I popped open my phone. “Hey,” I said. “Where are you?”
“I’m pretty close. About an hour away. Are you at Taylor’s?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Do you need me to give you the directions again?”
“No, I’ve got it.” He paused, and for a second I thought he’d already hung up. Then he said, “Thanks for doing this.”
“Come on,” I said.
I thought about saying something else, like how he was one of my best friends and how part of me was almost glad to have a reason to see him again. It just wouldn’t be summer without Beck’s boys.
But I couldn’t get the words to sound right in my head, and before I could figure them out, he hung up.
When Taylor finally emerged from the closet, she was zipping up my bag. “All set,” she said, dimpling.
“Taylor—” I tried to grab the bag from her.
“No, just wait until you get wherever you’re going. You’ll thank me,” she said. “I was very generous, even though you’re totally deserting me.”
I ignored the last bit and said, “Thanks, Tay.”
“You’re welcome,” she said, checking out her hair in her bureau mirror. “See how much you need me?” Taylor faced me, her hands on her hips. “How are you guys even planning on finding Conrad, anyway? For all you know, he’s under a bridge somewhere.”
I hadn’t given that part, the actual details, much thought. “I’m sure Jeremiah has some ideas,” I said.
Jeremiah showed up in an hour, just like he said he would. We watched from the living room window when his car pulled into Taylor’s circular driveway. “Oh my God, he looks so cute,” Taylor said, running over to the dresser and putting on lip gloss. “Why didn’t you tell me how cute he got?”
The last time she’d seen Jeremiah, he’d been a head shorter and scrawny. It was no wonder she’d gone after Steven instead. But he just looked like Jeremiah to me.
I picked up my bag and headed outside, with Taylor right on my heels.
When I opened the front door, Jeremiah was standing on the front steps. He was wearing his Red Sox cap, and his hair was shorter than the last time I’d seen him. It was strange to see him there, on Taylor’s doorstep. Surreal.
“I was just about to call you,” he said, taking off his hat. He was a boy unafraid of hat hair, of looking stupid. It was one of his most endearing qualities, one I admired because I pretty much lived in constant fear of embarrassing myself.
I wanted to hug him, but for some reason—maybe because he didn’t reach for me first, maybe because I felt shy all of a sudden—I held back. Instead, I said, “You got here really fast.”
“I sped like crazy,” he said, and then, “Hey, Taylor.”
She got on her tiptoes and hugged him and I regretted not hugging him too.
When she stepped away, Taylor surveyed him approvingly and said, “Jeremy, you look good.” She smiled at him, waiting for him to tell her she looked good too. When he didn’t, she said, “That was your cue to tell me how good I look. Duh.”
Jeremiah laughed. “Same old Taylor. You know you look good. You don’t need me to tell you.”
The two of them smirked at each other.
“We’d better get going,” I said.
He took my overnight bag off my shoulder and we followed him to the car. While he made room for my bag in the trunk, Taylor grabbed me by the elbow and said, “Call me when you get wherever you’re going, Cinderbelly.” She used to call me that when we were little, when we were obsessed with Cinderella. She’d sing it right along with the mice. Cinderbelly, Cinderbelly.
I felt a sudden rush of affection for her. Nostalgia, a shared history, counted for a lot. More than I’d realized. I’d miss her next year, when the two of us were at different colleges. “Thanks for letting me leave my car here, Tay.”
She nodded. Then she mouthed the word CLOSURE.
“Bye, Taylor,” Jeremiah said, getting into the car.
I got in too. His car was a mess, like always. There were empty water bottles all over the floor and backseat. “Bye,” I called out as we began to drive away.
She stood there and waved and watched us. She called back, “Don’t forget your promise, Belly!”
“What’d you promise?” Jeremiah asked me, looking in the rearview mirror.
“I promised her I’d be back in time for her boyfriend’s Fourth of July party. It’s going to be on a boat.”
Jeremiah nodded. “You’ll be back in time, don’t worry. Hopefully I’ll have you back by tonight.”
“Oh,” I said. “Okay.”
I guessed I wouldn’t need that overnight bag after all.
Then he said, “Taylor looks exactly the same.”
“Yeah, I guess she does.”
And then neither of us said anything. We were just silent.
chapter eight
JEREMIAH
I can pinpoint the exact moment everything changed. It was last summer. Con and I were sitting on the porch, and I was trying to talk to him about what a dick the new assistant football coach was.
“Just stick it out,” he said.
Easy for him to say. He’d quit. “You don’t get it, this guy’s crazy,” I started to tell him, but he wasn’t listening anymore. Their car had just pulled into the driveway. Steven got out first, then Laurel. She asked where my mom was and gave me a big hug. She hugged Conrad next and I started to say, “Hey, where’s the Belly Button?” And there she was.
Conrad saw her first. He was looking over Laurel’s shoulder. At her. She walked toward us. Her hair was swinging around all over the place and her legs looked miles long. She was wearing cutoffs and dirty sneakers. Her bra strap was sticking out of her tank top. I swear I never noticed her bra strap before. She had a funny look on her face, a look I didn’t recognize. Like shy and nervous, but proud at the same time.
I watched Conrad hug her, waiting my turn. I wanted to ask her what she’d been thinking about, why she had that look on her face. I didn’t do it though. I stepped around Conrad and grabbed her up and said something stupid. It made her laugh, and then she was just Belly again. And that was a relief, because I didn’t want her to be anything but just Belly.
I’d known her my whole life. I’d never thought of her as a girl. She was one of us. She was my friend. Seeing her in a different way, even just for a second, it shook me up.
My dad used to say that with everything in life, there’s the game-changing moment. The one moment everything else hinges upon, but you hardly ever know it at the time. The three-pointer early on in the second quarter that changes up the whole tempo of the game. Wakes people up, brings them back to life. It all goes back to that one moment.
I might have forgotten about it, that moment when their car drove up and this girl walked out, a girl I barely recognized. It could have just been one of those things. You know, where a person catches your eye, like a whiff of perfume when you walk down the street. You keep walking. You forget. I might have forgotten. Things might have gone back to the way they were before.
But then came the game-changing moment.
It was nighttime, maybe a week into the summer. Belly and I were hanging out by the pool, and she was cracking up over something I said, I don’t remember what. I loved that I could make her laugh. Even though she laughed a lot and it wasn’t some kind of feat, it felt great. She said, “Jere, you’re, like, the funniest person I know.”
It was one of the best compliments of my life. But that wasn’t the game-changing moment.
That happened next. I was really on a roll, doing an impersonation of Conrad when he wakes up in the mornings. A whole Frankenstein sort of thing. Then Conrad came out and sat next to her on the deck chair. He pulled on her ponytail and said, “What’s so funny?”
Belly looked up at him, and she was actually blushing. Her face was all flushed, and her eyes were shining. “I
don’t remember,” she said.
My gut just twisted. I felt like somebody had drop-kicked me in the stomach. I was jealous, crazy jealous. Of Conrad. And when she got up a little while later to get a soda, I watched him watch her walk away and I felt sick inside.
That was when I knew things would never be the same.
I wanted to tell Conrad that he had no right. That he’d ignored her all these years, that he couldn’t just decide to take her just because he felt like it.
She was all of ours. My mom adored her. She called Belly her secret daughter. She looked forward to seeing her all year. Steven, even though he gave her a hard time, he was really protective of her. Everyone took care of Belly, she just didn’t know it. She was too busy looking at Conrad. For as long as any of us could remember, she had loved Conrad.
All I knew was, I wanted her to look at me like that. After that day, I was done for. I liked her, as more than a friend. I maybe even loved her.
There have been other girls. But they weren’t her.
I didn’t want to call Belly for help. I was pissed at her. It wasn’t just that she’d picked Conrad. That was old news. She was always going to pick Conrad. But we were friends too. How many times had she called me since my mom died? Twice? A few texts and emails?
But sitting in the car next to her, smelling her Belly Conklin smell (Ivory soap and coconuts and sugar), the way her nose wrinkled up as she thought, her nervous smile and chewed-up fingernails. The way she said my name.
When she leaned forward to mess with the AC vents, her hair brushed against my leg and it was really soft. It made me remember all over again. It made it hard to stay pissed and keep her at arm’s length the way I’d planned. It was pretty damn near impossible. When I was near her, I just wanted to grab her and hold her and kiss the shit out of her. Maybe then she’d finally forget about my asshole of a brother.
chapter nine
“So where are we going?” I asked Jeremiah. I tried to catch his eye, to make him look at me, just for a second. It seemed like he hadn’t looked me in the eye once since he’s showed up, and it made me nervous. I needed to know that things were okay between us.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t talked to Con in a while. I have no clue where he’d go. I was hoping you’d have some ideas.”
The thing was, I didn’t. Not really. Not at all, actually. I cleared my throat. “Conrad and I haven’t spoken since—since May.”
Jeremiah looked at me sideways, but he didn’t say anything. I wondered what Conrad had told him. Probably not much.
I kept talking because he wasn’t. “Have you called his roommate?”
“I don’t have his number. I don’t even know his name.”
“His name is Eric,” I said quickly. I was glad to know that at least. “It’s his same roommate from the school year. They stayed in the same room for summer school. So, um, I guess that’s where we’ll go, then. To Brown. We’ll talk to Eric, to people on his hall. You never know, he could just be hanging out on campus.”
“Sounds like a plan.” As he checked his rearview mirror and changed lanes, he asked me, “So you’ve been to visit Con at school?”
“No,” I said, looking out the window. It was a pretty embarrassing thing to admit. “Have you?”
“My dad and I helped him move into the dorms.” Almost reluctantly he added, “Thanks for coming.”
“Sure,” I said.
“So Laurel’s cool with it?”
“Oh, yeah, totally,” I lied. “I’m glad I could come.”
I used to look forward to seeing Conrad all year. I used to wish for summer the way kids wished for Christmas. It was all I thought about. Even now, even after everything, he was still all I thought about.
Later I turned on the radio to fill the silence between Jeremiah and me.
Once I thought I heard him start to say something, and I said, “Did you just say something?”
He said, “Nope.”
For a while we just drove. Jeremiah and me were two people who never ran out of things to say to each other, but there we were, not saying a word.
Finally he said, “I saw Nona last week. I stopped by the retirement home she’s been working at.”
Nona was Susannah’s hospice nurse. I’d met her a few times. She was funny, and strong. Nona was slight, maybe five foot two with spindly arms and legs, but I’d seen her haul up Susannah like she weighed nothing. Which, toward the end, I guess she very nearly did.
chapter ten
When Susannah got really sick again, no one told me right away. Not Conrad, or my mother, or Susannah herself. It all happened so fast.
I tried getting out of going to see Susannah that last time. I told my mother I had a trig exam that counted for a quarter of my grade. I would have said anything to get out of going. “I’m going to have to study all weekend. I can’t come. Maybe next weekend,” I said over the phone. I tried to make my voice casual and not desperate. “Okay?”
Immediately she said, “No. Not okay. You’re coming up this weekend. Susannah wants to see you.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Her voice was razor sharp. “I already bought your train ticket. See you tomorrow.”
On the train ride up, I worked hard to come up with things I could say when I saw Susannah. I would tell her about how hard trig was, how Taylor was in love, how I was thinking of running for class secretary, which was a lie. I wasn’t going to run for class secretary, but I knew that Susannah would like the sound of it. I would tell her all of those things, and I would not ask about Conrad.
My mother picked me up at the train station. When I got into the car, she said, “I’m glad you came.”
She went on to say, “Don’t worry, Conrad’s not here.”
I didn’t answer her, I just stared out the window. I was unjustifiably mad at her for making me come. Not that she cared. She kept right on talking. “I’m going to go ahead and warn you that she doesn’t look good. She’s tired. She’s very tired, but she’s excited to see you.”
As soon as she said the words, “she doesn’t look good,” I closed my eyes. I hated myself for being afraid to see her, for not visiting more often. But I wasn’t like my mother, as strong and durable as steel. Seeing Susannah like that, it was too hard. It felt like pieces of her, of who she used to be, crumpled away every time. Seeing her like that made it real.
When we pulled into the driveway, Nona was outside smoking a cigarette. I’d met Nona a couple of weeks before, when Susannah first moved back home. Nona had a very intimidating handshake. When we stepped out of the car, she was Purelling her hands and spraying Febreze on her uniform like she was a teenager smoking in secret, even though Susannah didn’t mind it; she loved cigarettes once in a while but couldn’t smoke them anymore. Just pot, just once in a while.
“Morning,” Nona called out, waving to us.
“Morning,” we called back.
She was sitting on the front porch. “Nice to see you,” she said to me. To my mother, she said, “Susannah’s all dressed and waiting for you two downstairs.”
My mother sat down next to Nona. “Belly, you go on in first. I’m going to chat with Nona.” And by “chat,” I knew she meant she too was going to have a cigarette. She and Nona had gotten to be pretty friendly.
Nona was pragmatic and also intensely spiritual. She invited my mother to go to church with her once, and even though my mother was not religious in the least, she went. At first I thought it was just to humor Nona, but then when she started going to church alone back home, I realized it was more than that. She was looking for some kind of peace.
I said, “By myself?” and I regretted it right away. I didn’t want either of them to judge me for being afraid. I was already judging myself.
“She’s waiting for you,” my mother said.
Which she was. She was sitting in the living room, and s
he was wearing actual clothes and not her pajamas. She had on makeup. Her peachy blush was bright and garish against her chalky skin. She’d made an effort, for me. So as not to scare me. So I pretended not to be scared.
“My favorite girl,” she said, opening her arms for me.
I hugged her, carefully as I could, I told her she looked so much better. I lied.
She said Jeremiah wouldn’t be home until later that night, that us girls had the house all to ourselves for the afternoon.
My mother came inside then, but left the two of us alone. She came into the living room to say a quick hello and then she fixed lunch while we caught up.
As soon as my mother left the room, Susannah said, “If you’re worried about running into Conrad, don’t be, sweetie. He won’t be here this weekend.”
I swallowed. “Did he tell you?”
She half laughed. “That boy doesn’t tell me anything. Your mother mentioned that prom didn’t go … as well as we’d hoped. I’m sorry, honey.”
“He broke up with me,” I told her. It was more complicated than that, but when you boiled it all down, that was what had happened. It had happened because he’d wanted it to. It had always been his call—his decision whether or not we were together.
Susannah took my hand and held it. “Don’t hate Conrad,” she said.
“I don’t,” I lied. I hated him more than anything. I loved him more than anything. Because, he was everything. And I hated that, too.
“Connie’s having a hard time with all of this. It’s a lot.” She paused and pushed my hair out of my face, her hand lingering on my forehead as if I had a fever. As if I was the one who was sick, in need of comfort. “Don’t let him push you away. He needs you. He loves you, you know.”
I shook my head. “No, he doesn’t.” In my head, I added, The only person he loves is himself. And you.
She acted like she hadn’t heard me. “Do you love him?”
When I didn’t answer, she nodded as if I had. “Will you do something for me?”
Slowly, I nodded.