Maybe One Day (26 page)

“Here,” said Calvin abruptly. “Give me your keys.”

I rotated my head to look at him, keeping my forehead pressed against the cold metal of the car. “You’re joking.”

“I’m not joking.” He put his hand out. “Give me the keys.”

Tempting as it was, I could not let him do this. “You didn’t come into the city to drive me home.”

“It’s fine,” he said. “I was just keeping Jake company for the ride. Then I was going to take the train home.”

“Seriously?” I asked. “That’s . . . that’s really nice.” I remembered Calvin’s saying my packing Olivia’s suitcase was a Zoe-Olivia thing. Was driving into Manhattan only to take the train home again a guy thing, or was it a Calvin-Jake thing?

“What can I say?” Calvin turned his palms up to the ceiling. “I’m a nice guy.”

“It’s not like a cop won’t pull
you
over for a broken taillight,”
I pointed out.

“But it’s not against the law for me to be driving in this county.” Without waiting for me to accept his offer, Calvin extended his fist toward Jake. “See you later, man.”

Jake bumped his fist against Calvin’s. “Yeah, man, see you later. Thanks for the company.”

“Anytime.” Calvin walked around and opened the driver’s door. He looked at me over the roof of the car. “You getting in?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I mean . . . thanks.” Everything was moving so fast. One second I was getting ready to confess everything to my parents, the next I was all get-out-of-jail free. (Well, except for the whole, Sorry-I-broke-your-car’s-taillight-Dad thing. But surely I could come up with an explanation for the damage I’d done that did not make mention of my having committed a crime.)

“Here,” said Calvin. “Throw.” I tossed him the keys, got into the car, and buckled my seat belt. Calvin slid into the driver’s seat, backed the car the rest of the way out of the space, and drove us out of the parking lot and into the darkening Manhattan evening.

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29

We drove in silence for what seemed like a long time. On the way into the city, I’d been so juiced up by the audacity of what I was doing that I hadn’t had time to think about why I was doing it. Sitting passively in the driver’s seat, I was overwhelmed by the reality of what was happening. How had Olivia’s leukemia come back so quickly? It wasn’t
possible
.

We were stopped at a red light. “I just don’t get it,” I said. The thought had been in my head for so long I felt almost as if I’d already spoken it. “Olivia’s had two rounds of chemotherapy since September. How can her body already be making new leukemia cells?”

“Jake said that Dr. Maxwell said that Olivia’s leukemia is very aggressive.” The light changed, and Calvin put his foot on the gas. “Apparently they knew that from the beginning,
but then she responded well to the first round of chemo, so everyone got their hopes up.”

I looked out the window. The few trees we passed were brown and leafless, and the Hudson River—normally so luminous and rich—did nothing but reflect the slate-gray winter sky back at itself. Everything seemed cold and dead and hopeless. I bit down on my lower lip.

“I’m sorry I’ve been such a bitch to you.” I glanced over at Calvin, but he was focusing on navigating the traffic merging to enter the tunnel. “Anyway,” I continued when he didn’t respond, “I appreciate your helping me today.”

We slipped into a lane behind a bright red Subaru. “It’s no problem,” he said. Looking at Calvin in profile, I could see the bump where he’d broken his nose. Weirdly, it made him look more handsome, not less.

I watched the cars ahead of us merge. There were so many of them trying to get to the same place, you would have expected an accident to happen every two seconds. But somehow it all worked out. People honked a lot, but for the most part everyone just waited patiently for their turn to move forward. “You’re a good guy, Calvin. You really are.”

“Zoe, you don’t have to do some big song and dance just because I’m driving you home.” He glanced at me, then turned his eyes back to the road. “It’s really no big deal. I don’t mind.” We slipped into a lane and picked up speed, and suddenly we were encased by an artificial night.

I felt very aware of being inside a tunnel, of traveling through a tube of concrete and metal that had millions of gallons of water pressing down on every square inch of it. I thought about what Olivia had said.
If you like him, you should tell him. Because you never know what can happen
.

But how was I supposed to tell him? Just come right out with it—
Calvin, I like you
?

I licked my dry lips. Then I pressed them into a line. There was no way that sentence was coming out of my mouth.

Calvin had one hand on the wheel. The other one was resting on his leg.

Without saying a word, I reached over and put my hand on top of his.

My heart was pounding so hard and so fast I was having trouble catching my breath. I kept my eyes straight ahead, glued to the taillights of the car in front of us, as if I were the one who was driving.

Calvin didn’t say anything, and he didn’t move. It was almost like hadn’t noticed.

And then, just as I was about to open the car door and leap out to avoid the humiliation of ever having to face him again, Calvin laced his fingers through mine. He lifted our intertwined hands to his face and gently kissed the back of my hand.

I felt the electricity of his lips through my whole body.

The next time either of us spoke was when Calvin pulled into my driveway. He turned off the ignition. We were still holding hands.

“Thanks,” I said. I looked at the house instead of at him. The porch lights weren’t on yet, which meant I’d beaten my parents home.

“Anytime,” he said.

“I think . . .” I kept my eyes straight ahead of me. “I think I might really like you.”

“You
think
?” Calvin asked, and I didn’t have to see his face to know he was smiling.

I curled my leg up under me and shifted in my seat so I could look at him. He was looking out his window, and I reached over and turned his face toward me. It was dark enough out now that he was hard to see.

“I feel like I’m on this . . .”—I groped for the right words—“this roller coaster. I know that’s a pretty bad cliché,” I added quickly, “but it’s really how I feel. Like I’m up on this roller coaster, and you’re down on the ground, and you’re watching me and going, ‘Come down! Come down from there.’ And I can’t. I can’t come down until Olivia’s okay.” My voice got squeaky on the last words, and I knew I was about to cry.

“You’re not alone,” he said softly. “Everyone who loves Olivia is on that roller coaster.”

“I know.”

It was so quiet in the car I could hear us breathing. Calvin
leaned forward and pressed his forehead against mine.

“But I get what you’re saying,” he whispered.

And then he moved a little and I moved a little and suddenly we were kissing. At first the kiss was so soft, like our lips were just brushing against each other accidentally. Then we were kissing harder, almost fiercely. The more we kissed, the more I wanted to kiss, as if kissing were a food that made me hungry. I put my hands on the back of his neck and pulled him toward me as he grabbed me by the shoulders so tightly it almost hurt.

“I should drive you home,” I said when we finally came up for air. We were both breathing hard, and the windows of the car were all fogged up.

“I’d rather walk,” he said, and then we were kissing again.

“This is complicated,” I whispered into his lips.

“That doesn’t mean it’s bad,” he whispered back.

I have no idea how long we sat in my driveway kissing, but eventually I said, “It’s not going to help me make my broken taillight case sympathetic if my parents find me sitting here making out with you.” I was lying across Calvin’s lap, my arms around his neck. He kissed me lightly and I shivered. “I can’t believe I used to think you were an asshole.”

I’d thought my feelings about him had been pretty obvious, but Calvin looked hurt. “You thought I was an asshole?”

“Well, I mean . . .” Okay, this was awkward—I hadn’t expected to have to explain myself. “You were so mean to me.
Remember? When I went out with Jackson that time.”

Now Calvin seemed embarrassed. He toyed with a lock of my hair, but he wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Yeah, about that. I think . . . I think I kind of had a crush on you.”

I sat up. “You
what
?”

“Jesus, Zoe, is that really such a shocker? I liked you. And I thought you might like me. But then you went out with Jackson, and I was jealous, and so I was . . .” He laughed and shook his head. “Yeah, I guess I was kind of an asshole.”

I stared at him. So it wouldn’t have been Olivia with Calvin at Mack Wilson’s party. Not even if she’d been healthy.

“What?” he asked, finally turning to face me. “Is this, like, seriously rocking your world or something?”

“Kind of,” I admitted. But even though he gave me a searching look, I didn’t answer his unasked question. It felt too private to tell him about Olivia’s crush, like that would have somehow been an even bigger betrayal than the one I’d already committed.

I opened the door and stepped out of the car. The cold air was a shock—the temperature had dropped with the sun, and I’d left my coat at school. Calvin walked me up to the porch.

“So what happens now?” he asked.

I put my foot on the first step. “They harvest the marrow from Jake on Tuesday and then they give it to Olivia and hope it starts making healthy cells.”

“Sorry, I meant with us,” Calvin clarified. He was standing on the ground and I was standing on the step, so when I turned to face him, we were exactly the same height. I put my arms around him, and he put his arms around me. Standing pressed against him felt as good as it had the last time, and I felt the urge to bring him upstairs and take off all our clothes and just forget about everything but our bodies.

“I don’t know,” I said, my face inches from his. “I feel like I have to be there for Olivia. And I’ve got to get the girls in the dance class ready for their recital—I seriously didn’t think about it all vacation. And I’m, like, failing half my classes. I—”

Calvin pressed his lips to mine, and when he pulled away, it was hard for me to catch my breath. “I get it,” he said softly. “I get it.” He kissed me one last time, then turned and headed down the driveway.

“What do you get?” I asked his retreating back. When he didn’t answer, I yelled again, “What do you get?” He still didn’t answer, and now I wondered if he was too far away to even hear me. But that didn’t stop me from yelling one last question at him. “Will you explain it to me, please?”

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

30

It was even harder than usual to focus on my classes Tuesday morning. I kept looking at the clock, wondering if they were done harvesting bone marrow from Jake. Harvesting. The word made me think of Pilgrims and wheat, not blood cells. They should have called it something else.

Livvie had told her parents she wanted me to be there when she got the transplant, and they hadn’t argued with her. At least as far as I knew. But it seemed unlikely that they had. I couldn’t imagine anyone arguing with Olivia about anything right now. I’d visited her Monday night, and she was so knocked out from the chemo that she’d barely been able to talk. The whole time I was there, she didn’t say anything except once, when her mom went to ask the nurse a question and left us alone together.

“Calvin gave you a ride home yesterday,” she’d whispered, turning her head from the door her mom had just exited and staring at me with her bruised-looking eyes.

I nodded. We had to talk about what had happened with Calvin. I knew we had to talk about what had happened with Calvin. If I hadn’t thought she was too tired, I would have brought it up myself. It should have been a relief that she’d brought the subject up, but now that she had, I felt nervous.

She gestured for my hand, and I gave it to her, not taking my eyes from hers.

“If you didn’t tell him how you feel about him,” she said, forming each word carefully and taking a breath after almost every one, “I’m going to be really mad.” Her saying that almost made me cry, right up until she pinched the skin between my thumb and forefinger. Hard.

“Ouch!” I complained, jerking my hand away. “Jesus! I told him. Okay? So just . . . you know, pinch someone your own size.”

She laughed and closed her eyes, then said something I couldn’t make out.

“What?” I asked, torn between not wanting to force her to talk and not wanting to miss anything she said.

“I said . . .” She took a deep breath, and I put my hands on the bed and leaned closer to her, only slightly nervous that she was suddenly going to pinch me again. “Tell me you kissed him.”

“I kissed him,” I said. And now my eyes did fill with tears.