I'll Be Here Read online

I took a shaky breath.

  “Let’s just forget it,” I said finally. “I was an idiot and you don’t need to explain to me the million and one reasons why this was a terrible idea. I get—”

  Alex interrupted. “You’re not an idiot Willow.” The tone of his voice begged me to look up into those saltwater eyes but I couldn’t bear it.

  I sighed. “I feel like one.”

  He moved close enough that I could feel his breath. “You shouldn’t. If you’d let me explain then you’d understand—”

  But he never completed the thought because Pete appeared on the back porch and announced loudly that they were going home. He’d had a little too much to drink and he was laughing. I could hear Brooke behind him on the porch shushing him.

  “We have to finish this,” Alex insisted but I was looking elsewhere—anywhere but at him.

  I said nothing as he took the other darkened path and met up with his parents in the driveway. I thought that he might look back but he didn’t. He didn’t even remember his coat.

  We found out about mom’s cancer nine days later.

  For whatever we lose (like a you or a me)

  it’s always ourselves we find in the sea.

  ~E.E. Cummings

  CHAPTER TEN

  “Wait. Did he tell you why he was in town?” Macy is twirling a leaf between her fingers. The sounds of traffic hum in the background. We are outside at the picnic tables that edge the park. A gathering of scraggly oak branches form a shade roof over us. Colleen leans forward expectantly, waiting for me to answer. She’s sucking on a lollipop and it’s turned her tongue a deep shade of purple.

  I shrug. “I would assume he was in town for a long weekend and stayed for his dad’s birthday like he said.”

  “Interesting.” Colleen chirps. I don’t know why Laney told Macy and Colleen about Alex because now the whole group wants to know the story even though I’ve been swearing up and down that the only story is that there is no story.

  Macy vaguely remembers Alex from our middle school. “Do you think he knows about you and Dustin breaking up?”

  Okay. This is what I keep coming back to. I didn’t let myself dwell on Alex most of last week, but once I started thinking about him, I couldn’t stop. And thinking too much about Alex Faber is not something that is historically good for me.

  I won’t even go into how erratic my pulse gets, or the way my fingers curl tightly into my palms when I think about him. God. It’s so embarrassing.

  I’ve already asked myself a dozen times if Alex knew that he’d see me at Patty’s office. I couldn’t tell from his demeanor.

  Did he know about my breakup with Dustin? He didn’t say anything, but it would be perfectly normal for my mother to share that sort of information with Brooke, and of course Brooke could have told Alex.

  But would my relationship status or lack thereof cause Alex Faber to drop his plans and come see me at work? Probably not. It was dangerous to think like that.

  I shrug at Macy, feigned indifference sneaking into my voice. “I have no idea. Probably not.”

  “Hmmm.” This is Colleen. Her platinum hair is tied to one side in a spiky ponytail. Her fingernails are painted an iridescent dark blue. She’s already told me that I can borrow the color.

  I like Colleen. And she’s been amazingly cool that I’ve crashed their group of friends. So has everyone else.

  There’s Macy and then Dizzy, whose real name is Desiree but has gone by Dizzy since she was in kindergarten. Laney and I were friends with her back in elementary school, but then she transferred to a snotty private school and we lost touch the way kids do. She’s been back in the unfortunate public school system for a little over two years but I don’t think we had even spoken until this week.

  Asher Grigsby is Dizzy’s boyfriend. He’s tall and hulking and an itsy bit scary. Asher’s got that whole emo, I-don’t-give-a-shit vibe nailed down. The first time he talked to me I wouldn’t look him in the eye. But then I realized something. It’s all an act. Maybe he’s a tad socially awkward and has multiple facial piercings, but Asher’s a total softy. He lives with his grandparents and he dotes on his girlfriend and according to Laney he’s a genuine friend to animals, even going so far as to bring a baggy of bird seed with his lunch for our school’s finch population. And he loves salt and vinegar potato chips with a passion. Go figure.

  And of course there’s Lance who I’ve grown ridiculously fond of in the short amount of time that we’ve spent together. Lance used to work with Colleen and Laney at a music store downtown, but he quit last fall in protest of some dress code amendment about closed toe shoes. I find this interesting since so far I’ve seen Lance in nothing but closed toes shoes, but Laney says that he insisted it was the principle of the whole thing.

  Despite the dress code, the music store sounds like a good place to work. They sell obscure vintage records as well as some current stuff in cd form.

  Laney says that digital downloads haven’t exactly been good for business but that they’ve got a pretty solid customer base so they make it. She also tells me in a whispering tone that their manager, a scrawny twenty-three year old with terrible teeth, is painfully in love with Colleen but she remains oblivious. This doesn’t surprise me. Colleen’s beautiful and cool in the effortless way that people that don’t try too hard and could care less what you think of them are cool.

  “And you haven’t seen him in over a year?” Asher asks with a mouthful of salt and vinegar potato chips. He always seems to have a bag nearby. Seriously.

  I shake my head. “No. He did a work study thing last summer up in Atlanta and his parents said that he went to France for some school thing in the fall and then they went skiing over Christmas break. I know that he was home to visit his family a couple other times in the past year but we… we kind of avoid each other. It’s not like a rule or anything—just one of those things. But then all of a sudden he was at my work.”

  “His mother knows where you work and sent him on this errand, right? It sounds like a set-up to me.” Laney concludes.

  “It wasn’t even one of my normal days to work.”

  “Whatever. Your mom probably told his mom.” Her logic makes sense. Brooke definitely knows that I work for Patty and she did send Alex to get the papers signed. Could our mothers be trying to set us up? That would be too weird.

  “I’m sure it was just a coincidence,” I offer with an exaggerated shrug.

  Lance is leaning his face back to catch the sun. With his eyes still closed he says, “Well, I for one, want to hear what this guy looks like.”

  I’m about to say something generic that doesn’t leave too much of an impression. Something like this: Alex Faber has dark hair and two eyes and two ears and a mouth and wears clothes. Most of the time.

  But Laney starts talking before I can speak up. “Alexander Faber is freaking hot,” she gushes.

  Five pairs of eyes look in my direction as if for confirmation. I squeeze my eyes shut but I can practically hear the hum of their grins.

  “He’s got a touch of that tortured artist look about him—you know, dark, fuck-me-please hair and these incredible sexy blue eyes. He’s properly rumpled in all the right places.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” I interject.

  Lance ignores me and my scowling face. His mind lurches in a predictable direction. “Body?”

  “Perfection,” she responds winking at me. “Who knows? He could even show up here today. Practically the entire town shows up for this every year.”

  “Let’s hope not,” I say. “Anyway, it doesn’t matter because I’m completely over him. Alex is not even my type anymore.”

  Laney raises her eyebrows. She doesn’t say aloud what she’s thinking but she doesn’t have to. I can tell by her expression. Isn’t Alex Faber everyone’s type?

  I look away. Onwards and upwards.

  We’re on the outskirts of Greenacres Park, the site of the annual Spring Festival. There’s live music, f
unnel cakes and a huge crowd. Like Laney said—practically the entire town comes out for this event every year. The boats in the marina just to the south of the park are decorated with flags and whimsical lights for the boat parade that happens just before sundown.

  “Hey, come on.” Laney grabs my hand, pulling me with her off the bench. “Let’s go check out that band that I was telling you about. They’re on stage four I think.”

  “Actually, I was thinking that I might hang back here and sketch for awhile if you guys don’t mind.”

  She drops my hand and really looks at me for a moment. “Yeah. You should sketch. Just find us in like an hour or so?”

  “Sure. That would be great.”

  Everyone waves as they pass by me. Lance pinches my ass and I yelp.

  “I’m going to get food before music. You want me to get you something?”

  “Sure. Something vegetarian.”

  “Vegetarian, huh?”

  “Yes. That means no meat.”

  Lance cocks his head. “Any specific requests? Sprouts? Alfalfa? Flax seeds?”

  “Very funny. I don’t eat meat but that doesn’t mean that I’m a rabbit. Grab me like a sandwich or a salad or something simple. I’m honestly pretty easy.”

  “You’re easy, huh?” Lance is grinning goofily. “I’ll let that one go but just this once. Okay?”

  I snort. “Whatever.”

  He chuckles and walks off, his back disappearing into a mass of bodies.

  Deciding that the wooden bench is sort of killing my butt, I settle to the grass and rest my back against a tree trunk. I pull my knees up and prop my sketch pad against my legs.

  Deep breaths. Slowly in and slowly out. My brain unfocuses even as my eyes sharpen and all I see is light and shadow. This is a sort of meditative technique one of my drawing teachers taught me years ago.

  The sound of my pencil scratching rhythmically across the paper is strange and familiar at the same time. I start to breathe easier as I move onto the second sheet of paper. This time I see a small boy with a bright red baseball cap on his head and a large soft pretzel gripped in his hand. I start to draw him just as a seagull swoops down and snatches the rest of the pretzel away from him. He wails and throws his head back, his chubby hands raised up in despair. His red cheeks puff in and out with air and his watery eyes squeeze shut.

  My hand moves quickly but steadily across the surface of the paper.

  I’ll call this one Frustration.

  I flip to the backside of the paper and swiftly make the lines—this time bolder, capturing the elongated curve of an arm as the little boy’s mother reaches over to wipe his mouth with a napkin that she’s wetted with her tongue. He stops crying and blinks his round eyes at her. She is telling him something that he likes. Maybe he’ll get cotton candy to make up for the lost pretzel.

  Consolation.

  I haven’t done this exercise in awhile but it feels good. I used to take my sketchbook with me nearly everywhere and I’d do this. I’d set up in a shady spot and I’d start to draw. First, I would warm up with quick sketches—snips of something larger—just a cockeyed brow or the twist of a jaw line descending into the arched cords of neck, and once my fingers were loose and my mind plied into the secret, reactive state that I desired, I would begin the real thing.

  There was a time when drawing had been, in a word, everything. It kept me up late at night, my shoulders aching, and my fingers cramped from holding my pencil too tightly. Sometimes I would bring out paints—watercolors and for a few months oils—but I always gave up and went back to the nakedness of white paper and the solid black-grey lines of my graphite pencils. These filled the pages of a succession of sketchbooks I’d been keeping since I was twelve.

  I remember the first time that Dustin looked through my sketchbooks. We were in my room. He was on the floor. I was on the bed leaning against my pillows. My feet dangled down beside him as I read aloud from a chapter in our chemistry book. He reached under my bed and pulled one of the sketchbooks from the pile that I kept stowed there.

  At first I’d protested but he’d insisted and trying not to feel like a self-conscious dolt, I’d gone back to reading the chemistry assignment. Dustin flipped through the pages of the sketchbook too quickly as if it didn’t really hold his interest, but then he’d paused and cleared his throat. When I looked up, he was grinning. Blushing furiously, I realized why.

  He’d found several sketches of himself that I’d drawn from memory. There were two profile drawings from the shoulder up—me remembering the way he looked in class as he sat next to me. They captured his angular nose, the masculine chin in contrast with the soft hair that curled into his collar.

  There was only one full-body sketch and this one I’d drawn without him realizing that I was watching him. In this one Dustin was leaning against a brick wall waiting for one of his friends after school. I remember that I had watched him half-hidden by the shadow of the tree. Here I’d let my mind trace the long lines of his legs, the shoulders wide and strong, his boyish smile peeking from a shadow. This was the sketch that Dustin settled on. The subject and pose were innocent enough but I had to admit that there was something raw and sexual about the way that I’d drawn it. Dustin Rant may not have been an art critic but he felt it too. He dropped the sketchbook on the floor.

  I was mortified.

  He was flattered.

  Crawling up on the bed, he trapped me between his arms and thoroughly kissed my neck.

  It was about a month later that Dustin made a comment about me taking the sketchbook everywhere. He’d said it in a joking way but I could hear the note of annoyance underneath his humor. The next day I didn’t take my sketchbook to school. And when it came time to choose our classes for the fall schedule I didn’t sign up for an art class. I told myself that I needed to get serious about other things—an echo of my father’s words. I told myself a lot of things but never the truth.

  Now I look up, my eyes finding a focal point in the bright light. I have sketched the crowd—shadowed silhouettes against an upturned bowl of blue sky. When a woman in a too-bright yellow sundress moves, a boy about my age takes shape in the distance. He leans with his back up against the pier railing. Through dark, black-rimmed sunglasses he watches the crowd, his head moving back and forth as if he’s looking for someone.

  There’s something about the way he stands—slouched, with his hands in his front pockets that’s familiar.

  The boy tilts his head and raises his hand to his face. Is he looking at me? One of the things that I like about a sketchpad is that you can be stealthy while you people watch. No one ever seems sure if you are drawing them or the general scenery.

  But this guy seems sure. His stance changes abruptly and I wonder if he’ll come over here because he knows that I’ve been staring at him. I duck my head and turn to a blank page. I doodle a succession of concentric circles. A quick glance back confirms my suspicions that the boy is still staring at me. I wish Lance would get back here with our food or that I had just gone with Laney and Colleen to see the band on stage four when they asked.

  The boy is walking towards me! My heart speeds up.

  And all at once I realize that the boy is actually Alex and the world drops away along with my stomach.

  When he’s close enough that I can see the details that make him up, I stand because once I heard someone say that higher ground gives you an advantage. I don’t like the idea of being on the ground while all six feet of Alex Faber towers over me. He slips the sunglasses to the top of his head and squints at the brightness of the sun. I kind of like that he’s taken the sunglasses off for my benefit.

  “I thought that it was you but I wasn’t sure.” He’s smiling.

  I realize that I’m smiling also and it feels a little silly but I’m having a hard time not smiling. What the hell is wrong with me? Stop smiling Willow!

  “It’s me!” Oh great, I sound like a total ditz.

  He laughs. He has this great laugh. I�
�d nearly forgotten that. “I was hoping that I’d be able to find you in this crowd.”

  He was? What is that supposed to mean? I’m about to investigate this with a question when Alex speaks. “Wow, I’d almost forgotten how red your hair is in the sun.”

  Automatically I touch the tips of my hair. It is red in the sun—embarrassingly so. What’s worse than having pale skin and freckles? Having pale skin, freckles, and reddish hair.

  “Ugh. I know. I’ve been thinking of dyeing it for something different. A darker brown or maybe even blond highlights.”

  “No!” Alex says it so fast that my head snaps up in surprise. He’s got his eyebrows knitted together. Three deep valleys meander across his forehead. “I mean… why would you want to do that?”

  I bite my lip. “Well, you know—red hair and freckles are decidedly not cool.”

  “I think that they are on you.”

  Now he’s staring at me so deeply that I feel a pressure around my heart. What the heck is that supposed to mean? I try to think of a compliment to say back—maybe about his sunglasses, which I completely dig, or the way his eyes match the sky today, which makes me sound like a dork, or that his shorter hair makes him look older… but the words won’t form on my tongue. I shuffle my feet.

  Alex coughs. “Anyway, your hair’s not red—it’s more of an auburn color.”

  “Auburn?” I echo.

  He reaches forward and catches a tendril between his fingers and looks carefully like he’s examining it for scientific purposes. “Yes, auburn,” he insists with a small smile. “And bronze with just a touch of gold.”

  I swallow a gulp of air into my constricted chest and try to ignore the sensations creeping across my scalp. It’s like every hair on my head is standing alert, ready to betray me and shout: “touch me next!”

  Clearly Alex knows that I am struggling, so he breaks the awkward moment by changing the subject. He gestures to the small tin of pencils on the grass beside me. “I thought you’d stopped drawing. That’s what my mom told me awhile ago.”