I flash a confused look at Keesh who is sitting bitch beside me. “From who?”
“From everyone, apparently. This bonehead won’t tell any of us where we’re going.”
I look over my shoulder at Steph, Travis and Andi in the back. “Really?”
They nod in agreement.
“Where’s Shay?” I ask.
“I didn’t invite her. Dom wasn’t coming and Alex isn’t home yet, so I thought it’d be cool if the six of us just went out. We haven’t done anything together in a long time.”
True. “Cool. So where we going again?”
“Nice try, Megster.” He turns up the radio and we all belt out the words to Moves Like Jagger. We’re killing it. Steph sounds great, pulling off Christina with ease. Girl has some lungs. Me? I just pump my fists in the air, dancing to the beat, and join the vocals on the chorus. We should record this shit and post it to YouTube. Or maybe we should wait till we’re not driving down the freeway because Josh gets a little carried away and swerves into the next lane. He swears he’s the next Adam Levine.
We exit the freeway, and when Josh pulls into a parking lot for a veterans’ hall, I recognize the place.
“Hey, we’ve been here before.” Each of us looks around while Josh finds a place to park. I notice girls are all dressed up in holiday colors, with flowing skirts. They remind me of characters you’d see in a black and white movie.
“Yeah,” Steph says. “This is the swing dance place, right? Josh?”
He cuts the engine and turns around toward the backseat, placing an arm behind Keesh. “Yeah. Cool huh? They’re having a Christmas Swing Party. I thought it’d be fun to take a trip down memory lane.”
“Dude, swing dancing?” Andi asks.
Travis smiles even though he’s rubbing the tension from his forehead. “Yeah, this guy got us all to go swing dancing our sophomore year. I don’t know why he’d want to go again. He sucked at it.”
Keesh and I bust up laughing because he’s so right. Josh was like a stick figure hardly moving to the beat. Steph is trying really hard not to laugh aloud, but we know she’s dying inside.
“Hey, bite me, bro. I wasn’t that bad. It’s not about the dancing, though. It’s about being … what’s the word?” He thinks for a beat. “Nostalgic.” He opens his door. “Let’s go.”
We all pile out of the truck and I’m tempted to text Alex. I’m midway through typing before I cancel. He’s probably asleep since he has an early flight home tomorrow. Being mature sucks. Sometimes, I’d just like to text or call without considering the time, work, or class schedules.
Josh, Andi, and Travis walk ahead of us. Andi is practically skipping in, having mentioned something about being good at this style of dancing.
“Josh means well, but this kinda sucks,” Keesh says.
“Why?” I ask. “The last time wasn’t so bad. I remember having fun.” One. Two. Swing out. Alex and I practiced those steps for days before we went.
“The last time we were here with our guys. Jon was here, remember?”
“Oh,” Steph says. “It’s okay. We’ll make new memories. Just us girls. The three of us can be band groupies and stand in the front, making googlie eyes at the sax player.”
“You liked him too?” I ask, chuckling. “I love the sax and that guy was hot.”
Keesha rolls her eyes. “Like the same band will be playing.”
When we finally make it inside, I jab Keesh in the side with my elbow. “We’re in luck. I could pick that sax player out of a lineup. It’s the same band. Let’s go drool.”
We act like regulars paving the way toward the stage. Andi and Travis are already dancing. They look like old pros, swinging from side to side and spinning around like they’ve been doing it for years. Josh is kicking back near the bar with a soda in his hand. It looks like he has his eye on a petite blond in the corner. Whatever is going on with Shayna is definitely not serious. I hope she understands that. I may need to have a talk with her.
“Hey, girl.” Keesh taps me on the arm. “I thought we were making new memories. Reveling in calculus grades. Let’s dance.”
The three of us rock back and forth, take turns partnering up, and when we’re not messing around, we have fun admiring the band.
By the night’s end, the saxophone player is on to us. He sends someone over with a note for Keesha. It’s his phone number. His name is Max. Max the Sax, I say to myself, chuckling inside.
On the way home, I’m not laughing anymore. Keesh is freaking out.
“You know, this was totally fun until he gave me his number. He killed it. I don’t want to call this guy. I feel guilty now, like I encouraged it. Like I’m cheating on Jon Jon. I didn’t want this to happen,” she cries out.
“Chill, Keesh. Jon wouldn’t think you’re cheating,” Josh says over his shoulder. “He’d be proud his girl is so cute other guys wanted her.”
“Whatever, Josh. This is your fault.”
I reach out to hold her hand, but she swipes it away from me. “Hey. It’s not that big a deal. If he’d given me his number, I would’ve laughed it off. Alex wouldn’t get mad. It’s not like you want to use it.”
“Meg’s right,” Steph says, sitting forward so she can see Keesh around me.
“Easy for her to say. She gets to see Alex all the time. I’ve seen Jon twice in the last two years. And that’s it. I wonder how many girls are tossing their numbers at him. I wonder how many he’s calling.”
Oh my god. She’s lost it. Am I this bad?
“Keesh. Knock it off. You should know better. Stop freaking out. My boy isn’t calling anyone. That guy has been wrapped around your finger since before he left and nothing’s changed. And you know it.”
There’s silence for a bit. I don’t dare say a thing. It’s not often Josh raises his voice. In fact, I can’t remember ever hearing him get angry. But he sure put Keesh in her place. And if I had to guess, she knows it. She knows he’s right.
She inhales a huge gulp of air and exhales with a big huff. “Sorry, you guys. I just remember being so happy the last time we came here. I want to be that happy again. I want Jon Jon to be home with us. I want to see if things will work out for me and him. But even if they don’t, he deserves to be with his friends. This is his home. We’re his home. He hasn’t found that out there. And I know he’s tried. It just hasn’t happened.”
Josh peeks at her through his mirror. “He’ll be home soon. And things are gonna work out just fine for you two. You’ll be happy again. I promise.”
Keesh rests her head on my shoulder, and this time, she allows me to hold her hand. “Thank you, Joshie,” she says. “He’s coming home for both of us, you know.”
He looks back at her. “I can’t wait.”
“Dude, neither can I. Everyone tells me he’s funnier than Josh so I can’t wait to spend some time with him,” Andi says.
We all crack up when Josh says, “Now, let’s not take it that far. I’m way funnier than Jon. And I’m also funner too.”
“Funner?” we all tease.
“Yeah. Whatever. You get what I mean.”
Alex and I are on the way to the post office the day before Christmas Eve. Is that called Christmas Eve Eve? Anyway, instead of sending a bunch of individual packages, I decided to be the Ben Calloway care package coordinator. Every month, I’m going to put together a box of goodies and send it to our favorite Marine.
This month, the package is loaded with Steph’s homemade chocolate brownie cookies, a slew of nudie magazines from Josh and Travis, a book from Keesha, and a loaded MP3 player from Dom. When he was here for Thanksgiving, Ben talked about missing music. Now that he’s out of boot camp, he might be able to put on some headphones and chill with some tunes for a few minutes a day.
Alex and I pitched in for a FlipCam. Last night we all had a great time videoing ourselves like a Big Brother Confessional. The plan is that we’ll send him a movie to watch. He’ll record one for us and send it back with the prepaid postage box we’ve included. Great idea, eh. My mom thought of it, so I can’t take the credit. I think he’ll get a kick out of it and I can’t wait to see his face every month when he sends it back.
“We should’ve picked up lunch first, and ate it in line while we waited. I guess we’ll just have an early dinner,” Alex says, after we’ve had to wait in line for almost two hours to send the package.
“No kidding. That was ridiculous.”
“We also should’ve sent it at least a week ago. He won’t get it till after Christmas.”
“That was my plan. His mom said she was sending him plenty of things for the holiday. So I thought ours would arrive just before the New Year when the excitement of his mom’s stuff has worn off.” I smile, pleased with myself.
“Good idea,” he says, reaching over to hold my hand. He lifts it to his lips and plants a kiss on the back of my hand. “Ready to shop now?”
“Does a bear shit in the woods?” I ask.
“Excuse me?” His eyes widen with surprise.
I chuckle. “Ha. Ha. I’ve always wanted to say that. My dad says it all the time.” I can’t stop laughing. It sounded so funny coming out of my mouth. I tried to blurt it out with the same seriousness my dad uses but I couldn’t pull it off. “Basically, yes. I’m ready to shop.”
A smile spreads across Alex’s face as he shakes his head with a giggle. “You’re too much.”
“Mrs. Fuller just told me the same thing last week.”
“Well, she was right.”
“Yeah, Travis said the same thing.”
“We all know you too well.”
“I hope my secret Santa knows me. I don’t want to get a lump of coal. Or worse, that toy fake poop.”
“Let’s just hope Josh didn’t get your name or that’s exactly what you might get.”
For the first time ever, we’re having a Christmas party with our friends. We decided to pick names and give each other gifts. Only it’s a secret as to who picked who. It should be really fun this way. I hope.
“So who did you get?” Alex asks.
I crinkle my brows to him. “What? I can’t tell you.”
“Come on, it’s not like you got me.”
I raise a brow at him. “How do you know?”
After spending Christmas Eve and Christmas morning with our families, we’re all managing to get away to have dinner with the crew. At my house, we slept in like usual and spent the morning and afternoon in our pajamas. My parents surprised me with a deposit slip for my bank account. I really didn’t want anything or need anything, so cash is perfect.
Just as I finish putting on my lip-gloss, my mom calls out that Alex is here to pick me up.
“Where’s your secret gift?” he asks.
“It’s in my bag. You ready?”
“Sure.”
We go through the pleasantries of saying goodbye to my parents and then we’re on our way to Josh’s house for our very own, very first Christmas dinner. It feels so adult-like to be doing something like this. We’re hoping to start a new tradition. Who knows where we’ll all be next year? It would be awesome if we could all be in the same place at least once a year, and the winter holidays will probably be it.
“Josh, everything looks so nice,” I tell him when we walk into the dining room.
“You’ll have to thank my mom. She said if we were gonna do this, we had to do it right.” He scans the table full of green and gold linens and place settings. “I thought we’d just set up a folding table in the cave and use paper plates.”
That doesn’t surprise me. “Well, this is much nicer. I’ll thank her if they get home before we all leave.” Josh’s parents went to his uncle’s house for the evening so we’re on our own. “Can I help you with anything?”
His eyes dart in every direction and he lifts his hand to his head, ruffling his hair. “Honestly, I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. So help all you want. Steph is already in the kitchen so who knows what she’s up to.”
Alex and I glance at each other with a low chuckle. He walks over to Josh and places his hands on his shoulders. “Relax, bro. It all looks great. We just came to eat and open presents. No biggie.”
Josh lets out a big sigh and says, “I hope so. I’d feel much better if we were just kicking back and ordering pizza. All this fancy stuff is way too foo foo for me.”
I leave Alex to calm his nerves and make my way to the kitchen. What is Josh worried about? Steph is already in dinner party mode, stuffing each dish with a serving spoon.
“He needs to chill. I already organized the dishes so we can just pass through like a buffet. Everything is perfect.”
“Where should I put this?” I ask, holding up my broccoli casserole.
She gestures to the middle of the counter. “Here is good, with the rest of the side dishes. Did your mom make that? I can’t wait to dig in.”
“Hey, this is our dinner. I made it. Not my mom.”
She narrows her eyes at me as if she’s staring down the rim of her nonexistent glasses.
“Okay,” I concede, “I helped.”
Alex cuddles up behind me and smacks a kiss on my cheek. “Next year, babe. You’ll make it all on your own.” He pecks the side of my face again, and says, “I got the pies. Want them in the fridge, ladies?”
Steph nods and he goes to work trying to squish them wherever they’ll fit.
“Who else is here? Looks like we have a ton of food already?” I ask.