Remember When (Remember Trilogy #1) (28 page)

* * *

   The next day, I went for a long swim before calling Lisa to see if she wanted to go microwave shopping. It was the last thing I needed to buy for my dorm room, and I didn’t feel like being alone. After the toll on my emotions the night before- mopey to heartbroken to sexual deviant- I could have used a good dose of my best friend right about then.

   She answered, sounding cheerier than I’d heard her in a long time. She’d been such a mess the past weeks, Pick’s impending cross-country move never far from her mind, and it was nice to hear a bit of the old Lisa in her voice.

   “What’s with you today, Snow White? You sound like you’re ready to shit rainbows over there.”

   She actually laughed, and I didn’t realize how long it had been since I heard her do that. “Just having a good day, I guess.”

   “Well, that’s good. Glad to hear it!” If she’d found something that day to finally be happy about, I wasn’t about to start asking a million questions why. So, I just launched into one of our favorite topics. “Hey listen, I don’t know if I should get the white or the stainless microwave. Did we decide on our kitchen design yet? Because I know I’m pushing on this, but I’d still really love to do a fifties look. Black and white floor tiles, teal walls. Ooh, hey. Maybe we can find one of those awesome formica tables, you know, with the steel chairs and vinyl seats? Wouldn’t that look so cool?”

   Lisa didn’t respond right away and I thought the phone had disconnected during my ramble.

   “Hellooo. You still there?”

   She took a deep breath and then dropped the bomb. “I’m going with him to California, Layla.”

   Before the words could even form some sense in my brain, she launched into a sprawling diatribe. “I know it seems crazy, Layla. Believe me, I know it’s like, ridiculous, right? I just... I just think that it can be like an adventure, you know? Like I can go start over in some brand new place and be whoever I want to be. And I’ll be there with Pick! We won’t have to say goodbye.”

   I blurted out without thinking, “But
we
will!”

   I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. She was moving to California with Pickford Redy? Did she just actually say that? She was leaving me? Lisa, the one person I could always count on to be by my side. The one person who needed me just as much as I needed her. I guessed she decided she needed Pick more.

   The reality of what she was trying to tell me started to sink in, liquid fire boiling through my veins.

   My voice got infinitely louder at that point as I dove right in, trying to find some sense in what was happening. “What about New York, Lisa? What about
our
plans?”

   “Layla, I know and I’m sorry. I knew this was going to be hard for you.”

 
Hard for me?
Try impossible. Was she serious?

  “You’re barely eighteen! You’re going to be one of those trashy girls that shacks up with her pimply boyfriend in some trailer somewhere and has twelve kids before the age of twenty! What are you
thinking
?”

   Lisa tried making a joke. “Pick doesn’t have pimples.”

   I ignored her attempt at levity and just continued my tirade. “What about
your
life, Lis? You’re gonna follow him all the way out to the west coast and just completely give up your dreams for his? How can you just blow off F.I.T.? You’ve only been talking about going there forever. How can he ask that of you?”

   “He didn’t ask. He wants me to enroll in the fashion program at the Hollywood Arts Institute.”

   “But it’s not New York! It’s not the same thing!”

   “Layla, I don’t know how to make you understand. I
want
to go. I know that seems hurtful right now and I know all you can see is how I’m screwing up our plans, but someday I hope you’ll be able to forgive me. I’m hoping you’ll understand. One day, when you find that one person you know you’re supposed to be with, you’ll do whatever you have to do in order to be with him.”

   “So that’s what you’re doing? Being with your one and only true love, Pickford Redy?
Really, Lisa
?”

   I knew I was putting some extra snotty into my voice, and at that moment, I didn’t really care. She deserved it. How could she do this to me?

   I heard her sigh on the other end of the phone, which pissed me off even further. I’d been yelling like a banshee during our entire conversation, only to hear her calmly respond to my remarks from her end. Where did she get off, expelling some wise-beyond-her-years sigh, talking at me like I was some petulant child and she was so damned mature all of a sudden? Not one month before, I was holding her freaking hair out of the toilet while she puked her guts out after too many shots of Jaeger. Four weeks later, she’s trying out her June Cleaver impersonation?

   “You know what, Lis? FUCK YOU. I hope you and
Pickford
live happily ever after. Have a nice life.”

   I slammed down the phone, so furious that I was actually shaking. It was the worst betrayal ever. I couldn’t believe my best friend in the entire world was content to just throw me into the lion’s den without even looking back. How the hell was I going to survive New York on my own? How could she expect me to?

   I went downstairs and just shrieked the whole sordid story out to my father. The poor man didn’t know what to do with me, stunned that I was slumped at his feet, laying all this information on him.

   “Oh, Layla. I’m so sorry.”

   “Well, at least someone is! Lisa could care less!”

   He finally realized he was holding a book, and placed it on the side table before offering, “I highly doubt that. She loves you, honey.”

   “Well, she obviously loves Pick more!”

   “Be fair. I’m sure this was a hard decision for her.”

   “I doubt it.”

   I was being extraordinarily stubborn, and my father could tell he wasn’t going to get through to me any time soon. He finally capitulated, throwing his
hands in the air and attempted to distract me. “Well, it’s too much to figure out tonight, right?” He got up from his recliner and held out his hand to me. “Come on. I’ll buy you an ice cream cone.”

   I let him haul me up from the floor before he threw an arm around my shoulders and led me to the kitchen. “Everything’s going to work out just fine, Layla-Loo. You’ll see.”

   Yeah, right.

   Not twenty-four hours after having to say goodbye to Cooper, Lisa decided to abandon me. I was so sick of how quickly everything was changing and I couldn’t seem to keep up with it all. I
had enough anxiety about having to leave my friends and family behind, say sayonara to Trip, my dad, my brother... and leave the only place I’d ever lived in my entire life. On top of which Lisa goes and lays all this new information on me. It was just too much to handle for one seventeen-year-old girl.

   If that’s what it took to grow up, then no thank you, I could do without it, thank you very much. It only meant letting go of everything and everyone I ever loved.

DEFENDING YOUR LIFE

   I found myself back at my old locker at St. Norman’s.

   There was a padlock on the handle, which was weird, because those things had been banned the year before. The school was trying out a new honor system, under the misg
uided fantasy that good little Catholic students like us didn’t have any need to lock up our belongings from all the other good little Catholic students. I’d had a leather jacket, numerous writing implements and my senior yearbook stolen over the course of the year, so... I guess it was a pretty good system. Not. Thankfully, I was able to replace the yearbook, but I never did see that jacket again.

   When I saw that the lock had my initials carved into it, I realized it was mine, the one I’d had ever since junior high. I’d left it in my locker all year, hoping for a reversal in the new rule. I must have unconsciously slapped the thing on there on the last day of school. I tried out my old combination: 0-6-16, and it popped right open.

   I was expecting to find an empty space, but instead, there was a single, white rose. My heart starting beating faster, wondering if Trip had left it for me. The more I looked at it, the more I saw that it wasn’t in the best of shape, wilting and browning around the edges, obviously due to inattention. The thing had probably been in there since grad night. I’d never had the greenest thumb, but I’m sure I could have managed to keep a single flower alive, at least for a little while, had I only known it was in there. I figured the best I could do at that point was to try and dry it out and keep it as a memento.

   I went to grab it, intending to press it into my yearbook, when I noticed it was making some sort of noise.

   Like a ticking.

   And then I saw some strange wires protruding from it.

   I looked at the floor of my locker and saw a brick of explosive material- what was that stuff called again?- and wondered who would have left a boobytrap for me. Why is it called a boobytrap?

   But then I realized I shouldn’t care about such details when all I really needed to concentrate on was getting out of there. Quick.

   I tried to run, but it was like I couldn’t get my legs to move properly, practically in cartoon mode, my arms pumping and my legs in a Roadrunner blur, but it wasn’t getting me anywhere. I knew I only had seconds- for some reason, I was able to see the digital readout on the bomb, counting down in boxy, red numerals, even though I’d slammed the locker door shut before trying to run away.

   I somehow made it down the hallway and could see the light from the front doors just steps away. But every step I took toward the exit, the further it moved away from me, until finally- tick, tick, tick, three, two, one- there was a huge
BOOM!
behind me!

   The walls shook, the windows shattered, the floor rippled. I could feel the heat from the blast, lifting me off my feet, hurtling me airborne, my body flying across the foyer and out the door, the concrete stairs coming to meet me at a rapid pace. Falling, falling...

   Falling out of my bed and landing on the floor.

   I shook my head awake and untangled my sweaty self from the sheets, realizing I was safe and sound in my very own room. God. What a weirdo. That’s the last time I fall asleep watching
Die Hard
.

   I peeked out the window and saw that it was another sunny, summer day outside, so I grabbed the one-piece off my doorknob and got dressed to go swimming. The pool was almost too warm that time of year, having been steadily heated from the sun all summer long. But in the cool early morning, I knew it would feel just perfect. I didn’t bother testing the temperature with my toes before diving right in, the oasis enveloping me with a watery calm.

   It had been almost two whole weeks since my fight with Lisa, and we hadn’t spoken to each other the entire time. It was the longest we’d ever gone without talking to one another- even when she went to Italy for a whole month one summer, we managed to get in a weekly phone call- and it felt really strange not having her there.

   There was so much to talk about! I wanted to tell her about the blowjob article in the latest issue of
Cosmo,
and page one-seventeen had directions for making an awesome, fabric-covered bulletin board. I wanted to tell her how great things had been going with Trip and me, and I knew she must have been dying to fill me in about her plans with Pickford. I wanted to show her the pictures from graduation that my father had finally gotten developed- there was a really great one of she and I, and Dad had ordered two five-by-sevens so we could each take one to school.

   To our separate schools, on completely opposite coasts.

   Weeks before, when our New York plan was still in effect, Lisa and I had received our housing assignments within days of each other, both of us scheduled to move in to our respective dorms on the same date in August. Just one short day away.

   I wondered when she’d be expected to report to Hollywood Arts. I wondered if she was even able to enroll at all. Didn’t they have deadlines out in California? Didn’t Pick need to be there early, too?

   I did an Olympic turn at the pool’s edge and pushed off with my feet, loving the feel of strength in my legs and the constant testing of my body’s abilities.

  
Just one more day
.

   I came up for air, pausing at the deep end, throwing my arms over the side to hold my head above water.

   I thought that Lisa and Pickford must have already left, probably days ago. Surely, they wouldn’t still be slumming around Jersey when a glamorous and exciting city like Los Angeles was awaiting their arrival, right?