We Won't Feel a Thing (29 page)

When everything was ready, they changed into their favorite outfits and decked the dining room table with the most romantic tablecloth they could find—a forgotten length of French lace, with a chocolate-mousse stain from an ancient anniversary dinner. They arranged their Puckatoe feast on the Woodlawn wedding china and dug in, their sock feet flirting under the table. As they talked and laughed and cleaned their plates, they could feel color returning to their cheeks, the shadows under their eyes fading.

“Should I get the calendar now?” said Riley, as they split a second cupcake.

Rachel dipped her finger in frosting. “I think we’re ready. Right?”

Riley went upstairs and retrieved the Great Artists in History calendar Mrs. Woodlawn had given him last Christmas. They set it on the table along with two pencils and opened it to August, their last month together. The August picture was Picasso’s
Weeping Woman.

“That’s depressing,” said Riley.

“Let’s find a better one, then.” Rachel flipped through the calendar.

“That’s cheating. You can’t do that.”

“Sure you can.”

Riley grinned and flipped pages with her. They stopped at December, Magritte’s
Blood Will Tell,
a painting that always creeped him out (a little guiltily, because he felt real artists should not be creeped out by others’ art). A giant tree spread its branches against a night sky, two open doors in its thick trunk. Behind the bottom one was a small lit-up dollhouse. Behind the top one was a large white sphere. Riley always thought the sphere looked threatening, like a boulder ready to fall through its thin floor and crush the house to dust. But now it looked almost hopeful—like an egg, or a blank globe waiting to be filled in.

Riley ripped out
Blood Will Tell.
They taped it above the August page.

“Halloween first,” suggested Riley, tapping his pencil on the calendar squares. “What day should we do that?”

“The thirteenth, for sure.”

“It’s a Friday.”

“Even better.”

“What about doing your birthday on the sixteenth?”

“It’s that Monday.” Rachel clapped her hands. “We can see Dead Boy Racer at the Dum Dum Club.”

“Ice cream cake?”

“Obviously.”

Riley penciled it in.

They kept going, warm with good food and big plans. On August fourteenth, they would celebrate Valentine’s Day six months early with dinner in the L’Amour Food! curtained nook. On the twenty-first, they would build the first fire of fall in the stone pit out back. On the twenty-fourth, they would watch their three favorite Christmas specials with the air conditioner cranked and their penguins-in-scarves blanket tucked around them.

They kept planning until every August space was filled. When they were done, they taped the pages together so they wouldn’t peek at September.

Rachel folded her hands on the calendar. “I feel very optimistic about this.”

Riley grinned. “Me too.”

“What time is it now?” said Rachel.

He checked his silver watch. “Almost midnight.”

She pressed the last cupcake crumbs and licked them off her thumb. Her eyes drifted toward the staircase. “I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I really need to get out of these socks.”

***

The ruins of Bob and Athena were swept into a corner on Riley’s side of the room. They would have to be dealt with sometime, but not yet. The orphaned clockface ticked from its new spot, inside the master bedroom of the sandcastle dollhouse.

Rachel sat on her bed. Riley stroked the cracked clockface with his thumb.

“Good day?” said Rachel.

“Great day,” said Riley.

Slowly, Rachel began to remove her tall red crown socks. Riley froze by the dollhouse and watched her. Socks, he discovered, could be erotic.

“Turn off the light,” said Rachel, knotting the socks together.

“I don’t want to,” said Riley.

“Why?”

“I don’t want it to be over.” The clock ticked fast, like a timer about to ding. “Today, I mean.”

Rachel tossed the socks in her hamper. She struck a match.

“Riley. You blockhead.” She lit the two Ocean Breeze votives on the nightstand and turned back her gold velvet quilt. “Who says it’s over?”

Chapter Nineteen

He was gone the next morning.

It took Rachel a moment to realize it. Her vision fuzzed when she opened her eyes; Riley’s watch on her nightstand said she’d slept past noon. The open window let in a smoky breeze that was cool for August, the first real reminder of what fall felt like.

She sat up straight when she sensed his absence beside her and saw the shut mirror door. For a second, she was afraid she’d dreamed it all—but then she smelled his Tidal soap on her sheets and heard signs of life behind the door, the comforting clink and clatter of a new Riley project.

He’d left a note on her nightstand.

happy day 31

this morning’s schedule:

LOVE,

r

p.s. your sweet

The “your” was circled in red with JUST KIDDING next to it. Beside the note was a plate of food: the extra chocolate croissant they’d bought at the coffee shop, a scatter of animal crackers, and a Honeycrisp apple with her letter opener jabbed into it like a dagger. He’d arranged some Trail’s End flowers in a jelly jar. He’d picked out all the red flowers for her. In the center, he’d stuck his blue silk rose from the L’Amour Food! fake-wedding boutonniere.

Rachel picked up Riley’s note gingerly. She braced for the feeling she’d feared: golden bars crashing down and caging the room, an evil mirror draining her powers, turning her into a drowsy love-drunk princess. But her brain whirred sharp and clear and her editing hand—the one she’d used for naughtiness the night before—still itched to make rogue words behave. On the glass pane below Tilly’s wishing heart, she saw fresh images of herself: studying hard with Riley’s photo on her desk; risking an “I don’t know” in class and learning something new; stalking the streets with a smile, her tall black boots powered by happy words.
I love. I am loved.

She picked up the apple and took a big bite.

Love isn’t a cage. It isn’t a mirror.

It’s a window.

When she finished breakfast, Rachel clipped her hair back in her feather barrette and carefully repacked the WAVES equipment to send back to David A. Kerning. She felt bad for Hypothetical David, who likely overlapped with Real David in many important ways. She hoped both of them were happy and 100% over Tilly Merriam. Later, after she and Riley saw the 1:45 matinee of
The Little Mermaid
and cleaned the house for Anne and Ed’s awkward homecoming, she’d write a difficult WAVES resignation email. Their surrender would disappoint David, but he had to know the truth. There would be other guinea pigs for him. People who thought love was weakness. People who flipped ahead and saw goodbyes at the end and decided the book wasn’t worth it.

Stupid people,
thought Rachel.

She gave the console an apologetic pat. Then she taped up the box and said goodbye to WAVES.

***

At the screech of the packing tape, Riley glanced up from the new art project he’d been working on for seven hours straight.
See ya, WAVES.
He smiled and exhaled.
You’re done.

Three hours earlier, while Rachel slept, he had emailed Aunt Jerrie and accepted his position as Official Courtyard Mermaid-Mender. She’d written back immediately with twelve exclamation points and talk of paying for his solo plane ride to California.
I know you’re a nervous flier, sweetie,
she’d written.
Can I recommend a book? A relaxation tape?
He’d declined politely. He’d be nervous all his life, probably, but now he knew the waves wouldn’t pull him under. He’d get through the flight—he’d get through everything, always—thinking of Rachel and rereading their favorite books and humming their songs. “Poor Unfortunate Souls.” “Why U Gotta.” “Bleed My Love.”

He sat up straight. Rachel was knocking softly on the mirror door.

“Come on in,” he said. He hid the project inside his art toolbox and patted the lid.

Rachel slid the door open. She was wearing her sea-witch t-shirt, the tight black one that said I’VE BEEN BAD. He wondered if she’d consider skipping the movie.

“Thanks for breakfast,” she said.

“My pleasure.”

“I’ll return the favor.”

He grinned. “Grill me a steak, woman. Make it rare.”

“Whatcha got there?”

“Nothin’. A surprise.”

She strolled over. “It’s not a letter offering you a job in Peru, is it?”

“That one came this morning. I turned it down.”

“Too many alpacas.”

“You know me.”

“So let me see it.” Rachel sat down beside him, pressed a kiss on his shoulder. “Is it done?”

“Alllllmost.”

“Good enough.” She snapped her fingers. “C’mon. We’re on the clock here.”

Riley nudged her with his elbow. “Okay.”

He lifted the lid on the toolbox. Rachel gave a little gasp that made him smile.

With his extra-strength superglue and quick-setting grout, Riley had mended Bob and Athena. Not all the way: just their heads and torsos. The smashed tails were gone, the pieces tucked inside a baggie in the toolbox, ready to use in Ethel the mermaid’s tail. In their place were two pairs of jointed wooden legs, taken from the artist models he’d dismembered with a bone saw. He’d repainted all of Bob and Athena’s parts, old and new, so it looked like the legs had always been part of them.

“See?” He moved Athena’s legs back and forth. “Now they can go anywhere.”

She blinked back tears. “This must’ve taken you
hours
.”

Riley shrugged. “I had help.”

“Who?”

“All the king’s horses. All the king’s men.”

“Really.”

“They left an hour ago. I paid them with my dad’s cheap wine.”

“Horses love Boone’s Farm?”

“Who knew?” He held up Bob. “Here’s me. Like his pants?”

“The pockets. Oh my god.”

“And here’s you.” He touched the black boots he’d painted on Athena. “I even redid her eyebrows so she looks like you.”

They were the stern pointy brows of a despot. Rachel gave him a playful whack.

“I was thinking, the first few weeks apart are gonna be seriously rough,” he said. “So we can take them with us. ‘Cause if you need to complain about the specials board in some café and I’m away from my phone…”

“I’ll have a tiny, sympathetic ear. Excellent. What about the dollhouse?”

Riley paused. “I think it should stay here.”

“Yeah.”

“We’ll have to make them new rooms.”

“I love them.” Rachel touched Bob’s new curls, made with a patch of black washcloth. “So much.”

It hurt to look at her, so Riley trained his eyes on the mirror door. The room in the reflection was becoming a memory. His parents might sell the house—and even if they didn’t, the room wouldn’t feel like this when they came back. The most special things they owned would be gone, in drawers and on shelves in other states. Windex and laundered sheets would overwrite their special smell. This place, exactly as they knew it now, would only exist for thirty-one more days.
Remember it,
he ordered himself
.
He blinked fast, trying to take pictures that would last.

Rachel and Riley each took their counterparts, weighing them in their palms. Then they thought about it, and switched: Riley with Athena, Rachel with Bob.

“Let’s tell a story,” said Riley.

***

They sat with their backs against the wall and looked up at the glow-in-the-dark stars—Gertrude Major and The Petulant Fork and the twins, Embley and Yewbert. The constellations were resting now in the sunlight, but in eight hours the room would be dark and they’d glow again, at least for a little while. Rachel and Riley puppeteered their story, Bob and Athena’s shadows speckled with red light from Tilly’s wishing heart.

Riley said, “Once there was a boy and a girl—”

“—with a kingdom in their room.”

“The kingdom felt huge and infinite when they were young, but as they got older—”

“—it shrank smaller and smaller, until they knew they had no choice: they had to find new homes.”

“Bravely, they packed their bags and set out into the world.” Riley marched Athena up the mountain of his legs. Rachel marched Bob up hers, giggling. “The boy made his way west to a beautiful land of sun and oranges,” said Riley, “while the girl traveled east to a land of homicides and hipster parties.”

“HEY.”

“Sorry.” Athena twirled on Riley’s knee. “Anyway, when the boy and girl—”

“Wait. I need to know now.” Rachel turned her doll. Riley turned his. Bob and Athena faced each other—on separate knee-perches, but still close enough to touch hands. “Is this a sad story?”

They looked around the room. It felt tiny and packable, a shadowbox of everything they’d seen, heard, smelled, tasted, and touched together. Things they’d carry with them forever, whether they stayed in love or just stayed friends, whether they lived in the same place or in houses separated by cities, states, countries, oceans.

Rachel rested her head on Riley’s shoulder.

“How does it end?” she whispered. The question didn’t stick around; it sprouted wings and fluttered out the open window. Because they both knew the answer.

It doesn’t.