Twenty
It’s the morning of our Nashville road trip. We’ve all gathered around Brooks’s Ford Explorer outside my house. We’re waiting on Tony. He’s twenty minutes late.
“I say we leave without him,” says Serena, who’s been on the outs with Tony ever since the moon pie incident. “If he can’t respect the schedule, we don’t need to respect him.”
I shake my head. “He’s the one who suggested the concert in the first place. I say we give him ten more minutes.”
“Has anyone gotten ahold of him? Do we even know if he’s awake?” Brooks is sitting sideways in the driver’s seat, legs hanging out the open door. He’s smoking a cigarette, and I’m really hoping neither of my parents is watching us from the house. The whole smoking thing doesn’t really jibe with the Mister Rogers story I fed them.
“I texted him,” mutters Jack. “He’s coming.”
I shoot her a look of mild surprise, but it slides off her, unheeded. I’ve given up trying to talk with Jack about Tony. That entire situation is a lost cause, suitable only for the likes of St. Jude and high-risk gamblers.
Paul pokes my arm and leans in to whisper, “The hell’s going on there?”
I raise my shoulders to my ears, conveying my own woeful lack of information. Then I smirk at his T-shirt. It’s black, the words Pure Heroine written across the front in silver lettering.
“What,” he says. “What’re you shaking your head for?”
“How can you like Lorde and not Chvrches?”
Paul nods eagerly, like I’ve just asked him to define a vocab word he reviewed this morning. “Easy. I only like mainstream.”
“Chvrches have gotten pretty mainstream,” I argue.
“Nope. Mainstream means your parents recognize them.”
“Is that according to Webster’s?”
Paul’s answer gets lost in the roar of a motorbike. Tony’s motorbike. He grinds it to a stop just behind the Explorer, and as he takes off his helmet, I swear I hear Jack whisper “fucker” under her breath.
“Hey!” cries Tony, swaggering—and I do mean swaggering —toward us with an easy smile and open arms, as though he is the Messiah à la Godspell . I’m dead certain he’s about to burst into “Day by Day.”
I really need to stop hanging around so many theatre kids.
“Where’ve you been, asshat?” says Brooks. “Burning daylight.”
“I’m not that late,” Tony replies, all smiles.
Serena looks ready to punch him in the gonads.
“We’re all here,” I say. “We should load up.”
Everyone is more than willing to do just that. Brooks turns himself right-side in the driver’s seat, and Serena calls shotgun. Jack, Paul, and I claim the middle row, which leaves the back two seats to Tony and Jay. It wasn’t intentional, but as soon as I realize the setup, I watch attentively as they climb into the back. Jay has been quiet ever since he arrived at the house, but I chalked it up to him not being a morning person. His expression now isn’t tired so much as . . . uncomfortable. Maybe even a little pissed. He claims the seat nearest the window, plugs in his earbuds, closes his eyes, and drifts into a sonic world that is, for all intents and purposes, five thousand miles away from this SUV . Tony looks uncomfortable too, and I know I’m not making this up in my head, because Paul says, “You okay there, dude? Do you get carsick or something?”
“Huh? Oh. No, no, I’m cool.” The discomfort lifts off his face as easily as a paper mask. He’s the bohemian Messiah once more.
I don’t know why it’s so hard to stay mad at Tony. I want to be angry, not because he was late, but because he didn’t apologize for being late, like any civilized human being would. But then Tony grins straight at me, a grin that says, Remember when? and Isn’t life grand? Times like this, I can see what Jack saw in him. I can also see why it was always hot and cold between them.
• • •
Brooks wasn’t kidding: He speeds . Once we’re on the Bluegrass Parkway, he keeps us at a steady ninety miles per hour.
“You guys are my lookout,” he tells us. “When we come to overpasses or those wooded medians, especially. If I get pulled over with twelve other eyes watching my back, then I deserve to get a ticket.”
Tony’s reply is just, “Nash Vegas, baby!”
Jack whips out her unicorn pillow pal and turns toward the window for a nap. I wouldn’t be surprised if she sleeps through the whole trip. She gets bad motion sickness, so I don’t blame her for checking out. It’s actually pretty ideal, because I’ve been having a good conversation with Thom, and my fingers are itching to get my phone back out. I’ve already crafted the perfect reply to his last text.
I write, You have a time machine that you can take to ANY TIME AT ALL , and you choose to meet H. G. Wells?
Even though I left the conversation dangling this morning, nearly an hour ago, Thom is still around and quick to pick things back up.
He texts, He’s my hero.
I reply, You’re not supposed to meet your heroes. That’s Fangirl 101.
Okay, Miss High and Mighty, where—I mean WHEN would you go?
I’ve already thought up an answer to this one, too. It came to me while I was brushing my teeth: I would go to June 28, 1914, and prevent the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
I’d like to claim I just knew June 28, 1914, off the top of my head, but AP U.S. History was last year. I looked it up on Wikipedia, because the full date makes my proposition sound more credible.
Thom: WHAT . Why??
Me: That’s what started WWI . It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. So if I stop the assassination, I stop WWI . And probably, as a result, WWII .
Thom: Nope. Wasted time travel. There would’ve been another straw. The war still would’ve gone down.
Me: You don’t know that.
Thom: You don’t know that No WWI = No WWII .
Me: If Germany hadn’t been forced to pay all those reparations, then Hitler probably wouldn’t have risen to power.
It takes me three tries to get autocorrect to supply the right spelling of “reparations.”
Thom: I don’t know, it’s a dangerous game, messing with history that much.
Me: H. G. Wells might have been a complete ass in person. You really want to shatter your illusion?
Thom: I’ll take my chances.
I’m in such a feverish headspace that I don’t notice Paul leaning in close, and I startle when he speaks.
“Dorking out, much?”
I drop the phone in my lap and glare at him.
Paul gives me a weird look. “Is that how you two flirt?”
“Rude,” I say. “It is so rude to read someone else’s private text conversation.”
“You know what’s actually rude? Texting some Internet guy when you’re sitting right next to someone who can talk to you in real life .”
“You weren’t saying anything.”
“Yeah, because you were texting. I’m bored.”
“Only boring people get bored.”
“I have never claimed to be an interesting person.”
I wave toward the front seats. “Talk to Brooks, or Serena.”
Serena raises a hand and says, “Nope. Sorry, Paul. Studying lines.”
Last week Serena landed the role of Maria in the Lexington Community Troupe’s production of West Side Story . The performance isn’t until mid-September, but she’s already prepping like a fiend. Brooks, meantime, seems intent on pretending he hasn’t heard us.
I sigh with much feeling. I don’t pocket my phone, but I do flip it screen-down on the seat, cross my arms, and turn to Paul. “Okay. You’ve got my undivided attention. Now what?”
Paul still has a funny look on his face, like he’s trying to identify a flavor for a taste test. But then he smiles and says, “Alphabet game.”
“God , Paul. No. ”
“Okay, fine. I Spy.”
“You are eight,” I say. “You are eight years old, you know that?”
But I’m laughing, so we play I Spy. Tony joins in, and Serena does too after griping that she can’t concentrate on her script. We’re half an hour in when Jay takes off his headphones and says, “I spy with my little eye something that’s green,” and we guess for five whole minutes before Tony guesses it’s Jay’s jacket zipper, and the whole carload goes into an uproar, because Tony is the only person in the vehicle who could actually see the zipper. Jay is unapologetic and clearly pleased with himself for holding the longest record of stumping the car. Serena calls him a dirty cheater, and Jay roars back, “You’re the cheater, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina!”
Serena plays right into it by screeching back, “I was unhappy, Stiva! You stifled me!”
Everyone is convulsing with laughter. Everyone but Jack, who’s woken from her nap with all the grace of a grizzly bear. She groans into her unicorn pillow, “If I barf in here, it’s your all’s fault.”
Our laughs are still loud and long when Tony grips my headrest and lunges forward, yelling, “Shit, shit, shit, cop at eleven o’clock!”
It’s to Brooks’s credit that he doesn’t slam on the breaks, given Tony’s melodramatic delivery. He decelerates quickly but steadily, just as we fly through the underpass where the cop car is hiding out. We collectively hold our breaths, craning our necks back to watch and wait. We drive farther and farther out. No siren. No sign of pursuit. We settle back in our seats. There’s a beat of silence. Then the laughter picks up again.
• • •
“I spy with my little eye . . . the effing Batman building.”
We’re all hunched in to see the Nashville skyline though the windshield. I-65 provides a dramatic introduction to the city; nothing like an entrance to Lexington, which is all horse farms and strip malls. Lexington’s tallest building—our cobalt blue 5/3 Bank tower—would develop a severe inferiority complex in a place like this.
It’s an obvious choice, but my favorite building in the Nashville lineup is the AT&T building, affectionately known as the Batman building because of the two pointy spires poking out the top like Batman’s mask. When Klaudie and I were younger, Dad had both of us convinced those spires shot out every single cell phone signal worldwide. I held fast to that belief for much longer than I care to admit.
Our first stop in the city is Hattie B’s, which, according to Brooks, has the best hot chicken in town. Of course, chicken isn’t an option for me, so instead I load up on à la carte orders: baked beans, black-eyed pea salad, and pimento mac and cheese. And then, because this is a special occasion, I go all out and order banana pudding and a large cup of sweet tea. For everyone else, there’s a chart listing five types of chicken cooking styles in increasing level of hotness. Jack and Tony are the only ones to order the hottest level: Shut the Cluck Up!!!
Being Jack and Tony, neither of them complain or betray so much as a wince of discomfort as they eat. I do note, however, that they take many long gulps of soda in between bites. When Tony gets up for a refill and asks Jack if she’d like him to get her one too, she actually lets him.
We have several hours to kill before the concert, so we all pitch in a few bucks toward parking and Brooks finds us a place in Midtown that’s close to our venue and to Centennial Park.
“Did you want to go on Vandy’s campus?” Paul asks me as we unload from the Explorer. “Poke around the media arts department?”
I haven’t talked to Paul or Jack about the college thing yet. I’ve wanted to be sure I’m committing to UK before I tell them, because the only thing worse than leaving the state for college is leaving the state after promising I’ll stay in town. But now, the discussion seems like an inevitability. I anticipated this conversation on the ride down, but only as a vague fear that might not come true if I didn’t think about it too hard. But here it is, and because I haven’t done any hard thinking, I don’t have any good answers on the tip of my tongue.
“No, that’s okay,” I say, shrugging, still hoping Paul and Jack won’t read anything into it.
Of course, they do.
“What do you mean, ‘That’s okay’ ?” says Jack. “You’ve been talking about visiting again ever since we planned this trip.”
“Not recently,” I mumble.
We’ve reached a crosswalk, and the seven us begin to break off. Brooks is heading to a nearby café to meet up with a friend. Serena and Jay are going to a boutique Serena follows on Instagram and wants to check out in person. Paul, Jack, and I are, of course, a natural grouping. That leaves Tony the odd man out. At the intersection, he decides to cross the street with Serena and Jay while the rest of us wait for a light in the opposite direction. That’s good, at least. I wouldn’t want to have this very personal conversation in front of Tony.
It isn’t until Brooks has waved us good-bye and headed down his own street that I say, “Vandy’s not happening. Even if I got in, which is doubtful, it’d be too expensive.”
Jack and Paul are quiet. I know they’re exchanging a look behind my back. Apparently, Jack has been appointed the emissary, because she says, “Um, that’s new information.”
“I’ve been thinking it through for a while now. I was just figuring out how to tell you.”
“How to tell us? We’re your best friends, Tash. You don’t have to bullshit us. You just tell us.”
Bristling, I say, “I’m allowed to figure out things on my own before I tell you.”
Jack makes a short humming sound I take to mean “fair enough.”
We haven’t discussed where we’re going instead of campus, but we seem to have all silently agreed to head toward Centennial Park. We step onto one of the many paths leading off the main sidewalk and into the shade of trees. There’s a distant sound of plashing water—a fountain in the park lake, currently out of sight.
“So . . . does that mean you’d go to UK?” Jack turns and bats her lashes. “With meee?”
It’s so sudden. I feel short of breath, and my chest fills with warmth. I don’t know if it’s Jack’s childishness or the beauty of the park or the simple contentment I feel at walking sandwiched between two of my favorite humans on earth, but this feels . . . right. This. Because even if UK means staying in Lexington, it means staying with them .
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s what it means.”
She’s fighting down a smile when she says, “I’m sure you know I’ll make a horrible roommate, but I’m still going to guilt you into living with me.”
I fling one arm over her shoulder, one over Paul’s, and start singing the chorus of “With or Without You,” whisper-screaming into her ear my modified lyrics: “You can’t liiive with or withooout me.” It’s obnoxious, but I don’t care, and neither does Jack or Paul. Paul adds his own imitation of a cymbal crash and drum crescendo. Jack joins me for Bono’s climactic wail just as we come to a clearing in the trees and get our first view of the Parthenon.
In this moment, I’m overwhelmed with love for them both to the point of queasiness. Jack and Paul don’t care if we make a scene. They would never be embarrassed by me. Why would I leave that for a fancy school and a six-figure college loan?
We shake our heads at the Parthenon, because that’s really all you can do when faced with a full-scale replica of an Athenian temple plopped down in the middle of Tennessee. It’s such a stunningly odd sight, because it has the potential to be tacky, and maybe some people think it is, but I don’t. Here, in this park, it looks eternal. A structure that will remain even after all the nuclear wars and alien invasions and epidemics wipe us out. Maybe the Batman building will fall, but not the Fake Parthenon. Never the Fake Parthenon.
• • •
There’s already a decent line outside the concert venue when we arrive. I spot Serena, Jay, and Tony a couple dozen people ahead of us and shoot them a wave. Tony motions for us to join them, and I notice a few of the people between us turn sour-faced, already prepping themselves for a line-cutting confrontation. They don’t need to. My friends and I may be annoying, but we are not jackasses. I shake my head and ignore Tony’s pouty face.
Doors open soon enough, and we meet the others on the floor. It’s a big warehouse space with the stage on one end and a full bar on the other. We all wear big Sharpie-drawn X s on both our hands, branded underage losers for the remainder of the night. Serena shows us a necklace she bought at the boutique—a silver pocket watch with a teeny bird on the end of the second hand. Tony and Jay stand close beside her, but even closer to each other.
Brooks doesn’t find us until the break between the opening act and Chvrches. His face is flushed from alcohol, but he doesn’t drink any more while he’s with us, and his tipsy grin fades into a far more sober one over the course of the night. When Chvrches takes the stage, we all might as well be drunk. We’re a frenzied ball of energy, and I shriek shamelessly as they begin their opening number—my favorite of their songs.
When the band’s set is over, the audience cheers them back onstage for an encore. And it’s during the encore that I look over and see Jay and Tony kissing. Jay’s standing with his back against a metal support, just the teensiest bit wobbly, and Tony is leaning over him, chest-to-chest, drawing out kisses from his mouth in a steady, constant rhythm, like a heartbeat.
At last, our Vronsky and Alex are together, and I ship it even more than Kevin.
It’s a good concert, though as we’re leaving, Jack whispers to me what I’ve been thinking: “A little anticlimactic.” I haven’t been to too many concerts, but so far experience has taught me that a lot of them are this way—just not big enough to live up to all the mental hype.
Brooks doesn’t seem tipsy when we leave, but there’s an interaction between him and Serena that I don’t catch, which results in Serena taking the wheel. We can’t have been on the road for more than five minutes when Brooks starts to snore in the passenger seat. The rest of us snicker softly, and Serena just cranks the radio louder.
I fall into a tired but comfortable fog. Everyone’s quiet, sleeping or half-sleeping. There’s a spooky, bluish glow behind me from one of the guys’ phones. After several minutes, it disappears, casting both back rows into darkness.
When I wake, we’re still on the interstate, passing a semi in the right lane. I’ve fallen asleep on Paul’s shoulder, where I’ve deposited a trickle of drool on his T-shirt sleeve. Luckily, he’s sleeping and unaware of this disgusting little surprise. Jack is breathing deeply on my other side, and Brooks is out cold in the front. I shift toward the backseat and see that Jay is awake, listening to music and staring out at the passing cars. There’s just enough light to make out his hand atop Tony’s in the space between their knees. Jay shoots me a grin. I grin back, point at him, then Tony, and give a giddy thumbs-up. He points at me and the back of Paul’s head and lifts his shoulders in an inquisitive “what about that?” shrug.
I make a face. Me. And . . . Paul? Is he suggesting what I think he is? What Jay does next leaves no room for doubt. He puckers his lips in a kissy face and winks. All I can do is stare, dumbfounded, and finally shake my head and whisper, “No.”
In response, Jay grins bigger at me and shuts his eyes, returning to the world of his headphones. I turn back around in my seat, close my eyes, and tell myself to sleep, but my mind is racing.
Me and Paul. If Jay only knew that Paul sees me as a sister, same as Jack. That even if he didn’t, it wouldn’t work out because I’m not a fan of sex, and I know, thanks to Paul’s candidness about his relationship with Stephanie Crewe and a couple other less serious dates, he most certainly is.
Still, I can’t shut my mind off. The bubbly feeling is in my throat, like it was the day Paul hugged me in front of his basketball friends and one of them called me his girlfriend. Those fools knew nothing. I’m no one’s girlfriend, and Paul is just . . . Paul.
He shifts beside me, and I have a panicked, irrational thought that all this time Paul has been a telepath, and now he’s going to tell me as much in the most humiliating way. But Paul doesn’t say anything. He smiles sleepily at me and, still panicked, I whisper-blurt, “I drooled on you.”
He follows my finger to the dampened portion of his sleeve. In response, he snorts and tugs me in close to deposit a raspberry atop my head. I wrinkle my nose and punch him in the chest. He smiles against my hair and says, “Even.” Then he closes his eyes again, but his arm remains where it is—loose around my shoulder. And it’s the most confusing moment, because Paul has always been like this, and resting here, tucked in his side, can be as easily familial as it can be something else.
It’s nothing, it’s something. It can’t, it could. It’s Paul, but Thom.
Thoughts pester and peck at my brain, keeping me wide awake. My mind is racing when we pull into my driveway and Serena opens her door and a steady ding-ding-ding wakes everyone else from their slumber.