I decide to explore the deck, looking for the man that might be LeFeber, but I can’t seem to find him again. How many places could he be? I start down a hallway, then enter another room with music blaring and people dancing. I’m making my way through the crowd when I literally bump into Zach, almost knocking over the drink he’s holding. How does he manage to be everywhere at once?
“Liv,” he says as if I’d been missing for a year.
“Zach!” My voice involuntarily squeaks. So embarrassing. “Have you seen Antonia?” I stammer. My nerves are on fire. I wish I could touch him again.
“Yeah, she’s right over there.” He points.
I’m an idiot. She’s in the middle of the dance floor owning it. Should’ve known. I want to run to her but stop myself because of who’s next to me, and also who’s not here.
No Cristina in sight. I think about mentioning what I saw her doing, but really it’s none of my business and I’d die if she told him I was just puking in the bathroom.
Zach turns to me from watching the dance floor. “Want to dance?” he asks.
“I’d rather talk,” I say. “I need fresh air.”
He smiles. “I wanted to talk to you earlier but it was kind of awkward with Cristina following me.”
“Oh. Yeah,” I say, hiding the welling knot in my gut, suddenly acting like I have everything together because the last thing I want to do is screw things up with him.
I smile into his eyes. They’re green and soft even in the dark. He’s so handsome. No wonder he was cast on Sisters & Mothers as a love interest. He could be on posters around America. Wanted man. Love interest at large.
“Must be nice to be around so many people from your show,” I say, thinking it’s a stupid thing to say even as the words leave my mouth. Though I’ve said worse. “They seem really nice.”
“Eh,” he says. “The only real friend I have here is Jackson. The rest are just coworkers. It’s different. You always feel like you’re competing with each other.”
“Really?” I say. “I didn’t realize...”
“Honestly I’m getting pretty bored with that show. I know Michael is too.”
“I kind of talked to him about that,” I admit.
“It’s hard when you get on one of these shows. There are all these expectations and once you act a certain way, people not only think that’s really you, but they expect you to behave just like your character in real life.” He rolls his eyes. “It’s crazy to think people are that oblivious, but it’s true.”
“That must be kind of...” I begin, but he speaks over me.
“I don’t even know why my father wanted me to throw this party in the first place. It’s a stupid way to get the attention of a director.”
“I can imagine this part of your life is pretty lonely,” I say, trying again. “Being in the spotlight and all. But at least you’ve made a name for yourself.”
“You’ve always seemed pretty cool.” He nudges my arm with the hand holding his drink. “Artsy.”
“How’d you know that I like art?” I ask.
I didn’t think Zach knew anything about me except my name.
“I saw your painting hanging in a show at the library last year. The self-portrait you did? The one where you’re staring at yourself in a shattered mirror.”
“Oh yeah,” I say, trying to downplay myself. “That was my majorly emo stage.”
“No way. It was amazing how you could see all these tiny reflections of your face in the glass. Felt like I got to know you just by looking at the painting.”
Zach has this look on his face like he’s probably said too much and should just shut up. “I’m craving sugar,” he says. “I can’t eat any while we’re filming, but the season just ended and Cristina’s nonna made some amazing Italian desserts for the party. Want some?”
I shake my head and ask for a drink instead.
“I can do that,” he says. “Anything else?”
“Actually...” I pause. “That guy with the glasses you were talking to earlier? With Felicity? Did that happen to be Geoff LeFeber?”
“Who’s that?” Zach seems confused.
“He’s an artist whose work I admire. I overheard Felicity saying he might be here...”
“Oh,” Zach says, gently pushing my arm. “LeFeber. Yeah. She was talking him up earlier this week saying that one of our producers invited him, but I don’t think he’s coming. She would have already been trying to become best friends with him.”
Part of me feels relief, knowing that the man laughing at me wasn’t LeFeber, but the other part feels pretty disappointed. I really wanted to talk to him about his art.
“I’ll go get those drinks then.”
He’s about to enter the crowd when I grab his arm to stop him. There’s something I have to know. “Zach?” I hesitate. He turns around and lingers next to me. He’s so close that I can smell his cologne. “This is kind of an awkward question, but I have to ask.”
You’re strong. You can do this. This is easy.
He looks down at me through his long eyelashes as I stare up at his prominent Adam’s apple. I wish I could reach up and touch his neck, pulling him closer to me.
“Are you and Cristina dating?” I finally ask.
Suddenly, I don’t want to know the answer. I’ve waited so long for this moment. To be this physically close to him. To practically feel his breath on my hair.
“It’s...” He looks away at the boats gliding across the harbor for a moment. “Cristina and I have history together, but... We’re not together. It looks that way sometimes. I know. We were really close. I still try to be a good friend. The breakup was hard on her.”
“I didn’t mean to bring up bad feelings,” I say, feeling stupid for asking the question in the first place. I just don’t want to be played.
“It’s cool. I like being up-front with you,” Zach says. “I’ll get a couple drinks. Then can we keep talking?”
I nod, my heart pounding in my chest. Being up-front with me? I can barely believe that, of all the people on this boat, he wants to spend his time talking to me.
I’m watching him walk across the room when I see Cristina come out of nowhere and latch on to him like a crab. Guess I better kiss that drink away. After he’s done ordering at the bar, Cristina takes the second drink—my drink—from his hand, and I’m forgotten like an ugly stray. Don’t even kick a bowl of milk my way.
I head upstairs and grab a drink from the bar on my own.
I just want to drink. I’ve lost Antonia. I can’t seem to find LeFeber—if that’s even him. Cristina not only totally caught me purging, she’s practically claimed Zach for the night. And I can’t manage to work up the social skills to mingle with anyone either.
Two champagnes and a vodka tonic later, I find myself in a corner of the aft deck with Jackson. He starts twirling my hair like he did this afternoon at the front of the school. “I didn’t know you showed up,” he said. “I saw your friend, but every time I went to ask her about you, she was dancing with someone else. Who dances that much?”
“She does,” I say. “She’s on the dance team. She’s got endless dance in her.”
“Do you have endless dance in you? Judging by those legs and that ass, I’d say you probably do your fair share of dancing,” Jackson says.
I don’t like the way he says that. I’m not his sleaze toy.
“Didn’t you come here with someone?” I ask. He shakes his head.
“Naw, I was hoping to hook up,” he says.
“Hook up,” I echo.
“You know, meet someone. Meet you. See if you want to hang out.”
“Hang out?”
I’m feeling light-headed from the champagne. It’s not helping my stomach, so it’s not the kind of buzz I was hoping for. And now that Jackson is half drooling on my dress, I
just want to leave. I could like him. But not like this. Not when I have this tiny chance with Zach. Not when Jackson’s being a creeper. I just can’t. Why are boys so complicated? Why do they all expect so much from you?
“Do you want a ride to my house?” Jackson laughs. “I mean, home?” He slips an arm to the wall behind me, as if I need his hulky body over mine. He really thinks he’s funny. Jackson might have the muscles of a superhero, but he obviously has none of Zach’s gentlemanly charm. “I have to be honest,” he continues. “You look way different from freshman year. You got super hot, Liv. I never would have guessed.”
“Have you thought about mouthwash?” I say and duck under his arm.
“My breath doesn’t stink,” he says.
“Something does,” I say just as Antonia returns.
“What did I miss?” she asks, eyeballing the situation.
We instantly communicate telepathically, and I don’t know whether that’s a good idea or not, because she walks up to Jackson.
“Hey...” Jackson says, trying to remember her name.
“Jackson Conti,” she says. “You don’t remember my name.”
“I do,” he says, thinking.
“I’m taking her home,” she says and grabs my arm. We leave Jackson deep in drunken thought.
“I didn’t even have to say anything to make an ass out of him,” she says. “He just stood there like an idiot.”
As she leads me off the boat, I catch Cristina’s eye. She’s standing close to Zach like a fierce cheetah protecting her young. We each share a secret now.
I just hope she forgets by tomorrow.
s e v e n
“How hollow to have no secrets left;
you shake yourself and nothing rattles.”
—Andrew Sean Greer
“If people behaved like the particles inside an atom,” Sam says, drawing a picture of an atom on his notebook, “then most of the time you wouldn’t know where they were.” He brushes his wavy blond surfer hair out of his face. It’s still bleached from him spending so much time outside this summer working as a counselor at a surf camp.
Those are the two things Sam talks about all the time. Science, and the water. Sam spends most of his time outside of school either surfing or sailing, though I don’t really go with him anymore. He’s needed more time to himself since James died and I’m so busy between schoolwork and helping my parents that I never seem to have the time. Sam’s a good student too, which frustrates me sometimes because he barely has to study.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Antonia asks. She closes her chemistry book, tosses it in the middle of my kitchen table. We’re at my house studying for our first test of the year. “It didn’t say that anywhere in the chapter. God. Staying in San Domingo for a month put me so far behind.”
I see what he’s doing right away. He’s talking about when I ditched him to hang out with Antonia last week. He wants me to stop being an unpredictable particle, to be a better friend. It’s been a few days since I ditched him to go with Antonia to Zach’s party.
I get the hint, but I don’t want to let him make me feel guilty. I don’t have to tell Sam about everything. He may be one of my best friends, but can’t I have a life outside of my friendship with him? Antonia has other friends besides us. Why not me?
“He’s talking about quantum mechanics.” I give Sam that I-know-what-you’re-talking-about look. He obviously didn’t like my ditching him for the boat party. Sam can be a little overprotective at times. It’s something I like about him—that loyalty and willingness to care. It’s also something that frustrates me. He isn’t my big brother.
“But we’re not learning that stuff,” Antonia says, still confused, getting frustrated. Her telepathy isn’t picking up this hidden conversation between us. “Does that have to do with atomic laws?”
“I’ve been reading this book about quantum entanglement by a Swiss physicist,” he says. “Yeah. Whatever. Call me a nerd, but it’s actually super interesting.”
Antonia thinks that’s hilarious. “Interesting? Sounds pretty worthless.”
“It’s not worthless at all,” Sam says. “It means teleportation could be possible one day. Wouldn’t you want to go to London for lunch just for the hell of it?”
“I would love to go to London,” Antonia says. “Doesn’t mean I want to teleport.”
“There’s already been successful teleportation of entangled atoms.”
“You’re just showing off now.”
I laugh. I love listening to Antonia and Sam debate each other. Sam’s a really philosophical person. He reads a ton and is easy to have deep conversations with, while Antonia’s funny and quick on her feet. It’s great when they get so salty with each other.
“Do you know the creepiest part?” Sam asks. “If you teleport, you die.”
Antonia appears disgusted at the thought. “That’s the dumbest way of traveling I’ve ever heard. How’s that even possible?”
“Because you’re reborn,” Sam says. “Not cloned per se. Just transferred.”
“I don’t want to die, and I definitely don’t want to be a baby if I’m going to London for lunch,” she says. “You going to be there to push me around in a stroller when I’m reborn?”
“The idea has already been tested with photons over dozens of miles,” he says. “The theory is that one day you will step into some kind of particle tube that will scan your trillions of atomic particles and send all the data to another particle chamber in London. It’ll create a new you, as you are now, no different. Same you. Same thoughts. Same everything. Only the old you will disappear into a blur of particles. Poof.”
Antonia leans away from Sam in disbelief. “So you mean that in the movies whenever someone is beamed somewhere they die every single time?”
Sam laughs. “I guess so. Something like that anyway.”
“Whatever,” Antonia says. “I’ll just have lunch here.”
“You can teleport me to New York,” I say.
“Didn’t you hear what he said about teleporting?” Antonia pretends to be serious. “You have to die to do it. Not cool.”
“But it’s the same you,” Sam argues. “Nothing would be different.”
“Hell no,” Antonia says. “Isn’t that immoral? Killing people to teleport them? Nope. I won’t support any technology that makes you die to use it.”
“I don’t think it’s immoral at all if you’re just as you were,” he says. “It’s not like you’d see anything gross. Your old particles would just be gone. Replaced with new ones.”
“Immoral,” Antonia says. She’s obviously joking, but I can tell she’s pushing his buttons. He’s looking down at the kitchen tile. Something’s definitely bugging him. I try to think of the situation from his perspective and start to feel guilty.
He probably wouldn’t have liked going to the party anyway—Sam’s not a big party kind of person—but now I feel like a jerk for at least not inviting him.
“Want to watch something?” I ask. “I need a break from all this studying.”
“It’s hard to rationalize immoral,” Sam says, “when you two were hitting some swanky boat party last weekend. I’m sure there were lots of important people.”
“You told him?” I snap at Antonia.
“You were probably drinking too much to remember,” Sam whispers so Mom doesn’t hear from the living room, “but you told me you were going to a party. It wasn’t that hard to figure out which one. The whole school had been talking about it.”
“Who said anyone was drinking?” Antonia says, feigning shock. “That’s your assumption. I’ll have you know I was queen of the dance floor.” She points at me. “I can’t speak for lovergirl though.”
“Me?” I say defensively. “I didn’t do anything. You rescued me anyway.”
“From who?” Sam ask
s, alarmed. “You okay?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. “You don’t need to protect me.”
He looks down at his lap. I automatically feel bad for snapping at him, but I don’t want him to know about Jackson. It would make the whole situation worse. Sam has never liked Jackson. He’s too flashy, too full of himself. I think Sam is jealous.
“Don’t worry, Sam,” Antonia says to him. “She handled herself... Once I walked up, anyway.”
“It wasn’t anything like that,” I say. “I was ready to go.”
“Uh-huh,” Antonia says.
“I hope you weren’t too drunk,” Sam snaps.
I start to feel even guiltier. Not because of the drinking, but because Sam must really be hurt that I didn’t invite him. He never talks like that. But I’m not backing down.
“I can handle myself,” I say back. “You don’t have to fight my battles for me.”
“You two need to find your chill.” Antonia stands up, looking for something around the room. “Speaking of drinking. You don’t have anything in your bedroom we can...do you?”
“Are you serious?” Sam asks, leaning back in his chair and looking down the hallway to the living room to see if Mom is near. “Right now?”
Antonia’s eyes are wide, matter-of-fact. “Of course I’m serious. Never been more serious. Maybe you should lighten up.”
“I’m chill,” he says.
“I might have something.” I give them both a mischievous grin, thankful that Antonia derailed the conversation. I really don’t want to fight with Sam. “Let’s go look.”
Sam holds up his textbook. “What about the chemistry test?”
Antonia is the first to get up. “Like you’re even talking chemistry, quantum leap boy.”
I nod my head. “I think I’ve had all the chemistry I can handle for tonight.”
“I guess you’re right,” Sam says.
He follows us up the stairs to my room. I push open the door, wait for them to come in, then shut and lock it. “You never know,” I say.
“Better safe than sorry,” Antonia agrees. “Wow, your room hasn’t changed one bit,” she adds. “It’s still so dark.”