Someone Like You (22 page)

 

The next afternoon, when I was supposedly at work and Macon and I were over at his house, his hand crept back again to our familiar battleground. I grabbed it, sat up, and said, “Who's Rhetta?”

He looked at me. “Who?”

“Rhetta.”

“Why?”

“I just want to know.”

He sighed loudly, dramatically, then flopped back across the bed. “She's just this friend of mine,” he said. “She lives over on Coverdale.”

“You go over there a lot?” I knew I sounded petty and jealous, but there was no other way to handle this. I was prepared, soon, to hand over something valuable to him. I needed to be sure.

 

“Sometimes.” He traced my belly button with one finger, absently. To him, this was obviously no big deal. “How'd you know about her?”

“Elizabeth Gunderson,” I said. I was watching his face closely for a sign, any suspicious ripple at the sound of her name.

“Yeah, she's over there sometimes,” he said casually. “She and Rhetta are friends, or something.”

“Really.”

“Yeah.” I was watching him, and he just stared back, suddenly catching on, and said, “What, Halley? What's your problem ?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I just thought it was weird you never mentioned it. Elizabeth said she'd seen you there a lot.”

“Elizabeth doesn't know anything.”

“She acts like she does,” I said.

“So? Is that my fault?” He was getting angry. “God, Halley, it's nothing, okay? Why is this important now?”

“It isn't,” I said. “Except half the time I don't know where you are or what you're doing and then I hear from Elizabeth you're off somewhere you never told me about hanging out with her.”

“I'm not hanging out with her. I'm at the same place she is, sometimes. I'm not used to being accountable to anyone. I can't tell you what I'm doing every second, because half the time I don't even know
myself.”
He shook his head. “It's just the way I am.”

Back in the beginning, when P.E. was my life and nothing had happened between us yet, it wasn't like this. Even two months ago, when I'd spent my afternoons just driving around with him, listening to the radio under a bright blue fall sky, there hadn't been these issues, these awkward silences. We didn't talk or laugh as much anymore, or even just play around. Everything had narrowed to just going to his house, parking out by the lake and battling for territory while arguing about trust and expectations. It was like dealing with my mother.

“Look,” he said, and he slid his arm around my waist, pulling me close against him. “You've just got to trust me, okay?”

“I know,” I said, and it was easy to believe him as we lay there in the early winter darkness, him kissing my forehead, my bare feet entwined with his. It all felt good, real good, and this is what people
did;
all people, except me. I felt closer than ever to telling him I loved him, but I bit it back. He had to say it first, and I willed him to just as I'd willed him to come over to me in P.E. when it all began.

Feuilleton, feuilleton,
I thought hard in my head as he kissed me.
Feuilleton, feuilleton.
Kissing him felt so good and I closed my eyes, feeling his skin warm against mine, breathing him in.

Feuilleton, feuilleton,
as his hand crept down to my waistband.
I love you, I love you.

But I didn't hear it, just like I always hadn't. I pushed his hand back, trying to keep kissing him, but he pulled away, shaking his head.

“What?” I said, but I knew.

“Is it me?” he asked. “I mean, is it just you don't want to do it with me?”

“No,” I said. “Of course not. It's just—it's a big deal to me.”

“You said you were thinking about it.”

“I am.”
Every damn second,
I thought. “I am, Macon.”

He sat back, his hands still around my waist. “What happened with Scarlett,” he said confidently, “that's, like, an impossibility. We'll be careful.”

“It's not about that.”

He was watching me. “Then what is it about?”

“It's about me,” I told him, and by the way he shifted, looking out the window, I could tell that wasn't the right answer. “It's just the way I am.”

We had come to the same place we always did, a place I knew well. Just standing across the battle line, eye to eye, no further than where we'd started. A draw.

 

Christmas was coming, and everyone seemed suddenly giddy. All the mothers came into Milton's in sweatshirts with wreaths and reindeer on them and even my boss, congested Mr. Averby, wore a Santa hat on the day before Christmas. My parents went to party after party, and I lay in bed and listened to them as they came home, half drunk and silly, their voices muffled and giggly downstairs. Grandma Halley's move to the rest home was all set, and my mother was going up there in early January to help. I thought of my grandmother in that tiny room, small in her bed, and pushed the thought away.

We had our tree, all the presents beneath it, and the Christmas cards lined up on the mantel. We had lights strung up across the porch and Christmas knickknacks on every free bit of table or wall space. My father kept breaking things. First, with a too-bold arm movement, he sent the chubby smiling porcelain Santa off the end table and into the wall, and later one of the three Wise Men from the crèche under the tree rolled across the floor and was flattened, easily, as he walked through the room.
Crunch.
This happened every year, which explained why all of our Christmas sets were short something—a baby Jesus, one reindeer, the tallest singing caroller. The Christmas Victims.

Scarlett and I did our shopping together at the mall, in the evenings; she bought an ABBA CD for Cameron, his favorite, and I got Macon a pair of Ray-Ban sunglasses, since he was always losing his. The mall was crowded and hot and even the little mechanical elves in the Santa Village seemed tired.

I felt like I saw Macon less and less. He was always running off with his friends, his phone calls shorter and shorter. When he did pick me up or we went out it wasn't just us anymore; we were usually giving someone a ride here or there, or one of his friends tagged along. He was constantly distracted, and I stopped finding candy in my pockets and backpack. One day in the bathroom I overheard some girl saying Macon had stolen her boyfriend's car stereo, but when I asked him he just laughed and shook his head, telling me not to believe everything I heard in the bathroom. When he called me now, from noisy places I wondered about, I got the feeling it was only because he felt he had to, not because he missed me. I was losing him, I could feel it. I had to act soon.

Meanwhile, my mother was so happy, sure that things were good between us again. I'd catch her smiling at me from across the room, pleased with herself, as if to say,
See, wasn't I right? Isn't this better?

On Christmas Eve, after my parents had left for another party, Macon came over to give me my present. He'd called from the gas station down the street and said he only had a minute. I met him outside.

“Here,” he said, handing me a box wrapped in red paper. “Open it now.”

It was a ring, silver and thick, that looked like nothing I would have picked out for myself. But when I slid it on, it looked just right. “Wow,” I said, holding up my right hand. “It's beautiful.”

“Yeah. I knew it would be.” He already had the sunglasses; I wasn't good at keeping secrets. He'd convinced me to give him his present the day I got it, begging and pleading like a little kid. They were only half his present, but he didn't know that yet.

“Merry Christmas,” I said, leaning over and kissing him. “And thanks.”

“No problem,” he said. “It looks good on you.” He lifted up my hand and inspected my finger.

“So,” I asked, “what are you doing tonight?”

“Nothing much.” He let my hand drop. “Just going out with the fellas.”

“Don't you have to do stuff with your mom?”

He shrugged. “Not tonight.”

“Are you going over to Rhetta's?”

A sigh. He rolled his eyes. “I don't know, Halley. Why?”

I kicked at a bottle on the ground by my feet. “Just wondered.”

“Don't start this again, okay?” He glanced down the road. One mention of this and he was already twitchy, ready to go.

But I couldn't stop. “Why don't you ever take me there?” I said. “Or any of the places you go? I mean, what do you guys do?”

“It's nothing,” he said easily. “You wouldn't like it. You'd be bored.”

“I would not.” I looked at him. “Are you ashamed of me or something?”

“No,” he said. “Of course not. Look, Halley. Some of the places I hang out I wouldn't
want
you to go. It's not your kind of place, you know?”

I was pretty sure this was an insult. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing.” He waved me off, frustrated. “Forget it.”

“What, you think I'm too naive or something? To hang out with your friends?”

“That's not what I said.” He sighed. “Let's not do this. Please?”

I had a choice here: to let it go, and wonder if that what was what he meant, or keep at him and be sure. But it was Christmas, and the lights on the tree in our front window were twinkling and bright. I had a ring on my finger, and that had to mean something.

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I really like my ring.”

“Good.” He kissed me, smoothing back my hair. “I gotta go, okay? I'll call you.”

“Okay.”

He kissed me again, then went around to the driver's side of the car, his head ducked against the wind. “Macon.”

“What?” He was half in the car, half out.

“What are you doing for New Year's?”

“I don't know yet. Why?”

“Because I want to spend it with you,” I said. Even as I said it I hoped he understood what I was saying, how big this was. What I was giving him. “Okay?”

He stood there, watching my face, and then nodded. “Okay. It's a plan.”

“Merry Christmas,” I said again as he got in the car.

“Merry Christmas,” he called out, then turned on the engine, gunning it, and backed out of the driveway. At the bottom he flashed his lights and beeped, then screeched away noisily, bringing on Mr. Harper's front light.

So that was that. I'd made my choice and now I had to stick to it. I told myself it was the right thing, what I wanted to do, yet something still felt uneven and off-balance. But it was too late to go back now.

Then I heard Scarlett's voice.

“Halley! Come here!”

I whirled around. She was standing in her open front door, hand on her stomach, waving frantically. Behind her I could see Cameron, a blotch of black against the yellow light of the living room.

“Now! Hurry!” She was yelling as I ran across the street, my mind racing: something was wrong with the baby. The baby. The baby.

I got to her front stoop, panting, already in crisis mode, and found her smiling at me, her face excited. “What?” I said. “What is it?”

“This.” And she took my hand and put it on her stomach, toward the middle and down, and I felt her skin, warm under my hand. I looked up at her, wondering, and then I felt it. A ripple under my hand, resistance—a kick.

“Did you feel that?” she said, putting her hand over mine. She was grinning. “Did you?”

“Yeah,” I said, holding my hand there as it—the baby—kicked again, and again. “That's amazing.”

“I know, I know.” She laughed. “The doctor said it should happen soon, but when it did, it just freaked me out. I was just sitting on the couch and
boom.
I can't even explain it.”

“You should have seen her face,” Cameron said in his low, quiet voice. “She almost started crying.”

“I did not,” Scarlett said, elbowing him. “It was just—I mean, you hear about what it's like to feel it for the first time, and you think people are just dramatic—but it was really
something,
you know. Really something.”

“I know,” I said, and we sat down together on the stoop. I looked at Scarlett, her face flushed, fingers spread across the skin of her belly, and I wanted to tell her what I'd decided. But it wasn't the time, so just I put my hand over hers, feeling the kicks, and held on.

My mother spent the whole day of New Year's Eve madly cleaning the house for her annual New Year's Anniversary Party. She was so distracted it wasn't until late afternoon, as I lifted my legs so she could get to a patch of floor by the TV, that she concerned herself with me.

“So what are your plans tonight?” she asked, spraying a fog of Pledge on the coffee table and then attacking it with a dustcloth. “You and Scarlett going to watch the ball drop in Times Square?”

“I don't know,” I said. “We haven't decided.”

“Well, I've been thinking,” she said, working her way over to the mantel, and then around the Christmas tree, which regardless of my father's loudest grumbling was still standing, dropping what seemed like mountains of needles anytime anyone passed it. “Why not just stay here and help me out? I sure could use it.”

“Yeah, right,” I said. I honestly thought she was joking. I mean, it was New Year's Eve, for God's sake. I watched her as she sanitized the bookcase.

“The Vaughns will be here, and you can keep an eye on Clara for us, and you and Scarlett always like helping out at the party—”