Now and Again Page 6

  Calligraphy sketches out the words "Family" on one side and "Friends" on the other. It's the latter that captures our attention first. Scrapbooking stickers of a beach ball, a couch, and a sandwich lay atop a linoleum-checkered background. A college-age Cole, Nikki, and I are frozen in time. In one picture, we're smiling cheesily in front of a beach bonfire. In another, my head is thrown back in a laugh. Cole's hair is spiked. Nikki has us both seized in a stranglehold on the couch in our college apartment.

  "God, look at us," she says now. "We're so young."

  It's true somehow. It's only been a few years, but the small details in the pictures are telling: Nikki and I in our tank tops, Cole in a t-shirt. The red cups and ping pong balls on the table next to the couch and the glaze of alcohol over our eyes.

  "I've always loved that picture." Nikki's voice sounds like it's coming from a great distance.

  "Yeah." I agree. But I'm not looking at that side anymore as my eyes wander to the photo of me with my parents. There's a sudden lump in my throat. Clearing it, I stand, tossing the shadowbox gently back into the box. "Well," I say brightly. "Guess I'll have to wait to find the scrapbook."

  Nikki's silent, not fooled by my charade. "Em," she starts.

  "Drop it," I sing-song. I turn around, searching fruitlessly among the wreckage of our dinner and plopping back onto the bed. "Where's my fortune cookie?"

  Wordlessly, she hands one to me. I break the cookie in half and read my fortune, crumpling the slip of paper angrily after I finish.

  "What's it say?"

  "Forget it. These things are bullshit anyway." I stand and stretch, feigning an obnoxious yawn. "Hey, I hate to kick you out, but do you mind if I just call you tomorrow? I've got to open the store tomorrow, and I have to look for some more jobs to apply for and I really need to call some of the merchandisers for Mom…"

  "Sure," she says easily. "If you need anything—"

  "Why would I need anything?" I ask shortly. I brush the lint from my jeans, avoiding her gaze. This is why I need to get out of Florida. I love Nikki, but she knows too much about—well, everything about me.

  She sighs. "Okay, Em. You're right. You don't need anything. You are woman. Hear you roar."

  I don't rise to the bait as she gives me a quick hug and I walk her out.

  "'The dreams of your past are the reality of your future,'" I quote my fortune cookie with a forced snort, when I'm sure she's out of earshot. I push the fleeting thought of Cole, smiling face beside mine, out of my mind. "What bull."

  I flip the light off and head upstairs. "Complete and utter bull."

  TEN

  COLE

  ∞ Then ∞

  Junior Year

  He still wasn't sure how Em talked him into this. On Halloween night, he straightened his wig as he walked into the fraternity house. A nearby group of girls choked back a laugh at the sight of him.

  Could he blame them? He tightened his lips in a grimace toward them, not quite reaching the smile he was going for. His costume was unbecoming. Unmanly. Humiliating.

  "You look great," Em said, coming up to him with Nikki in tow.

  Easy for her to say. He'd already caught the admiring glances that guys were sending in the girls' direction. Nikki was outfitted in a form-fitting tiger striped dress, a pair of ears perched atop her head. Em, meanwhile, was dressed a ringmaster, with a jaunty top hat, a red military jacket, and black skirt over fishnet stockings.

  And what was he wearing? Somehow, he'd let the girls talk him into this circus theme. And he'd let Em talk him into being their clown. He'd donned a curly blue wig, a bright red vest and yellow parachute pants. He didn't know where Nikki found them, though he suspected they came from a secondhand store. His feet itched inside of shoes several sizes too big. The girls had stuffed the toes with tissue paper.

  He regretted his life choices at the moment.

  At least he'd refused the make-up and clown nose, though he considered it when Em pouted at him. He nearly lost his resolve then, but here he was, without makeup, sans clown nose— Nikki patted at his wig and he wilted.

  And without dignity. Doing his best to be a sexy clown, damn it.

  "You two owe me so big," he grumbled as they each attached themselves to an arm, mollifying him. Their presence seemed to stifle the laughter coming his way.

  "You look fine. Get over it so we can have fun tonight," Em said, angling her top hat to the side with pursed lips. "I'll get drinks."

  She flounced off and Nikki went in search of Ron.

  Cole wished dearly that he could melt into the wall. Why hadn't he gone with the G.I. Joe costume? He eyed the nearby G.I. Joe and G.I. Jane couple with undisguised envy. It would have been just as cheap a costume. Just as easy.

  "And way more boring and unoriginal. You'd be just another pretty boy without a sense of humor," Em said, returning with drinks in hand and laughing at him, eyes sparkling in delight.

  He hadn't realized that he'd been speaking aloud. With a certain amount of chagrin, he accepted the red cup she handed him.

  "Come on, don't be so stiff. You make a great clown." She eyed his bare chest beneath the vest with appreciation.

  "It's not funny." Still, he felt gratified by the blatant admiration and straightened, puffing out his chest like a preening bird. "And stop objectifying me."

  She frowned. "You're right. You make a terrible clown. No sense of humor at all." She sipped at her punch.

  He fought back a grin and let himself relax a little. Who cared what the rest of the party thought? Em thought he looked good. That was all he needed.

  His thoughts began to wander down a path that he immediately roadblocked. Em was his friend, he told himself firmly. He just wanted to have a good time with his friend tonight. Though he had to ignore the little voice inside him that wondered when the last time he'd cared if Ron thought he looked good was.

  His reverie was interrupted by a loud musical tone that didn't match the rap music vibrating off the walls of the room. Em struggled with the tight pockets of her costume, trying to free her phone. Glancing at the screen, she declined the call and stuffed it away, out of sight. "My mom. I'll call her in the morning."

  Taking a drink, he blanched at the taste of vodka, like rubbing alcohol, on his tongue. "Are you sure they added fruit punch to this and not just food coloring?" he asked, eyeing the contents of his cup suspiciously. Sniffing at the drink, he was pretty sure the smell of the alcohol burned his nose somehow.

  "It's probably fifty-fifty," she said. She waggled her eyebrows at him. "But hey, at least we'll only need one glass of the stuff."

  "You make an excellent point," he conceded. He tipped his cup back, but couldn't stop himself from pulling a face at the taste again. "Do you think they sprang for the seven-dollar bottle of vodka?"

  "No." She considered, smacking her lips thoughtfully. The taste must have still been burning on her tongue. He knew it was on his. "They probably spent a whopping four bucks at a pharmacy for the isopropyl."

  He laughed. "I'm switching to beer after this."

  "You're going to mix?" She shook her head. "Bad idea."

  He shrugged. "I'll be fine. You know the old rhyme. 'Beer before liquor, never been sicker.' But 'liquor before beer…'"

  "'You're in the clear,'" she finished, rolling her eyes. "We'll see about that when I'm tucking you into bed because you can't stand later." She held up her now empty cup. "Meanwhile, I'm probably good for the night."

  He eyed the cup in his hand speculatively. He'd barely had a quarter of it and so far it hadn't had an effect on him, but Em had drained hers while they'd talked. She wasn't drunk yet, but it would hit her any second now. They stood there for a while, quietly talking and commenting on the other party-goers under the breath to each other, hiding their mouths behind their cups.

  "Oh, come on, Connors," she sighed after a bit, and tugged on his clown vest. "Lighten up. It wouldn't hurt you to smile."

  Sign one, he thought. Em usually rolled her ey
es when Nikki or Ron called him by his last name and stuck to using Cole when sober. 'Colson' if she was really annoyed with him.

  "What is it you usually say when a guy in a bar tries to pick you up with that line?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow at her ironically. "'This is just my face,' isn't it?"

  "That's my face," she insisted. "They don't know my face like I know your face, and I know your face is just hiding the idea that you're still twitchy about the costume."

  She could have hit a little further from the mark, he thought. If only for the sake of his pride.

  Her eyes roamed the party, searching for their next move, looking for a way to loosen him up. "Should we play a drinking game?" she asked.

  Ah. And sign of drunkenness number two follows so soon after sign one.

  Em never thought Beer Pong was a good idea, unless she'd already started drinking. Or Ring of Fire. Or Up the River, Down the River.

  She was definitely right when she'd said she'd hit her limit for the night already, so he steered her over to the DJ, a freshman pledge that the fraternity had manning the iPod and speakers tonight.

  Her phone rang again, singing out, "Mamma mia, here I go—"

  She silenced it with an annoyed jab of her finger. "I told my mom that I had plans tonight. It's like she still wants me to be a little girl and check in with her nightly, but—" The song changed to one with a pulsing rhythm. Em might not have been able to carry a tune in a bucket, but she enjoyed a song with a good beat as much as the next person. She switched topics abruptly, abandoning the lamentations on her mother. "We should dance."

  And here, accepting the award of quickest drunk and most ridiculous lightweight in the world, is Emmeline Hayes.

  He smirked as she led him into the area where a few others had started to move to the music. He laid his hands flat on her hips, thinking of her drunk "process." Sign number three was always the easiest to spot. Em rarely danced unless inebriated. Sober, she was all awkward hips and nervous smiles. But Drunk Em was a whirling gyration, arms above her head, spinning and twirling and dazzling everyone in her orbit. It was all Cole could do to keep up with her.

  He shook his head in warning to a hovering 'bro' nearby. The kid had been watching Em, jaw agape, and Cole drew her protectively closer to him for a second. "I'm going to go get some water for you real quick, all right?" he said into her ear. It wouldn't hurt to water down the punch in her system. "Don't go anywhere."

  She threw her head back, cheeks flushed from the wicked combination of dancing and alcohol. "All right, Dad."

  Shaking his head, he rolled his eyes at her and leveled the boy behind her with a glare. He was sure the kid would move behind her by the time he got back. Em wasn't choosy about who she danced with when she got like this.

  He wove through the mass of bodies and drunk students in the brightly lit room. He'd never understood the mentality of wanting to dance in the light at parties like these, but Em had tried to explain it through a particularly bad hangover once: "It's like your whole body is humming and if you don't move your feet, you might burst."

  The music was muted in the house's kitchen, shut out by the walls and doors. He emptied his cup in the sink and filled it with water. Might as well just stay sober. Em was a fun drunk, but he didn't want to get wasted too. Someone had to make sure they both got home okay.

  "Cole?" Em stood in the doorway when he turned. Her voice was too high; her eyes, too wide.

  It was like a record scratch. All other sound halted. The pulsing song was silenced. For one moment, the world stood still and nothing changed.

  Then the music flooded back. Em stood in front of him, lips trembling, face drained of color. And he wished more than anything that he could freeze time again and halt whatever was coming for her.

  But then she spoke.

  And the world turned, time circling on as irrevocably as before.

  "My mom just called. I need to go home." She swallowed and looked at him with helpless eyes. "It's my dad."

  ∞

  Cole decided he'd drive her home in about two seconds flat. Nikki had already left the party with Ron before Em had even begun dancing and there was no way that Em could make the two-hour drive by herself. The colored vodka concoction had done her in, unfairly holding fast to its command over her body.

  Even if her mind had been dealt a sobering slap.

  She looked very small huddled in his Jeep's passenger seat, staring out the window as the streetlights flashed past. Cole eyed her from his peripherals as he drove.

  After the call, they'd jumped into his car. He silently handed her a coat from his backseat and she cocooned herself in it, wrapping it tight around her body and collapsing against the door when it shut. The coat dwarfed her and she looked insanely vulnerable. Not like the Em he knew, with the sharp tongue and steel behind her eyes.

  "What happened?" he asked softly.

  She kept quiet at first. Three more streetlights flashed by before she spoke. "My mom's been trying to reach me for two hours," she finally whispered to the window. "But I was too busy drinking at the world's shittiest Halloween party to answer the phone."

  "Em—"

  "Shut up, Cole," she said sharply. Her forehead banged down onto the glass with a soft thud. "Just get there, will you?"

  He fought against the instinct to pull the car over and wrap her in his arms instead of a coat. He couldn't make things better. But he could be there with her. It wasn't what she needed, though.

  So without further comment, he drove.

  ∞

  When they got there, Em and Cole stood out blatantly against the hospital's white walls and washed out blue halls. Coats could only hide so much of their costumes. He kept his glance on Em from the corner of his eye. She'd folded into herself, arms crossed tightly over her ringmaster's outfit, eyes resolutely forward and away from his.

  He stuffed his hands into his pockets and tried not to trip over his large-shoed foot keeping up with her as she quickened her pace.

  "Mom?" Em's voice broke on the word when she spotted Abby in a waiting room chair.

  Eyes ringed with ruined mascara, Abby looked up. Her hands busied themselves in her lap, shredding and knotting a tissue damp with tears. She attempted a smile. "Hi, honey," she said.

  It was a valiant effort, but the dam didn't hold. Her smile collapsed, dissolving into a flood of tears. Em dropped to the seat beside her and stilled.

  She looked so lost, Cole thought. Like there was an invisible bridge in the space between her and her mother, but she didn't have a map to tell her to walk across. He put a gentle hand on her shoulder and she blinked, lurching toward her mother as though he'd flipped a switch on a machine.

  But again, she stopped, Abby weeping on her shoulder. She was a statue as her mother blubbered over her. Her arms came up mechanically to embrace her. And Cole stood off to the side, shoulders hunched inside of his coat.

  Em's eyes finally wandered up to his. Her steel was missing. Everything was missing. They were shuttered, betraying no hint of what she must be feeling.

  "Can you give us a minute?" she asked.

  ∞

  Roger had suffered a massive heart attack.

  No one had seen it coming. Em's dad was an average weight, had a healthy diet all things considered, and even worked out with Abby a couple of times a week. He was just a few years past sixty. Cole couldn't shake the memory of how easily he'd handled their move into the apartment last year. He hadn't been any more winded than Ron or Cole.

  The doctors stabilized him after he got to the hospital, but he just… never woke up. Cole watched a tight-lipped, pale-faced Em pace up and down the halls of the hospital for five days before her father flat-lined.

  And Abby crumbled.

  It wasn't unlike seeing the foundation of a building rocked by an explosion and reduced to rubble. She let out a shrill scream and sank to the ground, covering her mouth with a trembling hand. Em wavered on her feet and he stepped forward toward her before sh
e put up a hand to stop him.

  "Don't," she said, her voice ragged and frayed before she stitched it back together.

  Her knees buckled, keeping her in place. She thanked the doctors for trying all that they could, but Abby couldn't be even temporarily calmed. He and Em helped her to the car and she only fell asleep after she cried herself there.

  In the days that followed, Abby could barely get out of bed, but Cole wasn't sure Em cried at all. She was a robot. An automaton. They might as well have used a machine to make all of the necessary calls, the way she clipped out "Yes. Thank you. No. The service will be on Saturday" in a detached tone. He'd never seen her spine so straight. It was like a ruler.

  The light in her room stayed on through all hours.

  The night before the funeral, he shifted his weight from foot to foot in the hall, staring at the glow seeping from beneath her door. He hadn't missed the concealer she dotted on every morning before seeing to what needed to be done. She wasn't sleeping well.

  He lifted his hand to knock. Should he knock? What was he going to say? He didn't know. The decision was taken from his hands as the door flew open and his hand fell useless to his side.

  Em looked up at him, face wiped of any traces of make-up. He'd been right about the concealer. He could see that clearly now, as her eyes lifted to his. The skin beneath them was dark. She was gray. Wan.

  For a moment, her eyes flickered. Her feet, sleepy, stuttered toward him.

  She pulled back at the last second, restraint seizing control over instinct. Her mouth struggled to produce the quirk of her lips that would mean a sarcastic smile. "Can't sleep?"

  His hands inserted them into his pockets to keep him from reaching for her. "Off and on. You?"

  "Me?" Her lips stretched. "Just got up to use the bathroom." Her fingers stretched toward him and prodded him gently back to the couch. "Big day tomorrow. Get some rest."

  He looked back on that night often in the following years. He wondered what he could have done differently? Pushed? Stood there and waited until she said something more?