We Were Never Here (18 page)

I could tell this about Stella B: that just a few months before, we never would have even noticed each other. But now, hanging out with her made me think of all of us, a string of girls, connected as we lay in our beds listening to music in our lonely bedrooms by laser beams of pink light. And I pictured my beam crossing over Dee-Dee's and Lydia's house and making my way to Stella B. What was Stella B's room like? Stella, who had a license and who was waiting to hear about early decision. Stella, who looked all beat up and punked out and biker and broken but was sweet and straight A's and smart and also
wise
.
How did she get that way? And what did she see in me?

What was Stella doing tonight?

But beneath all that I was as always thinking of Connor. If Stella was right about my being sick and having this bag sort of filtered out the soulless, and I think she
was
right, then I was keeping him. Keeping Connor. But why had all this happened? Why did he have to make it so hard to see the good? How was I supposed to pretend it never happened? Was Connor also filtering out the bad people? Maybe I was also being tested.

What, I wondered beneath all of that, was Connor doing tonight?

Laser beams of light. Did they reach Nora all the way through the tunnel to Baltimore? Possibly. I put her music on. Le Tigre: “Oh, we could rock, or we could bomb, or we could try, like super hard. . . .”

Kathleen Hanna versus Birdy. Like rip open a pomegranate or bite into a sweet red apple. Which would you rather? This is what I was thinking about when, at 11:55, the phone rang again.

202!

Washington, DC. Connor's cell.

202.

This time I was ready.

“Hi!” he said. Connor said. Connor on the other end of the line.

“Hey,” I said. Both so happy and so . . . sorrowful. Both at once. Always.

“I got your letter, Liz.” He seemed so happy.

“I got yours too.” I leaned my head back against that stickered headboard, right on Hello Kitty.
Bump. Bump. Bump
went my head against the wood
.

“Did you get mine before you sent yours?” Connor asked me.

“No,” I said. “Your letter, it came after.”

“Oh,” he said. “I knew that, but I was still hoping. Because your letter said I love you.”

Really, I thought. Because of course I knew that. I had written it and crossed it out and thrown the paper away and then written it again. All this is to say that I knew what I had written. I knew what had made me write it too. Everything was different now. But I didn't say any of those things. What I said was, “That was before.”

“Before what?” Connor said flatly.

I was silent. I could hear myself breathing. I got out of bed and went to my desk, sat down. Leaned in and looked at Frog from her level.

“Before the letter, you mean,” he said.

“Yes, Connor. Before the letter.”

Now it was his turn to breathe.

“It was before I knew the truth! Which was that you lied to me,” I said.

“I see,” he said.

“You see? Oh, good!”

“You don't have to be cruel.”

Now I didn't say anything. What was cruelty, really? I always thought about it in relationship to how people treated animals. How beings treated beings who were weaker. I wasn't cruel, but I hadn't known I had the power to be either. “I'm not meaning to be cruel,” I said. “That's a harsh word.”

“Sorry. You're right. This isn't about you.”

I gave out a fake laugh. “Thanks!” I said.

“No, I mean the past. What happened. But can I just ask? I mean, I know there is so much to say about how sorry I am and how much I want—no, need—you to forgive me, but I just need to know: Is it that I didn't tell you the truth, that I lied, or is it the thing? The thing that happened?”

“The accident? You mean the girl dying?
That
accident? You mean the time you hit her with the car you were driving when you were high?”

“Yes that. And that's also what I mean by cruel.”

“I think it's both. It's a little bit about the Thing, but that was this single thing. It's more the crazy lies, though. Those were for so long.”

“Okay,” Connor said.

“I see what happened really clearly.” I don't know why, but I opened the drawer and picked up David B's God's eye. My talisman. “That it was like a moment. And then it was over.” I tilted my head and twirled it a little in my palm, felt the rough bark of the sticks that held the softest purple yarn together. “It all makes me feel really bad for you, actually. And for her. And her parents.” I set down the God's eye. I looked in on Frog, basking on her log beneath the fake sun.

“Me too,” Connor said. I think he was crying a little.

“Sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“Yeah. That this . . .
happened
.” I stood up.

“Thanks,” Connor said. “In a way, it never really happened. I didn't mention in the letter that my mom is this incredibly famous attorney. She gets people like congressmen and actors out of trouble. Once a senator was found drunk and cheating, and she got him off by blaming Ambien, and then she sued Ambien and he got a zillion dollars. So all this? It doesn't exist. I was never even there. But of course I was. I hate myself. No cutting that part out, right? All the ugly stuff.”

“That's crazy. Because it happened. And you lied to me about it. I told you everything!”

“I'm so sorry, Liz. I would do anything to take it back. To sit next to you in that awful hospital room and tell you the truth and have you still be there waiting for me the next day. But you can see that wasn't going to happen. If I told you, you would have hated me.”

I didn't know what I would have felt, if I was being honest.
He had a point. Maybe I needed to love him first for him to tell me the truth. “You know, I looked for you online,” I said. “You really
aren't
there. Like at all.” I went back to my bed, lay back.
Bump, bump.

“She got rid of
everything
. It's disgusting. You looked for me?”

“Of course. You fell off the surface of the world.” I remembered just searching and searching and coming up with nothing. Like I'd totally dreamed Connor. The whole thing.

“I know. I'm so sorry,” Connor said.

“Also? You're not ugly. You are so wonderful! Like, seriously wonderful. I gotta say, you're not the guy I thought you were, but I know there is nothing ugly about you.”

Connor was silent.

And so was I. If the conversation had been different, I'd be mortified to have said such a thing. But not in this conversation.

“Thanks, Lizzie,” he said.

“Well, I wouldn't want you to be the guy I thought you were anyway. That guy was just this perfect private-school boy who partied in the day and had no problems at all.”

“Ha.” It came out a little bitter.

“When you and Verlaine first came into my room, I barely remember what I thought. That was so long ago, in sick years.” I sat up.

“Right?” Connor said. “Verlaine. I miss him.”

“Sorry,” I said. I wished Mabel was near me.

“How's Mabel?” Connor asked, because he will always be able to read my mind. Always.

“Perfect. And we got a rescue. Greta. Totally bat-shit crazy.”

“Perfect,” he said, and I could just tell he was smiling. “Are you still listening to Birdy?”

“Mm-hmm,” I said.

“And the Beatles? There's an old-school record store near here, and I've been buying a bunch. Old stuff. But I keep looking for new-pressed Birdy for you.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“I didn't want you to hate me,” Connor said quietly.

“Are there other lies?” I asked him.

“No.”

“To me or to anyone else?”

“What do you mean?”

I took a deep breath. “Have you lied to other people?” I was thinking of Tim's friend's friend. Of her. The one who Connor never spoke to again.

“I don't know what you're talking about, but yes, I've lied to other people. But I'm not lying to you or to anyone else anymore.”

“Other girls?”

“I haven't outright lied. But I haven't always been a good person. No. I know that. I am not that person anymore, though. I am up here at school and I'm just alone a lot. And sometimes at night in this garden, harvesting the fall stuff other kids planted, I feel like a fucking carrot. Like I'm tearing myself out of the ground too. It sounds so cheesy. As you can see, I'm in therapy!”

“I see!”

“Gardening at night. Heh. R.E.M. You know?”

“No, don't know that song,” I said. I never was going to know
the right song. Like, ever.

“You don't? That's crazy. I thought everyone knew that song.”

“No, I don't. I just said I don't.”

“Okay,” he said. “I'll send it to you.”

“I can look it up on my own, Connor.”

“All right then,” he said. “How's Frog?”

I looked up at the ceiling. Everything in this room was blue. “You know I do love you,” I whispered, ignoring the question, even though my answer seemed connected to it.

“You do?”

“I do.” And I did. I just felt it so big. Out of sadness, maybe. So much was coming from me from that place then.

“Me too,” Connor said. “Since before I ever met you.” He said that.

“What does that even mean?” I asked. I was teasing him, but I also wanted to know. I really wanted to know.

“It means.” He was quiet. “Let me think. It means I went in there—to the hospital—looking for you and I didn't even know it. Not looking for
a
you, but for you. Because I loved you.”

“Click,” I said.

“What does that mean?”

“That's us just fitting together. Just being perfect.”

“Okay,” Connor said. “Click, click, click.”

I burrowed under my covers like some kind of hamster and watched my alarm clock's digital face make its way toward late, late night. Connor was lonely and alone and sent away and fearful, but I was those things too, minus the being-sent-away part. And finally there was this person on the other side with me. Here
I was on the moon, and who knew someone else was suited up and waiting for me there?

When my clock read 2:00 a.m., I panicked a little. Connor was talking about reading
Hamlet
. “Hey, Connor? It's so late. And I'm already so behind,” I said, but this time I only meant in school.

“I'm not supposed to be on my cell anyway.”

“What?” I said. I was shocked. How many rules could Connor break?

“It's okay. It's a minor infraction. No one will ever know. My roommate's at his mother's house tonight.”

“Oh, okay, I guess. I have no idea.”

“It's all rules. There are so many.”

Rules. I didn't have that many, actually. Just the ones I was making for myself. I said, “Okay, so how about this. Let's pretend this never happened. I mean not ignore it totally, but, like, what would we be from here? Without all the bad shit? Like, what are the good things? About us? Let's just be them and have them.”

“I love that,” Connor said. “I wish I could see you and tell you in person.”

“I know. Me too,” I said. “Soon, okay?”

“I have another idea,” Connor said.

“Where is it again?” I said before we hung up again. I wrote down the address.

“I'll be there waiting,” Connor said.

“But are you even allowed to leave school?”

“I'll arrange it,” he said. “I'll take care of everything.”

That's what he'd said the last time, when we snuck out of the hospital together like thieves.

Thick as thieves.
It had to have been from some song I was supposed to know.

But I didn't. What I did know was this: we were thieves. But what were we stealing?

I thought of it more like we were taking our lives back.

Our lives together. The very least I could do was see Connor again.

Halloween was coming. There was not a holiday I hated more, other than perhaps Valentine's Day. Costumes. Pretending. Covering up the covering up. Thank God for Petiquette.

Another night at Petiquette. And: another funny thing about Stella B? She drove a white Ford Fiesta.

“Don't.” She shook her head when I watched her park. She rolled down her window. “It's my mother's car. It's totally my mother's.”

Greta and my mother were already inside, but I waited for her. I laughed. I mean I covered my mouth and full-on laughed.

“I added the accessories,” she said. A hula girl hung from the rearview. And one of those bobbing dogs was on the dusty dash.

“But anyway? This is kinda who I am too.” She sort of cackled as she poked the hula girl's skirt, making her dance, and then unlocked the door to get out.

“I get it,” I said as we all four went inside, entering the hallway of paper pumpkins and chunks of white cotton that were somehow supposed to represent spiderwebs. Who decided that? Because they don't look like spiderwebs at all. “I totally do,” I
said, and it was true, I really got Stella B. She was just so clear to me.

Greta's novice class always went at least ten minutes long, and it's amazing how much of getting to know a person you can pack into those ten minutes when you're not in school or near school or with people from school. It's like being on a plane with someone. Or a hospital. Alt universe, enclosed space, anything goes.

We waited on the bench outside and we both kicked at the pavement. Stella was going through a breakup with this guy she'd been with since her freshman year. “Forever,” she said. “Before I was even a person. I was an unhatched egg. A little downy chick.”

I couldn't picture it. Stella all sweet and yellow and soft and breakable. “Why'd you guys break up?” I asked. “I mean, in three sentences or less?”

“He's in college.”

My heart skipped at the thought. So old and far away. And so close. Stella was just so much older than I was in experience years, though I supposed I'd gained some time in sickness years. Though I do think I got some time in there with the sickness. Serious sick years.

“And just away,” she said. “He's away now. That's all.”

I nodded.

“And he started dating someone at school.”

“What an asshole,” I said.

“Yes and no. I mean, I'm a little relieved. It's been a long thing. Complicated, I mean. What isn't, right?” She laughed, but it was
a dry, brittle laugh, branches cracking.

“I see,” I said. “Where is he?”

“UPenn.”

“Name?” I said.

“Jared.”

College. It really wasn't like where Connor was. It seemed like such a faraway magical place. Oz-like.

I told her about Connor then. About the hospital and about how far away he was. In all ways. What I left out was the Thing. I left out the part about the Thing.

“I'm going to go see him,” I said. “This weekend. My parents are taking my sister to look at her last few schools. I'm supposed to stay at a friend's, but maybe I won't.”

“That sounds like a shaky plan. I've got some experience here, and that is a weak plan.”

“I know. I haven't thought it through exactly,” I said. And I hadn't. I just knew I wanted it to take place.

“Shaky.”

I wanted to talk more to her. “Hey, should we go out for, like, hot cider or something?” I asked.

“I
guess
,” she said. “Why not?”

“Well, this is a little embarrassing, but I'd actually need you to take me back. I live just over the bridge. Is that a total pain?”

She squinted at me, her head tilted. “It's okay.” She rolled her eyes. “The one thing about the mother's Ford Fiesta is it loves to be driven. And me? I love to drive it. It's such a bizarre thing. I just fucking love to drive. So now I have somewhere to drive to tonight.”

That's when my mom came trotting out with Greta. “She's doing great!” she said.

“We're going to go get tea, Mom, okay?” I pointed at Stella and then back to myself.

“You said hot cider,” Stella said, pretending this was a deal breaker.

“Cider. Hot cider, Mom.”

My mother was not laughing at our joke. And I could see her gears turning. She was thinking: Hmm. Where will they go? Will it be tea or will it be cider? Why have I come all this way only to return home alone? And then, I saw her settle on something. Post-hospital rules, I was sure.

She shrugged. “Sure,” she squeaked out.

“Great,” said Stella.

“Greta, sit!” my mother said.

But there was no sitting. Just a lot of tail wagging.

“Sit!” She pointed her finger at Greta.

Stella B laughed. “I can tell it's really working, Daphne!” She stood up and eased Greta's leash out of my mother's hand. Her rusted bike chain bracelets clinked together. She had the teeniest stick 'n' poke at the tender place between her thumb and her index finger: a crescent moon. Without touching Greta, she lowered her hand a bit to indicate a sitting position. And Greta sat and stared at Stella, stars in her pearly eyes.

“Dog whisperer,” my mother breathed, clasping her hands together.

“It's about authority,” Stella said, and we all nodded our heads. “Confidence.”

Stella had this power. It was a different power than Nora had. Far as I could tell, it was being used for good.

“It really is,” my mom said, taking back the lead. Instantly Greta jumped up and strained to free herself.

My mom was untangling herself and Greta. I looked over at Stella. She was a mess. I mean a cool mess, but still a mess, all smudged and smeared and cut and pasted. And yet I don't think I knew a being more together than Stella. Who was more together than Stella B?

Maybe Mabel, but anyway, we were all together now.

Well, we were . . .
existentially
together, because my mom took the dogs, and I went with Stella and Samantha. “There's a Starbucks near my house,” I said. “I mean, since you're going to drop me there anyway.”

“I don't do Starbucks,” she said, opening the car so Samantha could jump in back. We both got in front, and Stella started the car and then scanned her music with purpose.

“I'm queen of the world, I bump into things, I spin around in circles, and I'm singing, and I'm singing, I'm singing.”

“Okay,” I said.

“This good?” Stella eased out of the lot, and as she waited to get onto the road, she hit the gear shift with her ringed fingers. The Ford Fiesta was a
stick shift
. Lame car and so not a lame car at the exact same time.

“The music?”

“You don't know Ida Maria?”

“Nope.” When would I actually know the right song and the
right band and the right, right, right way?

“She's good.”

“I like,” I said. I did. Queen of the world was a good strong person to be.

“In a punky, poppy way. More pop than punk, right?”

“Sure,” I said.

“Anyway, Starbucks, it's just gross, you know? There are a million. Let's go somewhere where there is only one or two of them in the world.”

“Let me restate,” I said. “There's this café not so far from my house. Since you have to take me back anyway.”

“That sounds great!” Stella said. “Where?”

“I'm looking,” I said. I took out my phone. “Because actually I usually just go to Starbucks.”

“Ha,” said Stella.

“Ha-ha,” I said as I directed her to Greenleaf. “There are three of these in the world. Will that still work for you?”

“Three? Hmm.” Samantha thrust her head between the front seats, panting. “Yes. Three is the cutoff,” she said. “Three.”

Samantha stayed in the car, which Stella had parked just outside the café. We took a seat by the plate glass window, and it was almost like we were all there together. Almost but not really.

“They have great hot chocolate here,” I said. “You want one?” I stood up and patted my jacket pockets, looking for the little pouch I put money and dog treats in.

“Really? Sure. I thought you'd never been here.”

“That's what the phone told me,” I said, making my way
to order, orange streamers and witches' masks and cutouts of beheaded heads dangling from the counter.

After refusing the invitation to “pumpkinify” my drink with that relentless autumn flavor I have always despised, I came back with two normal hot chocolates, regulared, swirled high with whipped cream.

“I despise Halloween,” I said as I handed Stella hers.

“Is it Halloween?”

“Thursday,” I said. “Cannot wait.”

“I'm in costume all year long,” Stella said. “This day is no different, right?”

“Hmm.”

“So.”

“So tell me about Jared.”

“Oh, what for? I need a life. I've got, like, no friends because of that guy. It's kind of nice to just sit here in fucking Greenleaves or wherever we are with someone my own age.”

“I think you're older.”

“Roughly,” she said.

I nodded into my hot drink. “My sister's age.”

“Anyway, your plan. Why don't you stay with me!” she said.

“That's a nice offer, but I'm not really staying with anyone,” I said, blowing on my hot chocolate. “I mean, I guess I'll be staying with Connor.” The thought exhilarated and panicked me.

“Well,” she said. “Just as like a base camp. Whatever you decide.”

I took a sip and a huge swipe of the cream. “He wants to meet in Annapolis,” I said. “So weird. He's coming from New
Hampshire
.”

“Huh. Is he really into crab cakes?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

“So how are you getting there?”

“Hadn't thought about it yet,” I said, though my first thought had been Tim. He would have done it. But then I would have had to tell him why.

“I'm thinking out loud here. I mean, why Annapolis? How on earth does a person get to Annapolis?” Stella asked.

“It's not that far. But it is, umm, an unusual destination.”

“Yeah. I know a couple of people who got fake IDs in Annapolis. But that's kind of it.”

“So you,” I said. “Are you going to get back with the Philly boy? With Jared?”

Stella went dark. Like the lights went
out
. “Doubt it,” she said.

“Okay then,” I said.

At first I thought it was the heat of the chocolate, making its way, like, through my body as I went to ask her more about this development, but I soon realized that was not in fact what I was feeling. “Oh my God,” I said.

“It's not a big deal. I just don't want to talk about him now.” Stella clearly had not heard me. She took a massive gulp of her drink.

It was still happening. A warm rush down my leg. I don't know why, but I couldn't move. I didn't know which would be worse. To get up and run to the bathroom, leaving a trail of who knows what behind me, or to sit there and just, I don't know, die.

“Stella,” I said quietly.

“I'll totally take you.” She nodded at me like it was a pact no
one could break. “Like I said, I just really dig driving. Listening to music on my own.”

“Hey,” I said again.

“What's wrong?”

I can't say what my face revealed in that moment. If it appeared as stricken with horror as I was, or if it looked as sad, or as in disbelief, as I also was. I can't say anything about that moment other than I hope I never have one like it again.

“Lizzie, what's wrong?” I heard the swoosh of her jacket as she reached across the table to touch my arm.

“It came undone.”

Stella looked around the room. “What?” she said. And then I saw her look of recognition.

I nodded.

“It's okay.” She stood up. “It's not a big deal at all.”

“I don't know what to do,” I said.

“It's okay. Let's just go to the bathroom. Take my coat and wrap it around your waist.”

“It's not my back that's the problem. I didn't get my fucking period. It's my front.” I was back in the land of illness and weakness and not knowing. Just back like I had never again been anything other than this.

“I'll walk in front of you then, and you'll follow me to the bathroom.”

“Okay.”

Stella stood in front of me and grabbed one of my hands from behind, and I stood and followed behind her. I can't say if there was any evidence of this undoing, as I just looked ahead and
went to the bathroom behind Stella B.

I ran into the stall and locked it sort of violently and sure enough, the clasp had come unclasped. I must not have secured it properly. I closed it now, grateful that I had emptied it before Petiquette so it was not the mess it could have been. I tried to clean myself up.

“What do you need?”

“Paper towels,” I said.

And just as soon as I'd said so, a huge brown wad of them appeared at the top of the stall door. “Here,” she said. “Take.”

And then another batch. “Wet with soap and just wet,” she said. “Pick your poison.”

I could work with both and I did and after several minutes of cleaning and then trying to gather myself up, get myself gathered, I opened the door.

“Hi,” Stella said.

“Hey.” I looked down and went to the sinks. I washed my hands for a long time.

Stella put her hand on my shoulder. “It's okay,” she said. “This is nothing.”

I shrugged her hand off.

“Hey.” She placed her hand back on my shoulder. “This is nothing.”

I looked at Stella then. This new friend, a new person who had been on the moon with me, even if it was just for a brief visit. Connor was not the only one. Perhaps there could be others. “This is not nothing,” I said. “So not nothing. It should come with a trigger warning.”