Our Song (15 page)

The notes started up in my head, like raindrops on a windowpane. As the voice kicked in, they flourished into long, deep, fluid chords, an orchestra of guitars. The sound was so rich and grand. It made me think of dancing with Nick in Disney Hall, of being carried off to a soothing, dreamlike place where anything was possible. I stared into the darkness, listening, waiting to see where the melody took me, when the bell started clanging right above, like a violent intrusion. And an unwelcome reminder that I hadn’t been swallowed up by a black hole. I was still in school.

I slid off the table and made my way to the nearest wall to guide me around the room and to the door.

“Ow!” I yelled as I banged the same knee again.

I hobbled the rest of the way to the door and flicked on the lights, revealing I had walked right into the cabinet Annie
had left open. Various boxes and supplies had scattered on the floor. As I began stuffing everything back in, I noticed a camera peeking out of a partially zipped case on the shelf. It definitely wasn’t Annie’s. She kept hers with her at all times, like a true photojournalist. Plus, her case was covered with hip pins and stickers. This one was unmarked except for a piece of masking tape stuck to the top with
Property of VVH Photo Club
written in red Sharpie.

I had never stolen anything before. Not even a piece of five-cent bubblegum from the 7-Eleven on a dare when I was ten. But this camera didn’t technically belong to anyone. Besides, I was only borrowing it, I told myself as I carefully lifted the camera off the shelf and slipped it in my bag. I didn’t even know why I was taking it. But I could worry about that later, I thought as the second bell began to ring and I made my way to class.

• • •

“Here, I found these.” Annie met me at my dressing room with a pile of clothes stacked so high I couldn’t see her face. We were at Bleu, the trendiest boutique in the mall. I had passed it a million times, but this was the first time I had ever ventured inside. It was Annie’s idea, of course. I think she liked it just as much for its French name as she did for its clothes, because it reminded her of Jessica.

“Bring the whole store, why don’t you,” I said, lifting a sexy black sheath off the top. “And you’re crazy if you think I’m wearing this in public, let alone trying it on.”

“I am the public,” Annie said as she began hanging the items on top of the ones I’d already chosen. Each one was slinkier
and more revealing than the last. “Look around. No one else is back here.”

“Still.” I adjusted the shirt I had just tried on and stood in front of the mirror. “What do you think?”

She looked at me flatly. “What do I think? That we might as well be shopping at Kmart if that’s what you’re going to pick. I thought you said you wanted a change.”

I looked at myself again. The shirt fit loosely on top and landed halfway down my thighs so that it covered both my boobs and my butt, just the way I liked it. “This is different. It’s striped. You know I don’t own anything with stripes.”

“Oh boy,” Annie said, shaking her head. “We have a lot of work to do. Will you at least humor me and try some of these on? What’s the worst that can happen?”

“Fine. But I get to try my picks too. I can alternate.”

“Deal. It’s my turn. Start with this.”

She handed me a flirty sleeveless dress in cobalt blue. “This is way too small,” I said, checking the label.

“That’s another thing. Enough of wearing things three sizes too big. I think that’s your main problem.”

I sighed and went back in the fitting room. I unzipped the back and stepped into the dress but it got stuck on my hips. Of course it did. This was already so humiliating. “It doesn’t fit,” I yelled over the curtain.

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Annie parted the curtain and came right in.

“Hello! I’m half-naked in here,” I protested, flinging my arms across my chest.

“Please, you’re wearing a bra. And, duh, it’s not gonna fit like that,” she said, throwing her hands up in the air. “The waist is cinched. You have to put it on over your head. Haven’t you worn a dress before? Wait, don’t answer that.” She waited as I stepped out of the dress and slipped it on the other way. “And side note? We’re hitting a lingerie store next. Time for a little upgrade in that department too.”

My stomach twisted into knots. My mind flashed to the night of the accident. “My bras are fine. No one’s going to see them anyway.”

“Okay, okay, one thing at a time.” Once the dress was on she zipped me up and spun me around to face the mirror. “Take a look at
that
girl.”

“It’s too tight,” I said, pulling at the stretchy fabric that clung to me like a magnet. “And way too short.”

“Are you crazy? You look great. It’s time you embraced your god-given gifts and showed them to the world!”

“Unzip me, it’s my turn,” I said, pulling something I had chosen from the rack.

I came out a minute later in a long, gray dress. Compared to the blue number, it felt like I was wearing an oversized bathrobe. “Okay, maybe this isn’t the greatest either.”

“Yes, progress!” Annie said, fist-pumping the air.

After alternating between our picks a few more times, something happened. I began to see myself differently. It dawned on me that maybe I was clinging to a style that defined who I used to be: the quiet girl who stayed out of the spotlight and followed the rules. But that girl didn’t exist anymore. She was dead and
I couldn’t bring her back no matter how hard I tried. “You’re right,” I said, dumping the rest of my selections onto the reject pile. “These are way too big. Hand me that one.”

I emerged from the changing room in the little black dress that I had originally discarded. It was shorter than the others I had already tried on, but the way it hung without sticking to my body made it seem like my legs went on forever. The front dipped down into a low V that landed in the middle of my chest, accentuating my cleavage. As I stared at my reflection in the mirror, I kept waiting to wince or to run back into the dressing room to take it off immediately. But I didn’t. Instead, I tucked my hair behind my ears, stood a little straighter, and smiled. Annie stared at me, mouth agape. “Don’t you have anything to say?” I asked her.

“Yeah,” she finally said, flicking my bra strap. “Get rid of this.”

I reached back, unhooked the clasp, and let it drop to the floor. I had never gone braless before.

“Wow. Now I really am speechless.”

“What, am I turning you on?” It just slipped out of my mouth. It was the first time I’d said anything like that to her before, and I wasn’t so sure how she would take it now that I was beginning to question her sexuality. It wasn’t that I thought Annie was into
me
. It was that I didn’t know how to have that conversation.

“I think you can turn anyone on in that dress,” she said, without a hint of discomfort. It made me realize that maybe she didn’t need to have any conversation. Maybe
I
had changed and was now seeing things I had been blind to before.

“Okay, I’ll admit, it doesn’t look half bad, but where would I wear something like this? It’d be a total waste sitting in my closet.”

“Olive. You don’t buy a dress like this for an occasion. You create the occasion for the dress.”

I thought about Derek and how I never got dressed up for him. I always thought our senior prom would be the first time. Then I thought about all the fancy women at Disney Hall, how this was exactly the kind of dress they would wear, for no occasion at all. I started to fantasize about wearing it one day for Nick. “Then help me pick some shoes to go with it.”

Barefoot, I marched out into the store. The lightweight chiffon tickled my thighs with each step. The more I moved, the more comfortable I felt, as if the dress was made of feathers that would lift me up, up, and away.

“Work it, girl,” Annie said, following close behind.

I paraded across the room like a model on the catwalk. When I got to the door, I kept going, strutting my stuff out in the main mall. I didn’t know what possessed me but I couldn’t stop.

With the tags still on the dress, my hasty departure set off the store alarm. Within seconds I had the attention of all the passersby. There, among them, standing in front of Tasty Delight Frozen Treats, were Derek and Betsy. He stood holding her purse and a large collection of shopping bags as she ate her yogurt. They were both looking at me. I could just imagine how much fun he was having; he hated the mall and he definitely despised shopping. His mother still picked his wardrobe from a catalog at the beginning of every school year. Betsy tried to
whisper something in his ear but Derek leaned away from her, still staring.

I felt my throat tighten and my knees begin to buckle. I closed my eyes and pictured Nick standing next to me, his soothing voice calmly counting in my ear. When I got to ten, I opened my eyes again. My throat was back to normal and I took a deep breath. “Take a picture. It’ll last longer,” I yelled across the way before sashaying my hips, spinning around, and flitting back into the boutique with Annie in a fit of laughter.

“I CAN WAIT
with you,” Annie said when we pulled up to the community center. There were twenty minutes until the meeting started.

“That’s okay. I need to catch up on some homework,” I said, patting my schoolbag, which contained
Mrs. Dalloway
. I had been carrying it everywhere even though I never cracked it open, as if just having it on me would make the words seep into my brain via osmosis. But it clearly wasn’t that easy.

“Right, homework…” she said with a knowing look. “Is the assignment Nick?”

“Annie!” I flipped down the sun visor but after one glance in the mirror, immediately flipped it back up. I hated looking at myself close up, where there was no hiding the patches of uneven skin, the blemishes from having tried to scratch away too many chicken pox when I was seven. That was one of the reasons I was always so nervous when Derek used to kiss me with the lights on. I hated the thought of him seeing me up close, so exposed. “How many times do I have to tell you we’re just friends?”

“Yeah, friends with ‘benefits’ when he sees you in that.” I was wearing one of my new outfits from our shopping spree. It wasn’t all that different from my usual T-shirt and jeans, but the look had been Annie-fied, which is to say everything was much tighter. “He’s going to have to fend off all those middle-aged guys who will be drooling all over you. They’ll think they’ve died—again—and gone to heaven.”

“Ewwww, gross. And on that lovely mental image, I’m leaving,” I said, opening the door.

“Wait. Am I picking you up?”

“No, I’m good.” A small pit began to form in my stomach as the words came out of my mouth. I didn’t even know if Nick was going to show and now here I was jinxing it. It was entirely possible that I’d never see him again. What on earth was I thinking? I could easily end up stranded in the middle of creep-ville.

“Yup, just what I thought,” she said, revving the engine. “I expect a FULL report mañana, hot mama.”

My heart raced as I watched Annie’s car disappear down the road. I suddenly felt extremely foolish for telling her to leave. All I had to do was dial her number, and she’d be back. Within ten minutes, we’d be on the freeway. I could sneak back into my room while Noah fell asleep in front of the television, while my mother finished washing her gardening tools, while my father still toiled away in his office, all before the meeting even ended. I leaned against the scaffolding, gripping it with both hands to try to steady myself. With the torn posters tickling my fingers beneath, I slowly began to count until my pulse slowed, just the way Nick had taught me last week. Was it only
a week ago? In some ways it felt like yesterday, but in others like another lifetime.

I shook it off, put in my headphones, and decided to take a walk. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with Stuart and crew, especially after my dramatic exit the previous week. I crossed to the other side of the street to see if by some unlikely miracle Nick was already here, parked in the same illegal “spot” as last week. I kept my head down and counted the number of steps it took to get there—
ten, eleven, twelve
—telling myself the whole way that if his car was there, then everything would work out, that I would end up happy. I used to play this game waiting for Derek to call me when I couldn’t reach him. It always worked. Well, almost always.

Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen
…

I heard a nearby car honk twice, but I didn’t look up. Maybe I was attracting the wrong kind of attention and should have worn my old clothes. I wasn’t used to being noticed like that. When people described me, they would say things like: “Olive Bell is nice” or “Olive Bell is quiet,” but never “Olive Bell is cute” and certainly not “Olive Bell is sexy.”

The car honked again, this time with four long, persistent beeps. I yanked out my earbuds and turned around to give the driver a piece of my mind. “Hey!—” I stopped midsentence as the car—a beat-up green Jaguar—pulled over and the driver’s window opened. Nick sat behind the wheel.

“Oh, it’s you,” I said sheepishly.

“No, please, carry on. I’m dying to know what you were going to say.”

“Do you always honk at people like that?” I countered, relaxing a bit as his wry smile poked through.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”

The melody hovered, like a low-settling fog. It was as if each strum of the guitar was a breadcrumb that led me here to this place, to Nick.

“It’s okay.”

“Last I checked, the meeting’s in the other direction.”

His jawline was covered in a thicker layer of black stubble, which made him look older—and even more handsome. But combined with the way his dark hair flopped over his eyes and into his face, it also gave the impression that he was hiding from something or someone.

“I’m not in the mood,” I said, trying to cover the fact that I was really out here looking for him. “Besides, aren’t you the one who said they’re bullshit?”

“I’m sorry I’m such a bad influence.” Even with the accent, I could tell he really meant it, that he wasn’t teasing this time.