Where I Want to Be (7 page)

Jane had been disappointed by that hospital visit all
those years ago. She had wanted more from Caleb. She had wanted Caleb to tell her secret things, like what it felt like to be almost dead. She thought he looked so brave, with his face chewed up and his staring eyes. But he never told her anything. She’d probed him with questions and he’d glared and was silent.

When he returned to school, Caleb kept to himself. But he still didn’t want to be friends with her, or tell her his secrets. She made herself forget about him.

Then he fell in love with Lily, and suddenly Caleb Price—taller, with a new, deep voice and a swimmer’s wide shoulders—was a constant, bothersome presence at her house. Whenever she turned around, there he was. After school, weekends, dinnertime, all the time, too much of the time.

If anyone had bothered to ask, which nobody did, Jane would have said that Caleb annoyed her on purpose. Like at the dinner table, when he’d steal the vegetables that Jane had banished to the side—“You don’t mind, do you? If you’re not gonna eat ’em.” And before she could answer, he’d pop a soggy floret of broccoli or brownish lettuce leaf straight into his mouth. Smiling as he chewed, while Lily giggled behind her hand.

Most of the time, though, Caleb was as private as he’d been that day in the hospital. Like the way he’d just disappear into the Calverts’ walk-in linen closet, putting his hand on the doorknob and entering it like it was another room: “Hey, back in a few. I’m going to meditate.”

Then twenty minutes later, out he’d come, cheerful and relaxed.

“Why the linen closet?” Jane had asked him once.

“Good energy,” he’d answered.

“Caleb’s read that our house was built where there used to be a Native American community,” Lily had explained proudly. “He thinks the best spiritual flow is centered right under the closet.”

“Probably it was a cooking area,” Caleb added. “Guided by a gentle spirit, female, I think. Real nurturing.”

“I’ve always wanted to learn how to meditate,” said Jane.

“I’ll teach you,” said Caleb. “Anytime you want.”

But
anytime
really meant
no time.
Jane knew. Caleb didn’t want to spend a minute with Jane, because it would take a minute away from Lily.

She felt too stupid to remind him, so she tried to teach herself. Wedging herself in the closet with the light off, waiting for the spirit and the energy. Instead, she detected the scent of Caleb’s aftershave. And then a trickle of music from Lily’s room, where Caleb and Lily were pretending to do homework. Jane squeezed her eyes shut to send a message for Caleb to find her. But he did not—or would not—pick up her signals. The gentle, Native American cooking lady never showed up, either. Eventually, the linen closet became hot and stuffy and lonely, and she got out, finished with meditation for good.

Remembering this, Jane realized that she had never actually
caught Caleb in the act of meditating. But she could tell that this was his plan right now. Right here by the pool. She watched. Once Caleb had picked his position, he went still. He looked asleep and awake at the same time. That didn’t seem so hard. Not like something that would have taken too much time to teach her.

“Go away,” Jane said out loud, breaking the silence. “This is my place. Not yours.”

Caleb’s eyes were almost closed. His eyelids were baby-skin thin. Dropped into the middle of her perfect day, he was as confusing as he’d ever been.

But he didn’t deserve to find her, if that’s what he was after.

“Go away!” She forced from each word all the meaning she could muster. Her anger was like a fiery dart shot straight from the core of her heart. “You weren’t invited here!”

Now his eyes were open. Now he was looking right at her. Pinpointing her. One eye the same washed aquamarine of the pool water, the other a mottled navy, dark as a distant planet, like in those posters of Earth in her father’s classroom.

But no, Jane decided. No, he couldn’t see her. He couldn’t have heard her, either. Impossible.

I watch the VW pull into the Small Farms parking lot. When Caleb climbs out of the car, my mind tries to snap a tourist’s picture of what other people, like Danielle Savini, might see. Today Caleb’s got on his washed-to-gray, below-the-knee board shorts and a bright orange T-shirt. With his black hair sticking up in uncombed points and his long limbs moon white in the summer sun, he looks part vampire, part rock star. But all I can see is a guy who is so hot that at first, I could hardly look at him without fussing with my hair or furtively rubbing on lip balm. He actually made me understand the sweaty reality behind the phrase “weak in the knees.” I couldn’t believe every other girl in the school didn’t feel the same.

When Caleb first started dropping by the house, Mom asked me if he was on drugs. I burst out laughing.

“Caleb doesn’t even wear leather,” I told her. “He’s the purest, most nontoxic person I’ve ever known.”

“Oh, well. In that case.” Mom took an if-you-say-so breath before she smiled.

“Finally,” Georgia says, slinging her messenger bag as we start walking to meet Caleb.

“Hey, buddy.” I kiss Caleb when we get close enough, and in a rush of ownership, he’s my Caleb again. His lips have just enough give and just enough heat, and his hands press my shoulders with just enough weight. I try to make the kiss longer. Mint and sweetness, until Georgia hacks an exaggerated cough.

“You’re late,” I say, more for Georgia’s benefit.

“Yeah, sorry. I had to run a couple of errands after work.”

“Next time, we fine you.” Georgia slingshots her hair elastic so that it bounces off Caleb’s chest.

“Heya, George. Ready to roll?”

“Like you don’t even know.” Georgia curls her bottom lip. “I am so over this job.”

“You drive,” I tell him. “I’m tired.”

When we get to the car, Caleb opens the passenger side door and flips the seat so that Georgia can climb into the back. I hop in front, and right away catch the scent of verbena. I lean forward for a deep lungful from the branch that Caleb has stuck in the built-in bud vase. Mmm. “My grandmother loved verbena.”

Nobody answers, which makes me feel slightly dorky in front of Georgia. What is it about referring to grandparents
that seems to reveal the depths of your uncoolness? Maybe because grandparents are the recipients of such overflowing doses of little-kid love, the kind of love that makes you feel almost ashamed of yourself when you get older. Like believing in Santa Claus.

Then Georgia brings up what I was hoping she’d forgotten about by now. “So can I count on you guys to pick me up tonight for Alex Tuzzolino’s?”

“What’s up at the Tuzzolinos’?” Caleb shoots a glance at me.

“It’s her bon voyage cookout,” Georgia answers when I don’t. “Otherwise known as an excuse for an end-of-summer Tuzzolino blowout extravaganza.” She reaches an arm in between us to switch the radio station. “Jeez, Price. Only the biggest party of the summer. You and Eeyore need to get in the loop.” She makes a clucking sound.

Caleb raises an eyebrow for my answer. I shrug.

“That sounds all right,” he says slowly, “and I guess I’m in, if Lily is. Didn’t you say last night that you wanted to go out?” Turning to look at me deliberately. Knowing that I had and hadn’t meant it.

“Yeah. Sure.” I say the words like I’m reading them off a road sign up ahead.

“Like, eight-ish?” Georgia presses.

“Yeah. Sure,” I repeat.

“Don’t flake on me,
por favor
,” Georgia warns as we turn
onto her street to drop her off. “There’s five more party days left before I go away to college. My social life is in your hands.”

“Five days,” repeats Caleb.

Once Georgia’s dropped off, I snap off the music, and the mood flattens. Usually I love these afternoons alone with Caleb, with work done and knowing that the only thing to consider is whether we should see or rent a movie. But today it’s different. Alex Tuzzolino’s good-bye party is like a storm front up ahead. Time feels like it’s moving forward too fast, and without my permission.

“Look, if you can’t hit this party tonight,” Caleb says, “then that’s fine by me. I’ll phone Georgia. We’ll watch a movie.”

“No way, uh-uh.” I’m a little too emphatic to hide my reluctance. “No more movies. I’m sick of staying in and watching movies. I want to go.”

“For real?”

“Yep.”

Caleb’s smile is slow to appear, and doubtful when it does. “Well, gee, I dunno, Lily Grace. It’s been a long time since we’ve been out. First we go to this party, and who knows what comes next? Body piercing? Drive nonstop across country? Join the circus?”

“Yeah, sure, we’re a coupla nuts.”

The joking is halfway to serious, though. We both know that somehow, for some reason, choosing to go to Alex
Tuzzolino’s party means something deeper. It’s a first step away from comfortable sameness and a plunge forward into the unknown. Just thinking about it, my insides give a flutter kick of panic. Maybe that’s how changes are. Maybe the moment right before you’re ready to move on is always when it’s hardest to let go.

Jane set the forks and knives on either side of the bamboo place mats. Three settings. One for Granpa, one for Augusta, and one for herself.

At the kitchen counter, Augusta was slicing rounds of pink-centered roast beef. Granpa was outside on his tractor, cutting the lawn by the last light of sundown. Through the open window, the smell of shorn grass drifted in along with the faraway purr of the engine.

“Look how you’ve made the kitchen.” Augusta smiled at her. “Gracious! Why, it hasn’t looked like this since you were a tiny little girl.”

“I have a good memory,” said Jane. “I can fit everything back together perfectly, in my head. And now I’m going to make the best lemonade in the world.”

“That sounds nice,” said her grandmother. Jane loved how she’d always said that. No matter what Jane might have told her. Like when she’d announced that she was
changing her name to Gwyndermere. Or that she was never cutting her hair again.

“Lily’s boyfriend was here at the house today.” Jane pulled the lemonade pitcher from its shelf. Out of the corners of her eyes, she stole a look at her grandmother, whose reaction was unruffled as usual. “He was driving my car.”

“Lily’s car, now, I’d figure,” said Augusta.

“You never met Caleb,” Jane continued. “Remember that story of the boy in my class who was bitten by the dog? Well, he grew up to be Lily’s boyfriend. Her serious boyfriend.”

“That’s nice,” said her grandmother.

“Lily got Caleb in the fall,” said Jane, “and in the spring, I got a car. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have given it to me otherwise. But you were gone, and I had nobody. It was always Lily and Caleb, Lily and Caleb. And I was left out of everything.”

“There are usually reasons behind being left out,” said Augusta.

This wasn’t the answer Jane wanted to hear. “Lily and Caleb,” she said again. “The first time Caleb came over to our house, it was like he forgot how to leave. Mom and Dad just let him stick around. They always give Lily special privileges. One time I caught Caleb and Lily taking a nap in Lily’s room. Under the covers.”

“If they were in Lily’s room, it sounds like you were snooping.” Augusta snapped two sprigs of parsley from her
window box garden and fixed one to each end of the platter of roast beef before centering it on the table.

Jane paused. The nap wasn’t a good example. She thought of how Caleb’s arm folded like a wing over Lily’s shoulder when they watched television. Or how he’d pour one glass of juice for the two of them to share. And the way he and Lily talked, filling up the space between them with their own language of jokes and gestures and secrets, secrets, secrets.

Augusta opened the refrigerator and handed her some lemons. Each lemon was perfect. No mold. No squish hiding in their firmness. Jane took the cutting board down from the rack and slid a paring knife out of the knife holder. Augusta’s lips thinned as she watched. “You know I’d never have let you handle a knife.”

“You might have,” Jane said, although she doubted it. She turned the sharp blade so that the sun bounced off its glint.

Suddenly Augusta took the knife with one hand, catching Jane by the wrist with the other. She flattened Jane’s fingers to expose the thorny scar at the base of her thumb. “You scared me that day. Blood down your shirt. All over the counter. The way you just looked at me, not speaking, not even to ask for help.”

Jane snatched her hand away. She remembered. It had been the same weekend her grandfather had gone into the hospital for the last time. Her feelings had been too big to
keep inside. She had used the knife, not to hurt herself, but to get some of the pain out.

Augusta placed the knife on the counter and crossed her arms. She looked out the open window. “When your grandfather became too weak, he left the care of the lawn to the Leonard boy, the younger one who could whistle. What was his first name?”

A little shudder tripped down Jane’s spine. She picked up the knife. She remembered the blade through her skin. How it had hurt so much, and at the same time, not enough.

“Billy Leonard,” she murmured.

“Billy Leonard.” Augusta smiled. “I can almost see your grandfather now, on his porch rocker. How his eyes would follow Billy from every angle. Oh, and how cranky Ray’d get if it wasn’t cut just so.”

“He’s never cranky,” said Jane.

Augusta watched as Jane gripped the knife and sliced a lemon into four equal quarters. Then another. Jane squeezed each wedge to a trickle of juice into the pitcher. She added water, a tray of cracked ice, and a cup of sugar from Augusta’s daisy canister. A few fresh mint leaves from the window box topped it off.

She poured herself a glass to taste. It was good. It was not the best lemonade in the world. Just lemonade. Disappointment ran through her. She had wanted to make something better than ordinary. But her perfect day was
fading with the sun. It wasn’t meant to last. She picked up the wooden spoon. Maybe stirring would improve it.