My Best Friend, Maybe Page 5

  For all of the reasons you just said.

  “I was friends with her for a long time,” I say.

  “I know.” He sighs. “I shouldn’t worry about this. I trust you. But when you talk about missing her and show up with her at Sally’s party. When you talk about going to Greece with her. Between all of that and us acting so . . . different . . . last night. And me going to college . . .” He trails off.

  He looks so sad, hazel eyes pasted to the driveway, freckles practically drooping. And I know him so well. That was a bunch of disjointed nonsentences he just uttered, but I know exactly what he meant. And I do love him. My heart breaks as I watch his face get longer and longer. I do love him. I must.

  So I do what I know I shouldn’t. I lean over the barrier myself, drape my arms over his chest, and put my head on his shoulder. “You aren’t losing me, Mark. You aren’t,” I say.

  And finally we’re kissing. It’s not like last night. Not joyful and passionate and as close as possible. Instead it’s long and slow and sad-but-relieved and I know, as his tongue inches around my mouth, that Mark and I could go to Appalachia or Costa Rica or Greece or all around the world and he still wouldn’t scratch this itch in me. For adventure. Fun. Squealing laughter.

  Maybe we are losing each other slowly. Maybe he’s only someone passing through my life. Maybe I’m a blip in his.

  So I really shouldn’t be kissing him like this.

  Ω

  I wait inside my front door, watching through the sheer white curtains as Mark’s headlights back away and hoping my parents didn’t hear me come in. I have another two hours until curfew and I want to sneak out again, hoof it to Sadie’s to pick up my bike, and tell her that I’m not going, that I’m breaking my promise. That even if she does need me, it’s too late to play that card. Other people need me more. People who have been good to me. People who haven’t left me reeling for three years.

  But Mark’s Jeep screeches to a halt at the end of the driveway and then I see her blond head emerge around the side of his car. She’s walking my bike. Like she knew exactly what I was going to do. Like she had to beat me to it.

  Once she’s safely in front of the car, he zooms out of the driveway and cascades down the street faster than he ever does.

  I come out the front door.

  “Hey,” I call across the yard.

  “Oh, hey,” she calls back, her voice high and nasal and sarcastic. “I thought I’d, you know, bring you your bike.” A familiar pouty tone hangs on her words, one I’d completely forgotten about.

  “Thanks,” I say. I’m standing in front of her now at the edge of our driveway, the baby-blue bike resting on her thigh like a division line, turning us into a fraction.

  She stares at me.

  “Do you want to come in?” I ask. I might as well get this over with.

  “Ha.” She laughs, staccato. “I don’t think so.”

  We aren’t best friends. That was her choice.

  I yank the bike away from her. “Well, thanks for returning it,” I say, and start to wheel it down the driveway.

  “It was pretty messed up what you did last night, you know?” she calls to the back of my head. I freeze. The image of Mark’s hand on my breast shows up in my brain for a split second, but that can’t be what she’s talking about.

  I turn.

  “I can’t believe you left me there like that,” she says. “I was looking for you for, like, half an hour when I had to go home. I didn’t know what happened to you. I missed curfew.”

  My jaw drops. I hadn’t realized it. But she’s right—I’m the one who ditched her at the party. “I-I’m sorry . . . ,” I stammer.

  “Why would you do that, Colette?” she demands, again wielding my full name like a weapon. “You could have at least said good-bye.”

  I stare at her.

  She sticks her hip out, her fist jammed into it. “Were you too embarrassed to be seen with me in front of your perfect friends? Too embarrassed by—” She pauses and searches my face. Then she finishes the sentence. “The red in my hair or the way I don’t think a B is a mortal sin?”

  That’s it. I drop the bike and charge at her. “Sadie, it was one party.” I hate that my finger is jabbing the air the way my mother’s does when she’s correcting my brothers. “I ditched you for one party and I’m sorry if you were lonely or worried or late or whatever.” My voice makes each of these adjectives long and high like a snotty girl and even though I kind of hate myself right now it also feels almost fun, to be honest, to let it out, to be so . . . right. “But it was only one party. One. Party. It’s nothing compared to—”

  “To what?” she demands.

  We’re face-to-face now, a foot away from each other. The twilight blurs her features but I can still see the angry sharpness in her blue eyes; the wind whips her hair around like it’s angry at me, too.

  I almost back off. I almost apologize and go inside. I’ll call her tomorrow and say I’m not going. I’ll stop dealing with this. Forget that stupid promise.

  But even as my brain is planning this retreat, my mouth opens and the words escape so quietly I think the wind will whip them away: “You ditched me everywhere.”

  “What!” she practically screams.

  I shrug. “It was one party,” I say. But maybe to her it wasn’t. Maybe I don’t care.

  I start to turn. When her voice comes back it’s not pouty or angry anymore. It’s curious. “Is that really your version of what happened?” she asks.

  When I look at her again, the wind has blown her entire head of hair straight up so that she looks like she’s crowned with gold-and-red spikes. And for the first time I realize there might be another side to the story. Another side I need to know.

  I nod.

  She doesn’t explain. She says, “Will you drive me home? Since I had to ride your bike here?”

  We’re quiet in the car. Whenever I glance right, I can see the wheels in her mind moving, like mine are, working over what I said and what she said, trying to figure out what I think happened to our friendship and what she thinks happened and where the truth lies between those two stories. I stop in her driveway and turn to say good-bye. It’s completely dark out now so I can only see flashes of blue in her eyes and blond in her hair. She smiles at me and a pang of missing her whacks my heart like it’s a punching bag. I want to laugh with her.

  “You realize this is the first time you’ve driven me anywhere? Or the other way around?” she asks, and we’re both smiling seven-year-old smiles.

  “Oh, yeah,” I say. “Wow.”

  “So,” she says. She shifts around and pulls a piece of paper out of her back pocket. “It’s your ticket. Or itinerary. Whatever. You know, it’s what you need to check in at the airport.”

  She holds it out to me and it’s folded in a way that I can see my full name across the top. She did buy me a ticket.

  She waves it, slightly. “Are you still coming?”

  I reach out and then it’s in my hand.

  “Yes,” I say. I say it without thinking. I want to go with her. I want to laugh and swim and have a vacation and be a kid again. And I need the answer. I need to know what happened.

  But I want to be there for Mark. I want to savor the last of his time before college. I want to feel his hands on me again and again.

  Sadie gets out of the car and I watch her approach her front door. It swings open just as she reaches the stoop and a figure waves at me, a shadow outlined by the lights inside the house. Then he smiles.

  Sam.

  My heart beats faster like it’s Ryan Lochte himself standing fifteen feet away and smiling at me. I send back a friendly beep and tell my heart to shut up.

  This is only Sadie’s brother. This is a real person in actual life. I’m not allowed to think about his bright smile or his chiseled chest. I have a boyfriend.

  I drive home wondering if it was that boyfriend I lied to tonight, or if it was Sadie.

  The next day, Sunday (my la
st one as Princess Perfect if I get on that plane in three days), I convince Louisa to come over for brunch after my family gets home from church.

  It’s a warm day, so Mom spreads out our meal on the back deck. I change into shorts and let Louisa in when she arrives, and the six of us sit around piles of crisp bacon and fresh bagels and a colorful fruit salad.

  “It’s lovely to have you here, Louisa. I wish you’d been able to join us for our service,” Mom says, like I explicitly asked her not to.

  Dad shoots her a look. I roll my eyes at my nonchurchgoing friend. Her face glows; she’s embarrassed. She shrugs.

  Adam and Peter both start talking, two eleven-year-old conversations that run parallel without overlapping.

  Peter’s black curls bump against his forehead as he announces, “Colette! I got the solo! Will you come see me?”

  I smile at him, his bounciness, his enthusiasm. “Of course,” I say.

  “Don’t boast, Peter,” Mom says.

  “And then”—Adam finishes up whatever conversation he was having by himself and I shift my gaze from one brother to the other—“I caught the line drive.”

  Dad pats his head. Mom says, “Don’t boast, Adam.”

  “Will you come to one of my games, Colette?” Adam asks. “I’m practically the star of the team, right, Dad?”

  I smile. Dad nods.

  Mom says, “Adam.”

  “Will you come see the musical?” Peter asks, looking at my friend this time. “It’s only seven dollars.”

  We all giggle and I watch Louisa. “I’ll try,” she promises my little brother.

  It strikes me that the twins are lucky. They’ll always have each other; they’ll always know who their best friend is.

  Louisa cuts her bagel in half, her eyes on her plate. She keeps her mouth shut except to take bites. She keeps track of my brothers’ voices, smiling politely when they are trying to be funny and raising her eyebrows when they want to be surprising. But she watches my parents out of the corner of her eye.

  How do my parents do this to everyone?

  “Louisa,” Mom starts when she’s had enough of baseball/musical theater, “how did you find the graduation yesterday? Colette hasn’t told us a thing about it.”

  Because I didn’t pay any attention.

  I shrug.

  “It was nice,” my friend says. Then she pauses for a bite, probably hoping the questions will skip to me.

  “Your sister gave the valedictorian address, didn’t she?” Mom says. “You must be very proud of her.”

  Louisa nods, chewing, and I know that nod is a lie.

  “Louisa’s doing even better than Jasmine,” I say. “She’s studying in Japan next year.” Louisa’s head whips around, her eyes wide. Because to her, the connection is obvious—her trip to Japan proves that her claimed sisterly pride is nonexistent.

  But I’m sick of everyone lying to my parents. I’m sick of the corners they back everyone into.

  I expect my mom to say something about pride and accomplishments or opportunities or some other cliché, but instead her hand juts out and her palm covers mine. When I turn to meet her eyes, she’s a million years younger: the mom of a toddler, when there were no lies, expectations, or commandments and everything was easier. It’s like I skinned my knee.

  “Colette,” she says. “What a year it’s going to be for you.”

  My heart gets wobbly inside my chest, my blood running a little thicker than usual, and I worry I’m going to cry because my mom’s right. There are so many people to miss all of a sudden. Mark and Louisa and Sadie. And Dad.

  “Colette has lots of friends,” Louisa says beside me as I stare at my mother who is morphing into something familiar but forgotten, something nice. And even if Louisa’s words are true on paper, and my mom sees slews of youth group kids pass through her house and hears the names of girls on the swim team I travel with and about the parties I get invited to, it seems like she gets it that, in a real way, I don’t have a lot of friends. In a real, practical way I have Louisa and Mark. For a second, it seems honest and I imagine telling her that I’m going to Greece with Sadie. For a second, it seems possible that she’d actually understand.

  “Then I made the winning run!” Adam screams, breaking our eye contact.

  “You did?” Dad says, patting him on the shoulder like he’s a grown man already.

  “That was great, honey,” my mom says, ruffling his hair. “But don’t boast.”

  I wonder why she went to the game and Dad didn’t. They always used to go to my swim meets together.

  Ω

  After brunch, I take Louisa out for a celebratory pedicure. Celebrating my friend’s accomplishments—my impending loneliness.

  “You know you’ll be fine, right?” she says as the bubbles tickle our ankles. And because I don’t want her to feel guilty for her dreams coming true, I nod.

  “You’ll find a new partner in crime if you have to,” she goes on. “You’ve done it before.”

  I glance at her. Even though she’s smiling, I can tell the thought of me passing notes about teachers and watching The Twilight Zone until midnight and going for celebratory pedicures with someone else bugs her. My competitive friend. Then I remember the way she talked to me two nights ago, how she almost told me now that she’s won, she kind of wants a break. She kind of wants to stay right here.

  And I know the clock is ticking. I’m either getting on a plane in three days or four. Going to Europe or Central America. Choosing my new life or my old life.

  “I’m not sure I’m going to Costa Rica anymore,” I start.

  She doesn’t give me the surprised face I was expecting. She nods.

  “I get it,” she says.

  “Instead,” I say, “I might go to Greece with Sadie.”

  “Sadie Pepper?” she squeals, and I have to shush her because we’re out in public in our small town.

  We lean toward each other, whispering through our giggles as the nail techs rub that tickle-y exfoliating brush against the soles of our feet. I tell her everything and she doesn’t look hurt or confused or like she doesn’t know who I am. She’s fascinated and curious; she smiles and urges me on when I tell her about ditching Sadie at the party, about Mark being so weird last night. Even when I tell her about missing Sadie.

  She doesn’t stop nodding until I say, “But I don’t think I can go.”

  “Why?” she asks.

  “I think Mark needs me more. I think I need to be more loyal to him than to Sadie after the past three years.”

  Louisa shakes her head, sits up straight, and runs her hands through her hair. “Why do we do this to ourselves?” she asks.

  I raise my eyebrows to ask her what she means.

  “What about you?” she says. “What about doing what you want? What about being a good person because you’re loyal to yourself?”

  I nod, slowly.

  “But that’s not us, is it? Little Miss Perfects.” She sighs and looks at me. “Have fun in Costa Rica.”

  “Louisa?” I say quietly. “Maybe you shouldn’t go to Japan.”

  She snorts and shakes her head and we’re quiet for a minute until she changes the subject.

  When I go home, I don’t say anything. I read my summer-reading book. I play pirates with Adam and Peter. I talk to Mark on the phone. I make the salad and set the table. I eat dinner. I go to bed.

  I don’t call Sadie. I don’t call Edie. I don’t call it off.

  Ω

  In the morning, I somehow find myself alone at the Bridge-water Mall. The wad of cash in my pocket is stolen from my Costa Rica emergency fund. The books in my shopping bag are full of beautiful pictures of Greek beaches and islands. The dresses hanging on my arms are skimpier than anything I’ve ever tried on. The thoughts running through my head are vain. Totally, completely, entirely vain.

  I’m not sure I’ve ever had this much fun by myself before.

  Sadie said there was going to be a wedding. Andrea’s wedd
ing. I loved Andrea—she was my babysitter. I need a good dress for her wedding.

  If I go. If I can manage to talk to Mark and my parents and get myself to Newark Airport on Wednesday.

  I enter the dressing room with six dresses and I try them all on twice. I love how they hug my hips and show off the muscles in my legs. I stand on my tiptoes and step in a circle, craning my neck to see every inch. I’m a teenage girl. I’m supposed to hate the patch of skin that gathers under my armpits and the dumb tan lines on my shoulders, and I do. But more than that, I love the freedom that I can wear whatever I want to this wedding. If I go.

  Finally, I decide on the red dress and move on to the shoe department to buy a pair of serious black heels that will highlight my swimmer’s calves. I’m there when I get the text from Mark.

  “Sorry about Saturday night. Meet me at the pool?”

  Ω

  I spot him right away, sitting alone on the top of the hill, tearing up a piece of grass to make duck calls. It’s too early in the day for the typical crowd to have shown up yet. There are only a few patrons dotting the hill and swimming laps in the pool as the lifeguards scurry around checking the water and cleaning leaves out of the shallow end.

  I stand outside the gate, watching my boyfriend, and I wonder why I don’t feel like walking forward. For the first time ever, I will myself to think about being pressed against him, about his freckles or his lips or his crooked tooth. But I can’t.

  The appeal of Greece is stronger than the appeal of Mark.

  “Coley!” Sadie calls too loudly from a lifeguard chair clear across the pool’s campus.

  Mark’s head whips up and he finds me at the gate. I see him looking at me, but I’m too far away to read the expression on his face, to see if he’s hopeful or sad or angry that Sadie saw me first.