A Million Miles Away (12 page)

He crossed his ankle over his knee. “What were all those names? Boyfriends?”

Kelsey let out a sarcastic, “Ha! No, I—”

“You switched from Spanish to French, or something?”

“Nope.” She flopped on her bed. “I’m taking Art History.”

“Art History, huh?”

“AP Art History. What Michelle used to take.”

Kelsey was staring at the chipped red paint on her nails, avoiding her father’s eyes. “What?” she said finally.

“Nothing,” her dad said, a calm smile resting on his face. “Will you be able to handle a class like that?”

“Yes.”

She could tell he was waiting for further explanation. He knew her as well as anyone. He knew she had spent most of her high school years driving around Lawrence with Davis, improvising parties in the basements of her friend’s houses, avoiding her homework with elaborate excuses. And she was happy that way. But everyone was happier then.

“Have you spoken to your mother about it? I think she’d be very proud you’re challenging yourself.”

Kelsey hadn’t made an effort to speak to her mother since before Christmas, the day of the City Market trip. Her mom left notes for her on the fridge occasionally, and asked Kelsey if she’d missed the deadline for submitting her application to KU. “To your great surprise, I’ve turned it in already,” Kelsey had called to her through the door, and that was it. So, it wasn’t as if her mom was busting down the door to speak to Kelsey, either.

“It’s none of Mom’s business.”

“You’re her daughter. Everything you do is her business.”

“If she wants to know about it, she doesn’t have to send you as a messenger.”

“Kels,” her father said, putting up his hands. “I act alone. I think the Art History class is fantastic.” He paused. Kelsey waited. “And that’s all I have to say about it.”

“Good,” Kelsey said, and she felt herself relax. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.” He leaned forward, pinching his nose, just like Michelle used to do when she was thinking. “You’ve got the biggest burden of us all, Kels.” His eyes shone a little, but he blinked, and his smile kept. “You don’t remember this, but your mother used to give you and Mitch baths in the sink. You were both very small babies. And even if she set you on either side of the sink, you’d find a way to get next to each other in the water. You two just loved to cuddle.”

Kelsey was quiet. Of course she wasn’t supposed to remember something like that, but actually, she could.

She could remember the warm water.

Her mother’s hands.

She could remember the puzzle-piece feeling of having her sister next to her, which is a feeling that no one in the world could ever know. Not just anyone else with a sister. Not another set of twins. No one but her and Michelle, and the way Michelle could twist her elbow inside out and Kelsey couldn’t, and Kelsey’s mole on her lower back and Michelle’s on her forearm, and how they always knew what the other was thinking.

When they got older, they had stopped wanting to know. Which was the worst part of all.

“Okay?” her father said, smiling.

“Okay,” Kelsey said, trying to swallow her tears. She smiled back at him. “I should get back to studying.”

“Okay then, strong girl.” He stood up, she stood up, and they embraced.

As he closed her bedroom door, Kelsey put back in her earbuds and pressed
PLAY
, but she could only hear nonsense syllables. The wound had torn again.

From downstairs, she heard her mother call her name.

It was taking Kelsey a bit to return to reality from a rainy day when they were nine, the day she and Michelle invented their own way of walking down the redbrick sidewalks. Every three steps they skipped, always the right leg, knee up, all the way into downtown. They had the same raincoat in different colors.

Kelsey opened her door and yelled down. “What?”

“Guess who I found in the basement?” her mother called. Kelsey stiffened.

“Don’t—not right now, Melody,” she heard her father say.

“Who did you find?” she asked, glancing at the closed door to her sister’s room.

“Billy Bear!”

“Michelle’s lizard?” An image of the dirty green stuffed animal surfaced, drooping from Michelle’s hand by its tail as she dragged it around.

“Billy Bear the lizard,” she heard her father say, laughing sadly. “Where everyone else saw a lizard, Michelle saw a bear. Of course.”

“I suppose we’ll put it in her room,” her mother said, choppy. Kelsey wiped her nose. She felt something thaw inside her, a little, for her mother.

“That sounds good, Mom,” she called.

“I can’t go into her room right now,” her dad said to her mom, quiet. “Put him on the stairs.”

“I’ll bring him in later,” Kelsey said aloud, and softly shut the door. She had just realized something.

She whipped under her bed and brought out Michelle’s laptop. In the email sign-in box, she typed Michelle’s name. In the password box, she typed another.

“B-i-l-l-y,” she whispered. “B-e-a-r.”

It worked. Hundreds of unopened emails flooded the screen. The first dozen or so were from Peter. First from his personal account, and then his military account: PFC Peter Farrow. So that was his last name. Peter Farrow. She had to stop herself from clicking open the most recent. This was snooping. This was definitely snooping. And yet…

She typed Peter’s name into the search function so that only his emails appeared. They were all there, from the very beginning of the summer, from the very first time he and Michelle had met.

The first subject line was “Here is that band I was telling you about.” The second was “Saw this on the way to Wichita, thought of you.” Another was “Roadtrip?”

Kelsey paused again.

Peter was the person who knew Michelle most recently. He was, at least, the person who Michelle wanted to know her.

Kelsey’s fingertips sat on the warm laptop keys.

It wasn’t just about the mysteries behind Michelle anymore.

It was the little things, too. Kelsey craved hearing her voice, the rhythm of her words, her everyday thoughts. A current ran through her, animating her hands.

She clicked the first email open. “Michelle,” it read. “Peter here. From the concert. You were a great tour guide.…”

“Peter, I like how you said, ‘Peter here,’ even though your email address has your first name. Of course it’s you. Who else would it be? I’m kidding. It was nice to meet you, too. I had no idea the Avett Brothers were originally a punk band. Did you follow them before? Can’t say punk is my thing but…”

“Michelle, Peter here, again. It’s me, Peter. From before? (Haha.) Punk is to me like fantasy novels are to some people. It’s like the fantasy of being angry and raw and on drugs. I am none of those things, but when I listen to the Ramones, I can pretend I am while dancing around my room.…”

“Peter, this is Michelle, the girl who you have been previously emailing, and met once in person outside the Granada after a concert, when my middle-aged friend Emerald tried to sell you a painting of her spirit animal. I believe it was an egret. Anyway, it’s me.…”

“Michelle: Kansas, though large, is flat and easily traversed, especially in a car. I would like to see you again and finally visit the Art Museum, preferably without the company of your friend Emerald, but if she wants to come, that’s okay, too.…”

By the time she got through all of them, it was late. Later than late. It was early. Michelle’s words leapt around her mind like exploding kernels of popcorn. She couldn’t believe the emails were over. She didn’t want them to be over.

The only light in the room came from the computer. Kelsey could feel her eyelids drooping. As she drifted off, a sound like a rock dropping into a pond rang out from the laptop speakers. Kelsey jumped, blinking her eyes open.

Peter: you there???

Me: yep!

She took her hair down from its bun.

His call popped up in a small window. She pressed
ANSWER
.

“Hello?” Kelsey said. He hadn’t appeared yet, but she could hear him.

“It’s late there,” Peter said. “What are you doing up?”

Not a second went by. “French Impressionism,” she told him, and it was mostly true.

The video loaded. Kelsey’s heart stirred in her chest. Peter’s grin passed through the screen and lit up the surrounding walls, and suddenly, she was wide-awake.

1/15

Michelle— I might get to talk to you before you receive this, but either way, I needed to write down this dream, so I remember it: You and I were walking in these tunnels made of brick and there were rugs on the floors and candles. It was you but not quite, louder and more loose and happy, leading me by the hand to something great that neither of us could miss. We kept getting lost in the tunnels, but for some reason it didn’t matter, even though we were in a hurry. Finally, the walls opened up into a canyon with these ancient faces carved into it and there was a burst of light and color. A sunrise, but it was everywhere, with no specific sun. I was overwhelmed by beauty, like, beauty beyond vision, beyond words, beyond sound. It was like my brain was giving me a gift after all the shit we have to sludge through. I didn’t want to wake up.

Yours,

Peter

1/24

Peter,

How are you able to remember your dreams like that? I can never remember my dreams. Not the important ones, anyways. Once, I dreamed that I had a pet monkey. I was teaching it to talk. My sister said it meant I was having trouble controlling my impulses—that I’d been having too much fun. No such thing, I told her. I drove to the Flint Hills but I couldn’t find the sculpture. Bet a K-State hillbilly thought it was witchcraft and burned it. Just kidding. If I can find the time, I’ll try to look for it again. School has been keeping me busy. Art History is kicking my ass to high heaven. Can I write “ass” to a member of the U.S. military? It seems bad for some reason. Anyways we’re on Cubism and I got in trouble with Mrs. Wallace for asking her if I could write my essay on plastic surgery instead because they’re basically the same thing. Didn’t go over well…

xo,

Michelle

2/3

Michelle— “Ass” is nothing. If I had a nickel every time a drill sergeant told me to do something with my ass—get off it, move it, watch it, cover someone else’s, cover mine, etc.—I’d have an assload of nickels. The filthy mouths on these men and women rival that of a Scorsese film. A French unit next to us lost three yesterday. We get hit at a lot in this valley. I’ve gotten used to it. Stopped having such terrible dreams and shaky hands. I’m so tired at night, I pass out until the alarm goes off. Last night, I won a pair of socks and two pieces of nicotine gum in a game of blackjack, so things are looking up. (Haha.) (I had to give back the socks.) A couple of units from New Zealand stationed with us got lost, but we found them. Believe it or not, it can be difficult to understand them when they speak over their radios. It’s a good thing I’m not in charge of communicating with them, because I could listen to their accents teeter-totter all day, like music, and forget to focus on what they’re trying to say. They’re so friendly that one of them offered to sell me a van if ever I were to travel in New Zealand. I was like, no, thank you, and he was like, you’ll need a van, trust me, and I said all right, though I don’t know why it has to be a van? So if you’d ever like to travel around New Zealand with me—in a van—we’ve got our man. I didn’t mean to rhyme there. (Haha.) I’d like to go somewhere with you.

Yours,

Peter

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Three minutes left in the second quarter and the Lawrence Lions girls’ basketball team was only up by two. Their undefeated record had them as a shoo-in for regionals, and the final regular season game against Manhattan High was supposed to be a cakewalk. But senior Marcy Mallman, the Lions’ high scorer, sprained her ankle early in the first quarter. As the clock wound down, the Lions and the Indians were going point for point.

Kelsey paced by the line of dancers standing just outside the gymnasium doors. “Do you hear that?” she asked her team.

The crowd screamed in protest of a foul called on Lawrence High. When the Manhattan point guard missed her free throw, their voices lifted in delight. The bellow didn’t stop after the rebound, following the players up the court, goading them to score.

“They’re out for blood,” Gillian muttered from the front of the line.

“Totally.” Kelsey paused to straighten Hannah T.’s strap.

Despite complaints from the younger dancers, Kelsey and the team had been working on this routine for seven days straight. It was darker than usual. It was powerful. It was perfect, in Kelsey’s opinion. “Y’all really think they want to hear a pop song at this game?”

“No,” they muttered.

“Can’t hear you.”

“No!”

“Pop is for pep rallies. Pop is for parents.” Kelsey pointed at the gym. “We’re doing this for them. If we expect the basketball team to kick ass, then we have to kick ass, too. Got it?”