The Last Time We Were Us (17 page)

I turn to Skip. “You coming?”

He shakes his head. “Nah.”

I jump. The water is cool and refreshing, and it sends my stringy swimsuit everywhere. I pop up, adjusting, and Innis looks at me with waterlogged lashes. “How’s it feel?”

“Great.”

“Good to hear.” He says it mischievously, and I only have a second to grab a breath before his hands are on my shoulders, dunking me under.

I kick to the surface, gasp for air. “You know you’re going to pay for that.”

I swim towards him as he makes his way to the other side of the boat. Innis doesn’t know what a good swimmer I am. In the summers, Mr. Sullivan would drop us off at the YMCA pool while he worked out at the gym. We made it a contest to see who could do the most laps, while all the other kids messed around in the shallow end. Jason was built for it, his body thin and lanky, and he always won. But I got pretty close.

I whip my body through the water, scooping handfuls away from me, kicking quickly, and in seconds I’m behind him. I launch myself forward, throwing my whole weight onto his shoulders, pushing him down under and giving him a little tap with my feet.

From underneath, I feel him grab my ankles, pulling me down, too. And then we’re under together, and he wraps his arms around me, and we meet the sunshine and the surface at the same time.

“Very sneaky.” I gasp for breath.

But he doesn’t say anything. Just plants the lightest of feather kisses right on my lips.

T
WO GAMES OF
chicken later, I’m cold and exhausted. I climb back into the boat, but Innis and the others stay, swimming around and playing a silly game that Kenzie has just invented.

Mr. Taylor still sits at the helm, drinking a beer, turning up Lynyrd, and announcing his various complaints to Skip and me, by proxy—the riffraff who’ve practically taken over the lake, the new congressman who wants to increase property taxes, Mrs. Taylor, who keeps texting him about details for the fund-raiser tomorrow.

I grab a water from the cooler and a towel from the stack and sit there, quietly, watching my friends in the lake, thinking how lucky I am to be here, when Skip turns to me. “How’s your sister?”

The question shocks me. Mr. Taylor digs through the cooler for another beer and turns the music louder. Skip scoots closer to me, waiting for an answer.

“She’s good,” I manage. My eyes flit to Mr. Taylor. His face is red, and I doubt it’s from the Coors Lights. I bet he thinks exactly the way I used to, that Lyla left his son when he needed her most.

“Her wedding’s coming up, isn’t it?”

I nod, fast and furious. He takes a long sip of his beer. “Is Benny good to her?”

This is what I want to say:
Better than you! You broke her heart! She would have stayed with you! You could have been something together!

With all my heart, I want Mr. Holier-Than-Thou Taylor to know that Lyla’s not the villain here. That it wasn’t even her choice. I want to remind Skip that even if it all hits the fan, you’re still in charge of your fate. You’re still responsible for what you do.

I want to scream at Jason for putting us all here to begin with.

But I catch his eyes, and in that moment I see the Skip I used to know, the guy who always gave me sticks of cinnamon gum when he came over to pick up Lyla, the guy who drove to Walmart the day I started my period, because my parents were gone and we only had Tampons in the house, which I was afraid to use. He is not a tragic character, not a player in a Victor Hugo classic. He’s the boy who dated my sister, pinned a corsage on the edge of her pale pink gown while Dad videoed the whole thing. He’s a person, just like anyone else, a person I used to look up to, even.

A person who maybe didn’t realize that Lyla would have kept on loving him, if only he’d let her.

I hold his gaze when I answer. “Yeah. He’s very good to her.”

He nods, looks down, and I think I see a glistening in his one perfect eye, but I can’t be sure.

Chapter 16

T
HE NEXT NIGHT, WE ARRIVE AT
C
RAWFORD
H
ALL AT
seven o’clock, sharp.

Dad pulls around the long driveway, the one Kenzie and I were always afraid to approach, and a college-aged guy in a crisp white shirt and black tie, who looks like he’d rather be anywhere but here, walks up to the car and opens the door. “Welcome to Crawford Hall, ma’am.”

“Oh,” Mom says, flustered. “We’re just dropping our daughter off.”

The guy looks confused. “So you don’t want the complimentary valet service?”

Mom gives him a nervous smile. “I think we’re okay.”

“Could you pull up there, then?” He points to a dirt drive off the roundabout.

“Sure thing,” Mom says.

“Innis couldn’t have picked you up and avoided all this awkwardness?” Dad asks. “Then we wouldn’t have to pull over in a dirt road watching the Beamers pass us by.”

“Greg,” Mom says. “His family is running the whole thing. She’s lucky to even get an invite. Maybe if we were going ourselves, it wouldn’t have been so
awkward
.”

Here we go. “Guys, I’m gonna get out now.”

Mom stops bickering and rolls down her window. “Wait a sec, wait a sec, honey,” she says. “Let me just get one picture. Move over a little. I want the whole house in the shot.”

“Mom.”

“Just a little to the right. Perfect. Okay, smile.”

“Don’t put this on the internet.”

She doesn’t answer.

“I mean it.”

“Fine, fine.” She holds up the phone, and I give her my best get-on-with-it smile.

“Oh, don’t you look just gorgeous?” She pushes the phone at Dad. “Greg, look at her.”

His mood softens. “You look wonderful, Liz. Have a blast.”

I don’t look back as my parents pull away. I take in the scene before me instead: the front of the huge mansion, which I’ve never even been this close to; the men and women in gowns and tuxes filing elegantly through the arched front door; the glow of real gas lamps; the bustle of more valets moving Mercedes and Audis to the back.

I follow the crowd of people up the steps, and one of the guys holds the door open for me. Saying thanks, I quickly step inside.

I don’t know the perfect word for the inside of Crawford Hall. Exquisite comes to mind, of course, but everyone says exquisite about places like this. Or breathtaking, but I am still breathing. Mom would call it stunning. Dad would call it ostentatious. But for me, it isn’t really any of these things.

For me, it is simply a different world than I have ever known.

And it’s not just in the silk drapes pooling on the floor, the perfect golden yellow of the walls, the intricate snow-white molding, the ceiling medallions and shimmering crystal chandeliers, or the elegant symmetry of the scrolling central staircase—I’ve been to the Biltmore, after all, seen houses far fancier than this.

Instead, it’s the soft smell of baby powder on an older woman in a floor-skimming gown. It’s the din of orchestra music coming from down the hall. It’s the way people are talking: confidently, yet not too loudly; and the way they are walking: heads lifted high, feet gliding effortlessly, one in front of the other, as if the whole world is an invisible balance beam. It’s the glance of myself in the oversized gilded mirror that leans against one of the walls of one of the sitting rooms. I look older somehow, my hair done up in Mom’s signature chignon, the beads of my purple dress catching the light, the swath of dark red lipstick that makes my lips look all pouty and, dare I say, chic. It’s the way I look like I almost belong.

I text Innis to say I’m here and wait for him at the bottom of the staircase, like he told me to. I scan the crowd of people coming in, looking for anyone I recognize, and see a middle-aged woman in a simple black dress. She’s one of our librarians, and though she doesn’t recognize me, I certainly remember her. She’s the person who encouraged me to read classics, before I was ever assigned them in high school. Gave me a list of the greats, which I ticked through religiously the summer after eighth grade, the summer after Jason ditched me and before I met Veronica, the summer I didn’t really have a friend.

“Hi,” I hear behind me, and I flip around to see Innis, towering over me on the second step of the staircase.

Innis in a tux is wild and I’m completely caught off guard because the tux doesn’t call to mind dreams of homecoming or prom; instead, I have this flash of him and me, walking down our own aisle, of how lovely a wedding would be at Crawford Hall, the curve of his lips as he says the words
I do
, as he leans in to kiss his bride . . .

“You okay?” He steps down to meet me, kisses me softly on the lips. I feel the blush rise to my cheeks.

“Yeah,” I say, embarrassed at how easily I let Lyla’s wedding prep get to my head. “You just look nice is all.”

He places his hands on my shoulders, pushes me back a touch, looks me up and down. He shakes his head. “
Nice
doesn’t even begin to describe the way you look.”

I link my arm in his, and we follow the people around the staircase, down the hall, and through the double doors in the back. Innis walks with purpose, as usual, and I barely even have time to soak in the seemingly endless rooms on either side of me.

He leads me onto a panoramic back porch, and I smile to myself as I realize that the basement where I’ve watched him play so many video games is just a few feet below us. The juxtaposition is hilarious.

A handful of tables are set up on the porch, the rest on the huge lawn below. What must be a hundred strings of twinkle lights glow in the ever-darkening dusk, a pink sun just setting over a horizon of woods behind the property. There’s a gazebo for the occasion, and the Charlotte Symphony plays Beethoven or Tchaikovsky or one of the old dead guys with hard-to-pronounce names.

Innis squeezes my hand. “Fancy, huh?”

“Uh-huh,” I stammer, and all I can think of is the scene in
Pride and Prejudice
, where Elizabeth Bennet looks out on the grounds of Pemberley, after she’s refused Mr. Darcy’s proposal, thinking how all of it could have been hers. And I’ve always judged her for that scene, because, come on, Elizabeth, you’re not
that
materialistic. But I was wrong, totally wrong. Because the feeling is completely natural, when someone holds your new life out on a silver platter, offering crème brûlèe when all you’ve ever had—all you’ve ever even thought to want—was chocolate chip cookies.

“We’re right over here.” He leads me to a round table in the corner—white tablecloth, calligraphy place cards, the works. Skip is already there, eating shrimp cocktail and messing around on his phone. Behind him, a tall, elegant woman I recognize as Mrs. Taylor hugs and cheek-kisses another woman, before turning to us.

“Mom, this is Liz,” Innis says. “Liz, this is my mom.”

She takes my hand immediately, then pulls me into a hug.

“I’m so glad to meet you,” she says. “God, don’t you look just like Lyla?”

Skip lifts his head at the mention of Lyla, looks at me, and says, “Hey, Liz,” but then goes back to his shrimp.

Mrs. Taylor looks the part, of course, in a black silk evening dress that falls just above her toes, several strings of pearls, and diamond earrings. Her eyes are hazel and her hair is the same shade as Innis’s, curly and cropped close to her head. They look strikingly alike, only she is graceful and feminine where he is not.

“She looks like herself, Mom,” Innis says proudly.

“Of course,” Mrs. Taylor says. “Oh, you know what I meant. Now how is your family?”

“My parents are good,” I say. “They wish they could have come but the tickets sold out so quickly.” Mom has always said that there are lies and there are polite untruths. This one, of course, is in the latter category, and she absolutely insisted I say it tonight.

Mrs. Taylor clasps her hands together. “Next time, next time. I’m just so glad we’re able to raise so much for the library. I think this will be our best year yet, between the tickets and the silent auction. Speaking of, I have to arrange a few things. Cocktail hour is for another thirty minutes before we all sit down, so enjoy yourselves!”

She leans in conspiratorially. “And have some bubbles if you want. One glass of champagne won’t kill you, and Mr. Taylor agrees.” And then she floats off, silk swooshing as she walks.

I stare as she goes, impressed. She is warm and welcoming where Mr. Taylor is cold and distant. She is everything my mother wanted me and Lyla to be if only we hadn’t gotten kicked out of cotillion—mannered but not snobbish, poised but not uptight. And whatever anger Mr. Taylor seems to harbor about me and my family, she has none of it, or she’s a very good actor.

“She’ll be running around the rest of the night, has to say hi to everyone,” Innis says.

“Well, she’s the star of the show,” I say.

But Innis shakes his head, looks down at me. “That title’s already taken.”

W
E HAVE MORE
than one glass of champagne, though no one seems to notice, and Innis eats every ounce of the four-course dinner and part of mine. Mr. Taylor does mainly what he did on the boat, complain loudly about various news and events—except in a tux this time—and when Mrs. Taylor isn’t making announcements and receiving oversized checks and generally running the whole thing, she sits next to me, talks about how nice it is to have another woman around, and looks at me with “help me!” eyes when the boys talk about boy things—or at least what people like Mrs. Taylor would consider boy things—like boats and the Braves.

At one point, Innis tells me a story about when he and Skip were kids, when his brother made him laugh so hard milk came out of his nose, only it didn’t fall to his plate, it landed right on Sally, the family cat, and she meowed and hissed and never forgave him. And we all laugh then, and even Mr. Taylor smiles at me, and it’s like they’re just a regular family and I’m just regular me, and we all go together.

Eventually, the dinner dishes are cleared and the crowd mingles again and people move down to the lawn, where a shiny wooden dance floor has been laid out in front of the gazebo. There are a lot of people I recognize now—a few from our neighborhood, others from the one or two times a year we go to church, some men and women on the school board, and it’s funny to see them all dolled up, like we’ve been cast in a movie about rich people.