Sweethearts

  “Okay. It’s okay. Come on.” Steph took me by the elbow and led me down the main stairs, out the building, to the student lot. Before I knew it, she and I were both sitting in Ethan’s car. “Let’s go,” she said. “You can trust me. I promise.”

  In a brief moment of good sense, we ended up driving to my house to get my car, then I followed Steph in Ethan’s back to the school lot, where we left it parked in the exact same space it had been in. “What about the keys?” I asked as Steph got into the Escort.

  “I put them on the ground, right behind the front tire. He’ll figure he dropped them this morning.”

  I looked anxiously toward his car. “What if he doesn’t find them? What if someone else finds them first?”

  “Relax, Jenna. What will be will be.” She rolled down the window and draped her arm out as we drove away from the school. It was warmer than the day before by at least ten degrees. “So. Where are we going?”

  “I don’t know.” We got onto North Temple and headed away from town. I hadn’t thought this far ahead, and definitely hadn’t thought about having someone else with me. Being in motion and out of school made me feel marginally better, though now I gnawed on my cuticles as I drove slowly, scanning the streets for anyone who might be Cameron. This was difficult, given that the picture I had of him in my mind was frozen in childhood: the big eyes, an often-worn striped T-shirt, a Norman Rockwell swoop of dark hair. I almost ran a red light, slamming on the brakes hard enough that Steph had to put her arms on the dashboard to steady herself.

  She swore. “If you tell me what we’re looking for,” she said, “I could do the looking and you could keep your eyes on the road.”

  “Who,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Not what, who.”

  “Who what?” Steph put her hands to her temples. “Okay, stop. This isn’t a comedy routine. Speak in complete sentences.”

  “We’re looking for a who, not a what.” My cell chimed with the text message tone. I had Steph reach in my coat pocket to check it.

  “It’s Ethan. He wants to know where we are.” Her phone chimed next. “And there he is again. Doesn’t like you out his sight, does he? Should I answer?”

  We passed a bus stop where a cluster of people waited, including a tall, youngish guy with dark hair. I pulled over and got out. Steph leaned out her window. “Jenna? Where are you going? Should I answer or what?” I got within a few feet of the tall guy and saw he was too old to be Cameron. I got back in the car and felt Steph’s eyes on me as we kept driving down the street.

  “Tell him I have cramps,” I said. “And a headache.”

  “Oh, good one.” She texted Ethan and flipped her phone shut with a snap. “I told him not to worry — I’m taking care of you. Not that it’s any of his business. Now, who are we looking for?”

  The closer we got to the airport, the more deserted the streets were except for little bunches of people at bus stops. I wasn’t going to find Cameron Quick here. “A ghost,” I said, turning the car around.

  “You’re not going to tell me.” It was tempting. Steph was a decent candidate, being the kind of girl who always had plenty of secrets of her own. I just wasn’t sure she could keep mine. Also, how could I explain Cameron Quick without also explaining Jennifer Harris and everything that came with her? “Well?” Steph asked.

  “I guess I’m not.”

  She didn’t press. “You’re suddenly very mysterious, Jenna Vaughn.”

  After dropping off Steph, I drove around a while longer, still looking, until I found myself parked in front of the 7-Eleven on K Street. I went in and walked up and down the aisles with my coat over one arm. It had been a long time since I’d done what I was about to do, but the feeling was as familiar as ever: desperate and inevitable, like taking Ethan’s keys earlier had just been a warm-up. My fingers rested on a cheerful orange package of peanut butter cups and then on a Kit Kat bar, before finally closing around a Milky Way, neat and compact, just like I knew it would be. I drew it under my coat, stopped to read the magazine covers, and walked out of the store.

  CHAPTER 5

  I POSITIONED MYSELF ON THE COUCH WITH A FLEECE BLANKET over my legs and the heating pad resting on my stomach. A cup of tea sat steaming on the coffee table to complete the illusion of me having cramps and a headache. My excuse for cutting class would at least look legitimate if Mom got home demanding to know why she’d been paged at work by the school office. Except it turned out that she had to work overtime and Alan was the first one home, so I’d gone to all that trouble for nothing. He was far easier to convince, especially when it came to anything that fell under the category of “female trouble.”

  “Hey there,” he said, standing by the TV. “Your mom got a message from the school that you weren’t in your last couple of classes. Everything all right?”

  I rattled a bottle of Midol at him, knowing that would end all questions.

  “Oh.” He went over to the fish tank and peered through the glass. “Well, next time answer your phone when we call to find out what’s up, okay?”

  “Okay. Sorry.” I closed my eyes and listened to Alan go through his postwork routine: check on the fish, sort the mail, take off his shoes and tie, inspect the fridge and cupboard in search of a snack.

  “You want food?” he called. “I can fix us some dinner.”

  My stomach was already beyond full from the tuna sandwich and leftover spaghetti I’d wolfed down along with the stolen candy bar, but I was still hungry in the back of my throat, in my chest, in my limbs — every part of me but my stomach. “Yeah,” I said, “dinner would be nice.”

  “It’s not too cold out to fire up the grill. Or I can just wimp out and do mac and cheese. . . .”

  I could already picture Alan’s hand reaching back into the cupboard for the shiny blue box, and the way the butter would melt into the orangey powder. “That sounds good. Mac and cheese.” I’d be good tomorrow, I told myself. I just had to get the eating out of my system and then I could get back on track.

  Later that night, after Mom and Alan had gone to bed and the house was quiet and I couldn’t sleep, I sat out on the porch in my pajamas and robe, pushing against the cement with my slippered feet, back and forth in the aluminum rocker. We’d had a rocking chair, Mom and me, in our old apartment, before Alan. It was my favorite place to sit with a book and a snack and the comforting motion. Now, I thought about Ethan and how I owed him a phone call or at least an e-mail, but every time I imagined what I would say I came up empty. Even my many years’ experience of faking my way through life wasn’t helping; I’d been brought to a complete stop by the idea of Cameron being alive, and Jennifer Harris being alive right along with him. As if she had ever died. Believing that was my mistake; I realized it the second I’d slipped that candy bar under my jacket, as easy and natural as if I’d never stopped.

  There on the porch I thought I heard something, and suddenly held still. The swish-swish sound of the rocker halted and everything became strangely sharp, vivid: the cold night breeze that blew through my hair, the sound of leaves scraping along the walk, the shadow of the trees against the blue-black sky.

  Where was he?

  “Cameron,” I whispered. “Cameron Quick. Come home.”

  I waited, as if he’d just appear out of the dark. He didn’t. So I conjured him up, circa 1998, because I knew this memory hadn’t died any more than Jennifer had.

  He’s standing behind his father, with something in his hands. The thing in his hands is greeny brown and drooping. It’s Moe, his lizard. It doesn’t move.

  Cam says it’s your birthday. He made you something. Yeah, that’s right, but I wouldn’t get too excited, I mean, don’t get your hopes up. I’ve seen it and it’s pretty much a piece of crap.

  I look at Cameron and try to tell him with my eyes that it’s okay; whatever he made is going to be good and I’ll like it because he made it. That’s a lot to try to say with your eyes and I don’t know if he understands,
so I find my voice. I’ll like it, I tell Cameron, but his dad thinks I’m talking to him.

  Sure, you say that now, but the proof is in the pudding, right, so let’s take a look. He turns toward Cameron’s room and then stops and looks back, right at me. Well come on already, I’m not going to send an engraved invitation.

  After one last glance at the front door, I follow them toward Cameron’s room. Cameron goes first, moving fast, Moe’s tail hanging over his arm. His dad wears boots, the kind you hike in, and he walks in long-legged strides like he’s going to step on Cameron’s heels. And then there is me, my pink sneakers on the gray carpet, hoping that we’ll just look at the gift and his dad won’t say anything else about me being chubby or Cameron being stupid, and Moe is only sleeping, not dead, and then I can go home.

  CHAPTER 6

  ON FRIDAY, I DROVE MYSELF TO SCHOOL AND FOUND ETHAN waiting for me at my locker. Seeing him there in his favorite cargo pants and the red high-tops, and the smile he gave me as I walked toward him, I wanted to throw my arms around him and be reminded of who I was. But then two very cute and tiny freshman girls passed him and looked over their shoulders, and then at me, and whispered something and laughed and I thought, They know. Even they could see it wasn’t right for someone like me to have a boyfriend like him.

  “Feeling better?” Ethan asked, slinging his arm around my neck. The move was nothing unusual but seemed a little invasive, and I felt bloated and undeserving. Without thinking about how it would make Ethan feel, I backed away. He let his arm drop, looking hurt. “Apparently not.”

  “Sorry,” I said, trying to sound it. “Hormones.”

  “Okay.”

  We walked to homeroom without saying anything. He went off to talk to Gil before the bell rang and I sat in my seat, finishing trig homework and chewing my gum, hard. I’d skipped breakfast to make up for my binge and all I could think about was a chocolate croissant I’d had over the summer from the Avenues Bakery. My mind was totally absorbed by the idea of buttery and chocolatey when Katy hurried in, fell into the seat next to me, and whispered, “Who’s the new guy?”

  I lifted my head and focused.

  He was in the front row, his back to us in an untucked plaid flannel shirt. We stared at the back of his dark head, Katy craning her neck. “I can’t see his face. But I predict cuteness. You can tell even from the back.” She folded her hands and bowed her head in mock prayer: “Please, God, let this one stay.”

  “Cameron.” I barely said it. It was more like a thought accompanied by lips moving and a little air coming out.

  “Huh?” Katy asked. When I didn’t answer, she looked at me. “Are you okay? Your face just turned all pasty.”

  “Cameron,” I said again, louder. He heard me and turned his head. His big eyes locked on mine and the rest of the room disappeared. There was no Katy, no Ethan or Gil, no Steph. No walls, no windows, no door. Maybe what was happening was a dream, a lucid dream you almost make happen by wanting something so much. But then the room and the other people in it shimmered back into existence and Mr. Moran was introducing the class to the seventeenth member of Jones Hall’s senior class: Cameron Quick.

  Katy sighed and slumped down into her seat. “Oh my hell,” she muttered. “Those eyes.”

  “I’m sure I can count on all of you to make him feel right at home,” Mr. Moran said, smiling out over the class.

  “You know him,” Katy said. “Tell me everything.” We were on our way to physiology, hanging back from the rest of the group. She clutched at me, her eyes wide and neck turning pink the way it did when she was excited about something.

  After homeroom Cameron had walked past me and handed me a note. All it said was, “I’ll explain when we’re alone.” I wanted to hear his voice and touch him. It had been all I could do to keep from grabbing him right then to see if he was really real.

  “I don’t know him.” My knees barely functioned, my mouth almost too dry to speak.

  “You said his name, Jenna!”

  “I think . . .”

  Ethan, in front of us, turned back and reached out his hand for me to take. I jogged a little to catch up with him and took it, a direct physical link to the present. Katy stayed right in step. I continued, “I think he went to my school when we were kids. Like, little kids.”

  “And you recognized him? Just like that?”

  “Photographic memory.”

  “Well, he’s hot,” she said, “and tall. Taller than me. Do you know how hard it is for me to find guys taller than me?”

  “Yes,” I said, which seemed insufficient. What snappy-but-not-mean comment would Jenna Vaughn come up with? “Based on our two thousand past conversations about it, I have a notion.”

  The explanation for all of this was probably simple. I’d been thinking it through since getting the birthday card: He’d moved away, was all, and fifth-graders weren’t renowned for their skill at keeping in touch. Matt Bradshaw and Jordana used it to torment me, because they could. And now he was back, end of story.

  But he hadn’t said good-bye. He would have said good-bye.

  And my mother had also believed he was dead, so . . .

  “Are you saying you know that kid?” Ethan was asking. “That new kid?”

  “Not really.” I squeezed his hand, harder than I meant to.

  “Ow.” He pulled his hand away, shaking it.

  “Sorry. Do we have a play meeting or anything after school? A rehearsal?” I wanted to force us all forward before we took too long a detour with questions about Cameron.

  “We can’t have a rehearsal until we have a cast, and we can’t have a cast until we hold auditions.”

  “So, no?”

  “Right,” he said, giving me a sideways glance that I ignored.

  I didn’t see Cameron again until Steph, Katy, and I walked into the small cafeteria for lunch. Katy spotted him first, of course, standing near the back of the lunch line, holding a yellow plastic tray flat to his chest with his big hands. I couldn’t get over how tall he was — six two, at least. At the same time he looked exactly like himself, exactly like I’d expect him to. We watched him while waiting at our usual table for Ethan and Gil and everyone else.

  “. . . the nice thing about him is,” Katy was saying as she twirled a thick strand of red hair around her fingers, “he’s not too cute. I mean, he’s gorgeous, but he’s so quiet, right? He could stay under the radar. Which would be good. The radar is my enemy.”

  Steph looked over at him. “No disputing his cuteness.”

  “How do you know he’s quiet?” I asked Katy.

  “Oh, he’s quiet all right. Just look at him. He’s brooding.”

  “He’s not brooding. He’s standing in line.” I thought the exact words I’d said to Gretchen back in fifth grade: You don’t know anything about Cameron, so don’t act like you do.

  “Go invite him to sit with us,” Katy said, jabbing her finger into my arm. “Pretend you’re walking by to get a drink or something and you just happen to notice him, and then you can be all, ‘Oh! Cameron! I didn’t see you there. Why don’t you come meet my friends? ’ ”

  “That sounds so natural, Katy.”

  “Go ahead, J.V.,” Steph said, watching me carefully. “Give little Katy here the first shot at the new boy. Anyway, no one should have to eat alone on his first day at Jones Hall. That’s not what we’re about.”

  “And you keep your hands off,” Katy said to Steph, only half kidding. “Save one for me for a change.”

  I got up from the table, first, because I couldn’t stand to hear Katy and Steph talk about him like he was the last piece of chicken in the bucket, and second, because I figured that if Cameron was going to be invited to our table, it would be better if I was the one to do it. “Okay.” I tried to sound confident and casual, like talking to Cameron was no big deal at all. “But I’m not going to create an elaborate ruse just to ask someone to sit with us. Because unlike Katy, I am normal.”

  Steph laughed.
“If you say so.”

  He saw me approaching.

  My steps slowed. Ethan and Gil had come in; I felt Ethan watching from the other side of the cafeteria.

  Cameron kept his big eyes on me. My stomach twisted.

  Keep walking, Jennifer, don’t stop.

  Then I was standing in front of him. His hair was dark as ever, darker. His eyebrows were thick. There was a little stubble on his chin. He was practically a man, but the person I saw was the boy, exactly as I remembered him. My knees gave way.

  Watch out, everyone, Fattifer is going to faint.

  This time, Cameron was there to reach out a hand and catch me, keep me from dropping right to the floor. “It’s okay,” he said, voice deep.

  I nodded and swallowed hard. Now, my hand was on his forearm. He had on a long-sleeved shirt but I felt the warmth of him through it, the bones and muscle and blood and skin of a real, live person. The cafeteria line inched forward and I remembered where I was. I took my hand away, aware of Ethan and my friends watching. “You’re not dead,” I said.

  “Not that I know of.”

  The girl in front of us had obviously stopped paying attention to her friends in order to eavesdrop. I lowered my voice. “When can we talk?”

  “I can be at your house at four today,” he said. It wasn’t soon enough for me. I wanted to hear him talk for hours, not just to hear an explanation but to hear the little things in his voice that would remind me, give me more pieces of the puzzle.

  “How did you know where I live?”

  “I’ll explain.”

  The girl tilted her head closer to listen in. Between that and imagining Ethan watching us, I began to talk louder, animated and friendly, so that I wouldn’t look at all serious or meaningful. “You should sit with us. After you get your food, I mean, just come over to our table and you can meet all my friends, and, you know” — I took a breath — “eat your lunch.”