Stay (11 page)

left him a lot when he was young, I guess. But she always seemed

to be trying hard. It felt complicated there.

October turned to November. We did everything together.

We’d bundle up and walk to the Rose Garden at the zoo, make

out in the gazebo. I’d go with him to Mr. Hooper’s house; we

would sit in the room with the French doors and the fireplace as

Christian read from novels he’d bring from the Seattle library.

Mr. Hooper wore his jogging suit and his scuffers. He didn’t care

if the plot was slow or if the book took place in the 1700s or now

or if there was romance or war. I think he just liked the sound of

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Christian’s voice, which I understood. Christian would make Mr.

Hooper grilled cheese and tea.

I went to Sandy and Elliot’s cabin east of the mountains with

all of them once, rode in the back with Christian like we were

little kids, eating red licorice and playing I Spy. We made a fort

in the snow, tucked ourselves inside and tried to kiss, but our

lips were too cold to work very well. He told me about winter in

Copenhagen when he was a boy, how he and his parents would

rent skates at the outdoor rink in the center of the city, set pic-

turesquely in front of the snowy Royal Danish Theatre. In early

December, a guy in Christian’s class, Jason Patricks, jumped

from the ledge of Snoqualmie Falls, and we went to his funeral

together, joining all the others, our hands tight together. The

casket was set in the front of the church, and even though I had

not known Jason, he was alive and now not and inside that box.

I didn’t remember my mother’s funeral, and I could feel it then,

the grief and the loss and the thorny mess that life was, sitting

there in front of us in the shine of that wood and the waxy smell

of flowers, and I felt so close to Christian there beside me, then.

It felt like we had gone through something together, or at least

stood witness together to something huge that now bound us.

We’d known each other for a few months when he told me he

loved me. We had talked around the idea, we had used all the not-

quite-there expressions of love, the appetizers and the desserts

and the salad, but not the main meal.
I think I’m falling in love
.
I

love that about you.
You’re a person I could seriously love.
Still, it was

the direct three words that you wanted; those were the ones that

meant something. He had picked me up after school. We were

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Deb Caletti

in his car. We were parked near the gym where we had met. That

basketball game seemed like a long time ago. He’d become such

a daily presence in my life, it seemed weird that there had been a

time when he wasn’t in it. Shakti complained she never saw me

anymore. All my friends did. I tried to make sure I wasn’t one of

those girls who dropped all their friends when a guy came into

her life, but I guess I was, and I’m telling the truth here, so the

truth was that I didn’t mind.

“I’ve said this to you a million times already in my head,”

Christian had said.

I was quiet. An old-fashioned word comes to mind:
coy
. It was

like he was on bended knee with a velvet box, with me waiting

primly in some Victorian outfit. And the truth again—I wasn’t going

to be the one to say it first. What’s that about? Love must be more

about power than we think, if even in its most intimate moment of

expression we think about not being the one who risks the most.

“I love you,” he said. He was glad to have it out, I guess,

because he said it two more times, relieved, and then he rolled

down his window and shouted it out, which was so unlike him

that I laughed and grabbed his arm.

“Christian!” I said. Two senior girls were looking at us like we

were the star performers in the idiot circus. “Roll that up!” I was

laughing, and I was so happy. He put the window up. I held his

hands. His eyes were bright. “I love you, too,” I said.

And I did. That was the thing you should understand. Bad

things happened. It was like seeing something great on the

beach, something you ran toward because it looked special and

different, and when you got close, you saw it was something that

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made you look away, a syringe, a condom, a dead seagull buzzing

with flies. But I did love him. Very much.

We’d gotten so close by then. It embarrasses me now, but

we used those words:
soul mates
. Hard to admit that. Hard to

admit, too, that I felt some future was actually possible. At least,

I couldn’t imagine life without him in it. We couldn’t keep our

hands off each other, either. There were
I want yous
and more
I

want yous
but that’s as far as it went . He took those things seri-

ously. For someone who spent years of his childhood in a city

where women went topless in the parks on summer afternoons,

he was surprisingly, staunchly prudish. He judged people who

had sex too soon. They were loose and stupid and had no morals,

and I said I agreed but didn’t know how I really felt. It could be

complicated, I thought. Okay, truth
again
. He had used the word

slut
. About girls who had sex.

That night we had gone out with his friends—Jake and his girl-

friend Olivia and Zach. We went to Neumo’s. A band I can’t remem-

ber. We were dancing. I wondered if Zach had had a few beers or

something beforehand. He was loose and kept making dumb jokes.

It was the first time we’d gone out with Christian’s friends. I’d met

them. Hung out a little. But we’d never gone somewhere.

After the concert everyone was laughing and having the kind

of good feeling that comes after dancing to loud music in a small

place. You felt happy. Or you did usually. But things were weird.

I’d tried to hold Christian’s hand in there, but he kept snatching

it away. He was barely talking. But when we got back into our

own car, he snapped on the engine. His face had a tight look. He

almost looked like someone else.

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Deb Caletti

I didn’t say anything. I just held my purse. I wanted a mint,

but I didn’t want to unzip it and get one out. I wanted things to

be in that still place
before
a fight, not in that other, upsetting one

after a fight starts.

“
You
had fun,” he said finally.

I thought that was the idea, you know, to have fun. I won-

dered what his problem was. I didn’t know. I made my best

guess. Christian didn’t drink. He was straight that way, too, actu-

ally. I was guessing he was pissed at Zach and pissed at me for

joking with him. He had no right to accuse me of anything, but I

couldn’t stand the thought of us arguing. We never argued. The

thought made me remember that time we’d gone to the movies.

That terrible, anxious feeling that I might lose him.

“Zach seemed drunk,” I said. “He was acting like an asshole.”

I didn’t really think so.

Christian was silent. The muscle in his jaw just kept working.

I concentrated on the view outside. Streetlights, a McDonald’s,

a bus stop where an old lady sat holding her purse like I was.

She was up very late for someone so old. I felt worried for her. I

watched a guy walking his dog past an empty bank parking lot.

We wound around by Lake Union. Sailboats, lively restaurants.

The Space Needle already decorated for Christmas with the tree

at the top.

“I saw you looking at that guy,” he said.

I had no idea what he was talking about.

“What guy?”

“Come on, Clara. You were looking at him the whole night.”

“Who?”

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“By the stage? Long hair? Oh come on.” A car tried to pass

into our lane, but Christian wouldn’t let him in. It looked rejected,

driving so slowly there beside us with its blinker on.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I didn’t even see

the guy by the stage. Christian, for God’s sake, I was there with

you. You were the only one I was looking at. Christian, pull over.

Just, stop, and let’s talk.”

He did. He swerved right there onto Fairview, which was

the street directly next to the lake. He pulled over, parked on

a gravel strip in front of a boatyard. I felt panicky. I wanted to

make this right. It was ridiculous. The strange thing was, if he’d

complained about Zach, I might have understood. But I didn’t

even see the person he meant. I tried to think. Guy by the stage?

There were a million guys by the stage. I was looking at the
stage
,

probably. The
musicians.

I wasn’t mad, though, about being accused. More, I felt bad.

Did he really not know how much I cared? It was only him I

wanted to look at. He was more than enough for my eyes. I told

him so. I was pleading. Part of me was pleading, and another

part of me was wondering why in the hell I was pleading. I was

wondering why I was sitting in front of a boatyard convincing

someone I hadn’t looked at a guy I hadn’t looked at.

He softened. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t want to lose you.”

It was funny, but he could be insecure. I’d noticed that. He would

make these comments about his looks or his abilities, but he had

no reason to be insecure, none. He was this gorgeous blond,

blue-eyed Dane and he was smart and nice and girls were crazy

for his accent, but the person he was and the person he thought

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he was didn’t know each other and could never even be friends.

It made me sad. I thought it was part of my girlfriend job to set

him straight about how great he was. The insecurity—it seemed

like a small thing. Ridiculous enough that it could easily be fixed

with my reassurance.

“Why would you lose me?” I said.

We started to kiss. After a while, I had said
I want everything

with you.
And so we had everything. For the first time. After that

fight. In the car, a cliché.

But the important thing at this part of the story, another

part I’ve never told, is that he whispered something to me

then.
You’re sure you’ve never done this?
It was something he’d

asked me before. I shook my head into his bare shoulder, but

it was a lie. I didn’t tell him about that one time with Dylan,

that one fast, strange time. I didn’t tell him the truth then, or

whenever we’d talked about this. He’d never been with a girl

before. I knew this would matter to him. But what I knew even

more than that was that he was the
jealous type
. That’s how I

thought of it. As if the words were small print, equal to other

qualities a person might have—the athletic type. The creative

type. The type to get easily lost, or be late, or didn’t like food

that was too different. It meant you made accommodations,

you got directions beforehand or told him the concert was ear-

lier or picked a place to eat that had hamburgers or didn’t say

things that would hurt him. You didn’t even tell him the truth

about who you were or what you had done. You protected him,

kept things from him he couldn’t handle. Or else protected

yourself from what he couldn’t handle. You managed it all, like

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someone who works in an office and who types and answers

the phone at the same time.

Why would you lose me?
I had asked. And you can see, can’t

you, better than I could, that the answer to that question was right

there in the car with us as my knee rested against the gear shift

and my elbow against glass? The answer was not a small human

quality, a minor trait or a quiet one, but a loud twisting force mov-

ing between and around and through, gathering, the way a cloud

gathers darkness, the way the clouds did right then over that car

and the single streetlight and the sign that read lake union Boat

repair. Value and satisfaction. we care
.

* 87 *

I returned that book to the Bishop Rock Library the

next morning. I had a few more days to fill before I started work

at Pigeon Head Point. I wandered around in the stacks of fic-

tion. I tipped out the spines, read the covers and first pages. I

did what I could to make sure I had a few books right enough

to devote myself to.

Afterward I went to the docks. The wind was whipping pretty

good, and the sailboats were clanging, and the dock was groaning

and squeaking. The boats bobbed and sloshed, and it all seemed

happy, if a little deranged.
Obsession
was gone from her spot. I sat

on the end of a nearby dock, took my sandals off, dangled my feet