14. Fourteen Years Ago
PENNY
Sitting on my bed alone, I opened the gift-wrapped box from Gavin that he had left on my porch. It was a homemade CD and a leather-bound journal. I popped the CD into my player and immediately recognized the first song, “Just Like a Woman,” sung beautifully by Gavin.
When I opened the journal, I noticed Gavin’s sloppy handwriting on the inside cover.
For you, Little P, to write down all those thoughts you keep from me. I hope it takes our entire lives to fill this thing up because I want to know everything on you mind . . . every day. There are no Carissas or Kimbers that have ever made me feel the way you do. Now start writing away. I’ll leave a little quote here to inspire you . . .
“It’s not what you look at that matters. It’s what you see.”
—Henry David Thoreau
I was crying then. I wasn’t his Carissa. He said he wasn’t in love with me. Why would he be? But why would he write this. Why would he say every day?
WE KEPT OUR distance for the rest of the winter holiday break. I got a cell phone for Christmas and called him, but he didn’t pick up. I left a message so he could have my number. He didn’t return my call.
Once I got back to school, I was busy preparing all day, almost every day for our big spring dance recital. I got coffee at Java Hut with Ling every Wednesday afternoon. I always hoped I’d run into Gavin, just to say hello, but I never saw him. I even went to fill up my car at Pete’s gas station, but he wasn’t working that day. Pete said Gavin had cut back on hours to take an extra course he needed, so I assumed he was busy, too.
One particularly freezing Wednesday, Ling and I huddled together on a bench outside the packed Java Hut and were drinking tea when Lance came walking up. “What’s up, ladies?”
“Lance,” Ling said.
They seemed more familiar with each other than the last time we’d all been together, and I wondered if maybe they’d had a fling after the party. They lived in the same building after all.
In exactly the next moment, the universe decided to take a shit right in my lap: Gavin was walking toward Java Hut, only he wasn’t coming over to say hi to me; he was with some redhead, completely oblivious to me, Ling, and Lance. They were laughing and he was holding her hand as they approached the door to the café. I watched them as if they were moving in slow motion in a movie—slow enough for me to catch the joy in their expressions. I could practically fucking smell their joy, it was so visceral. Lance’s back was to Gavin, but Ling saw the whole scene play out. When I dry heaved, she turned to me and started rubbing my back. I was like every other girl to him, and it was all my fault. He hadn’t even noticed I was sitting there.
“Ahem!” Ling said loudly right before he swung the door open. He glanced over, looking as equally shocked as I was.
He walked up to me, still holding Raspberryhead’s hand. “What are you doing here, Penny?”
I held up my cup. “Drinking tea. Remember? I practically own stock in this place.”
“Right.” He looked nervous.
“Hi, Gavin,” Ling said.
“Hi, um, how are you?”
“Who’s this?” she said, pointing to Raspberryhead.
“Oh sorry.” Gavin ran his hand through his messy hair. “This is Lottie.”
The fuck kind of name is Lottie? Guess not much worse than Penny Piper.
I pointed to Lance. “That’s Lance,” I said.
Understanding spread across Gavin’s face. “Hey man. You’re Penny’s friend, the microbiology major, right?” I had pointed Lance out to Gavin once on our way to the library. Still, I was impressed with his recall.
“Yeah, we’re friends,” Lance replied, uncertainly.
Oh, that word.
Gavin gave me a pointed look. “Penny, can I talk to you for a sec?”
“What about?”
“Privately?”
I huffed but got up anyway and walked a few feet with him. He left Lottie with Ling the Wolf. I almost actually felt sorry for Gavin’s new arm candy.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I thought you had conditioning on Wednesdays and Fridays?”
“Nope, my schedule changed.” I shivered, and he instinctively reached out to rub his hands up and down my arms, something he always did. I jerked away.
“I don’t think Lottie would appreciate that, do you?”
I took him in. God, he was handsome. Why had I turned him down? I’d lost both the possibility of friendship and the dream of something more. The outcome was totally predictable but I had deluded myself into believing I could control our fate. Our “friendship” had started with a life-changing kiss. Why had I thought it would lead anywhere but here?
“I’m sorry for what I said.” He swallowed. “On Christmas Eve.”
“Water under your bridge.”
“I believe the correct saying is ‘water under the bridge.’ ”
“I was just making a statement on how you’re clearly over it, so you can consider it water under your bridge. As far as I’m concerned, my valley’s still flooded.”
He laughed. “You’re funny.”
“I wasn’t trying to be.”
“Will you stop this?” He took a step toward me again but I backed away.
“No. You hurt me and then ten minutes later I was reading the inscription in that damn journal. Man, you got over that sentiment really fast.”
“Can we go back to the way things were?”
“Are you going to address what I just said?”
It was bright out but freezing. His lime-green Wayfarer sunglasses were sitting crookedly on top of his head. He had a thick flannel jacket over a white T-shirt that read “Chubby, Single, and Ready for a Pringle.” The sun was making his pleading and beautiful eyes look impossibly green. He was perfect. I had told him to date other girls and now he was, and I was feeling exactly how he predicted I would.
“Are you gonna answer me?” he said.
“You didn’t answer me.”
“Can we please go back to the way things were?”
“You mean with or without Lottie?”
He shook his head. “I thought we were keeping it platonic instead of atomic. Isn’t that what you meant?”
He was right. I had meant it at the time because I was scared. Did I still mean it? “She’s pretty,” I said.
“She is.”
I wanted to crumble into a ball and freeze to death in the snow right at his feet. “I have to get to practice,” I told him.
“Do you want to study tomorrow?” he asked. Studying with Gavin usually involved lying around listening to music.
“I have conditioning until three.”
He looked away, somewhat frustrated. When he looked back, his expression was sincere. “I have to work at five but I can come over for an hour or whatever before . . . if you want. Just to talk.”
“Okay,” I said with little emotion. We would work things out tomorrow.
I turned around and noticed Ling talking animatedly to Lottie and Lance. She was keeping them occupied.
“Ling’s a good friend,” I said.
“Not your best friend, though.”
“No. I guess not. Though she doesn’t try to make moves on me, so that makes things easier.” I smirked.
“You liked it, but consider that part over.” He put out his fist like we were going to fist-bump. I hugged him instead, and he held me long enough for it to count.
I pulled away. “See you tomorrow.”
He nodded.
“Lots,” he called out.
Ew, he calls her Lots?
When I walked back over to Ling, she had her arms crossed over her chest. Lance looked oblivious.
“Hey, Lance, Ling and I are gonna walk to the studio now.”
“I’ll join you,” he said.
“That’s okay, Penny and I need to talk,” Ling said.
I felt my stomach sinking, wondering what she had to say. I waved to Lance, even though he looked like he was going to try to hug me. Instead he froze where he stood and waved back.
Afterward, as we walked up the pathway toward the dance hall, Ling finally said, “So are you sad?”
Fully expecting her to berate me, I was surprised she was sympathetic. “I’m not sad. We’re gonna hang out tomorrow.”
“But things are going to change between you and Gavin now that Lots is in the picture.” She shot me a wry smile.
“Ha. That won’t last long. He’ll get her name tattooed on his forehead and then be sitting in my driveway a week later.”
“You’re pretty confident about that.”
“We have something. I don’t what it is, but it’s something different.”
When we got to the dance hall, Ling gave me a stiff hug. That was just Ling. She wasn’t warm and fuzzy, but she cared.
Joey was more on top of things that day at practice. I guess Doug had made a serious threat. There were other potential dancers Joey could have been partnered with besides me. I knew Joey hated all the other girls in the program. He wasn’t particularly fond of me either, but I didn’t think he hated me. Even though he was able to pull off the lift he had been struggling with, he still wasn’t getting the timing on the grand jeté move. We had a few months to work on it before our spring finals performance on May 3. He knew we had to nail it. Our futures depended on it.
THE NEXT DAY, when Gavin showed up at my house, my mother immediately commandeered his attention by having him look at an oil leak under her car.
“It’s like the day after I got the oil changed, all of a sudden it started leaking,” she told him.
Gavin was on his back on his skateboard, looking underneath her car. “It’s not from the oil change,” he said. “Where’d you have it done?”
“I don’t know, one of those quickie places.”
“You should have asked me.”
I wanted to kick him. He didn’t need to be doing favors for my mom when she spent hundreds of dollars a month on Kiki’s pageants.
“Well, if it’s not from that, what’s it from? I mean, don’t you find it coincidental? I’ve never seen a drop of oil on the garage floor. I get the oil changed and then take it for a smog check and they say there’s an oil leak. Now there’s oil on the garage floor.”
“Anne, if you want to get under here with me, I can show you what it might be.” He rolled out from underneath the car, hands and arms covered in grease, and smirked at her. He was flirting. So shameless.
“Just tell me, Gavin.”
He stood and walked over to the open hood of her car. Looking in, he said, “There was no oil in the pan. I unscrewed everything, took out the filter, looked at it. I knew it wasn’t the oil change because the oil was pooling underneath where the engine meets the transmission, which is nowhere near the filter. So it could be a broken seal—”
“What, like a rubber band?” my mother said.
“Like a gasket,” Gavin replied. “Or . . .” He scratched his chin, wiping grease on it. “Maybe the smog guys dumped some oil down there to make it look like you had an oil leak. Did they offer to repair it?”
“Yeah, and they told me I needed new struts, breaks, and tires.”
Gavin started laughing. “I’m going to wash this out thoroughly, and then check your struts and breaks. I can tell you right now, you don’t need new tires, but I’ll look at everything else.”
An hour later, a very greasy Gavin dropped the hood and said triumphantly, “Anne, nothing is wrong with your car. This baby has many more pageant trips in its future.”
She smiled ecstatically. Jumping up and down, she said, “I’d hug you but you’re a mess, kid!”
He shook his head. “It’s okay. I have to go to work anyway.”
My mother thanked him endlessly before going into the house to start dinner.
After she left, Gavin and I stood there staring at each other from opposite ends of the garage.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said.
“I know.”
I walked toward him wearing a pale-pink, long-sleeved leotard and gray sweats. “I don’t care about the grease.” I jumped up and hugged him, throwing my arms around his neck. Near his ear, I said. “But next time we hang out . . . we hang out.”
He put me down and smiled. “Deal, Monkey,” he said, poking my nose and leaving a black grease smudge on it.