The One That I Want Read online

  “Yeah, let it go.” Susie concurs tonight. “Nothing is set in stone.”

  But of course it is. Of course my flash-forward has already shown me what’s going to become of us. It turns out that so many things are set in stone—just not the promises that my husband once made me.

  “So anyway,” I say, waving my hand. “How did Austin take the news that you were leaving?”

  “Not well.” Susie shakes her head. “Cried and cried, and I guess I cried a little too.” She pauses. “He begged me to forgive him. Wailed on and on about how much he loved me.” She takes a long sip of her drink. “Why does he think I can just forgive him?” She motions to Tina Sacrow for another round.

  “Because he still loves you?” I make one last pitiful plea for her to reconsider.

  “That doesn’t have anything to do with this.” She stares at me. “What does love have to do with any of this?”

  “Something.” I shrug. “It has to have something to do with this.” I think of Tyler and how much I have loved him since I was just sixteen, how I have loved him more than I have ever loved anything. And then I mull how much I need to believe that love can salvage some part of what he’s about to shatter. “I mean, maybe I love Tyler enough to move, even though it’s the last thing on the planet I want to do.”

  Yes, maybe. Maybe love needs to have a little something more to do with this than just my panic at the thought of leaving the town that is my everything, of the pattern of my life that provides so much comfort. Maybe this is how we end up leaving: not because he makes me, but because I decide I’m willing to make that sacrifice.

  “Love does not lead a husband to make out with his assistant. I’m sorry, but it doesn’t,” she replies.

  I start to defend him but find that I am out of words. That as much as that part of me—the part that uses the camera flash even on a clear day to illuminate her life—would like to shine that very flash on Susie’s marriage, perhaps there’s no brightness to be found here. Perhaps some things just go dark, even when we’ve used all our tricks to make it otherwise.

  “You’re not going to talk me out of it? Tell me to change my mind and take him back? That’s all you’ve been doing these past few months.” She looks at me, then Lulu, with surprise.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I say. “What do I know?”

  “Usually everything,” she says, her astonishment morphing to sadness.

  Before I can answer, I hear the squeak of metal chair legs edging on the floor and look up to see Eli Matthews sliding up to the table with fistfuls of longneck beers.

  “Hey, I hope you don’t mind.” He places the four bottles on the table, then leans down and pecks my cheek, catching me off guard and with no time to reciprocate. “I saw you over here and figured beers were the least I could do for inviting me out.”

  “I don’t know who you are, but I like you already,” Susie says, extending her hand and making introductions.

  “And before I forget,” he says, unraveling his messenger bag from across his chest, “I brought you this. For that test drive.” He offers a Nikon, shiny and expensive, and places it in my open palm.

  “I can’t take this.” I nudge it back to him, a halfhearted gesture at best.

  “Just as a loaner. To regain your sea legs,” he says. “Digital is a whole new world.”

  Lulu knees me under the table, and then I feel Susie eyeing me, also unsure of anyone’s motives, unsure why Eli and I might be semi-flirting, and since I am similarly unsure, I am grateful when the dimmed lights shutter to darkness, and then a spotlight homes in on Dante up on the stage. He taps the microphone three times and wipes his brow.

  “Uh, hey, everyone. I want to thank everyone for coming, for showing up to support Murphy’s Law tonight.” He pauses for a smattering of applause. “But I’m not going to kid myself. I know you’re all here to witness the incomparable Darcy Everett, making a special appearance all the way from Los Angeles.”

  The crowd, full of old friends and people she left behind, claps wildly, and Susie catcalls out a loud whoop. Eli, and then Lulu, follow her lead, and soon, as Dante lumbers stage left and the spotlight fades to black, the four of us are whoop-whoop-whooping, with ridiculous, loopy smiles painted across our faces, a little levity when it feels like the life outside of this moment might be too much to bear.

  Finally, the curtain draws back, and there is my darling baby sister, centered, sitting behind the keyboard, and in autofocus for the hundred-plus of us who have gathered on this Wednesday night to watch. Murphy’s Law has set up behind her, Dante fading into the shadows over Darcy’s shoulder.

  She exhales, a tiny motion that perhaps only I would notice, and just like that, I am nauseatingly nervous for her. I haven’t seen her perform since Berklee, when we all flew to Boston for her graduation. I’ve never even headed to Los Angeles to visit, let alone to see her tear up a gig at a club. Jesus. Surprise at my passivity swells inside of me.

  I swallow down a gulp of nerves just as she starts in on a quiet, lilting melody, her fingers leading the way, her haunting voice soon following. Everyone at Oliver’s is hushed, entranced by the emotion of the moment, by the passion behind every key that she touches.

  I see Eli remove the lens cap from the camera on the table and push the Nikon toward me.

  “Here,” he says, leaning over to whisper in my ear. “Start now. She’s perfect.” I smell his vanilla shampoo.

  I nod and give him a grateful smile, so thankful for the small pleasure he has brought me, for his consideration to even think of me in the first place, when it feels like on the hierarchy of anyone’s list, I don’t even make the first page. So I raise the camera to my right eye and scoot around Lulu and Susie for a better angle. I know Eli is watching me now, so I turn back and mouth, Thank you.

  I hold the lens up and peer through the window, and then, snap, snap, snap. I capture the evening knowing full well that these images won’t just serve as a reminder of the past, that they might just be my ticket into the future as well.

  thirteen

  I wake early to discover Darcy next to me in bed. The ill-advised fourth beer I gulped just as she and Murphy’s Law closed down their set yaps at my temples, a hangover headache to mask the real reason I drank too much in the first place. Because that third beer turned everything around me to mush, pressed away my fears about Tyler, and made Susie and Luanne and Eli so much funnier, so much more buoyant, that the fourth seemed like a good idea when Eli offered another round on him. It was easy to see, I think, as I watch the gentle wheeze of Darcy’s slumbering breath, why my father did it. Why he drank his way out of, but then back into, despair.

  Dante must have dropped Darcy off after I kissed her good-bye, and Luanne, who of course wasn’t drinking, ushered me out of there, steadying me at the elbow. Darcy had fans beckoning her; they swallowed her up, eager to congratulate this superstar who had made it out of Westlake and returned bigger than all of us. Even though, of course, in Los Angeles, she was bigger than no one.

  And while I lay unconscious, cloaked in an alcoholic fog, she must have crawled into bed with me, her black, smoky clothes still on, and closed her eyes in the crook of my arm, exactly where Tyler used to lay before he took to passing out on the couch in front of the TV.

  It is still early, so I tiptoe to the bathroom, draw a steaming shower, and ready myself for my day, thinking of Tyler and how he doesn’t know who he is without me, without this town, as if that’s any reason to blow our lives in two opposing directions. “Is this really the life that you want?”

  I realize now, as I wash the conditioner out of my hair, the water spilling down over my forehead, my shoulders, embracing me, that I likely can’t change his mind, change the future. Our empty phone calls have proven that—he held firm on this new opportunity, no longer hedging that a week might just be a week. No, a week might actually be a lifetime. What I saw while I was passed out on my father’s basement floor is happening, like it or not, so I’d bett
er find a way to like it or the move to Seattle will be the first in a series of ways that we undo ourselves.

  Dressed and dried, I grab an apple from the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter, then down two Tylenol to combat the steady pulse of blood behind my ears and slip out the door toward school. Eli’s camera is tucked in my purse from last night, stuffed full of memories—good ones, for a change. I dig my hand into the side pocket and feel for it, the spare key he made me, and yes, there it is.

  The parking lot is desolate when I pull in. Three beaten cars sit near the gym: athletes, no doubt, who have pried themselves from their beds for an early weight-lifting session. I make my way through the vacant halls, running my hands over the iron lockers, listening to their clanging echo behind me. The key snaps open the door to the art room effortlessly. I wind my way past splattered easels, past half-built sculptures, until I find what I’m looking for. Back in the corner, where my beloved darkroom used to be, is a half-open door to a cramped cube where two computerized workstations now hum, waiting patiently for me to catch up with modern technology.

  I plug the camera into the computer cord, and the machine whirs alive, as if its brain is back from a coma. The pictures from the Nikon are crystalline, sharp, vivid in a way that my old lens could never replicate, bursting with details that a disposable camera—the kind I use these days, if at all—could never capture.

  I flip past each of the images, which get freer, less constrained as they go on, thanks, no doubt, to the liquid gold pulsing through me with every beer. There is one that catches Susie in a reflective, quiet moment, staring into her margarita, when her bravado has fallen away. There is one of Eli making a distorted, silly face at me, his tongue thrust out, his smile nevertheless intact. There is one of the crowd—I crouched in front of the stage and shot outward—mesmerized by Darcy and her talent; you can see it washed across them, in their eyes, the size of globes.

  But of course, most of the pictures are of Darcy. Darcy with her mouth open wider than I thought possible, belting out a high note, wailing out the misery that might seem almost overdramatic, though if you know her, you know that this misery is as much a part of her as oxygen. Darcy hunched over the keys, her fingers electric, though in the image they are still, frozen, as each note shoots through her, like IV meds for her ailing insides. There is Darcy smiling, finally smiling, when she dedicates her encore song to Luanne and me; I catch her profile just as she turns her head toward our table, her dimple, too often flattened in her sorrowful cheeks, revealing itself.

  I am so lost in the maze of images that I must not hear the door open, then shut, behind me.

  “Hey, early morning for you too, I see.” I turn to see Eli behind me, holding an aluminum coffee cup, his messenger bag slung back over his shoulder.

  “Couldn’t sleep,” I say.

  “I never sleep,” he says, pulling a chair up to the desk and eyeing the photos. “But hey, last night was so much fun. Thanks for inviting me. The most fun I’ve had since I’ve gotten here.”

  “From the way you say that, it doesn’t sound like there was much competition.” I smile at him.

  “It’s growing on me.” He shrugs, not unkindly. “So do you need any help here? There are so many ways you can manipulate these digital shots.”

  “I still miss the darkroom,” I reply, turning back to the screen, noticing his two-day-old stubble and how it makes his eyes seem greener. I almost feel disloyal until I remember Tyler and his own disloyalty, so I just flick my guilt aside. Tit for tat, Tyler Farmer! Takes two to tango and all of that.

  “These times they are a-changin’,” he says, standing and touching my shoulder. “I have to head down to the supply room to restock for today, but if you need me, you know where to find me. I’ll show you a thing or two to do with these.”

  The door nudges shut and his footsteps fade to nothingness. I stare closer at a new shot, one of Darcy right as she’s standing to bow, to inhale her glory that she deserves so very, very much, even if it’s not the grand lights of Los Angeles that she’s still hoping will shine upon her. She has just noticed me shooting her, and her eyes pop open just enough for the camera to catch them, a sly smile curling on the edges of her mouth. Because I know her well, I can tell what she is thinking. She is thinking, Welcome back, Tilly, that she is as proud of me for trying to regain the love of something that I once lost as I am of her for slaying her set tonight. I stare at the picture and know that it isn’t much, me reclaiming my passion for photography, but I also know that it feels a little bit like something, a little return to the self that was taken from me when my mother died.

  I flip my fingers over the mouse, cruising through the lot of the pictures, freezing on the image of Eli with his ridiculous tongue pointing out at me. He looks inane, goofy, but I can’t help it, don’t want to help it. I smile anyway. And then I think, Well, what the hell, why not see what I can see? What’s the harm in that? So I focus in harder, firmer now, willing myself backward, or forward, or really, I’m not even sure where, just willing myself into his existence, and then, yes, there it is, that rumbling, foreboding thunder of a spark that is about to shoot through me. The cramp weasels up through my calf and then past my knee, coursing straight through my heart, and because I know it’s coming, because I will not let it own me, I clutch the armrests of my chair, exhale my breath, and steady myself for the ride. If I’m going to be taken, I think, right before the room goes black, I may as well sit back, hold on tight, and go where it takes me.

  The Arc de Triomphe looks as wondrous as I had anticipated. Regal, towering, and sure, a tiny bit plasticized with its faux-stone exterior and its painted-on details, but still, parked up against the back wall of the gym, buffering the drinks table and the buffet, which is replete with mini-éclairs, it is a showstopper. Perhaps the best prom theme and execution in years, I consider from my spot on the bleachers. I grin, in spite of the current circumstances that have landed me outside the time-space continuum.

  Below me, the strobe lights gyrate at a dizzying pace, and the juniors and seniors, most of whom are salivating to graduate even though their diplomas won’t change much—they’ll still be moseying through Westlake with their beat-up trucks, working construction jobs or, at best, aspiring to middle management—have turned the dance floor into a giant throb of muscle. Up, down, up, down, they jump in unison to a hip-hop song that I’m too old to recognize.

  CJ is huddled in the corner, her face washed with a disgruntled mix of sadness and boredom that marks at least half of all teenage years, gabbing with her best friend, Lindsay Connors. Yellow flowers spring from the cleavage of her cream-colored dress, though her breasts pour out all the same, and her strappy gown hugs her a little too tightly, reminding me of a swaddled baby, a mummy, a buttery blintz.

  I scan around for Susanna, but either she’s concealed behind the mass of pulsing teenagers or she’s opted out of the evening, maybe at home, nursing a glass of wine or maybe, I realize—surprised at my happiness for her—out on a date.

  I spot Eli near the DJ station. The lights are spinning over his face, illuminating his cheekbones, then his nose, then his chin, and then his features are cast in relative darkness, and he is rubbing the arm of a woman whose back is toward me. She is skinny, skinnier than I am, and her hair is choppy on her neck, a blunt cut of a bob that shows off her bare nape. From my place on the bleachers, I feel an unfamiliar sentiment: jealousy. Really? Jealousy?

  With Tyler, there was never any reason to be envious: he was always mine, for as long as I could remember. It occurs to me just now, watching Eli run his finger down his date’s forearm, surreptitiously almost, that there is something to be said for longing, for needing, for not taking the other person for granted such that there is rarely a spark of emotion, other than contentedness, between you two. Not that the trust I have with Tyler isn’t comforting. Isn’t wonderful. But now, with this threat of Seattle, even that, the trust we built our foundation on, might be gone or at least seriousl
y warped, and as the rigid metal from the bleachers slowly lulls my butt to sleep, I wonder if maybe being too satisfied with your life and becoming numb to it aren’t somehow intertwined. Like there isn’t something just as dangerous about playing it safe.

  The beat of the music eases, and the DJ blends in a new song, a slow dance. The dance floor is immediately vacated, gangly kids staring at their hands, congregating to the side of the gym to eye the brave few who remain. Slowly, guys find the guts to ask their dates to dance, and the pairs sway back and forth, some pressing too close, some holding each other at a distance that can be described as awkward at best. I laugh to myself, because some things never change, even as everything else does.

  I look back to Eli, who is whispering in the woman’s ear, and they collectively giggle, an intimate gesture with their heads angling toward one another. Then he takes her hand and leads her to the dance floor. He pulls her into his shoulder, and she rests her head against it, and they start to move, slowly, back and forth, reminding me of a ripple of a wave. Eventually, the song peters to its end, and she lifts her chin, kisses him on the cheek.

  As I watch them stroll toward the shadows, he rubs the small of her back, then links his fingers into hers, and eventually, near the refreshments table, they are swallowed up in the crowd of rented tuxedos and clingy dresses. I refocus my eyes and search in vain, desperate for one last glimpse of him, of her, perplexed by this heat of envy swarming over me—dateless in the shadow of my own Arc de Triomphe—but no, they are gone, and soon enough, so too am I.

  I come to instantly this time, gasping for oxygen, my blood tick-tocking in my neck. My hands still clutch the chair, palms clammy, knuckles white. Slowly, I find my breath—in, out, in, out—and steady my vision, tweaking my vertigo until the floor is flat and the walls aren’t rolling like funhouse mirrors. I have to concentrate to stand, but eventually I do find my way upright, though my legs still feel brittle, breakable almost. As I turn to leave, I hear rustling in the next room.