I'll Be Here

  “Who is that guy?” Dustin asked me later as we stood by the open porch door.

  I followed his gaze. “Oh, you met him earlier. That’s Alex.”

  Dustin rolled his eyes. “I got his name. But, who is he?”

  Oh, no big deal. He’s just the boy I’ve been crushing on for years. I tried to kiss him just before you and I started dating but he pushed me away. I was devastated.

  No, I didn’t say that. I attempted to sound blasé about the whole thing. “His mom and my mom are good friends.”

  “I don’t like him.”

  “Why not?”

  “He keeps looking over here.”

  He does? I turned my head quickly and sure enough, I caught Alex’s eye. We both smiled.

  “Jesus Willow! What the hell is that about?”

  I turned back to Dustin. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth puckered into an angry line. “What?”

  “You’re flirting with him.”

  “No. I’m not. We’re just old friends.” I put my hands on my hips.

  “You have tons of friends that are girls. Do you see me complaining that Kristin’s family and your family went on vacation together over the summer? Or that you and Taylor played tennis together last weekend? No. You don’t. So stop being a jerk.”

  “Nothing’s going on with Kristin or Taylor. Are you telling me that nothing is going on with that guy Alex?”

  “Yes.”

  Dustin still didn’t look convinced so I stood on my tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the lips. “I promise.”

  Dustin wrinkled his nose. “Okay, I still don’t like him.”

  I didn’t think that it would be a good time to mention that Alex was older, taller and could probably kick the shit out of him. I just laced my fingers with Dustin’s and walked him over to the food table. What couldn’t a good bowl of chili fix?

  ***

  It turns out that I don’t need to worry about how to get in touch with Alex. He sends me an email sometime while I’m at school on Friday. It’s waiting like a wrapped present when I get to get home in the afternoon.

  Willow,

  I was sitting in class this morning waiting for my professor’s coffee to kick in so that he could start the lecture when I got a text from my mom. She hasn’t quite grasped the concept of the auto-correct function on her phone so it took me a few minutes to figure out what the text was about. Basically she was berating me for not getting in touch with you sooner to talk to you about school next year.

  She’s right. I don’t know many people in the Art Department but I would be happy to help you out with general information or whatever you need. I’ll be home tomorrow night. I thought I’d get there today but an unexpected project and a much needed study group popped up. Ahhh, the life of an “architorture” student.

  A

  Get this—my stomach flips over as I read the email. And then I reread it.

  I let the email breathe in my inbox for a half an hour and then crack my fingers against each other and try to formulate a response that manages to be both friendly and aloof at the same time.

  Alex,

  Architorture, huh?

  Thanks for the offer. I’m sure any and all assistance will be helpful. I haven’t settled my major yet and I actually never sent my portfolio in so I probably won’t be allowed to register for any of the major-specific art classes. I’ll most likely get a fairly generic freshman liberal arts course load when it comes time to make my schedule.

  Willow

  Alex’s responding email hits my inbox in less than two minutes so he must be online:

  What? You’re not planning to major in art? Did I just black out and wake up in a parallel universe? By the way, do you have plans Saturday night?

  A

  I try to ignore the question about my major and focus on the second part of his email. Saturday night is that party at the Hooch that Dustin mentioned. Okay, is it completely bitchy that I wouldn’t mind seeing Dustin’s reaction if I bring Alex to the party with me? I quickly type out an email before I lose my nerve.

  I’m supposed to go to a party at the beach Saturday. Go with me?

  I expect Alex to email me back right away but five minutes goes by, and then a half an hour, and then an hour. Nothing. Great. I probably freaked him out by basically asking him to go out with me. And does a college guy even want to go to a high school party? Probably not.

  There is homework that I could be doing and laundry that I could be putting away, but my brain is completely dominated by a nervous anxiety that has everything to do with Alex. Finally, just before I flip off my computer, he emails me back.

  I probably won’t be able to make it in time to take you out for dinner. Party sounds good. Pick you up at 8:30?

  My fingers shake as I type out a response.

  See you then

  Oh. My. God.

  Zombies hate that you are awesome.

  ~Unknown

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  It’s my bi-monthly dinner with my dad and his girlfriend Diana. She pronounces her name Dee-aaah-na and expects the rest of us to go along with it. She has highlighted blond hair that she wears in an over-styled shoulder-length bob. She uses so much hairspray that I think her coif could withstand hurricane force winds. There should be a warning sign around her neck that reads: Highly Flammable Hair.

  “Did you give any thought to which weekends you’d like to visit in the summer?” She asks.

  I shake my head and swallow the bite of eggplant parmesan that I’d been chewing for the last minute. Diana has this thing about eating slowly. It really irritates her when people eat too quickly. Dad is sitting next to her in the booth checking the email on his phone for the fourth time since we sat down to eat.

  “Um, not really. I’ve had so much going on lately with school—”

  She interrupts. “And your break-up.”

  “That I haven’t really looked at the calendar,” I continue choosing to ignore her comment.

  I’d been irritated earlier when mom had told me that she’d mentioned it to dad. The last people I needed taking an interest in my personal life were my father and his girlfriend. I’d rather face a firing squad than have to go into the details of the whole thing with them.

  She sighs, just barely hiding her disapproval. Diana likes to schedule things. Before she came along dad and I saw each other whenever it worked out. Sometimes it was three times in one month. Some months I wouldn’t see him at all because he’d be too busy working on a big case or doing whatever else was more important than me.

  When dad started dating Diana, that lax schedule changed. It didn’t seem right to her that we didn’t have a proper visitation schedule. Diana didn’t like the sound of “whenever” so she came up with the two monthly dinners and two week-long stays each year—one after Christmas and one in the summer.

  “Well, please look at it this week. I know that you’ll be busy planning for college and there are a few things that your father mentioned that he wanted to do so the summer weekends are filling up fast.”

  “Of course.” I take another bite of eggplant parmesan to occupy myself.

  She touches my father’s arm. “Miles, do you think it would be too much for you to put your phone away for a few minutes and try to enjoy dinner with your daughter?”

  I hate how Diana does that—uses titles like “your daughter” and “your father” instead of just calling us Willow and Miles.

  He looks over sheepishly and punches two more keys before sliding his phone into his side pocket.

  “Sorry about that. Busy time at work right now. New cases coming in every day and we’re short-staffed as it is.” He looks at me attempting to make a connection. “Tell me how you’ve been kiddo.”

  Kiddo. That’s what he still calls me. It bothers the hell out of me but I don’t say anything because the last time I told my father something honest—that I no longer enjoyed our annual visit to Disney World—he was completely irritated. He called my
mother and acted like it was her fault that I’d grown up and didn’t want to stand in hour-long lines in ninety-eight degree weather to see animatronic animals sing and dance to cheesy songs.

  No, speaking one’s mind does not pay off with Miles James. He’s a strictly “on the surface” kind of father. He wants to hear that I’m doing well in school, that I’m eating lots of vegetables and that I brush my teeth every night before bed. Anything more tends to set off a chain reaction of negativity.

  He and Diana listen attentively as I tell them about school and the paper that I have due in English. He asks a few questions. I answer. And then he looks at Diana and something passes between them and he takes her hand. “We’ve got news,” my father says with a grin like he’s holding court.

  “Okaa-aay…”

  “We’re getting married.”

  Oi vey.

  ***

  Now is as good a time as any to admit that I lied before. My friendship with Laney didn’t just end with a fight. It didn’t fizzle out. I extinguished it.

  Why?

  Because Dustin didn’t like her.

  The first day after Mr. Rotholz redid the seating chart and Dustin looked over at me in Chem lab—I mean, really looked at me—I blushed from the tips of my toes all the way up to my hairline. Two months earlier Alex had turned me down and my heart had gone into a tailspin.

  Laney had called it a “bump in the road,” but it felt like a lot more than just a bump. It felt like Kilimanjaro. And with my mom’s cancer it felt like my entire life was in a tailspin of suckage.

  You know that saying, when it rains, it pours?

  Well, that pretty much sums up the way that I was feeling. I was in a torrential downpour and I didn’t have an umbrella.

  And then Dustin Rant smiled his cocky smile at me and it was the sun peeking out from behind a patch of storm clouds. At this point my transformation was underway. I’d already started paying attention to my clothes and wearing makeup to school. I practiced my posture in the full-length mirror in my bedroom. Mom had insisted that I talk to someone—a professional—to help me cope with the stress of her illness. I’d only had to go to five sessions before mom was convinced that I was stable, but I still remember some of the things that Dr. Snyder (I wasn’t allowed to call her Patty then) had said to me.

  She brought up my sudden interest in clothes. Obviously my mother had dished about me prior to my office visit because how else would Dr. Snyder know that the tailored vest and pointy-toed shoes that I was wearing were “new for me”? The last time she’d seen me I’d been in a pale blue loose-fitting dress with crocheted sleeves at Mom and Jake’s wedding. Clearly that was no indication of my style preferences.

  It was easy to brush it off. I’d shrugged. “I’m an adolescent. Isn’t trying new stuff what I’m supposed to be doing?”

  Dr. Snyder had nodded and made this face that at the time I thought was a tad condescending, but in hindsight, I know that’s just the face that she makes when she’s thinking.

  “When you’re in crisis mode it’s normal to search for areas of your life that you can gain control over.”

  Crisis mode? I thought that was a bit of an exaggeration and said as much.

  Maybe my reasons were simpler. Maybe I was just trying to make a change. People had been changing their lives for the better for centuries—getting religion, moving continents, giving up candy and fried foods. Why did it matter so much what I wore? Combat boots and vintage tops didn’t define me. Neither could patent leather and breast-boosting undergarments.

  Dustin, for one, liked my new look. “Nice shirt,” he commented as I sat down at my lab seat. When he laughed a few minutes later I noted that his nostrils were perfectly symmetrical.

  I told Laney how he walked me to my next class after our lab.

  “Duh—he likes you,” she said as if that wasn’t something that was altogether amazing. Looking back it’s entirely possible that there was a hint of disapproval in her tone.

  Could it be true? Did Dustin Rant like me? I couldn’t fathom it.

  A week and one day later he invited me to a party at the beach.

  (!!!)

  Laney came with me because I said that I needed back-up and even though she rolled her eyes at the gathering of parked luxury cars in the corner of the beach access parking lot and mumbled under her breath about spoiled little rich kids, she was my best friend and if that meant tagging along to some party that she hated, that’s what she would do.

  He found me almost immediately and shoved a red plastic cup brimming with foamy beer into my hands. It was bitter and I hated the taste instantly but I drank the entire thing within fifteen minutes because I figured that was what I was supposed to do. When the cup was empty I moved to refill it. This was my very first experience with a keg and some guy I didn’t know laughed at my fumbling with the spigot thingy (which I later learned is called a “tap”) and ended up filling the cup for me.

  I tried to talk to people—to fit in but I was distracted by Dustin over by the bonfire laughing loudly and jokingly wrestling one of his friends that I recognized as being on the track team also. I liked the deep dimple that appeared on his cheek when he smiled and the way that his eyes kept drifting over to mine even when other girls were talking to him. I wondered about the smell of his skin and feel of the dark blonde curls that tickled his collar.

  Couples began to fork off and in the moonlight Dustin pulled me away from the crowd down to where the water brushed the dry sand. He held onto my hand and he kissed me for the first time while the black water lapped at our shoes.

  I felt warm all over and when his mouth moved down my neck and his hands crept up my shirt to the swell of my breasts, I didn’t stop him. If Dustin’s mouth was a little sloppy due to him being tipsy I didn’t really care. When his fingers grazed my zipper I held onto his hand with mine. Dustin sighed and kissed my earlobe. He bent his head and told me that I was gorgeous and that I was his.

  He held my hand in his as we walked back to the epicenter of the party.

  “What’s with your friend Laney?” By the time he asked the question we were close enough to the bonfire that I could see his face. His nose was crinkled.

  “What do you mean?” I asked even though I knew exactly what he meant.

  “She’s weird,” he said as if it were a fact, not an opinion.

  I looked for her. She was standing off to the edge of things talking to a boy I recognized as a senior. I could barely make out the words but a few carried through the other noises. Taxes, nouveau rich, right, decency… I cringed. Laney was talking politics. At a party. A party full of teenagers.

  Dustin frowned. “You can do better.” Like it was a simple thing. Like you could choose your friends and change them like a pair of pants that don’t work for the weather. Like that’s all it was.

  And as the senior rolled his eyes and walked away from Laney I thought that maybe Dustin was right.

  ***

  The beach doesn’t change much and neither do the parties.

  Usually they are at the beach access over at the east end of Palmer Road. It’s called The Hooch which is a name that no one really gets, but it sticks and I wonder if that’s because no one’s been able to think of anything better.

  The crowd at the Hooch consists mainly of kids from Northridge High, but there are always some people from Bayview, which is where Alex graduated from. And some of the time a few people will show up from Saint Joseph’s. In all the times that I’ve come to a party at this beach with Dustin I’ve never bumped into Alex and I’m starting to have second thoughts.

  I’m glossing over the part where Alex picked me up tonight because I think that I blacked out through most of it. Pretty much all I remember is him opening my car door and my arm brushing against his and the rest is a blur. I didn’t recognize the soft indie music coming out of the speakers but I focused on the chords to get myself under control. I will not even mention the way that Alex smells and that as soon a
s he was in the driver’s seat I was tempted to crawl over the center console and sniff his neck.

  “You’re sure?” He asks with his pierced eyebrow raised like it is completely independent of the other when I tell him where the party is.

  “Yeah,” I reply, a little flustered that he’s asked the question. Alex looks at me for what I think seems like a long time, but he doesn’t say anything—he just drives us here.

  I wait at the front of the car rubbing my upper arms while he rummages in the backseat for something. When he comes up beside me I see that it’s a black hoodie.

  “Try this,” he says. His blue eyes are electric in the fading light. “You look like you’re freezing.”

  It’s true. I am shivering. Only I could freeze when it’s practically summer but the air down by the beach is always cooler than I think it will be. Even this time of the year, the wind picks up over the open expanse of water and blows in a chill like the breath of someone with ice cubes in their mouth.

  The jacket slouches over my shoulders and falls to the middle of my thighs where the soft cotton tickles me. It smells like Alex and reminds me of another time and another jacket.

  “If I were you, I would hold off on making plans to go to the Antarctic anytime soon,” he says.

  I laugh. “Damn. I guess I should call my travel agent first thing in the morning.”

  He flashes his full-on smile and my breath catches. God.

  Though it’s almost nine, this time of year it is just getting full dark. Even so, it’s obvious that a few people are already hammered. A kid that can’t be more than fifteen is losing his guts over by a metal trashcan near the dunes.

  For a few minutes we stand at the edge of things, pensively perched on the sand watching the people swirl with the smoke from the bonfire. I can feel Alex close to me as if he is in my blood, rushing through my veins on the pathway to my heart. And when his fingertips brush against the backside of my hand, it sends a jolt of electricity through my entire body.