The Foreseeable Future Page 23

But I would regret breaking up with Seth even more. I knew this as fully as I knew that Tamora wouldn’t believe me if I asserted how much I loved him. Probably she remembered falling for some chiseled California cowboy at the tender age of eighteen—and probably it was clear to her, now, how her life would have been diminished, had she molded it around his. But Seth O’Malley wasn’t Tamora’s first love. He was mine, and I was nowhere near ready to let him go. He had only ever given me reasons to pull him closer.

  “Maybe,” I conceded.

  Because I knew Tamora might be right, someday, even if she was wrong right now.

  THIRTY

  Tamora had not accepted my offer to help her move, or to interview aides, or to step in as the overzealous daughter she had never dreamed of having. She did, however, make one request. She wanted a housewarming party. Allegedly, she and Jackson had christened every home they’d ever owned or rented with a raucous celebration, attended by everyone who was anyone within the California contingent of the country music scene. “But since Jackson’s through with all that,” Tamora had said, “and since I don’t personally know anyone in this quaint town of yours, I’m relying on you to assemble a guest list.”

  I had been slightly embarrassed to admit that the only guest lists I’d ever made included my two best friends, my siblings, my parents, and no one else—but Tamora was undeterred: “Throw in the boyfriend, and we’ll be set.”

  I had agreed, and the party was planned for Sunday night, hours before I would finally have to call the retirement home in Seattle and decline the position. Probably, I reasoned, Greg had already given up on me and offered the job to a local CNA with years of experience, a girl whose name generated only a modest number of Google search results.

  Whoever she was, she deserved it more than I did.

  * * *

  * * *

  On Saturday, I drove over to Cameron’s house about a half hour before the person from Under Your Breath was supposed to call. Her family lived in one of the newer gray-shingled cottages at the edge of town. From their driveway it was a short distance to the grassy dunes that hugged the beach.

  Cameron came to the door in running shorts and an oversized sweater. She did not look like a girl who had almost died in July. Ridiculously, when she leaned in to hug me, I was scared of hurting her. I spent most of my nights maneuvering people whose bones I might actually shatter. What did I think I was going to do to Cameron?

  Her chatter was immediate and overwhelming. She led me into the kitchen, saying, “You have to try some of this lemonade I just made—assuming you like lemonade. Most people do. Even if you don’t, please try it. I’m reasonably confident I make the best lemonade in town. The trick is to not add too much sugar or too much lemon juice to a base of club soda, and then garnish the whole thing with some fresh mint, which my dad grows in the backyard. Does your dad garden? Do you like mint?”

  “Uh, sure,” I said, accepting the glass she was forcing on me.

  Cameron had seemed more subdued in her e-mail. Obviously, I remembered her going on about the Duraflame logs on the Fourth of July, but I had always attributed those nerves to her surprise at seeing Seth.

  Now I had to wonder if I was the one who made her nervous.

  As we entered her bedroom, I braced myself. I had this idea that Cameron’s room might be full of Seth-detritus, like maybe he kept extra flannel shirts or bandannas hanging from a hook on the back of her door.

  He didn’t. The room was free of any evidence that Cameron had dated my boyfriend, except for one strip of pictures—I recognized the black-and-white, high-contrast style of the local arcade’s photo booth—stuck to her mirror. The pictures featured a younger, shorter-haired Seth kissing a giggling Cameron on her perfectly smooth cheek.

  She noticed me staring, but made no apologies as she perched on her bed and sipped her lemonade. “So, the girl from the magazine should call any minute. I don’t know if you’re the anxious type, but she told me it would be really relaxed. They’re just going to ask us questions about what it was like to accidentally star in a viral video. They’re looking for candor, I think. Honesty. But you can say as much or as little as you want.”

  “Honesty?” I echoed.

  “Yeah. It won’t be like when what’s-her-face from the Steeds County News made you out to be such a—” Cameron stopped herself. “Sorry. It’s just, she made a lot of assumptions.”

  “Agreed,” I said. And I would have assured her that she didn’t need to be sorry—I knew exactly what she’d meant; on air, Kristy Summers had reduced me to a small town teenage saint—but being in Cameron’s bedroom unnerved me, for some reason. I kept expecting her to invoke her own heart attack, to thank me for saving her life or to demand an apology for how I’d handled myself in the aftermath. But the confrontation never came.

  Apparently, Cameron was saving her story for the press.

  In another second the phone was ringing. Cameron laid her cell on the bed between us and enabled speakerphone. She was right, it turned out; the interview was nothing like the ones I’d done before. The girl from Under Your Breath introduced herself as Lila and sounded only a few years older than we were. She actually listened to what we said, and asked follow-up questions in the manner of a person engaged in conversation—not just someone looking to confirm things of which she was already convinced.

  “So, tell us what it felt like when you first saw the video,” Lila prompted Cameron.

  Cameron took a breath. “It was really scary.”

  “Did you see the video the first time it aired on the local news?”

  “No, I was in surgery. I saw it the next morning, on YouTube.”

  “How many hits did it have by then?”

  “Just a few thousand. It was super shocking to see myself looking so . . .”

  “. . . Dead?” I ventured.

  Lila chuckled softly, but Cameron nodded at me. “Right, because before then I didn’t really understand how close I’d come to dying? Like, I don’t remember collapsing on the beach, or Audrey doing CPR, or even being conscious in the ambulance—which I guess I was, for a second. I just remember waking up in the hospital thinking I’d been in a car accident, or something.”

  “Was anyone with you when you woke up?” Lila asked.

  “My parents and my . . .” Cameron hesitated. “My ex-boyfriend.”

  “Wow, really?” Lila sounded all too eager for Cameron to elaborate.

  “Yeah, my ex-boyfriend . . . who happens to be Audrey’s current boyfriend.”

  “No way!”

  I cleared my throat and confirmed, “True story.”

  “So, this is way messier than anyone even realizes,” Lila posited.

  Cameron looked at me. With so much kindness it practically stung, she said, “Nah. We’re all friends.”

  After an obligatory murmur of support for our three-way friendship, Lila moved on. “So, Cameron, this is the first time you’ve spoken publicly about your heart attack, correct?”

  “Yup,” Cameron said.

  “But, Audrey, you’ve agreed to lots of interviews?”

  “A few.” My gaze was fixed on the paisley print of Cameron’s bedspread.

  “And Cameron, how did it make you feel when Audrey answered questions without your input?”

  “How did I feel?” Cameron repeated.

  Lila rattled off a list of possibilities. “Used? Confused? Angry?”

  My cheeks burned. Somehow, a stranger had thought of the one question I most wanted to ask Cameron myself.

  “Oh, I don’t know.” Cameron spoke quickly, dismissively. “I guess it made me feel like something sort of traumatizing had happened to both of us, and like Audrey didn’t actually have any control over how many people saw that video. No more control than I had. And like, even though the video’s awful and embarrassing—and of course I wish I could erase it
from the Internet, and from my mind—a viral video is still a pretty fair price to pay for my . . . life?”

  Our eyes met, and we grinned at the absurdity of the question, at the absurdity of the last two months. We had been famous for a single summer. By this time next year, no one outside of our small town would remember our names.

  I knew Cameron must have, on some level, resented me for going on the news, guaranteeing extra airtime for a video she wished had never been filmed. Still, I was glad that my own selfishness wasn’t the part of the story she felt compelled to tell.

  Toward the end of the interview, Lila asked us how our respective lives would change, come September. I kept my answer vague, reporting that I was planning to stay in Crescent Bay for the time being, to continue working at the nursing home and save some money. I fully expected Cameron to say that she, too, would be hanging around. She had already talked about the anxiety that had plagued her just after her heart attack, admitting to the weeks she’d spent immersed in reruns of The Bachelor and hardly ever leaving her house. But now, Cameron revealed that she was sticking with her original plan to go to UCLA and share an apartment with her favorite cousins. The three of them were already making plans to decorate the place. Cameron wanted to string white Christmas lights across every doorframe.

  Before letting us go, Lila thanked us for our time and promised to link us both to the article the moment it was published. With a sigh of relief, Cameron ended the call. Through her window—the pane of which was half covered in printed selfies of Cameron and her multitude of friends—I could just barely see the ocean foaming, lapping at the sand.

  Cameron Suzuki was leaving. It was possible that she was braver than me.

  “You know who else is going to UCLA?” I asked her.

  She smiled and squirmed. “Yes.”

  “Are you still interested?”

  “In Elliot? Yes.”

  “Want me to tell him?”

  Cameron considered the offer, but shook her head. “I’ll tell him myself.” Then, pushing on my knee, she said, “Why aren’t you going to Whedon? It’s such a good school!”

  “For a lot of people, maybe. But not for me.”

  “You know, you’ve got Seth thinking you’re a flight risk.”

  I blinked, unable to imagine Seth talking about me behind my back. He never breathed a derogatory word about anyone, not even the anonymous driver of the BMW who had aggressively tailgated us for twenty miles on the 101 last week. “What a dick,” I’d said, and Seth had replied so charitably, “Maybe his wife’s in labor.”

  “He said that?” I asked Cameron.

  “He didn’t use those exact words, but it’s obvious he’s worried about losing you.”

  “Not happening,” I said. She appeared unconvinced. Either because Cameron had employed that therapist’s trick of saying nothing—giving me no choice but to fill the silence—or because it seemed, somehow, like she might be able to fix this tightness in my chest, the desperation I felt whenever I caught sight of the waves crashing outside her window, I kept talking. “Besides, even if I was a flight risk, even if I left him behind, don’t you think he might be better off? I’m all reckless and impulsive, and Seth is never impulsive.”

  Cameron agreed. “He can’t even decide what to order at a restaurant before the place shuts down for the night.”

  Seth and I had never been to a restaurant together. Nothing was ever open during the hours we were hungry. “He’s happy here, and I’m not. Maybe if I stay we’ll just end up hating each other.”

  “Seth could never hate you,” Cameron said. “Trust me.”

  “I’m pretty sure he’s hated me before.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I know he gave you a hard time about the Steeds County News. I’m sorry. Seth can be sort of judgmental. He has certain convictions and he gets, like, majorly disappointed when the people he loves don’t automatically share them. It’s not really fair.”

  Our conversation was slipping into dangerous territory. Judgmental was not a term you would use to describe Seth O’Malley unless you knew him extremely well. His judgments were sneaky, subtle, hidden behind wide smiles and buried within bear hugs.

  Still, I loved him for believing in a world where a girl could suffer a dramatic coronary event at the age of eighteen and no bystander would assume it was his story to break. No one would sit at home asking who was hotter—the almost-dead girl versus the girl performing CPR—or trying to determine whether it was even plausible, that a young woman’s heart had stopped beating and another equally young woman had known what to do about it. Concluding no, it was too far-fetched. We had staged it for the attention.

  Seth believed in a world where we got to choose how much of ourselves to share, and I couldn’t hold that against him.

  “Nah,” I told Cameron, pleased to be an authority on the subject of Seth O’Malley. “He’s not judgmental. He’s just old-fashioned.”

  * * *

  * * *

  I was still parked outside of the Suzukis’ house, watching the sun melt into the ocean as I dialed Seth’s number. For once, his phone wasn’t dead or missing. He answered on the first ring. Because Seth’s caller ID was nonfunctional, I always savored the moment just after he realized it was me. I said hi, and a smile tore through his voice. “Audrey Nelson. Where are you?”

  “Just leaving Cameron’s.”

  “How was the interview thing?”

  “Fine. I let her take most of the questions.”

  Seth didn’t respond, but his breathing was measured, relaxed. Some static disrupted the silence, a hazard of living so far from any major city. I was always surprised when I used my phone on vacation and the line was crystal clear.

  “Will you take a trip with me, someday?” I asked him.

  “Like to San Francisco?”

  “Like to Paris. Or Berlin. Or Shanghai.”

  Seth hesitated. “Shanghai. That’s a long flight.”

  “We’ll sleep through most of it.”

  “I think I might be scared of flying.”

  I laughed at him. “Supposedly it’s one of the safest things you can do. Safer than whatever you’re doing right now.” I paused. “What are you doing right now?”

  His sigh was so deep, I imagined his chest rising and falling. “I am sitting behind the wheel of my Jeep, staring at the entrance to Dot’s Tavern.”

  “Um, why?”

  “Because my dad has been inside for the last three hours. He already has two DUIs on his record and a suspended license—none of which will stop him from attempting to drive himself home tonight, which is why I’m sitting here, like a dog, waiting for the door to swing open and for Steve O’Malley to stumble out.”

  I had told Seth about my mother’s affair. I had waved my phone in his face, begging him to bear witness to the mortifying details she’d published to the Internet. Once, I had even subjected him to a full-blown Nelson family crisis, performed in the overcrowded venue of our kitchen. But I’d never really asked him about his dad’s drinking. Had I assumed he didn’t want to talk about it? And was there any truth to that assumption? It wasn’t like Seth had shied away from Tamora’s demand that he spill his life story. Nor had he seemed at all reluctant to introduce me to his father, that first time in July, before we disappeared inside Seth’s bedroom.

  Maybe I had never asked because I didn’t want to know. Maybe it was too hard for me to acknowledge the validity of all the things tying Seth to Crescent Bay.

  “Do you want company?” I asked him.

  “Nah,” he said. “You shouldn’t spend your night staking out Dot’s Tavern.”

  Neither should you, I wanted to say.

  “Go home,” he told me.

  “What will I do at home?”

  “Sleep. Eat. Pick a fight with your little sister.”

  He was teasing me,
and I let him get away with it. We said good night and I love you and see you tomorrow. Neither of us mentioned Shanghai or Berlin, the long-haul flights we would or wouldn’t take.

  I let him get away with that, too.

  THIRTY-ONE

  The next night, I was trying to get ready for Tamora’s housewarming party while my little sister soaked in the tub. She had dropped an aggressively scented bath bomb into the water and now the room smelled like a cloying combination of roses and cake. Having already applied concealer and blush, I was sharpening an eyeliner pencil. It was more of an effort than I’d made on prom night, or maybe ever, but I was nervous. Expecting to spend an inconsequential evening with my siblings, my best friends, my separated parents, Seth O’Malley, Tamora Sinclair, and Jackson Moon seemed akin to casually counting on a miracle.

  “Hey, Audrey?” Behind the shower curtain, Rosie sounded forlorn. I could hear her idly splashing at the water, reminding me of all the baths we’d shared as little kids.

  “Yeah?”

  “If Mom and Dad break up for real, who do you think gets me?”

  I smiled, appreciating the way she seemed to consider herself the prize. “I don’t know, Ro. Who would you rather live with?”

  “I don’t want to live alone with either one of them. Think about it. Either I’ll have to survive on instant noodles with Dad or, like, spend my entire high school career fighting with Mom about why I can’t just throw on a turtleneck and call it a day.”

  “High school is not a career. You don’t get a salary, and you have to carry a large plastic spoon to the bathroom.”

  “Um, what?”

  “It’s the hall pass.” Having smudged the liner across my left eyelid, I was tasked with making my right eye match.

  “Will you live with me?” Rosie asked.

  I froze. It had only ever dimly occurred to me that, if Mom and Dad divorced, I would be faced with the same choice as Rosie: Professor Turtleneck versus Professor Instant Noodles.