Chapter Twenty-Four

Friday, December 31st

New Year’s Eve

“Are you feeling okay?” the flight attendant asks me moments after I’ve climbed on the flight from San Diego back to Detroit on Wednesday morning. She would have had to have been blind not to have seen my red eyes or deaf not to hear my sniffing. I didn’t wish I was okay or not okay. I wished I wasn’t feeling anything.

“Do you want a glass of water?”

“I’m fine,” I lie. If the water could be filled with fifty sleeping pills, then maybe.

“If you need anything, you push the button here,” she says, pointing above me. Wow, if life were only that easy. You push a button and help comes running. But, as I learned with Caitlin, there’s no sense coming to someone’s rescue if they won’t admit they need saving.

“My sister died,” I mumble. It seems the only two kinds of people in the world you can be totally honest with are perfect strangers—why should they care?—and your most perfect friends—because they care so much. It’s the in-betweens you need to watch for. As the flight attendant struggles with what to say, I think about Gabby, her perfection and my secrets.

“I’m so sorry,” the woman says, but then stops because there’s nothing anyone can say after those three big words that makes one damn bit of difference. “Let me get you that water.”

“Thanks,” I say, but by the time she gets back, I’ve clicked my pen and started writing the next chapter in Autumn’s story. When the wheels of the plane touch down at Detroit Metro some three hours later, Autumn’s story, like Caitlin’s connection to me, feels finished. I’m sad, and Gabby’s going to be mad at me for the lack of a happy ending.

* * * *

I claimed jet lag the moment I got into the car with my folks at Metro Airport as an excuse not to talk. I’d been so busy writing not-so-fictional fiction on the plane that I’d forgotten the lies I told Carol about where I spent the last day of my trip, just in case she and my parents had compared notes. The hardest part about lying so often isn’t morality, but memory.

By tonight, my parents and I have moved on to other topics unrelated to my trip to California, more related to my New Year’s outing. Normally I use the cover story of attending a game for the newspaper to meet up with Gabby, but that won’t fly tonight. I tell them I’m helping Tim at work. I doubt they’ll check on that story, but if so, as my best friend, Tim understands lying for me is part of the friend job description.

“We want you home by eleven p.m.,” Dad reminds me for the eleventh time.

“Sure, and guess what, I’ll even drive carefully,” I remind them for the twelfth time. I don’t know if they’d be shocked or proud to know I safely navigated California expressways.

“Just be safe,” Mom says, and I try not to laugh as I wonder if somehow she developed super powers, like X-ray vision. Be safe? Did they find the Trojans stashed in my bedside bureau? Mom, I want to say, I’m thinking the exact the same thing.

* * * *

“So how long is your dad gone tonight?” I ask Gabby when I climb into her car. Per usual, I’ve parked at McDonald’s on Owens Road, and she picked me up.

“This is a busy night for him,” she says, sounding distracted. She doesn’t ask about the bag from the San Diego airport gift shop I smuggled out of my house and now hold in my hand.

“Your dad has an important job,” I say. “When people get in trouble, he helps them out.”

She laughs. “Carson, he’s a tow truck driver, not a doctor like Josh’s parents.”

“Maybe, but after an accident, next to the ambulance, he’s the guy you want to see.”

“Not always,” she says, and I give her a strange look.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s not all rescues. These days, he’s doing a lot of repo work,” she says. “He’s making good money, but it must be hard to do that by towing away some guy’s dream car.”

“In that case, my parents and he will meet one day after all,” I say, half joking, half sad.

Gabby changes the subject, so we talk about school and sports, filled with sexual innuendo, on the way to her house. She pulls the SUV into the garage and we exit quickly. She calls her dad, asking questions to determine that he won’t be returning to the house any time soon. She ends the conversation saying, “Okay, I won’t wait up.” She clicks the phone, smiles broadly, and we melt into each other on the sofa. After a while, we come up for air.

“I got you a belated Christmas gift,” I say, pointing to the bag sitting on the floor.

“Carson, you didn’t need to do that.”

“Sorry, I didn’t have time to wrap it,” I say, and force back a laugh. “Open it.”

She opens the bag and pulls out four jerseys from southern California schools—USC, UCLA, Long Beach and San Diego State. The little money my parents gave me for my trip went on her gifts. “Next fall, one of those schools will be graced by The Great Gabby’s presence. Get it, presence, presents?” She rolls her big browns, but can’t quit smiling. “Carson, I didn’t—”

I cut her off. “It’s not too late for a gift. Why don’t you try them on?”

Gabby gives me a skeptical look, then an exaggerated sigh. “Carson Banks, what am I going to do with you?” she says as she pulls the Detroit Pistons T-shirt over her head.

“Well, I have a suggestion,” I say. “Why don’t we play shirts and skins? I’ll be shirts.”

She doesn’t say anything. I hear the tiny clicking sound as she unhooks her bra. Gabby never gets to trying on the shirts. After a while, I say, “Gabby, let’s move into the other room.”

“The kitchen?” she says sarcastically. “The dining room?”

“Well, I’m hungry for you,” I say, then whisper dirty details into her ear. She pushes me back. “Slow down.” Man, she plays mean D off the court, too.

“Gabby, it’s time,” I say gently. In porn, that time is twenty seconds after two people meet.

“I’m not ready, Carson.” She puts on the bright white and gold USC shirt. “Are you mad?”

“No, Gabby, I’m not mad,” I say. “I’m frushappanger.”

“What?” I explain my made-up word for frustration, happiness and anger.

“I’m just disappointed,” I add.

“Carson, look, I can’t have sex with you.”

“I don’t like that ‘with you’ part. Would you say that with someone else?” I wonder aloud.

“There is nobody else,” she says, firmly. “I just can’t.”

“Won’t,” I say just as firmly.

“What?”

“Can’t implies that you don’t have a choice. Turning iron into gold is something people can’t do. It is physically impossible. Won’t means you can, but choose not to.”

“Thanks for the grammar lesson,” she snaps. “Fine. Won’t. Is that a problem?”

“What do you think?” I ask as I fall into that dark void that separates my dreams from my daily life. I narrow my eyes as I slip into that deep crevice, while hers grow wider with her anger.

“You should respect my decision,” she says harshly. “If you can’t, then maybe we—”

“Wait, foul for overreaction!” I make the ref technical foul signal. “This isn’t a fuck me or fuck you ultimatum. I want to be with you, Gabby, that’s all. I’ll take as much of you as you can give me.”

“And that’s a lot, because,” she starts, then points from her head to her toes.

“I’m tall, for a girl,” we say together. The shared laugher breaks the tension.

I know this is my chance, so I whisper, “Look, the Valentine’s Day dance is coming up.”

“No, I can’t do that,” she says, sounding angry.

“Does your dad hang around school?” Anger serve returned. “He won’t find out.”

She sighs. “You know how high school is. Someone tells someone who tells someone.”

“None of this other stuff matters. What matters is I love you.”

More silence, waiting for the ‘I love you’ return, but there’s only the sound of our lips. I touch the not-to-be-used condom in my pocket. If sex can be safe, then why can’t love?