Just Listen

  “Oh. Hi. I’m Annabel.”

  “Nice to meet you.” He reached down to his cup holder, picking up a paper cup with a straw poking out of it and taking a sip. He was just putting it back when Owen came out of the building.

  “Hey,” Rolly called out to him. “I was just driving by and saw your car. I thought you had to work today.”

  “At six,” Owen told him.

  “Oh. Well, that’s cool,” Rolly said, sitting back in his seat with a shrug. “Maybe I’ll come by or something.”

  “Do that,” Owen said. “And Rolly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know you still have your helmet on, right?”

  Rolly’s eyes widened, and he lifted up his hands to his head, carefully. Then his face flushed, almost as red as the helmet. “Oh,” he said, pushing it off. Underneath, his hair was matted down, and there were creases across his forehead. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “No problem. I’ll see you in a bit.”

  “Okay.” Rolly put the helmet on the seat beside him, smoothing a hand over his head as Owen climbed back behind the wheel. As we backed away, I waved at him again, and he nodded, smiling, his face still slightly pink.

  Once back on the main road, we drove for a moment before Owen said, “It’s for his job. Just so you know.”

  “The helmet,” I said, clarifying.

  “Yeah. He works at this self-defense place. He’s an attacker.”

  “An attacker?”

  “The one people practice on,” he told me. “You know, once they learn the techniques. That’s why he has to wear padding.”

  “Oh,” I said. “So…you guys work together?”

  “No. I deliver pizzas. This is it, right?” he asked as we came up on the entrance to my neighborhood. I nodded and he put his blinker on, then turned in. “He does the radio show with me.”

  “Does he go to Jackson?”

  “Nope. The Fountain School.”

  The Fountain School was an “alternative learning space,” also known as the Hippie School. It had a very small student body and an emphasis on personal expression, and offered electives like batik and Ultimate Frisbee. Kirsten had dated several somewhat crunchy guys from there, back in the day.

  “Left or right?” Owen asked as we came up to a stop sign.

  “Straight. For a while,” I told him.

  As we headed farther into my neighborhood, not talking, I got the same feeling I’d had that morning with Whitney, like I should at least attempt to make conversation. “So,” I said finally, “how’d you end up with a radio show?”

  “It’s something I’ve always been sort of interested in,” Owen said. “And right after I moved here, I heard about this course they have at the station where they teach the basics. After you take it, you can write up a show proposal. If they approve it, they give you an audition and, if they like what you do, a time slot. Me and Rolly got ours last winter. But then I got arrested. So that put us back a bit.”

  He said this so nonchalantly, as if he was talking about a vacation to the Grand Canyon, or attending a wedding. “You got arrested?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” He slowed for another stop sign. “I got in a fight at a club. With some guy in the parking lot.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Right.”

  “You heard about it?”

  “Maybe something,” I said.

  “So why’d you ask?”

  I felt my face get hot. Ask a bold question, you’d better be prepared to answer one. “I don’t know,” I said. “Do you believe everything you hear?”

  “No,” he said. Then he looked at me for a moment, before turning back to the road. “I don’t.”

  Right, I thought. Okay. So I wasn’t the only one who had heard some rumors. It was only fair, though. Here I’d had all these assumptions about Owen based on what had been said about him, but it hadn’t occurred to me that there were stories about me out there as well. Or at least one.

  We drove on in silence through two more stop signs. Then, finally, I took a breath and said, “It’s not true, if that’s what you were wondering.”

  He was downshifting, the engine grinding as we slowed to take a corner. “What isn’t?” he said.

  “What you heard about me.”

  “I haven’t heard anything about you.”

  “Yeah, right,” I said.

  “I haven’t,” Owen said. “I’d tell you if I had.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah,” he said. I must have looked doubtful at this, because he added, “I don’t lie.”

  “You don’t lie,” I repeated.

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Ever.”

  “Nope.”

  Sure you don’t, I thought. “Well,” I said. “That’s a good policy. If you can stick to it.”

  “I don’t have a choice,” he replied. “Holding stuff in doesn’t really work for me. Learned that the hard way.”

  I had a flash of Ronnie Waterman going down in the parking lot, his head bouncing off the gravel. “So you’re always honest,” I said.

  “Aren’t you?”

  “No,” I told him. This came so easily, so quickly, it should have surprised me. But for some reason, it didn’t. “I’m not.”

  “Well,” he said as we approached another stop sign, “that’s good to know, I guess.”

  “I’m not saying I’m a liar,” I told him. He raised his eyebrows. “That’s not how I meant it, anyway.”

  “How’d you mean it, then?”

  I was digging myself a hole here, and I knew it. But still, I tried to explain myself. “It’s just…I don’t always say what I feel.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the truth sometimes hurts,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “So do lies, though.”

  “I don’t…” I said, then trailed off, not sure exactly how to put this. “I just don’t like to hurt people. Or upset them. So sometimes, you know, I won’t say exactly what I think, to spare them that.” The ironic thing was that saying this out loud was actually the most honest I’d been in ages. If not ever.

  “But that’s still a lie,” he said. “Even if you mean well.”

  “You know,” I replied, “I find it really hard to believe you’re always honest.”

  “Believe it. It’s true.”

  I turned to face him. “So if I were to ask you if I looked fat in this outfit,” I said, “and you thought I did, you’d say so.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You would not.”

  “I would. I might not say it that way, exactly, but if I thought you didn’t look good—”

  “No way,” I said flatly.

  “—and you’d asked,” he continued, “I’d tell you. I wouldn’t just offer it up, though. I’m not a hateful person. But if you asked for my opinion, I’d give it.”

  I shook my head, still not believing him.

  “Look,” he said, “like I said, for me, not saying how I feel when I feel it is a bad move. So I don’t do it. Look at it this way: I might be saying you’re fat, but at least I’m not punching you in the face.”

  “Are those are the only options?” I asked.

  “Not always,” he replied. “Just sometimes. And it’s good to know your options, right?”

  I could feel myself about to smile, which was just so strange that I turned my head as we came up to another stop sign. There was a car parked on the street ahead, halfway down, facing us. A second later, I realized it was mine.

  “Still straight?” Owen asked.

  “Um, no,” I told him, leaning closer to the glass. Sure enough, it was Whitney behind the wheel. She had a hand to her face, her fingers spread to cover her eyes.

  “Then…what? Right? Left?” Owen asked. He dropped his hand from the wheel. “What’s wrong?”

  I looked at Whitney again, wondering what she was doing so close to home, parked. “That’s my sister,” I said, nodding at the car.

  Owen leaned forw
ard, looking at her. “Is…is she okay?”

  “No,” I said. Maybe not lying was contagious; this reply came out automatically, before I could pick other words to explain. “She’s not.”

  “Oh,” he said. He was quiet for a second. “Well, do you want to—”

  I shook my head. “No,” I told him. “Take a right.”

  He did, and I slid down slightly in my seat. As we passed Whitney, it was clear she was crying, her thin shoulders shaking, her hand still pressed to her face. I felt something catch in my own throat and then we were moving on, leaving her behind.

  I could feel Owen watching me as we reached the next stop sign. “She’s sick,” I said. “She has been for a while now.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  This was what you were supposed to say. What anyone would say. The weird thing was, after everything he’d just told me, I knew Owen meant it. Honest, indeed.

  “Which is yours?” he asked me now, as we turned onto my street.

  “The glass one,” I told him.

  “The glass—” he began, but then stopped, as it came into view. “Oh. Right.”

  It was the time of day when the sun hit the glass just so, the golf course reflected almost perfectly in the second story. Downstairs, I could see my mother standing at the kitchen counter. She’d started walking to the door when we pulled up, then stopped when she realized it was just me and not Whitney. I thought about my sister, sitting two streets over, and my mom, worrying here at home, and felt that familiar pull in my stomach, a mix of sadness and obligation.

  “Man,” Owen said, looking up at it. “That’s really something.”

  “People in glass houses,” I said. I looked back in at my mother, who was still at the counter, watching us. I wondered if she was curious about Owen or too distracted to even notice I was in a car she didn’t recognize, much less with a boy. Maybe she thought it was Peter Matchinsky, that nice senior from my gym class.

  “Well,” I said, reaching down for my bag. “Thanks for the ride. For everything.”

  “No problem,” he said.

  I heard a car coming up behind us, and a second later, Whitney was pulling into the driveway. It wasn’t until she parked and got out that she looked up and saw me and Owen. I lifted my hand, waving at her, but she ignored me.

  I knew already what would happen when I went inside. Whitney would be stomping around, ignoring my mother’s cheerful, leading questions. Eventually she’d get fed up and go upstairs, slamming her door, and then my mom would be upset, but pretend not to be. Even so, I’d worry over her until my dad got home, at which time we’d all sit down for dinner and pretend everything was fine.

  Thinking this, I looked back at Owen. “So when is it?” I asked. “Your radio show.”

  “Sundays,” he replied. “At seven.”

  “I’ll listen,” I told him.

  “In the morning,” he added.

  “Seven in the morning?” I asked. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” he replied, picking at the steering wheel. “It’s not the ideal time slot, but you take what you can get. Insomniacs are listening, at least.”

  “Enlightened insomniacs,” I said.

  He looked at me for a second, as if I’d somehow surprised him, saying this. “Yeah,” he said, and smiled. “Exactly.”

  Imagine that, I thought. Owen Armstrong smiling. In a bizarre day, this was the most surprising thing yet. “Well,” I said, “I guess I should go.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you around.”

  I nodded, then reached down, undoing the seat belt. Sure enough, one click and I was free. Harder to get in than out, like so little else.

  As I shut the door behind me, Owen put the car into gear, beeping the horn once as he drove off. Sure enough, as I turned to look up at my house, Whitney was climbing the stairs, taking the steps two at a time. My mother was still at the kitchen island, staring out the back window.

  I don’t lie, Owen had said, with the same flat certainty someone else might tell you they didn’t eat meat or know how to drive. I wasn’t sure I could even fathom it, but I still envied Owen his easy bluntness, the ability to open himself out into the world instead of folding deeper within. Especially now, as I headed inside, where my mother was waiting for me.

  Chapter SIX

  “Okay, girls, quiet down. Attention here, please! We’re getting ready to start, so listen for your name….”

  I’d been doing Lakeview Models since I was fifteen. Every summer, tryouts were held to pick sixteen girls for mall promotions like posing with cub scouts at a Pinewood Derby event or handing out balloons at the Harvest Festival Petting Zoo. The models also appeared in print ads, did fashion shows, and were part of the annual Lakeview Mall calendar, which was distributed along with the new phone book every year. That was what we were shooting today. We were supposed to have been done the day before, but the photographer was slow, so we’d all been called back now, on a Sunday afternoon, to finish.

  I yawned, then sat back against the potted plant behind me, taking a look around the room. The newer girls were all together in a corner, talking too loudly, while a couple of people I knew from previous years were gossiping about some party. The only two seniors sat apart from everyone else, one with her head back, eyes closed, the other flipping through an SAT prep book. Finally, across the room from me, also sitting alone, was Emily Shuster.

  I’d met Emily at the last calendar shoot. She was a year younger than me and had just moved to town. She didn’t know anyone, and while everyone was waiting around, she’d come and sat down next to me. We started talking, and just like that, we were friends.

  Emily was, in a word, sweet. She had short red hair and a heart-shaped face, and when I’d invited her out with me and Sophie that night after the shoot, she’d been thrilled. When I pulled up to her house, she was already outside waiting, her cheeks pink from the cool air, as if she’d been there awhile.

  Sophie was less enthusiastic. Plainly put, she had issues when it came to other girls, especially pretty ones, even though she herself was gorgeous. Whenever I had Lakeview Model stuff, or landed a big job, she always got a little moody. There was stuff about her that bothered me, too. Like how she sometimes snapped at me and acted like I was stupid, and often wasn’t nice to other people unless she had a reason to be—and sometimes, not even then. The truth was, my friendship with Sophie was complicated, and at times I wondered why she was my best friend, when more often than not I was either tiptoeing around her or having to ignore one barbed comment or another. But then I’d remember how much things had changed for me since we’d started hanging out—from that night with Chris Pennington on, so much had happened that I never would have experienced otherwise. And really, when you came down to it, I didn’t have anyone else. Sophie made sure of that, too.

  The night I met Emily, we were going to a party at the A-Frame, a house just outside of town that was rented by a few guys who’d gone to Perkins Day, the local private school, a couple of years earlier. They had a band called Day After, and after graduation they’d stuck around, playing club dates and trying to get a record deal. In the meantime, they had parties almost every weekend that attracted a mix of high-school students and various locals.

  From the moment the three of us walked into the party that night, I could feel people looking at Emily. She was a beautiful girl, but being with us—especially Sophie, who was well known not only at our school but at Perkins Day, as well—made her suddenly that much more noteworthy. We weren’t even halfway to the keg when Greg Nichols, an obnoxious junior, made a beeline for us.

  “Hey, guys,” he said, “what’s up?”

  “Go away, Greg,” Sophie told him over her shoulder. “We’re not interested.”

  “Speak for yourself,” he said, completely undeterred. “Who’s your friend?”

  Sophie sighed, shaking her head.

  I said, “Um, this is Emily.”

  “Hi,” Emily said, flushing.

 
“Hel-lo,” Greg replied. “Let me get you a beer.”

  “Okay,” she said. As he walked off, glancing back at her, she turned to me, her eyes wide. “Oh my God,” she said. “He’s really cute!”

  “No,” Sophie told her. “He’s not. And he’s only talking to you because he’s already hit on everyone else here.”

  Emily’s face fell. “Oh,” she said.

  “Sophie,” I said. “Honestly.”

  “What?” she said as she picked some lint off her sweater, scanning the crowd. “It’s true.”

  It probably was. But that didn’t mean she had to say it. This was typical Sophie, though. She believed everyone had a place, and it was her job to make sure you knew yours. She’d done it with Clarke. She did it with me. And now, it was Emily’s turn. But while I’d just stood by all those years earlier, this time I felt I had to do something, if only because I was the reason Emily was even there in the first place. “Come on,” I said to her. “Let’s go get a beer. Sophie, you want one?”

  “No,” she said curtly, and turned away from me.

  By the time I got a drink and went to look for her, she’d disappeared. So she’s pissed, I thought. That’s nothing new, I’ll smooth it over in a second. But then Greg Nichols had reappeared, and I didn’t want to leave Emily alone with him. It took us twenty minutes to extricate ourselves, at which point I left Emily with some girls she knew and finally went looking for Sophie. I found her on the back porch, smoking, alone.

  “Hi,” I said, but she ignored me. I took a sip of my beer, looking out over the swimming pool below the deck. It was empty and covered in leaves, a lawn chair parked at the bottom.

  “Where’s your friend?” she asked me.

  “Sophie,” I said. “Come on.”

  “What? It’s just a question.”

  “She’s inside,” I said. “And she’s your friend, too.”

  “No,” she said, snorting. “She’s not.”

  “Why don’t you like her?”

  “She’s a freshman, Annabel. And she’s—” She stopped, taking another drag of her cigarette. “Look, if you want to hang out with her, go ahead. I don’t.”