Nothing Like You (11 page)

I laughed. I considered Nils’s total disdain for Paul. “Absolutely not.”

“Is he nice to you?”

I dug my nails into Nils’s shoulder and shook him back and forth. “Nils, stop. Come on. Stop asking me.”

“I just don’t understand why we can’t talk about this.”

I didn’t say anything. I turned my back to him. After a minute or so I changed the track on the Leonard Cohen CD and then Nils said, “Is that it? We’re done?”

I dug a ponytail holder out of my jeans pocket and twisted my hair into a knot. I changed the subject. “Have
you given any more thought to Nora Bittenbender?” I asked.

He reached over and took my hand, pulling me close. “I’m not gonna do it until after her birthday party. She’s so psyched about that thing. I’d wreck everything.”

“What’re you going dressed as?” I asked.

“Don’t know yet. Maybe a vampire. Or a chicken.”

“A chicken?” I backed myself into him, dragging the sleeping bag up to my chin. “You’re so weird.”

“You?”

“Me what?”

“What’re you gonna go as?”

I thought about it. “A sexy nurse. Or a sexy ghost, maybe. So long as it involves a bikini. I just want to fit in, you know?” I tried looking really sincere.

Nils covered my face with a pillow.

Paul and I
were in his car at the beach after school. He’d stopped coming by at night now, so this was it, basically. Once a week. The deserted beach parking lot. His cramped, shitty old ruby red Beamer. We didn’t even talk anymore. Just
off with your clothes, Holly, I have a paper due on Monday
.

“I have that thing tomorrow.”

“What thing?” He was stuffing his T-shirt into the waistband of his jeans.

“The appointment. With the psychic.” I wasn’t looking at him. I knew what his response would be but felt compelled to tell him anyways.

“Oh yeah?”

I straightened my skirt. “Remember you said you’d come with me?”

“I said that?”

I looked out the widow and watched a seagull pick at an open bag of pretzels lying next to an overstuffed trash can. “You did.”

Paul lit a cigarette. “Well, I can’t go. I have a family thing.”

“What sort of family thing?”

“Company family picnic thing at my mom’s work. I have to go.”

“Okay,” I said. I continued to watch the seagull.

Paul poked me in the side. “That’s it? No ball busting? Holly, so unlike you …”

I leaned my forehead against the window. “Well, you know. I figured as much.”

“You still gonna go?” he asked, lighting a cigarette and starting the car.

“I am,” I said, then I thought about Nora Bittenbender. I thought about Nils. I turned and looked at Paul. “What happened to you?” I asked.

“What do you mean?” He turned out of the beach parking lot and onto the PCH.

“You used to be so nice.”

“You don’t think I’m nice anymore?” He slipped a hand around my neck, the cigarette pinched between his lips.

“I really don’t,” I said, shoving his hand away.

“You’re too sensitive, Holly. Nothing happened to me. I’ve always been this way.”

I tugged on my seat belt. “Remember when you drove me into L.A.?”

“Of course I do. It wasn’t that long ago.”

“Remember when you promised me you’d come see this psychic guy with me?”

“Holly, come on.” He clamped his thumb and pointer finger around the filter on his cigarette and flicked a millimeter of ash off the tip.

“What?”

“I’m sorry I broke my promise, okay? Doesn’t change anything. I still can’t go.”

“What if I were someone else?”

“Like who?”

“Like someone you liked more.”

“Holly, come on, stop it. Why do you torture yourself? The relationship I have with you is completely different from the one I have with her.”

“No kidding.”

“Two totally separate things.”

“Apples and oranges,” I cracked, feeling nauseated.

“Exactly.” He ruffled my hair. I thought about Saskia. Her great face and cheery disposition. “She could do a lot better than you,” I said.

He reached across the seat and slid a finger under my chin. “Oh yeah? What about you, Holly?”

I shrugged. “I’m guessing this is about what I deserve.”

Paul flicked his cigarette out the open window. I propped one leg up on the dash.

After I got dropped off, I did something I know I shouldn’t have done. I plopped down on my living room floor, dumped the entire contents of my book bag out onto Mom’s pretty red woven rug, and there, amidst the heap of plastic folders, spiral notebooks, loose Tic Tacs and tampons, was the crumpled little piece of loose-leaf Saskia had written her phone number on, just weeks before. I smoothed out its creases, fished my cell out of my pocket, and dialed. It rang. And it rang. And then, just as I was prepping myself to leave a message on her voice mail, she picked up. “Hello?”

“It’s Holly.”

“Holly!” Such surprise. “Hi.”

I knew she’d be alone. I knew that even if Paul had left me and gone directly to her, I had, at minimum, a twenty-minute window before he’d reach her doorstep.

“I’m sorry to call.”

“Holly, why? I’m glad. That’s why I gave you my number. So you’d use it. What’s up?”

I didn’t know how to say what I wanted to say, so at first, I didn’t say anything. Then that made things awkward, so finally I just blurted, “I have this thing I have to do tomorrow and I can’t go alone.”

“What is it?”

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy.”

“I won’t. Tell me,” she said. Quickly followed by, “Wait, hold on a sec, I’m going outside.” I heard a screen door squeak and then slam. “Okay. I’m ready. Go ahead.”

So I told her about the psychic. How I’d been looking for signs from my mother. How I’d made this appointment and how I was scared to go alone and that it was scheduled for tomorrow at three and would she be willing to come along?

“Of course I would. I’d love to go,” she said.

My whole body relaxed. I felt fantastic. I had a friend.

I spent the morning preparing myself. I woke up and went out to The Shack and imagined Mom on the cloud and I talked to her. I said,
I’m going to see this guy today and he’s going to make it so you and I can have an actual conversation and if it’s really you coming through, say something about Harry. I’ll know it’s you for real if you just say something cute about Harry
. Then I went inside and cooked breakfast for Jeff. I ate strips of bacon standing up while rehearsing in my head the things I wanted Frank Gellar to ask my mom. Mainly just:
Is your fate my fate?
And:
Why won’t you send me a sign?
Then I twiddled my thumbs, watched an episode of
The Twilight Zone
, and ate a small bag of cherry tomatoes. Then, at two fifteen, I left to pick up Saskia.

I hadn’t been to her house in about six years. But it looked exactly the same from the outside. Pink adobe. Big. Old. I
got out of the car and followed a trail of wide, flat rocks to her doorstep and rang the bell.

Fifteen seconds later, the door swung open. There she was, blindingly blond. She smiled, hugged me hello, and followed me back out to my car.

“I forgot to mention … can you please not tell anyone about this?”

She was buckling her seat belt. “Don’t worry, I won’t.” She drew a cross over her heart with her polished pointer finger.

“Not even your brother, or like, Paul, for example… .”
Especially not Paul
,
please god NO, not Paul
, I thought.

“I’m very trustworthy,” she insisted.

Unlike me
.

I started the car.

Frank Gellar’s place wasn’t all that impressive, but his neighborhood was a suburban dream. Sidewalks and tidy gardens with clay gnomes and multicolored pinwheels. I pulled the car to a stop and rechecked the street number.

“Is that it?” Saskia asked, pointing out the window at the small, brown house.

“That’s the one,” I said. We looked at each other.

“What time is it?”

I checked the digital clock on my dash. “Two fifty.” I paused. “Maybe we could just sit here for a bit. We still have time.”

“Whatever you want to do.”

I turned on the radio and searched for a good song but couldn’t find anything I liked. Saskia talked a little bit about her stepdad but I was distracted and couldn’t hear what she was saying. I watched while she spoke, her lips sliding over her smooth white teeth. Then I pulled two pieces of cinnamon gum out of the glove compartment.

“You ready? It’s almost three.”

“I feel sick,” I said. I did. Suddenly. My stomach was looping around itself like an unbalanced washing machine.

“You want something? A mint?” She opened her purse and started fishing around inside.

I grabbed her hand. “What if he tells me something I don’t want to hear?”

“Like what?”

“I don’t want to know how I’m going to die.”

“He won’t tell you that.”

“But what if he does?” I looked at her. “Or what if he can’t make contact at all? What if she’s just, like, not there … ? Or anywhere?” I swallowed, continuing. “Let’s say he
does
make contact, great,
awesome
, only she’s not at peace. What if”—I tightened my grip on Saskia’s hand—“what if I’m not living up to her expectations. She might be disappointed in me.”

Saskia didn’t say anything for a minute and then she put her face close to my face. “No way. Your mom is proud. Look at you, Holly.” She fixed her eyes on me.

I sucked in a whole bunch of air. “I don’t want to go in.”

“What? Why?”

“I just don’t. I can’t.”

Saskia looked at me for a bit. “You sure?”

“Yes.”

She paused. “You hungry?”

“Not really.”

“Eating always helps when I feel nauseous. Burritos are especially soothing.”

I turned the ignition and rolled down my window. “Burritos? Really?”

“Bean and cheese. Trust me.” She picked her phone out of her purse. “You want me to call this guy and cancel?”

“Call him,” I said, passing her his card then pulling a quick U-turn.

We sped back toward Sunset, stopping at Pepe’s on our way to the beach. Saskia bought me a bean and cheese burrito and a potato taco for herself.

I ate my burrito in the car.

The beach with Saskia was different from the beach with Paul. It felt more like the beach had felt with my mom when I was a kid. We lay on our backs in the sand. Clothes on, shoes off. We made sand angels.

“Do you regret leaving?” she asked me, shielding her eyes from the sun with one hand.

I thought about it. “I feel relieved.”

“Relieved, really?” She turned onto her side.

I shrugged, picking up a handful of sand.

Saskia didn’t say anything for a while, then said, finally, “I’m glad you asked me, anyway.”

I looked at her.

“I mean I’m glad you called.”

I grinned. I dug some sand out from beneath my thumbnail.

“My brother,” she said, looking down. “He has this … kind of
issue
with depression.” She picked at her cuticles.

“Oh.”

“And when you told me about the psychic I kind of wondered how I’d feel knowing my own destiny. Or knowing Sean’s destiny. Like if I knew he’d be fine one day? Maybe then I could relax and stop worrying. Seems so nice, not having to worry.” She lay back down. “It’s like my
dream
,” she said, which made me feel really sad.

“Has he always been like that? Depressed?”

She nodded. “He’s always been medicated. But lately he’s just been extra bad. He hides stuff… .” She took a breath. “It all sounds so dramatic, I know.”

I watched her for a while as she drilled her finger into a little hole in the sand. Drilling and
drilling
and then she pulled her finger back and flicked a few stray grains of sand out from under her pinkie nail. She looked so ladylike doing
it too. And she must have felt me watching her because suddenly she was peering up, asking, “What?! What’s wrong?” So I said, “Nothing,” and she just made a face at me, then went back to picking her cuticles.

I thought about Paul. Then about Paul and Saskia together. He wasn’t with her because she’d
break
if they broke up. It wasn’t because her brother was crazy or because she couldn’t survive on her own. Being with her had nothing to do with some misguided sense of moral obligation. He was with her because he loved her. Of course, and who wouldn’t?
I
loved her. It was sudden and unexpected but it was true.
I would trade him for her,
I thought.
In an instant
.