“Okay,” she says, then scratches the bite on her elbow again. “But that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“What did you want to talk to me about?”
“Sebastian,” she says. “And that night at the party.”
Oh for the love of God. I glance at the clock on the wall, willing the second hand to move faster so the bell will ring, class will begin, and this conversation will end. “We don’t need to talk about that,” I say, forcing a smile onto my face and hoping she buys it.
“Yes,” she says. “We do.” She takes a deep breath. More scratching of her elbow. “Look, I want you to know that I didn’t know he had a girlfriend.”
“You didn’t know he had a girlfriend?”
“No,” she says.
“You didn’t ask him?”
“No,” she says, surprised. “Why would I? Some guy was flirting with me and then tried to kiss me in a pool. I assumed he was single. Did you ask him if he had a girlfriend when you first met him?”
“No,” I say, then shift on my chair uncomfortably. She has a point. Also, I kind of like that she gave me a little bit of attitude. I mean, she’s obviously super apologetic and she knows it’s a horrible situation, and she’s definitely nervous I might flip the fuck out on her, but she doesn’t seem embarrassed. It’s more like she thinks shit happens, and I should deal with it. I can respect that.
“Anyway, I wanted to say I’m sorry. It doesn’t make it right, it just . . . makes it what it is.”
The bell rings then, and I turn around in my seat, thinking I agree with her, that it is just what it is. And not just the situation with Sebastian. But I still wish I knew how I could make it right. How I could make everything right.
The Summer
Noah and I aren’t talking again. Not for the rest of the day. Not for the rest of the week. It’s probably for the best, because I’m actually able to kind of forget about the whole, uh, situation with us. Until one day, a week or so later, when Lacey and I are eating Chinese food at the mall food court. We’ve spent the past two hours trying on ridiculously expensive prom dresses we will never wear, and have decided to reward ourselves with General Gau’s. We even splurged and got wonton soup to go with it. (I figured an extra two dollars for soup is the least I can do for myself—plus I’m so close to having enough money for my car that I decide it’s okay to treat myself) when my phone rings. Ava.
“Ava,” I tell Lacey, and she wrinkles up her nose and makes a face.
“You better answer it,” she says, slurping up another spoonful of soup. “Otherwise she’s just going to keep calling. I’ll go get us some more crispy noodles.”
“Hey,” I say into my phone as Lacey leaves the table. Even though Noah and I haven’t been talking, Ava and I have actually been in almost-constant contact. I think now that the summer is getting closer to being over and she’s been at camp so long, she’s getting more homesick and missing me and Noah more.
Not that I know anything about how much she’s talking to Noah. She doesn’t bring him up, and when she does, it’s to tell me how she just got off the phone with him, or to ask if I know whether or not he’s still at work. I’m assuming she doesn’t know that he and I aren’t talking, since she hasn’t brought it up. I’m not sure what’s going to happen when she comes back and we all have to be in the same room together. But I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
“How’s my little Lewis and Clark?” I ask her.
“Ugh, stop calling me that,” she says, but she’s laughing. Ever since a couple of weeks ago when Ava got her campers lost on a hiking trip, I’ve been calling her my little Lewis and Clark. She always tells me to stop, but I know she secretly likes it even though it’s not the most witty, as far as nicknames go. Also, it doesn’t really make much sense, because Lewis and Clark were two people, not one.
“I miss you, Aves,” I say.
“I miss you too, Hans,” she says. “But only three more days until I see you!”
It takes me a second to realize what she’s talking about, since she’s not supposed to come back for another few weeks. And then I remember. The trip. That I’m supposed to go on. With Noah. To Maine. To visit her. She doesn’t think that’s still happening does she? We haven’t even talked about it again since that first day she brought it up to me. But that’s Ava for you, just assuming something’s a plan when it’s not. Obviously I cannot go to Maine since Noah and I aren’t even speaking, much less able to sit in a car together for three hours and then spend a whole weekend hanging out with Ava. I mean, holy freaking crap.
“Yeah,” I say slowly, wondering how I’m going to break this to her.
“I’m sooo excited,” she says. “You guys are gonna love it here!”
“The thing is, Ava,” I say. “I’m still not sure I can get the time off of work. Weekends are our busiest time, and usually I have to work both days, otherwise—”
“That’s the best part!” she says. “I talked to Cooley!”
“You talked to Cooley?”
“Yup! And I got him to give you the time off.”
My stomach drops. “You got him to give me the time off?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Well, Friday and Saturday at least. It turns out he needs to hire some new people when you guys go back to school, and this will give them a chance to do a trial run. You know, work out the kinks.” I don’t say anything. “Hannah? Are you there?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’m here, I’m just . . . I’m shocked.” And a little pissed that she went behind my back and talked to my boss, but I don’t say that. I take a sip of my water.
“I knew you would be,” she says. “That’s why I hadn’t brought it up in so long, I wanted it to be a surprise. We’re gonna have so much fun, we can—Oh, shit! Hannah, I have to go, one of my campers is puking.” The sound of someone getting sick comes through the phone, and then it goes dead.
Lacey returns to the table, holding a huge bowl of crispy noodles. “Hey,” she says. “Everything okay?”
“Yup,” I say, forcing myself to smile, and then reaching out and grabbing a handful of noodles. “But we’re definitely going to have to stop for ice cream after this.”
Later that night, I stand on Noah’s front porch, my palms sweaty and my heart racing. But I don’t really have a choice. I have to talk to him and figure out what we’re going to do about our trip. Should I go? If I don’t go, will Ava be suspicious? Is Noah maybe going to refuse to drive me? What will we tell Ava? Can I fake an illness? Will she believe it? Does she know something is going on with me and Noah? Is something going on with me and Noah? Maybe we can say that I can’t get off work after all, that at the last minute one of the new people got sick and I had to cover.
God, I really should have just called. I didn’t want to take the chance that Noah wouldn’t answer, and then I’d have to spend the whole night wondering if he wasn’t near his phone or if he just didn’t want to talk to me. Plus, I definitely thought this was the kind of convo you should have in person. But now I’m thinking I should probably just go home and maybe send a text or—
The door flies open, and there’s Noah, standing behind the screen. He has on a pair of track pants and a T-shirt, and he’s holding one of those shaker cups full of a thick brown liquid. Probably a protein shake. Or a Boost.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hey,” he says. I wait for him to say something else, but he doesn’t. I shift on my legs, which suddenly feel all wobbly, although that could be from the walk over here, which is about two miles. But what else could I do? I couldn’t ask Lacey to drive me, she would have asked why I was going to Noah’s. She picks me up for work without asking too many questions, because she just thinks Noah got sick of getting up so early, and at work Noah and I are cordial so she doesn’t get suspicious. But driving over to his house at night? She would definitely know something’s up.
I want to tell him that we need to talk, but that sounds so . . . serious and s
tereotypical, and besides, I’m not really sure we need to have a big talk about it. But before I can say anything, Noah says, “Do you wanna go for a ride? We could . . . talk?”
I nod, not trusting myself to say anything. “Do you mind waiting while I take a shower? I just got back from the gym.” I shake my head no, and he holds the screen door open. “Do you want to come in?”
I shake my head again. “I’ll stay out here.” I sit down on the porch and take in deep breaths of the late summer air, and before I know it, before I’m ready, Noah’s back at the door.
He’s changed into a pair of khaki shorts and the T-shirt that he got at The Spill Canvas concert that night. He bought it from one of the opening acts, a band called Treaty of Paris. The shirt says I HELPED TREATY OF PARIS GET TO THEIR NEXT SHOW with a picture of a tour bus. I try to calm my heart again unsuccessfully. Did he wear the shirt because of me? Is it some kind of sign that everything is going to be okay with the two of us? That we’re going to be friends?
I follow him to his car, and we drive, not saying anything, me not even knowing where we’re going, until finally we’re at Monsumet Beach. The sun is dipping down, with only about an hour or so before it sets completely. Most everyone has gone for the day, but there are still a few people hanging out on picnic tables enjoying a late dinner.
We don’t say anything as we walk through the sand toward the water. Finally, we stop, and Noah spreads out the towel he grabbed from his trunk so we could sit without getting all sandy. I’m happy to keep up the whole silence thing we have going on, but as soon as we’re settled, Noah says, “So should we talk about what’s going on with us?”
“Okay.” I swallow. “Um, should we talk about the trip first, or our fight?”
“Our fight?” He frowns, his eyebrows knitting together in confusion.
“Yeah, our fight. You know, the fight we got into the other day?”
“I didn’t know it was a fight.”
“You didn’t? We said kind of mean things to each other.”
“I didn’t say anything mean to you.”
I think about it. He’s right. He didn’t say anything mean to me. “Well, I said something mean to you. About how you lie about your screenplay.” I leave out the part about him showing up at my house at one in the morning, not quite ready to go there.
“I do lie about my screenplay.” He shrugs, like it’s not a big deal to call someone out on their lies. “Well, not really lie,” he says. “More like, don’t tell people. Which I guess is a lie by omission.” I shift on the blanket, wondering if he’s thinking of how we’re both kind of lying to Ava by omission.
“Why?” I ask.
“Why what?”
“Why do you lie by omission? I mean, how come you don’t tell people you’re writing it?” I’m not sure why I’m asking. I guess because I want to know why he decided to tell me about his screenplay when he hasn’t told anyone else. “I mean, I know you don’t want people to ask you about it and bother you about it, but couldn’t you just tell them not to do that?”
“Writing a screenplay is a really big fucking deal,” he says.
“I know,” I say. “Which is why I don’t understand why you wouldn’t want people to know.”
“What do you think most people would say if I told them?”
I think about it. “Probably they would ask to read it.”
“Exactly.”
“But I didn’t ask to read it.”
“I know,” he says. “For some reason, I knew you would get that it’s cool just that I’m writing it.”
“But what if I had asked to read it?”
“Well, I would have had to say no because I don’t want anyone reading it.”
“Because you don’t know if it’s good or not?”
“Yeah,” he says. “And if you said it was good, I would think you were just saying it because you’re my friend. And if you said it wasn’t good I’d probably be crushed. So it’s a no-win situation.”
I nod. We sit there for a few minutes not saying anything, just enjoying the cool air and the breeze, watching the seagulls dip down over the water and the families on the beach pack up their sand pails and shovels. After a few minutes, I shiver from the breeze that’s now blowing off the water, and Noah reaches over and hands me one of the sweatshirts he brought from the car. It smells like him, and I look down at my hands, trying to figure out what to say.
Finally I settle on, “So. We’re friends?”
“What?”
“You just said that if I liked your screenplay, you wouldn’t believe me because we’re friends.”
“Yes,” he says, looking me right in the eye. “We’re friends. Right?”
“Right,” I say, hoping my voice sounds stronger than I feel. Because the truth is, Noah and I aren’t friends. You can’t be friends with someone who makes you feel the way Noah makes me feel, you can’t be friends with someone who makes your head all cloudy when he gives you his sweatshirt, you can’t be friends with someone who shows up at your house at one a.m. for a mysterious reason, and you can’t be friends with someone who tells you about their screenplay which nobody else knows about. But you also can’t be more than friends with your best friend’s boyfriend.
“So,” I say. “About the trip . . .”
I trail off, because even though I’ve been dreading it, suddenly I want to go. I want to go to Maine, partly because I want to spend time with Noah outside of work, and partly because I want to see Ava. Maybe if we’re all there together, I can prove to myself that nothing really is going on between me and Noah. I’ll see them together, and it’ll be like it was before.
“I’ll pick you up Friday?” Noah asks. “At, like, around seven?”
“Sounds good,” I say, hoping I sound like I mean it. We sit there for a little while longer, then head back to the car.
That night, when I check my email, I have one from Noah. And attached to it is his screenplay.
The First Day of Senior Year
Between seventh and eighth periods, I remember something horrible. Something I can’t believe slipped my mind, something I should have remembered way before, but I guess I didn’t because I had too much other stuff going on.
And it’s that ninth period, the last period of the day, I have ceramics. Which in and of itself isn’t that big of a deal—ceramics is an art elective, and it’s supposedly pretty easy as far as art electives go. The teacher, Mr. Guthrie, is super laid back, so you spend most of your time throwing bowls and then glazing them. They only offer one section of it per semester, since there’s only one pottery wheel, so unless you’re a senior, it’s almost impossible to get into.
And at the end of last year, Ava, Sebastian, Noah, and I all signed up for it. We figured it’d be an easy A, it would get our art elective over with, and it would guarantee that we’d all have at least one class together. Unfortunately, that means that at the end of the day, we’re all going to be together. In one class. Not even sitting in desks, but at those long tables that are in all the art rooms, the kind that allow people to mingle and talk and maybe even get into fights. When I remember all of this, I realize there’s no way we can all be in the same room together. So I have no choice but to go back down to guidance.
“Oh, hi,” I say to Rosie when I get there, giving her an embarrassed grin. “Sorry about that before.” I roll my eyes, like, wow, who hasn’t been in a situation like that, wasn’t it crazy?
But Rosie’s not having it. “You mean when you ran out of here and caused a big disturbance in the hall that would have constituted me writing you up if I weren’t so busy in here?” she asks.
I want to tell her that (a) she doesn’t have the authority to write people up, that only teachers can do that, (b) she doesn’t really look that busy, since it seems like she’s been spending most of her time turning people away, and (c) she really shouldn’t mess with me, because I’m definitely not in the mood.
But instead I just smile sweetly and say, “
Yes, well, I’m obviously in need of some guidance.” When did I become such a smartass? I have no idea. I think I’ve been pushed to my brink. Normally I wouldn’t dare say that to someone. Ever. Secretary or not.
“Obviously,” she says.
“So can I see Mr. Davies?”
“No,” she says. “You had your chance. You blew it.”
I don’t even bother listening to her. I just march over to a chair in the corner and sit down. Again, I don’t know where this is coming from. Until today, I’ve never been in trouble at school. I hardly ever even skip class. I seriously might have really lost my mind. Like, for real. Not that anyone could blame me.
“What are you doing?” Rosie asks, sounding aghast.
“Waiting for Mr. Davies.” I cross my legs and fold my hands on my lap primly.
Rosie looks at me for a second, then reaches over and buzzes Mr. Davies on the phone. “I have Hannah Kaplan in here,” she says. I guess she knows my name after our little interaction earlier. Which I’m not sure is a good thing. “She’s insisting on seeing you, and being very belligerent, not to mention that scene she caused in the hall earlier. Shall I write her up and send her back to class?” She listens for a second, and then her lips purse up and she replaces the receiver without saying goodbye. Judging from the dirty look she gives me, I’m assuming Mr. Davies said he’d see me. She turns away and then starts typing something into her computer, probably updating her Facebook page with something about how she can’t deal with the little snots that go to this school. I’ve seen her write similar things on there before. She has her page set to private, but Sebastian knows ways around that.
After about twenty minutes, Mr. Davies calls me in. Which is no good. I haven’t missed ceramics yet, and I realize that, in my panic, I’ve made a huge tactical error. I should have come here during ceramics. But now that I’m already here, I can’t just leave and decide I’m coming back later. Especially with Rosie out there. Which means I’m just going to have to convince Mr. Davies that I need to drop ceramics. Immediately.