Chapter SIXTEEN
‘Wow. Nice road burn.’
I looked up to see Adam standing in the doorway to Heidi’s office, a box under one arm. ‘Well,’ I said, putting down my tube of Neosporin, which I’d been applying to the latest scrape on my shin, the result of a wobbly crash that morning. ‘I guess that’s one way of looking at it.’
‘It’s the only way.’ He put the box down on the file cabinet, then yanked up his shirt, showing me a scar on his stomach. ‘See this? Seventh grade, wiped out on a ramp. And then here’ – he slid up his shirtsleeve, showing another shiny white spot – ‘I crashed on a mountain bike trail when I hit a log.’
‘Ouch.’
‘But the pièce de résistance,’ he continued, tapping his chest, ‘is right here. All titanium, baby.’
I just looked at him. ‘What is?’
‘The plate they used to put my sternum back together,’ he replied cheerfully. ‘Two years ago. Broke it with my full-face helmet going over a jump.’
‘You know,’ I said, considering my scrape again, ‘you’re kind of making me look like a wimp.’
‘Not at all!’ He smiled. ‘It all counts. If you’re not getting hurt, you’re not riding hard enough.’
‘Then I,’ I said, ‘am riding really hard.’
‘That’s what I hear,’ he said, picking up the box again. ‘Maggie says you’re like an animal out there.’
I was horrified. ‘She what?’
‘I’m paraphrasing,’ he said easily, flipping his hand. ‘She says you’re really working hard, that you’re doing great.’
I shrugged, capping the Neosporin. ‘I don’t know. If I was good, I wouldn’t be all banged up like this.’
‘Not true.’
I looked up at him. ‘No?’
He shook his head. ‘Of course not. Look at me. I’m a great rider, and I’ve bit dirt more times than I can even count. And the pros? They’re, like, bionic, they’ve crashed so much. Look at Eli. He’s broken his elbow, and his collarbone multiple times, and then there’s that arm thing…’
‘Wait,’ I said. ‘The arm thing? You mean the scar?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I thought that was from the accident.’
Adam shook his head. ‘No. He was doing some tricks out on the pier and landed wrong. Sliced it wide open on the edge of a bench. There was blood everywhere.’
I looked back down at my knee scab, small and almost a perfect circle, shiny with ointment.
‘It all counts,’ Adam said again. ‘And the bottom line is, what defines you isn’t how many times you crash, but the number of times you get back on the bike. As long as it’s one more, you’re all good.’
I smiled, looking up at him. ‘You know,’ I said, ‘you should be a motivational speaker, or something.’
‘Nah. Entirely too dorky,’ he replied easily. ‘Hey, is Heidi around?’
‘No. She’s at lunch.’ I didn’t add that she was with my dad, their first formal meeting since he moved out. Heidi had been so nervous all morning, walking around the store, straightening displays and hovering over me in the office, that I’d been relieved when she finally strapped Isby into the BabyBjörn and headed off. As soon as the door shut behind her, though, I’d gotten uneasy myself, wondering what she’d have to say when she returned. ‘She’ll be back in an hour or so, probably.’
‘Oh. Well, I can just leave these, then.’ He put the box down on the desk to my left. When I glanced at them, he added, ‘Prom shots from my yearbook days. She said she wants them for decor for the Beach Bash, or something.’
‘Really,’ I said. ‘Can I take a look?’
‘Sure.’
I lifted the lid. Inside was a big stack of pictures, mostly five-by-sevens, all black and white. The one on the top was of Maggie, standing with Jake by the tailgate of a car. She had on a short, dark A-line dress and strappy heels, her hair spilling over her shoulders. There was a corsage on her wrist and she was laughing, holding out a bag of Doritos to Jake, who was in a tux shirt and pants, barefoot on the sand. I flipped to the next picture: also Maggie, this time alone, the same night, standing on tiptoe to check her reflection in a mirror that said COCA-COLA across its center. In the next shot, there was Leah, in a more formal pose with a guy in a military uniform, both of them looking at the camera, followed by one of Wallace on a dance floor, cummerbund loose, in the midst of busting some sort of move. Then Maggie again, another year, in another dress, this one white and longer. In the first shot, she was walking down the boardwalk, holding the hand of someone whose shoulder alone made it into the picture. In the one beneath it, she was reaching out for the camera, fingers blurred, her mouth half-open as she laughed.
‘Wow,’ I said as I kept flipping through them. There was Leah again. Esther. Maggie. Wallace and Leah. Jake and Esther. Maggie. Wallace and Esther. Maggie. Maggie. Maggie. I looked up at him. ‘You’re not in any of these.’
‘Nah. I was always behind the camera.’
I moved past yet another shot of Maggie, this time on a bike, her white dress gathered up in one hand, her helmet in the other. ‘Lots of her here.’
He kept his eyes on the picture, his tone noncommittal, as he said, ‘I guess so.’
‘What are you guys looking at?’
Adam and I both jumped as Maggie herself – in the flesh and flip-flops and jeans – appeared behind us in the doorway. ‘Prom pictures,’ I told her, casually flipping back to the one of Leah and Wallace. ‘Heidi wanted them for the Beach Bash.’
‘Oh, no.’ She sighed, then stepped forward to lean over my shoulder. ‘I can’t bear to… look! Junior year. Leah’s date was that marine, remember?’
Adam nodded. ‘I do.’
‘And I had my white dress. I loved that dress.’ She sighed again, this time happily, and reached over me to flip to the next picture. ‘There it is! Man. I agonized over that outfit like you would not believe. Kept it clean all night, even when I was on a bike on a dare. And then Jake threw up all over it on the way home. The stain…’
‘Never came out,’ Adam finished for her. ‘I have a shot of it somewhere.’
‘Hopefully not in this box.’ She plucked out the one of her on the bike. ‘That was a great night, though. I mean, until the end. What other ones are in there? Any more of me?’
I felt Adam glance at me as I eased the box shut, saying, ‘Not really.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Well, I guess that’s a good thing. I don’t think I necessarily want my prom memories up on display for the whole town to see anyway.’
‘No?’ I said. ‘It seems like you had a pretty good time.’
She shrugged. ‘I guess. But I was with Jake then. The last thing I need right now is another reminder of how much of my life I wasted on him.’
‘You were happy at the time, though,’ I said. ‘That has to count for something.’
‘I don’t know,’ Maggie said. ‘Lately I’ve been thinking it would have been better to have just been by myself. That way, at least all of high school wouldn’t be, you know, tinged with his memory.’
‘Tinged?’ Adam said. ‘Is that even a real word?’
‘You know what I mean,’ she said, poking his arm. ‘Anyway, my point is that if I’d wised up to what he was sooner, my entire experience might have been different.’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘You could have spent all of high school alone, and never gone to prom at all.’
‘Exactly,’ she replied. ‘And that might have been good, too. Or even better.’
I looked down at the box again, remembering all those shots inside, trying to picture myself in even one of them. What if I’d had a boyfriend? What if I’d gone to the prom? What kind of tinge could I have had, given another chance? ‘Maybe,’ I said to Maggie. ‘Or maybe not.’
She gave me a weird look, then opened her mouth to say something, but then the front door chime sounded. ‘Duty calls,’ she said, turning on her heel, and then she was thwacking back down the hallway, her voice cheery as she greeted a group of customers.
Adam watched her go, then leaned back in the doorjamb. ‘You know,’ he said, ‘if you want to remedy that, you can.’
I looked up at him. ‘Remedy what?’
‘The whole not-going-to-the-prom thing,’ he said. ‘Eli’s at the shop right now, doing inventory.’
‘What,’ I said, ‘are you talking about?’
‘You just walk over there and into the office and say, “Hey, be my prom date,”’ he said. ‘It’s that simple.’
I wanted to tell him that nothing concerning me and Eli was simple, especially lately. Instead, I said, ‘What makes you think I want to go with him?’
‘Because,’ he said, ‘you’re sitting here going on about spending high school alone, never going to prom at all… It was kind of obvious who you were talking about.’
‘Maggie. I was talking about Maggie.’
He crossed his arms over his chest. ‘Sure you were.’
I just looked at him for a second. Then I said, ‘Well, what about you?’
‘Me?’
I nodded. ‘When are you planning to ask her?’
‘Ask her what?’
I rolled my eyes.
‘Oh, no. We’re just friends.’
‘Right.’ I opened up the box again and started flipping through the pictures, taking out the one of her on the bike, and walking, and laughing, and in front of the mirror, laying them on the desk side by side. ‘Because, of course, you took this many pictures of all your friends.’
He glanced at the shots, then swallowed. ‘Actually,’ he said stiffly, ‘I do have a lot of shots of Wallace.’
‘Adam. Come on.’
I watched as, defeated, he slumped into the chair, folding his arms behind his head. For a moment we just sat there, neither of us saying anything. Outside, I could hear Maggie chattering on the pros and cons of one-piece bathing suits. ‘The thing is,’ he said finally, ‘I’ve made it this far, you know? We start college in a matter of weeks.’
‘So?’
‘So,’ he continued, ‘I just don’t know if I want that tinge on the summer. Not to mention our friendship. An awkward tinge, that will then color everything else.’
‘You’re assuming she’ll say no.’
‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m assuming she’ll say yes, because she’ll figure it’ll be fun. And then I’ll work it up to be this big deal, like it’s a real date, which is not how she’ll see it, which will become crushingly obvious at the prom itself when she abandons me to dance, and then leave, and eventually marry some other guy.’
Outside, Maggie laughed, the sound light and cheery, like music.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘At least you haven’t put much thought into it.’
He gave me a wry smile. ‘Just like you haven’t thought about asking Eli, right?’
‘I haven’t.’
He rolled his eyes.
‘No, really. We had a falling-out… We’re not even talking right now.’
‘Well, then. You know what you need to do.’
I said, ‘I do?’
‘Yep.’ He pushed himself to his feet. ‘Get back on that bike.’
I just looked at him. ‘It’s not that simple.’
‘Sure it is,’ he said. ‘Just takes one more time. Remember?’
I considered this as he started for the door, sliding his hands in his pockets. ‘On the same note,’ I said, ‘there’s a worse thing than an awkward tinge.’
‘Yeah?’
I nodded.
‘What’s that?’
‘Always wondering if it might have gone the other way.’ I nodded at the prom shots, still laid out in front of me. ‘That is a lot of pictures. You know?’
He glanced at them, then back at me. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘I guess it is.’
My phone beeped then, and I glanced down at it. Jason.
Are you free for lunch? I’m en route to the Last
Chance, have an hour.
‘Gotta go,’ Adam said. Then he pointed at the scab on my knee. ‘Remember. Back on the bike!’
‘Right,’ I replied. ‘Got it.’
He flashed me a thumbs-up, then was gone, whistling – always so damn cheery, how was that? – as he headed back toward the front of the store. I looked down at Maggie’s pictures, end to end, and then at my phone, where Jason’s text was still on the screen. I knew I’d really screwed up with Eli, turning away from him the way I had, but perhaps it wasn’t too late to have a tinge of my own. Maybe good, maybe bad, but at least it would add some color, somewhere. So I picked up my phone and gave Jason his answer.
Okay. On my way.
When I got home that evening, Heidi was on the back deck, looking out at the water. Even from a distance and through the sliding glass door, I recognized the tenseness in her shoulders, the way her head leaned a little sadly to the side, and so was not surprised when she turned, hearing me, to see her eyes were red and puffy.
‘Auden,’ she said, reaching to brush back her hair, taking a breath. ‘I didn’t think you’d be home until later.’
‘I finished up early.’ I slid my keys into my bag. ‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine.’ She came inside, shutting the door behind her. ‘Just doing some thinking.’
We stood there for a moment, neither of us saying anything. Upstairs, I could hear Thisbe’s waves, crashing. ‘So… how did it go?’
‘Good.’ She swallowed, biting her lip. ‘We did a lot of talking.’
‘And?’
‘And,’ she said, ‘we agreed that for the time being, it’s better if we keep things as they are.’
‘With him at the Condor,’ I said, clarifying. She nodded. ‘So he didn’t want to come back.’
She walked over to me, putting her hands on my shoulders. ‘Your father… he thinks he’d be a hindrance more than a help right now. That maybe, until the Beach Bash and summer is over, it’s better if I just focus on me and Thisbe.’
‘How could that be better?’ I asked. ‘You’re his family.’
She bit her lip again, then looked down at her hands. ‘I know it doesn’t sound like it makes sense.’
‘It doesn’t.’
‘But I understand what he’s saying,’ she continued. ‘Your father and I… we had a whirlwind courtship and marriage, and I got pregnant so fast. We just need to slow down a bit.’
I put my purse down on the table. ‘So this is a slowing. Not a full stop.’
Heidi nodded. ‘Absolutely.’
To be honest, I wasn’t fully convinced. I knew my dad and how he operated: if things got complicated, he extricated himself, somehow managing to make it seem like it was the most selfless of gestures, instead of just the opposite. He wasn’t abandoning Heidi and Thisbe: he was simplifying their lives. He hadn’t left my mom over professional envy: he’d stepped aside to give her the spotlight she needed. And he certainly hadn’t basically ignored the fact that I was his child all those years: he was just teaching me to be independent and a grown-up in a world in which most people were too infantile. My dad never got back on the bike. He never even let himself crash. One wobble, or even the hint of one, and he pulled over to the side, abandoning the ride altogether.
‘So,’ Heidi said, pulling out a chair and sitting down at the table, ‘enough about me. What’s going on with you?’
I slid in opposite her, folding my hands on top of my bag. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘it looks like I have a date to the prom.’
‘Really?’ She clapped her hands. ‘That’s great!’
‘Yeah. Jason just asked me.’
She blinked. ‘Jason…’
‘My friend from home,’ I said. She still looked quizzical, so I picked up my phone, flashing it at her. ‘The texter.’
‘Oh! The one who stood you up!’
I nodded.
‘Well. That’s very…’
‘Lame?’ I said.
‘I was going to say full circle, actually, or something to that effect,’ she said slowly. ‘What, you don’t want to go?’
‘No, I do.’ I looked down at my hands again. ‘I mean, it’s a second chance. I think I’d be stupid not to take it.’
‘True.’ She sat back, running a hand through her hair. ‘They don’t come around that often.’
I nodded, thinking of Jason at the Last Chance, how he’d been waiting for me in a booth and smiled broadly when I came in the door. Over burgers and onion rings, he’d gone on and on about the leadership conference, and how great it was going, and listening to him felt so familiar, but not in a bad way. It was like reversing, going back to the spring when we’d shared lunches and talked about school and classes. And when he cleared his throat and said he had something to ask me, that was familiar, too, and I’d agreed easily. It was just that simple.
Now, I looked at Heidi, who was staring out the window over the sink, and remembered how I’d once seen her based on her effervescent e-mails and girly clothes, all flash, no substance. I’d thought I knew so much when I’d arrived here, the smartest girl in the room. But I’d been wrong.
‘Hey,’ I said, ‘can I ask you something?’
She looked over at me. ‘Of course.’
‘A few weeks back,’ I began, ‘you said something about how my mom wasn’t a truly cold bitch. How she couldn’t be, because they always end up alone. Do you remember that?’
Heidi furrowed her brow, thinking. ‘Vaguely.’
‘And then you said you knew all about cold bitches, because you used to be one yourself.’
‘Right,’ she said. ‘So what’s your question?’
‘I guess…’ I stopped, taking a breath. ‘Were you really, though?’
‘A cold bitch?’ she asked.
I nodded.
‘Oh, yeah. Totally.’
‘I just can’t picture that,’ I said. ‘I mean, you that way.’
Heidi smiled. ‘Well, you didn’t know me before I came here and met your father. I was just out of business school, totally uptight. Ruthless, actually. I was killing myself gaining capital so I could open a boutique in New York. I had a business plan, and all these investor contacts, a loan, the whole deal. Nothing else mattered.’
‘I never knew you lived in New York.’
‘It was my plan, after I graduated,’ she said. ‘But then my mom got sick, and I had to come home here to Colby for the summer to take care of her. I’d known Isabel and Morgan since high school, so I got a job with them waiting tables, just to make some extra cash for my move.’
‘You worked at the Last Chance?’
‘That’s how I met your dad,’ she said. ‘He’d just had his faculty interview at Weymar and came in for lunch. It was slow, so we started talking. And it just went from there. At the end of the summer, my mom got better for a little while, so I said good-bye to your dad and left. But once I was in New York, it just didn’t feel right. I didn’t have the hunger for it anymore.’
‘Really.’
She drew in a breath. ‘I’d come here planning to leave as soon as I could. It was a pit stop, not a destination. I had my whole life mapped out.’
‘So what happened?’
‘I guess that map didn’t turn out to be mine after all,’ she said. ‘So I left New York, married your dad, and used my money to open Clementine’s. And weird as it sounds, it felt perfectly right. Totally different, but perfectly right.’
I thought of her face when I’d come home that night, the sad way she’d told me about her talk with my dad. ‘Does it still? Feel right, I mean.’
She looked at me for a moment. Then she said, ‘Actually, yes. Of course, I wish things were different with your dad and me right now. But I have Thisbe, and my work… I have what I wanted, even if it isn’t perfect. If I’d stayed in New York, I would have always wondered if that was possible.’
‘No tinge,’ I said.
‘What?’
I shook my head. ‘Nothing.’
Heidi pushed her chair out, getting to her feet. ‘In the end, I went away for the summer, fell in love, and everything changed. It’s the oldest story in the world.’
The way she was looking at me as she said this made me suddenly uncomfortable, and I turned my attention back to my purse in my lap. ‘Yeah,’ I replied, pulling my phone out. ‘I guess I have heard that before.’
In response, she said nothing, instead just running a hand over the top of my head as she passed by me. ‘Good night, Auden,’ she said, stifling a yawn. ‘Sleep well.’
‘You, too.’
And the thing was, I knew I would. Sleep, that is, and maybe even well. That was one thing that had definitely changed for me in my time here. The love part, and everything else… that didn’t apply. But you never knew. I had a prom date, with it another chance to draw my own map. The summer wasn’t over yet, so maybe the story wasn’t either.
• • •
‘Okay,’ Leah said, hiking up her dress to examine the hem. ‘I am having major flashbacks right now. Didn’t we just do this?’
‘We did,’ Esther told her. ‘In May.’
‘And why are we doing it again?’
‘Because it’s the Beach Bash!’ Maggie said.
‘That’s a statement, not an explanation,’ Leah replied. ‘And it’s definitely not reason enough to go through all this again.’
We were in Heidi’s bedroom, where she’d sent us after hearing us complain, en masse, about not being able to find anything decent to wear to the Beach Bash Prom. My stepmother continued to surprise me. Not only was she a former cold bitch, but a shopaholic, as well. She had tons of dresses, in a variety of sizes, that she’d bought over the years. Vintage, classic, entirely eighties, you name it and it was there.
‘We need dates, too, remember,’ Leah said. ‘Unless Heidi’s got some hot guys tucked away behind those shoe boxes.’
‘You never know,’ I said, peering into the deep recesses of the closet. ‘At this point, I wouldn’t be surprised.’
‘Dates aren’t mandatory, this time,’ Maggie said. ‘Let’s just all go together. It’ll be easier not having to deal with boys anyway.’
Leah shot her a look. ‘No way. If I’m having to get all dolled up and wear a nice dress, I want a cute boy to go with it. It’s a deal breaker.’
‘Well,’ I said, opening up the other side closet door, ‘tonight is Ladies’ Night at Tallyho.’
‘Finally!’ Leah pointed at me. ‘Someone understands.’
‘Easy for her to say,’ Esther said. ‘She’s the only one with a date.’
‘But not a dress,’ I replied, pulling out a black, low-cut sheath, then immediately putting it back. It was a small detail, I knew. And it wasn’t like this was a real prom. But it would probably be the only one I’d ever attend, so I was determined to make the most of it. So far, though, everything I’d found had been too something: too bright, too short, too long, too much.
‘Oh, man!’ Esther spun around, holding against herself a pink fifties-style dress with a full, stiff crinoline. ‘How much will you bet me to wear this without any sense of irony?’
‘You have to,’ Maggie said, reaching out to touch the skirt. ‘God. It’s perfect for you.’
‘Only if you wear that black one you had on earlier, the Audrey Hepburn–looking one,’ Esther told her.
‘You think? It’s so dressy.’
‘So wear flip-flops with it. They are your trademark.’
Maggie walked over, picking up the black dress from the bed. ‘That could work. What do you think, Leah?’
‘I think,’ Leah, who was pulling a bright red number over her tank top, said, ‘that if I’m going to go to this thing dateless, I could wear a garbage bag and it wouldn’t matter.’
‘Why do you need a guy to dress up?’ Maggie asked. ‘Aren’t we, your oldest and dearest friends, good enough company?’
‘Maggie.’ Leah yanked the dress down farther. ‘It’s a prom. Not a sisterhood retreat.’
‘And this may be the last big thing we all do together before college. It’s almost August, the summer is practically over.’
‘Don’t,’ Esther threatened, pointing at her. ‘Remember the rules. No waxing nostalgic until the twentieth. We agreed.’
‘I know, I know,’ Maggie said, fluttering her hands in front of her face. She walked over to the bed, sitting down with the black dress across her lap. ‘I just… I can’t believe that it’s all really going to be over soon. This time next year, everything will be different.’
‘God, I hope so.’
‘Leah!’
Leah looked over from the mirror, where she was eyeing her reflection. ‘What? So I’m hoping a year from now I’ll have a great boyfriend and total life satisfaction. A girl can dream, can’t she?’
‘This is not so bad, though,’ Maggie said. ‘What we have, and had. It’s not.’
‘No,’ I said, pushing aside another couple of dresses. ‘It isn’t.’
I just sort of said this, not really thinking. It wasn’t until the room got quiet that I realized they were all looking at me. ‘See,’ Maggie said, nodding at me. ‘Auden understands.’
‘She understood about Tallyho, too,’ Leah grumbled. ‘Not that anyone else cared about that.’
‘Seriously, though.’ Maggie looked at me. ‘She didn’t get to do all this, back then. If you need a reason to go to the prom, and dress up, and do it all over again, do it for Auden. She missed it the first time around.’
Leah glanced at me, then back at her reflection. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘It’s a lot to ask.’
‘So what,’ Esther said, bouncing up and down, her crinoline rustling. ‘It gives you an excuse to go to Tallyho.’
‘True,’ Leah agreed.
‘You don’t have to, you know,’ I said to Maggie, who was watching me as I pulled on another dress. ‘I’ve got Jason to go with. I’ll be fine.’
‘No way,’ she replied. ‘For the true prom experience, you need your friends there.’
‘Because who else but your friends,’ Esther said, ‘would agree to help you re-create your past, just to fix some wrong that’s been niggling you ever since?’
‘Nobody,’ Leah said.
‘Nobody,’ Maggie repeated.
They were all looking at me. ‘Nobody,’ I said, although I could think of one other answer besides this one, even if I couldn’t say it out loud.
Even with my affirmation, though, they continued to stare at me, to the point that I started to wonder if I had ink on my face, or my underwear was showing. I was just about to do a panicked mirror check when Maggie said, ‘Wow. Auden. That’s the one.’
‘The what?’ I said.
‘Your dress,’ Esther said, nodding at me. ‘It looks amazing.’
I looked down at the purple dress I’d pulled on moments earlier, which I hadn’t even really looked at that closely, yanking it from the closet only because it was not red or black or white, like everything else I’d tried on. Now, though, as I stepped in front of the mirror, I saw that it did fit me pretty well. The neckline was flattering, the skirt full, and I liked how it brought out my eyes. It wasn’t a dress to stop traffic, but maybe I didn’t need that anyway.
‘Really?’ I said.
‘Definitely.’ Maggie came over to stand beside me, reaching out a hand to touch the skirt. ‘Don’t you like it?’
I studied my reflection. I’d never been one for dresses or bold colors, and had never owned anything that shade of purple before in my life. I looked like a different girl. But maybe that was the point. And like having the right snacks, for a true adventure, the proper attire is everything.
‘Yeah,’ I said, reaching down with my fingers to pull the skirt to one side. When I dropped it, it swished back, rearranging itself, as if it already knew where it belonged. ‘It’s perfect.’