Page 54 of All of You
“Well, maybe we should have a weekly date? You can ask me whatever you want and we can just, try?” he suggests.
I pull my bottom lip between my teeth. Touched at the effort. The suggestion. “Yeah. We can do that.”
“It’s settled then. Do Tuesday evening’s work for you?”
I nod.
“Ok then. I’ll leave you to it. Night.” He stands in the door frame watching me.
“Goodnight,” I say.
He shuts the door quietly and I listen to his footsteps fade down the hall.
I move to the windowsill and stare out the window. I wonder how many times Mom stared out this window at this sameview growing up. Langdon’s iPod is at the other end of the seat and my mind wanders back to the Olivia playlist I discovered on it.
Really down in the dumps, sad, ugly cry songs. He never did answer me about it when I asked. I don’t think there are any Olivia’s in our class but if not an ex-girlfriend, then who was she and why is the list so sad? A tiny seed of jealousy at some girl I’ve never met pricks my belly.
The room is a mess. Piles of clothes—that need to be laundered—cover the floor. There’s nick-nack junk strewn about most of the surfaces too. I sigh and decide it’s time to tidy up. I’ve let everything go lately. I start with the surfaces and move on to the clothes.
Under one of the piles is that spiral-bound notebook that says MATH on it in Mom’s handwriting. I crouch with it on the edge of the bed. Mom always said she was terrible at math. Why would she have kept this? The CD stops. I pop in a new one—another mix presumably created by my mom and press play. I flip open the notebook. The first page is notes from class.
I flip the page.
Journal of Jennifer Brickell
September 2003
A small gasp comes out of me. Mom kept a journal? I nearly laugh with delirium. All her poking fun at me about keepingone and here is proof that she did the same thing.
Journal of Jennifer Brickell
September 2003
I went to the beach today with friends. And Indian summer is what they call it. I was splashing in the ocean. The water was chilly and this guy I recognized from our school but didn’t know waded in near me, told me his name, and that I must be the most exciting woman on the beach.
I laughed and told him my name. He repeated it as if it were a prayer. Everyone else was sunning on their towels but I always wanted to be in and a part of the water anywhere we went.
He grinned and splashed me and I laughed and then he laughed. He had these eyes that smoldered—which sounds corny but I swear they actually did. And he didn’t look at anyone else. So many girls on the beach and he didn’t bother glancing at a single one. He just kept on smoldering atme.
It was disorienting. I had this intense feeling that my bikini was likely to whoosh off if he shot one more sultry look at me. He splashed me. I splashed him back. He told me jokes and pulled me close and Lord, I remember thinking how eager I was to give my heart and have my body touched by him as we were yanked around by the waves. It was the best day ever. He took my number before he left.
I hope he calls. I’ve been keeping my phone on me and charged at all times.
There are several pages torn from the notebook followed by two blank pages after the entry until the next one. I lie on my belly on the bed and read the next entry. Could this guy she met be my dad? Who was she at the beach with?
Journal of Jennifer Brickell
January 2004
I am in love and we are together! I can’t imagine life without him. My gawd, the things he does to me. Someday we’re going to leave this town and all the naysayers. Mom and Dad think he’s worthless. Comes from bad stock, whatever the hell that means.
They won’t even bother to get to know him. They know the family name and the reputation isn’t suitable for their daughter. Everyone’s sooo concerned about me. Have I lost my mind?
I quit the cheer squad and picked up a job at Jesse’s café after school. Terms like white trash and poor and no good are tossed around as if they make up someone’s character—their personality. Those only describe circumstances not substance, and he has all the substance in the world to offer.
If I can’t count on my parents, and his aren’t helpful at all, then we’ll make our own money to start our own life. Let them try to stop us. We lie under the stars at night in the back field where my parents don’t visit and talk about all the things we’ll have in life.
A little house on a lot of land somewhere. Babies. All the babies. We’ll be popular too, the kind of couple that other couples flock to and host dinners followed by lounging together in bed the next morning. Cheerleader and Soccer star marry and live happily ever after.
