Chasing Midnight (20 page)

“An
art
field trip, huh? What does that even entail?” I ask, still trying to guess what he’s up to.

“You’ll see soon enough.”

“Will it magically produce an art project for us by Friday? That’d be sweet.”

“You’re hopeless.”

He parks in an empty parking lot, and I exit the car after him, wondering if I should have brought my pepper spray. I hold my breath as we scoot past a dumpster and stop in front of a black metal door in the back of a brick building.

Cale fumbles through his pocket and pulls out a ring of keys. He swipes a small blue fob against the metal handle and pushes the door inward.

“Where are we?” I whisper, afraid to alert any drug dealers of our arrival. He motions for me to go first. What a gentleman.

I step into a dark, narrow hallway, expecting to be ambushed any moment. “What is this place?”

“Can’t you tell yet? Smell.”

I sniff, catching the whiff of something potent—but in a good way. It reminds me of . . .
books.
New books. “A bookstore?” “Nope.”

Cale enters behind me, pulling the door closed after him. As he reaches around me, searching for the light switch, his body presses up against mine, crushing me with his “Cale”

scent. He is so close, so overwhelming. I hold my breath as he steps around me and flips on the lights. And I breathe again.

The hallway empties into a large brick room filled with drafting tables, computer screens, metal cabinets, wooden drawers stuffed with paper, desks covered with ink bottles, colored pens, old-fashioned woodblocks, and trays filled with glass tiles.

“What is this place?” I ask, zigzagging through the maze of creativity.

“My dad’s studio,” he says, sliding past me and stopping in front of a large metal table. A hinged wooden square with a window screen stretched tight across the opening lay on top of table, and behind that, a big bin holding a pile of T-shirts.

I reach into the bin and pull one out, holding it up in front of me. White and red letters cover the front of a black T-shirt, only part of the phrase readable:
DANGER! POLICEMAN WAS CHASE. RUN A
. . . The other half of the phrase dissolves into a splotch of gray. And then that’s it.

I look up at Cale. “What’s this?”

“Just a mess-up,” he says, grabbing the shirt from me and tossing it back into the bin.

“You mean—you make these?” I ask. “The funny T-shirts you wear every day—they’re
your
creation?”

He nods, looking a little embarrassed and turning away from me.

“Wow. Freaking
wow,
Cale.” I can just imagine him in here late at night, all tired and serious, shirt off . . . sweaty from the heat of the lights, specks of paint dappling his skin—

“It’s just a thing I do,” he adds.

“So, is there a story to your T-shirts? I mean, it’s like every time you show up I spend half the day trying to decipher another inside joke.”

He laughs. “I don’t know. I guess I got the idea in Japan last year. Sort of a ‘lost in translation’ thing.”

Japan. He’s been to Japan.

I’ve been to Nevada. And Oregon.

Oregon’s cool.

“But that’s just me messing around. Look at this,” he says, lifting a sheet of black poster board and handing it to me.

It’s a bunch of triangles and squares that look like they’re twisting in motion, all circling inward toward a lone red triangle at the bottom corner of the page.

“You did this too?” I ask, rubbing my hand across the image, barely detecting a miniscule layer of ink sitting atop the paper.

Cale nods, offering up a flattened smile. “It’s a rough version. I got the idea from the album cover you showed me.”

“Wait. This is rough?” I ask, feeling like more and more of an art slacker the longer I stand here beside him. “You could turn this in as is, you know.”

“I know, but it’s
our
project, hello? Not just mine.”

“Yeah, but this is so good, Cale. Like, way better than anything I could ever come up with. Why’d you pair up with me, anyway?”

“Whatever, Love. Cry me a river—I’m not letting you get off with doing nothing. What would Mr. Tabish think about that?” he says, blinking his eyes at me and poking me with his finger like I’m in trouble.

“I’m so holding you back, though. Who’s the genius that put us together, anyway?”

“Shut up already. And stop being such a whiner.” He touches my shoulder, sending chills up my neck.

I push him away, wondering where that chill came from. His face falls briefly, his shoulders a little more slumped than before. He looks so breakable staring at me like that . . . the first time I’ve ever seen him so raw. So vulnerable.

Cale is usually so strong. So fearless and resilient.

I feel the urge to rush back to him. To do something drastic and impulsive and daring to bring the cool and casual Cale back to the surface. Anything to shatter this strange tension I feel teetering between us.

Instead I cough and spin around the room, ignoring him altogether. “You have a dock?” I ask, trying to avoid thinking about it. About
him.
“I need a beat if we’re going to crank this out tonight.

“That’s the spirit,” he says, pulling down a speaker dock from the shelf as I hand him my phone.

He’s back. Smile and all.

When we finish two hours later, I’m covered in ink—mostly black and red. Cale has noticeably less ink on him. While the poster dries I step back to admire our work. Cale grabs a stepstool and pulls me up with him, where together we check out our completed project from atop the stool. I’m taken aback by it—a bunch of abstract shapes, all of which appear to be in motion, all gray or white except for two red squares twisting into a funnel at the bottom of the paper. That’s where my eyes fall . . . on the red squares. “It looks different from up here,” I say, in awe of this sick piece of artwork I had a hand in.

I jump off the stool to view it at ground level and then climb back up again next to Cale, grabbing onto his shoulders for support. Trying not to notice the way tingles are shooting through me.

“See—it’s constantly changing, depending on where you’re standing when you look at it,” I say.

He turns around and high fives me. His face is right beside mine. “Nice work, Love,” he says, his hand lingering over mine. “See? You’re not a total failure.”

“Thanks.” I smile, feeling pretty snug.

Feeling like I could stay in this spot all night.

eleven

I
’m under the impression that a typical mile run in PE
mostly involves Brecke trying to keep up with me, and me forcing myself to slow down. In my previous life, I always kept to myself in order to get through the mile quickly . . . because that’s the whole point of the exercise, right? To get it over with as fast as possible?

In this life, however, it appears that putting sociality ahead of rationality is the norm. And I haven’t figured out a way to ditch my so-called best friend without looking like a jerk yet, so here I am.

The track weaves around the trees, paralleling the creek for a stretch before looping around the parking lot and back up to the field. Three laps is a mile; it usually takes me two minutes to complete a lap by myself, but with Brecke at my side, it’s closer to three minutes because apparently she likes to walk most of the way.

Redwoods tower above us as we run/walk, their thick, cinnamon-colored trunks lining the track like spectators cheering us on. A low fog still clings to the trees and drips into the ground, magnifying the earthy scent of pine needles and eucalyptus leaves littering the ground.

We finish our second lap, when Brecke starts walking again. Her hair is pulled back into a low ponytail, the front
half of it loose and hanging in her face. I stop and wait for her, drilling her for information when she reaches me. I mean, if we aren’t going to make decent time out here today, I might as well try and get something else out of this exercise.

“James has been acting weird ever since lunch yesterday,” I say when she reaches me. “Do you have any idea why?”

“Nope.” she answers abruptly while staring straight ahead—almost apathetic.

“He never even showed up at my locker this morning. I think he thinks something’s going on between Cale and me.”

She lets out an exaggerated laugh and throws her arm out on her hip. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No. Why?”

“It’s finally catching up to you, that’s all,” she says, still trying to catch her breath from her so-called “run.” “I told you James would lose it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Cale.”

I force a laugh for show, although my stomach is all knotted up at her accusation because I’m starting to worry that maybe everybody has a point. “Me and Cale?” I say. “There
is
no me and Cale.”

“Kenzie, knock it off. You guys have been dancing around each other since August. I’m surprised James didn’t figure it out sooner.”

I have to convince her—
me
—that she’s wrong about this Cale business. “It’s just how we are with each other, Brecke. He makes jokes a lot and I . . . I . . . ”

She cuts me off. “I saw you two at the Pumpkin Ball. You know I saw you.”

Wait a second. “What do you mean
saw
us? Saw us doing what? Talking? Dancing? Laughing? Seriously, Brecke, you guys all hate him for no reason. Why did you even invite him at all if he was so repulsive to you?”

“You know I didn’t have a choice. You think my dad’s boss would let that fly?”

“Huh?” I say, trying to put two and two together. And then in a blink I understand, as if I’d always known: Brecke’s dad’s boss is Mr. Blackburn—Cale’s dad.

Oh.

Which explains why Cale didn’t necessarily want to be there, either.

After that, the memory comes without warning. I am there . . . inside my own memory . . . as we walk side by side, climbing over the rope when nobody is looking. Ducking down the dark hallway leading to the piano room.

“Look at that,” Cale says, stepping right up to the window.

I stand beside him, my palms pressing against the cool glass, looking out into a sky pocked with stars, a hillside of lights tumbling downward into a dark, motionless bay.

“Not bad,” I say, wondering why I am here with Cale instead of out there with James. Because I like the way he listens to me? Likes who I am when I’m with him instead of who I normally am?

“Play something,” Cale demands, his voice startling me.

I look over. He is standing by the piano and has lifted the cover, drawing bare the keys glowing white in the moonlight. I meet him at the bench, embarrassed by his request, trying to recall the last time anybody has asked me to play. Probably when Mom needed to entertain guests or something.

James never asks me to play for him.

Taking a deep breath, I lower myself to the bench and ready my hands, trying to call a song to mind. But I seem to be drawing a blank.

Ha—I’m not nervous! I perform on cue all the time. That’s what practicing 24/7 does for you. It makes you a walking recital, ready to play at any given moment.

“Relax,” Cale says, his fingers at my neck, playing with my hair. “It’s only me.”

“Sorry.”

I am nervous, but only because Cale is so close to me.

Drawing in another breath, I close my eyes, trying to loosen my hands and arms and shoulders. That’s the key to performing like a pro—never let yourself go tense.

With uneasy hands I start playing, timidly at first, but growing more and more comfortable until my body is swaying with emotion. In the zone, my mind never drifts further than these keys as I dig in deep and burrow through the tunnel until it’s time to start climbing toward the surface.

And then I am done.

I am back.

I exhale, and Cale claps and whistles as my hands lift from the keys. They are still shaking. I plunge them into the safety of my lap.

“Was that Mozart or Beethoven?” he asks, his eyes wide and searching. “Cause I’ve heard of both those guys.”

I laugh, loving how quickly he can put me at ease.