Bunches (8 page)

Jessie’s pissed that I’m at a
block party. She’s been pissed a lot lately.

“What’s up?” Ben’s girlfriend
Katie asks when I get off the phone. She can see I’m frustrated.

I shrug. “I don’t know what she
wants me to do. She’s the one who bailed on plans.”

“She wants you to sit at home
like a good boyfriend, so that no girls can sink their red-taloned claws into
you,” Ben says, holding out his thick, blunt fingers in the shape of claws.

“I’m glad you have such a
positive take on girlfriends,” Katie says dryly.

In answer Ben wraps his arm
around his girlfriend’s waist and pulls her tight against him. She giggles as
he kisses her soundly. “Worth every minute, sweetheart,” he says when he
finally lets her up for air.

She swats his shoulder playfully,
then looks at me. I’m busy studying my phone.

“Just enjoy the night,” she says.
“You’re here now. She’ll cool off.” Katie was another one of my friends who
wasn’t that big a fan of my girlfriend.

I shrug and put my phone in my
pocket.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve
come to one of these things,” I say, my eyes scanning the crowd.

“Who are you looking for?” Ben
asks.

I glare at my friend. “What makes
you think I’m looking for anyone?”

Ben grins. “I know you,
remember?”

We’ve brought a variety of drinks
from the bar, so I laugh and say, “Let’s go put these beers on ice.” I’m just
stepping into the street when I see her. My heart skips, and I nearly stumble
and fall on my ass.

“Careful, dude,” comes Ben’s
concerned voice behind me. I right myself, thankful that she’s looking away.
Her friend, who looks familiar, notices. He smiles at me. He’s the guy from the
coffee shop. My heart sinks a little. Maybe she doesn’t live around here. Maybe
she was only there because he works there.

Next to her is the girl I’ve seen
her with both times she’s come into the Remember. She’s a bright blond with a
ready smile. The two of them together, her friend’s blond hair next to her dark
brown, make a striking combination. I’d like to kick the ass of every guy
checking her out right now.

I liked her the second she came
into the bar, I just liked her friend more. Like, way more. She’s from home
too, I’m sure of it, but I only know of her through friends. We never
interacted, which explains why she doesn’t recognize me now.

It’s been years since I’ve been
nervous about talking to a girl. In fact, I’m not sure I’ve ever been nervous
about talking to a girl. But I’m nervous about talking to Nora.

“Where are you going?” Katie
calls from behind me.

“Don’t you see that girl he can’t
take his eyes away from?” I hear Ben say, “Leave the man alone.”

I pivot and smile at Katie, who
looks bewildered. “Just saying hi to a couple of friends. I’ll catch up with
you in a minute.”

Ben glances at the bench.
Whatever he sees there makes him tug Katie, still protesting, away. Ben and
Sylvan are the best friends a guy could have. I’ve known them both since high
school, and they were there for me when I was at my lowest. There’s a good
chance I wouldn’t be alive right now without them.

Nora’s eyes have gone huge, and I
feel bad for frightening her. I heard she lost it after what happened. I saw
her a couple of times, but she was heavily sedated, so I didn’t get very far. I
just remember her gripping my hands tightly and staring at me with frightened
eyes. I try a reassuring smile on her now.

“Hey,” I say. “Sorry I didn’t
have a chance to talk this morning. I was late.”

She looks stunned. “Hi.”

“Hi,” I say to Noah and then to
Lizzy, who is giving me one of the megawatt smiles I see her give guys at the
bar. “I’m not used to stunning a girl into silence when I explain why I ignored
her.”

Her eyes just get bigger. I want
to shake my head, but I resist.

“You’re the guy from the coffee
shop this morning?” I ask Noah. I know he is, but just in case he doesn’t
remember, I don’t want him to think I’m some kind of freak.

Noah grins at me. He obviously
remembers.

“Yeah,” he says. “How’d the
muffins work out?”

“Great,” I say. “My friend’s
girlfriend was thrilled. She loves chocolate anything.”

“You have good taste in friends,”
says the guy approvingly. “I’m Noah.” He extends his hand to me and I shake it.

“JJ,” I say.

“These are my friends Nora and
Lizzy,” he says, introducing them and saving me the trouble of having to
explain that I’ve met Nora before. A long time ago. Like, in another life.

“Nice to meet you,” Nora murmurs,
using her hair to shield her eyes. Her face is flaming, but I pretend not to
notice how adorable it is.

“Nice to meet you again,” I say.
“Now that we’ve met twice, I hope we can move past that to deeper subjects like
the meaning of life and is
The Notebook
better than
A Walk to
Remember
?

Lizzy and Noah giggle. Nora looks
like she wants to laugh, but is also confused.

“Tell me you’ve read those
books,” Noah groans at her.

Nora shrugs. “I’m not one for
romance.”

Noah makes a disgruntled sound.

“Nice party, huh?” says Lizzy,
quickly changing the subject. “This is my first ever block party.”

“Yeah,” I say, glancing around.
I’ve been coming to these things on and off for years, so I forget they’re a
novelty for some people.

“Are you having fun?” I ask. I
really want to be talking to Nora, but she’s trying to camouflage into the
bench, so I give her a little space and pretend she’s not the only thing I’m
paying attention to.

“Awesome time,” says Lizzy,
holding up her beer and grinning. “What about you? That’s a lot of beer.”

I’m still holding the beer I
brought, because I was on my way to set it down when I saw my future sitting on
a bench.

The thought stills me. I’ll have
to think about it later, but right now I’m fighting just to make normal
conversation.

“Hey, don’t you think over there
looks fascinating?” Noah says, pointing at something closer to the square.
Lizzy and Nora both squint in that direction and I want to laugh.

“Yeah, fascinating,” says Lizzy,
nodding.

“I don’t see anything,” says Nora
helplessly.

“It’s over there, but, um, we’re
going to go and check it out. We’ll come back and report. Bye.”

Noah jumps out of his chair and
Lizzy does the same before Nora can argue, and they’re gone, leaving us alone.

Nora shifts uncomfortably on the
bench, as if the space makes her nervous.

I shift the beer under my arms.

“So, I’m JJ,” I say. “You come
into the Remember sometimes, right?” No shit.

Even that makes her blush. God, I
could spend hours just making this girl blush and never get bored. She looks at
her lap again.

“Yeah,” she says. “It’s nice.”

I chuckle. “Mind if I sit? This
is heavy.”

“Sure,” she says, looking up into
my eyes, searching for something. She gives me a small smile. I sit so that I’m
not touching her. I don’t want to make her any more nervous than she already
is.

“Thanks,” I say, shifting so that
I can just see her.

“How long have you worked at the
Remember?” she asks quickly, like she’s trying to divert me from asking
questions myself.

“A long time,” I say. “My
grandfather owned it and I would go there for summers. After he got sick, I
came to live with him. Now I’m twenty-four and I just inherited the place.
Owning a bar is a little different from what it was in my grandfather’s time
though.”

I watch her closely, trying to
get any kind of response out of her. It’s hard to read her face when I can
barely see her features.

“That’s tough,” she says. “It’s a
lot of responsibility.”

“Yeah, it is,” I say. “But he
trained me well, and I enjoy it. Someday I’d like to do something else, but not
until the Remember’s taken care of.”

“It’s a great place to have a
bar,” she says softly. I realize that if I’m going to talk to her I’m going to
have to tell her that I know her, I know her past. At least the worst of it.
But it’s terrible that I don’t know anything else.

My mother used to say, “A person
is not the sum of her worst experiences.” My mom taught me that most people are
stronger than that. I know probably more than Nora’d like me to, but that’s not
for tonight. Tonight I just want her to be comfortable with me, at least a
little bit, by the time I stand up and find my friends.

She looks at me and smiles. My
heart beats faster and I smile back. Somewhere buried in there is an amazing
girl who’s just afraid of getting hurt again. Understandably.

“How do you like it here?” I ask,
leaning back and lacing my fingers behind my head.

She shrugs. “It’s good. I mean, I
like it a lot. I’m glad I’m spending the summer here.”

“And how do you know those two?”
I nod toward the friends who made such an ungraceful exit.

“Lizzy’s a friend of mine from
high school,” Nora says, squinting up at me. She looks more at ease now. I
realize I have to tell her. Secrets never win friends - or lovers, or loved
ones.

I sigh and look into those
wounded eyes. I just hope it doesn’t bring her too much pain. She’s gone
through enough already and I’m sure I don’t know the half of it.

My heart is slamming inside my
chest. I can’t believe my friends deserted me. And so quickly. Traitors. I was
worried, but once JJ introduced himself and started talking I wasn’t. Somehow
I’m not nervous around him at all. In fact, I’m strangely comforted.

There’s something familiar about
him, not his voice, but something else. The line of his jaw, the cadence of his
voice, the way his strong hands are entirely still. I frown at him some more.

“Something wrong?” he asks. I’m
frowning at him, so of course he would take that as a bad sign.

“You look familiar,” I say.
“Where were you when you weren’t here?”

He raises his eyebrows and I
blush. Why yes, that did come out terribly awkwardly.

“I am wherever I am at the time,”
he says, smiling at me.

“Right, of course,” I mumble. I
feel my face burning and I wish I could take it back. “Sorry, I have foot in
mouth syndrome.”

“It’s a common affliction for
many of us,” he says, taking some of the weight of embarrassment off me and
adding it to his own burdens. But I don’t want him to be kind. Nothing good can
come of it.

He sighs and shifts. Now my
discomfort has been transferred to him, but not in a way I like.

I reach out, then pull back. I
don’t touch men.

“I’m from Boston,” he explains.
“I used to work rescue.”

There it is, like a cold slap of
water rushing up around my neck and into my face, filling my mouth and nostrils
with a wordless suffocation. I can’t breathe as I stare at him. Now I know why
he looks familiar. He was there. That night, that awful, terrible night, the
night I started breathing because Michael couldn’t anymore. We are intimately
connected and yet I do not know him. I can’t breathe and yet I’ve never met
him. I feel cold and want to cry, for the memory and for not knowing something
so vital to my being.

Somehow, I manage to stay stock
still and withstand the waves of panic and pain, because I have to. It is not
this man’s fault and I do not want to live in sadness and pain. Not in front of
him and not tonight. But my relationship to him is now different.

“Did you know when you gave me
the drinks?” I ask quietly.

Surprise registers on his face.
He doesn’t smile, but there’s relief somewhere in the depths of his irises.

“No,” he says. There’s a storm of
gray in his eyes. He takes a breath - because he can still breathe - as if to
explain further, but then stops himself.

I nod, looking around at the
revelry. Anywhere but at the strong jaw, the warm eyes, and especially those
hands. . . .

“It’s a beautiful night,” I say.
I will require further explanation, of course, but my friends are over by the
cookie table again - can Noah eat everything? - and are expecting me to flirt.

“Does Lizzy know you?” I ask.

“No,” he says, his voice again
drawing me back to somewhere comforting. “I don’t think so. I never met her. I
wasn’t around much. Just that summer to work. My own family life was . . .
complicated.”

I nod again. I’m sure it was, but
I have no idea. I didn’t care about much after Michael died, not even other
people’s problems. My own always felt bigger and more insurmountable.

“Look, I’m sorry for not telling
you,” he says, shifting more into my view. His eyes are intent on my face and I
can see he’s worried. I feel bad for worrying him.

“It’s just strange to have run
into you after all this time,” I say, surprised at my own calmness. Maybe it’s
his voice. Or his hands. Or both.

“It is strange,” he says. He
pauses, hesitates, breathes. “I’m glad. I mean, I didn’t even know I would
recognize you, but then I did.”

Instantly I flinch. “Do I look
that different?” But then I add, “I don’t want to talk about it, actually.”

Over and over in my mind I keep
repeating that I know this man and that this man knows me. Not only that, but
he knows me from my darkest night, my most intimate pain. I’ve known him for
years. How very strange.

“Okay,” he says.

Another comfort. I realize
there’s no way he and I can talk about that night, because I don’t talk about
that night with anyone, ever. I mean, I had therapy. Boatloads, and it did
help. Honestly, I was a lot better afterward. But it’s different to talk to
someone who loves me. Or, I guess, someone who saved me.

I glance at JJ. “That beer’s
getting warm, huh? Lets put it on ice.” I stand up, and he stands too, watching
me closely.

“You’re still going to come to
the Remember, right?” he says, worriedly.

I smile. “I don’ t think we can
keep Lizzy away.”

“We should tell her you’re from
Boston,” I say, “but don’t-”

He shakes his head. “No, of
course not. That’s between you and me if it’s between anyone at all.”

I’m grateful, and I know he sees
it. Lizzy would have a million questions and look anxious, and I don’t want
that. I want to enjoy my night. This summer is about forgiveness, even if I
can’t forget. I want to smile more.

That should have been on the
bucket list.

The guy I saw JJ with earlier
comes up to us and asks, “How’s it going?” He’s definitely the bouncer from the
Remember. There’s a girl with him. She’s short and smiley, with long brown hair
and big brown eyes.

“Hi,” he says, ignoring JJ after
the initial greeting. “I’m Ben.”

I smile and shake his hand. Hands
I can shake. That’s fine. Over and over in my mind I’m still repeating that I
know JJ. He’s from Boston, and five years ago he saved my life. I didn’t get
his name then.

“Nora,” I say. “Enjoying the
night?”

Ben nods and grins. “Great food.”
He nods to a plate piled high with food that the girl is carrying. He has an
arm wrapped protectively around her waist.

“Aren’t the cookies especially
delicious?” Noah asks, coming up to us with Lizzy. He’s polishing off what
looks suspiciously like another cookie and licking his fingers in satisfaction.
His hair has dried so that it’s sticking up at odd angles. He doesn’t appear to
care. Lizzy rolls her eyes.

“You’re friends with us now,” she
says. “Nora can make you cookies any time you want.” She grins an apology at me
for volunteering my services.

“I’m Katie, by the way,” says the
girl wrapped up in Ben. After that, introductions have to be made.

JJ smiles and jokes around with
Ben, and I can see how comfortable and relaxed he is with his friends, how
happy he is to be with them.

“Want to sit down and get beers?”
JJ asks. “Now that we’re all making friends.”

“Might as well,” says Noah,
before I can protest.

I realize that we’ve been here
for almost two hours and I’m not even tired. We go over to one of the picnic
tables set up in the middle of the square and sit around it. JJ and Ben wander
off to get beers, leaving the other four of us to chat.

“So, you know JJ?” Katie asks,
turning to me. “He made a beeline for you the second he saw you.”

Next to her, Lizzy smirks.

“No,” I say, taken aback. “We, I
mean, no.”

“He came into the coffee shop
this morning,” says Noah. “And these two, since they’re twenty-one, go to the
Remember.”

Katie smiles in appreciation.
“It’s such a nice spot, isn’t it? JJ’s put his heart and soul into that place.
I only wish everyone could see that.” She shakes her head a little sadly and I
wonder who she’s thinking of that doesn’t appreciate JJ’s hard work. I can see
how hard JJ has worked at the bar.

“So, the muffins JJ brought over
were yours?” Katie asks, turning to Noah. Our new friend grins.

“Well, my grandmother made them.
She insists on making the baked goods for the shop.”

“Ah, I see,” says Katie. “They
were delicious. What time does your grandmother have to get up every morning?”
As the two of them talk about the coffee shop, Lizzy needles me about JJ.

The guys take their time getting
the beers. I can see JJ on his phone again. Katie sees it too and rolls her
eyes, but doesn’t comment. We talk of other things. How nice Portland is in the
summer, how much fun block parties can be and what a cool idea it is for
everyone to bring food. Katie has a great belly laugh that she throws her whole
body into. She’s curious about us and seems genuinely interested in making
friends.

“So, how did you and Ben get
together?” Lizzy asks, nosy as ever.

“Oh, we met at the Remember,”
says Katie, blushing prettily.

She’s clearly still smitten. So,
that can happen, I think triumphantly. Then I think about how funny it is that
I’m thinking anything like that at all, as if a bartender who has girls staring
at him all night would ever go for a girl like me.

Ben comes back, but JJ stays on
the phone for a long time. When he finally returns he looks frustrated, but no
one says anything. The conversation continues long into the night. It turns out
that Katie and Noah grew up in adjacent towns. Even if Katie’s a little older and
they didn’t go to the same high school, they know a lot of the same people, as
do Ben and JJ.

There’s a lot to talk about. When
we’ve exhausted the topic of mutual acquaintances and home towns, we talk about
the party, music, and our taste in movies. We agree we should all do dinner and
a movie sometime, and hopefully Aimee can come as well.

Finally, I start to yawn. At
first I try to cover it up. I tighten my jaw as the yawn starts and look away,
so no one will notice. I don’t want the night to end. But soon the yawns get
bigger and I can’t cover them up, and JJ is right there, saying we should call
it a night.

“I have to get home anyway,” says
Ben. “We have a lot to do tomorrow,” he adds, smiling down at Katie.

“We’re moving in together in
September,” Katie explains. “So, we’re trying to figure out what stuff we can
share and what stuff we’re getting rid of.”

I yawn again.

“Okay,” says Noah with finality.
“Bedtime. It was nice to meet everyone.” We all stand up and stretch. Ben has
slipped his feet out of his sandals and now slips them back on.

In the confusion of leaving that
follows, I find myself walking next to JJ.

He touches my arm lightly,
sending hot shivers up my shoulder, around my neck, and down my back. My hand
tingles and I flex it involuntarily. Nothing like that has ever happened
before.

“We should talk more,” he says
quietly, his lips close to my ear as our friends pretend not to notice. “If you
want to.” He doesn’t want me mad at him, I think.

I nod.

“Come into the bar sometime when
it’s not busy,” he says. “We can chat.”

I grin. “Multi-tasking?”

He smiles back. “Something like
that.”

“Okay,” I say. “My schedule is a
little unorthodox, so I should be able to swing that.”

He looks happy and we leave it at
that. Mine is the closest apartment, so I leave the group first. I haven’t even
made it up my stairs yet when I get a text from Lizzy. Of course she would.

“You will tell me everything,”
she says. “Everything.”

I smile and flop into my bed.
Snick curls up next to me; for once he hasn’t snuck out, and I’m glad he’s
here, my favorite cuddling companion since Michael. I sigh, but the usual ache
that accompanies thoughts of Michael doesn’t come. Relieved, I curl up and go
to sleep.