Lessons in Love (24 page)

Chloe and Jacob, oblivious of who watch, hug in the fall afternoon as they share an apple. Talk about biblical. Dalton would have a field day with that one. I study their actions — Jacob’s got his hands in his pockets but she’s draped on him. It could mean nothing. They broke up. They’re just doing that post-break up friendly thing until enough time passes and they can ignore each other without appearing callous. Except it’s kind of close for people who aren’t dating and who aren’t pre-dating (eg flirting and frolicking). My insides churn.

From behind me, the door opens with a squeak. Dalton sidles up next to me, having emerged from inside my dorm. “I was just dropping by to say hello,” he says. “Check on your story. See if Amelia and Nick Cooper reached a resolution. But you aren’t in your room.”

“The rumors are true,” I tell him and stand up, trying my best to ignore the PDA on the oval. “I escaped. You are observant.” I slide my palms on the rough stone steps. “I sort of dropped Amelia and Nick. Moved on.” I think about my cows and chickens in that flood and suddenly the story seems ridiculous.

“Really?” Dalton looks dismayed. “You’re just going to leave them there, without any SPF?”

I smile. “Amelia tans without burning. She’s got fictional skin.”

Dalton clicks his tongue and grins from the side of his mouth, an action that makes my heart race. Jacob does that. Did he do it with Lindsay? Did she notice? Does it matter? “That — right there. That expression…” Dalton touches his face to see what I mean. “Your, ah, roommate does that.” We both sneak a glance at the oval where Jacob and Chloe are staring at thy sky together. I’ve never really brought up Jacob before, but I feel comfortable with Dalton now.

“Oh, the sideways grin? That?” Dalton does a double-look at my face, checking for hidden meaning.

“Yeah,” I stumble over my words. “Jac — he always — it’s just something I’ve noticed. Sort of a trademark grin…” I exhale loudly. “It’s funny how roommates take on each other’s traits. Mary lines her shoes up now, just because I always do that. And I’ve found myself doing a nod I never did before, which I think I stole from her.” I demonstrate the nod now.

“Well, just so we’re clear, it’s my grin.”

“Huh?” I look at him and think back, flashcard fast of all the times Jacob did that side grin that my heart melted, that my insides went loose. How I looked for Charlie to have that grin but he never did, as though he’d misplaced the action. Turns out, it wasn’t his or Jacob’s to lose.

Dalton pulls his wallet from his back pocket. From inside the worn brown leather he slides a small black and white photograph of four kids in a row, each one leaning back on the next in the snow, a long wooden sled underneath them.

“Sledding race?” I ask, my finger resting on the edge of the picture.

Dalton nods. “Me and my sisters.” He peers closely, showing me. “Check out the expression.”

I point to the toddler version of Dalton, who looks remarkably similar, same melted dark chocolate brown hair, same pale eyes. Exact same sideways grin. “Okay, so you’re the original grinner.” I hand the photo back, thinking about how it acts as his proof. What do I have that proves who I am, that proves the lessons I’ve learned? There’s no way I can use my flooding farmland story. It’s not real. It’s not me. “Maybe I will go back to Amelia and Nick…” I shrug. “Anyway, I thought you were the one whose story will be in the spotlight this week.”

“Yep — that’s me. A walk-on part on the high school show.”

“What does that mean?”

He cracks up. “I have no idea. But suffice to say my story is done.”

I snap my fingers. “Just like that? You just went back after last week and wrote it?” He makes it sound so easy, as though no effort is required and the words will just adhere to a premade idea.

He sits down on the stone steps, his legs out so that his shoes are near mine. We’re comfortable together after the ACW classes and our walks. I think I’ve also been speaking with him so much because I can’t really talk to Jacob, who upon last check, showed no sign of coming over to me and Dalton, preferring instead to chill further on the grassy oval.

Dalton gives me a grimace. “So, you’re in tonight, right?”

I stare blankly, for real until I clue in that he’s referring to Mary’s mission. Then I play up the vacant stare. “I have no idea what you mean.”

“Good. Then we’re all set, Sweet Potato.”

“Oh, so I have a pet name now?” I raise my eyebrows. He called me Bukowski that first day of classes and I knew it was because he and Jacob must have called me by my full name way back in sophomore year. People do that sometimes, not wanting to use my first name because of its emotional component. “Fine. You can call me Sweet Potato.” Dalton and I waiver in the fun space between comfort and flirty — intimate with our conversations but decidedly not with our bodies. He’s not one of those guys that’s continually touching and gesturing while talking — either absent-mindedly or on purpose.

“Look, if you need to be one of those girls who has a weird-ass pet name in order to feel cool and accepted, so be it. Sweet Potato it is.”

“Funny,” I say and stick out my tongue. “I think I’ll pass.”

“Too late,” Dalton shakes his head. “You’re stuck with it.” He cups his hands into a foghorn. “Everyone, this girl is from now on known as Sweet Potato.”

I blush at the spectacle and because it makes Jacob look over at us for more than a normal amount of time. Does he think Dalton’s watching over me? Does he imagine we talk solely of him, of the year’s worth of angst and crush? Or does he not even care?

I bow my head. “Fine. Call me whatever you want and I will respond. I’m a retriever like that…” I hold my hand down like paws and pant. “Speaking of which…we’re getting a dog. Tomorrow. To train.” I explain further. “It’s Fruckner’s community service project for the fall. That plus a fund-raiser later on.”

“So you’re going to do what, exactly, with this dog?” Dalton looks amused, his lips curling up while his eyes stay half-lidded.

“We have to follow the rules that Guiding Eyes for the blind sends us…but it’s kind of cool.” My voice rises with the description and I realize I’m actually excited about having a puppy. “I volunteered to be the main caretaker. But, it’s kind of like writing — I mean, you’re supposed to make sure that the puppy experiences all this stuff: walking on a variety of surfaces like rugs and wood and gravel. And that it plays in different spaces, and gets to know a certain amount of new people.”

“Socialization and more.”

“Right.”

Dalton bites his lower lip and looks at the grassy oval. I fight the urge to look there and focus on him instead. Chili will want a report anyway, on what he wore and so on — still caught up in her Dalton crush along with half the school. “You should bring the puppy to ACW.” He pauses. “That is, if you survive tonight, Sweet.”

I fake grimace at the nickname. “Yeah, right…”

“No, seriously — we could walk it up and back — that’s a bunch of surfaces right there. The gravel by the service entrance, the paved road, the wooded area, the stony paddock.”

I nod and take it in. All along I’ve been gathering the details from the walks, and it’s nice to know that Dalton has, too. That they’re a part of his ACW experience. “Sure. When we get her — or him — that’d be good.”

I jingle my bag of coins and take one last look at Chloe and Jacob who are now playing catch with the core of the apple they shared. For people who aren’t together, they are so chummy I want to barf. The daunting task of breaking up with Charlie stands boulder-like in my path to a good time tonight — whatever it is we’re doing.

“Anyway — puppies, writing, snacks. What else in life could one possibly need?” Dalton asks.

I study the slant of his broad shoulders, the curve of his neck. Tans are fading now and I can see the skin Dalton will have in the winter, the color of whole milk, a perpetual flush near his jaw. “What else?” I smile. “Oh, yeah…” I’m about to say he forgot love, but it sounds loaded, like we talked about. And just in case he’s analyzing the dialogue for deeper meanings, I leave it out even though I know I want it. “The Beverly William Award? Just a suggestion.”

“Right — one for you and one for me.” He deals out invisible cards that are supposed to signify the stipend.

“Why, thanks — I’ll put it on my mantel next to my Pulitzer.”

“So.” He puts on an undecipherable accent. “Sveet Potato. Ve vill meet later.”

“Yah.” I nod to him, wishing the break up were done, that I knew what to do with Amelia and Nick, that Jacob would stop touching Chloe and that Lindsay Parrish would vanish in a cloud of Chanel. Dalton has one foot on the upper step, the other on the lower one as I head inside. We pass by each other as usual, with no touching, no goodbye, just a look. Past him, I can see the edges of the grassy oval and I know the biblical images of Jacob and Chloe are still there. I wonder if Lindsay really did steal his last letter to me. If she hadn’t and I’d read it, would everything be different? Dalton coughs, bringing me back to him.

“And Love?” He looks out at the oval and back to me. “They’re back together. Just so you know.”

He doesn’t say this with vengeance or snidely or with any of the sarcasm-laced lines he’s so famous for. It’s just a fact. Pure and simple. Presumably the reason for his drop-by visit. Chloe and Jacob were broken up, and now they’re back together, glued like a plate split down the middle. I nod at him, conveying my gratitude just with my eyes. At least he had the courtesy to tell me. Not that Jacob and I had a deal, but that’s what I took our conversation in the balcony to mean. Turns out, I was wrong.

I don’t react to the news, at least, not verbally. But the bag of coins suddenly feels anvil-heavy. I take it into the phone room with me aware that I’m about to commit a relationship sin by breaking up on the phone. Asher did that to me and I hated it, but what else can I do? Seeing Charlie in person would only be worse. Even if Jacob’s with Chloe, it doesn’t change my indecisive interiors. So I drop in the money, warned by the operator that this buys me two minutes, and wait for him to pick up.

“Charlie?” I press my lips onto the black receiver, my hands shaking.

“Love! How’d it go? Are you in love with the campus or what?”

In love. Hardly. “Well, I wouldn’t say that —”

“Oh, you have to give it a chance.” I hear him open a window. “God, it’s amazing out today, isn’t it? Did you ever have those days when you just can’t stop smiling?”

His tone is so up I feel even worse about what I’m about to do. Then I think of Lindsay’s cashmere on his chest and ripples of anger roll through me. “Charlie — I have to tell you —” Images of being with him on the Vineyard come flooding back, but I push them away, leaving them to sink like the farm animals in my story.

“The read-a-thon was a big success. I just got back, actually. And I know we’d talked about getting together tonight…”

We had? I search back over our conversations and come up blank. “I don’t think we did…”

“But I can’t. Turns out, I have tons of work. And I’m kind of hosting, too.”

Hosting? Is that what you call it these days? My mouth is dry. My legs feel weak. Then I do it quickly — like ripping a bandaid off. Which is maybe what Charlie has been. “We shouldn’t be together.”

Silence. It feels long. The ticking away of seconds. Every other sound except for Charlie’s voice resonating — birds outside, nearby chatter, then the operator asking for more money. The coins drop in with a gently clinking and finally Charlie speaks. “Just like that? No fading out, nothing?”

“You don’t sound surprised.” My chest feels heavy, and time feels long. The time since summer, since his visit, since it felt really right.

“I figured we’d end things at the Silver and White,” he says. “If we’re being honest.” He takes a breath. “Then, when I saw you — you just weren’t-”

“I wasn’t what?”

His sigh is heavy and long. “We want different things.”

“So now we’re moving onto clichés?” I feel sadness and frustration rising in me. Can’t he at least be clever in the break-up? Witty? Make me feel both reassure we’re doing the right thing and amused at the same time?

“Aren’t all break-ups clichéd?”

I pick at a piece of flaking plaster on the wall, digging my thumbnail in and picking off tiny pieces. “What about Lindsay Parrish? As long as, you know, we’re being so honest.” I clip my words, waiting for his response. People always want a good ending, one that’s clean and leaves them friends but the reality is if things were so great you’d be together.

Charlie takes so long to respond I have to put in two more quarters. Now I’ll need to get more change before doing laundry. If only I could go home, do a couple of loads while watching tv…but I’m not allowed. Then a though occurs to me: my dad’s away and I have a key. Chloe and Jacob are together, the break-up sucks, and all I want to do is curl up while my clothes get clean. This is senior year — so much for Sweet Potato — don’t know if I’ll be up for any covert missions after this. And after seeing Jacob and his newly reunited touchy-feely girl.

“As I said before, Lindsay Parrish is merely an acquaintance. One who supported me by showing up to the read-a-thon today. She’s just a friend of the family and I’m being gracious.” There’s that word again. Definition: genial. Affable. Why, then, does it translate to me as a Noun: being of or pertaining to sex regarding family friend Lame Piranah.

“So now you’re angry that I didn’t? I had my interview for God’s sake.” Now I’m pissed off. We break up and he gets to have a romp with Lindsay, not hurting over me, while I have laundry fantasies. What’s my problem?

“I understand why you couldn’t come — I just wish you’d had the guts to break it off in person.”

I can hear him licking his lips and it dawns on me that I’ll never touch them again, never even get close, probably. I might not even ever see him again. Even though he’s eighteen miles away we would have no reason to overlap anymore. “I’m sorry. Charlie, you know my feelings for you…” I pause. What do I say?

“Were in the past. Or, weren’t steady. Anyone could see that. Even Parker warned me this summer.” The thought of his brother knowing my feelings before me is unsettling. “Clichéd as it is — I think you’re right. We had a good summer.”