Since You've Been Gone

13 THE BACKLESS DRESS. AND SOMEWHERE TO WEAR IT

“Hello?” I answered my phone without opening my eyes. It was two days after we’d gone skinny-dipping, and far too early to be awake if I wasn’t going to be out running.  And since Frank had gone camping with Collins, I wasn’t running—which meant I should still be sleeping.

“Morning,” Frank said, far too cheerful in the morning as usual, and I rolled onto my side, eyes still closed, holding my phone up to my ear.

“Hey,” I said, smiling. “How’s the camping trip?”

“Uh,” Frank said. “Have you looked outside yet?” I suddenly became aware of a steady, rhythmic sound hitting the window and roof. I opened my eyes and pushed my bedroom curtains aside. The sky was gray and there was rain beating down against my window.

“Oh,” I said, leaning back against my pillows. “So I take it the camping trip is off?” I asked.

“Off,” Frank confirmed. “And Collins is really upset about it, for some reason.”

“Well,” I said, glancing out to the rain again. Even if they put it off for a day, I had a feeling the ground might be too wet to camp successfully. “Maybe you guys can reschedule?”

“I was thinking the same thing,” he said, and even though I couldn’t see him, I was pretty sure he was smiling. “Are you busy tonight?”

“No,” I said slowly, not sure what I would be letting myself in for by admitting this. “Why?”

“I’m going to text you an address,” he said. “And see if Dawn’s free too.”

“Okay,” I said, and waited for some more information, but apparently none was going to be forthcoming. “What is this?” I finally asked.

“You’ll see,” he said, and he was definitely smiling now, I was sure of it. “Be there at nine. And you might want to bring a sleeping bag.”

“You’re sleeping over at Dawn’s again?” my mother asked, blinking at me. She and my father both had the bleary-eyed look of people who had spent too much time in front of their computer screens.

“Yeah,” I said, trying to tell myself that this was only a slight tweaking of the facts. I still didn’t even know what Frank had invited me to, but like the night of the wedding and skinny-dipping, I knew that telling my mother I had a sleepover would at least buy me a late night out, no questions asked. Or so I had thought. “Is that okay?”

“Fine with me,” my dad said, pushing his glasses up on top of his head and rubbing the bridge of his nose. “Just make sure you have her over here too, to thank her. Okay?”

I nodded, thrilled that this had been so easy. “Sure,” I said. “Great.”

I started to go when I realized my mother was still looking at me, her head tilted slightly to the side. “When’s Sloane back, Em?”

“Oh,” I said, surprised by the question. “I—I’m not exactly sure.”

“Sloane,” my dad said, leaning back in his chair and shaking his head. “Is she doing okay?”

I looked at him, completely confused by this. “Why wouldn’t she be?”

“She just always seemed a little . . . lost to me,” he said. I was about to take a breath, try and refute this, since it was the opposite of everything I’d ever thought about her, but my dad was putting his glasses back on and squinting at the computer. “Do we really have to have the death scene with the pigeon?” he asked with a sigh.

“You know we do,” my mother said, shaking her head and leaning closer to her own monitor. “I’m as happy about it as you are.”

Normally, I stayed out of my parents’ writing process. They either told me far more than I wanted to know, or got defensive if I asked the simplest questions. But I was not about to let this one slide. “Pigeon?”

My dad was already typing with one hand, and used the other one to point at my mom. “As Tesla was dying,” she started.

“In a hotel room,” my dad interrupted. “Can you think of anything sadder?”

My mom went on. “As he was dying, he kept telling people that he was in love with a pigeon outside his window.”

I just stared at them. “A pigeon.”

She nodded. “He said it was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. That it could see into his soul. That it was special.” She started to type again as well, and I knew that I could go now, having secured my permission to go, and that my parents were a few seconds away from not even being able to tell if I was still in the room. But I didn’t think I could leave it like that. “And?” I asked. “Was it? Special, I mean?”

My mother glanced over at me and gave me a sad smile. “No,” she said. “It was just a pigeon.” They both started typing again, their keyboards making a kind of music together. I listened for just a moment before I backed out of the dining room and closed the door quietly behind me.

“Any idea what this is about?” Dawn asked me as we both got out of our cars and walked toward the front door. I had a sleeping bag rolled under my arm, and I saw that Dawn did as well—and that she’d also been smart enough to bring along a pillow, which I now realized I’d forgotten. It had stopped raining an hour or so before, but everything was still chilly and damp, and there was the feeling in the air like the rain could start up again at any moment.

“None,” I said. Frank had texted me an address that hadn’t meant anything to me, but as soon as I’d pulled into the driveway, I’d recognized it. It was the spec house, the one that was sitting empty, the one we’d passed while running.

Frank pulled open the door before we’d even had the chance to knock, and stood on the threshold, smiling at us. “Hey,” he said, holding the door open. “Welcome to indoor camping.”

“Indoor what?” Dawn asked as we stepped inside. I immediately took off my flip-flops and put them next to Frank and Collins’s shoes, and Dawn followed my lead. The walls of the foyer were bright white and the wooden floors were pristine, and the last thing I wanted to do was to track mud all over the place.

“Indoor camping,” Frank repeated. He gave me a look. “Someone once told me that in a well-ordered universe it’s the only way to camp.” He smiled and then led us into the main room, and I saw what he meant. The room—the whole house—was totally empty, no furniture anywhere, not a single decoration or knickknack cluttering up the place. Except, that is, for two round camping tents that had been erected in the middle of the room. There was an entire camp set up in the empty room, including folding chairs and a Coleman lantern. “It seemed like the next best thing.”

“And plus, no bugs,” Dawn said. She rolled out her sleeping bag next to one of the tents. “This is awesome.”

“Is it okay we’re here?” I asked Frank in a low voice.

He shrugged. “It’s not like anyone’s bought it,” he said, a bitter note in his voice that I hated to hear. “So as long as we don’t wreck the place, I think it’ll be fine.”

Since there was no electricity—or any lights or appliances that ran on electricity—it was actually more like real camping than I’d been anticipating. When it got dark outside, it got dark inside the house as well, the only light coming from the flickering lantern we’d set up in the center of the “camp.”

Collins, for some reason, had been withdrawn all night, not really participating or hanging out with us, and he’d retired to his tent pretty early and zipped the flap closed. I could see that Dawn looked hurt by this, but kept up a brave face anyway, trying her best to join in when Frank decided we should tell ghost stories, despite the fact that all she could seem to contribute was a recap of the last slasher film she’d seen. She decided to call it a night pretty soon after that, moving her sleeping bag so that it was next to Collins’s tent, and zipping it up around her shoulders.

And then it was just me and Frank and a flickering lantern throwing huge shadows against the unadorned white walls. He headed into his round orange tent, and I spread out my sleeping bag on the floor, now really regretting not bringing a pillow along with me. I had balled my sweatshirt up under my head, and was trying to find a place where my face wasn’t hitting the zipper, when Frank stuck his head out of his tent.

“Night, Emily,” he called, reaching over to turn off the lantern.

“Night,” I called back, giving him a smile and trying not to wince as some of my hair got caught in the zipper.

“What are you doing?” he asked, keeping his voice low.

“Nothing,” I said, a little defensively. “Just . . . you know, sleeping.”

“Where’s your pillow?” he asked. There was a loud sigh and the sound of someone turning over in Collins’s tent, and Frank glanced over at it, then walked closer to me, kneeling down in front of my sleeping bag. “Where’s your pillow?” he asked, more softly.

The light from the lantern was playing over his features, lighting them up and then throwing them into darkness again. I registered that he was now dressed for bed, wearing a light gray T-shirt that looked soft and a pair of long shorts. Since I hadn’t known I’d be staying over—which I really should have, given the fact he’d told me to bring a sleeping bag—I was still in the T-shirt and leggings I’d come in, which happily could double as sleep clothes. But I’d wriggled my way out of my bra under the sleeping bag, and so made sure to keep holding the sleeping bag up high as Frank knelt next to me.

“I didn’t bring one,” I said, with a shrug. “But I’m fine. I have a sweatshirt. And it’s just as good.”

“It’s not,” Frank said, a note of finality in his voice, and I suddenly wondered if he wanted me to go home. “It’s ridiculous to sleep like that all night.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling more disappointed by this thought than I should have been. But it was like my heart just plunged into the bottom of my sleeping bag. “Well. I can go, then, I guess.”

Frank smiled and shook his head. “Don’t be stupid,” he said. “Come share mine. It’s big enough for two.”

“But—” I started, but Frank had already taken the lantern with him and headed for his tent. “Frank!” I shout-whispered, but a second later, the light from the lantern went out. Collins sighed loudly from his tent again, and I realized I had limited options. I could stay out here, using my very uncomfortable sweatshirt as a pillow, and probably wake up with a zipper scar across my face that would make me look like a pirate; or I could share Frank’s tent with him. Would it seem weird if I didn’t?

And even though Sleep next to Frank Porter hadn’t been on Sloane’s list, the thought of it still felt incredibly scary. But there was no other real option, unless I wanted to draw attention to the fact that I thought it might mean something when he obviously didn’t. And the fact was, I wanted to. I didn’t know what that meant, and didn’t really want to think about what it meant just now. I spent a futile few minutes trying to get my bra back on in the dark, then gave up and just stuffed it into the bottom of my sleeping bag, then crawled out of it and walked over to Frank’s tent, pulling my sleeping bag behind me.

The flap was half down and I unzipped it all the way. My eyes had adjusted to the dark enough that I could see Frank sit up and smile at me. “Hey,” he said, his voice quiet but suddenly seeming loud in this small, enclosed space.

“Hi,” I murmured as I pulled my sleeping bag inside.  Though I couldn’t see much, the interior of the tent seemed smaller than it had from the outside. But it was a two-person tent, and Frank’s sleeping bag was on one side that seemed demarcated by the seam that ran over the top. I turned away from him as I got into the sleeping bag, then pulled it up in front of me.

“See?” Frank asked, moving his pillow so that it was right in the center of the seam, and between our two sleeping bags. “More than enough room. Much better than a sweatshirt.”

I lay down slowly, mostly sticking to my edge of the pillow—though it did actually seem to be an extra wide one, and it wasn’t like Frank and I were forced to lie right next to each other.

I was aware of how quiet it was in the tent—just the sound of Frank’s breathing and the occasional crinkle of one of our sleeping bags and, from the roof far above, the sound of the rain that must have started up again. I felt my eyes start to get heavy, and could hear that Frank’s breathing was growing slow and even. And though I couldn’t see details—he was just a nearby shape in the dark—I knew I could have reached out and touched his face without extending my arm. “Good night,” I whispered into the darkness.

“Night, Em,” Frank said, his voice slow and peaceful, like he could drop off at any moment and not be sure if this conversation had just been part of his dream.

I curled up on my side, facing him, and felt myself relax into the pillow we were sharing. And before I dropped off to sleep myself, I registered that our breath was now rising and falling together.

Before I was even fully awake, I could sense that something was different. I opened my eyes and realized after a second that I wasn’t in my bed at home. I realized another second later that I was lying in a tent with Frank, and that his arm was around my shoulders.

I felt myself freeze as I tried to assess the sleeping arrangement we had moved into sometime during the night. I was lying on my side, and so was Frank, both of us facing the same way. We were still in our respective sleeping bags, but we had moved nearer during the night, and we were now lying close together, fitted next to each other like two spoons. Our heads were close on the pillow, and Frank’s arm was over my shoulders and resting by my elbow.

I didn’t move for what felt like at least a minute or two, reminding myself to keep breathing in and out. When I’d gotten the hang of respiring again, I turned, a millimeter at a time, pausing every time it seemed like there was a hitch in Frank’s breath, until I was lying on my other side, and we were facing each other. The light was cool—it must have been early still—but I could see Frank perfectly. He had a crease running down the side of his face and his normally neat hair was sticking up.

And as I lay there next to him, his arm still around me, as we shared a pillow, I realized that I liked him.

Of course, I liked him as a friend. But this was different. This was more than that. This was wanting to reach over and touch his cheek, lightly, so as not to wake him. This was what had been bouncing around somewhere in my mind ever since the night of his birthday when I’d looked at him just a little too long in the moonlight. It was what I’d felt when we’d danced at the wedding. It was why I’d felt so awkward, going to pick up Lissa. It was why I wanted to stay exactly where I was, but why I also knew I needed to go.

I closed my eyes again for just a minute, even though I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get back to sleep, or stop these revelations from crashing down on me. It was like hitting the snooze button on your alarm—your sleep in that window is never very good, since you know it’s borrowed time, and that it will be over all too soon.

I let myself look at him a moment longer, knowing I’d never be this close to him again, then feeling sick when I wondered if he and Lissa had ever shared this tent, too. And, really, what was I doing there? I needed to leave.

I eased myself out from under Frank’s arm and then out of my sleeping bag. I didn’t want to wake him, didn’t want to have an awkward conversation. I just left my sleeping bag where it was rather than deal with how disruptive it would be to try and get it out of the tent. I unzipped the flap as slowly as possible, checking in with Frank to make sure this wasn’t waking him, then crawled out of it and zipped it back up. I tiptoed across the floor, shook out my sweatshirt, and then pulled it on. It was chilly outside the tent, in an unheated house with no rugs, and I rubbed my hands together and turned back to the tent as I looked around for my purse.

I stopped short when I realized Collins was awake, sitting at the edge of his tent flap, looking out across the room. For just a moment, it was like I could picture him in the woods somewhere, in that same position, looking out to a sunrise and not just a blank wall. He glanced over at me, and I felt even colder as I saw his expression. I knew then that he’d seen me come out of Frank’s tent. Probably he assumed the worst, even though nothing had happened.

I took a breath, to try and whisper-explain myself, but Collins just looked away from me, moved back into his tent, and zipped himself in without a word.

Hey, you okay?

We’re not running AGAIN? Finally ready to admit my superiority?

Breakfast? Meet you at the diner?

Em, what’s going on?

Are you still coming tonight?

In the three days that had passed since the indoor camping, I’d been avoiding Frank. I was still trying to get my head around the fact that I liked him as more than a friend.  And I had a feeling that if we were on a long run together, some or all of this would come pouring out, probably in an incredibly embarrassing way. So for the moment, I was being a coward, texting him vague replies about being sick and having twisted my ankle and being busy with Paradise. The last text I’d gotten from him, though, I couldn’t ignore. I’d committed to the gala, I’d spent a lot of money on a dress, I needed to cross it off the list, and I was going to go. He needed me for support and as his friend; I knew I had to be there for him.

Still coming. Text me the address?

But getting ready for it didn’t feel like the fun, exciting time that I’d been imagining. I couldn’t help but think back to the last time Sloane and I had gotten ready for an event. We’d always tried to get ready together, even if only one of us was going out. It was just more fun to have someone there, helping with makeup, strategizing about the night, weighing in with wardrobe decisions. The last time we’d done this had been for junior prom, in her room, since her parents were out of town. She had worn an amazing vintage dress from Twice, a long beaded caftan, and she had done her makeup sixties-style, all cat eye and false lashes, but had kept her hair modern and flowing down her back.

“Finishing touch,” she’d said when we were coiffed and made up and ready to go. She’d lifted the throw rug in her bedroom and pressed down on the loose floorboard. I’d seen her do this before; it was where she kept her precious things, the things she didn’t want to get lost or go missing, two things that seemed to happen with regularity around her house. She reached down into the space and pulled up a tiny bottle of perfume and dabbed it on her wrists and throat. “Milly would use up the whole bottle otherwise,” she said, offering it to me as I shook my head. “And this stuff’s expensive. It was a gift from my aunt.” She put it back under the floorboard, and smoothed down the rug. Then she smiled at me and said what she always did before we went out. “Let’s go have the best night ever.”

I was thinking about this as I spritzed on some perfume myself. I capped the bottle and looked at my reflection in the mirror. The backless dress was just as striking as it had been all those times I’d tried it on at the store, but I wasn’t sure I liked it now. I wanted Frank to notice me in it, but at the same time, that felt like the last thing I should want.

“Okay,” I said, as I looked in the mirror, pulling my shoulders back and making myself say it since Sloane wasn’t here to. “Go have the best night ever.”

I headed down the stairs carefully, holding up the hem of my dress, calling good-bye to my parents. I’d told them about the gala, and my mother had offered to loan me her beaded clutch I’d already taken for the wedding. I’d thanked her, deciding she didn’t need to know I’d already used it once this summer.

I was heading to my car when I realized I still hadn’t gotten the address. I pulled out my phone, and saw I had a text from Frank that I must have missed when I was in the shower.

21 Randolph Farms Lane, see you soon!

I just stared at it for a moment, even checking my text log, but there was no other texts from him saying that he was kidding, or that he’d gotten the address wrong. But there was nothing else. Which meant, I realized as I pulled open the driver’s side door, that I was going to a party tonight at Sloane’s house.

APRIL

Three months earlier

“Another one?” Sloane raised an eyebrow at me.

Despite the fact that my eyes were starting to burn, I nodded immediately. “Let’s do it.” We were five hours into a marathon of Psychic Vet Tech, a show that neither of us had paid attention to when it had first come on this year, but that we’d started binge-watching that night, thinking it would be fun to mock it, only to find ourselves getting drawn in very quickly. I was sleeping over at Sloane’s, which was always much more fun than sleeping over at my house. When we slept over at mine, my mother was always around, wanting to know if we needed anything, checking up on us. When I slept over at Sloane’s, most of the time, her parents weren’t even there, and tonight was no exception. Milly and Anderson were out for the night—or maybe the weekend, Sloane hadn’t been sure—and Sloane had taken over as hostess, getting us both Diet Cokes with lemon slices in wine glasses, and cooking dinner for us in the kitchen.

“It’s my specialty,” she said, tasting something from one of the pots on the stove, frowning, and then adding more pepper. “And I mean that literally. It’s the one and only thing I can make. It’s my penne arrabbiata. But we didn’t have any penne. So it’s spaghetti arrabbiata.”

“How did you learn to make this?” I asked, leaning against the kitchen counter, sipping my Diet Coke. I knew I could have probably offered to help, but there was something about the whole situation that felt so glamorous—so adult—that I just wanted to take it in.

Sloane frowned down at the piece of paper she was working from and pulled the pencil out of her hair, which fell down around her shoulders. She pushed it impatiently out of her face and scribbled something on the paper, then twisted her hair up again and stuck the pencil through it. “The arrabbiata?” she asked. “My aunt taught me. And I know I took a picture of her recipe, but I didn’t write it down. And now I can’t find what camera it was on, so I’m just trying to remember . . .” She stirred something that was bubbling on the back burner. “So this might be terrible,” she said, not sounding too bothered by this. “Just warning you.”

But the pasta had been delicious, and we’d eaten it in Anderson’s study, both of us perched on the leather couches with our plates, getting more and more involved with Willa, the heroine, who worked at an animal clinic and could communicate with the animals in her care, using their knowledge to help her solve crimes.

“Awesome,” Sloane said now, as she stretched. “I think I’ve got two more in me tonight, how about you?”

“Absolutely,” I said, though I had a feeling we were going to end up watching the whole first season and falling asleep sometime when the sun started to rise. We’d done it before. I stood up and gathered the plates, noticing that both our glasses were empty. “You want a refill?”

“Sure,” she said, as she curled up on the couch, cuing up the next episode. “Or why don’t you grab the wine that’s in the fridge?”

“Okay,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound thrown by this. Sloane always insisted her parents didn’t care if we drank—even if they were home—but it was so different from how I’d grown up, I still had trouble getting my head around it.

I walked across the downstairs to the kitchen, a little slower than I needed to, trying to take it all in. Sloane’s house couldn’t have been more different from mine, with its antiques and rugs and oil paintings with individual lights. I crossed into the kitchen without turning on the light, and put the plates in the sink. Unlike my house, where the kitchen was the hub and everyone gathered there, it seemed mostly unused in Sloane’s house. The first time I’d opened her refrigerator, I’d been shocked to see there were only some takeout containers, a bottle of champagne, and a few ketchup packets. I honestly hadn’t known that it was possible to have a refrigerator without a bottle of ketchup in it. I pulled open the fridge and reached for the bottle of white wine.

“Having a nice time?” I whirled around, my heart hammering, and saw Milly sitting at the kitchen table in the dark, a glass of red wine in her hand. I hadn’t known that Sloane’s parents had come back but realized they had, as usual, come back from someplace fancy—Milly was wearing a floor-length beaded dress that pooled at her bare feet.

“Oh,” I said. I looked down at the bottle of wine I was holding in my hand and realized how this must look. It was one thing for Sloane to tell me her parents were fine with us drinking; it was quite another for her mom to catch me taking her chardonnay. “Yeah. Um . . .”

“Close the door, would you, dear?” Milly asked, holding her hand up to block the weak refrigerator light. I closed it, and the kitchen fell into darkness again.

“Um,” I said, trying to decide what I should do. Hide the wine? Put it back? Pretend like I was cool with this too? “Thanks so much for letting me stay over.”

“Of course, Amanda,” she said, giving me a smile as she took a sip. “It’s our pleasure.”

I just kept the smile on my face, not sure if I should correct an adult, Sloane’s mother, about this. It seemed less embarrassing for both of us if I just let it slide. But there must have been something in my expression, even in the darkness, that gave it away, because Milly lowered her glass and squinted at me. “Not Amanda,” she said, shaking her head. “My goodness, where is my mind?”

“It’s Emily,” I said, with a laugh I hoped didn’t sound too forced.

“Yes, of course,” Milly said, with a laugh of her own. “I’d forget my own head if it wasn’t attached to my neck.” I nodded at that, and was about to say something else on some safe topic, like the weather, when Milly went on, thoughtfully, “No, Amanda was Sloane’s best friend in Palm Beach.”

She sipped her wine again, like nothing was wrong, and I tried not to let it show just how shocked I was. Sloane had never mentioned an Amanda.

“And then it was . . . What was that girl’s name in South Carolina?” Milly asked, drumming her nails on the table, now seeming to be talking more to herself than to me. “When we were with my sister Laney . . .” I realized, all at once, that this was definitely not the first drink she’d had tonight. There was a looseness in her voice that I wasn’t used to hearing, and it made me feel nervous. Between that and the fact that I was holding a bottle of wine in front of an adult who wasn’t lecturing me, it suddenly felt like there was nobody in charge. “Charlotte!” Milly said triumphantly, taking a sip of her wine.

I gave her a weak laugh in return, though my head was spinning. And it hit me that I probably couldn’t ask Sloane, demand she tell me about other friends she had. Or if I did, she would probably just tell me about them, girls I’d never thought to inquire after since I’d never until this moment imagined they existed. I knew, rationally, that this was no big deal and I was getting bothered by nothing. But still.

“Em!” I turned in the direction of Sloane’s voice, and realized she was probably wondering what had happened to me. “Come on! This next episode is called ‘The Diamond and the Dachshund,’ so you know it’s going to be amazing.”

“I should . . . ,” I said, taking a step toward the door.

“Of course,” Milly said, giving me a vague smile. She wasn’t demanding her wine back, so I just took it with me. “So nice to see you again, dear.”

I made myself smile back at her. “You too.” I couldn’t have said why, but I had the feeling that she had already forgotten my name. I walked straight back into the library, not stopping to look around this time, and took my spot next to Sloane on the couch.

“Finally,” she said, as she took the wine from me and poured us each a glass. “I was getting worried you’d gotten lost or something.”

I was on the verge of telling Sloane her parents were here, and her mother was in the kitchen, when I realized I had no idea how long they’d been back for. But the fact was, they hadn’t come in to say hi to their daughter. And suddenly, I missed my mother, her constant popping in whenever I had a sleepover, her presence that I knew I could depend on, no matter what. “Just moving slowly,” I said, as I grabbed the remote and pointed it at the TV, making myself smile at her. “I ate too much pasta. Ready?”

Sloane clapped her hands together and grinned at me. “Always.”