The Lighter Side of Life and Death Page 18

  Dad’s head bobs uneasily on his shoulders. “How old is she? Andrea’s age?”

  This weird feeling of relief spreads through my shoulder blades. I straighten out my fingers and rest them flat against my stomach. “Twenty-three,” I admit. “Almost twenty-four.” In three weeks there’ll be eight years between us. I’m always conscious of the number that separates us. Colette never forgets and I’m not sure I could either, even if given the chance.

  Dad whistles through his teeth. “How long has this been going on?”

  “About a month.”

  “And you’re still seeing each other?” he asks.

  “We won’t be when she finds out you know.” I’ve just nailed the coffin shut and I couldn’t tell you why. I’m so broken up that I just stare at him for a few seconds. “She didn’t want anyone to know about us.” There’s such a feeling of release in telling him that it’s almost worth the ache. “I need to go talk to her.”

  “This discussion isn’t finished, Mason. I expect some resolution to the antagonism between you and Brianna.” Dad’s eyes flicker and then he turns slowly away, like he needs time to process what I’ve just told him. “Go speak to this woman if that’s what you need to do. We’ll get to the bottom of all this tomorrow.”

  twenty-one

  I feel like somebody’s pet hamster racing desperately to nowhere on one of those stationary wheels. What’s the point? Is this supposed to feel like progress? The truth is I’ve never really broken up with someone. Technically I won’t be the one to do it now either and I feel horrible. I feel like throwing up in Jamie’s car as he chauffeurs me over to Colette’s place.

  I didn’t think it would be like this in the end. I thought we’d fight or get sick of each other. No, I didn’t even think that. I don’t know what I thought but it wasn’t this. I’m torn straight down the middle—half of me crushed to pieces and the other half staring out the window, looking past this to the next time when it’ll be less messy, when I won’t be sharing with some guy named Ari or looking over my shoulder, expecting to be caught at any minute.

  Maybe I should thank Brianna. It’s over with; it’s done. Once Colette hears we’ve been outed she won’t be able to get rid of me fast enough. I tear my eyes away from the window and glance tentatively at Jamie. “Do you want me to wait for you?” he asks.

  “I don’t know how long it’s going to take.” If I was in love with Colette would a sense of relief be knotted up with the pain like this? I try to hold on to that thought as we idle in front of her landlord’s house. “Maybe you should just take off.”

  “You can phone me if you need me to come back,” Jamie offers.

  “Thanks.” Remind me to take back every bad thing I ever said about Jamie. He’s awesome. He can leap tall buildings in a single bound, snare bad guys in his mighty web and hurtle through the highways of Glenashton in his mom’s metallic blue Honda Civic, searching for signals from people in desperate need of emergency transportation.

  I thank him again as I get out of the car. My face is numb with nerves and sadness as I step away from him. I wish this didn’t have to be so final, that Colette and I could just break up the normal way, leaving the possibilities open.

  I trudge towards the door and it seems to me that it should be pouring rain or something dramatic like that but it’s not. It’s sticky-warm and Colette’s neighbor is out watering his front garden in sunglasses and a baseball hat. I feel more like a paperboy than Colette’s lover. I don’t understand how all this happened in the first place.

  I knock at the side door and this tall guy in his late twenties, skinny as me but not half as good-looking, opens it. He’s wearing an orange T-shirt with the Orange Crush logo on it and black pants and he’s got that stubble look going for him but that’s about it. Ari Lightman in the flesh. I don’t even have to ask. He looks like he belongs there. I mean, it would never occur to me to answer Colette’s door.

  “I’m looking for Colette,” I tell him. “Is she here?”

  “Col’s here,” he says in a vaguely Eastern European accent. “You want to come down?” He opens the door wider and gestures for me to follow him downstairs. It never would’ve occurred to me to call her Col either. This guy’s miles ahead of me in the Colette Fournier department. I still don’t even know whether she’s French or what.

  “Col,” he calls at the bottom of the stairwell. “You have a visitor.” I walk into the basement with him and spy two open beer bottles on the living room coffee table. It’s a familiar scenario and my gaze shoots over to the kitchen where Colette’s standing in the middle of the tile floor in a purple top and white jeans. So much for the floral skirt. So much for making plans with Leslie.

  Colette peers back at me with parted lips but Ari speaks first. “I’ll leave you two,” he says with a backwards step.

  “Ari,” she protests.

  “This is Mason, no?” He runs a hand over his wavy hair and stares casually in my general direction.

  “Yes,” I tell him. It’s such a wicked joke, the three of us hanging out here in her apartment. I’m still waiting for the camera crew to give themselves away.

  “It’s okay.” Ari nods at me. He plucks his car keys out of his pocket and heads for the stairs. I’m not even angry with him. The situation seems bizarrely civilized.

  Colette watches him go, the tension in her limbs radiating out towards me. “I thought you were going to call me tomorrow,” she says.

  “Because you have plans with Leslie tonight.” I look at the space where Ari stood seconds ago. “I know. I guess we both had a change in plans.”

  Colette’s hands reach back for the counter. She leans against it and stares at the floor. “You didn’t want me to talk about Ari anymore.” Her gaze darts up to meet mine. “I told you about him. I wasn’t hiding it. You knew.”

  “I know.” I almost laugh, a weird mechanical sound like I’m on the verge of short-circuiting. “That’s the really pathetic thing.” I rest my hands on the opposite counter, the width of the kitchen separating us. “You must think I’m …” I tap my fingernails gingerly against the counter; it sounds like rain. “I guess it doesn’t matter to him about us, huh?”

  “Is that why you’re here?” Colette asks. “To catch me at something you already knew about?”

  “No.” She’s so far away that she might as well be in Florida. Last night feels more like last year. “My dad knows about us. Brianna saw you drop me off last night.”

  Colette stares past me, deep in thought. I know what she’s worried about and it’s not me. “Does Nina know?”

  “She probably does by now. I don’t think her and my dad keep secrets like that.” Besides, I didn’t ask him to.

  “Shit,” Colette says vehemently to herself. “Shit.” She kneads her forehead with one hand. “This is a disaster.” To me it’s a much smaller disaster than facing Ari on her doorstep. Obviously we’re not on the same wavelength here. I should’ve already realized that before. I guess maybe I did.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “It’s not that bad. They won’t do anything about it.”

  “Maybe it’s not that bad for you. I don’t think you have a concept of what this is like for me.” Colette wraps her arms snugly around herself. Her chin is inches away from sinking into her chest.

  She’s so frazzled that I want to look after her. How screwed up is that?

  “That’s okay,” I say wryly. “Worry about yourself first, I completely understand.”

  “Don’t get annoying at a time like this,” Colette warns. “This is serious, Mason.”

  “Oh, I know.” I force myself to smile. “Before this happened I was going to tell you how much the last couple of nights have meant to me and all this completely sentimental bullshit. You would’ve hated it. I mean, I knew that. I don’t know what I was thinking. You’re the shameless, soulless good-time girl. I know that. So now you don’t have to listen to my crap and tell me how wrong I am. We can skip straight to the end.”
/>
  “Mason.” Colette’s eyes are sad. She feels sorry for me. I’m not the good-time boy she thought I was. “Last night was wonderful. You’re wonderful. Maybe if I was sixteen it’d be different for us but you can see how things are.” She shrugs her elbows helplessly. “You don’t need me.”

  “I never said I needed you.” My shoulders hunch forward. I lean on her counter and blink at her like a lost puppy. It feels pathetic but I need to say it anyway. “I just like you more than you like me. It happens.”

  “I like you a lot,” she says forcefully. “You know I do.”

  “Not enough, though. Not enough to do without Ari or whoever else there is.”

  “There isn’t anyone else,” she insists. “There’s just Ari.”

  It should help that he doesn’t look like much but it doesn’t. There must be some other remarkable thing about him that I’ve missed.

  “He’s like an obsession,” she confesses, her eyes apologetic. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you. It’s like quicksand. The harder I try to stay away from him, the worse it gets.”

  She motions helplessly to the last spot Ari occupied before leaving. “It never really works but it’s never really over either.” She shakes her head, pausing like she’s torn between telling the truth and not wanting to hurt me, and then she says, “You have no idea how angry I make myself, falling into the same stupid pattern, wasting the past two and a half years on something that will probably never be anything more than it is right now. Whenever he asks if he should leave me alone for good, whether that would be better, I know I should say yes—and mean it—but I can’t. I fuck it up every time. I call him … or he calls me and we’re—”

  “You don’t have to explain,” I break in. I’ve already heard too much. We never stood a chance. Her feelings for him run down to the roots. Sooner or later that would’ve ruined us, even if we managed to stay a secret.

  “I’ve tried to stop,” Colette says, her face earnest and her voice pleading. She wants me to understand. This is what she meant when she talked about twisted romantic webs, the secretly remarkable Ari Lightman.

  I know exactly what she means. I’m trying to stop at this exact moment.

  “Do they know you’re here?” she continues. “Your father and Nina?” Her eyes fill with worry again.

  “It’s fine,” I assure her. “I told my dad it was over between us.”

  “It is.” She steps quickly towards me. Her hand reaches for mine on the counter. It’s such a feeble gesture that I’m surprised I don’t pull away. “I’m sorry.”

  I grip her fingers, angry with myself for going easy on her. The thing is, I can’t make her like me any more than she does. It’s exhausting caring about someone more than they care about you. I’ll be almost glad to let it go.

  I reach across the counter to curve my other hand around her neck. Colette’s bottom lip droops in surprise. Her face springs towards me. She kisses me hard and then pulls back without warning. “You should go,” she says.

  So no last time. We’re done. “Okay,” I say quietly. “This is it then.” My ribs throb with missing her. I squeeze her hand again over the counter and release it before she can squeeze back. I walk up her stairs for the final time, surprised all over again when I get to the top and find the sun still blazing through the laundry room window.

  I breathe in sunshine as I open the side door and step onto the lawn. As terrible as this feels, it’s over.

  I don’t know Colette Fournier anymore.

  I’m free.

  twenty-two

  Jamie answers my call on the second ring. He picks me up at the 7-Eleven three blocks from Colette’s apartment and talks nonstop to make up for my silence. It’s cool; I haven’t heard him talk so much since the night of the party almost two months ago. I’m not even paying attention to where we’re going; I’m just listening and nodding at him.

  He pulls into the North Star Chinese Buffet parking lot and tells me he’s hungry and would I mind? Nope, I’m starving too. Burke finished my tuna melt and Brianna blindsided me before I had a chance to eat its replacement.

  We grab two seats in the corner and down so much barbecued pork and Shanghai noodles that we make the guy in Super Size Me look like an anorexic. Jamie asks whatever happened to the dead psycho cat and I tell him about the box in the garage and Brianna going fierce diva on me.

  “At least the cat’s gone,” Jamie offers. “One less enemy on the premises.”

  “The cat was easier to deal with,” I say. Poor old Billy. I could’ve won him over with a palm full of tuna. Why didn’t I think of that before?

  We go back to Jamie’s place and watch TV for a while. He drives me home after The Daily Show and I know I’ve been wrong about lots of things lately but this time the air between us feels clear.

  The lights are off inside my house but I hear the TV on in the basement. I follow the noise and find Brianna stretched out on the couch in pink pajamas. Her eyes are closed and the The O.C.’s on behind her. I’m about to reach for the remote and switch it off when she opens her eyes.

  “I thought you were asleep,” I say. I’m too tired to fight with her and the anger’s gone anyway.

  “Sort of.” Her voice is gravelly. “I think I’m going to stay down here tonight.”

  I guess she’s pretty torn up about the cat but I don’t want to talk about that either. “It’s a comfortable couch,” I tell her. “I’ve slept down here lots of times.”

  Brianna sucks in her cheeks as she sits up. “You know I wasn’t actually going to tell them anything.”

  “They know now anyway.”

  Brianna’s pupils bulge as she looks at me. “It was just seeing him in that box,” she says haltingly. “You shouldn’t have moved him.”

  “I had to go. I told you that. I had a job interview. He was already gone.”

  “I know.” The accusatory tone’s missing from her voice. “Your dad said you got the job.”

  “Yeah, that’s right.” I glance impatiently at Mischa Barton and Benjamin McKenzie on the screen. I got the job and lost the girl. Does that mean I balance?

  “I really wasn’t going to say anything,” Brianna repeats.

  “It doesn’t make any difference anymore.” After saying goodbye to Colette and gorging on Chinese food I can’t get too excited about anything. My throat’s burning. I can’t tell if it’s indigestion or misery. “Just remember that next time, okay?” Brianna’s lips twitch like she’s on the verge of anger and I add, “I don’t want to fight with you anymore, Brianna. You’ll win every time.”

  “You’ll win,” Brianna counters. “That’s the way you are.”

  “Jesus, you can’t even stop fighting with me now.” I stare wearily at the ceiling. “Don’t you recognize a white flag flying in your face? Look, I’m sorry about Billy. I’m sorry I said you were fucked up and bitchy.” I fold my hands on top of my head and smooth down my hair. “If you want to keep this hostility up until we’re seventy I guess I can’t stop you. You’ll do what you want. That’s the way you are.”

  “I don’t want to fight with you.” She snuggles back down into the couch. “I told you that before.”

  The potential for debate is endless and I sigh in defeat.

  Brianna rubs her eyes and adds, “If you liked Billy maybe you’d understand.”

  “He didn’t like me,” I remind her. “I was ready to like him and he stabbed me in the hand.”

  A crooked smile forces its way onto Brianna’s lips. I don’t have photographic evidence; you’ll just have to trust me on its existence because a moment later it’s gone. “Why does everybody have to like you all the time, anyway?” she asks.

  This is the second time she’s said that and I chuckle miserably. She has no idea what kind of night I’ve had. “Everybody doesn’t like me—and I don’t just mean you.”

  Brianna doesn’t contradict me and tell me she likes me. She covers her lips with her hand and says, “I don’t have to like you
—I just have to live with you.” She reaches for the remote and presses rewind, forcing the O.C. cast to zip through their story lines backwards in futility. “Why do you even care? Burke likes you. My mom likes you. My stupid friends like you.”

  I pop my shoulders up, suddenly feeling like we’re trapped in a popularity contest. I don’t know how much of this is about Brianna being thirteen, like Nina says, and how much is her making a choice to dislike me because it’s one of the easiest things she can do right now. It could be something else entirely—I’m no TV psychologist—but I do feel bad about her losing Billy.

  “You don’t have to like me,” I agree, taking a step away from the couch. “I’m really sorry about Billy. I know you guys had him a long time.”

  Brianna hides her mouth behind her hand again so I can’t read her expression. “He really didn’t like very many people, you know. It’s not that he didn’t like you specifically.”

  I bow my head at that and her eyes actually sparkle as she says, “I thought you knew karate. You should’ve been able to defend yourself against him.”

  I never said anything about karate; Dad must’ve told her. “This is what I’m saying. That’s evidence that I’m a nice guy.” A half smile bites into my mouth because, as unlikely as it seems, now I know she’s capable of kidding around. “I never fought back.”

  “Okay,” Brianna says resignedly. “Fine. You’re nice. You’re perfect. I’m the evil one.”

  “I’m gonna remind you that you said that.”

  “I know.” Brianna rolls her eyes but I guess we’re okay for the moment. It’s not the big make-up scene that Dad wanted but I have the feeling we’ll never get around to those.

  “I’m going up,” I announce. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Good night,” Brianna says. She’s already closed her eyes.

  The house is deserted again when I wake up on Saturday morning. Dad’s left a note under my bedroom door explaining everything: Nina’s gone to the hairdresser with Brianna and he’s taken Burke to the doctor with hives. I don’t know anything about the hives, but considering my luck lately Burke’s probably allergic to tuna fish. Then Brianna can complain that I murdered her cat, attempted to poison her brother and, still more heinous, apologized to her afterwards, insisting that I was nice. No wonder she doesn’t like me.