The Half-Life of Planets (17 page)

At home, I peel my still-wet clothing off,
wishing I could peel off the day too. All of it. The peaks and valleys my heart dealt with upon seeing my past, shirtless. The work I didn't do. My father's fifty-millionth round of tests. The party. But mainly Hank's stupidity. His lack of social grace. His complete inability to function without humiliating me.

I hang my shirt up in the bathroom, and when I wriggle out of my wet shorts I remove my wallet. The case is meant to be airtight, but I'm not sure that means waterproof. I open it to find three singles, one five, and a ten all damp and stuck together. I lay them on the counter to dry, then, underneath, see the white slip of paper. The slut note, which I still haven't discarded. The shame of today floods back. All those boys, knowing, their mouths on mine. The scorn from the girls. I spread the note out gently, staring at the word.

With a hair dryer set on low, I blow the heat onto the papers, crisping the bills and thinking. Hank makes me feel split inside. Two Hanks; one from the porch, swirling with music, the other a complete and utter social disaster, insensitive and plain dumb—frantic and unable to relax today, then ruining everything with his inability to keep his mouth shut.

“Liana?” my mother shouts into my room. “Come in to see us when you're done, okay?”

I give an affirmative grunt, wondering what baked good I'll have to sample today. The papers begin to dry. I contemplate crumpling up the slut note, but I can't. It's somehow a part of me now. Like those kisses I remember. How Pren Stevens tasted like licorice. How the light from under the bleachers looked like meteor shafts. How I know that if I ever kiss anyone ever again, which at this point is light years away, I won't have to wonder if it's okay. I'll just know.

I fold my money into a wad and tuck the note in, wondering if even the things that slice you open, that prick at you in the dark quiet of your own safe room at night, are worth savoring somehow. If they need to be kept and remembered. This makes me think of Jenny's picture and how my mother's response when she saw it on the counter the other day wasn't to bring it back to the basement, but to pile it up with all the albums and liner notes and have me do it. “Don't you want to take this to the basement?” she'd asked, as though reminding me about a favor I'd promised. I did return the albums but I pocketed the photograph and slid it in my desk drawer.

I go to it now, bringing it with me as I try to find my parents. They aren't in the living room, and they're not in the kitchen. Baffled, I check outside, but the porch is vacant, save for ghosts of “Waterloo Sunset” and me and Hank. My heart sinks, thinking of how we can repair his damage. How can we get past that?

“Dad?” I shout out. I find them in my mother's home office, where they're eating biscotti and sorting through accordion files, the way they do at tax time. “Paying bills?” I ask.

Dad blanches. “No. Just, uh…tidying up.” He locks eyes with my mother.

“Did you have fun?” she asks, a few crumbs landing on her desk as she bites. Instantly she swipes them up with a cloth. “Want a few cappuccino biscotti?”

Suddenly this strikes me as odd—not her cleaning or forcing baked goods at me, she does that all the time, but that they aren't rejoicing in dad being around, making elaborate dinner plans or barbecuing. They're just dunking the biscotti in tepid coffee, their quiet chatter creeping up my skin as quiet and as insidious as mold.

“Dad had more tests.” My mother locates a paper and hands it to my father. She looks pained.

“But he's fine,” I say, and reach for a biscuit to placate her. As always, I think. I browse around the room for something, anything—that inexplicable missing item you want but can't locate when you return from being out with friends and come home to…home. I eye the calendar that hangs by the door. Dad's meant to be home for exactly a whopping three whole days this month—and he's already been here for two. “When do you leave for Orlando?”

Dad's biscotti sits so long in the coffee that when he removes it and waits to bite it, the end plops off, splattering him with dark brown liquid. “Shit. Goddamn it!” He swipes at his shirt with a napkin. My dad is not a swearer. Never has been. My mother is prone to cringe-worthy substitutions like “phooey” and “shucks” and “darn it all,” but I can tell sometimes that she wants to yell
fuck fuck fuck
like there's no tomorrow. Only, she never would. It's like she's always waiting, letting the words cook inside herself, until she finally perceives me as able to handle it.

“I'm sticking around here for a bit,” Dad says, and leaves his biscotti to disintegrate on the saucer. “I can come to Beachfest with you!” He tries for a joke.

“Yeah, right,” I say, but inside my stomach turns. Beachfest. It's around the corner. The sure sign that summer's on its way out. What will I do about Hank?

My mother won't look up from her paper shuffling. I feel the photograph in my hands, keep it pressed against my stomach.

“Liana?” My mother stops me as I'm making my way out. She's seen the photograph in my hands, I'm sure. My skin pricks with nerves. “Here.” She stands up and hands me something. I look down. “A pamphlet?”

I don't know whether to laugh or to scream, feeling both on their way out when I read the title aloud: “SEX-press Yourself: Healthy Ways to Navigate the Changing Waters.” “You're giving me this?” I ask in disbelief.

My mother looks at my father, but he just begs off, focusing on the mushy biscuit. “I just thought…” she starts.

“Never mind the really bad grammar—Dad—have you seen this? Here's a sentence: ‘Sometimes two young people want to show one another their feelings.'” I look at my father. “
One another
means more than two people. They should have written
each other
.
Each other
is two.”

My mother puts her hands on her hips and comes out from behind the desk so she's between my father and me.

I continue reading, “‘
My body is for me
.' Yeah, okay.”

“I saw the note,” she says, even though we all know it by now. My father even nods.

I let the silence leak into the room, flood the spaces around us, the spaces that are usually filled with cookies or muffins or test results. So she saw the slut note. Everyone in the world has seen it now. Or heard about it. Then, when I'm good and ready, I speak. “You have my report cards taped on the fridge. You have my science reports practically framed in the living room.”

“We're proud of you. Of your accomplish—” My dad starts.

“But what about the kisses? The hookups?” I ask, and my voice is choked, tears from the whole mess of a day coming to my eyes. “You can't hide those either. Because they're a part of me.” I pause. “And just so you know—it wasn't sex, okay? I never slept with them.” And that's true, but I can tell from my mother's face that she's not buying it. The proof is in my virginity, but I won't play that card. All I wanted was the mouth to mouth. That's what they were, the kisses—proof of life in some way.

They wait for me to say more, so I do. “Just because you think you know something about someone doesn't mean that thing defines them. One thing—one word—or whatever, can't really define you.” I hand the pamphlet back to her, and she takes it, letting the paper wilt in her hand. I turn to my dad. “I'm sorry you have to be stuck here.”

His hand flies up, grasping mine. “That's not how I meant it, Li. The specialist thinks—”

“I get it,” I say, shaking my head. “You need more tests.” Again. Again. Never ending. I stare at my mother, at the pamphlet, needing to correct her, but unable to do so after today's events. “Here.” I thrust the photo of Jenny at my parents and watch as the surprise shows up on their faces.

“Why do you have that?” my dad asks, and reaches for it.

My mother pulls it from his hands. “She had it in the kitchen the other day. She was looking around in the basement too.”

“
I
had it in the kitchen,” I correct her grammar. “
I'm
right here. Don't speak about me in the third person.” My parents stare at me but don't let the photograph go. They process, my mother's hands calm and steady as though she's measuring flour, my father wordless, until he mumbles something about needing to get up early.

“I'm going out,” I say to them. To no one. To myself.

“But you just got home,” my dad answers.

“I know,” I say, suddenly realizing I won't be able to sleep until I correct the course with Hank. “But I have to do something.”

* * *

In movies, people are always having these revelations outside. They'll be walking to some diner or passing happy people partying on New Year's Eve and suddenly realize the meaning of life, or how to solve their personal crises. They pick up the pace until they are virtually sprinting on a New York sidewalk/the Vegas Strip/a Saharan dune toward the thing—mostly a person—who somehow will be the recipient of their newfound wisdom. This isn't quite what happens to me when I to get the beach.

I park by Sam & Nate's, lingering by the faded postcards. They display the shoreline behind me, an aerial shot of town, the bow-shaped coastline, and the carousel by the pier. It's weird to look at postcards of your own town, like seeing yourself from behind in the mirror, a completely foreign perspective. How sometimes you aren't sure what you're looking at, or what it might mean to someone else. How even if you know someone—really know them, not just what they like but who they are—you still might screw up.

And this is when I feel that rumble, as though I'm one of those on-screen revelation-prone people. My stomach burns, my heart rolls onto its side, and I know I need to find Hank. The window at Sam & Nate's is dotted with sunblock fingerprints, swatted flies, gritty sand, but when I peer through, I see a head of shaggy hair, a face tilted to one side—Hank. I suck in the salty air, and head inside, to find him by the root beer. For a second I smile, wondering if maybe he was buying me a bottle, or just thinking about me.

My shoes scrape the sandy linoleum. The harsh lights do nothing to illuminate; they only turn everything inside—the magazines, the Frisbees, the posters for Beachfest—all a murky shade of green.

“Hey,” I say, and reach my hand out to Hank's jacket. It too is green—one I haven't seen before.

He turns around. But instead of Hank's lopsided grin, his eyes darting this way and back, I see Pren Stevens and his bemused mouth, his eyebrows raised in a question he doesn't have to ask. I bound away, pretending I just remembered what I came in for, over in aisle two. Pren and his buddies linger around the DnD energy drinks, no doubt about to mix them with something stronger once in the dunes, and I crouch down. Unfortunately, my chosen location leaves me with little to look at save for the boxes of Band-Aids and small packets of maxi pads. The woman on the cover of the Gentle Days box looks carefree, as though her period, or whatever else might plague her, is washed away by the ocean breezes, which send her hair cascading down her non-specific shoulders. I bet she's never been horrified by her friend at a party. Never been totally overwhelmed by embarrassment. The front door smacks shut, and I stand up, making sure that Pren is gone.

I grab a packet of Twizzlers for Hank, thinking of when we went to Sweet Nothings together, how he'd said “All I can offer you is licorice,” and I'd said it sounded like a sad song. I feel tears threaten the corners of my eyes. What if all we were was a sad song? People who met, became friends, and then faded like old stars, those planets you can still see remnants of but that don't exist any longer. I leave three dollars on the counter, slide the Twizzlers into my back pocket, head outside, and wish harder than anything that Hank was right here. That he'd know what I think and how I feel. That he'd know that I forgive him.

I stare at the night-empty street, the trash cans that will soon overflow with Beachfest debris, the pathways that will soon be crowded with concertgoers, and because, of course, Hank isn't here, I begin to walk. Moving my legs, feeling myself connected to the earth, tethered, makes me walk faster. And when I think about Hank, about how relief will spread across his face like chords into the air, I go faster. Past the swimming beach, the pier, the planetarium. I think of Hank, of “Waterloo Sunset,” his eyes, his hands moving on the guitar, how he knows instinctively how to move his fingers, where to press to get the right sound, but how he won't know that with people maybe ever. And that's okay. I get to his house, winded, excited, smiling. I glance up at the sky one time before ringing the doorbell. The clouds have covered what was left of the stars.

The doorbell sounds as I catch my breath. Instead of feeling small and insignificant, like I did crouched on the floor of Sam & Nate's, I feel big. Like I take up room. Maybe that's why revelatory scenes take place outside—as though we, the masses of cells that split and re-form—can become something. So that even though we can't reshape what happened before, we can accept it, and kick on from there. I ring the bell again, but when no one comes, I try the door, and it opens with hardly a push.