Finding Mr. Brightside (17 page)

“I shouldn’t have brought up her mom,” Linda says. “I thought she might want to … never mind, I should go check on her.”

“That’s okay.” I stand up. “Please don’t take this personally, but I’m ninety-nine percent sure she’s already gone.”

Terry insists I take his golf-cart keys, in case I can’t find Juliette outside. “Lady Chatterley here and I were planning on closin’ down this joint, anyway,” he says, putting his arm around Linda. I thank the two of them for dinner and rush outside, find the golf cart parked beside a BMW like a regular car. The rain pounds onto the canvas roof above me. And Juliette’s out there somewhere, without me to hold the umbrella for her, alone with her darkest thoughts.

39

ABRAM

C
OULDN’T FIND HER
walking on the path or along the road back to the house. I burst through the front door, hair wet and matted to my forehead, wiping my feet on the entryway rug. I call out for her again and again, and the scene I’m creating feels too melodramatic in this moment. I hope it looks even more ridiculous in hindsight.

The kitchen is empty, quiet but for the consistent humming of the fridge she too-rarely opens and the squishing of my waterlogged flip-flops on the marble tile. I jog toward the living room, find our couch bed unmade, the way we left it after our wide-awake nap this afternoon. I slide open the door and step out onto the back deck. I look over toward the hot tub, wishing she were here to warn me away from it.

Juliette

F
YI,
I
’LL NEVER BE
in the hot tub
.

Send.

ABRAM

S
HE’S TEXTING!
Although she hasn’t responded to my follow-up question about her current location. Maybe because there’s only one other place she could be.

Back in the house, I creak up the stairs wondering what could’ve drawn her to the second floor. An odd, ghostlike noise? No, if I had to guess, I’d say she’s trying to prove something to herself. Or her mom.

Looking down the hallway to the master bedroom, I’m positive I closed the door on our way out a few days ago. In fact, Juliette asked me to both double-check and put a large object in front of it. The ottoman has been pushed to the side. The door is slightly ajar, a tiny stream of light poking through the crack.

Juliette

N
O IDEA WHAT
I
’M TRYING
to prove right now. That I’m crazy? That I wasn’t just saying it all along? That I’m brave enough to be in the same room with my mom’s alleged ghost, who probably isn’t even interested, lying on the same bed where she fucked the father of the guy she thought was
perfect for me
?

You don’t need to prove who you really are. You just are,
comes the voice of my
Silence Speaks
audiobook narrator, a gentle reminder of why I stopped listening after chapter 4. He has a point, of course. This isn’t me. It’s a story I’m creating in my head right now, about a girl named Juliette overreacting to some surprising news about my mother’s never-revealed knack for teen matchmaking, and the fact that her questions to me about Abram weren’t being asked entirely for selfish reasons. The plot has nothing to do with who I am as a crazy person; it just seems that way because it’s at the top of my mind trying to pass itself off as the most disturbing thing of all time.

What-ev-er, I hope Abram doesn’t object to my slipping into something more comfortable. I slipped into something a lot less comfortable first—nothing but my bra and underwear—but then my mind was like,
Girl, who are you kidding? You should change
. So I listened to it. Always do.

ABRAM

I
EASE OPEN THE DOOR
and find her on the bed, waiting for me. Either me or a blizzard, because she’s wearing my hoodie with her fleece over it, the hood drawn up over her head, her favorite gray scarf wrapped around her neck. Her legs, in contrast, are completely bare—free of all clothing from her cute little feet up to the tops of her thighs, where the mysterious fabric of her nude-colored panties begins. Pretty sure Juliette hates the word “panties.” Her eyes are open; she’s not moving. She looks so tired, frozen from the waist down, and much farther away from me than she really is.

40

Juliette

A
REVELATION HIT ME
as I was lying here a few minutes ago, staring down at my wheezing bosom, waiting for Abram to swing through the door (like he is now) and take advantage of me—my body is still unappealing! And cold. So I put a few layers on and compromised. Ta-da, now I’m like an outdoorsy lesbian up top, and a reluctant whore with mother issues on the bottom. Let’s call the whole thing off.

Too late, Abram’s shutting the door behind him. While he’s removing his flip-flops, I bite my lips in a futile attempt to make them look bee-stung (by the same bee who does Angelina Jolie’s). He looks over my way again, feasts his eyes on me and all my phony wanton, the very antithesis of come-hitherishness.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Why do you ask?” I say, like nothing’s out of the ordinary, and motion for him to join me. He walks over and sits down on my side of the bed. He’s damp but not as drenched as I thought. I have a daydream about Terry handing Abram the keys to Barbara Ann with a can’t-live-with-’em look on his face, and I want to ask if I’m right, but I also don’t want to make Abram feel weird about having a bonding moment with an older, slightly annoying male father-figure.

“Your hair isn’t wet,” Abram says, smoothing a humidity frizzlet back from my forehead.

“Cab.”

He smiles halfway before his face turns serious again. “What happened?”

“Linda told me my mom thought you and I would be perfect together.”

“Okay.” Abram pauses for a moment, thinks about this carefully, runs his fingers through his own hair. “That’s not such a bad thing, is it?”

I look around for a mask to wear so I don’t hurt his feelings.

ABRAM

“F
RUSTRATING,”
J
ULIETTE SAYS,
from behind a throw pillow. “How could she be so
right
about something she had no clue about?”

“You think she’s right?” I say, and she can probably hear the smile in my voice, because she throws the pillow at me.

“Don’t change the subject.”

I scan my mind again for something else to make her feel better, end up landing on someone else. My mom.

“This probably isn’t relevant, but want to know what my mom always says about stuff like this?”

“Not really.”

“She says, ‘Abram, moms just know.’”

“Know what?”

“Everything.”

“There’s not more to it than that?” Juliette asks.

I shake my head. “She can’t really explain how she picks up on things. Maybe your mom had that kind of inexplicable intuition, too? Even if she never completely earned it.”

Juliette looks highly skeptical but slightly less miserable. I take both of her hands into mine. “Can I do anything to bring you back from the past?”

“Yes,” she says, “start taking advantage of me right now.”

Juliette

A
BRAM HASN’T BEGUN
ravaging my supple body yet, so I sit up and start peeling his dual shirts from his stomach. The process is less complicated than I’m making it seem. He has to assist once I’ve rolled them up to his neck. I throw the wad of clothing off to the side, knocking the lamp off the nightstand. Somehow, it doesn’t break. I look down and see his shorts bunching up against his belt buckle, unable to determine if I got the wrong size or if it’s
that
. Probably not ready to deal with it if I can’t even refer to it by name.

“I don’t have a condom,” Abram says.

“I’m on the pill.”

He seems surprised.

“For psychotic hormone regulation, not because I’m a whore.”

The passion in the air curls up and dies in front of me. I reignite it by reaching toward his belt buckle, working my fingers inside the leather loop, pulling, unhinging, freeing the strap and unbuttoning the top of his shorts. His stomach isn’t nearly as tan in this region, so I guess this is the skin I should’ve been competing against all along. Perfect, my left leg is going numb. On a scale of 1–10, this sex we’re about to embark upon is going to be the dash in between the numbers. Off the charts, all my fault. Abram will try to steal all the blame, the only thing he’s selfish about taking. I really just want to make him feel better in a non-fake, preferably non-verbal way that doesn’t lead to a mess. I want him to feel … nothing. Except me. And my thoughts on all subjects, which are usually the correct ones, except during times like these, when they’re ganging up on me and I need his help.

ABRAM

T
HIS IS ONE OF THOSE
ideas that’s going to start out being hers, but end up looking like mine. Because I should know better? I don’t think anyone would believe that. Because I’m the guy? Dude, that’s more like it.

Too many outside influences. Between the Janette encounter, the girl talk with Linda, the Adderall she probably took afterward to make herself feel back in control of the situation, and the creepy master-bedroom setting she’s using to unnecessarily torture herself, it’s too much about everything else, not enough about us.

That being said, for the first time in my life I can understand how my dad could lose his mind over a girl … over and over again. I don’t really want to relate to him in this particular way, especially in his bed, but I’m not sure I’ll be able to deny it. Doesn’t seem like as much of a choice when you’ve already started making the mistake. Nor does it help when your shorts are unzipped like mine are now.

41

ABRAM

J
ULIETTE’S LEFT LEG
is no longer cooperating, and neither of us seems eager to climb into these particular bedsheets, so I’m able to convince her to go back downstairs to the moderate discomfort of our couch bed. When we reach the living room, she asks me to take off my shorts before joining her. I comply. And then we’re all the way underneath the covers, heads included.

“Okay,” Juliette whispers, “ready as I’ll ever be.” She shuts her eyes. “I mean, when you are.”

Juliette

I
SQUEEZE MY LIDS TOGETHER
as tightly as possible, the crow’s feet pecking away at my skin, preparing for
the worst
. And then I feel Abram’s lashes on my cheek. Um, aren’t these called butterfly kisses? Primarily given after bedtime prayer? Per the song that a creepy dad wrote for his little girl while putting little white flowers all up in her hair? I open my eyes, prepared to mention this to Abram, but he’s already humming the song. Our laughter breaks the tension just enough for reality—banished until now, thanks to me—to set in. And then he kisses me, draws me into his lips, brings back that warm, Abramy, heart-blanketing feeling I can’t push aside anymore.

“Did the Asian take your virginity?” I ask, unable to stop myself from killing the mood one last time. He removes his lips from the spot on my neck that makes me crazy (among other things), looking up at me like I’m about to kill him, too.

ABRAM

“D
ID SHE?”
Juliette demands.

“Almost. Long story…”

“When has that ever stopped you?”

I tell her it happened a month after the accident, in the movie-screening room of the Asian girl’s basement, and it felt way too soon to be getting any action. Juliette’s not mad; she’s excited: “I knew there was a reason I hated her.” Then she laughs about how the Asian thought she could make my grief go away with some after-school ass, and I’m thinking,
Perhaps, but she’s also kind of a sex freak. An accomplished one with great homework scores who knows what she wants (penis, Carnegie Hall).
Time to change the subject.

“What about you?” I ask.

“You wouldn’t know him.”

She explains that he’s in college now, getting his B.A. in Nobody Cares. A few seconds later, she admits he doesn’t exist. Can’t say I’m disappointed this particular part of her sexual history is fictional, right before we change our stories for real. First, I need to tell her something that I don’t want lumped in with the physical side of things.

“Did you know … that … I love you?”

She looks at me curiously, wondering what I’m
really
trying to say. The “I love you” component was pretty much the gist, but I should’ve just said it outright, let it sink or swim on its own, without testing the waters first.

“I love you, Juliette. There’s nothing about you—no secret, no pill, no past relationship—that could make me stop trying to love you more every day. You don’t have to say it ba—”

“I love you, too.” She places her hand on my stomach, rests it there. “I didn’t recognize it at first … probably because it’s the truth … but I’m pretty sure I’ve loved you for a long time.”

“Like, CVS-at-first-sight long time?”

“Longer,” she says, grimacing. “Since back when we were whales.”

I squeeze her hand. “How could I forget?”

After that, we deduce that we’ve probably had sexual relations as whales already, so there’s no need to rush into anything as humans until we’re fully prepared to rush into it. Two seconds later, I think I’m ready.

42

Juliette

L
YING HERE IN OUR COUCH BED,
running my fingers through Abram’s wavy-thick hair and picking the occasional fuzz ball from it, is so much more relaxing than the irresponsible intercourse I’d hastily planned for us. I almost fell asleep a few minutes ago until a spider began
crawling up my thigh
 … a pulse-pounder that turned out to be Abram’s leg hair performing its late-night tarantula impersonation.

“How can I help you relax?” he says groggily, turning over to face me.

“Not possible,” I say. “But you could try telling me a story if it makes you feel better.”

He furrows his brow, actually considering the request. “Genre?”