Then You Were Gone (14 page)

“I don’t want your money,” she snaps, shifting her weight
from leg to leg. “I’m pregnant,” she finishes, flatly.

My gut flops.

“I mean, I
was
. I’m not now.” She follows fast with, “It wasn’t Julian’s, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

I was and I wasn’t. “I’m sorry,” I say, but do I mean it? Am I surprised?

“It’s fine,” she offers. “I didn’t lose it or anything. I came here to have it but I just—I couldn’t—
can’t
be a mom.”

I nod slowly, the picture crystallizing. “Were you . . . was it Murphy?” I ask.

She stares for a bit, then smiles, and I see a glimmer of old Dakota. “He make a pass at you?”

“What?
No
.”

She drops down into a chair, tugging boots on over jeans. “Nick—he likes little girls.” Wow. “He liked
me
, anyways. I think maybe—” She pauses to chew a cuticle. “Maybe I loved him. You think that’s possible? That I loved him?”

“How would I know?”

“He never said it back.” More candy. “He talked about the baby a lot. Not ours.” She looks up. “The one he was having with Gwen.” Then, real casual: “Did she have it yet? Her kid?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“A girl.”

She blinks. Blinks more.

I wait a moment. “What about the jacket?” I ask.

“Hmm?”

“The army jacket,” I say. “With the writing.”

She perks up. “Oh, my jacket? Oh yeah. Why, what about it?”

“We just, we thought—” I stop, starting again: “What’s with the numbers?”

“Oh.” She wrinkles her nose.

“I mean, they’re dates, right?”

She shrugs.

“Just—can you
not
be coy right now?”

“Right, yes, they’re dates.”

“Marking what?”

“Just . . . days . . .”
Spit. It. Out.
“. . . I was with Nick.” She squirms. “You know. Like,
biblically
.”

Holy fuck, she sucks.
He
sucks. They’ve been fucking around for
years
. Since sophomore year. “You’re serious?”

“Of course, yes.”

“Well, what about your
boyfriend
?”

“Jesus, Adrienne. We were never official. I never committed. Not really, anyways.”

“He says something different.”

“Of course he does. Of
course
. He’s, like, rewriting history. He wanted it that way, he did, but I was never—” She shakes her head. “I wasn’t ever really . . . free.”

I picture Julian outside, alone. My chest tightens. “You left that note,” I say.

“Note?”

“In your Jeep.”

“Oh. That.” She tilts her head. “Well, I wanted to do this. For real. Start over. But, you know . . . I thought it would feel different, being on my own.”

“Like how?”

“Like,
good
. Like I’d raise my kid and make money off music and I’d be, I dunno, happy. Don’t you ever just want to be
new
?”

I look down at my grubby jeans. I get a quick flash of Julian. Then of Lee back home with Alice Reed. I think of Dakota’s dress crumpled up in that dumpster. “Yeah,” I say. “Sometimes I want to be new.”

She slides sideways off the chair. “How much shit am I in?”

“Sorry?”

“At home. If you take me back now, how fucked am I, really?”

“I don’t . . .” I trail off. “Not sure.”

“I’m screwed, right? God, I can’t—”

“You
can
,” I interject thoughtlessly. I have no clue what sort of trouble she’ll face—legally, socially—but none of that matters now, does it? She’s broke, alone, miserable, friendless.

“Yeah,
and
? What happens then?”

She’ll worm free, won’t she? She’s manipulative, shrewd, charismatic, self-serving—

“I come back, and what?”

“I—” I clam up. She’s pale and meek without makeup, and for a split second I feel bigger and better than: I have a home, a Kate, a mom, a Sam. What does she have?

“Do you even like me?” she asks, a tiny tug in her voice.

“I—”
Do
I? I’ve spent four weeks obsessively mooning and grieving, and now here she is—she’s real, she’s here, she’s disappointingly small. I think back to that last exchange, sophomore year, in my room. My dress, her date,
I only ever think about people loving me.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “Not really.”

She nods. “That’s fine,” she says, then, “Take me back?”

“Okay,” I say. I get up.

It’s everywhere now.
Teen faked her own suicide.
It’s all over the papers, the local news; it’s all anyone at school can talk about
(’twas drugs, a psychotic break, extreme narcissism, borderline tendencies)
. Of course, the real “whys,” the meaty details, Dakota keeps to herself. She’s home again, with Emmett, and I’m back at school trying to pull my shit together. Julian’s MIA, but I’m not thinking about him right now. I’m not thinking of
her
, either.

“Bat-shit, right?” It’s Kate, at my side suddenly.

“Hmm?”

“Oh, puhleaze. Like you know nothing. You and band boy. You want?” She offers up half her candy bar. “Salty chocolate. All the rage.” I take the foil packet. “You feel like telling me any D. Webb deets? I know you know stuff.”

“I do.” I break off a piece of chocolate. Nibble at it. The earth, literally, shakes.

“Seriously?” Kate shrieks, sliding sideways toward the
restroom. Shit’s rumbling. Lockers bang. Everyone scatters, laughing nervously—clinging to each other, the doorways and walls, rocking.

“
Hate, hate, hate
this . . .” I whisper, squeezing Kate’s hand. She squeezes back. Three seconds later:

Loud, enthusiastic applause. Cheering. A few whoots. “It’s over.” Kate steps away from the wall. “See? Tiny quake. So nothing.”

“I gotta go outside,” I say, suddenly sweaty.

“You okay?”

“Fine.”

I’m backing up, turning away, jogging quickly toward the exit.

•    •    •

Lee’s favorite spot. Rocks, cacti, school pool.

I’m pacing, clutching my hot chest, trying to calm the fuck down. Panic attack. It’s happened before. Once, while stuck at a light at the Glendale-Alvarado intersection in Echo Park; another time, on the 110 north with Sam driving.

This time it’s that same creepy buildup: I’m shaky and tingly and can’t keep still. Like some vicious, upside-down orgasm. Someone passes by and asks if I’m all right. I must look insane—pacing,
weeping
. I wave the guy away and pull a pack of Altoids from my book bag. I chew two. It helps, eating something—whips me back to earth.

“Hi.”

I’m standing in Murphy’s doorway. He’s hunched over a stack of papers.

“Hello, hello?” I repeat.

He jumps, looking up. “Adrienne, wow, hey.” He’s clutching his chest and grinning uneasily. “You scared me.”

“Did I?” I lean against the door, snapping it shut with one hip bump.

“Everything okay?”

I’ve never seen the guy so manic and jerky. I shuffle forward and drop down in front of his desk. “Sure.”

“Crazy quake, right?”

“Right.”

He smiles. Does his signature head rub. Back to front,
rub, rub, rub
.

I feel a flicker of that earlier panic: zippy heart, dizziness. “I came to tell you something,” I blurt.

“Oh?”

News of Dakota’s miraculous resurrection broke yesterday, but I can’t tell if the waxy glaze in his eyes spells relief or big terror.

“Yes,” I say, feeling really ridiculous. This—whatever
this
is (some sort of showdown? Face-off?)—smacks of utter BS. I’m playing dress up. Faking it. “I’m dropping your class,” I tell him.

His gaze narrows. “You can’t
drop
lit, Adrienne. It’s not an elective.”

“Right, no, I know.” I pick at some paint peeling off the lip of his wood desk. “I just—” My tongue is sandpaper dry. “I think—”
I’m doing this. I’m really, really doing this.
“I think you’re gonna pass me. You’re gonna mark me on time and here
every day
, and then I don’t have to—”
Say it, Adrienne, for fuck’s sake, FINISH it.
“I don’t have to watch you lie like a rat anymore.”

His lips part. Out seeps a thin, two-syllable moan.

“You’re not a family man,” I say. “You’re not some upstanding, shiny, clean guy.”

“Adrienne—”

“You’re a lech.” My voice quivers like some brooding soap star. “I know what you did, okay? And I know who you did it with.”

He stays very still, caught, yellow, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“So. To reiterate: I’m dropping lit. And you get to keep your job. And, ya know, your
kid
and your
marriage
.” I stand, feeling triumphant and massively freaked out.

“Adrienne, come on, s-sit down,” he stammers. “Let’s just—let’s
talk
, okay?”

“I don’t want to talk to you.”

“Adrienne—”

“I’m done,” I say, swinging my book bag over one shaky shoulder. And, “We good?”

He leans back. Drops his pen. Rubs his head the wrong way (front to back). “Yes,” he says, acquiescing. “We’re good.”

I find Kate later. After school, by her car. She’s pressed against the driver’s-side door, something big and dark mauling her body. My first impulse? To attack, claw at,
kill
the creature sucking her face off, but—wait—they’re
kissing. Mashing. Loving,
not fighting. I jog ten feet closer and crouch by Kate’s front left wheel. I’m trying for a better view of the assailant: dark coat, big boots, likes to yank ponytails and bite earlobes:

Wyatt Earp.

I let go an involuntary yelp of glee. Kate pulls back, twists around, wipes her mouth. “Knox?”

“Hi,” I whisper. “Hi, sorry, carry on.” I stand up. “I’ll come back.”

“No, Knox, I’m driving you home.” She turns to Wyatt, says softly, “I’m driving her home.”

“That’s cool.”

Their grins are gooey. They love each other.
Oh my god they love each other.
“Bye.” More smooching. More pawing each other’s faces. Wyatt looks longingly at Kate while backing away. He says, “Later, Knox.”

I wave. Wait a beat. Kate pushes away from her car and whips around. I pounce. “What the fuuuuuuuuuck??!!!!”

She winks. “What? No big thang.”

“You liar! You lie, you lie, you
lie
! You love him.”

“I don’t.”

“Oh gosh, you
love
him!”

“Stop.” She pushes my head down, checking over one shoulder to see where Wyatt’s gone.

I lean in, sniff her neck. “You smell like boy.”

“Fuck off.” She slaps at me. “Get in the car.”

I do. She does. We look at each other. “How the hell did this happen?” I say.

“Thanks.”

“No, I mean—” I think about it. “No, actually, that’s exactly what I mean. What the fuck,
how
?”

“He’s shy,” Kate says plainly. “He needed encouragement.”

“The letter?”

“The letter, sure. I texted too.”

“Saying what?”

“I asked him to come over.”

“You made out with him.”

She laughs. “Right,
I
made out with him.”

“You
did
, right? You totally had to kiss
him
?”

“Oh, absolutely.”

“What’s wrong with dudes?”

“So much.”

We’re beaming.

“You ready?”

I nod, buckling up. We exit the student lot, gliding by faculty and backed-up yellow busses, rolling past clusters of frosh Dakota wannabes looking upbeat and chipper. Then, Christ, there’s Lee with Alice Reed on the curb, ready to cross, clutching hands. “Crap,” Kate mumbles, and all my joy leaks out my feet. “You okay?”

We drive by. Lee grins warmly, waves. I nod back. “Fine,” I say to Kate, looking forward, a smidge queasy.

“You sure?”

I’m pissed at myself. Feeling regretful and confused, but also? Unashamedly free. I smile at Kate just to see if it sticks.

“Pretty,” she says.

“Thank you.”

“You want to eat something? Smoke something? We don’t have to go home yet.”

I watch out the window. Kate’s shiny palms. Jewish deli in the distance. “Drop me someplace?”

“Yeah, anywhere. Where you wanna go?”

I ding the bell. Kate watches from the street, her car softly rumbling. Dakota answers, looking more like herself than she did two days ago, wearing a knee-length witchy dress, and over that, a thin violet hoodie.

“Adrienne.”

I whirl around and wave good-bye to Kate, who waves back. Then say, “Can I come in?”

•    •    •

We sit side by side on her sofa. A clean pile of laundry stacked on Emmett’s recliner. Something moody and acoustic playing on the stereo. Angry piano. Smoky girl vocals.

“Where’s Emmett?”

“Work.”

I watch the rug, the window, the wall clock. She doesn’t offer more, and I wonder what their relationship looks like now, post–Dakota desert retreat.

“Did you want anything?” she asks, picking at a thumbnail. “Juice? Coke?”

I shake my head. Ask if she’s feeling okay.

“Fine,” she says quietly. She looks alert, antsy. She waits for it:

“I need to know something,” I say.

“Yeah?”

“That phone call.” I’m shifting in place. “Before you left—that message.”

“What about it?”

“Why me?”

“Why you
what
?”

“We hadn’t talked in years.”

Dakota wiggles around, then deflects with, “You and Julian getting along all right?”

I flinch, look down at my pale hands. “We’re just friends.”

“No you’re not.” The CD skips. I glance up. She’s half smiling, shrugging one shoulder. “It’s okay. He’s a good guy. He needs someone nice, like you.”

I wave dismissively. Guilty. Caught.

“Anyways,” she continues, cheerfully redirecting our talk. “I don’t know why I called.” A beat. “I felt bad. Thought you might pick up.”

I pick a set of socks off Emmett’s recliner—roll them into a snug ball, then set them back down. “What’d you feel bad about?”