Sweethearts

  I said nothing.

  She held up a piece of junk mail. “Are you interested in improving your life through Scientology?”

  “Um, no.”

  She tossed it in the to-be-recycled pile.

  “Where’s Alan?” I asked, pouring coffee.

  “Pet store, home store, grocery store . . . the usual Sunday rounds.” Good Mormons didn’t shop on Sundays, so it was Alan’s favorite time to take care of errands without battling crowds. “What’s your homework situation? I was thinking we could go to a movie, just you and me.”

  I considered it. We could sit through a movie together and then, trapped with me in the car, she’d have to answer all my questions. “Have you talked to Alan today?”

  She twisted in her kitchen chair, one arm slung over the back. “Well, yes, of course I’ve talked to Alan today. I am married to the man.” He hadn’t said anything, obviously. Either my mom was truly clueless and had forgotten about the whole “Cameron is dead” incident, or she was intentionally hiding something. Neither scenario gave me a lot of confidence about how to proceed.

  I opened the fridge and stared in, as if I’d find the answers there. I felt the memory of myself standing next to me, sticky hands on the door, looking for something to keep her company: maybe slices of bologna rolled into neat pink tubes and dipped in mayonnaise; sugar cubes; ramen with hot dogs; chocolate chips mashed into peanut butter and honey — anything and everything that was available in our small kitchenette.

  I closed the door and turned to my mother. “Why did you tell me Cameron Quick died?”

  She flinched but didn’t say anything.

  “Mom?”

  “I didn’t tell you that. You heard it at school.”

  “You let me believe it. You said he’d gone to a better place.”

  She pulled the chair next to her out from the kitchen table. “Come here, honey.”

  “No, just tell me.”

  “Jenna, there were things . . .” Her voice was quiet. “Let’s just say, things you didn’t know, and didn’t need to know. It was a very complicated situation.”

  “So you knew. You knew he wasn’t dead, and when I asked you if it was true, you lied to me.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “Yes, you did! Do you think I forgot that conversation, Mom? Did you have any idea what Cameron meant to me? He was my only friend!”

  She nodded. “I know.”

  “But you let me believe he was dead.”

  She put her hands to her head and closed her eyes. “I never thought we’d have to have this conversation. I never thought you’d see him again.” She opened her eyes. “When I saw him walking up the street yesterday, I . . . Jenna, honey, you think we had problems? There were things going on in the Quick house that would make your blood curdle.”

  Things going on in the Quick house.

  Things she knew about.

  And things I knew about.

  But we never told each other.

  She continued: “Why do you think I never let you go over to Cameron’s?”

  “I don’t know, Mom,” my voice had started to shake, and I wasn’t hungry any more, just sick to my stomach. “I was a kid, not a mind reader.”

  “Please come sit down, Jenna, really.”

  “I don’t want to sit down.”

  She got up and came to me. “You remember that he moved a couple of months before you heard he died.”

  “Yes.”

  “I knew you were devastated when he moved. I knew school was hard for you. If I could have afforded it, I would have taken you out. Put you in private or homeschooled you, even, if I had the time.” She touched my arm. “You were so sad those months, honey. It was awful to see. I’d started to ask around nursing school about a counselor or therapist for you, or if any of the girls at Village Inn had kids your age you could play with.”

  I pulled my arm away. “You could have fixed all that by telling me the truth, that he wasn’t dead.”

  “Once I heard that you believed he was dead I thought maybe that would be easier for you to understand than the truth about what had happened.”

  “Which was?”

  “Okay.” Her voice turned matter-of-fact, recounting details as if for a police report. “Lara — Cameron’s mom — and I met at a PTA thing one year. We were probably the only non-Mormon moms there that night, and we bonded. I should call her, now that she’s back. . . . Well, anyway, I’d been listening to her problems, advising her. I don’t know if you remember, but Cameron stayed with us once for a week while Lara was trying to work out different living arrangements. She had all the kids farmed out to the homes of various school friends.”

  “Of course I remember him staying with us, Mom. Do you think my memory is that bad? I was nine, not three. It was a highlight of my life.” And suddenly I had another piece of that memory, as if the act of saying I remembered brought it back: My mom had made chocolate chip pancakes for Cameron and me one morning and we sat side by side at the counter in our kitchenette, watching cartoons while Mom brought us pancake after pancake after pancake, and Cameron got the giggles from his sugar high and I’d never seen him laugh that much, for so long.

  “. . . and when she came to pick him up,” Mom was saying, still in her just-the-facts voice, “she told me that she had a plan. She’d made arrangements with a shelter. They were making room for her, and if one day she and the kids just disappeared, not to worry, and also not to tell anyone where they’d gone.”

  I stared at her. Ever since the day I told her Cameron died and she basically told me to get over it and move on, I’d stopped going to her for things other than the practical — food, clothing, shelter, homework help, basic companionship. It’s not like we had a bad relationship, but whatever confidence I had in my mother’s ability to be a mother had been buried along with everything else. Everything between us for the past eight years could have been different if she’d simply told me the truth. And she had no idea.

  “You thought it was better,” I said, “to let me believe my best friend was dead than to tell me that?”

  “Jenna, I knew Cameron wouldn’t be able to write to you because of the shelter rules. I thought believing he was dead would help you . . . move on. I tried to make the best decision I could at the time. And look, honey,” she said, back in her mom voice, “things did get better for you after he left. You were strangely close, you know, different from any two kids I’ve ever seen. His mom and I used to talk about that, how you were so wrapped up in each other. I worried about that. If he’d stayed all those years he might still be your only friend.”

  She could have been right, but I was in no mood for agreeing with her.

  “That didn’t give you the right to lie to me,” I said. It was the perfect opportunity to tell her what had happened on my ninth birthday, that I’d had my own run-in with things going on in the Quick house. Something stopped me, again.

  Mom sighed heavily and looked away. “I did what I thought was best.”

  I drove around that night after telling Mom and Alan I had to return a shirt at the Gateway. Ethan called and texted me a couple of times but I ignored him. My mind was circling obsessively around the new information about Cameron, and I wanted more — more memories like the pancakes, more truth about the past, more truth about me. I wanted to see Cameron, see what he remembered about the week at my house, make sure he wasn’t really mad at me. I wanted to tell him I’d buy him a cell phone myself if that’s what it took to make sure he couldn’t just exit my life again with no strings attached. I watched for people on the street with his tall, forward-leaning silhouette. It was cold, though, and a Sunday night, and the streets were nearly empty.

  I got yet another text from Ethan: “Where r u?”

  Where I eventually found myself: in the Crown Burgers drive-through line, waiting to pay for my bacon cheeseburger and fries and fry sauce, which I would eat alone in my car in the dark parking lot, wondering where Cameron was and how I c
ould reach him, how we could reach each other.

  Cameron’s dad points to the bed. Climb on up, son. Don’t be shy.

  Cameron doesn’t move. I look at him and think about the words “playing doctor” and things that happen at school privately between children and the showmeyoursI’llshowyoumine games that happened in corners of the yard in first grade and his father is right, everyone does things. Except now we’re a little old for it. And normally no grown-ups are watching. I’m not as stupid as his father thinks I am.

  Out the window leaves are falling and falling and falling. Into their backyard. Which is right there, just on the other side of the wall of Cameron’s room.

  I turn to Cameron. It’s okay. Go ahead.

  His father laughs. Well I thought so.

  I say to his father, You have to leave the room.

  What?

  You have to leave. Then we’ll play. He stares at me. Cameron climbs onto the bed and lays himself out like a patient. He trusts me, I can tell. I go to stand close to the bed and place my hand on his chest. Through his shirt, through his skin, I feel his heart beating. I turn back to his father. Leave.

  CHAPTER 14

  “WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL ME BACK LAST NIGHT?” ETHAN ASKED while I got what I needed out of my locker before homeroom Monday morning.

  “My mom wanted to do family stuff,” I said. “Quality time. Et cetera. She worked a lot last week and —”

  “But even just a three-second IM, or something? I needed to talk to you about auditions and stuff.”

  Auditions. Homework. Lunchtime gossip and boyfriend maintenance. These were the things I had to readjust myself to after the weekend of matters that seemed entirely separate and more real than any of this Monday-through-Friday living.

  I asked Ethan: “When are the auditions, again?”

  “Today! God, Jenna. I told you. You’re coming, right?”

  I closed my locker. “Right.” I could barely see Ethan’s eyes through his floppy hair, but the bottom half of his face looked hurt, irritated. And I felt bad, because he was right, I should have called him back. It would have been better than stuffing my face in the Crown Burgers lot. I put my arms around him until he finally lifted his to hug me back. “I’ll be there,” I said.

  Cameron didn’t come to school, a fact that was simultaneously a relief and a disappointment. Without him there, maybe I could go back to being who I was, the person I’d successfully been just the week before. I went through the day trying to bring my total Jenna Vaughn–ness.

  In homeroom, I volunteered to be in charge of senior announcements for the rest of the quarter.

  During physiology, I conducted a small-group review of the nervous system.

  In American government, I paid complete attention to the video on economics.

  At lunch, I sat quietly next to Ethan and resisted any urge I had to look around the cafeteria in case Cameron had come late. A small non-Cameron-related drama erupted at the lunch table when Katy found out that she and Steph were trying out for the same part in The Odd Couple.

  “Wait wait wait,” Katy screeched. “I’m going for Olive! You knew that! You’re supposed to be Felicia!” Her neck, unsurprisingly, went red.

  “You never stated the part you wanted,” Steph said calmly.

  “It’s obvious, isn’t it? Me: slob. You: obsessive neat freak.”

  “Maybe I don’t want to go for obvious parts anymore.” Steph stayed stone-cold unflappable. “Mr. Bingry said I should stretch myself.”

  Katy slapped her hands on the table, sounding like she could cry. “Well, that’s just great. I might as well get used to the idea of playing Girl on Street with Umbrella or whatever.” She looked at me, pleading. “It’s not fair. Tell her, Jenna.”

  Traditionally it was my job to keep Katy and Steph in line when these little fights came up, which they did on a semiregular basis. But I’d been thinking about Cameron and where he could be, and also what my mom said about maybe it being for the best that I believed he’d died. In a parallel universe in which Cameron and I continued on the way we were, right up through high school, what would my life be like now?

  “. . . Jenna? Are you there? Come in, Jenna.” Katy was waiting for a reply.

  “Steph should be able to try out for any part she wants,” I said. “So should you.”

  “Right,” Steph said to Katy. “I don’t mind competing against you.”

  “What makes either of you think the lead parts are a sure thing?” Gil asked. “Maybe some sophomore will come in and blow Bingry away and you’ll both be stuck working on props.”

  “Yeah,” Ethan said. “It’s called hubris.”

  “Bingry wouldn’t do that,” Katy said. “Seniors get the best parts. We’ve earned it.”

  “Why don’t you try out for both parts, Katy?” I suggested.

  “Fine, I will. Excuse me.” She picked up her lunch and moved to a table of her tennis friends.

  Junior Dave shook his head. “She won’t.”

  They all went on to talk about past evidence of Katy’s insecurity and cowardice. I obediently ate my low-fat, low-cal, low-carb lunch. “Steph,” I said, looking down the table, “let’s go to the gym after school.”

  Ethan looked at me in disbelief. “Um, auditions? The ones we were just talking about? ”

  “Oh. Yeah. After that, then?”

  “Sure,” said Steph, eyeing me curiously.

  Twenty-seven kids turned out for the auditions: twenty-two girls and five boys. I sat at the back of the portable and watched while Ethan and Bingry called people in to read from the script. Junior Dave had been right about Katy — she didn’t even read for Olive, instead going for a small part.

  “So, when is the cast list going to be posted?” she asked after her reading.

  “Probably by Wednesday afternoon,” Ethan said. “Thursday at the latest.”

  She sighed. “Not that it matters.”

  I waved at her as she walked out, giving her a thumbs-up to let her know she’d done a good job. This wasn’t so hard, I thought, this whole being a good friend and good girlfriend thing. I was even half looking at my trig while the auditions went on.

  Mr. Bingry leaned outside to call in the next person, and Cameron walked in behind him, finding my eyes and locking onto them. I soaked him up — in the day and a half since I’d seen him last, I’d already started to forget the details of how he looked.

  I couldn’t see Ethan’s face, but his voice sounded overly cheerful when he said, “Hey, hi. Didn’t see you in class today. That’s cool. What part are you reading for? There are only two male parts, so . . .”

  “I don’t want a part,” Cameron said. “I told Jenna I’d help backstage. You need people for that stuff, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Bingry said, excited. He twisted in his chair and looked back at me. “Jenna’s the stage manager, so she’s your gal. Jenna, your first crew volunteer!”

  Ethan asked, “Don’t we usually offer crew to people who audition but don’t get parts?”

  “We can never have too much help,” Bingry said. “Especially from someone with some height and muscle for hanging lights, building flats, putting up pipe and drape —”

  “And I have my own tools,” Cameron said.

  “Fantastic. A perfect specimen. Give your contact info to Jenna and we’ll let you know when we’re ready to build.”

  Cameron walked over to me in long steps while Ethan watched, leaned on my desk — the fingers of his big hands spread wide — and gave me his phone number. “Just got a phone this morning,” he said as I wrote it down, trying to appear efficient and disinterested. “Now you can call me. Anytime.”

  I nodded. “Thank you.” He turned and walked out.

  Ethan scribbled something in his notepad.

  Bingry called in the next reader.

  Steph started in on me at the gym.

  “I heard Cameron volunteered to be on the stage crew,” she said, pulling her hair back. We were in
the locker room, getting ready to cardio funk.

  “Wow, news travels fast.”

  “So that will be interesting.”

  I put my bag in a locker and closed the door. “How so?”

  “Jenna. Stop playing dumb.” She stalked off to the big mirror over the sinks. I followed and stared at the two of us. She looked incredible, with her spray-on tan and low-rise gym shorts and tank top, whereas I was a lump in faded black stretch capris and my extra-huge Utah Utes T-shirt.

  “What’s your point?” I washed my hands.

  She laughed. “Anyone can see you’ve been a total head case since Cameron showed up. Don’t let Ethan forget you’re his girlfriend.” She turned to me and grabbed about a yard of my T-shirt fabric. “Oh my hell, Jenna, you have a shape, you know. You should show it now and then. Ethan might appreciate that.”

  “Ethan is very familiar with my shape, thanks.” I pulled my shirt back.

  “How many boyfriends have you had, Jenna?”

  “Counting Ethan? Let’s see. One.”

  “How many boyfriends have I had?”

  “We’ve all lost count, Steph.”

  “So take my advice,” she said, resting her long, slim arms on my shoulders. “Cameron is all mysterious and tall and obviously into you, and Ethan will feel threatened any second now, if he doesn’t already. Make sure he knows he has nothing to worry about. If you want to keep him, that is. If you’d rather have Cameron, fine, just don’t drag it out. Trust me — that only makes things worse.”

  “Cameron isn’t ‘into me,’ ” I said, removing her arms from my shoulders. “It’s more like . . . I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”

  “Well, whatever you want to call it, there’s something going on between the two of you. Everyone can feel it.” She handed me a towel and picked up hers. We walked out of the locker room, Steph looking back at me over her shoulder. “And if you don’t want Cameron, help Katy get him. It’s the least you can do.”

  When I got home, Alan was sacked out on the couch with his laptop. I nudged him over and sat down. “Mom’s still not home from work?”