”
“I mean, there are hundreds of these things. And they all have, like, a hundred pieces. And it’s supposed to be done by June? How in the world is
that
going to happen?”
I wasn’t sure if this was a rhetorical question. But she had stopped talking, so I said, “Well, it’s like you just told them. You start with the base, and work your way up. It’s basic engineering.”
“Basic engineering,” she repeated. Then she looked at me. “Did I really make it sound that simple?”
“You sure did.”
“Huh. I’m a better liar than I thought.”
“Hey, Opal!” a voice called up the stairs. “You up there?”
“It depends,” she replied over her shoulder. “What do you need? ”
“Copier’s on the fritz again and we only have two special sheets printed.”
She sighed, looking up at the ceiling. “Did you try the paper-clip trick?”
Silence. Then, “The what?”
“Did you put a paper clip under the toner cartridge . . .” She trailed off, clearly having decided this was too complicated to convey from a distance. “I’ll be right there.”
“Okay,” the voice replied. “Oh, and Gus wants to talk to you, too. Oh, and also the towel guy’s here and says he needs cash, not a check—”
“I’ll be right there,” she said again, louder this time.
“Ten four,” the voice replied. “Over and out.”
Opal reached up, massaging her temples, the pen behind her ear jumping up and down as she did so. “Basic engineering,” she said. “I hope you’re right.”
“Me, too,” I said. “Because that’s a lot of boxes.”
“Tell me about it.” She smiled, then squared her shoulders, dropping her hands, and started over to the stairway. “Hit the lights on the way out, will you?”
“Sure thing.”
I heard her head down, her footsteps fading, and then turned to follow her. As I did, though, I saw, sitting on the table by the wall, the directions she’d been holding as she’d given her speech earlier. I picked them up, impressed by their heft: rather than a few stapled sheets, as I’d thought, they were like a booklet, sizable and thick. I flipped past the first pages, the table of contents and introduction, the company’s contact info, to page eight, where the actual directions began. STEP ONE, it read at the top, with about four paragraphs of tiny type beneath it, complete with diagrams labeled with letters and numbers.
Whoa,
I thought, and flipped forward a bit, only to see more of the same. Then, though, remembering what I’d just said to Opal, I turned back, finding STEP ONE again. FIND FOUR CORNERS (A, B, C, D) OF BASE, it read, and ARRANGE ON STABLE SURFACE AS PICTURED
.
Downstairs, a phone was ringing, and someone was yelling they needed lemons. I walked over to the box with the uppercase A on it, ripping it open, then dug around for a few moments before I found the top left corner labeled A (BASE). I carried it across the room and put it down on the floor, as pictured. Like a blinking cursor on an empty page, it was just the first thing. The beginning of the beginning. But at least it was done.

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