Sweethearts

  I let my fingers move down to the laces of his boots, then up to the top of his sock. One more millimeter and my fingertip would be against his skin. I moved it back down, resting on the knob of his ankle. “I’m here now,” I said. “You can talk to me, right out loud.”

  Just then, two boys, eight or nine years old, crashed into the grove, leaping over the stream like we had. They froze when they saw us; I jerked my hand away from Cameron’s ankle and sat up.

  “Oh,” one boy said, “hi.”

  “Hi,” I said. “We were just leaving.” I got up without Cameron’s help, brushed myself off, and followed him back to the parking lot.

  At our old elementary school, it was Cameron who led the way across the blacktop, past basketball hoops and swings where a few kids still played. I knew where he was headed — straight to the bench outside Mr. Lloyd’s room.

  “I remember sitting here,” he said, “and watching you over there.” He pointed, but I didn’t have to look. Before Cameron and I got close, I spent a lot of lunches the same way, starting off eating and reading on my special bench on the other side of the yard, followed by walking the perimeter of the playground, balancing on the small cement curb that separated the blacktop from the landscaping, around and around and around, hoping I looked busy and like it didn’t matter that I had no friends.

  I sat next to Cameron on the bench. “What did you think when you used to watch me?”

  He leaned his head against the building. “That I understood you. That you’d understand me.”

  “Do you remember the first time you talked to me? Because I don’t. I’ve been trying to remember for years and I can’t get it.”

  “You don’t remember? Wasn’t me that talked to you. You talked to me.”

  I scooted forward on the bench and looked at him. “I did?”

  “You walked right across the yard here at recess,” he said, pointing. “Came straight up to me.” He laughed. “You looked so determined. I was scared you were gonna kick me in the shins or something.”

  I didn’t remember this at all, any of it.

  “You said you were starting a club,” he continued. “Asked me if I wanted to join.”

  “Wait . . .” Something was there, at the very edge of my memory, coming into focus. “Do you remember if it happened to be May Day?”

  “That the one with the pole and all the ribbons?”

  “Yes!”

  “Yep. All the girls had ribbons in their hair but you.”

  Jordana wouldn’t let me wear ribbons. She said my hair was too greasy and I might give someone lice, and somehow I submitted to her logic. “I do remember,” I said softly. “I haven’t thought of that in forever. I kept thinking you were the one to make friends with me first.”

  “Nope.” He smiled. “You started this whole thing. I wanted to, but you were the one with the guts to actually do it.”

  “I think of myself as being a coward, and a baby, scared all the time.”

  He got quiet. We watched kids in the schoolyard playing basketball. “You’re not,” he finally said. “You know that.” He got up suddenly. “Let’s go. We got one more stop.”

  It took awhile for us to find it, the streets looking the same block after block, just endless rows of boring homes in various shades of beige, taupe, gray, and ivory. The air in the car changed, got tense. Conversation stopped and it wasn’t the comfortable silence anymore but the kind of silence that makes you want to say something, anything. The closer we got to his house, the more it got like that. I could see Cameron, from the corner of my eye, gripping the inside passenger door handle, his fingers going white.

  I didn’t feel so great myself.

  “Here,” he said, his voice flat and detached.

  We were in front of a run-down ranch-style house with tan siding and a big, dead lawn. I left the engine running. My heart pounded. “We don’t have to do this,” I said.

  His jaw set in a way that reminded me of how he’d look sometimes back in grade school, standing around the fringes of a kickball game or on that bench by Mr. Lloyd’s room. “We do, though.”

  I shook my head, staring at the house. Right then, a woman walked out, carrying a bag of trash. “Let’s ask her if we can go in,” Cameron said.

  “Go in? ”

  He turned to me. “Yeah.”

  I lowered my voice to a whisper. “Shouldn’t we, like, talk about it first? About what happened?”

  “Why? We know what happened.”

  “I can’t.”

  “But I’m with you. We’re together.”

  My eyes filled. He looked out the window. The woman went back in the house and closed the door. “We can come back some other time,” I said, “after we’ve talked.” I put the car in drive. “Let’s go somewhere. Coffee. Something.”

  “Doesn’t matter.” His jaw was set again, his voice dead flat.

  “It does matter, Cameron. That’s the point. If it didn’t matter I could just go in right now. I’m not ready. You can’t just show up after all these years and expect me to be ready.” He opened the door and started to get out. “Wait, where are you going?”

  “Sorry I came here and messed up your life.”

  “That’s not what I said!” But he was out of the car, walking down the block, away from me.

  CHAPTER 16

  WHEN I GOT HOME, I WENT STRAIGHT TO MY ROOM. IT TOOK more than an hour to recover from the nausea and the on-again, off-again crying that started every time I thought about Cameron’s face, the tone of his voice, the sight of him getting out of the car. I was hurt, then angry. Then guilty for feeling angry. Then angry for feeling guilty. And so on. I lay on my bed with a cold washcloth over my eyes to remove all evidence of tears. I took mental inventory of the refrigerator and cupboards in case there was anything there that could make me feel better. But that’s not really what I wanted. What I wanted was to feel like Jenna Vaughn again. So when I was reasonably in control of myself, I picked up my cell and dialed Ethan.

  “Hi,” I said. “Sorry I missed your call before.”

  “How come you didn’t call me back?”

  “You didn’t leave a message.”

  “But you knew I called.”

  “I’m calling you back now.” I could hear his breath, him starting to say something and then changing his mind. “I’m sorry,” I said quickly, “for that and for being cranky today.”

  “Well. I just wanted to tell you that we have a cast list.” He sounded relieved and like himself. “Steph gets the part she wants. No surprise there. You know Jill Stevenson? That sophomore? She got the other lead.”

  “What about Katy?”

  “Katy’s in it, since she’d never forgive me if I left her out, but she didn’t exactly show a lot of ambition.”

  “You know she’ll do a good job in the end,” I said, trying to keep up a believable impression of me, to sound like I cared about the school play. “So. Rehearsals start tomorrow?”

  “Just a table reading,” he said. “You should come. Cast bonding and whatnot.”

  “Okay.”

  “Sorry. About earlier today.”

  I curled into a ball on my bed and sighed. “It’s okay.”

  “Really?”

  Well, no, not really. But at least Ethan wouldn’t jump out of my car without explanation. “Yeah,” I said.

  “Can I come over?”

  I considered. “Not tonight. Tomorrow? My parents are going to a wine tasting.”

  “Tomorrow. ’Night, Jenna.”

  “ ’Night.”

  At dinner, Mom asked me about Cameron, where he was living and where his brothers and sisters were going to school and if I had their number. She wanted to call his mom, have them all over for dinner. I realized I had the answers to none of her questions.

  “I have a number for Cameron’s cell,” I said. “That’s all.”

  “Would you call him tonight? Find out how to get in touch with his mom? We’ll make a day of it,” she sa
id, getting excited. “One last barbecue before the first snow.”

  Alan watched me. “If that’s okay with you,” he said.

  Mom waved her fork dismissively. “Of course it’s okay with her!” She turned to me. “I’ve been thinking, since our talk. When I first saw that Cameron was back, I admit I had concerns about what that would do to you. Now I think it will be good for us to have them back in our lives, the whole family.”

  “Wait wait wait,” Alan started. “Honey, I —”

  “What?”

  “Mom, I don’t even remember his mother or his brothers and sisters. I never knew them.”

  “Maybe you should. Maybe it would help you understand Cameron and the whole situation.”

  “I understand him,” I said. “And the ‘whole situation.’ ”

  “I don’t think you do.”

  “Well, you don’t know everything.”

  “I think I know more than you do,” she said. “Remember, I heard it all from his mother and —”

  “Okay,” I said. “Fine. You know more than I do. I’ll call him. I’ll tell him to invite everyone over for a family reunion.” I stood up and cleared my plate. “I’d love to talk about this more, but I have a ton of homework.”

  She called after me, “I didn’t mean to upset you . . .”

  As I closed the door to my room, I heard Alan: “Give her time to think.”

  A noise woke me again. This time it was definitely not a raccoon or a cat, unless a raccoon or cat had learned how to tap on my window. I knew before opening the curtains who it was. I inched the window up. This time, we were unhindered by a screen.

  “Cameron,” I whispered, “what are you doing?”

  He folded his arms on the sill. “I want to talk.”

  “Now?”

  “You don’t have to let me in if you don’t want, but there’s a lot I should tell you. Ask me anything you want and I’ll answer.”

  “But . . . now? You couldn’t just call?”

  “Didn’t think you’d answer my call after what I did today.”

  I shivered from the cold air pouring in through the window. “Okay.” He hoisted himself up to crawl through, and there he was, right in my room. I got back in bed, sitting up with the covers tucked around me, and turned on the bedside lamp.

  He closed the window. “This isn’t the kind of room I pictured you in,” he said, looking around at my big bed, and the overstuffed chair and ottoman in the corner where I did all my reading, my desk and computer, the wine-colored paint on the walls contrasting with the white of the ceiling.

  “Cameron . . .”

  “It’s nice.” He sat in the armchair. The cuffs of his jeans were damp and his boots dirty.

  “Take off your boots,” I said. “Please.” He did, and his socks, and then put his bare feet up on the ottoman. The soles were rough but clean. I started: “My mom was asking me tonight about your mom, and your brothers and sisters. She wants them all to come over. Like to celebrate your miraculous return.”

  “My mom’s in California. Whole family’s there, except me.”

  Somehow this did not shock me. Cameron didn’t act like a regular teenager who lived at home with parents and rules and people taking care of him. “Where do you live? I mean, last night you’re sleeping in my car, tonight you’re lurking around my house at two in the morning. Are you . . . homeless or something?”

  He laughed. “I take care of myself. Have since I was fifteen. I work. I pay rent. You heard of emancipated minors? That’s me.”

  “Like when you divorce your parents? I thought only child actors did that.”

  “Nope.” He leaned his head against the back of the chair. “Mind if we turn out the light? Seems bright.”

  I did. “There’s a blanket on the back of the chair if you need it.”

  “Thanks.” His outline moved in the dark, and I heard the sounds of him settling in.

  “But your mom left your dad,” I said. “My mom said you all went to a shelter and hid from him and everything. I thought you started a new life. Why did you move out?”

  “She went back to him. And then left him again. And then went back. And left. On and on. They’ve been divorced a long time, but she still lets him come around the house and stay over and tell the kids what to do and all that. They had two more kids together after the divorce. Still thinks he’s the man of the house.” He paused there, his voice getting quieter. “Like he knows what a man really is. Makes me sick.”

  “Why did you come back to Salt Lake?” I knew the answer before I asked the question and he knew I knew, and it was like you could see the shadow of it hanging there between us.

  “I needed to see you,” he finally said. “It’s hard to explain.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I tried telling my mom once what happened that day. Showed her the hole in the window screen and Moe and even after that she said it was complicated, that my dad’s a complicated man and we all needed to try harder to understand him.” His voice was shaking now. “And I thought, hey, maybe she’s right. Maybe he was just playing around, you know. Maybe we didn’t need to run.”

  “We did,” I whispered.

  “That’s why I had to come, see?” He didn’t move and I didn’t move, but in a few seconds I heard him sniffling and he couldn’t stop and I knew he was crying. “Cameron.” I propped myself up, reached out my arm. “Come here.” He got up and came to me, dragging his blanket behind him like a child. I scooted over in my bed to make room. “Come on.”

  He positioned himself beside me — I stayed under the covers, he was on top of them, his head next to mine on the pillow. I stroked his hair and thought of the week he’d lived at our house, the way we slept shoulder to shoulder in our sleeping bags in the living room, and I got another good memory.

  Jennifer, Cameron had said. You awake?

  His voice was coming from across the room. I sat up. Yeah.

  Look. He was standing by the living room window. The blinds were closed, but he had his hands on the cord, a big smile on his face. Ready?

  I nodded, starting to smile myself.

  One, two, three, Cameron said, then pulled the blind up, hand over hand on the cord like someone on TV. His smile got even bigger as he watched my face.

  Snow. Giant flakes of it falling in front of the window even though it was only September.

  Now, I fell asleep with my arm over Cameron’s chest, thinking of how the flakes had been slow and white in the glow of the streetlights that lined the apartment walkways, and the smile on his face and on mine, like the snow was personal, a gift he’d given me himself.

  Alan, as per his usual routine, got up early and peeked into my room to check on me. What he found were his teenage stepdaughter and her childhood sweetheart curled up in the same bed, sound asleep and draped all over each other. He hissed my name, alarmed: “Jenna!”

  “Wha —?” I sat straight up, immediately aware of what was happening and how it all looked. I clambered over Cameron, who was just coming to consciousness, and followed Alan into the kitchen. “It’s nothing, I swear,” I said in a whisper. If Mom wasn’t up yet, I wanted to keep it that way.

  Alan shook his head. “It looks bad.” He glanced toward my bedroom. “Was that Ethan? Tell him to come out here. I want to talk to him.”

  “Um, it’s not Ethan. It’s Cameron.”

  He put his hands to his head. “Jenna. Jenna.”

  “I know. Is Mom awake?”

  “Not yet.”

  I kept my voice low. “Can we talk by the fish tank?”

  He led, I followed.

  “He came to my window in the night,” I explained. “He needed to talk. I let him in. It was me. It was my idea. It was all . . . nothing happened.”

  “This isn’t my area,” Alan said, looking at the fish. “Your mom is supposed to do the tough stuff. We have a policy of laissez-faire when it comes to me and . . . this kind of thing.”

  “Exactly. So,” I sa
id hopefully, “go make the coffee and we’ll pretend nothing ever happened.”

  Cameron came into the room, his blanket wrapped around him. His hair was sticking up in the back, and his long eyelashes hooded sleepy eyes. “I just needed to talk to someone,” he said to Alan. “Guess we fell asleep.”

  “Uh-huh.” Alan cast an anxious glance toward his and my mom’s bedroom and said, “You couldn’t talk in the kitchen?”

  “We didn’t think about it,” I said. “That’s how innocent it was, see?”

  Alan stared at us, still shaking his head. “Look, Cameron, just get out of here before Jenna’s mom sees you. Okay?”

  He nodded. “I’ll go get my boots.”

  I breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Alan.”

  When Cameron shut my bedroom door, Alan said, “Jenna. This is the kind of situation that’s very, very awkward, to say the least. If your mom were to find out, I would be in scalding hot water.”

  “She won’t. Thank you thank you thank you.”

  “Now. I need my coffee.” He shuffled off to the kitchen, ankles cracking. “I’m too old for this.”

  Back in my room, I watched Cameron get ready to go, thinking about everything we’d talked about and what it meant. “Where do you live?” I asked. “I’ll take you home.”

  “I share a studio apartment with three other guys. It’s a dump,” he said, lacing up his boots.

  “How come you were sleeping in my car yesterday?”

  “Sometimes I don’t want to be there.” He pulled on his jacket. “I’ll go straight to school, shower in the locker room. See you later.” He started to open the window.

  “Wait,” I said. “You can use the front door, you know. Just be quiet.”

  “Okay.” He paused on his way out of my room, looking back once to say, “Thanks.”

  CHAPTER 17

  CAMERON AND I PRETENDED NOT TO NOTICE EACH OTHER during homeroom. I did stare at the back of his head and think about how it had been on my pillow only a couple hours earlier, and wondered if Alan would really not tell, and if it was the kind of thing that was likely to ever happen again.