If He Had Been with Me

  “Do you guys remember your first day of school?” my mother says.

  “No,” I say.

  “I do,” Finny says.

  “You ran off without Finny,” Aunt Angelina says. “He was still clinging to my skirts in the door and you shot across the kindergarten to the monkey bars.”

  “And then you hung upside down and scared me to death,” my mother says.

  I don’t just not remember it; I don’t believe it either. I was terrified of being away from Finny and he was at home wherever we went.

  “You guys must have that backward,” I say.

  “You were wearing a skirt and everyone could see your underwear,” Mom says.

  “You were always the brave one,” Aunt Angelina says.

  “It was you,” Finny says. His eyes don’t leave the road. He does not see me glance over.

  I don’t remember always being the brave one. I remember being afraid that he would leave me someday. I never would have left him.

  ***

  “What about you?” I had asked him. We were sitting on the edge of the fountain now. The Mothers were still wandering with the camera. I watched them as they walked this way and that.

  “I like it too,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah,” he said, “and it’s not too far from home.” He paused then, and I looked back up at him. He wasn’t looking at me. “I think maybe I’ll go to New York for med school though.” Finny in New York instead of me. By then, I’ll be married to Jamie and be back in Ferguson. It’s funny how things don’t turn out the way you thought they would.

  “Will you wear black turtlenecks and drink coffee for me?” I said.

  “I don’t like coffee,” he says. I laugh.

  “You know what? Me neither,” I said. We both laughed. The Mothers took a picture of us but we didn’t know. They were far away and we are small, sitting together on the corner of the fountain. I’m looking at the ground; he is looking at me. We look as if we sit there every day, together.

  On the way home, I look out the window and watch the trees fly by like road markers telling us how far we have come from where we were.

  47

  On August 8th, nothing happens.

  Lightning does not strike the Earth. No old woman shows up at the door with a warning. Finny doesn’t see a black dog staring at him as he gets out of his red car. No one says anything prophetic or ironic. I do not awake in darkness to hear the clock strike thirteen.

  Did Finny feel something? Was there something nameless that shifted within him? Did that last year feel to him like late afternoon, the sunlight creeping across the floorboards of his room, slowly fading until there is but a thin veil of gray between day and night?

  Did I feel something? Did I know?

  Like all things that have become history, I now feel as if I always knew it, as if all through this story, it had been lurking in the shadows. The story underneath the story.

  48

  On the first day of school, Jamie and I drive past my old bus stop, and the freshmen look like children. A girl with black hair and combat boots shuffles her feet and glares at the ground. I wish her well.

  “We’re seniors!” the girls squeal to each other. The boys mimic our squeals and roll their eyes. It’s deathly hot on The Steps to Nowhere, but we will have to sit there before class and during lunch so that all the freshmen know it’s off limits to them. We sit together before the first bell rings and talk about realizing that, in a way, this was our last summer. Next summer, we won’t be children in any sense of the word. We’re almost there, that finish line that has stood before us all our lives. We are almost adults, our lives are about to begin.

  I’m in Mr. Laughegan’s creative writing class.

  “I told you I’d see you in here again,” he says when I walk into his janitor’s closet classroom. He tells us to write a page on what kind of fruit or vegetable we would be. I would be a kiwi, obviously.

  I also have a college credit literature class, two English classes, and no math class. It’s almost more than I can bear.

  I do have gym though, a themed class called lifetime sports. It’s supposed to be sports that you’ll be able to play your whole life, like bowling or walking or something. I signed up for it because it sounded easy.

  I’m not sure why Finny signed up for it. He’s good at all sports; I can’t imagine why he would want a class with so little activity. I’m already sitting on the bleachers when he comes in the gym. The teacher takes his name and he sits down in front of me. I’m not sure if he saw me.

  While Ms. Scope goes over the expectations of the class, what we’ll be doing, and when we’ll do it, I look at the back of Finny’s head. His mother probably thinks he needs a haircut, but I like it when it gets a little long. At the end of her speech, Ms. Scope says we must choose a partner for the semester, someone to play shuffleboard with and keep score in pool. Everyone looks around and whispers, pairing off as quickly as possible so as not to be left behind. Finny turns around and looks me in the eye.

  “You want to?” he says.

  “Sure,” I say. I think about standing at the bus stop with him that first day of freshman year, too awkward to even say hello back to him. We couldn’t have been partners that year, or maybe even last year. He’s still the most popular boy in our school, and I’m still the girlfriend of the misfits’ leader, but since we’re the only seniors in the class, we can be gym partners; it won’t look like it means anything.

  Ms. Scope writes down every pair and tells us we are free for the rest of the period to shoot baskets or sit on the bleachers. Everyone else gets up or climbs higher to gossip in the corners. Finny and I stay sitting. He turns to me again. I’m not allowed to wear a tiara in gym, and I feel strangely exposed to him.

  “So we’re seniors,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say.

  49

  Angie and Preppy Dave had sex the second weekend after school started.

  “Where did you do it?” Sasha asks her. It’s lunchtime and the boys are flinging themselves around in the field, punching shoulders and calling names. The concrete step is warm through my jeans. I remember sitting exactly like this and listening to Brooke tell her story.

  “We were in his car,” Angie says. “We didn’t plan on it,” she tells us. “It just kinda happened.” She doesn’t look upset though; she looks beautiful. There is a flush in her pale cheeks, and her eyes are bright.

  “Really?” I say. I don’t understand how sex can happen by accident. After Jamie and I have been kissing for a long time, I tell him that we should stop, because that’s what the girl is supposed to say at some point. But I’ve never said that we should stop because I thought we actually needed to. I’ve never forgotten that we’re in his car, that the moment isn’t right.

  “It hurt like hell, right?” Brooke says.

  “Actually,” Angie says, “I threw up.”

  “Oh my God,” I say. She looks at my face and laughs.

  “Was he…you know, done?” Brooke says.

  “Yeah,” Angie says. “But it was, like, right afterward.”

  “You threw up in his car?” Sasha says. Angie shakes her head.

  “No,” she says. “I rolled over onto my stomach, opened the door, and threw up in the driveway.”

  “Oh,” I say. I can’t think of anything to say to this, but Sasha can.

  “Wait, if you weren’t planning on it, did you use anything?”

  “Well, no,” Angie says. “But it was just the once, and next time we’ll get some condoms, or, I don’t know, something.”

  “It only takes once,” Brooke says.

  “Mmmhmm,” Sasha says. “And you guys need to sit down and talk about birth control options before there can be a next time.”

  “Guys,” Angie says. She sighs. “Don’
t ruin this for me.”

  I frown again. If being in the backseat of a car and vomiting in the driveway didn’t already ruin it, I’m not sure what we could do that would. I don’t understand how Angie could be happy with such a cliché place to lose her virginity. I don’t understand why Dave didn’t come to his senses when he remembered that there was no birth control. Brooke puts her arm around Angie.

  “Sorry,” she says. “We’re happy for you, really.”

  “Yeah,” Sasha says.

  “Good,” Angie says, “’cause I can’t stop smiling and—” She sighs again. “I love him so much that every time I think of him holding me afterward, I just want to die.”

  I would want to die too if I was Angie, but for different reasons. I don’t understand how something like this happens.

  On the way home from school, I tell Jamie Angie’s story. He listens quietly and stares straight at the road.

  “I mean, I guess I’m happy for her if she’s happy,” I say. “But doesn’t that sound horrible?”

  “I dunno,” Jamie says. “I think it’d be cute if you threw up.”

  “What?” Jamie looks calm.

  He shrugs and smiles. “I’d hold your hair back for you and take care of you.”

  “I won’t throw up,” I say.

  “And you won’t do it in a car. I know, don’t worry.” Jamie pulls into my driveway.

  “Well, not the first time,” I say.

  “We’ll get a hotel room,” Jamie says. He glances over at me now. “A really nice one. And we’ll dress up and have an expensive meal first.”

  “That sounds—” I pause “—nice.” I unbuckle my seat belt and turn toward him. Jamie kisses me, and I realize that, during that dinner, he will give me a charm for my bracelet, something subtle that only he and I will understand. It’s romantic, and I wish I hadn’t already thought of it so that it could be a surprise. I try my hardest to forget.

  50

  We’re playing badminton, and I just flinched when the plastic feather thingy flew at me. Even though it’s sitting right next to my sneaker, Finny walks over to pick it up. He backs up a few paces and holds up his racket. There are too many pairs of us to be able to use the nets, so we’re scattered in random intervals throughout the gym.

  “Try again,” he says. “I’m hitting it to you slowly. It can’t hurt you.” I dutifully raise the racket. With exaggerated movements, Finny tosses it into the air and hits it gently toward me. I bat defensively at it and it bounces off my racket and arches toward the floor. Finny dives, but my poor return is too much for even him. He plucks the white thing off the shiny yellow boards of the gym and looks at me again.

  “Okay,” he says. “That was better. This time, try to hit it upward.” He gets into position again, then pauses. “But not straight up,” he adds.

  This time when I hit the birdie, it veers off to the left. Finny dashes to the side, and suddenly it’s flying back at me.

  “Whoa,” I cry. I swing at it but miss and it falls to the floor. “Sorry,” I say. I bend over and pick it up. It’s kind of like a bouncy ball, I think. I like bouncy balls. If it didn’t have so many plastic feathers sticking out of it, I might like the game better. But then it would be harder to see. I try to imagine seeing the little ball flying in the air. Maybe if it was brightly colored.

  “Autumn?” Finny says. I look up at him again. I realize that I’ve just been standing staring at the ball.

  “Sorry,” I say for the second time in two minutes. “I zoned out there for a sec.”

  “I saw,” Finny says. “So do you want to serve?”

  “Sure,” I say. I carefully toss the birdie in the air and watch it fall. I hit it, and it flies up and out. Finny lopes forward and hits it toward me, graceful, high, and slow. It comes straight to me, and without having to take a step, I whack it up again. We manage to pass it back and forth five times before I finally miss it again.

  “That was good,” Finny says. Ms. Scope blows her whistle and we walk to her to place our rackets in a pile at her feet. Finny and I walk together, but not side by side. I lag a bit behind him and keep some distance between us.

  “Oh,” I say, “Mom said to ask you what you want for your birthday.”

  “I don’t care,” he says. “Whatever.”

  “I have to have something to tell her,” I say.

  “Um, I could use some new sneakers?” Finny says.

  “I’ll tell her to get you an ant farm,” I say as we turn around to walk toward the locker room. Finny shrugs.

  “Okay,” he says. “You want one too?”

  “Yeah,” I say, though the thought hadn’t occurred to me. I could put it on my desk and watch it when I have writer’s block. We’re nearing the doors now. After I change clothes, I’ll go to my literature class and not talk to Finny again until tomorrow, even if I see him from a distance here or at home. “What are you doing for your birthday?” I ask.

  “Just the same thing as always, having everybody over on Friday and we’ll eat and watch a movie,” he says.

  “Sounds like fun,” I say.

  “Do you want to come?” Finny asks. I stop short. Finny turns to me. We’re standing in front of the locker room doors. Our classmates walk around us to get inside.

  “I don’t really—” I stumble on my words and have to look away from his face. “I mean, that wouldn’t really work, would it?” I say.

  Finny shrugs, but he doesn’t smile. “I just thought I would ask anyway.”

  “I mean, I would ask you too, but, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Finny says.

  “But on our actual birthdays, we’ll have dinner with The Mothers, so—” I shrug, unsure of how to finish the thought.

  “So it’s fine, we’re good,” he finishes for me.

  “Yeah,” I say. “We’re good.”

  “Finn, Autumn,” Ms. Scope yells at us. “Do you want to be late?” I realize we’re the last two in the gym. We turn away from each other and go through our separate doors.

  51

  “The rose bush you gave me for Christmas is still blooming,” Sasha says. She sits down on the steps next to me and lays her book bag between her knees.

  “They do that,” I say. It’s the first week of October. I have a new charm on Jamie’s bracelet and an ant farm on my desk. The weather is cooling off but still warm, and a few trees have started to turn. The novelty of being seniors has worn off a bit. It’s a matter of course now that we’re the oldest and the coolest. All the other students are so young and awkward; how could we not be?

  “We should have a party for Halloween this year,” Brooke says. “I mean like actually invite people besides us. My sister could get us some more to drink—”

  “Could we wear costumes?” Alex says.

  “No,” Sasha and I say. Somewhere in the back of my head, I think of how a few years ago I couldn’t imagine Halloween without a costume.

  “Why not?” Brooke asks.

  “I’m not wearing a costume,” Jamie says.

  “I’m not,” I say. “But my parents are going to some marriage camp therapy retreat thing that weekend so—”

  “I’m pregnant,” Angie says. All of our heads swivel together. She’s standing at the top of the steps, just arrived. She wears her book bag on both shoulders, like a child. The pink streaks in her hair have faded and grown out. She stares back at us as if we had just asked her a question.

  “Already?” Sasha says.

  “I took a test yesterday.”

  The bell rings and we stand. We walk in a group toward the doors, but the boys trail behind us. The girls ask questions: what are her symptoms, how is Dave handling it.

  “I’m tired and my boobs hurt,” she says. “But that’s all besides being late.” She says Dave seemed pretty freaked out, but he also seemed excited. ?
??It’s almost like he’s kinda proud of himself,” she says in the same strange monotone. She laughs then, and it sounds strangely happy.

  52

  “We’re having a Halloween party the weekend my parents will be gone,” I say to Finny. He bounces the Ping Pong ball against the table and hits it slowly.

  “Yeah, I heard about that,” he says. The ball bounces and sails past me.

  “You did?”

  “Yes. You know you were supposed to hit that back to me right?”

  “Sorry.” I bend to retrieve the ball and hit it toward him. “The thing is, I have a favor to ask.”

  “What?”

  “Well, you know I did tell Mom and Dad that I wanted to have a little party for Halloween—”

  “Mmhmm.” Finny taps the ball smoothly toward me and I dart over to whack it back.

  “But, you know, it’s gonna be more than just a little party. And I was worried about your mom.” In spite of my clumsy dashing, we have a steady rhythm going now. Tap puck, tap puck.

  “So?”

  “So, I figured that if you were there, your mom would assume it couldn’t be all that bad, you know? That she’d let it slide a bit.”

  Finny catches the ball in one hand and raises his eyebrows. “You want me to come,” he says.

  “Yeah,” I say. I shrug my shoulders without meaning too. “I mean, of course you can bring Sylvie and everybody else too.”

  “You know, my mom isn’t as clueless as your mom.”

  Ms. Scope blows her whistle, and Finny and I lay our paddles on the table and go to sit on the bleachers. The other half of the class gathers around the six tables.

  “Yeah, but that’s because she’s cooler than my mom,” I say. We sit with a foot of space between us on the bottom row.