Before Goodbye Page 4

  It makes me want to smash every mirror in the house.

  SPACE

  CATE

  “We need,” Mom says, “to nudge the Arts Council.” (Or something to that effect.)

  Dad sighs. Or shakes his head. Or mutters a response.

  Mom briefly replies. Or applies mascara. Or blots her lipstick.

  Their eyes meet in the mirror above the table in the hall.

  This is the daily ritual.

  Dad asks why she can’t catch the last ferry, why she has to stay over in New York. Mom lists the reasons. The list shall not exceed the amount of time it takes to finish applying her makeup. After that, no matter what Dad’s saying, she’s out the door.

  Often, there will be a last-minute skirmish, with bags or a coat, gloves or an umbrella. There will most likely be keys involved. House keys. Car keys. Today it is the latter.

  “Shit!” The daily ritual is by no means silent. “Cate? Do you have my car keys?”

  “Why would I have your car keys? I don’t even have my license yet, remember?”

  “Damn. We have to deal with that.”

  “Yeah we do, we’re not in Manhattan anymore. Or at least, I’m not.”

  Mom blinks a few times, fast. “Catherine. You and your father had all summer—” She cuts herself off. Cuts us all off, whenever she can.

  Dad clears his throat, but he doesn’t stand a chance. He hasn’t had his coffee yet. Mom’s had a pot. And even if he matched her cup for cup, Dad’s nocturnal. He paints all night.

  Dad’s in a hurl-paint-at-the-canvas phase. He’s like Jackson Pollock, maybe with bigger issues. Sometimes when I go into the barn, he’s standing in front of the giant easel he’s rigged up and doesn’t even know I’m there. Sometimes he does, and we have a sort of conversation.

  “Are you coming in for dinner?”

  Daub, daub, brushstroke.

  “I’m buying.”

  “Hmm. Maybe.” Splat.

  Other times he’ll turn away from the canvas and actually look at me. Although it’s more like he’s looking through me. That’s him in work mode.

  At that point, I might repeat the question, but more likely, I’ll give up and leave.

  Occasionally, when I’m at the door, he’ll have one last thing to say. Like,

  “Ah.” Swish.

  I’ll turn at the sound— and find the canvas transformed. Something light made dark by lines of black. Something pleasing turned terrifying by a dripping arc of red, as if the painting has suddenly begun to bleed.

  Dad’s paintings are beautiful and frightening. They sell for a lot, which is good and bad. Mom says that while his work is selling so well he’ll never slow down. But Dad will never slow down, period. Painting’s what keeps him alive. I’m not sure how I know this.

  If I want to stay clear of Dad, I stay out of the barn. Avoiding Mom during the mayhem of her morning routine? Is trickier, but necessary.

  Talking to my mother at this time, even to tell her the whereabouts of the item she’s seeking, is to risk getting caught in the cross fire of clicking heels and verbal abuse. It’s basically volunteering to be a target for her double-barreled gun of criticism and blame.

  Dad’s moods can be equally turbulent, but he mitigates his mercurial personality with art. Colors it with oils and acrylics. On the days he doesn’t paint, it just depends. Is he excited about a new idea? Did he get the grant he applied for? The gallery exhibit he wanted?

  Dad has works in the permanent collections of MoMA, the Whitney, and the Guggenheim. But that isn’t enough, will never be enough. There is no “enough” when it comes to art, apparently, which is why it scares me. That and it’s messy.

  I love Dad’s paintings though, and I love Dad. He loves me. But his veins are filled with paint instead of blood, and if I asked him what he loves about me? What he loves about Mom? He wouldn’t be able to tell me. He’d have to paint a picture.

  He might make a sketch first. Or scribble a list, the way I do, to get my thoughts lined up.

  Dad’s love list would be a visceral thing:

  Heart. Soul. Love pump. Playground.

  Scarlet. Vermilion. Crimson. Red.

  Apples. Temptation. Strawberries. Rhubarb.

  Cherries. Compassion. Garnets. Bed.

  Rubies. Pearls. Pearls.

  Don’t cast your pearls before swine, Cate.

  Splat.

  Now I watch him and my mother for a minute longer, wondering how Dad would even know if I were casting my pearls.

  The answer is, unless my pearl casting was connected in some way to one of his pieces, he wouldn’t. And neither would Mom.

  It’s not surprising that they have no idea today is the first day of school.

  BRICKS

  CATE

  Laurel drums her fingers on my open notebook. “What are you writing?”

  “Probably a bad poem.”

  “Is it a love poem for Guitar Guy? And can you stop? I haven’t seen you all day.” But even as Laurel says this, she peers past me to the other side of the cafeteria. “Definitely,” she says.

  Laying down my pen, I close the notebook. “Definitely?”

  “He’s looking at you.”

  “Cal doesn’t go to Middleburn High, so how, exactly, could he be looking at me?”

  “Cal? Who’s Cal?”

  “Ha-ha.”

  “Glad you’re laughing, because seriously, how can you even think about that guy, even if he is a guitar god, when, you know—” She nods at something over my shoulder, her blonde brows arched so high in exaggerated anticipation, they look as if they might take flight.

  I can’t help laughing, but I don’t turn around. I’m pissed at her. Not really pissed; it’s just, she’s in love now, and we’ve barely spent any time together since the cedar pond. If I can do anything to annoy her, I’m going for it. I let another beat go by.

  “Cate, I’m telling you! Don’t you feel his soulful stare burning into your back?”

  She widens her eyes— her idea of a soulful stare, I guess. “You look like an owl,” I tell her.

  But knowing she’ll probably start pointing if I don’t look behind me, I finally do.

  Suffused in September sunlight, David Bennet stands by the open fire door. He’s not looking at my back or any part of me. He’s gazing into the distance like he’s . . . looking for yesterday. He’s leaning forward just slightly, favoring his right leg like he does now, appearing as if, at any moment, he might slip away.

  Imagining where he’d go, I get only as far as outside, someplace outside. Nearby maybe, one of the gently rolling fields broken by white wooden horse fences and edged with tall oaks. He’s got one hand on the doorframe, a foot on the threshold, as if he’s on his way. Now he looks up at the impossibly blue sky. Then he turns his head and swings his gaze toward— me?

  Rod Whitaker appears out of nowhere and pounds David’s arm with his fist.

  Rod Whitaker. Shit. I’d almost forgotten he’d be here, that I’d have to actually see him at school. Suddenly I feel a little sick.

  Hiding a grimace under a surprisingly savage grin, David turns swiftly and grabs Rod in a headlock. In less than a second, even though Rod is the bigger of the two boys, he calls for mercy. It all happens so fast, but I’m pretty sure David’s eyes met mine, just for a heartbeat.

  “I think you should go rescue David,” Laurel suggests with a grin that implies something very different than a rescue mission.

  But David’s fine, despite the fact that Rod’s jeering in his face. I’m the one who’s not okay.

  Rod Whitaker.

  “You should go over there,” Laurel persists. “You might save a life.”

  “I’m David’s sister’s babysitter, not his.”

  “That’s not what you told me last niiight,” she singsongs. “But okay, let him perish, I mean I can see why you would. Rod the god. He is a bit of an obstacle. A hot one, but unfortunately as we all know, also a dick. Now, if he could just learn t
o keep his mouth shut—oh, and not act like such a dick—he might be okay. For someone. Although I can’t think who. Actually, it looked like he was bothering you at the party last weekend. What was that about?”

  “Hebotherseverybody.” I answer so quickly that the words run together.

  Laurel tilts her head to one side. “What is it, Cate Cat?”

  “Nothing. It’s just . . .” My hands are shaking. I slip them beneath the orange cafeteria table and squeeze them until they stop. “Tell me how that works, L. How can you think Rod’s hot when he’s a total jerk?” I’m concerned, really, that she’s able to hold these two opposing views at the same time.

  “Hot factor eclipses jerk factor, that’s what Dee says. Also, I don’t really know just how much of a dick Rod truly is, I mean . . .” She shrugs. “I’ve heard stories. Like, that he has a serious drinking problem, and that he’s spent time in juvie. Did you know he ended up in the hospital last year with alcohol poisoning?”

  But I think if Rod Whitaker was poisoned by anything, it was probably his own blood. Something innate. Now I imagine him bleeding, his poisonous blood dripping blackly.

  “Look!” Laurel suddenly commands, slapping her hand down on mine.

  “Ow!”

  “Rod’s leaving. Go.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Why not? You’re in high school. Staying faithful to Guitar Guy is—wait. You’re not worried about that rumor, are you? David probably hasn’t even heard it. And come on, he knows you’re not gay.”

  As if on cue, Dee Carson slides onto the bench and slings an arm around Laurel’s neck.

  “But don’t you wish you were?” She kisses Laurel, who looks slightly helpless in the presence of Dee’s blinding smile and bright-blonde corkscrew curls.

  But I barely notice Dee. That rumor. That rumor must be spreading, because I never mentioned it to Laurel.

  The bell rings. There’s no time to reply to what Laurel—or Dee—has just said. No time to tell Laurel that I think Rod Whitaker started that rumor. No time to say, “Cal and I don’t have anything going on that requires faithfulness.” Not really. Not yet.

  Although Dee has just sat down, at the sound of the bell she springs back up and grabs Laurel’s hands, yanking her to her feet. Her fingertips rain on my head.

  “Cate? Deal. If you like quarterback boy—David?—just let him know. That’s what I did with Laurel. Pretty much as soon as I saw her.” She looks at Laurel expectantly.

  “Um, yeah, she did. Let me know, that is. But you don’t have to, you know, go outside your comfort zone or anything. I was just goofing around, Cate, just teasing. You know that.”

  “Wait a minute,” Dee objects. “Didn’t you say Cate should just sleep with him? Get it over with? He’s the one, right, the one she’s been hanging out with for the last . . .”

  But the rest of her words are drowned out by the noise in my ears. A rush of blood.

  Time wavers. Then Laurel and I are in this little freeze-frame of a moment, our best-friendness bouncing back and forth between us like a rubber ball. As we look into each other’s eyes, a dozen things are being said, or maybe unsaid.

  Dee flutters at the edge of the frame. Tucking a strand of Laurel’s pale hair behind her ear, brushing a piece of nothing off her sleeve.

  “Th-that’s not exactly what I said,” Laurel stammers. “Cate, I didn’t really tell Dee anything. It’s just, you’re going to see David practically every day now that you actually live here and we made it to high school. We had our doubts,” she says laughingly to Dee, who’s scowling darkly at her now.

  Laurel’s just trying to lighten the moment, but it feels like another betrayal.

  “No doubts about Cate Cat here,” she continues, nodding at me. “With her perfect grades and notebook collection—but me, I failed algebra, like, a thousand times.”

  But watching my beautiful friend wrap an arm around Dee’s willowy waist, it’s hard to imagine her failing anything, except, at this moment, maybe our friendship. To her credit, she tries again, to make up for the sellout.

  “Dee, you have to hear Cate play guitar. She’s got mad skills.”

  “Oh yeah?” Dee does her best to look bored, but Laurel’s gotten her attention. “I play guitar. Took lessons for a whole summer—”

  “Yeah, no,” Laurel interrupts. “I mean Cate’s amazing. She plays classical guitar and—”

  “Time to go,” I say brightly. But my comment doesn’t seem to register with either of them. Dee’s too busy pinning Laurel with a needle-sharp glare. Laurel, well, she’s on the receiving end of said glare.

  “Ooh,” says Dee, continuing her attempt to impale Laurel with her eyes. “Amazing, huh?” Now she turns to me with a saccharine smile. “So when do I get to hear you play?”

  “Hmm.” I pretend to consider her request. “How about never.”

  “Oh, Cate,” Laurel says. She turns to Dee. “Cate’s not really into playing in front of people, but she—”

  “I said I’m not into playing in front of people at this point, Laurel. I’m a student. I mean, obviously I play in front of people at my recitals, I play in front of people in master classes—”

  “Just not in front of the muggles.”

  “Laurel—”

  “So she’s played for you?” And even though Dee’s the one who asked the question, she pulls almost imperceptibly on Laurel, as if she doesn’t care about the answer, just wants to go.

  At that, Laurel gives me an apologetic look, and for a second, I think things are going to be okay, think she’s going to say something like, “Well duh, of course Cate’s played for me—we’re best friends.”

  But instead she just nods. “Yep, she’s played for me, and she could play for you, too. Cate, you don’t have to treat performing like some kind of sacred act. It’s not life or death. You could just play, in front of Dee, in front of anyone. Same with David, you could just go talk to him. You could do more! It wouldn’t kill you.”

  Now the space between Laurel and me expands. The ball of best-friendness bouncing outside our box, going wide, till it bounces out of sight, till there is no box, no frame that holds just us.

  She makes it sound easy. Playing in front of people, playing at all. Talking to a guy like David Bennet, in the middle of the cafeteria. She makes it sound like she doesn’t know, like I hadn’t told her just last night, what my problem with David is. How I can’t seem to act normal in front of him anymore. How my tongue ties itself in knots half the time I’m around him. How the worst part is, I never know when it’s going to happen.

  Or maybe the worst part is that I confided in Laurel, and she turned around and told Dee. Sounds like they discussed things in detail. David Bennet, and me—she knows I’m with Cal! Well, sort of with him. She definitely knows I’m in love.

  The sights and sounds of the cafeteria flood back in, and though I don’t really mean to, I glance over at David, who’s turning his back on Rod. The gesture reminds me that while David and Rod are—were—on tons of teams together over the years, they’ve never been good friends. Maybe never really friends at all. And definitely not since Rafe Hall’s party.

  I’ve seen Rod taunt David, like he did a few minutes ago, but I think that’s about the extent of their relationship at this point. David’s obviously pissed at him. Even now, before he turned away, David looked at Rod with murder in his eyes.

  This, of course, makes me like David even more than I already do, which annoys me, because it means Laurel’s right—only she isn’t. Cal’s the person I want to be with. He’s perfect.

  I start, as Dee waggles her fingers in farewell—in my face—yanking on Laurel’s hand for real now, and I think that maybe playing on some team with a guy you don’t like is a little like this. Like me having to get along with Dee. Because isn’t that what I’m going to have to do if I want to be on Team Laurel? Although after what just happened, my stomach twists with Laurel’s betrayal.

  But then she and Dee stop shor
t, and I follow Laurel’s gaze to a pack of boys on the other side of the room. Suddenly, my feelings don’t matter so much.

  Half the football team is clustered on either side of the double doors like Cerberus squared guarding the gates of hell. They’re eyeing Laurel and Dee with a sort of fiendish delight.

  As Rod Whitaker joins them, his gaze wanders up and down Laurel’s legs. One of the other boys lets out a low whistle in coarse appreciation, or possibly in warning.

  In response, Laurel glowers and appears to grow slightly taller.

  Dee, on the other hand, seems to get smaller, not because of the many pairs of eyes on her, already watching to see what she and Laurel will do, but because she’s leaning into Laurel, saying something in her ear. And even though the gesture’s intimate, the words are loud enough that I have to wonder if she wants me to hear, because I do.

  “Why does she even like him? Isn’t David Bennet the senior boy toy?” She snickers. “But I guess hot factor eclipses man-slut factor, right?”

  “Dee, remind me why you’re still thinking about him, why it even matters to you. Do you not see it’s feeding time at the zoo?” Under her breath Laurel mutters, “Did I say a minute ago that I didn’t know just how much of a dick Rod truly was?”

  “Ugh,” Dee grumbles, possibly in answer to what Laurel has just said, but more likely at the realization that the bundle of boys is now blocking the cafeteria doors.

  My cheeks are still warm from the thought of Laurel talking to Dee about me, but a second later I suck in a breath as the dogs by the door begin to howl.

  Quickly I hop up from my seat at the table—

  Rod Whitaker’s gaze shifts just as fast.

  If he hadn’t noticed me before, he definitely does now. It’s the last thing I want.

  He shoots me his ferocious white sickle of a smile.

  In my peripheral vision I see a group of girls slouching against the wall by the radio station, eyes narrowing with envy as they watch Rod separate himself from the wolf pack and head toward me.