Someone Like You (14 page)

 

He took me all the way out to Topper Lake, a good twenty minutes from my house. We stopped about halfway and I drove, watching him as he squirmed, just like my dad, as the speedometer edged higher and higher.

“You nervous?” I asked him as we went across the bridge, the water black and huge all around us.

“No way,” he said. But he was, and I laughed at him. I was barely doing the speed limit.

We passed all the boat ramps and docks, all the tourist traps, and finally went down a long dirt road that wound through woods and potholes and NO TRESPASSING signs into complete darkness. In the distance I could see the radio towers of my father's station, blinking red and green against the sky.

We got out of the car and I followed him through the dark, his hand holding mine. I could hear water but I couldn't make out where exactly it was.

“Watch your step up here,” he said as we climbed a steep hill, up and up and up with me barely able to keep from falling. I was cold in my pajamas and jacket, disoriented, and out of breath by the time the ground beneath my feet got more smooth and stable. I still had no idea where I was.

“Macon, where are we going?” I said.

“Almost there,” he called out over his shoulder. “Walk right behind me now, okay?”

“Okay.” I kept my eyes ahead, on the blond of his hair, the only thing I could make out in the dark.

And then, suddenly, he stopped dead in his tracks and said, “Here we are.”

I wasn't sure where
here
was, since I still couldn't see anything. He sat down, dangling his legs over the edge in front of us, and I did the same. I could still hear water, louder now.

“So what is this?” I said, shivering in my jacket.

“Just this place I know,” he said. “Me and Sherwood found it, a couple of years back. We used to come out here all the time.”

It was one of the only times he'd mentioned Michael, ever, in the whole time I'd known him. Michael had been on my mind a lot lately, with the baby. Scarlett said she had to get up her nerve to write his mom; whether she had moved to Florida or not, she had a right to know about a grandchild. “I bet you miss him,” I said.

“Yeah.” He leaned back against the thick concrete behind us. “He was a good guy.”

“If I lost Scarlett,” I said, not knowing if I was going too far or saying the wrong thing, “I don't know what I'd do, I don't think I could live without her.”

“Yeah,” he said, there in the dark. He turned his head, not looking at me. “You think that, at first.”

So we sat there, in the pitch black, the sound of water rushing past, and I thought of Michael Sherwood. I wondered how this year would have been different if he hadn't taken that road that night, if he was still here with us. If Scarlett would be keeping that baby, if I'd ever have met Macon or come this far.

“Okay,” he said suddenly, looking down at his glowing watch. “Get ready.”

“Ready for what?”

“You'll see.” He slid his arm around my waist, pulling me closer, and I felt his warm lips on my neck. Right as I turned my head to kiss him, there was a loud whooshing noise and the world suddenly lit up bright all around us. It was blinding at first, and frightening, like a camera flash going off right in my face and turning the world starry. I pulled back from Macon and saw that I was sitting on a thin strip of white concrete, surrounded by DANGER DO NOT ENTER signs, my feet dangling over the edge into the air. Macon grabbed my waist as I leaned forward, still dazed and blinking, to peer over the edge and finally see the water I'd been hearing gushing past a full mile below. It was like opening your eyes and finding yourself suddenly in midair, falling. The dam was groaning, opening, as I twisted in Macon's arms, suddenly terrified, all the noise and light and the world so far below us.

“Macon,” I said, trying to pull away, back toward the path. “I should—”

But then he pulled me back in, kissing me hard, his hands smoothing my hair, and I closed my eyes to the light, the noise, the water so far below, and I felt it for the first time. That exhilaration, the whooshing feeling of being on the edge and holding, the world spinning madly around me. And I kissed him back hard, letting loose that girl from the early summer and the Grand Canyon. At that moment, suspended and free-falling, I could feel her leaving me.

“Okay, let's see.... Food cravings.”

“Check.”

“Food aversions.”

“Ugh. Check.”

“Headaches.”

“Check.”

“Moodiness,” I said. “Oh, I'll answer that one. Check.”

“Shut up,” Scarlett said, grabbing the book out of my hands and flopping back in her seat. We were in her car, before first bell; since I'd gotten my license, she let me drive every day. She was eating saltines and juice, the only things she could keep down, while I tried to eat my potato chips quietly and unobtrusively.

“Just wait,” I said, popping another one in my mouth. “The book says morning sickness should end by the beginning of Month Four.”

“Oh, well, isn't
that
special,” she snapped. She had been moodier than hell lately. “I swear those chips smell so bad, they're going to make me
puke.”

“Sorry,” I said, rolling down my window and making a big show of holding them outside, my head stuck sideways to eat free and clear of the confines of the car. “You know the doctor said it's normal to feel sick a lot of the time.”

“I know what she said.” She stuck another saltine in her mouth, swigging some juice to wash it down. “This is just crazy. I've never even
had
heartburn before and now I do, like, all the time, my clothes look terrible on me, I'm sweating constantly for some weird reason and even when I'm starving, everything I look at makes me feel sick. It's ridiculous.”

“You'll feel better at Month Five,” I said, picking up the book, which was called
So You're Pregnant-What Now?
It was our Bible, consulted constantly, and my job was usually to quote from it to rally and strengthen both of us.

“I wish,” she said in a low voice, turning to glower at me with a face I hadn't even seen before Month Two, ever, “that you would
shut up
about Month Four.”

I shut up.

Macon was waiting for me outside my homeroom, leaning against the fire extinguisher. Since my birthday, things had changed between us, almost imperceptibly; everything was a little bit more serious. Now just the sight of him gave me a sense of looking down and finding myself in midair, dangling lost above the world.

“Hey,” he said as I came closer, “where have you been?”

“Arguing with Scarlett,” I said. “She's so cranky lately.”

“Oh, come on. Cut her some slack. She's pregnant.” I'd told him the night of my birthday. He was the only one besides my parents, Marion, and us who knew.

“I know. It's just hard, that's all.” I stepped a little closer to him, lowering my voice. “And keep quiet about that, okay? She doesn't want anyone to know yet.”

“I didn't tell anyone,” he said. Behind me people were crowding into my homeroom, bumping backpacks and elbows against me. “Sheesh, what kind of a jerk do you think I am, anyway?”

“A big one,” I said. He wasn't laughing. “She just wants to wait until she has to tell people. That's all.”

“No problem,” he said.

“Faulkner!” someone yelled from behind us. “Get over here, I gotta talk to you.”

“In a second,” Macon yelled back.

“You said you were going to homeroom today,” I reminded him. “Remember?”

“Right. I gotta go.” He kissed me on the forehead, quickly, and started to walk off before I could stop him. “I'll see you third period.”

“Wait,” I said, but he had vanished in the shifting bodies and voices of the hallway. I only saw the top of his head, the red flash of his shirt, before he was gone. Later, when I was hunting for a pencil in my backpack pocket and found a handful of Hershey's Kisses, I wondered again how he did so much without my noticing.

Later that morning I was in Commercial Design, the only class I had with Scarlett, looking for some purple paper in the supply room. I heard someone behind me and turned around to see Elizabeth Gunderson shuffling through a stack of orange paper. She'd been slumming since Michael's death, quitting the cheerleading team, chain-smoking, and taking up with the lead singer for some college band who had a pierced tongue and a goatee. All of her copycat friends were following suit, casting off their J. Crew tweeds for ripped jeans and black clothes, trying to look morose and morbid in their BMWs and Mercedes.

“So, Halley,” she said, moving closer to me, a sheaf of orange tucked under one arm. “I heard you're going out with Macon Faulkner.”

I glanced out to the classroom, to Scarlett, who was bent over the table, cutting and pasting letters for our alphabet project. “Yeah,” I said, concentrating on the purple paper in my hand, “I guess I am.”

“He's a nice guy.” She reached across me for some bright red paper. “But just between us, as your friend, I think I should warn you to watch out.”

I looked up at her. Even with her ripped jeans and styled-to-look-stringy hair, Elizabeth Gunderson was still the former head cheerleader, the homecoming queen, the girl with the effortless looks and perfect skin, straight out of
Seventeen
magazine. She was not like me, not at all. She didn't even know me.

“I mean,” she went on, stepping back and tucking her paper under her arm, “he can be real sweet, but he's treated a lot of girls pretty badly. Like my friend Rachel, he really used her and then never talks to her anymore. Stuff like that.”

“Yeah, well,” I said, trying to get around her but she wasn't moving, just standing there with her eyes right on me.

“I got to know him really well when I was with Michael.” She said his name slowly, so I'd be sure to get it. “I just didn't know if you knew what he was like. With girls and all.”

I didn't know what to say, how to defend myself, so I just stepped around her, knocking my shoulder against a shelf just to slip by.

“I just thought you should know, before you get too involved,” she called after me. “I mean—
I
would want to know.”

I burst out into the classroom. When I looked back she was still watching me, standing by the paper cutter talking with Ginny Tabor, who practically had radar for these kinds of confrontations. I threw my paper down next to Scarlett and pulled out my chair.

“You would not believe what just happened to me,” I said. “I was in the supply room, and—”

I didn't get any further than that, because she suddenly pushed her chair back, clapped a hand over her mouth, and ran toward the bathroom.

“Scarlett?” Mrs. Pate, our teacher, was a little high-Strung; outbursts made her nervous. She was supervising the paper cutter, making sure no one lost any fingers. “Halley, is she okay?”

“She's got the flu,” I said. “I'll go check on her.”

“Good,” Mrs. Pate said, redirecting her attention to Michelle Long, who was about to sever at least half her hand with slap-dash cutting behavior. “Michelle, wait. Look at what you're about to do. Can you see that?
Can
you?”

I found Scarlett in the last stall against the wall, kneeling on the floor. I wet some paper towels at the sink and handed them to her, then said, “It's gonna get better.”

She sniffled, wiping her eyes with the back of her sleeve. I felt so sorry for her. “Are we alone?” she asked.

I walked down the row of stalls, checking underneath for feet, and saw none. It was just us, the deep blue cinderblock of the girls' bathroom, and a dripping faucet.

She leaned back on her heels, dabbing her face with the wet paper towel. “This,” she said in a choked voice, sniffling, “is the worst.”

“I know,” I said, telling myself not to talk about Month Four or the joy of birth or the little life inside of her, all things that had failed me in the past. “I know.”

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, closing her eyes. “It's like, whenever I used to see pregnant women, they always looked happy. Glowing, right? Or on TV, in those big dresses, knitting baby afghans. No one ever tells you it makes you fat and sick and crazy. And I'm only three months along, Halley. It's just going to get
worse.”

“The doctor said—” I started, but she cut me off, waving her hand.

“It's not about that,” she said softly, and she was crying again. “It would be different if Michael was here or I was married with a husband. Marion doesn't even want me to have this baby, Halley. It's not like she's being that supportive. This is all me, you know? I'm on my own. And it's scary.”

“You are not on your own,” I said forcefully. “I'm here, aren't I? I've been holding your head while you get sick and bringing you saltines and letting you crab like crazy at me. I'm doing everything a husband or anyone would do for you.”

“It's not the same.” In the fluorescent light her face seemed paler than ever. “I miss him so much. This fall has been so hard.”

“I know it,” I said. “You've been really strong, Scarlett.”

“If he was here, I don't even know what might have happened between us. We were only together for a summer, you know? Maybe he would have turned out to be a major jerk. I'll never know. But when it gets like this, and I'm miserable, all I can think is that he might have made everything okay. That he was the only one who understood. Ever.”