These Are the Moments (18 page)

Chapter 47

Now

“
I can’t
believe
you’re making me do this.”

Outside the school gym, Wendy and Claudia took their picture together. Claudia was wearing a short, jewel-toned dress that hugged her figure, her hair curled, her makeup done.

Wendy wore a sack. Not an actual sack, but a frock, something a mother would wear. It was plain and pale yellow, a horrible color on her. But she wanted to be appropriate.

She was a
chaperone
, after all.

It was Valentine’s Day. And she had nothing better to do than volunteer her time for the high school dance.

The gym looked just like the gym always did, except for the photography station in the hall and a lame attempt at “Under the Sea” decorations. There was a banner hung up where the basketball goals should have been. There were blue and green streamers, barely tacked on with tape.

She checked in with the other chaperones, all parents, who assigned Wendy to “crowd-watching,” aka “make sure the kids aren’t rubbing their parts on each other.”

She could picture herself busting someone:
Umm, excuse me, can you . . . not?

She wasn’t a strong arm. She was a people pleaser. They knew it. She knew it.

Claudia parked herself in the middle of the dance floor, not dancing. She and her friends huddled in a small circle, taking photos of themselves and posting them on the internet. All dateless, all perfect and pretty.

That was Wendy. Just yesterday. Wasn’t it?

The lights shone bright on the floor, blinding like a spotlight. This had been going on since Wendy was still in school. The faculty figured that if they couldn’t stop all of the individual dance offenders, they could at least embarrass the hell out of them for it.

Wendy checked her phone. Two texts.

Reese: “Is Mr. Rodney still teaching? He was so attractive.”

Simon: “You’re where?”

She laughed and responded. First to Reese: “I’ll keep an eye out.” Then to Simon: “The Sweetheart dance. What city does this Friday night find you in?”

She hadn’t let herself get too excited about talking with Simon. Some days, he’d talk her ear off, telling her about his trips around the country and lonely nights in hotel rooms. Other times, she’d go weeks without hearing from him. If Simon were a blanket, she was only letting him cover her feet, so she could kick him off anytime she felt like it.

Under the basketball goal, Wendy spotted a tall, lanky boy with sandy freckles on his face and a fleet of smaller, scared-looking boys. Casey. And back on the dance floor, Claudia was all smiles,
in spite of
or
because of
Casey.

“Yours, actually,” Simon answered. “Pretty beat, though. How’s the dance?”

“Remember my sophomore year Sweetheart dance? It’s like that. Except more making out.”

“I wasn’t there for that one,” he said.

She winced, visibly. Right. The college trip. “Oh, yeah.”

“Wendy Lake? Class of ‘O9?” a background voice asked.

Mr. Rodney had gotten more attractive, if possible. He had been a young, fresh-out-of-college teacher, oblivious to the fleet of hormonal teenage girls. They’d tried everything. Caking on makeup at their lockers, combing their hair and going out of their way to attend his office hours. Nothing had worked, of course.

He had this wispy black hair that he wore under a cap in the mornings, and during the winter, he’d wear this gray peacoat that made him look like a model for a camping magazine. And he was nice, too. Blissfully unaware of his own magnetism, which of course, made them like him even more.

“Yes,” she said, mid-hiccup. “How are you, Mr. Rodney?”

“Sam,” he corrected. “I think you’re past the
mister
age now.”

She swallowed. “Sure. Sam.”

“So you’re chaperoning now? Feeling old yet?” he asked.

Her phone vibrated in her pocket.

“It’s definitely . . . surreal,” she said, rocking in her shoes. “I’ll be receiving my AARP card any day now.”

He laughed, a brusque, manly sound. “Well, let me just say, aging suits you.”

It wasn’t flirtatious, but
what if it was?
It could be, she thought. And then, she blushed.

“I heard you’re selling some art in the gallery downtown?” he asked.

Interested in her personal life? That could be flirting.

“Yes,” she said. “I have you to thank for that, in a way.”

He cocked his head. “How’s that?”

“Well, thanks to you, I safely ruled out algebra,” she said. “Painting seemed like a decent second choice.”

“Oh, my teaching was that bad was it?” he asked.

He said this with a tilted grin. Positive. Definite flirting.

Her phone vibrated again. Maybe it was important. But Mr. Rodney, and his flirting. But, the phone. She knew it was probably just Simon, and still.

“Just, uh, one second,” she said, unlocking her phone.

Simon’s text read: “If you could go back and change things, would you?”

She read it over again, then slipped it back into her pocket.

“I should probably get back to the chaperoning,” she told Mr. Rodney.

He nodded. “Absolutely. Great catching up with you. Good luck with the painting.”

He was so gentlemanly she nearly curtsied. Instead, she gave him an awkward wave and ducked out into the hall.

If you could go back and change things, would you?

Which things? The good things or the bad things? Maybe he meant the part about them not being together. Maybe he meant the other part. The part where they lived and loved and happened in the most life-altering way she could imagine.

Damnit.

Why was he doing this?

Making her remember, when she really didn’t want to. Making her imagine an alternative. An other life. A possible life.

The line for the bathrooms was all the way down the hall. She turned the other way, heading in the direction of the giant fan, feeling the sudden need for air, when she stumbled.

Over a person.

“Geez,” Wendy said, catching herself. “I’m so sorry.”

She turned back to see the familiar gangly arms, and she wasn’t surprised when Casey’s face rounded up to meet hers. It was tear-stained and exhausted.

“Great,” he said, rubbing his sleeve across his face. “Just perfect.”

The cap of a flask poked out of his side pocket. She asked, “Do you, I mean, can I get you anything?”

“No, I’m good,” he said, yanking the flask from his pocket. “You mind?”

She should. She didn’t. “It’s all right. You’re good.”

He took a swig, more like a chug.

“Okay then,” she said, standing awkwardly over him. “Have a good night.”

“Hey, Wendy?” he said, the back of his head planted on the wall. “Could you not say anything about this?”

“Sure,” she said. “Of course.”

She walked away from Casey feeling like she should have said something better and more important.

It gets easier.
Lie.

You’ll find something better
. Also a lie.

High school relationships aren’t meant to last. It’s for the best
. Psh. Okay.

Claudia and her friends had relocated to the bleachers, hovering over their phones, swapping texts and pictures and ignoring everything around them. Claudia was good at looking happy. It was a family trait.

But while Wendy and Claudia were great at looking happy, the actual execution of it was harder. If Wendy had to change her life, she figured that looking back wasn’t the way to do it. She could only fix now, tomorrow and the times after that. And she had a strong suspicion that Claudia knew this, too.

By the drink station, Wendy pulled out her phone again. “I have regrets,” she said. “But I can’t fix those. I accept the bad and the good of it. But if I could go back? I wouldn’t change a second of us.”

He answered her back right away. “I wouldn’t change it, either.”

And because she wasn’t sure how to take that, she decided not to think about it at all.

On the ride home, Claudia talked on and on about her friends and boys, talking about everything but herself or Casey. The moon guided them toward home, a giant white eye looking over them. Claudia’s bare feet drummed against the dashboard, her dress hiked up to her thighs.

“Did it feel weird?” Wendy asked. “With Casey?”

Claudia looked out the window. “No. It was pretty much the same.”

“Do you miss him?” Wendy asked. “I mean, it’s understandable if you do. It’s completely normal.”

“Not really,” Claudia said, letting out a big gulp of air. “Can we stop talking about this, please?”

They didn’t say anything else after that, and Claudia let her head fall against the cool pane of the window.

It was easier, Wendy knew, to just stop talking and thinking and imagining.

You close the wound any way you can.

Chapter 48

Then

She closed the door behind her.

There wasn’t a stitch of clothing in the bar. The theme was Anything But Clothes, so the Deltas had fashioned caution tape and trash bags and pillow cases into tight-fitting dresses, but of course, this wasn’t slutty.

This was a bus trip.

Her second semester of sophomore year, five years since retreat.

New bus. Dramatically new destination.

They’d ended up in New Orleans, at a bar called Doll Valley, with VooDoo puppets hanging from the ceiling. There were big purple drinks on special, and party cup after party cup, they filled to the brims.

“Update,” Reese said, walking up. “Two freshman already throwing up. One passed out on a bar stool. And I think Lizzie Morgan is staring at you.”

That last comment was for Wendy.

Things had been weird between Lizzie and Wendy since she and Simon had become official that fall. For a while, they’d been friends. Walking to class together and having lunch and posing for pictures at exchanges. At that time, Lizzie and Simon were just a suspicion. Wendy would see a picture of them or hear about her sneaking out of the sorority house at night. And then finally, Lizzie just came right out and said it.

“I wanted you to hear it from me first,” she’d said, alone in the formal room. “Simon and I are together now.”

Wendy, caught off-guard, simply replied, “That’s, uhh, congratulations?”

And then they went back to pretending the conversation had never happened at all.

Until tonight.

Seeing Simon for the first time in two years didn’t feel real. It felt like a big cosmic laugh in her face. And this time, now that he was back again, Wendy was angry. Spotting him climbing onto the bus, she felt like she could even hate him. Weaseling into her life again. Picking the one person that he knew Wendy couldn’t avoid.

Well. Lizzie could have him.

“Just bought some shots. Apparently, that’s not allowed,” Garrett said, spinning his empty party cup in his grip. “Are y’all aware of how terrifying your president is?”

Garrett was Wendy’s date, although she didn’t really see it that way. She’d make out with him, sure. But date? No, thank you.

“Have y’all seen Mark?” Vivian reappeared, having once again lost her date.

“I assumed he ran the hell away from you,” Reese said, stirring her straw.

“Very funny,” Vivian sighed, and was off again.

Garrett’s hands were in Wendy’s hair. “Need anything?”

Wendy shot Reese a look, who shrugged and kept dancing.

“No, I’m good, thank you.”

Wendy took a big swig of her drink, which ran down her throat with a burn. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lizzie, her eyes narrowing in the opposite direction. Wendy followed their gaze.

Simon slumped forward in his chair, expressionless, at a table across the dance floor from Wendy. She hadn’t noticed him right away, with all of the people blurring in and out of her line of vision. But now, she couldn’t help it.

His eyes pored right into her. Unmovable. Unblinking.

Wendy ignored him. She shoved her party cup at Garrett’s chest. “Another, please?”

“Right away,” he said, scuttling away.

“Do you see that?” Wendy whispered to Reese, tilting her head in Simon’s direction.

“Is he alive?” Reese asked, squinting. “He hasn’t moved in like ten minutes.”

“He’s
staring.
”

Reese peered over Wendy’s shoulder. “Give him something to watch.”

Then, quicker than a downbeat, Reese shoved her date at Wendy. Her date—Kyle from the band—grabbed Wendy’s hips and pulled her back into him. Wendy faltered, but just for a moment. And when she danced against the stranger who reeked of beer, it made her feel like the center, the pivot point of the whole damn night.

And Simon’s eyes never swayed.

When Garrett came back with a full cup for her, she threw her arms around his neck. “You’re the best.”

“Oh I am, am I?”

Wendy felt bold, so she kissed him. A starter kiss with a hell of a lot behind it. Anger, maybe. Revenge, mostly.

“Nice work,” Reese said, after a while, tapping on Wendy’s shoulder. “Bathroom break?”

Wendy could feel the music in her temples, pressing against her skin. Reese and Wendy waited in line, one foot propped against the wall.

“You go,” Wendy said. “I’ll wait for you.”

“You sure?”

“I just need a minute,” Wendy said.

She wanted the world to keep circling around her. She couldn’t wrap her head around Simon, and how he could be so bold and so terrified all at the same time. She wanted him to go away, back to the place where she only guessed about him. She wanted him gone, not here, where she could watch every concrete movement of his life unfolding without her.

“Hey.”

Wendy’s eyes peeked open. Simon, undoubtedly wasted, stood right in front of her, letting his gaze fall away from her for the first time that night.

“You shouldn’t be talking to me,” she said, her harsh voice foreign to her.

He ignored her. “How are you?”

“Fine. I’m fine.”

He wanted to say something that he didn’t.

She opened her mouth, then let it close. What could she say?

He stepped toward her.

“Simon!”

From the bar, Lizzie called his name, tossing her blonde hair over her shoulder. When she saw where he was, and who he was with, she smiled even bigger, and then she waved a glittery, pageant wave. She looked at Wendy the way you look at the runner-up.

“Go ahead, Simon,” Wendy said. “Your girlfriend is waiting.”

Simon didn’t rush off. Instead, he straightened his back and allowed himself a moment with Wendy. A strained and unsettling moment, but a moment just the same.

She didn’t watch him as he walked away.