Moving Neutral (31 page)

I read somewhere that if you fake an emotion long enough, you’ll start to actually feel it, so I faked happiness long and hard. And the days passed.

When the new photos of Blake came out, the one lone photographer must have come to the same conclusion that I had -- that Blake Parker and Casey Snow were history. My parents could take their trash out to the curb and Madison could park on the street in front of our house without worrying if her hair was done or whether she was wearing makeup.

Even Trevor was allowed to play in the back yard again -- although why my parents were worried that photos of Trevor kicking around a soccer ball would show up in US Weekly was still an unexplained mystery.

It wasn’t that I’d forgotten about Blake, or that I even could forget about him. But if he had forgotten me this quickly, I wouldn’t let myself dwell on him. If we were separated by circumstances, it was one thing. If I was just one girl in a long line, that was different.

Madison and I were both scheduled to move into our dorms the same day. The night before we left, she came over to my house with a bag of Twizzlers and a DVD, and we stayed up after the rest of my family went to bed, not quite ready to go to sleep and have the summer be over for good.

Did you ever hear from Sophie? She asked me, taking a piece of licorice out of the bag and nibbling on one end. Madison had found me at the trash can, and the moment she saw my crumpled letter, she handed me the keys and told me to wait in the car while she mailed the dress back. I’d walked away without a second glance.

A week had passed and I hadn’t gotten a response -- not even the courtesy of sending back the yellow sundress that I’d left behind.

As if my sundress was on his mind. He’d probably handed it off to some girl by now. He’d probably forgotten it was ever even mine.

Nothing, I said. I guess it doesn’t matter now.

We need a new favorite band, Madison said, only half joking. How do you feel about Lady Gaga?

Right, I giggled. How do you feel about Garth Brooks?

Excellent suggestion, she grinned at me. Those are both perfect substitutes for Blake Parker.

I think Garth Brooks is my dad’s age.

Fair enough.

We sat in silence for a moment.

Beyonce?

Madison, enough.

I’m sure freshman move-in day is probably crazy at any college, but drop that college into the middle of the largest and most crowded city in America, and it turns into something that you should probably get a medal for surviving. My parents drove separate cars packed to the brims with my clothes, dorm supplies, books, and everything else an eighteen year old could possibly cram into a closet-sized bedroom for nine months.

I tried to smile as a girl in a blue Columbia shirt waved brightly to us when we finally pulled into a parking spot outside the dorm I’d been assigned to.

You’re allowed to park in front of the building for thirty minutes, and then you have to move your car to an off-campus space, okay? The girl chirped, helping to open one of the back doors and then darting off to go enforce parking regulations somewhere else. Ask anyone in a blue tee-shirt if you need help.

I looked at the backseat of my mom’s station wagon, filled to the ceiling with crates and boxes. With a sigh, I started taking them out of the car and setting them down in a pile on the lawn.

The heat had broken during the prior week, but it was still August, and the smell of car exhaust and street cart food was starting to make me feel sick.

Case, you okay? My dad asked, patting me on the shoulder as he pulled a mini fridge out of the trunk of the car. You want to go get us some lemonades?

Are you sure? I said, eyeing the rest of the boxes in his car with some skepticism. Don’t you need my help here?

Nah, he said, shrugging his shoulders. You need to pick up your keys anyways, right? We can’t start moving your stuff inside until you can get into the room.

I nodded, looking down at the flyer Columbia had sent us about moving day the week before. I was supposed to pick up my keys at registration, a building a few blocks away.

We’ll get everything else unloaded -- you go figure that out, my dad said, handing me a twenty dollar bill. And bring us back some waters or something, okay?

I nodded. Thanks, dad, I said. I slipped the bill into my wallet, looking down at the address one more time and walking off, I hoped, in the right direction.

The line was almost around the block when I got to the registration building, mostly whole families waiting while some boy or girl my age looked painfully embarrassed to be flanked by their parents, or else terrified to be letting their parents go.

I was somewhere in between, I figured. After wanting nothing more than to start college at the beginning of the summer, and nothing less than for college to start while I was with Blake, I’d entered a sort of neutral zone over the last week. College was starting, there wasn’t much I could do about it, but I was finding it hard to really care, one way or the other. Like the summer when Blake had named the band, things kept moving around me but nothing changed. I was just here -- vacantly, pointlessly here.

The line was moving pretty quickly, and within ten or so minutes, I was already at the door to the building. I could see that there was a desk in the lobby where they were handing out dorm keys, so I only had a few minutes to go. I looked down at the marble floor of the entryway, one of those pre-war details that buildings in New York were famous for, and tapped my flip flop on the shiny surface.

A guy in a blue shirt was walking back and forth along the freshman line, probably looking for anyone’s parents he could provide some fake-friendly help to, and he seemed to hesitate when he passed me. I looked down at my shoes, unwilling to make eye contact -- if he was just looking for lonely freshmen, he could find someone else. And if he recognized me from the stupid gossip magazines this summer, I certainly wasn’t going to give him an opportunity to talk about it by paying attention to him. I watched the bottom of his shirt as he paused, and then moved past me, out the door and towards the line of families around the block. I sighed with relief, and found myself finally at the front of the line.

Casey Snow, I said quietly to the person handling freshmen with last names S-Z, as her cardboard sign announced.

Great, do you have a passport or a driver’s license? she asked me, sounding tired, hot and bored. I fumbled in my wallet to pull out my license and handed it to her, setting the wallet on the table as she handed me a packet of orientation schedules, dorm rules and my very own Columbia blue tee-shirt in a size small.

Thanks, I said as I turned away from the table and tucked the packet under my arm. I wondered whose bright idea it had been to give all the freshmen the same tee-shirts as the people who were supposed to be helping the freshmen. If I put it on, I wasn’t sure if I’d be more or less noticeable.

I didn’t want to risk it. The last thing I needed were earnest parents stopping me and asking for directions. Or wanting me to help move a couch or something.

I pulled out my cell phone and sent a text to Madison, asking if she was done moving in yet. Maybe we could get dinner for our first night in New York, and I’d be saved from whatever awkward freshman activity the school had planned for the evening.

I looked down at my watch, and realized I’d been gone for almost twenty minutes. My parents would be done unloading and moving the cars, and they’d probably need to start moving stuff into the dorm right away. I tried to remember if I’d gone east or west to get to the registration building, but I wasn’t quite sure.

Stopping at a corner store, I figured I could ask for directions and come back with drinks in one fell swoop. I picked out three plastic bottles of water from a refrigerated case, trying to balance them and the registration packet without dropping anything. I set the bottles on the counter and the man behind the register rang them up.

Would you mind, also -- which way is east from here? The man pointed to the far end of the store, which meant I had been about to head off in the wrong direction. Thanks, I said, trying to smile at him.

Four-fifty, the man said, putting the three waters into a plastic bag.

I reached into my purse for my wallet and stopped, horrified. Groping through the bag, there was nothing but my cell phone, some gum, and the fabric lining.

I’m so sorry, I said, fumbling in my bag for any loose change. I came up with three quarters and a nickel. The man behind the register was looking down at me, unamused.

A few other students were walking through the store, and I didn’t want their first impression of me to be the freak show who’d lost her wallet and was begging for change. Sorry, I whispered. I must have left my wallet -- I’ll put them back. I could see someone in a blue tee-shirt behind me in line, and I didn’t want to hold everyone up.

The man sighed, taking the three bottles out of the bag and wiping the condensation off his hands.

It okay, a voice behind me said. I’ll pay for hers.

They say that if you’re ever dying of thirst, wandering through the desert, it’s possible to imagine pools of fresh water, palm trees, sparkling crystal lakes that aren’t really there.

That was apparently where I’d gotten with Blake Parker. My head spun and I didn’t even turn around, because whoever this random guy behind me in the Columbia tee-shirt was, I was hearing Blake’s voice come out of his mouth.

He put a five dollar bill down on the counter, and the man picked it up, hitting the register button and pulling out two quarters.

Does this happen to you a lot? the voice continued, haunting and familiar in a way that made me certain, physically certain, that I was losing my mind. Or am I always just here when it does?

I felt my heart thumping like it might burst out of my chest, my whole body starting to tremble as I finally turned. Standing behind me, his eyes even bluer and brighter against the tee-shirt that every student on campus was wearing, was Blake.

Are you really here?

He laughed, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me out of the store in the same motion. I wasn’t sure what anyone around us thought, and for a second, I didn’t care.

What’s happening? I asked, not sure how else to phrase it. What are you doing here?

Waiting for you, mostly, he avoided my question. I saw you in line, but you thought something on the ground was pretty interesting, I guess. So I waited for you to leave. Oh, he said, pulling something out of his pocket and handing it to me. They called your name right after you walked out, but you were pretty oblivious. I looked down at my wallet in his hand. What would you do without me?

I tried to smile, but now that I’d gotten over the shock of seeing him, I wasn’t sure what to say next. Looking at Blake, all I could think about were the tabloids, the girl they’d photographed him with the week after I’d gone. And why, after replacing me so quickly, he’d bothered to show up here.

Blake seemed to notice my hesitation, and he looked at me intently, guessing my concern. You saw those stupid pictures?

I nodded, bracing myself for the worst.

She’s my lawyer, he said, taking my hand and pulling me closer. We had a contract when Moving Neutral got signed, and I needed to know what would happen if I left the band.

It was all coming too fast for me to process. You left the band?

Casey, what they were doing hasn’t been right for me for a while -- you know that, he said seriously, taking my hand. Bigger shows, dubbing April’s voice on our albums, magazine shoots, after a while, it felt like we were an image, not a band. I never wanted to do a reality show, and April telling me it was the show or the band just brought that into focus. I don’t want to be part of it if we’re going in a direction that’s not for me, he said, like it was a matter of going down the wrong exit on a highway and not giving up his entire career. It just took me a little while to figure out what my direction was.

I tried to wrap my mind around what he was telling me, that it was over, that my favorite band had broken up, and he was here, somehow, for me.

Casey, I was angry that night, but when I got your note, I realized you were right. I don’t care when you first heard our music. I just wish you’d told me, so I didn’t have to hear it from April.

I looked at him, confused. What note?

Reaching back into his pocket, Blake pulled out a folded sheet of lined paper, creased from where someone had crumpled it up.

Where I had crumpled it up. I knew immediately what had happened -- Madison.

I thought about what I’d written and then thrown away, everything I’d decided not to say. Apparently I’d said it after all, and it had brought him here.

Blake, I whispered, fingering the edge of the wallet, not sure what to say.

No, don’t, he said. I know this is a lot for you to take in. I thought about trying to call, but I figured maybe I’d make it a surprise. He grinned. Surprise -- I’m a freshman.

I stared at him in stunned silence, wondering if I’d heard correctly. What do you mean, you’re a freshman?

I told you I’d deferred here twice, right? Turns out they were okay with me changing my mind.