I knock on the door with maybe too much force, I can’t help it. A thin woman with short blonde hair and translucent eyelids answers. “Can I help you?”
She must be Ashley Gray’s mom. I was kind of imagining Hope would answer the door, but hey, that’s okay. As long as she’s here. “Is Hope here?” And then because she looks so utterly flummoxed, I add, “Hope Birdsong?”
She frowns. “Yes.”
The door doesn’t budge.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I need to see her.”
Mrs. Gray glances behind her into a room I can’t see. Winces at me. “This really isn’t the best—”
“Please. It’s important.”
I don’t know if she can read everything on my face, but she sees enough to sway her into opening the door a few more inches. “I’ll get her for you,” she says.
But then she leaves the door open like I’m supposed to follow her. So I do. There’s a short hallway, and I hear girls’ voices coming from the other side of it. And then I’m standing in a dining room, only I can already see the girls in the living room because the house is one of those open floor plans, and really it’s all kind of the same room.
“Hope,” calls Mrs. Gray.
And now all the girls can see me. I wasn’t expecting this many of them. There’s, like, seven (eight?) tucked into chairs, perched on couches and ottomans, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Hope’s eyebrows wrinkle in confusion. “Spencer?”
I weave closer, tripping over a stone statue of a bulldog wearing a Georgia jersey in the process. Their eyes zigzag right along with me, following my every move, and I become suddenly and uncomfortably aware of two things:
1) I am still wearing my wrestling singlet (and only my wrestling singlet). Normally, being on display in skin-tight green polyurethane in a room full of girls would throw me into worries about cold weather and shrinkage, except that,
2) They are all crying.
I mean, they aren’t all full-on sobbing (though the one rocking back and forth on the ottoman is), but every last one of them has red eyes, and here and there I see a tear-streaked face or a fist clenched around a bunch of tissues. The last time I walked in on a group of women crying like this was when I caught Hope and Janie watching Les Mis with Mimi and their mom and a coffee table full of Girl Scout Cookies. I am as woefully unprepared now as I was then.
“Um, hi,” I say. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. I just needed to talk to Hope, and . . .”
Everything I want to say is starting to feel like things that could wait, and I find myself wishing I could go back in time and wipe out this whole plan, or at least the part of it where I dash out of the tournament without putting on actual clothes. Lesson learned. Calling ahead is a good idea. So is asking permission. How come the guys in the movies don’t come off looking like creepy stalkers because that is definitely what I feel like right now.
Hope jumps up from her place on the loveseat. “What’s up? Is everything okay?”
“It’s fine.” I feel ridiculous. “Um, is there somewhere we could talk?”
“Sure. Um.” Hope glances around and seems to realize what I’ve already figured out—they’ll be watching us almost anywhere we go. She leads me back to the hallway by the front door. At least there’s a wall. “Is this okay?”
“Uh-huh.” I rub the back of my neck. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t realize. I mean, I thought this was a sleepover.”
“Oh.” It’s Hope’s turn to get red-faced. “Yeah, I didn’t tell anyone because I guess I was embarrassed. Not that it’s anything to be embarrassed about—it’s not.” She takes a deep breath like she’s trying to get her thoughts together. “It’s a grief support group. With other girls who are going through the same stuff as me.”
So, really, the worst possible thing I could have burst in on. “Well, that’s great. I’m so glad you’re doing that.”
The smile that spreads across her face is shy/proud/genuine/relieved. “Thanks. It’s been a really good thing for me. I’ve been . . . Well, it’s really helping.”
“That’s so great.” My smile back is giddy/dopey/oblivious.
“So . . . you’re here.”
“Oh, right. I just wanted to—well, I wanted—” I didn’t think I could feel any more like an idiot, but barging in here to declare my undying love for her is starting to seem like the worst idea ever. My thumb traces shapes on the folded-up piece of paper I’m holding. I’m still going to take the flying leap. “I wanted to talk to you about the voicemail I left you. And about this.”
I unfold the paper so we can both see the words. So I can remind myself that they’re real. Hope smiles, and this time it is sheepish/eager/knowing/sexy. My stomach flips. I could spend the rest of my life classifying her smiles.
“I want to talk to you about that, too,” she says. “But maybe somewhere that’s not here.”
I glance back at Ashley’s living room. “Yes, please.”
I wave to the girls and apologize about eighty-five times, and then Hope hangs back to give some sort of explanation speech. I go outside and wait by my truck and rub my arms to keep warm. Hope stays in there a really long time. Long enough for me to make up stories in my head about how they’re all inside laughing at me, and she’s never coming out.
Ashley’s front door finally opens.
“Hey,” I say. “What all did you tell them?”
Hope shrugs coyly. “Let’s just say, I think you have your own fan club now.”
“Oh.” I can barely get one girl to like me, let alone a whole room full of them. I stand a little taller. Puff out my chest a bit. “Well, that’s pretty cool.”
She rolls her eyes. “Stop it.”
And then she goes to push my shoulder, but it’s like her bare skin against my bare skin is too much because her hand kind of gets stuck there. We’re frozen for a second, and then like an idiot, I look down at her hand because I want to see it touching me. She comes to her senses and pulls it away. But now that we’ve touched, I don’t want to be not touching, so I reach out my hand and hold my breath and trace my finger down the back of her hand where it rests by her side. She lets me. Actually, she makes this little gasping noise that makes me very concerned about the fact that I’m wearing a singlet. I lace my fingers through hers, slowly. It’s different from that time we held hands in the tree stand. Because that time I was trying to figure out if we were friends, and this time I know we’re not.
“Should we go?” I ask.
“Yes,” says Hope. But she doesn’t move to get into the truck. “I drove here, so I should probably drive home, too.”
“Oh.” I don’t know why this disappoints me so much. “Well, we’ll see each other in a little while, then.”
“Yeah,” she says. She doesn’t move to get into her car, either. “At my house?”
“Sure.”
I stand there.
She stands there.
Neither one of us wants to let go of the other’s hand. It finally occurs to me that the sooner we leave, the sooner we get started.
I squeeze her hand. “Soon.”
“Soon,” she echoes. She gives me another smile to catalogue, and we let our arms stretch as she walks away, our fingers tearing apart at the last possible second. Then we both laugh because we realize how ridiculous we’re being.
“Bye, Spence.” Hope laughs again and shakes her head and then she’s gone.