I’ll Meet You There (18 page)

“I still think you’re crazy,” he said. “But since you’re here, wanna help me?”

I nodded, pushing my disappointment away because it was so stupid, wasn’t it, to think
he’d want to kiss me—or that I’d
want
him to want to kiss me. I followed him into the first room, holding the buckets while
Josh figured out where the leaks were. He would crane his neck up at the ceiling and
then gesture for me to hand him a bucket and then we’d wait to hear a drop of water
hit the plastic. It wasn’t funny, but for some reason, all we could do was laugh as
we waited for those hollow-sounding
plop
s. Every time we found another leak, it was like the most hilarious thing in the world,
and I didn’t care about the not-kiss anymore because I just wanted to laugh with him.

I loved watching Josh laugh. It transformed his whole face. He’d throw back his head,
and the sound would come from some deep place inside him, like it’d finally been let
out of hiding.

When we’d finished, we stood under the eaves, staring out at the warm light of the
lobby.

“Guess there’s only one way back,” he said.

“Guess so.”

But we kept standing there, waiting. For what, I didn’t know. Just … waiting. The
rain slowed up a little; it was still pouring from the sky, but not as hard, and I
could hear something underneath the thrash of water against concrete. A soft strumming.

“Hear that?” Josh asked.

“Mm-hmm. The hippies.”

It was the couple in room seven, a guy and his girlfriend straight out of 1969. They’d
been at the motel for a few days and were often by the pool, playing guitar and singing.
Usually Marley or the Beatles. Bob Dylan, that sort of thing.

“He’s good.” Josh listened closely for a second, then laughed and looked over at me.
“Do you know what song this is?”

The rain slowed even more, and I strained my ears to pick out the chords.

“‘Hotel California.’”

The guy’s voice was warm, strong, and his girlfriend would occasionally join in, their
voices darting around each other, then coming together in sweet harmony.

Josh held out his hand. “May I?”

I saw that hand reaching toward me, and I wanted to take it and not let go, but I
couldn’t move. I remembered my mom and dad, dancing in the trailer to that Céline
Dion song, “Because You Loved Me,” their lips always meeting during the chorus. I’d
come home to Mom playing it over and over after he died. So I made my hands into fists
and gave Josh a throwaway smile.

“I thought you had to be drunk to dance.”

“Not in the rain. It evens the playing field.”

He took my hand and undid my fist by slowly pulling my fingers away from my palm.
Then I let him draw me back out into the storm. My heart beat a steady rhythm against
the guitar and the hippies’ voices and the rain. I could barely see with the water
streaming down my face as Josh pulled me closer to him. He sang along, his voice soft.

“How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat. Some dance to remember, some
dance to forget.”

I was keenly aware of how the downpour plastered my clothes to my body, outlining
every curve, and how it did the same to him. And it made me feel reckless and scared.
His voice in my ear, the rain, his hands on my waist, mine on his chest. How had this
become a thing with us, dancing to slow songs?

For maybe the first time in my life I was aware of my lips, like you could take my
pulse with them. They wanted skin—
his skin
—against them and, God, I couldn’t think. It felt so good to not care about anything,
just feeling my bare feet on the concrete, my breath as it struggled down my throat.
And warmth. Between my legs and in my belly and everywhere in my head until it was
just warmth and need and Josh.

The last note of the song faded, and he tilted my chin up, his face suddenly serious.

This is the moment
, I thought.

And I stood there on the knife’s edge of us, holding my breath, time expanding so
that I felt every drop of rain, every thud of my heart. His lips, so close—

There was a burst of thunder, and Josh jumped, his fingers slipping from my chin.
The moment gone. Like a balloon floating up to the sky, unreachable.

I tried to smile, I think. Wanting to cry and glad the rain would hide it if I did.
“We should get back in,” I said. Whispered. Choked.

I didn’t know if he’d heard me. He was staring at the pool, watching the water flow
into the planter, drowning the few flowers that had struggled to survive the heat.

“Josh?”

His eyes swept over my face and then he straightened his body and nodded. I didn’t
wait for him. I just turned and ran back to the lobby.

JOSH

You sure you’re ready for this, bro?
I flip Blake off. He raises his eyebrows and shakes his head, giving me all kinds
of able-bodied attitude, then hikes his arm back and throws the football toward me.
I try running, which is surprisingly not too bad, but looking back while I do it—impossible.
The football soars past me, and I watch it fall to the grass, then thud around. Pathetic.
I haven’t sucked this bad at sports since we played those kids in that village where
Gomez kissed a goat. And Blake’s giving me this embarrassed look and I just tell him,
Let’s get shitfaced
, and he says okay and we go through a twelve-pack really fast. I’m drunk-ass drunk,
so wasted I can’t even walk, I’m like all over the place and I tell him Skylar’s hot
and he says,
Yeah, she’s a great kisser but she only let me touch her boobs
. And I just full on punch him, but I’m so wasted that I kinda nick his shoulder and
he’s all,
What’s that for
, and I say,
Don’t touch her
, and he’s all,
Holy shit, you’re into her
, and I tell him to fuck off and he just keeps shaking his head and saying,
Holy shit
. So I close my eyes and let my body float and I try to feel nothing except now I’m
thinking of a girl I can’t have because the war won’t even let me kiss her, scared
of goddamn thunder Jesus Christ and I don’t know why I tell Blake this because this
is fucking embarrassing to admit but I say,
I haven’t been laid in over a year. Isn’t that the saddest thing you ever heard?
And he’s like,
We need to fix that right fucking now
, and I say,
Hell, no, maybe tomorrow. I’m gonna pass out.
And he’s like,
Okay
. And now I’m lying in bed and can’t sleep because my leg is starting to do that thing
that feels like growing pains except my leg is not fucking there and I’m sorry, I’m
sorry. I’m so goddamn sorry. Should’ve been me, not you.

JULY

chapter sixteen

It was like we’d never danced in the rain or woken up at dawn holding hands in the
back of his truck. For the next few days, Josh and I were friendly, like you’re supposed
to be with your coworker. He’d be fixing a rain gutter or installing a new screen
in a room, and I’d wave when I came in, and he’d wave back and then that would be
it. I’d read a book or collage, and I’d tell myself it was good he hadn’t wanted to
kiss me, good things were cooling off between us. I was moving to San Fran, and he
was probably staying in the Marines. It wasn’t like we would have been anything more
than a summer romance. Still, the loss of our easy banter made me realize how much
his friendship had started to mean to me. He was the parts of the day where I smiled.

“How many times have you read that page, Skylar?”

I looked up from my book—I hadn’t even noticed Marge standing right in front of me.
And Marge was not a small woman.

I shrugged my shoulders. “How long have you been here?”

“Awhile.” She handed me a Coke while she opened a Diet Dr Pepper. She stuck one of
her straws in the can and took a long sip. “So a little birdie told me you were sleeping
in your car this morning.”

Billy had been over again, and by three
A.M.
, it’d been clear he was spending the night. I’d opted to sleep in my car instead
of listen to him and my mother freaking out over a bunch of old CDs he’d brought over.
The irony of them belting out Garth Brooks’s “Friends in Low Places” was not lost
on me.

“Amy,” I said.

I thought I’d been so clever, parking behind the hippies’ Winnebago.

“Josh.”

I took a long sip of my Coke. “Oh.”

Marge leaned over the counter and put one of her thick hands on my arm. There was
a ring on each finger: costume jewelry that sparkled in the late afternoon sunlight.
“Honey, why didn’t you just sleep in one of the rooms?”

“I like my car. Besides, it was only for a couple of hours.”

I wasn’t into airing my family’s dirty laundry, and the car was comfortable enough.
Whatever. Why did Josh say something to Marge and not to me? If he was so worried
about me, why didn’t he just—

“What’s going on at home?” Marge asked.

“What do you mean?” I frowned. “Did this
little birdie
who happens to be over six feet tell you something?”

She let my annoyance roll right on over her. That was the thing about Marge—she was
a rock to Mom’s Jell-O.

“Is Billy Easton still coming around your place?”

“Good to know you and Josh sit around and gossip about me like a bunch of old ladies.”

Marge rolled her eyes. “Sky, he’s just worried about you.”

I didn’t know how that made me feel, Josh being worried. Relieved, like maybe things
weren’t so weird between us, after all. Annoyed that he was talking to Marge instead
of me.

I could hear the faint sounds of a classic rock station playing on the boom box in
the courtyard. Josh was fixing the tiles around the pool. “Hotel California” came
on, and was it just my imagination, or did he turn the radio up?

“Sky?”

I blinked. “I’m fine, Marge. Seriously. Mom’s just … you know. With losing the job
she’s—”

“I told you to bring her here. We’d figure something out.”

I twirled a pencil around. “She’s thinking about it.”

Mom resented Marge for being there for me when Mom couldn’t be, and Marge resented
Mom for being Mom.

“Uh-huh.”

She reached over the counter to grab a quarter from the till and put it in the candy
dispenser that held stale Hot Tamales. “Want one?” she asked, when they came tumbling
out.

I shook my head. “I’m gonna eat some real food when I’m off.”

All I’d had to eat was a bag of Skittles from the nearly empty vending machine—no
home, no breakfast. At least having my Pump and Go money meant I could buy some lunch
when I got off work. The owner had agreed to give me an advance, something I never
would have asked Marge for. Money was tight enough for her as it was.

Marge chewed on her Hot Tamales for a while, looking at Josh. Then she turned back
to me. “You going to watch the fireworks down by the creek tonight?”

It was a Creek View tradition on the Fourth. There was this abandoned field that everyone
would bring their fireworks to—whatever they’d bought illegally in Vegas or whatever.
Then they’d hang around and drink beer and set them off.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “I’ll probably hang with my mom. The kids in the neighborhood
will have some fireworks.”

“You all ready for school?”

The million-dollar question.

“Yeah. My roommate called. Her name’s Cynthia. She’s from Vermont—seems nice.”

But when she’d called me yesterday to introduce herself, the conversation hadn’t felt
real. Not with everything in limbo.
Stay. Go. Stay. Go. Wait. Wait. Wait.

Marge’s face lit up. “That’s great! What’s her major?”

“Something with journalism or—” My cell rang, and I held it up. “Sorry. Important.
Can I…?”

Marge nodded, and I ran outside.

“Hello?” I made my voice low, like my mom’s.

“Hi, is this Denise Evans?” said a woman.

“Yes, it is.”

“Hi, Denise. This is Sharon down at the Valley Outlet Center. We got your application,
and something in our customer service department just opened up. I wanted to see if
we could have you come in for an interview this Thursday, around three?”

“That’d be great. Thank you so much.”

“Excellent! We’ll see you then.”

I did a silent dance. “Thank you. Looking forward to it.”

I hung up and clutched the phone to my chest. Now all I had to do was get my mom sober
enough to go.

*   *   *

“You
what
?” Mom was sitting on the couch, her legs folded, staring at me.

Somehow, this was not the reaction I’d pictured. I’d imagined something between
Really?
and
Hallelujah!

I bit my lip and repeated what I’d just said. “I filled out the application and set
up the interview. You’re good to go. They’re really excited to meet you.”

I’d tell her later that I lied and said she’d graduated from high school. It wasn’t
like they were going to ask to see her diploma, anyway.

Mom stubbed out her cigarette and stood up. “You have no business filling out applications
in
my
name—”

“Mom! I’m just trying to help you. I know it’s hard to—”

“I don’t care!” She screamed the words, her face suddenly ugly. “I didn’t ask for
your help, I don’t
want
your help.” She threw her cigarettes across the room. One of her porcelain angel
figurines wobbled as the pack hit the shelf it was sitting on. “Jesus, Sky, you’re
driving me crazy!”

She pushed past me, stomping toward the fridge.

“Great, Mom. Just go get another wine cooler. I’m sure that’ll fix the problem.”

She turned around, her eyes narrowed in this hateful way that I’d never seen before.
“Get out.”

“What?” She had to be joking.

“I said, get out. Just”—she put her hands over her eyes, took a deep breath—“give
me a couple hours to clear my head, okay? I don’t wanna fight like this.”