Don't Ever Change (25 page)

“You know Marta?”

“I do, actually.”

Zack’s outside smoking most of the night, but it’s okay, it feels good to not need him there by my side. Since I can tell this will be my last party of the summer—my last party before college—I decide I’ll do this one differently. Not do it like Courtney (“liking people is
easy
”) so much as do it like a Courtney/Eva hybrid, the best of both.

I make a point to say hello to everyone, that’s the first thing: I’m Eva, hello, I’m Eva, hello. I cross the room to where someone’s laid out carrot sticks and hummus and almonds and eat some of each, sampling anything that appears gluten, dairy, egg, and meat free. I let my T-shirt casually slouch off one shoulder like I’m also free, and loose, and down for anything—which, tonight, I kind of am.

A little later, when Zack comes inside to check on me, he seems pleased by how outgoing I am, how animated, engaged in Bobby’s story about this video on YouTube that for once I don’t have to lie about seeing because I actually
have
seen it, and have things to say about it, too. I’ve even positioned myself toward the center of the circle, and I’m laughing the hardest, touching Bobby’s arm like he’s really done it, really cracked me up. And, just like last night, I’m not faking any of it.

Suddenly it’s late, and Zack starts saying his good-byes. Even though I don’t need help—I’m sober, haven’t had anything to drink but iced tea and lemonade all night—he helps me to the car. I assume he’s driving me home, but he takes a route I don’t recognize, eventually pulling into a driveway I’ve never seen.

“This is my parents’ house,” he says.

This is where he lives now, though he doesn’t explain why. The place is nicer than the apartment he used to have in Thousand Oaks, but it also seems sadder. But maybe I’m just projecting that, I don’t know for sure, I wasn’t there for the end of him and Shelby.

Zack idles the car in the driveway and gently places his hand on mine, but I barely notice because I’m distracted.

Something’s missing.

There’s a lack of something, a vacancy, but just like with all my absences—with Foster, with Michelle and Steph, with Boston, with camp—I try to clear it out of my mind, like one of Courtney’s meditations. Even as we tiptoe up the walkway, through the foyer, across the tile, down the length of the hall to the last bedroom, where I go into his parents’ guest bathroom and stare into the mirror, I keep telling myself the same thing:
Don’t think about it, don’t think about it.

There’s nothing in the bedroom but a big-screen TV and a king-size bed. It’s like a hotel room. Zack sits on the edge of the bed and starts whispering the sweetest things to me, which only makes everything somehow sadder:

“I thought we were going to get married.”

“Shelby said she loved me, that she wanted to live together.”

“You know how she is, Eva, how she can pull away sometimes and not mean it, how she really just wants you to pull her back and remind her you’re not going anywhere.”

I wait till he’s finished before responding. “I don’t know if I know her
that
well,” I say.

Zack smiles. “You’re cool,” he says, patting the spot next to him for me to sit down. “And smart. And pretty.” Then he pats a spot on his lap.

But that haunting sense of something missing doesn’t go away; it seeps deeper into the walls and the carpet and the big-screen TV and the bed, until I know for sure there’s no way I can have sex with Zack, partly because I don’t
really
know how to have sex—at least, not good enough for someone like Zack, who’s done it with dozens of girls, and probably even a few women. But I also can’t make out with Zack because the truth is I like someone else more. And even if sometimes I veer pretty close to being an Unlikeable Character, I’m at least aware of the fact. Which means I have the chance to stop what I’m doing and change, before I become so unlikeable that the reader gives up on me, shuts the book, and sends it flying across the room, disgusted.

I’m not really sure what to do now, though. Zack doesn’t seem ready to drive me home yet; he asks if I want to watch TV, and if he can take off my shoes and rub my feet. What do you say to that? So I surf around the channels while he massages my soles with his fingertips. It feels incredible, much better than kissing, and I drift away for a minute, not into sleep but some kind of foggy bliss.

I start picturing Foster. I conjure him in my imagination, but deliberately—because I
want
to imagine him. I don’t want to keep being like Zack, searching for substitutions.

A few minutes later I rouse myself, slip my shoes back on, and stand to go.

Then finally it hits me what’s missing, what’s been lacking this whole time. It’s so simple: Shelby. This entire scenario—the social hangout, Zack’s parents’ house, Zack lying in bed with his arms folded behind his head, waiting for me to lie down—they’re all lacking the Right Girl, Shelby, or whatever girl out there is
supposed
to come after Shelby. A
Different Girl
.

But I’m not this Different Girl, I’m Eva, and he’s not the guy I want, he’s Zack.

Here’s something else I know: I don’t belong here. And if I don’t belong here, then it’s time to leave.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

SUNDAY MY MOM’S
sorting through a pile of old mail when she comes across an envelope addressed to Courtney and opens it without asking: it’s my sister’s passport. The problem is that six months ago Courtney told us at dinner that she’d picked up her new passport at the DMV and that everything was totally taken care of. My mother calls her downstairs to confront her, which Courtney deals with by
literally
backing up into a corner, claiming we misunderstood what she said. Then, when she tries to grab it, my mother holds the passport above her head, dangling it just out of reach like she’s scolding a badly behaved child, and shakes her head, disappointed.

Eventually she lowers her hand, but not before launching into a speech on procrastination, which morphs into a speech on appreciation and gratitude and blessings.

My mother’s never been to Europe, even once. She’s been to Mexico (Cancún, on her honeymoon with my father) and Canada, but so long ago she never needed a passport. So her speech about appreciation, which began as a speech about procrastination, eventually transforms into a speech about reverie. Or not
about
reverie, but
of
reverie, my mother’s reverie, her musings on the haves and have-nots of her life, the people who got it all and wasted it, and the opposite too.

Mom tells us what she would’ve done if she’d been given the chance to take a trip to Amsterdam, or even Boston, when she was young, her whole life ahead of her. The chance to live abroad, or across the country, even if only for a short time. The speech gradually transitions into other semi-related concepts and emotions, and slowly I realize it’s not my mother’s memories I’m listening to, but her lack of memories.

Lacking—it’s everywhere!

At some point I stop listening, worried by the feeling that, underneath everything, maybe I’m just not appreciative enough, not grateful enough for the opportunity I’m being given. How can you make sure to get the most out of college—or at least get your parents’ money’s worth? I run down my fall semester class schedule: Intro to Brit Lit, Writing the Personal Essay, Oral Narration, Geology. They feel like the names of my campers when I first read them: signifiers without meaning. Emerson College is just this abstract thing I’ve committed to be a part of, and so far it’s committed nothing to me except these four classes, which hardly sound life changing or door opening or mind expanding. What do I know about making the best of a situation when it seems obvious that I’ll just keep avoiding what I’m prone to avoid, which is basically everything outside of what I already know, which is still barely anything at all?

Courtney’s stopped listening too, distracted by her passport photo, her face faintly flushed with panic.

I glance at the photo but can’t tell what’s wrong; Courtney just looks like Courtney, standing against a white wall—it’s no disaster. “Hey,” I say, reaching for her hand, “you’re really doing it.”

“
We’re
doing it,” my mother chimes in, huddling us all together, proud, the soft-lit glow of reverie still beaming in her eyes.

“Aren’t we annoying?” I joke to Courtney. “You definitely won’t miss
this
,” I say, laughing, poking her playfully.

But Courtney’s too wise to believe it’s that simple. She knows it’s not the absence of memories that keeps a person from being happy; it’s the absence of certain people from the memories you’re making. Traveling forward means leaving behind. Stamp the passport, write it all down.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

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WE’R E ON OUR
way to the sporting goods storage closet to get bases and a ball for kickball. I wave at Foster as we pass by the amphitheater, where he and his boys are painting the benches for Parents’ Day. He holds up his arm in a vague salute, but it’s not quite a wave. It’s one of those extra-hot, sweaty days, and my girls are feeling it, bleached and parched and straggling behind me. Alyssa’s brooding and won’t make eye contact—not when she hands me today’s schedule and not even when she coldly informs me she’s going to the bathroom and will be gone awhile.

“The
bathroom
?” I ask, dipping my head, trying to catch her eyes.

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Fine, I’ll take a buddy.”

“I’ll go,” Rebecca says.

“I want to go,” Maggie says.

“No one’s going,” I tell them.

“You can’t, like, outlaw me from using the bathroom,” Alyssa says.

Of course I can’t. So instead I stall, poring over the schedule. The truth is I actually
feel
apologetic but I’m
being
antagonistic, and coming off as petty, which is embarrassing even in front of a bunch of nine-year-olds. I was praying Alyssa would be over it by now, but since she isn’t, I can’t be either, and that’s frustrating. When you can’t be the Bigger Person, you end up the Same-Size Person: pretty small. I kill almost a full minute just tapping my pen against the clipboard, pretending to examine our itinerary, hoping that by the time I look up, the girls will be bored and oblivious to me and Alyssa’s looming showdown.

“Fine, I’m going,” Alyssa says, sick of waiting. The rest of the group watches.

“No way.”

“Um,
yeah
.”

“Here’s the keys to my car,” I say meanly, shoving my keys into her hand. “Why don’t you just take Corey there?”

“I have to
piss
,” Alyssa says, throwing my keys in the dirt. “And
shit
,” she shouts, grinding the keys into the ground with the toe of her sandal.

The girls gasp. I don’t. I’ve heard thirteen-year-olds say a lot worse, so I can take it. And that’s what I’m going to do: Take It.

“Oh, I had no idea,” I say, mock-concerned. “Please go ahead then.”

But Alyssa just stands there, fuming. The girls huddle closer, hypnotized by the drama.

“Fine,” I say to her, “Hold it in.”

Alyssa huffs, but the moment passes. Suddenly I’m sick to death of Sunny Skies, sick of summer in general. It feels like we’ll never get to the ball closet and back to the amphitheater, back to Foster. I miss him. I want to lift whatever weight might be between us. I don’t care about motivating my group anymore—I don’t want to waste another minute here.

What’s worse, I wonder: summers that race by breathlessly, or the endless kind? Mine feels all monotony, yet no routine.

“Come on,” I say, walking ahead, not even checking to see if the girls are following. But they are. I hear their sluggish, flip-flopped feet shuffling to keep up.