Everything You Want (10 page)

“They’re giving out the hats!” Mom says. She hands me one when I emerge from the stall, a cardboard beanie with a red propeller on it.

I put it on, look in the mirror. “Oh, perfect,” I say.

“Who’s that guy you were dancing with?” Jules whispers. “He was cute.”

“Nobody,” I say. “I mean, I don’t know him.”

Back in the bar, the countdown toward midnight has begun. Dean’s standing at the pool table, cue in hand, shouting out, “Ten, nine, eight … ” along with a girl who has bleached blond hair and is wearing a lot of makeup. Mom, Jules and I hurry toward our table, where Dad and Will and Gramps are waiting. When the crowd shouts “Happy New Year” and the band breaks into “Auld Lang Syne,” we crush together in a big, amorphous hug.

“To us,” Mom says, when the waitress brings around the plastic glasses of champagne.

“And doing whatever we damn well please!” Dad adds.

We drink. Except for Jules and Will, who are kissing and can’t seem to stop.

The next morning, I leave for the ski area before anyone else wakes up, and ski myself into oblivion. Up and down, up and down. It’s not crowded: just me and a bunch of little kids as crazy as I used to be.

It’s snowing hard, and cold. Riding the chair lift, the snowflakes feel like needles scraping my face. My feet feel like blocks of ice—when they feel at all. My ears hurt. But I don’t go in. I like being so cold that it hurts. I like the way the tears freeze on my face when I start crying. And the ugly ripping sound my skis make going over the icy patches.

I feel like such a loser. I don’t know what I want to do with my life; I don’t have a clue about what to do with the million dollars my parents gave me. So far, all it’s done is confuse me.

If I could just stay here forever, I think. I close my eyes and try to imagine myself living here, but what I see is a kid on a ski hill, smiling.

Myself, no older than eight.

Twelve

Dad wants to leave for Colorado the day after we get back from Michigan, even though Mom thinks they should wait until I go back to school.

“I’m fine,” I tell her. “Really! I’ll be fine. It’s just a week before school starts. I’m eighteen, you know. I can take care of myself. Jesus, it’s not like you haven’t ditched me to go on vacations before.”

“We’re not ditching you,” she says. “And this is not exactly a
vacation
. We’ll be in Steamboat Springs probably into March.”

“Whatever,” I say. “Mom. Please. Just give me a list of things you want me to do when I close up the house to go back to Bloomington. I’ll be fine.” God forbid I forget to turn down the thermostat and you have to pay a big heating bill, I think. Not to mention the fact that I’ll probably be home every weekend, turning it back up again.

“Okay,” she says reluctantly. “But do you have a plan?”

“Yeah,” I say. “Read, watch TV, eat pizza. It’s Christmas break, Mom. What kind of a plan do I
need
?”

I swear to God, she’s driving me crazy. I wish they would just
go
. Though I have to say I’m not sure spending the winter in Colorado is the best idea they’ve ever had. Mom hates the mountains. You can see too far, she says. You can’t find a place to settle your eyes. Just a single week of skiing in Colorado has been known to get her seriously out of whack in the past. She’s going because spending a winter skiing in Colorado has been Dad’s fantasy ever since we went to Steamboat Springs the first time, when I was six.

But I can’t worry about that. I’m going to try not to worry about
myself
, just hole up and enjoy a week of not having to think about who I might see and what dumb thing I might say or do in their presence. When Mom and Dad
finally
hit the road the next day, I put my iPod into its neat new portable stereo dock, dial up “Let the Cool Goddess Rust Away,” turn it up full-blast, and dance through the whole house, singing at the top of my lungs … because I
can
.

The fact that a blizzard sets in that afternoon only makes things better. I couldn’t even go out if I wanted to. I’ll have a film-fest, I decide. Start the new year by casting out any remaining bad high school juju through viewing my collection of the all-time best high school revenge movies.
Carrie
, of course.
Pump Up the Volume
.
Sixteen Candles
, for a little comic relief. It’s almost midnight when I microwave the third bag of popcorn and am about to settle in to watch
Heathers
, the absolute pinnacle of high school revenge in my view. Then, hitting
play
, I glance out the window to check out how the blizzard is coming along and see the dark outline of a person standing beneath the street light in the swirling snow. I swear, it seems like he’s looking right at me.

It scares the shit out of me. I yank the curtains closed, my heart hammering, and suddenly my mind starts replaying all the people I didn’t even know who hit me up for money when they found out I was a millionaire. They weren’t bad people. Some asked for really good causes, others were just envious and maybe a little greedy. But there are dangerous people who know about how much money we have, too. Thieves and drug addicts who might look upon a blizzard as an … opportunity. The person out there might have found out somehow that Mom and Dad were leaving. He might be casing the place, considering whether to risk a break-in.

Be rational, I tell myself firmly. Lights are on all over the house. It’s obvious there’s someone here. Even if the person standing there came with the idea of breaking in, surely he’ll change his mind and come back another time, when the house is empty.

Unless he’s desperate
.

I hear myself let out a little moan. God. Aren’t there always terrible, tragic stories about people so desperate they’ll do anything to get what they need?

I squeeze my eyes tight, to disappear him. But when I open them, he’s still there.

Always call 911 if you think anything’s amiss
. Mom and Dad drummed this into us when Jules got old enough for the two of us to stay at home alone. But nothing ever went wrong.

I’ve led a charmed life, I think—which makes the person out there seem all the more ominous. Like it’s my turn.

My cell phone is on the coffee table, and I pick it up and dial.

“I don’t know if this is actually an emergency,” I say when the operator comes on. “But there’s a guy standing outside my house. I don’t know how long he’s been there. I’m home alone.”

She takes my address, reassures me that a patrol car will come by and check him out.

“Call if anything changes before they get there,” she says.

Which makes me feel cold inside, like my blood has turned to ice. My teeth start chattering, too—not from the cold, though. I’ve never been so scared in my life.

I peek through the closed curtains. He still hasn’t moved.

Maybe ten minutes pass before I see the squad car approaching slowly, its headlights cutting through the snow. The guy doesn’t move then, either. He doesn’t even seem to see the cop get out and come over to him.

A few seconds pass and I see the cop visibly relax. He gestures towards our house, the guy nods—and the two of them start across the yard. For an instant, they disappear from view, then I hear footsteps on the porch. The doorbell.

I open the door just enough to see the policeman’s face.

“This guy says he knows you,” he says. “Is that right?”

I open the door wider.

“Emma?” a voice says: Josh Morgan’s.

He takes a tentative step forward, but the policeman grabs his arm to restrain him.

“Do you know him, miss?” he asks. “If not, I’ll take him in.”

“No,” I say. “I mean, yes. I know him. Don’t take him in.”

He lets go of Josh’s arm, and Josh stumbles.

“He’s loaded,” the cop says, his voice disgusted. “He’s damn lucky he didn’t fall down and freeze to death somewhere. You sure you want to be responsible for him? Like I said, I can take him in for public intoxication.”

“It’s okay,” I say. “Thanks. I’ll take care of him.”

He takes Josh’s arm again, guides him into the foyer. Then shakes his head at the sight of the two of us: Josh soaking wet, pale as snow, shivering; me in flannel pajamas covered in little yellow ducks, my hair caught up with chopsticks on the top of my head.

He doesn’t make a report, which I know is an act of kindness on his part.

“Oh, fuck,” Josh moans, as soon as he’s gone, and slides like Gumby down the wall into a puddle of melting snow.

“Take those wet clothes off,” I say. “You’ll catch pneumonia.”

“You sound like my fucking mother.” He laughs, bitterly. “Like my mother
used
to sound. Before she time-traveled back to her adolescence.”

“Take off your wet clothes,” I repeat. “I’ll get you something of my dad’s to wear.”

Jesus. I meant take them off in the bathroom. I go in there, start a hot shower for him. Then I get a clean towel, a pair of Dad’s sweat pants and a sweatshirt, thinking I’ll hand them through the door. But when I get back he’s not in there.

He’s passed out, stark naked, in the hallway.

Was he always so …
white
? That’s my first useless thought.

Then:
be careful what you ask for
. God. Hadn’t I longed for this—well, sort of: Josh, completely vulnerable, under my power? I stare at him, at his body. His long, muscular arms and legs, his knobby knees. His tight abs, the patch of blond hair on his chest. His … other hair, blond, too. And his penis, flopping over onto his thigh. Pathetic.

I wanted him tanned and glistening in the summer sun.
Awake
and vulnerable. Laughing at some joke I’d made. I guess I forgot to tell the cosmos that part.

Meanwhile, what am I supposed to
do
with him?

I kneel down and, tentatively, dab at him with the towel. He shudders, pulls himself into the fetal position. He’s covered in goose bumps.

“Josh,” I say. Then louder. “Josh!”

His eyes flutter open. “Emma?” he says.

“You’re freezing,” I say. “Come on. Get up. You can sleep in my bed.”

He lets me pull him up from the floor and help him down the hallway to my room. I can’t trust him to stand alone long enough to pull down the covers, so I just push him onto the bed and go get some quilts from the linen closet. It’s a relief to me to lay them over his nakedness.

I throw Josh’s wet clothes in the dryer, turn off
Heathers
, then go lie down beside him on the bed. Not touching him. Just beside him. He’s so drunk that if he got sick he could choke on his own vomit, I tell myself. Or wake up, disoriented.

Duh. Of course he’s going to wake up disoriented. That’s the least of it.

The truth is, I just want to be near him.

I can’t sleep, though. How could I sleep?

I don’t even obsess too much about what’s going to happen when he wakes up and realizes where he is, or what he was doing, drunk, outside my house in a blizzard in the first place. I definitely do not allow any fantasies about what any of this might mean.

I just lie there beside him, dozing and waking to the shock of it all.

It’s not till morning that I get scared, thinking about the time Josh was trapped in the car, vulnerable, me telling him how I felt—the humiliation and heartache that caused. What if he’s mad at me for taking him in, seeing him this way? What if it grosses him out to think of me lying all night with him?

The latter, at least, I can avoid. If I get up now, he’ll never know I was there.

Carefully, I roll to the edge of the bed, then sit up. I wait, perfectly still, for a long moment before standing. Then wait again, to make sure he doesn’t stir, before tiptoeing out of the room into the hallway. I consider a shower, consider washing my hair. But then I’d have to think about what to wear. Whether I’d look good in it, whether I
care
about looking good because Josh is sleeping off a bad drunk in my bedroom.

Fuck him, I think, and remain in my duck pajamas. I do comb my hair, though, and pull it back in a ponytail, which I’d have done in any case.

I eat a Pop Tart for breakfast, turn on
The Today Show
—though I have to admit that the drama playing out in my own life is considerably more compelling than what’s happening in Iraq.

I fold Josh’s dry clothes, like a good wife. Think about what I’m going to say when he finally gets up. Maybe something clever,
à la
the Talking Heads: “Well? How did I
get
here?”

Or caustic: “So, can I offer you a drink?”

But when he staggers into the kitchen around noon, wrapped in a pink-flowered quilt, his eyes bloodshot, his half-dozen or so cowlicks standing at attention all over his head, he looks so stupid that all I can do is laugh.

“Want some coffee?” I ask, trying to make up for it.

“You can’t make coffee,” he says. “Anyway, you couldn’t …
before
.”

I shrug. “People change.
Some
people,” I add.

“Can you, now?” he asks irritably. “Make coffee?”

“No,” I say. “So?”

He snorts. Then he gets up and starts making coffee himself. He really does look ridiculous, like somebody’s grandmother in a pink housecoat, and it pisses me off the way he still knows where everything is in our kitchen.

“Just wondering,” I say. “You were standing outside in the blizzard last night, hoping you could come in and be a
jerk
?”

“I don’t know
what
I was doing last night,” he says. “If you want to know the truth.”

“Drinking. We know that.”

“Yeah, well.” He sits down with a mug of coffee and takes a sip. “
Fuck
,” he says, putting a finger to his burned lips.

“Is it a common thing with you now?” I persist. “Drinking till you don’t even know where you are?”

“I know where I am,” he says. “
Was
. Last night.”

“Oh. You just didn’t know what you were
doing
.”

He glares at me. “I came to tell you I was sorry. If you really want to know.”

“Sorry?” I say, astonishingly in control at this turn of events. “
Sorry
?”

“Yeah. Sorry. For high school. All that shit. I’ve been wanting to tell you for a while—” He takes another, more careful sip of his coffee. “Then, when I saw you that day with your grandpa, I decided I would. So, I’m sorry. I was an asshole, and I’m sorry. Okay?”

“And you think it still matters to me?” I ask.

“Yeah, I do.” He grins a little. “I think you miss me, like I miss you. Even though you’re mostly a pain in the ass.”