Since You've Been Gone (20 page)

When the silence got to be too much, I headed out with my trash and stuffed it into one of the overflowing cans. Now that the parking lot was emptying out, I could see Frank and Collins standing by Collins’s minivan. Not feeling the need to keep humiliating myself in front of Frank—I figured that quota had pretty much been met tonight—I turned my head away and was halfway to my car when I heard Collins calling me.

“Emma!” he yelled, and then I saw Frank lean over and say something to him, and Collins nodded. “Emi
ly
!” he called, finally getting my name right. “Come here!” I just waved at him and continued over to my car, hoping that he would buy that I hadn’t heard him. “
No
,” Collins shouted, louder than ever, now incorporating large hand movements, pointing at me, then at him, and miming walking. “Come
over here
!” People were starting to turn and look, and I knew there was really no way I could keep pretending.

I let out a long breath and headed over to them. Frank and Collins were having what looked like an intense discussion that stopped abruptly when I reached the minivan. “Hello,” Collins said, giving me a theatrical wink. “Don’t you look lovely tonight. It would have been a fetching ensemble for a mugshot.”

I could feel myself blush and looked over at Frank, who glared at Collins, who didn’t seem to notice. I knew that I probably couldn’t be mad at Frank for telling him. If the situation had been reversed and I’d been here with Sloane and caught Frank
Porter trying to steal something, I wouldn’t even have waited until I saw her—I would have been calling her on the walk to the car. “Nothing to be ashamed of,” Collins went on, smiling wisely at me. “Sometime, when the moment is right, remind me to tell you the story of my time in Disney jail.” He lowered his voice and leaned closer to me. “Spoiler alert—
not
the happiest place on earth.”

I just blinked at Collins. Had he called me over here so that he could make fun of me? I crossed my arms over my chest, and looked back at my car, wishing I hadn’t stopped, just kept on walking. I would have been halfway home by now.

“Matt,” Frank said. His voice was serious, and this—calling Collins by his real name—seemed to focus him.

“Right!” he said, clapping his hands together. “Okay. So I have managed to make plans with the lovely Miss Gwen for tonight,” Collins said, and I noticed for the first time that a dark-haired girl was leaning against a sedan a few cars away, smoking a cigarette and talking on her phone.

“Oh,” I said, remembering what Frank had said about Collins liking the projectionist. “Um, good for you.”

“Why thank you.” He straightened his neon-green polo and smoothed down his hair. Now that I’d seen him a few times this summer, I was beginning to understand that this was his summer uniform—a slightly too-tight bright-colored polo shirt, shorts, and beaten-up flip-flops, making him somehow always look like he’d just gotten off a poorly maintained boat. He smiled at me. “My charms, they’re hard to resist.”

“Dude, she’s using you for a ride to this party,” Frank said, shaking his head.

“I believe you mean she
invited
me to this party,” Collins corrected. “And asked if I could drive her. Which, being a gentleman, I agreed to do.”

Frank just sighed and looked down at the ground.

“Mike!” the projectionist yelled, stepping on her cigarette and lowering her phone. “Are we going, or what?”

“Coming,” Collins yelled, not seeming to care she’d gotten his name wrong. “Anyway,” he said, turning back to us, all business. “Emily.  You can drive Porter home, right? Don’t you guys live near each other?”

“Oh,” I said, looking over at Frank, finally understanding why I’d been summoned. “Sure. No problem.”

I had barely gotten the words out before Collins grinned, slapped Frank on the back, and clicked open the sliding minivan door with a flourish, motioning for Gwen to come over. She ignored the sliding door, got into the passenger side, still carrying on another conversation, and Collins got into the van through the side. The van peeled out of the lot with a screech of tires, leaving Frank and me alone.

“Sorry about this,” Frank said, as we walked toward my Volvo, now one of the few cars left on the field.

“It’s fine,” I said. “I owe you anyway.”

“Well, I appreciate it,” he said. I unlocked the car and, when we were both inside, started the engine and headed toward the
exit. I tightened my hands on the wheel, then released them, trying to figure out how to thank him for what he’d done for me. “Frank,” I started, then I looked over to see that he was staring down at his phone.

“What?” he asked, looking over at me. “Sorry. I’ve been trying to get Lissa all night. I haven’t been able to reach her, so I’m just going to shoot her a text. . . .”

“Right, of course,” I said, looking back toward the road. “Sorry.”

The faint tapping on his keypad filled the car, and I didn’t want to turn on my iPod and disturb him—not to mention the fact that I also didn’t want him to make fun of my music. Even when the texting sounds stopped, Frank was just looking down at the phone, like he was waiting for a response, and I wasn’t sure it was the right moment to interrupt him. By the time I’d reached his house, though, he’d put the phone away, and I couldn’t help but notice that I hadn’t heard the cheerful
beep
sound that would have meant Frank had gotten a reply back.

“Thanks, Emily,” Frank said as I pulled in the driveway.

“Sure,” I said. “It was no—” Whatever I was about to say was lost, though, as I took in the view of Frank’s house at night for the first time. The whole house was dark, but I could see that it was right on the water, something I hadn’t been able to tell before from the road. Moonlight was shining down on the house and reflecting off its chrome and glass surfaces, seeming to light the whole thing up from the inside. “Are you right on the beach?”

“Yeah,” Frank said. After a tiny pause, he added, “You want to see it?”

“Oh,” I said, sitting back in my seat a little. I suddenly worried that I’d seemed too interested, and that he felt like he had to invite me in out of politeness. “No, that’s okay. Plus, it looks like your parents are asleep.”

“Nope,” Frank said, and it sounded like he was trying to keep his voice light. I noticed this, and wondered when I’d started to be able to tell the difference. “Not home.”

“Oh.” I glanced at the clock on my iPod—the clock on my dashboard was forever stuck at 8:19. It was almost midnight, so this surprised me, but I certainly wasn’t going to comment on it.

“Yeah,” Frank said with a shrug. “My dad’s in Darien, working on a house, and my mom has a decorating project in the city. And they’re not supposed to be in the house together anyway, because . . .” He glanced at me, and suddenly I remembered his parents, red-faced and screaming at each other, Frank’s expression as he listened to it. “So that’s why nobody’s there,” Frank said in a quieter voice, and I suddenly understood what he was saying. That he was staying here alone. And even though my parents were still physically in our house, I knew what it was like to come home and have nobody be worried about you, or asking you about your day. All the stuff you can’t wait to get away from, until it’s not there anymore, and then you miss it like crazy.

“I’ll come in,” I said, surprising myself—and Frank, by the look of it. “Just for a little bit.”  With any other guy, I might have
been worried there was some sort of ulterior motive—asking me in, late at night, to an empty house. But that wasn’t even anything I considered with Frank—long-term boyfriend and all-around good guy—except to realize it wasn’t an issue.

“Great,” Frank said, giving me a surprised, happy smile. “Let’s go.” I followed him around to the side door he’d gone in before. When he opened the door, a loud, persistent chime started, until Frank entered a code into a keypad I hadn’t even noticed by the door. The beeping stopped and Frank moved forward, turning on lights as he went, and I followed, but then stopped short, looking around, really seeing his house for the first time, my jaw falling open.

It was beautiful. There were many other words for it, whole reams of adjectives, but at first glance, that was all I could come up with. The downstairs was open-plan, which meant I could see the entire bottom floor, the TV room blending into the study, which then became the dining area, and then an open-plan kitchen and breakfast nook. The house was light and airy, with high ceilings and lots and lots of windows, everything done in grays and blues and whites. Everything just fit together. There were tiny groupings of objects, arranged just so. I saw, on a bookshelf right by the front door, a big vase filled with long feathers. Which was arresting enough, but on the shelf above it, there was a medium vase filled with medium-size feathers. And at the top shelf was a tiny vase filled with the smallest feathers I’d ever seen. There was stuff like that, little details and perfect
touches, everywhere I looked, and I suddenly wanted nothing more than to just stand there and take it all in.

“Emily?” Frank called, and I realized he had crossed the room and was standing by a glass door built into an entire wall of windows, all of which looked out onto the sand and the water.

“Yeah,” I said, tearing myself away from the décor, knowing that there was a ton of stuff I wasn’t catching. Frank opened the door, and we stepped out onto a wide wooden deck that looked out to the water, with four steps that led down to the sand. The only time I’d ever been to the beach at night was for the Fourth of July fireworks, when there were tons of people and everyone jockeying for space. But this stretch of moonlit beach was empty, and I realized that Frank and I would have the whole thing to ourselves.

I trailed Frank down the stairs and stepped onto the sand, then immediately kicked my flip-flops off so that I could feel it on my bare feet. I saw Frank do the same, pulling off his sneakers and then lining them up neatly by the deck’s steps.

I walked toward the water, to where the sand got soft and more pliable, but where my feet would still be dry. There was just something about the beach at night. It was so quiet, without anyone else yelling or playing Frisbee or blasting their music.  And maybe because of this, the sound of the water—even though we didn’t even have real waves—seemed that much louder.  And then there was the moon. It was huge tonight, in a sky that was filled with stars that reflected down on the surface of the water.

I expected that this would be it—I’d seen that Frank’s house was, in fact, on the water, and now I’d leave and go home. But as I turned back, I saw Frank sitting on the sand looking out at the water, his legs extended in front of him. I hesitated for only a moment before I sat down as well, not too close to him, pulling my knees up and hugging them. “I like your backyard,” I said, and Frank smiled.

“Well, I should enjoy it while I can,” he said, picking up a handful of sand and letting it fall through his fingers. I sensed there was more to come, so I just looked at him, waiting, trying to be as patient with him as he’d been with me. “My parents are getting a divorce,” he said. He let the rest of the sand fall and brushed his hands off. “That’s what you saw the other morning.” I could see the hunch in his shoulders. “It’s gotten pretty messy.”

I felt myself draw in a breath. It was what I’d guessed, given the screaming fight that I’d witnessed. “I’m really sorry, Frank.”

He nodded and looked over at me, and it felt like in that moment, I was getting to see the real Frank Porter, like he was finally letting his walls down a little, not putting a good face on things. “Yeah,” he said, giving a short, unhappy laugh. “They work together, so they’re keeping it quiet, so they don’t lose any jobs. But they’re having trouble dividing assets, so they’re not supposed to be in the house together without their lawyers present.” His mouth was set in a sad, straight line, and though he was trying to sound like this wasn’t bothering him, he wasn’t really pulling it off.

“So,” I said, leaning a little closer to him, trying to understand this, “I mean, who’s living here with you?”

“Well, they’re trading off,” he said. “In theory. It seems to be easier for them to just stay near their other projects.”

I nodded and looked down at the sand, smoothing out a patch of it, over and over again. Even though my parents weren’t paying any attention to me or Beckett, they were still there. And I knew if I needed them, I could shake them out of their writing stupor.

“Anyway, that’s why I’m here for the summer. I usually go to a program at Princeton. And I was going to go back again, but neither one could agree on who should pay for it, so . . .” He shrugged and gave me an attempt at a smile.

Even as I started to form the question, I knew I wouldn’t have asked him if it hadn’t been dark and I couldn’t have looked down at the sand instead of at him. “Is your—I mean, is Lissa at the Princeton program?” It was what I’d been wondering since Frank had been trying to get in touch with her on the drive here. It had reminded me that, in all the times I’d seen Frank this summer, he’d never been with his girlfriend.

Frank nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “We didn’t think she should have to miss out just because I couldn’t go.” I waited for there to be more, but Frank just looked out to the water, and when he spoke again, his voice sounded like he was trying his best to be upbeat. “Anyway, Collins got me the job at IndoorXtreme, and here I am. It wasn’t the summer I was expecting, that’s for sure,”
he said. But then he smiled, a small smile, but a real one this time. “But it’s turning out better than I imagined.” He raised an eyebrow. “I mean, just tonight, I might have saved someone from getting arrested.”

I smiled. “Thank you for that, by the way.”

Frank waved this off. “All in a day’s work.”

“Does the offer still stand?” I asked, not knowing that I was going to, just blurting it out. “To help me with the list, I mean?”

“Of course,” Frank said, turning to me. “Actually,” he said with a smile, “I kind of already started.”

I laughed, and knew that I really shouldn’t have been surprised by this. “Of course you did.”