carefully everywhere descending (18 page)

“Listen,” she says, glancing out the window. “It doesn't look like things are going to subside soon. If you'd like, we can watch a movie…?”

“That sounds great,” I say, smiling.

“This way.” She gestures me to follow her with the extra towel. We go left, into a separate living room where a top-of-the-line flat-screen TV is paused during what looks like a very suspenseful moment in a drama, a woman and a man shouting at each other by a car-strewn highway.

She tosses the towel onto a chair by a small, packed bookshelf (lots of medical textbooks) and folds herself onto the sofa in front of the TV. I snag the extra cream-colored towel and drape it over the spot next to her—not too close, but not coldly far away—and sit down. I arrange the green towel around my shoulders like a shawl and settle back. Scarlett's watching me with a half smile.

“Two things,” she says in a pedagogic tone. “First, don't ask me to defend my desire to watch this. It may have been last summer's biggest blockbuster, and it may have enough CGI to keep a small country of computer effects artists employed, but it is absolutely indefensible as far as intellectual nutrition. I know this.
Second
, closely related to point one,
please
don't ask to start from the beginning. I think if I had to rewatch the first twenty minutes, my remaining brain cells would stage a coup.”

“We certainly don't want that,” I say, chuckling. “Just catch me up. What's happened?”

“Um, stuff blew up? See point one. Seriously though: aliens came down to Earth millennia ago and implanted into the planet, directly under the White House, a device that could lead to the destruction of humanity.”

“Why?”

“So stuff can blow up! Our Secret Service members here”—she points to the screen—“are the only two who believe the aliens had something to do with it. The rest of the administration laughed them out of the Capitol.
And left the president unprotected
. Now they're on a quest to save America despite its petty mockery of them. One alien came back already and tried to detonate the device. They chased it away
aaaannnd
”—she picks up the remote and hits Play
—
“off we go.”

The movie is terrible, but Scarlett's running commentary, pointing out gaping plot holes, badly disguised cuts to stunt doubles, stupid dialogue, and scenery-chewing, is all so immensely entertaining that I barely stop laughing for the next hour and a half. By the time the credits roll over a frantic guitar riff, my side aches and I've had tears in the corners of my eyes for ages. I wipe them away, trying to regain my breath, as Scarlett pushes Stop with finality.

“Well,” she says after a moment, “was that an abomination against God, or just humanity?”

I start laughing again. All my concerns have melted away as if they never existed. I feel lighter than I have in a long time.

My phone rings, loud now that the soundtrack of music, explosions, and dialogue is gone. I jump. I have to grapple it out of my pocket, tangled in the now stiffly dried towel.

It's Mitchell. I'm startled before the memory of my morning run and the boys in the car crashes back into my head and sends me back into bleak reality. I accept the call.

“Hello?” I ask, untangling myself to stand up. The green towel falls from my shoulders to the imprint I've left on its sister on the sofa.

“Audrey? Are you okay? I saw I missed a call from you earlier.”

“I am, I'm sorry. Thank you for calling back.”

“No problem. What's wrong?” I can hear the slightly receding storm outside the window echoing distantly through the phone. I wonder if he's standing out on the balcony to talk to me.

“It's nothing. I just… I went for a run earlier and ended up farther than I meant to.”

He's expectantly quiet on his end, the silence pushing me on to babble the rest out nervously. Safe in this house, it all feels so silly, like I overreacted.

“I kind of wound up in a bad part of town, and on my way back, some guys in a car pulled up next to me and started following me.”

“
What
?”

“It's fine! They drove off. I just called you because I didn't know what else to do.”

“I…. You… you can't…. They….” He sputters into silence, and I hear him take several deep breaths, like
Can you believe I have to deal with this?

“Audrey, I'm glad you called me,” he says, sounding pissed. “If that ever happens again,
call the cops
. I don't care if you think they aren't serious, call the f—flipping cops. You— Do you have mace?”

“Um, no,” I say, tugging on the string on my shirt.

“Okay. Have you taken any self-defense lessons?”

“No.”

“Take some self-defense lessons. I will lend you the money.”

I feel a rush of warmth toward Mitchell that he says “lend” and not “give.”

“Okay. I'll sign up for some tonight.”

“Good. Where are you now? Are you back home?”

“Um, no, I'm at Scarlett's.” I glance over my shoulder and startle to see Scarlett is on her feet, staring hard at me.

There's a weighted pause on the line. “
Oooookaaaay
. And is that a safe place?”

“Of course!” I'm genuinely affronted.

“All right.” He sighs and mutters something I think is “teenagers.” “Stay with her, then, and if you have to go through anymore bad parts of town to get home, you call me, okay?
Before
you leave. I will drive you back. You got it?”

“It's okay, there's nothing bad between here and there,” I assure him. “I'll be fine.”

“And if you find out that you
aren't
fine, you'll…?”

“Call the cops.”

“Good. I'm going to keep my phone on loud and vibrate the rest of the day, so you call if you need me, okay?”

“Okay. Thank you, Mitchell.”

“Yeah, yeah. I'm a saint.” He hangs up.

I look down at my screen, and my stomach screws up when I see I've missed seven calls from Jimmy and five from Dad. I look up at Scarlett.

“I have to call home and let them know where I am,” I say.

She nods shortly. I hesitate, then move into the hallway by the door I came in on, where my shoes sit outside. I weigh my options: Jimmy or Dad? Is Dad working tonight? I call Jimmy.

He picks up before the first ring finishes, which makes me feel wretched.

“Audrey?” He sounds frantic. At just his voice, I begin to cry, almost noiselessly.

“Hi, Jimmy.”

“Where are you? Are you okay?”

“I'm okay. I went out for a run and got stuck in the rain. I'm at a friend's house.”

“Which friend's? I'll come and pick you up.”

“No, it's okay. We're hanging out and watching movies. That's why I missed your calls. I couldn't hear them over the noise.”

He's quiet for a moment. “I wish you hadn't run off like that.”

“I know.” Another gush of tears. “I was just upset. I wanted to get out.”

“Well,” he says, “I can understand that. Are you sure you're okay?”

“Yes. I'll come home once the rain's let up. Is Dad there?”

“Yeah, he's here. Do you want to talk to him?”

Not particularly.
“I'd better.”

“Just a second.” There's muffled sounds of the cell phone being passed.

“Hello? Audrey?” At my dad's gruff voice, more tears, and with them, snot. I wish I'd brought the towel, but it would also be so rude to wipe my nose in someone else's cloth. Instead, I wander to the right and spot the kitchen. I walk in the spotless room, looking for something to blow my nose with.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“I overheard you talking to Jimmy. You okay?”

“Yes. I'm staying at a friend's house until the rain's past.”

“You need me to come get you?”

“No, thank you, Daddy. We're having fun.”

He makes a noise I can't quite decipher. It sounds like pained relief. “You keep having fun, then. We're huddled in here for the time being.”

“Will you tell Mom and Sam I'm okay and I love them?”

“Mm-hm, of course. You take care, baby bean.”

“Bye, Dad.”

I hang up and stash my phone back in my pocket. I tear off a sheet of paper towel from the roll suspended above the sink and use the thick sheet to blot my eyes and blow my nose. I comb my fingers through my hair to break up the clumps that have dried together and get halfway normal-looking again.

There are pictures dotting the refrigerator. I find the trash can and wave my hand over the motion-sensor top to discard the paper towel before giving in to my curiosity and examining the photos. There are a number that look like assorted family members: old Christmas card photos, baby announcements, school photos of elementary kids. A lot of Connor.

And Scarlett, in the dress she wore to prom, leaning against the curve of the handrail at the bottom of the stairs by the front door. It's just her in the picture, printed out in color on paper. I wonder if they had one of her and Carolina and swapped it out with this, or if it had always been just her. There's one of her from middle school, stockier than she is now, with a choppy, ill-advised haircut. She's playing soccer, in midkick with her face locked in concentration, cheeks ruddy from the exertion. And her and Connor as little kids, Connor's arm wrapped around Scarlett's neck, both beaming at the camera.

I step back, both glad I saw the pictures, and feeling like I viewed something illicit, that I wasn't meant to. Of course, I reason as I go back to the living room, if the pictures weren't intended to be seen, they wouldn't be on the refrigerator.

Scarlett's standing by the window, staring out at the unrelenting rain, hands in her pockets. She turns around when I enter.

“Sorry,” I say. “I hadn't realized my family would be worried.”

She gives me an astonished look. “I… have so many questions I don't know where to start.”

“Questions? About what?”

“You… you…. Those guys, in the car.” I flinch. “Well, I guess I don't so much have questions about that as I want to register my
deep horror
.”

“I didn't mean to wind up there!”

“I know! It's just frightening to think about, okay?”

It can't be half as scary for her as it was for me.

“Who was that guy you called?” she demands, and her tone changes to something a little more suspicious, a little hostile.

“Mitchell. You know him.”

“I'm pretty sure I don't,” she says blankly.

“We saw him in the gelato shop. He had just found out his wife was cheating on him?”

“The insane guy?” she yelps. “You're being harassed in the street and you call the
insane guy
?”

“He's not insane! He was just having a bad day. He just found out his wife was
cheating on him
. With his best friend! True, he caused a minor public disturbance, but he went back and paid for all damages and apologized to the staff and customers.”

“I can't believe this,” she says, and walks out of the room. After a moment she comes back in. “How did you even get his number?”

“I saw him in the park a week or so later and we talked.”

Scarlett rakes a hand through her hair. “Are you dating Brenna Moretti?”

“Am—
What
?”

“You heard me. Are you dating Brenna Moretti?”

“I heard, I'm just getting whiplash from this conversation! What does that have to do with anything?”

“She's a prick,” Scarlett says through gritted teeth. “She kept making fun of Serhan's accent in the eighth grade.”

“I was perfectly capable of seeing what she is for myself,” I say. “We went on one terrible date because Amber didn't know her and thought it would be fun to hang out as a group.”

Scarlett processes this. “You're not dating her?”

“No.”

“Good,” she says, releasing a huge breath. Her shoulders slump. “That's good.”

We're standing with only half an arm's length between our bare feet. If I wanted to, if she'd let me, I could reach out and brush my fingers over her cheek.

“Is it?” I say on a sigh.

Scarlett looks at me intently and steps closer, now no farther than the span of a hand away.

“I'm experiencing some attraction to you,” she says, low. “To be honest, I have been for months. It's like you're a force I couldn't help but respond to. It's a peculiar phenomenon when Audrey Anderson is nearby; all the world bends toward her.”

I can't breathe. Then I pull in a breath and put my hand on her cheek and guide her mouth to mine.

 

 

A
T
FIRST
I'm worried that Amber's right and kissing is something I'm going to have to put up with instead of enjoy. Our noses bump, and our lips aren't matching quite right. I'm not sure what to do. Do I purse my lips? Do I pull back?

Then Scarlett turns her head and pushes forward a bit harder and
oh
. I feel dizzy. Desire surges in my stomach. Scarlett puts her hands on the small of my back and pulls me against her. I raise my other hand so I'm cradling her face as her lips press deeper against mine. She pulls back, and I catch my breath for a moment before she's kissing me again, lips closing around my lower lip. I shiver and respond, kissing back without thinking about it now. My hands slide back into her hair.

I don't know how long we spend like that, pressed against each other, slowly kissing again and again and again. I can feel her heart thudding against my chest. The motion of her head as she moves to get a better angle, pull back, push in, shifts my arms with her, my hands still carding languidly through her hair.