P.S. I Still Love You (19 page)

42

PETER AND ME, OUR BREAKUP
, it’s all so very high school. By that I mean it’s ephemeral. Even this pain will be fleeting, finite. Even the sharp sting of this betrayal I should hold on to and remember and cherish, because it is my first true breakup. It’s all just part of it, the process of falling in love. And it’s not like I thought we’d stay together forever; we’re only sixteen and seventeen. One day I will look back on all of this fondly.

This is what I keep telling myself, even as tears are filling my eyes, even as I’m lying in bed that night, crying myself to sleep. I cry until my cheeks sting from wiping away my tears. This well of sadness, it starts with Peter but it doesn’t end there.

Because over and over one thought runs in my head on a loop:
I miss my mother. I miss my mother. I miss her so much.
If she were here, she would bring me a cup of Night-Night tea, she would sit at the foot of my bed. She would put my head in her lap, and run her fingers through my hair, and whisper in my ear,
It will all be fine, Lara Jean. It will all be fine.
And I would believe her, because her words were always true.

Oh, Mommy. How I miss you. Why aren’t you here, when I need you most?

So far I’ve saved a napkin Peter drew a little sketch of my face on, a ticket stub from the first time we went to the movies, the poem he gave me on Valentine’s Day. The necklace. Of course the necklace. I haven’t been able to bring myself to take it off. Not yet.

I lie in bed all day Saturday, only getting up for snacks and to let Jamie out to pee in the backyard. I fast-forward to the sad parts of romantic comedies. What I should be doing is coming up with a plan to take Genevieve out, but I can’t. It hurts every time I think of her, of the game, of Peter most of all. I resolve to put it out of my mind until I can really concentrate.

John texts me once to see if I’m all right, but I can’t bring myself to reply. I put that off for later too.

The only time I leave the house is on Sunday afternoon to go to Belleview for a party planning committee meeting. With a little cajoling on Stormy’s part, Janette has okayed my USO party idea, and the show must go on, breakups be damned.

Stormy says the whole retirement community is abuzz about it. She’s particularly excited because there’s been talk that Ferncliff, the other big nursing home in town, might bus over some of their residents. Stormy says they have at least one eligible widower that she knows from the seniors book club at the local library. This gets the other female residents stirred up. “He’s a very distinguished silver,” she keeps telling everyone. “He still drives, too!” I make sure to spread that info around myself. Anything to build excitement.

At the party everyone will get five “war bonds,” which you can use for a cup of whiskey punch, a little flag pin, or a dance. That was Mr. Morales’s idea. Actually, his exact idea was one war bond for a dance with a lady, but we all slapped him down for being sexist and said that it should be a dance with a man
or
a lady. Alicia, pragmatic as ever, said, “There will be many more women than men, so it’s the women who will be in charge anyway.”

I’ve been going from apartment to apartment asking people to lend pictures from the forties if they have them, especially in uniform or at a USO party. One resident sniffed at me and said, “Excuse me, but I was six in 1945!” Hastily I told her that pictures of her parents would be welcome too, of course—but she was already closing the door in my face.

Scrapbooking to the Oldies has turned into a de facto dance-planning committee. I printed out war bonds, and Mr. Morales is using my paper cutter to cut them. Maude, who is new to the group and is Internet savvy, is clipping news articles from the war to decorate the refreshments table. Her friend Claudia is working on the playlist.

Alicia will have a little table of her own. She’s making a paper-crane garland, all different-colored papers, lilac and peach and turquoise and floral. Stormy balked at the deviation from the red, white, and blue theme, but Alicia held firm and I backed her up. Classy as always, her pictures of Japanese Americans in internment camps are in fancy silver frames.

“Those pictures are really going to bring the mood down,” Stormy stage-whispers to me.

Alicia whirls around. “These pictures are meant to educate the ignorant.”

Stormy gathers herself up to her full five feet three inches, five-six in heels. “Alicia, did you just call me
ignorant
?” I wince. Stormy’s been putting a lot of work into this party, and she’s been a little extra Stormy lately.

I just can’t take another fight between them right now. I’m about to plead for peace when Alicia fixes Stormy with a steely look and says, “If the muumuu fits.”

Stormy and I both gasp. Then Stormy stalks over to Alicia’s table and sweeps Alicia’s paper cranes to the floor with a flourish. Alicia screams, and I gasp again. Everyone else in the room looks up. “Stormy!”

“You’re taking
her
side? She just called me ignorant! Stormy Sinclair might be a lot of things, but I am not ignorant.”

“I’m not taking anybody’s side,” I say, bending down to pick up the paper cranes.

“If you’re taking a side, it should be mine,” Alicia says. She thrusts her chin in Stormy’s direction. “She thinks she’s some grand dame, but she is a child, throwing a tantrum over a party.”

“A child!” Stormy shrieks.

“Will you two please stop fighting?” To my mortification, tears spurt out the corners of my eyes. “I can’t take it today.” My voice trembles. “I really just can’t.”

They exchange a look, and then they both rush to my side. “Darling, what’s wrong?” Stormy croons. “It must be a boy.”

“Sit, sit,” Alicia says. They lead me over to the couch and sit on either side of me.

“Everybody, get out!” Stormy yells, and the others scatter. “Now you tell us what’s wrong.”

I wipe my eyes with the corner of my shirtsleeve. “Peter and I broke up.” It’s the first time I’ve said the words out loud.

Stormy gasps. “You and Mr. Handsome broke up! Was it over another boy?” She looks hopeful, and I know she is thinking of John.

“It wasn’t over another boy. It’s complicated.”

“Darling, it’s never that complicated,” Stormy says. “In my day—”

Alicia glares at her. “Will you just let her talk?”

“Peter never got over his ex-girlfriend, Genevieve,” I say, sniffling. “She was the one who posted that video of us in the hot tub, and Peter found out and he didn’t tell me.”

“Perhaps he wanted to spare your feelings,” Alicia says.

Vehemently Stormy shakes her head, so hard her earrings whoosh. “The boy is a dog, pure and simple. He ought to treat you like a queen, not this other girl Genevieve.”

Alicia accuses, “You just want Lara Jean to date your great-grandson.”

“So what if I do!” With a gleam in her eye she says, “Say, Lara Jean. Have you got any plans tonight?”

At that we all laugh. “I can’t think about any boy but Peter right now,” I say. “Do you still remember your first love?”

Stormy’s had so many—could she possibly? But she nods. “Garrett O’Leary. I was fifteen and he was eighteen and we only ever had a dance, but the way I felt when he looked at me . . .” She shivers.

I look to my left at Alicia. “And yours was your husband, Phillip, right?”

To my surprise she shakes her head. “My first love was named Albert. He was my older brother’s best friend. I thought I would marry him. But it was not to be. I met my Phillip.” She smiles. “Phillip was the love of my life. And yet I never forgot Albert. How young I was once! Stormy, can you believe we were ever so young?”

Stormy does not give her usual blithe reply. Her eyes go moist, and as softly as I’ve ever heard her speak she says, “It’s all a million lifetimes ago. And yet.”

“And yet,” Alicia echoes.

They both smile at me fondly, with such true and genuine affection that new tears come to my eyes. “What will I do now that Peter’s not my boyfriend anymore?” I wonder out loud.

“You’ll just do what you did before he was your boyfriend,” Alicia says. “You’ll go about your day, and you will miss him at first, but over time it will ease. It will lessen.” She reaches out, touches her papery hand to my cheek. A smile plays at her lips. “All you need is time, and you, little one, have all the time in the world.”

It’s a comforting thought, but I don’t know if I believe it is true, not completely. I think that time might be different for young people. The minutes longer, stronger, more vibrant. All I know is that every minute without him feels interminably long, like I’m waiting, just waiting for him to come back to me. I, Lara Jean, know he isn’t, but my heart doesn’t seem to understand it’s over.

After, energies renewed, tears dried, I am with Janette in her office, going over party details. When she offhandedly mentions the sitting room, I freeze. “Janette, the sitting room isn’t going to be big enough.”

“I don’t know what to tell you. The main activities room is booked for bingo. They have a standing Friday night reservation.”

“But this party is a huge event! Can’t the bingo people be in the sitting room just for one night?”

“Lara Jean, I can’t move bingo. People from all over the community come here for that, including the leasing agent’s own mother. There are a lot of politics at play here. My hands are tied.”

“Well, what about the dining room?” We could move all the tables and set up the dance floor at the center of the room and then put the refreshments on a long table against the wall. It could work.

Janette gives me a look like
Girl, please
. “And who’s going to put away all the tables and chairs? You?”

“Well, me, and I’m sure I could round up some volunteers—”

“And have one of the residents put out their back and sue the home? No,
gracias
.”

“We wouldn’t need to put away all of the tables, just half. Couldn’t you get the staff to help?” Janette’s already shaking her head when inspiration hits me. “Janette, I heard that Ferncliff might bus over some of their residents.
Ferncliff.
They already call themselves the premier retirement community of the Blue Ridge Mountains.”

“Oh my God, Ferncliff is a dump. The people who work at that place are garbage. I have a
master’s
. ‘Premier retirement community of the Blue Ridge Mountains’? Ha! My ass.”

Now I just need to bring it home. “I’m telling you, Janette, if this dance isn’t up to par, it’s going to make us look like fools. We can’t let that happen. I want those Ferncliff residents to walk or wheel out of here wishing they were Belleview!”

“All right, all right. I’ll get the janitors to help set up the dining room.” Janette shakes her finger at me. “You’re like a dog with a bone, girl.”

“You won’t regret it,” I promise her. “For the pictures alone. We’ll put them all over the website. Everyone will want to be us!”

At this Janette’s eyes narrow with satisfaction, and I let out the breath I’ve been holding. This party has to go right. It just has to. It is my one bright spot.

43

SUNDAY NIGHT I CURL MY
hair. Curling your hair is an intrinsically hopeful act. I like to curl mine at night and think about all the things that could happen tomorrow. Also, it generally looks much better slept on and not so poofy.

I’ve got half of it clipped and I’m almost done with one side when Chris comes climbing through my window. “I’m supposed to be grounded right now, so I have to wait until my mom falls asleep before I go home,” she says, taking off her motorcycle jacket. “Are you still depressed over Kavinsky?”

I wind another section of hair around the curling iron barrel. “Yes. I mean, it hasn’t even been forty-eight hours yet.”

Chris puts her arm around me. “I hate to say it, but this has been a train wreck from the start.”

I give her a wounded look. “Thanks a lot.”

“Well, it’s true. The way you guys got together was weird, and then the whole hot tub video thing.” She takes the curling iron from me and starts curling her own hair. “Although, I will say that it was probably good for you to go through all that. You were really sheltered, hon. You can be very judgmental.”

I snatch the curling iron back from her and make like I’m going to bonk her over the head with it. “Are you here to cheer me up or to tell me all of my flaws?”

“Sorry! I’m just saying.” She offers me a cheery smile. “Don’t be sad for too long. It’s not your style. There are other guys besides Kavinsky. Guys who aren’t my cousin’s sloppy seconds. Guys like John McClaren. He’s hot. I’d go for him myself if he wasn’t into you.”

Softly, I say, “I can’t think about anyone else right now. Peter and I just broke up.”

“There’s heat between you and Johnny boy. I saw it with my own two eyes at the time capsule thing. He wants you.” She bumps her shoulder against mine. “You liked him before. Maybe there’s still something there.”

I ignore her and keep curling my hair, one lock at a time.

Peter still sits in front of me in chemistry. I didn’t know you could miss someone even more acutely when they’re only a few feet away. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t look at me, not even once. I didn’t fully comprehend what a big part of my life he’d become. He’d become so . . . familiar to me. And now he’s just gone. Not gone, still here, just not available to me, which might be even worse. For a minute there it was really good. It was really, really good. Wasn’t it good? Maybe really, really good things aren’t meant to last for too long; maybe that’s what makes them all the more sweet, the temporariness of them. Maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better. It’s working, barely. Barely is enough for now.

After class is over, Peter lingers at his desk, and then he turns around and says, “Hey.”

My heart leaps. “Hey.” I have this sudden, wild thought that if he wants me back, I’ll say yes. Forget my pride, forget Genevieve, forget it all.

“So I want my necklace back,” he says. “Obviously.”

My fingers fly to the heart locket hanging from around my neck. I wanted to take it off this morning, but I couldn’t bear to.

Now I have to give it back? Stormy has a whole box of trinkets and tokens from old boyfriends. I didn’t think I’d have to return my one token from a boy. But it
was
expensive, and Peter is practical. He could get his money back, and his mom could resell it. “Of course,” I say, fumbling with the clasp.

“I didn’t mean you had to give it back right this second,” he says, and my hand stills. Maybe he’ll let me keep it awhile longer, or even forever. “But I’ll take it.”

I can’t get the clasp undone, and it’s taking forever, and it’s excruciating because he’s just standing there. Finally he comes up behind me and pulls my hair away from my neck so it rests on one shoulder. It might be my imagination, but I think I hear his heart beating. His is beating and mine feels like it’s breaking.