The One That I Want (23 page)

“I’m fine; there’s nothing going on with me,” he answers, and I nod because, well, he seems fine, and I have enough problems of my own.

“Oh, give me a goddamned break,” Darcy says before stomping out of the room. A few seconds later, the chime of the front door rattles as she makes her escape. I’ll find her waiting for me, stewing in the car, right back where we began before the whole mess unloaded itself on me: before my dad, before Tyler, before the visions of my royally screwed future.

“You should go after her,” my dad says, sighing, his fingers pinching the bridge of his nose, a habit I inherited. “But it’s just our usual stuff. Nothing more. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” I say, turning to leave. “Hey, by the way, are you friends with Valerie Simmons? Ashley’s mom?” I’m certain I’d have known if he was, but I can’t stop thinking about him at the hospital, his hands pressed against the glass, a prostrate position of mourning.

“Who?” he asks, already lost in some papers on his desk. Likely September inventory with the month nearly to a close.

“No one,” I answer before heading out the door to my thunderstorm of a sister. “Forget I even mentioned it at all.”

T
he Westlake grand premiere of
Grease
is slated for homecoming, the second weekend in October, during which time the town virtually spins itself into a self-parodying snow globe, filled with red and white streamers, red and white banners, Wizard hats, Wizard wands, Wizard glitter that lays sprinkled in the streets long after the Westlake Wizard parade has wound its way through town. Old players return and sit atop convertibles, waving to their friends and family, who cheer and shout and screech like there isn’t something a little weird about the subtle acknowledgment that maybe these grown men, at twenty-five or thirty-five or sixty-five, reached their peak at seventeen. I’d never actually thought of it that way until just now, now that I don’t have my husband to hoot for, to get a little misty for, as he and his classmates are wheeled around, kings on their rusted thrones.

I texted him three days ago,
“Will u be back for homecoming?”
thinking he’d never miss a chance to have his own horn tooted—this, after all, was what these men lived for. But he replied six hours later,
“No, might have to delay some more. Maybe end of Oct. WLYK.”

I spent the better part of an hour trying to decipher
WLYK—
Will love you k? Would like your knees?
—until Luanne peeked over my shoulder and said, “Will let you know,” and then under her breath added, “A-hole.” To which I said, not at all under my breath, “Amen.” I then resisted the urge to respond with a short and succinct,
“FU” (“Even he could interpret that meaning,”
Luanne noted), and instead simply left it at,
“LMK.”

Three days later, on homecoming morning, he still hasn’t—hasn’t
LMK
—though I know that his silence lets me know everything all the same. That one day soon, the winds will push in a cold rain from the west, and he and Austin will lug his belongings—all of the material items he’s collected as he built his life with me—out of our house, out of this town, out of my life entirely. I consider for a fleeting moment, as I run a blush brush over my cheeks, calling the Salvation Army, dumping all of his crap—the sweaters I bought for him, the prized ball he caught at a Mariners game, the golf clubs I gave him two Christmases ago—right into their truck.
Ha! Yes! Ha ha!
I flourish the brush over my left cheek, a smile worming its way over me.
Would that be rich, wouldn’t that be just the perfect capper for him to return to—coming back to pack and discovering there’s nothing here to pack at all!
I wrap myself into the fantasy, knowing I’ll never have the guts to do it but reveling in it all the same. I can at least revel in that.

The homecoming parade is set to kick off at eleven, and Darcy and Murphy’s Law have been invited to play at the staging site. I wouldn’t be going at all if not to support her: I tried to convince Susanna to let me deal with the last-minute
Grease
snafus—someone had spilled gallons of water, God knows how, over our “Beauty School Dropout” backdrop, which left it looking more like a blurry sea of tacky, glittery blues, golds, and silvers; and the chorus (aka, the kids who really,
really
couldn’t sing but needed to fulfill a music elective and thus were relegated to the ensemble)
still
couldn’t master the hand jive, but she tsk-tsked me and shooed me away.

“Scotty volunteered, anyway,” she said, the corners of her mouth upturning. “He’s bringing me coffee, and we’ll repaint the sets.”

“Nice.” I smiled back.

“Whatever,” she said, though neither of us believed her.

So while it is quite possible that the last place on the planet that I wanted to be right now was out and mingling with the very people who had pinned their hopes on Tyler’s right arm a decade and a half ago at the state championship or gifted us with hams or cheap knife sets for our wedding, or who, I know, burned up the phone lines when he left, I’m here regardless. To cheer on my baby sister, who has tried to cheer me on during these past few desolate months.

The parade begins in the same parking lot that I careened into way back in July, swerving in for a fix of tequila when I simply couldn’t take another second of clarity.
Clarity
. The word clangs around in my brain, and I nearly laugh, because whatever Ashley hoped to impart to me, she has done just the opposite. I have tried to shut down my brain, stop it from wondering about the unresolved questions the visions have raised, or why they matter in the first place.
It all happens anyway!
What, really, is the point? Enough with everyone’s issues—Ashley and my father and Darcy—and their hiccups and their problems! I’ve had enough of everyone else’s crap, and God help me, I’m not about to see any more of it. Not when all it proves is that more crap is ahead on the horizon.

I watch as one of the reporters from the newspaper staff interviews Principal Anderson, and I spot Principal McWilliams from my own years at Westlake, grinning beside him. His face now looks
like a worn cowhide, and his dentures are still one size too big for his mouth.
Good God, some things never do change
.

A hearty crowd of several hundred, most adorned with red and white face paint or ridiculous wizard hats or some sort of school pride paraphernalia, has gathered by now. A platform is set up toward the side, nearly in front of the liquor store, bordered with two large speakers, already emitting tiny, grating waves of feedback into the crowd. It is one of those quintessentially perfect fall days, with apple crisp air, ruby red leaves, and bursts of sun we’ll all be longing for in another few weeks. I glance around, wondering if Ashley will show today. I haven’t seen her in half a week, since she showed up at my office unannounced right when I was busy procrastinating, doing nothing.

“She seized,” she said, her hands cradling her face. “Her eyes rolled back into her head, and I called nine-one-one …” She paused for breath. “So this is probably it. She’s going into hospice. She’s never coming back home.” She looked up at my wall of Polaroids and tried to smile. “I wish I could be sixteen again.”

“No you don’t,” I reminded her. “You hated being sixteen.”

“Probably.” She shrugged. “But I’m not loving thirty-two either.”

I knew that she wanted me to offer to tell her more, to try to flash forward and tell her when she—when we all—could be put out of this misery. But she didn’t ask, and I wasn’t about to offer, because, as I’d learned already, who knew if we’d
ever
be put out of our misery, and really, who needs to know that it might never end?

I swivel my neck skyward: there are no signs of the incoming storm that will mark Tyler’s arrival, only, in the distance, my dad flapping his arm at me across the way, moving closer. He is wearing his Elks Club jacket, ready to march through the town with his
compatriots, waving at neighbors and friends like he doesn’t see them every other day at the gas station or the drugstore.

I’ve walked in the parade three times, all in high school, all as a cheerleader for the Westlake Wizards. Each year, we’d spin ourselves mad, tossing legs high into the air, punching pom-poms with gusto that only fifteen-year-olds can possess, screaming our little hormonal lungs out for our baseball-playing, football-playing, basketball-playing boyfriends, who had captured the championship crown earlier that fall. My senior year, just after we crossed the end line, with the Wizard band blaring behind us, Tyler whisked me up, tossed me over his shoulder, and plopped me down in his truck, where we proceeded to make out to a particularly off-key version of “La Bamba,” in which the tuba players needed neutering.

Last year, though, for the first time since graduation, Ty begged off. Said he wasn’t feeling well, though now I’m sure it was just another red flag, another alarm bell that I overlooked. I came home with flushed cheeks and
“You won’t believe it”
stories pouring out of me, but the house was silent. When he got home thirty minutes later, I was knee-deep in editing college applications, and I remember noticing that he was sweaty and seemingly recovered.

“Feeling better,” he said before he ducked up the stairs toward the shower. “So I went out for a run.” I nodded and hadn’t thought of it again until now. Your memory does that sometimes, plays that trick on you, rewinding passing seconds of your life, and you realize you overlooked the most important details of that bygone moment.

“I don’t know who I am without you.”
Tyler’s words vibrate through me. Slowly, I am understanding that indeed, every part of who I have become in Westlake is pinned to him in some way as well. The problem is, I don’t know how to
unpin
myself. Maybe it
was always this way, I contemplate, as I kiss my dad hello and Dante jumps on the stage to kick off the festivities. Maybe it was just that I never thought there’d be a time when defining myself outside of Tyler would actually matter. But now, I can’t go anywhere
—anywhere
!—and not see him, even though, of course, I recognize the irony in this, that I’m only seeing him everywhere because he is gone.

The thought of this, of him, of this ridiculous shebang—the Westlake glitter flitting through the air, the crowd gathered to cheer on these men choking on their glory days—makes me want to heave my insides out. Who throws these men these stupid parades? Why do we give one stinking shit about what they did three goddamn decades ago? I
do
wish Tyler was here, I realize, but only so I could smack him clear across the face.
God, wouldn’t that feel good
.

I am sinking into that vision, of his skin against the palm of my hand, of me letting him know just how much he has
fucking disappointed me
, when I feel a tap on my shoulder. I spin around, violence still on my brain, and there is Eli.

He is out of breath, the edge of his forehead dotted with sweat, so when he runs his hand through his hair and says hello, his bangs sort of stick there, aloft, jutting out toward nowhere.

“I knew I’d find you here,” he says, then adds, by way of explanation, “I ran here, had to double check that the yearbook staff was on time and set up to photograph everything.” He cocks his head. “You okay?”

I start to respond, but Darcy’s voice reverberates over the speakers, and the crowd emits a supportive cheer as she thanks them for coming out, which I find sort of endearing, considering these folks would show up for a Westlake Wizards prostate exam, but Darcy has never been one not to embrace an audience. I push Tyler away
—poof
—yes, I can eradicate you just like you did me.

The drum plays a steady percussion and the guitar kicks in with a searing wail, and Darcy is off, both pulling us in and pushing us away as she enters her frenetic, transcendent state onstage. I thrust my hands into my purse and pull out the Nikon.
Click
. Darcy leaning out toward the crowd like she is a superstar.
Click
. Darcy’s eyes folded shut, lost in the meaning of a lyric.
Click
. Darcy nearly smiling now, absorbing the approval and applause of the crowd.

“She’s mesmerizing,” Eli leans in and says over my shoulder into my ear. He smells like minty toothpaste.

“Too bad Tyler isn’t here,” someone says into my other ear, and I look over to find Ginny Bowles parked next to me. Ginny graduated beside me, was a fellow cheerleader for the duration of high school. She also harbored a crush on Tyler well into our college years, and now, despite marrying Chuck “the Chicken” Stanley, who now runs the local auto repair shop, she still makes googly eyes and pushes her breasts higher toward her neck and at Ty every time she has the opportunity. “I hear he’s moving out of here for good.”

I shrug, hoping that will shut her up.
Just shut up!
I raise the camera back to my eye.

“So it’s true that he left you?” Her breath is too close to me and smells like old Juicy Fruit, her fuchsia lipstick smeared on her front teeth, reminding me of a crazy, drunken clown.

“Oh, shut up, Ginny,” I say, and her penciled-on eyebrows pop.

“I was just asking, for God’s sake,” she sniffs.

“You’ve never been just asking.” The camera is down now, and I turn and size her up, wondering if I can take her in a fistfight if I need to.

“Don’t shoot the messenger,” she says, open palmed, faux-innocently.

“What does that mean?” I yell. “Do you have any goddamn
idea what that even means, because it doesn’t mean what you think it means! You’re not the fucking messenger, Ginny! If you can’t learn to put on your lipstick properly, at least learn to use your clichés properly for Christ’s sake!”

Even with the din of Darcy’s music, people have turned to stare.

“Hey, hey,” Eli says beside me. “Come on now.” He clutches my elbow and drags me two steps away. “Want to get out of here?”

The crowd is throbbing now, red and white all blending together to create a flashing, snaking vision of my rage.