This Sky (13 page)

Gemma

Three days later, I’m still whirling.

   
I’ll be right where you are. The whole time.

   
Look, I know I’m a woman or a girl or whatever you want to call a clueless twenty-one year old going through a life overhaul, and maybe that means that I’m prone to fits of vapors and I’m a sucker for a good line, but that’s great dialogue. Truly.

   
Right where you are.

   
Be still, my beating heart.

   
Julie points to me. “You are out of control, Gem. You might be on the verge of salivating. I swear, you haven’t acted like this since you discovered
A Room with a View
in the ninth grade.”

    “You’re the one who wanted me to go for giddy,” I say, patting my chest emphatically. “Or have you forgotten that you told me I was disillusioned and needed to start flying
or whatever that was?”

    Julie looks me over with an appraising eye. “I know what I said but you were supposed to be looking for a rebound.
Just a simple rebound.”

    We’re standing at the counter of Starbucks. I’m adding
a packet of sugar to my cappuccino. Julie is sprinkling cinnamon into a cup of hot chocolate.

   
Nodding, I say, “That’s what I’m doing.”
    “Are you sure about that? Truthfully, we barely know anything about Landon. You refuse to drill Claudia and Smith for information and you won’t even look for him on Facebook,” she says, indignant.

    “Because I
cancelled my account. Anyway, I know better than anyone, all that stuff is crap.”

    “Still—” She breaks off. “I worry that you’re falling for him.”

    “I’m not falling for him,” I contend, a fishy feeling swirling in my gut.

    “So just sizzle and sex and no one gets hurt, right?”

    I mask my uncertainty and throw up a little salute to her. “Yes, ma’am.”

    “Okay. I
know what you said, but I was thinking that it’s time to talk to Claudia and cultivate a more detailed plan.”

    “No! You promised,” I remind her fiercely. “I’m not one hundred percent sure he likes me. It could all be in my head.”

    “Gem, that’s the self-doubt talking,” she says, taking a sip of her hot chocolate.

    “Jules, this could
potentially be more humiliating than finding Ren and the waitress. I could go for it and Landon could be like, ‘Um, what do you think you’re doing, crazy girl?”’

     “Or he could be like,
‘Yes ma’am, and thank you very much. I’ve been waiting for you to make a move.”’

     “
If
he likes me.”

    “Trust me. Landon likes you.”

    “You don’t know that.”

    “I do. What could he possibly not
like about you?”

    “You have to say that. You’re my bestest friend on the planet therefore you’re required by law to love me
and think I’m wonderful,” I reply. “Guys like Landon…”

    “You just dated a super-hot actor. I think you can handle a bartender.”

     “Because things with the super-hot actor turned out so well?” I joke.

    Julie’s face sobers. “St
op being crazy, Gemma.”

    I sigh and look down at the coffee cup in my hands. “After everything with Ren, I gues
s I’m sensitive because I wonder if he wasn’t just with me to feel—”

    “Oh my God!”

    It takes me a second to realize that I’m being spoken to by someone who is not Julie.

    “Excuuuse meeee!” 

    I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn my head to the side. A broad-faced girl about my age is staring at me expectantly. I look down, thinking that I must be standing on her foot or something. Her feet are just fine and I notice she’s wearing hot pink ballet flats with glittery purple bows on the toes. Interesting.

     Squealing
gleefully, she starts jumping and spewing her excitement all over me. “I-I totally thought it was you! But I wasn’t sure and then I heard what you were saying—and I—Oh my God! I’m right, aren’t I…?”

    I blink
, grappling to understand. “I’m sorry?”

    She’s a little embarrassed now. Her cheeks flush and she snorts a gruff laugh. She twirls a piece of her hair
in her fingers. “You’re the girl? From—you know—from that video? The video with Ren Parkhurst?”

    Kill me. Really. If someone out there has a chainsaw or a cyanide capsule handy, I call dibs.

    “You’re the girlfriend, aren’t you?”

     “Umm…” My body is frozen.

     Her hands go to her face, and she starts smiling again. “This is crazy and I have so much to ask you. You lived with Ren so you must be familiar—”

    Julie pokes her head over my shoulder, nailing this girl with a death glare. “Let me stop you right there.”

    The girl blinks and takes a step back but she keeps talking. “I just was going to—”   

    “Nope,” Julie interrupts again.

    The girl tries again. “That I had—”

    But my best is not having it. “Nope.”

    “—a very similar experience with this guy I dated—”

    “Nope.”

    “—from my chemistry class so I—”  

    Julie steps in front of me. “Look,
Twinkletoes! You need to stop talking and walk away. I mean it.”

    The girl huffs
and puffs and shakes her head in exasperation. “I can’t even…”

    “You can’t even what? Believe that my friend and I have the nerve to enjoy our drinks without being bombarded for extremely personal information by a total stranger?”

   “Well, I never—” She shoots me an awkward look before making a speedy retreat.

    In the next instant, Julie is picking up her hot chocolate and gliding to the door. She casually continues our earlier
conversation. “As I was saying,” she starts.

    I stay where I am. I’m so stunned that my mouth is hanging open. “As you were saying?” I’m not shouting but I’m not being quiet either. I feel numb all over. “Are we not going to talk about what just happened? That I was just recognized at a Starbucks in downtown San Diego?” 

    She rolls her shoulders back and pulls her purse up her arm. “We’re not going to talk about it.”

    “
What
?” I squeak, disbelieving. 

    “We’re not going to talk about it, Gemma. I know you and if we start analyzing this, next you’ll end up freaking and stressing out about stuff that you can’t even change.”

    Now I’m running to catch up with her. “You’re just going to ignore what happened back there? You’re serious?”

  
“I’m serious.” Her voice is low. She darts a quick glance at me. “That was an isolated incident. She overheard you use Ren’s name and that’s all. It’s not the norm. Okay?”

   
Feeling dizzy, I shake my head in disbelief. “Okay?”

   
“So, as I was saying, up to this point, everything with Landon has been completely platonic, right?”

    I take a steadying breath
and force my gaze forward. “Right.”

    “In my ex
pert opinion, you and Landon are in a bad holding pattern.”

    “A holding pattern?”
I ask, sipping on my coffee, focusing on the way the slightly bitter liquid feels as it moves hot and fast down my throat.

    “Yes. Neither of you know
s how to make the first move so you’re just maintaining the status quo,” she says smiling. “Work is the key.”

     “Okay?
”

     “So if Landon i
s there when you get to work tomorrow, you need to dazzle him with your crop of sexy moves.”

    “I hate to break this to you, but my field of moves is
decidedly barren,” I say with a sad shrug. “You know this about me.”

    “It’s easy
, Gem.” Julie shakes her head and makes a dismissive whistling sound through her teeth. “Move your ass. Squish your boobs together. Pout your lips. Do whatever it takes to seal the deal.”

    “Whatever it takes.” I nod slowly like I’m taking all of this in.

    “And remember, you’re supposed to tag ‘em and bag ‘em, not get yourself all mixed up. This is supposed to be fun and easy. Grow your butterfly wings or whatever you want to call it, but keep in mind that this is not
A Room with a View.
”

    I raise my eyebrows and tease, “How do you know? Maybe I’m really Lucy and he’s really George.”

   
Julie snorts. “Get a grip, Sayers!”

    “It is fate that I’m here,” I quote the book just to get a bigger rise out of her, “but you can call it Italy if it makes you less unhappy.”

    “Oh my God!” She tosses a napkin at my face. “You’re such a dork.”

    I smile a shaky smile. “At least I’m not crying, right?”

    She laughs but it’s a worried kind of laugh. Her soft blue eyes flicker. “At least you’re not crying.”

Landon

I rub my eyes with my thumb and forefinger and look around the police station.

    In front of me is a sm
all window that slides open and closed. An older man in a black uniform is slouched behind the counter speaking on the phone. To my right is a vending machine that ate my last dollar twenty minutes ago. To my left is a stack of blue plastic chairs and a thin white bookshelf holding brochures about driving safety and drug use. A kid, no older than sixteen, is curled up asleep against the farthest wall with a green backpack under his head.

    It smells like mildew and sweat and coffee. I’ve been here for over two hours and no one’s been answering my questions. All I get are generic throwaways.
Fill this out. Sit there, sir. We’ll be with you in a moment.

    Finally, Abby walks out of the processing room in wrinkled clothes. Her mascara is smeared halfway down one side of her face. A beaded silver purse is hanging off her arm. One strap of her black tank top is ripped at the seam and dangling limply down her back.

    She barely acknowledges me as she brushes past and pushes through a rattling glass door into the thinning night.
Nice to see you too.

    I look over my shoulder and make eye contact with the desk sergeant, who is still on the phone. “Are we done here?”

    A quick head nod. “She should have the paperwork she needs for her arraignment.”

    Great.

    Abby and I don’t speak until we’re in the car, a few miles down the road and she tells me she wants a milkshake.

    “It’s three in the morning,” I point out.
And you were just arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct.

    “So what?” she asks, an arrogant tilt to her chin. She pulls out a cigarette and a lighter. I don’t say a thing. I gave up the ‘don’t smoke in my car’ argument a long time ago. “I want a milkshake. I haven’t eaten anything in over a day and I’m starving.”

    “And whose fault is that?” I mumble, but I turn the car into the drive-thru of an all-night fast food restaurant and order a vanilla milkshake with whipped cream. I even add fries and a hamburger to the order. She’s always been too thin, but right now she’s almost skeletal.

    “Where am I taking you?” I ask as she opens up the greasy to-go bag and puts a French fry in her mouth.

    “Bay Street,” she says over the food. “I’m staying with a friend.”

    “Anyone I know?” I ask, feeling like an uncool parent.

    “No,” is all she says.

    While I drive, the car remains quiet except for the sound of her slurping the milkshake, chewing and wiping her mouth with a paper napkin. I don’t ask about the arraignment. I don’t ask if she’s
still high. Maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe I don’t want to know anything about her anymore.

    “It’s here,” she says, pointing to a driveway.

    Even through the dark, I can see that the place is a shithole. The grass is brown and overgrown. Thorny vines are creeping up the left side of the garage. The paint around the windows is chipped and faded. Propped against the front steps is a bike that’s missing its front wheel.

    “Nice place,” I say blandly.

    She ignores the comment and reaches for the door handle. “Thanks for the shake and fries. I’ll call you.”

    I exhale through my nose. My arms are stretched out in front of me, my hands fisted on the steering wheel. I say, “Abby, you
know you can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

    She sneers over her shoulder. “I can do whatever I want to do.”