Emily Franklin - Principles Of Love 06 - Labor Of Love (11 page)

"I miss those," I say. "I've never had that kind of corre spondence with anyone."

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"And then we wrote those letters. . . ." Jacob blushes as he says this, no doubt remembering how brutally honest we were on topics ranging from love to music to sex.

"We can keep the contents of those to ourselves," I say. "We're going to be seniors."

"Hard to believe."

Then, because it's time and because I want to make everything clear--to him and to myself--I say, "I have a boyfriend."

Jacob hops off the car."I know." He's not sad, not angry, just matter-of-fact. Before I can ask how, he stands in the middle of the bumper floor with his hands in his pockets. "I saw you guys. On the beach once. I knew you were back--and I figured you'd get in touch when you were ready."

"I didn't mean to . . ." I stop myself.What didn't I mean to do? Miss our moment together at Crescent--again? Tell him on the phone that I was seeing someone? "I don't know why I didn't call you right away when I got back." He laughs, which confuses me."What?"

"Nothing. It's just . . ." He motions for me to come with him. I get up and follow him over the bumper fence and onto the grass. The sky is pink now, with lemony streaks around the horizon line. Sunset. I look at Jacob. Together, we're the image of summer love. Make that sinset, not sunset.

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But we're not a couple and nothing's happened. "Love--I knew you were back because I saw you a couple of times. In random places--the market, South Beach, that Hadley party you and Chris showed up at for ten seconds."

"They were playing bad music and the crowd was not my . . ." How do I phrase this so as not to offend him? He became the big-shot guy on campus while I was in Lon don, and even though his best friend, Dalton Himmelman, is a constant, there are other people. People he might have ignored in his prior incarnation as left-of-center guy who are now his friends. Like Rich Halbertam and Nick Samu els and Jon Rutter. The very cool set. The few guys who can float between all the crowds--blend seamlessly into the wealthy, the weird, the academic aces, the ironically clothed, the beautiful and brainy alike. Rich, Nick, and Jon are in triguing, but the girls who follow them around sometimes leave a bit to be desired. My theory is that their match in cool and adaptability--girls like Harriet Walters, Chili, or-- ahem--even me--won't get their attention until college. Or later in life.And by then we might have moved on."I'm not big into the mean girls of Fruckner."

"You can just say her name, Love."

"Fine. Lindsay Parrish is a walking nightmare.And I don't need to rip into her for reasons--I'm not that girl. . . ."

"I know you're not.You're not catty. I don't think that.

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So that's why you left that party? I thought maybe you saw me or something and bolted."

"No," I laugh and shake my head as we walk past the pigs.

"Sometimes," Jacob says, putting his hands on the fence as the animals oink,"I think I'm done with being human--just for a day I'd like to know what these porcine creatures think. These rolling tubs of lard--they have it good. No lovelorn songs, no college apps, no wondering what'll happen in the future."

"Ever heard of bacon?" I ask, feeling like Fern from Charlotte's Web.Aunt Mable read that book to me at least ten times and I still love it.

"Here." Jacob pulls me by the sleeve until we're near one of the food vendors.

"Slush, sno-cone, pizza--it all sounds good," I say and tap the side of the fried dough cart."But they're closed."

"Hang on." Jacob disappears behind the row of food ve hicles. In his absence, everything shifts from slightly romantic to slightly eerie. Funny how perspective can do that--one minute it's a Linklater dialogue�driven movie and then next I'm the heroine about to have her own fear-fest.Why does my brain do that? Is it the writer in me? Or is my mind tell ing me things--yes. Suddenly I get it.Whatever it is you're imagining comes from you, so it means something. With

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Jacob, my two visions are either our banter--banal but laced with undertones of feelings--or scary. Maybe I'm afraid of being with him, of where that could lead. Or maybe, like now, I'm afraid of life without him.

"Here," he says, proud when he returns with a pretzel. "Didn't score the cotton candy, which I know you favor, but I did get this."

"I like that you know about my unnatural cotton candy cravings." I have a thing about those details--the ones people recall about you. Remembering means some thing. That you're important enough to stay in a person's mind and they know your cousin's name is Kelsey or that you don't like corn in any form. Or maybe it just means some people have a knack for storing trivia. But I'd like to think Jacob remembered on purpose. And I'd also like to believe that Charlie knows I love cotton candy. Or other specifics.

"I like a lot of things," Jacob says. He doesn't exude at traction to me; his eyes flicker every now and again at my face, down my body, but not in a lascivious way (at least that's not how I'm interpreting it). More like he's aware of this time with me, with all of me.

He watches me bite into the pretzel and then smiles when I start scraping the large pieces of salt off the exterior. "An aversion to sodium?"

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"No. It's more like I enjoy the idea of salt--the remnants of it. Not the heaps they put on."

Jacob points to his forehead."Duly noted."

"Why do I have no doubt that you'll remember that bit of minutia forever?"

Jacob shrugs. "Because that's who I am. We'll be at the Hadley reunion with our spouses and kids and I'll walk up to you and say, `Hey, Love, still scraping the salt off your oversized pretzels?' "

I gulp at this image--not just being old enough that we're at a Hadley reunion. But that we have spouses. And they're not each other. That time has passed. And from Ja cob's scene-setting, we've been out of touch.That's what's so weird about teenage life--I know at the back of my mind that I won't have anything to do with most of the people I know now. It's fine in the everyday. But when that knowl edge slips to the forefront, I begin to wonder why I bother knowing people or connecting to places at all.

"I might not be married.You don't know," I say lightheart edly, even though the reality of seeing him at a reunion feels heavy."Which reunion did you have in mind, anyway?"

"I bet your husband would be all ruffled--like `scraping the salt off your pretzels, what does that mean?' He'd think it was a euphemism for something sexual. . . ."

"That sounds like your brain," I say. "Overanalytical,

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charming, and yet with a layer of typical-guy sleeze in there. . . ."

"So now I'm your husband?" Jacob snags a bite of my pretzel and smiles while he chews.

"Jacob?" I hold the rest of my pretzel, my hunger gone as I seek the words for what I want to say. "I didn't avoid you because I felt nothing. I didn't want to see you because I felt too . . . something."

"Something--good, general word--as a writer, can you be more specific? You'll have to if you want a shot at the Beverly William Award."

"How do you even know about that?"

"Hey--I have parents who are way overinvested in my college choices. They've been shoving every guide, every grant, every potential award possibility in my face. I read the description of that and figured you might apply for it. Either that, or the Marchese Award for the student who translates Shakespeare into Italian."

"That was my second choice," I say."Ciao."

"Go on. I don't mean to distract you from honesty with my impractical wit."

"I like your wit," I say and hand him the pretzel. "I like you. I like being with you--but . . ."

"I know that but."

"Yeah." I push my hair behind my ears, wondering when

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I last washed it. It's been smelling like coffee lately--so much that I've grown immune, but Charlie and Chili have both commented that being near me brings to mind the words latte and dark roast, and not always in a favorable way.

Jacob laughs. His voice."I'm glad you have . . ."

"Charlie. Charlie Addison."

Jacob makes a face, semi-impressed."So we're dating in stitutions, are we? Addison . . ."

"I know. But--he's really great." I stretch my arms above my head. It's normal, being with Jacob. Not overly flirty or anything. And I don't have to feel bad, like I'm doing any thing now that hints at infidelity. Right?

Jacob looks at me."Good.You deserve great."

"So this . . ." I point to him and to me, to the space in between. "We're fine?"

He shoulders up to me, bumping me like the cars would have if they'd been powered."You know us--we'll always be better than fine."

"So, what's the name for us, then? Friends? FWH-- friends with history? What?"

"Damn, woman, can you stop being a writer for one second?"

"I didn't say that because of writing. . . ." I push him away playfully."Just--I don't know. I guess I like definitions. God, now I do sound like a writer."

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We walk back over the grass to my car. I always want to settle things, to be certain of what's going to happen, and I've tried hard to unlearn that. In my pocket, I feel the letter from Gala. Just knowing it's there raises my pulse. Change and steadiness. I might not read it now. Not for a while. Maybe right before she arrives. It's funny, but where I nor mally have an insatiable appetite for knowing things, delving into people, I don't seem able to do that with her.The letter exists, and it won't go away. Maybe that's why I don't want to read it. Once you read it, once you know something, you can't unknow it.Who knows.

I look at Jacob. He stands, feet planted in the tall grass at the field's edge. In another lifetime, maybe I'd have been standing next to him, holding his hand, or the two of us would wait out the night, looking for constellations.

"You going to that party?" I ask.

"I guess." He shuffles his feet to one side and then back. Is he waiting for me to say don't go? God, if another of me existed, I would. At that fifth, tenth, or fifteenth Hadley re union, will I regret not making him stay? Not asking him to go back to the empty fairgrounds and sit in the Whip, our bodies near but not touching? It feels like tonight is that starting point, though. Or if not the beginning, the continu ation of our friendship--and to ask the glittering evening to stay like this, to convince him not to go to a party where

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he'll most likely hook up with some hottie, feels loaded. Like I'm promising something I can't give. Besides, if he did get together with someone, who's to say I'd care? He's okay with me being with Charlie, and I really believe that Jacob and someone else wouldn't bother me. Not like last year when he had his brief make-out session with Lindsay Parrish.

I lean on the side of my car."Thanks."

"For what?" He opens my door and I climb in.

"I don't know for what." But I feel grateful for the time with him. For the fact that he didn't run away just because-- yet again--our feelings didn't overlap.

"I'm here for another week."

"So I'll see you then," I say, but it comes out like a question.

"You will," he says and shuts the door. The window is rolled all the way down, making it simple for me to reach out and squeeze his hand as a good-bye, but I don't. Instead, I turn the key and watch him leave.

As he walks away, I hear him whistling. At first I don't recognize the tune, but then it comes to me as I'm driving: Dire Straits, "Romeo and Juliet." I sing without any music to back me up,"There's a place for us--you know the movie song. . . . When you gonna realize, it was just that the time was wrong?"

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> 'm back at Slave to the Grind II, alone save for the custom ers who don't understand my shift is over. One wants a refill (it's self-catering). One wants a donut (we're all out). One wants her muffin heated (smirk--me, too--whatever that means). The name-changing ceremony is the day after to morrow. By then, I'm hoping to have at least sorted through my college essay notes.

Up the stairs to the apartment I was sharing with Arabella, I think again how weird it will be not to see her all the time. How it's a good thing, maybe, that she stayed in California while I came back. Like practice for the fall. After all, she and I have been glued since sophomore fall--at Hadley, in London, back home. A few weeks and she'll be here, but all I have in the meantime are her piles of clothing--swimsuits strung on the bathroom hooks, skirts left in gentle heaps

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on her bedroom floor--and photographs of us in various locales. I pick up one of us sitting on the bench outside of the Black Dog bakery, each of us with an oversized apple fritter. Looking closely at this makes me miss her more. Not to mention crave an apple fritter. Note to self: Grab one to morrow morning before hitting the books.Arabella's grace ful smile inspires a smile back, even if it's only to a picture. Then I decide I don't have to just get grumpy and sad; I can call her. So I take out my phone and wake it from its closed sleep, only to have it move in my hand.

I realize that all that buzzing I felt in the bumper cars might not have only had to do with seeing Jacob. It might also have been my phone, poking at me with its vibrating ring.Those strange sensations I felt during the past couple of hours were only partly due to being with Jacob.The other part was due to having missed not one but three calls.

And they were all from Charlie. He's been chained to his desk most nights and I'm glad he wanted to talk, but now I have the sinking feeling that he's going to ask why I didn't pick up and I'll have to tell him why. Saying that I negged his calls makes it seem as though being with Jacob was more important. I'm glad I didn't feel the buzzing. It's like that time with Jacob existed in a separate, parallel universe where I felt free to blab.

I fling my grimy T-shirt off, shed my shorts, and slip on

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a plain white fitted T-shirt and an Arabella castoff, the skirt she called Bront� because it looks as though it belongs in an epic novel yet is a color that defies description (thus the proper name).