Authors: Daniela Reyes
She returned with a complimentary birthday cake in one hand, and a brown bag of Chinese food in the other. They set the table. She gave no questions or comments. His worries eased.
They ate. They talked about his mom, in small bits at first, and then about everything. He told her about the nights at beach house they’d spent watching movies, and eating until their stomachs felt like exploding. Olivia listened to the silly stories and the sad ones. The day they found out she had cancer, and the day Mimi had wanted to shave her head too. Nick continued on, until the sun got ready to set.
“Forty-five,” Olivia said putting the candles on top of the cake. “Your mom had you when she was young.”
“Twenty-four I think,” Nick said. “She married my dad right out of college. They were in Spanish Club together.”
She smiled, lighting the numbers. “It’s nice.”
“What is?”
“To hear that two people loved each other, and that they were happy. Sometimes I forget there are exceptions.” Olivia looked out, to some distant point, and then returned. “You blow them out. Send her a happy thought.”
Nick leaned down toward the table. He stared up at her. “Let’s blow them out together.”
She nodded and leaned down, closing her eyes. She counted down, but he didn’t participate. He stared at her the entire time, taking in every angle of her face. He could take a step forward, and their lips would meet. It wouldn’t be right though, the moment wasn’t appropriate and neither was thinking about it. They were friends. Friends.
Olivia opened her eyes. “Want me to tell you what I told your mom?”
He nodded. “What?”
“I thanked her.”
He tilted his head. “For what?”
She grinned. “For bringing you into the world and Mimi too. But I gave her a special thanks for you, for raising you to be the sweet guy that you are.”
He felt his cheeks growing warm, despite the lack of heating in the beach house. They remained standing like that, leaning toward the table.
He hadn’t sent his mom a thought. Now he did.
What do you think of her?
He wanted to know.
Olivia stood up and cut the cake. They finished half of it through a marathon of old novelas his mom had on DVD. She laughed through the strange antics and dramatic stare downs. They sat in the couch, neither saying too much. She fell asleep for a moment, letting her head rest on his shoulder.
Nick pretended to be asleep too, not wanting to watch her as she slept. When it neared midnight, Olivia woke, suddenly and quickly.
“I almost forgot,” she said. “I have a present for you, an early birthday gift.”
He sat up, the feeling of her head still etched into his shoulder. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”
She pulled something out of her purse. It was an envelope, thin and white. Nick hesitated but eventually accepted it.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Open it.”
He did, unfolding the contents. It was an itinerary for different cities in Florida. It was a week long trip.
“We fly out on my birthday. I thought it would be a cute idea. On June 3 it will be exactly seven years since we met.”
“You bought me a plane ticket?”
She nodded. “It’s our friendaversay and my birthday, and yours in a few months. It seemed like a good combo present.”
He smiled. Nick held the paper out in front of him, rereading the travel schedule. “Seven years, and it all started because of a delayed flight,” he said.
Something in Olivia’s expression twitched, but disappeared quickly. “We can split lodging and gas.
Knowing you, you’d want to pay for all of that. It’s going to be fun,” she said. “A good way to say goodbye to our last summer of freedom. Next year we’ll be full fledged adults.”
Nick hadn’t thought about it that way. In a year he’d have to decide what step to take next. And Olivia would probably head in another direction, going to a bigger a city, to better and brighter things. He’d have to decide if he wanted to keep their friendship or risk losing it. Maybe this trip would give him the chance. Maybe he’d finally find the courage to tell her everything instead of delaying it for another year.
22
June 3, 2011
Nick. Watch out!”
Olivia pushed him to one side, right as a volleyball flew past the spot where his head had been. The ball landed in the sand with a silent grace.
Nick moved out of the strange position he had contorted himself into. He turned to look back at where the intruder had come from. A girl ran in his direction, her white cover up seemed to flow with the wind.
She went over to pick up the ball, and returned to where he was.
“I’m sorry about that,” she said, holding the volleyball to her hip. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. The incident had been unexpected but he remained in one piece. Judging by the distance the ball had traveled, if Olivia hadn’t warned him, he’d probably have a giant bruise on his head, maybe even a concussion.
“I’m fine, “ he said sitting up. The towel underneath him wrinkled. “No harm done.”
Olivia sat up from the spot where she had been reading a book. She pulled off her sunglasses.
“You should be more careful next time,” she said to the girl.
The girl took notice of her for the first time. “I know. I’m sorry.” She paused and turned back to the group of friends she had left behind. “You and your boyfriend can join us if you want. We have room on our teams.”
Nick froze at the word. Boyfriend. It was the third time on the trip where people had assumed that he and Olivia came in a package deal. He’d corrected them every time, and got ready to do so again.
“We’re not going to be here for too much longer,” Olivia interrupted. “Thank you for the offer, though. You should get back to your game.”
The girl nodded. She gave Nick a strange sort of look, before waving them off, and returning to her game.
“You let her think I was your boyfriend,” he said.
“Yeah,” Olivia said, leaning back against her beach chair. She’d gotten two shades darker since the morning. “She said that so she could find out if you were single. It’s like when guys bring up boyfriends when trying to hit on a girl. Unless you liked her, we can join their volleyball game…”
Nick shook his head. “I just want to enjoy our trip, no dates involved.”
“So if you were alone, you would have accepted the invitation?” Olivia asked
He didn’t want to talk about a girl he probably would have asked out, had he been alone. “I wouldn’t have had the chance. If you weren’t here I would be in a hospital.”
That did the trick. She took off her sunglasses, and smiled. “True. I kind of saved your life, on my birthday of all days.”
The words triggered his memory. “The hotel. We have to check in,” he said. Olivia and him planned to hit beach bars for the rest of the night, but they had a rental car full of suitcases and beach gear that needed to be put away. She stood, wiping sand off her legs. Nick tried not to let his eyes linger on her for too long.
“You asked for two twin beds, right?” she asked.
He nodded. “Of course. I made the reservation a week ago.”
They had missed their check in time, and their reservation had been given to another group of traveling college students. The twin beds had now turned into one queen bed.
Nick stared at the key in his hand. He stood in the doorway of their hotel room, Olivia right behind him.
“Everything else is booked solid. And it’s still a cheap rate. I’ll sleep on the floor,” she said, pulling a suitcase in past him.
He stared at the bed one more time before following her lead. The door slammed shut.
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” he said. It’s my mistake. “I’m the one that forgot to check the time.”
She shrugged. “We can fight about who gets to sleep on the floor later. Let’s get changed. I don’t want to spend my first night as a twenty-one year old indoors. We have beach bars to hit.”
Nick set his duffel bag down next to her things, the palm tree keychain hung from the zipper of her suitcase. It was the first time he had seen it there.
He waited, as she got ready. The sound of the shower filled the room, and he sat back on the only armchair in the place. There was complimentary coffee next to the coffee maker, but no cups or sugar to be seen.
His birthday had come and gone the month before. His dad had taken him out to a few bars in Glensford, but the whole father and son bonding time thing wasn’t really for them. They ended up going to watch a movie with Mimi instead.
“I’m ready,” Olivia said. She stood in front of the bathroom door, her brown hair hung short, stopping just past her neck. She’d chosen to wear a mid thigh flowery dress. The marks from her tan were visible under the thin straps.
Nick stood up, taking her in. Her eyes were young, full of excitement and eagerness. There were no tears, but he could still sense it sometimes, the sadness.
He hadn’t before the night of the Simon incident. But now he could see it. Whenever they passed the theater at school, or a banner had Simon’s name listed as the director. There was a flinch, a moment when she left the mask to one side.
“Your turn. Go change,” she told him.
Nick picked out jeans and a dress shirt from his things. He changed as quickly as he could, realizing the hotel barely had any hot water.
They walked out to the center of Jacksonville Beach. The city was the first stop on their trip.
“Let’s stop at this one first,” Olivia said. They were walking down a small row of shops. She pointed to a bar, already rummaging through her purse for her ID. The guy in the front scanned Nick, as if he might be lying about his age, but after a bit of coaxing from Olivia, he let them in. They went inside, and ordered two strange lemon cocktail mixtures.
“I’d thought it be different somehow,” Olivia said over the background music. Some people were dancing together despite the fact there was no real dance floor. The two of them had chosen the two seats at the end of the bar.
“Are you not having fun?” Nick asked.
He hadn’t taken a sip of his drink in a while, remembering they’d walked, he wished they had driven. Then he would have had an excuse not to finish it.
She shook her head. “I’m having fun. Maybe. I just thought twenty-one would feel different.”
“Different how?” he asked, cupping his ears to listen better.
Olivia took another sip. Her glass stood empty, so she reached for his. “I thought it would make me feel like a real adult. Like I’d have answers to things I didn’t have answers to before. It’s nothing like that. I’m the same person I was when we met. It’s weird.”
“You cut your hair,” he offered. “That’s different.”
She laughed through sips, “Not what I meant.”
Nick shrugged. “I know what you mean. I’ve just never thought about age that way. Time doesn’t change who we are, experiences do. We stop making the same bad choices because we learned from our old ones, and we make good ones when we see which paths lead us to where we want to be. It’s not automatic. You have to learn, not just live.”
She bowed her head toward him, laughing again. The cocktails were taking their intended effect. “Wise words teacher,” she said. Then she turned to the bartender. “Bring me another one of these but with strawberries inside of lemons.”
It was then Nick noticed that her glass was empty, the one that had been his to begin with.
“Olivia, maybe you should slow down. We have all night. You don’t have to get drunk.”
The bartender brought a full glass. He tried to take it, but she slapped his hand away.
“I have to get drunk. It’s the proper way to celebrate a twenty first birthday.” She took a few sips of her new drink. Then she stood. “We should dance. I have too much energy.”
She got up. Nick didn’t follow her, so she turned and tried to pull his arm. “Come on.”
He shook his head. “Let’s just sit here and talk. I don’t like dancing.”
“You’re such an old man,” she said. Then she released his arm. “I’ll have to find someone else.”
He wanted to follow her as she ran out to the crowd of dancing bodies, but he didn’t. He didn’t have a right to. So he watched instead, as she asked a guy across the bar to dance. The night grew longer, and Olivia seemed to forget about him. She moved on to another dance partner. Then another.
Nick sat by, making idle chatter with the bartender, and trying not to let the jealousy spew out. He’d never felt that way when she was with Simon, it had been closer to disappointment. But this was different. The trip was meant to be for the two of them to enjoy, together, not with strangers.
“Want to dance?” someone asked him. He looked up to see a stranger intruding on his personal space. The girl tilted her head at him. “I’ve seen you staring at me all night. You should have asked me to dance by now.”