Amy
I was sitting in the apartment, reading a chapter in my English textbook, when Cassie stormed in and plopped down next to me. I looked up and then back down at my book, continuing to read. Cassie leaned over and glanced at what I was reading. She wasn’t in my English class, or any of my classes for that matter. She was a fashion major but hung out with all the architecture majors.
“So,” she finally said. “We are going to see the musical Rent this weekend.”
It wasn’t a question, or a matter of whether or not I wanted to go. Cassie made the rules of the world and apparently I had to obey them. I didn’t answer, and she sighed dramatically. “You aren’t going to your dad’s house, so that can’t be an excuse, and it’s not a party, so if you refuse to go I’m just going to give up on trying to help with your anti-socialness.”
“What time?” I said before she continued on with her speech.
She looked at me. “Uh, we were going to get pizza around five and walk to the theater around six thirty. The show starts at seven.”
“Okay,” I said, turning a page of my book.
“Great,” she said, confused. I looked at her, and finally got the reaction I’d been expecting.
Cassie squealed and hugged me. “It’s going to be so fun!”
She got up and walked over to the kitchen. “Oh, by the way,” she said, peaking her head around the wall. “Dan is coming too.” She smiled and winked at me.
I shook my head. “I’m not interested in getting involved with anyone.”
“Well, okay. But just to let you know, Dan’s the one that suggested the whole thing, and he made a point of asking me to ask you to come along.”
“You didn’t ask me,” I pointed out.
“Sure I did—just a little more forcefully.” She came back into the living room and sat next to me. “What are you working on?”
“I have a final paper due next week,” I answered.
“Ah, so do I. Have to love end-of-semester finals!” she sang. “Oh!” she patted my knee. “I’m picking out your outfit too.” She got up and skipped to the bedroom.
“I am capable of dressing myself, you know,” I called out. Cassie ignored me, and I could hear her humming and rummaging through my closet.
“Cassie!” I hissed as I swatted her hand away from my hair for the third time. “It’s not prom. This will do.”
“Okay, but—” she objected.
“No.”
“Let me just—” She picked up the mousse bottle.
“No!” I said again.
“Fine,” she whined.
“Let’s go. We are already almost late,” I said, trying to find a way to escape the apartment and Cassie’s claws.
“We have ten minutes!” she called out to me as I walked toward the door.
“Come on!” I said over my shoulder.
“All right, all right.” She trotted to the door, her heels clicking on the floor. She pulled her sweater down and adjusted her leggings.
I had convinced Cassie that my black skirt and blue sweater would be enough for a musical, and that I didn’t need to wear heels. She approved my black boots.
We met up with Mel, Tina, Dan, and two other guys I didn’t know. The pizza place, famous for deep dish, was a quarter of a mile away. I looked down at Cassie, Mel, and Tina’s feet, satisfied to know my feet wouldn’t be going through unnecessary pain. We began walking, Cassie on my right and one of the other guys on my left. He had his arm around Mel, so I assumed that he was her boyfriend. I hadn’t ever hung out with Mel or Tina outside of our studio, so I felt a little awkward.
“Why are we going to this again?” Tina asked, breaking the silence.
Mel nudged her. “Dan wanted to.”
We all looked at Dan, who shrugged.
“I liked the movie,” Cassie chimed in.
I nodded in agreement.
It was still light outside but freezing cold and windy. I still wasn’t used to Chicago’s weather. It was like being locked in a freezer for four months.
After pizza we made our way back in the direction of the theater. We still had half an hour before the musical would start, so we waited in the lobby. I went over to stand by the information desk where Dan was standing, looking at a brochure. Mel came and stood next to me, looking over to where her boyfriend stood in line for a Rent t-shirt. I followed her gaze, watching the line.
There was a sharp intake of breath.
Mel and I looked over to where it had come from. Dan glanced up from the brochure. “What?”
“Peter Pan?” Mel asked, raising her eyebrows and looking at the brochure in his hands.
“What’s wrong with Peter Pan?”
I glanced down at the brochure as he flipped it shut.
“It’s for kids,” Mel said.
“What’s for kids?” Cassie asked, joining us. I looked at Dan.
“Peter Pan is not just for kids,” Dan argued. Cassie looked around, confused.
Mel rolled her eyes. “We are not going to see Peter Pan, Dan. You already forced us to go to this play.”
“I didn’t force you guys!” he said, folding the brochure and slipping it into his pocket. I held back a smile. I had loved Peter Pan as a child and saw the play when I was really young.
“I didn’t ask you to go anyways,” he said.
Mel snorted. “You were going to—don’t even pull that one.”
He shrugged.
“I’ll go with you.” Everyone turned and looked at me. A slow smile formed on Cassie’s face.
Dan saluted me. “At least someone has good taste.” He grinned and held out his arm for me to take. It was strange, but it was the first time since September that I actually felt like I could belong here.
So I smiled and rolled my eyes, but took the arm anyway. We led the group back to the theater, and I knew Cassie was having a field day behind me.
“I know you were just being nice,” Dan said to me.
“What?” I said, looking at him.
He glanced at me. “About Peter Pan.”
“Oh,” I said. “No, actually I like Peter Pan. I saw the play when I was six and loved it, but I don’t really remember it. I would like to see it again.”
“Oh,” he said, surprised.
I nodded. “We don’t have to go together, though.”
He shrugged. “Only if you want to. I have no problem with going to plays alone.”
I smiled. “Why not?”
“Great,” he said as we found our seats. He sat next to me, and as I waited for the play to start, I thought of ways I could hint to Dan that friendship was all I wanted. It wasn’t something I could just bring up. I thought of Seth and how we had just known where we stood in our relationship. It hadn’t been something we’d needed to say out loud. Other people, however, needed to know exactly where things were headed.
When we walked back from the musical we took a detour and walked the trail along Lake Michigan. Dan walked next to me and we walked ahead of the others, probably because I wasn’t wearing heels. I looked out at the lake and ached for home.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Dan said. I looked at him. We stopped walking, waiting for the others.
“It’s practically frozen,” I said flatly.
He laughed. “It’s December. What did you expect?”
“Water doesn’t freeze in North Carolina.”
“Nothing freezes in North Carolina,” he corrected me.
“That’s true.” I could almost see the waves and feel the hot sand between my toes. I really did love the beach almost more than anything. At this time of night I would have been out sitting on the sand, feeling the waves against my feet until I shivered. Lately it seemed that when I thought about the beach, Seth always appeared with it, becoming a part of my love for it. A part of me hated that. After all, I had loved the beach for a long time before I loved him.
Still, the memories of the times we spent together haunted me, and I wondered if they would ever go away. They blurred together mostly, except for a few distinct moments. I thought back to lying on the sand with my head on Seth’s chest, falling asleep to the sound of his voice and the vibration through his chest. I remembered asking him what he was humming, and he told me it was the lullaby his mom used to sing to him.
“Will you sing it to me?”
He had stayed silent, and I’d wondered if he was self-conscious or didn’t want to let me in to something that was so personal to him. In the end, he sang to me and I fell asleep to the words and the way his voice worked through the notes. I could hear it in my head even now.
I stared out at the water, getting lost in the darkness of it, wondering where it ended and the sky began. Dan stayed quiet next to me and I felt his shoulder brush mine as he repositioned his arms on the railing. I stood up straighter and turned my head.
The rest of the group had passed us now, and I could see Cassie looking back at us.
“You ready?” Dan asked me.
I nodded, glancing at the water one last time. “Yeah, let’s go.”