Lessons in Love (25 page)

A wave of sadness descends on me. The heat is gone from the air, and those months with him are, too. We aren’t angry, we’re just over. “We did, right?”

“Yeah.”

That’s how we leave it, sitting in silence until the operator demands more, always more, and I hang up.

Very few actions make your pulse bypass the speed limit like breaking rules in such a big way that you could get expelled. Then again, you only get to be a senior once. At least, that’s the reasoning Mary’s using to lure me out the window, down to the balcony and out to the flagpole.

“I thought the flagpole thing was a Hadley myth,” I say, my voice in a hiss-whisper.

“In all good myths there’s a truth, right?” She holds her arms up to me as I shimmy down the side of the balcony. She’s comfortable enough with the procedure that I know it’s not her first time.

“That’s what Dalton said,” I follow her, creeping with my shoes off so they don’t scuff on the pavement. We are quiet as spilled water, lurking in the shadows.

“What did I say?” Dalton whispers, making us jump.

“Nothing,” I fidget, my heart pounding from nerves. “Just that whole truth in fiction thing.”

Dalton gives the grin I know now is his and then looks away. “Looks like we’ve got company.”

The headlights from a campus security van swing into the driveway and the three of us crouch down, trying to curl up out of sight. I will get expelled, my father will kill me, I will have no chance in hell of either getting into college or even applying for the Beverly William Award. “I’ll never get that stipend now!” I whisper to Dalton.

“Hey — at least this way you’ll have something to write about!”

“Shut up, both of you!” Mary says as the van stops. The guard comes out, checking around the grassy oval for anything suspicious while we sweat it out in the shadow. I know Mary must be panicked because if Carlton or anyone else involved in tonight’s post-curfew mission comes out now, they are screwed. Then, just as quickly as the van came in, it leaves.

“Who the fuck miscalculated that?” Haverford Pomroy’s voice breaks the night quiet.

“My bad,” Chris owns up. “Thought I double-checked the drive-by schedule. Must’ve read the weekday schedule rather than the weekend.” Then he turns to me. “Hello, Sweet Potato.”

I smirk at him, feeling decidedly excited in the deliciously illicit air. “So Dalton told you my new name?”

Chris looks confused then looks at Dalton, who shrugs. “No. You are, in fact, Sweet Potato.”

“What?” I’m totally baffled.

“Ready?” Chris asks everyone.

“Ready,” Harriet Walters appears from behind Bishop House with Jacob and Carlton, Mary’s boyfriend.

“All set.” Jacob and Dalton give each other the guy acknowledgement of sticking their chins out and Jacob holds up a set of keys on a Hadley key chain. To me he asks, “Recognize these?”

I furrow my brow then shake my head. Then, quickly, the group moves as one organism, and we’re on the service road behind the dorms. Jacob dangles the key from his finger, the same fingers that have plucked out so many songs on his guitar for me, the same fingers that have most recently combed through Chloe’s hair and not mine.

“Will someone tell me what’s going on?” I ask, my voice sounding louder than I intended.

“Shh,” Dalton leans forward.

In the darkness behind the tool shed I see a campus golf cart and it sets my mind in motion. “So — you took the keys?” I ask Jacob.

“Borrowed.”

“I copied them in the square today,” Harriet says.

“I had them since that day,” Jacob says, thumbing behind him like the day he took me to home from the health center is right next to us. “Figured they’d come in handy.”

Chris and Haverford climb on the back of the cart, while Dalton and Harriet follow Mary to second row of seats. “Here,” Dalton offers, pointing me into the same seat I sat in when Jacob drove me that day. Back before I’d admitted feelings for him, before Charlie and I had broken up, when I still didn’t know if I’d get into Chaucer’s class, or how it would be one of the highlights of my week.

“Again, can someone explain?” I fold my knees up so there’s room on the other side of me for Dalton.

He climbs in, jostling me a little. “Sorry.” He puts his arm around the back of the seat — in effect around me — as Jacob drives.

Once the cart is a little ways away form the dorms, Chris makes an announcement. “Thank you all for coming on this mission…”

I turn so I can see him. “You did this?” I look at Mary. “I thought you were the one planning this…what is this exactly?” I look at the road as we approach the back side of main campus, the dorm lights off, the chapel’s distant flickering bulb that stays on all day and all night. “For the last time, could someone explain where we’re going?”

Jacob speaks up, leaning forward over the wheel so he can look for a second at Dalton. “What did Yogi Berra say?”

Dalton shifts his weight. Excitement buzzes through all of us, the whole heavy golf cart full of Hadley students. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

“This,” Jacob says to me as we chug along, “Is the fork and we are — as they say — taking it.”

Surprise is a vast understatement to what I feel when Jacob turns the golf cart into my driveway. My house. My real home, not the dorms, is in front of me — its yellow exterior still yellow even in the moonlight. The sky is one of those autumnal ones — clear and high, the stars bright as holiday lights in the open air.

“Sweet Potato,” Chris says, poking me as he jumps out of the still moving golf cart. “Welcome home.”

Inside my house, the plan is clear. Balloons, cake, and presents all await me.

“Happy Birthday!” Chris says.

“But it’s not for another ten days!” My smile is wide as I take it all in; the group of friends who risked everything for me, the gifts, the feeling of being in my house. “So…just to backtrack?”

“We knew your dad was away…” Dalton starts.

“I knew your schedule,” Mary adds. “And that you’d have your house keys.”

“And we took care of the golf cart,” Jacob says. “We figured it’s faster with less chance of being caught than hoofing it.”

“And to cut to the chase, you’re worth it.” Harriet crosses her arms over her chest. Who’d have thought that a girl with all As who’s doing Early Decision at Harvard would help in a high school heist?

“Well, thanks — all of you.” I look at each one of my friends and then go to hug them as Chris and Haverford set up the food and beverages in my very own kitchen.

“Keep the lights off,” Chris reminds us. “Key lights only.” From his jacket pocket he pulls a bunch of key chains, each with a button you can press to illuminate the darkness. I hug him, then hug Haverford, then move on to Mary and Harriet, who giggle uncharacteristically.

“I’ve snuck out before,” Mary says. “But never to have cake. It’s perfect.” She gestures to the room.

“Hey,” I ask, noticing a flaw in their descriptions of who did what. “How’d you guys get in here, anyway? I have the key.” I display it.

“I stopped by your room,” Dalton says. In the inky dark he’s taller than normal, his voice articulate and soft. “Remember?”

“So you invaded my privacy…” I joke while finishing my hug with Harriet.

“For a good reason,” he says, his light eyes even lighter as he smiles.

“Cake’s almost ready.” Chris sets out plates for all of us.

The only people I haven’t hugged are Jacob and Dalton.

“Hey,” Jacob steps forward, his canvas jacket still zipped halfway. I wonder if Chloe’s worn it. “Happy birthday.”

I put my arms around him and expect to melt as we hug, to feel that familiar twisting in my gut. I could lean in, whisper about him and Lindsay, if it’s true. If they. When they. Why they. But I don’t. She either has the letter or she doesn’t. They either did or they didn’t. Either way, I feel something different. When he hugs me back, the particles in the air have changed. I have changed. I picture Amelia on the beach with Nick Cooper, waiting for him to explain what’s really out there, lurking in the water.

A dark fin rises from the water.

“Look,” Amelia says, standing suddenly so she can point it out to him.

“Where?” Nick follows her point but can’t make out the fin amidst the waves.

I stand there, hugging Jacob but writing in my mind. I know then that I have the rest of Amelia’s story but that I’ll forget it if I don’t write it down.

“Guys?” I say to everyone while Haverford hands out candy bags. I take mine and smile. Chris knows me well enough to plan not just a cake but bags with licorice and Swedish fish, and spearmint drops that only old ladies are supposed to like. All my favorites. “I’m so thankful — and psyched to be here…” my heart pounds, still with the thrill of possibly getting caught, but also because writing inspiration has struck. “But you’ve got to excuse me for one second — if I don’t write this down I’ll…” I cut myself off and dash out of the room, taking the spiral staircase I used to take every day up to my room.

There, right in the familiar setting, I grab an old journal from the stack by my bed and fling it open. I write the lines that I thought of while hugging Jacob and push off the weirdness of not feeling what I thought I would when we did. I’m aware of how much time has passed until I notice I’ve filled two pages with tiny scrawl.

A knock on the door breaks my creative trance. “Don’t mean to mess up your inspiration,” Chris says. “But you’ve got a party to get to.”

“Right.” I close the book, confident I can get back to the beach and mend Nick and Amelia once and for all after I’ve had some cake. “I just got carried away.”

Chris smiles. “I like when that happens to you — it’s rare, you know?”

I stand up, taking my journal with me. It’s the one from sophomore year, a plain composition book with a few pages I’ll have to copy at the back. “Do you think I’m too reserved?”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Chris starts down the stairs. “But it wouldn’t kill you to burst out a bit.”

This reminds me of writing, of the characters jumping off the page, like Dalton said. Tomorrow, I’ll hear his story, and next week, I’ll hand mine in. Both of those pieces will probably be competing for the same award, one that would change both of our lives forever.

“Fine,” I say. “Then I’ll burst.”

I take the stairs fast and enjoy every bite of cake, each chewy strand of red licorice, while the whole group of us talk and laugh, the hours racing by.

Later, I’m back in the kitchen, gathering all the trash in a black bag we will later deposit in the dumpster behind the gym. Laughter erupts from the other room and I feel myself being watched.

“How’s it going?” Jacob watches me collect paper plates.

“Good,” I say and mean it. “What about with you?”

He nods and looks at the counter where my journal sits next to my bag of candy. “What’s in that thing, anyway?” He touches it and I flinch. “I can remember sitting in your room before summer started, staring at the pile of journals you had. I always wanted to know what you put in there.” He looks at me.

I burst out of my skin, jump off the page. “Read it then, if you’re so curious.”

Jacob looks like I punched him. “What?”

I shrug. “It was a long time ago, sophomore year wasn’t it?” I picture sitting in Mr. Chaucer’s English class with him back then, then I picture signing with him on the roof of my apartment this summer. This time, in the memory, I realize something: next to him in Chaucer’s class, was Dalton. And waiting for him in the car down on the street while we sang, was Dalton. And today, while Jacob flirted around with Chloe on the oval, was Dalton.

“Yeah,” I say and hold the book out for him almost as a dare. “Read it. I’ll be back in a minute.”

I walk through the living room to find Dalton but he’s not there. “Check your dad’s study,” Chris suggests. “He’s probably stealing books.”

They go back to playing some drinking game that involves speaking backwards and I look for Dalton. When I find him he’s not in the study but on the porch.

“What’s this, lonely guy in the moonlight?”

Dalton turns to me, his hands in his pockets, and grins. “Something like that.”

“You ready for tomorrow?” I mime writing so he’ll know I mean for ACW.

He nods. Then he shakes his head. “I was. I am — no, I was. I think I have to go back and revise one more time.”

“So your characters jump off the page?” I ask. “So you can make sure to win that award?”

He sits on the steps, his back to me. “What about Amelia and Nick?”

I sit next to him, the ever-present space between us still there. Always, there’s at least a few inches. I note that I never even hugged him to say thanks for the party. “I just was writing about them. I think she sees a shark, on the beach?”

“And?”

I lick my lips, feeling the cool air on them. “And…oh, I don’t know I just hope I can do something with them before Columbus Day.” The deadline for applications hangs over me, and I know that right after Columbus Day I’ll be thinking about Thanksgiving and my mother and sister’s visit, about our odd Thanksgiving, about the award notifications, which happen after the first of the year.

“Can I ask you something?” Dalton leans back with his palms on the deck.

Inside, Jacob could be reading my journal. Or not. Maybe he won’t. Or maybe he will, the pull of nosiness too great to surpass. “Sure.”

“Two things — the first is…what are you doing for Columbus Day?”

“Nothing. God that sounds lame. I motion to rework that sentence.”

Dalton pushes his hand through his hair. He never seems nervous or out of place or uptight. Steady but not boring. Sarcastic but not mean. “Maybe nothing is really something.”

“What’s that supposed to me mean?”

“Nothing. Something. I don’t know.” Dalton stands up and moves so he’s on the paved driveway, the golf cart parked behind him. “So — if you’re up for it — a group of people are coming to my house for that weekend. My parents’ll sign you out.”

“Drunken sledding?” I ask. All of the rest of senior year seems stretched out before me, down a hill that I’m just now seeing.