Since You've Been Gone

4 HUG A JAMIE

I stood behind the counter of Paradise Ice Cream and looked longingly at the door. In the four days that I’d been working at the ice cream parlor, I’d had exactly five customers. And one of them was just a guy who wanted change for the parking meter. If Sloane had been there, and we’d been working together, it would have been awesome, and the lack of customers would have been the job’s biggest perk. But since it was just me, alone, all day, I found myself looking up hopefully whenever anyone walked by, crossing my fingers that they wanted some ice cream. But although people sometimes glanced in the window, they walked on, usually to the pizza parlor.

My customer-free and silent workplace wouldn’t have been so bad, except when I left my job I had to go home, where my phone was still silent and I had nobody to hang out with.

I hadn’t yet been able to cross anything else off the list, and two nights earlier, in a low moment, I’d taken a picture of it and e-mailed it to Frank’s school address. I’d regretted it as soon as the e-mail had gone through, but since I hadn’t heard anything from him, I figured that he was either not checking his school account over the summer, or that he’d forgotten all about our unexpected running conversation. Either way, I’d made no progress, and it was making me anxious.

Now, I looked away from the door and down at the napkin in front of me, where I’d compiled a list of all the Jamies from school I could think of. I didn’t know any of them well, and I honestly didn’t think I’d be capable of calling one of them up and asking if I could come to his house and hug him. I’d just remembered one more—I was pretty sure the guy who’d been in the mascot costume last year had been named Jamie—when the over-the-door bell jangled and a girl rushed into the shop.

I pushed the napkin to the side and tried to look professional. “Welcome to Paradise,” I said, smiling at her.

She froze in the doorway and I realized why she looked familiar—she was the girl who worked two doors down at Captain Pizza. “Hi,” she said in a shaky voice. I looked closer and realized that her face was blotchy and her eyes looked puffy. Aside from that, though, she was pretty—petite and curvy, with bright blond hair and bangs, and pale blue eyes that seemed to be about twice the size of normal people’s eyes. She ran a hand through her hair and took a step closer to the counter. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I actually don’t want any ice cream.” I sighed and nodded; at this point, I felt like this shouldn’t even have surprised me. She took a big, shaky breath. “I just needed to get out of there for a moment. And if I went to my car, everyone would be able to see . . .” Her face crumpled and she held her hand up to her eyes. “I’m sorry,” she said in a choked voice. “I’ll be gone in a second.”

“Um,” I said as I looked around, like one of the signs about handwashing and checking freezer temperatures would help me in this situation. I came out from behind the counter and twisted my hands together. “Are you okay?”

The girl nodded and gave me an incredibly bad version of a smile, one that turned wobbly and collapsed after a few seconds. “No,” she sobbed, starting to cry in earnest. I reached for one of the napkin holders on the counter and brought it over to her. She sank down onto one of the metal chairs and pressed a napkin to her face. “I just feel so stupid, you know. I should have seen it. It was right in front of my face. Like, literally. But my cousin Stephanie always said I was too trusting.”

“Should have seen what?” I asked, taking a step closer to her. I couldn’t decide if it would be rude or helpful to point out that, in the movies at least, people who were in emotional crises often got through it with some ice cream.

The girl wiped under her eyes, then blew her nose on the tissue and looked up at me. “That my boyfriend was cheating on me.”

“Oh god,” I said, pushing more napkins at her. “I’m so sorry—”

“With my best friend.”

“Oh,” I said, swallowing hard.

“And we all work together.” She pointed in the direction of the pizza parlor. “Next door.” Telling me all this information seemed to bring the gravity of the situation back again, and she burst into fresh tears.

“Um,” I said, taking a step closer to the table, “is there a possibility that maybe you just misunderstood? Maybe your best friend didn’t mean it, or maybe you saw something that wasn’t . . .” My voice trailed off. A memory, one I didn’t like to think about if I could avoid it, was suddenly intruding with full force—that night in May, Sam’s house, the look on Sloane’s face, the glass shattering at her feet.

“No,” the girl said, her voice choked, as she shook her head. “I was out on delivery, and the last two were right near each other, so I got back super early.” Her voice got quiet, and shaky. “And that’s when I saw Bryan and Mandy, making out by the employee cubbies.” She looked up at me and I saw her eyes were spilling over with tears. “That was our place. It was where we used to make out.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, handing over another stack of napkins, realizing that I might have to get her another dispenser soon.

“And so I said, ‘What is this supposed to mean?’ I really was maybe willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. I swear,” she said, pressing the napkin under her eyes again. “But then Bryan takes Mandy’s hand and tells me that we need to talk. Can you believe it?” She started crying again, and I reached over and tentatively patted her on the back.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I . . .” Something occurred to me, and I asked hopefully, “Your name isn’t Jamie, by any chance?” After all, I was halfway to hugging her already.

“No,” the girl said, straightening up. She pointed to her T-shirt, which was designed to look like a military uniform. On the shoulders, there were pizza toppings where medals would have gone—mushrooms and peppers and pepperoni slices. DAWN was printed on the shirt in military typeface, right over her heart. “Dawn Finley.”

“Emily,” I said. “Hughes.”

“Nice to meet you,” she said, giving me something that was closer to a real smile this time. “I’m really sorry about this,” she said, pushing herself up to standing and scooping up her crumpled tissues. “Thanks for listening.”

“Sure,” I said, standing as well. “Are you sure you don’t want any ice cream? On the house.” Technically, I wasn’t sure I was allowed to do this, but considering nobody had even come in to get any samples, I figured that a scoop or two wouldn’t necessarily be missed.

“No, thank you, though,” Dawn said. “Sorry again.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “Really.” Dawn gave me a half smile, then squared her shoulders and took a deep breath before pulling open the door and heading back toward the pizza parlor.

The bell chimed, then faded, and I was left alone again.  And as I walked back to stand behind the counter, I realized that the silence somehow felt louder than it had before.

The afternoon passed with glacial slowness. I cleaned and then re-cleaned the glass cases, then re-organized the ice cream in the walk-in freezer, first by flavor grouping, then alphabetically. I wasn’t in charge of locking up—that was Elise, the assistant manager, who came at closing every day. I had my eyes fixed on the back entrance, just waiting for Elise to show so that I could clock out and go home. I was trying not to think about the fact I had nothing to go home to, really, just parents who couldn’t be disturbed and a little brother probably lurking in a doorway and no life whatsoever. I just wanted to get out. I was looking so intently at the back door that I didn’t hear the bell jingle, and didn’t notice there was someone in front of me until they cleared their throat.

“Sorry,” I said, turning around quickly. Dawn was standing there, holding a pizza delivery carrier with a stack of tickets on top. “Oh, hi.” She looked slightly better than she had earlier in the day, but her eyes were still red-rimmed and puffy.

“Hey,” she said with an embarrassed smile. “I just wanted to thank you again, and apologize for earlier.”

“It’s really fine,” I assured her. To my surprise, I realized I wanted to know what had happened when she’d gone back to work, what Bryan and Mandy had done. But I didn’t actually know this girl, and now that she seemed embarrassed and slightly uncomfortable, I was starting to feel that way too.

“So if there’s anything I can do, let me know,” she said, shifting the carrier to her other hand, closer to the counter. “And I can get you a lunch special with my discount! Just come in any weekday, and . . .”

Dawn kept going, telling me about the pizza deals she could probably get for me, including a can of soda, my choice, but I was no longer hearing her. Instead, my eyes were fixed on the top delivery ticket. It was going to an address in Stanwich, to a Jamie Roarke.

I gasped. It felt like a sign. And if not a sign, at least an opportunity that I wasn’t about to pass up. “Actually,” I said, interrupting Dawn, “there is something you can do.” She raised her eyebrows, and I took a breath, my eyes still fixed on the name on the delivery slip. “Can I deliver pizzas with you?”

“And then Mandy started talking about how she felt like she never saw me anymore, and asked if I could get her a job at Captain Pizza too,” Dawn said as she barreled down the road. I nodded and gripped on to the side of the car, feeling my foot press down on a phantom brake. I wasn’t sure if Dawn was driving like this—fast, and a little distractedly—because she was reliving the Bryan and Mandy saga as she told me about it, or because she always drove like this, but either way, it was clear that we were definitely going to make Captain Pizza’s promised delivery window. “And so I put in a good word for her and she got a job as a hostess, and it was so great for a while, and she and Bryan really got along, and I just thought everything was perfect, you know? I didn’t even suspect anything else was going on.”

“But you had no way of knowing,” I said as Dawn screeched to a stop at a red, causing the figurines on her dashboard—including a shirtless male hula dancer who, I had learned, was named Stan—to bobble and shake. When I first asked to come along, I’d been surprised that she’d agreed so easily, but after I asked her where she went to school (Hartfield, going into senior year, like me) and she’d used the opportunity to fill me in on the drama, it was becoming clear to me that she’d just been glad to have someone to talk to, which I could more than understand.

“I know,” Dawn said, as she glanced down at the directions on her phone, then jolted the car forward as soon as the light turned green. “But I feel like I should have, you know? Everything was going just perfect, and I was sure it was going to be just the best summer ever. It’s like I jinxed it by believing that would happen.” She made a hard left, flicking on her blinker for a second almost as an afterthought, sending Stan’s hips swaying. “I just can’t believe I’ve lost both of them,” she said, shaking her head, still sounding a little dazed by this. “Like, in the same day. And all I want to do is talk to Mandy about this, but of course, I can’t. . . .” Her voice trailed off and she glanced over at me. “Do you know what I mean?”

“Yeah,” I said immediately, not even thinking about it first, just so glad to have someone verbalize what I’d been thinking for the last three weeks. “My best friend . . .” I hesitated. “She’s away for the summer,” I said, rationalizing, like I had with my mother, that this wasn’t even really a lie. “And we used to hang out or talk every day, so it’s just . . . hard to adjust to.”

“Yes,” Dawn said as she made a sharp right. She slowed slightly as she leaned forward, squinting at the numbers. “Why don’t you just call her, though?”

“Because,” I said, trying to think fast. “She’s . . . you know . . . camping.” Dawn glanced over at me, and I added, “In Europe.”

“Oh,” she said, looking impressed. “Really?”

“Yes,” I said, already regretting this and wishing I’d chosen almost anything else, since I knew nothing about camping. Or Europe.

“Where?” she asked, and I tried to think fast.

“In . . . Paris,” I said, wondering why I was continuing to do this, but realizing that it was probably too late to admit I’d made the whole thing up.

“I didn’t know there was camping in Paris,” Dawn said.

“Me neither,” I said honestly. “But that’s where she is,” I added, just hoping that Dawn wouldn’t ask any more questions, since I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep this up for much longer.

Dawn took a breath, like she was about to ask something else, but then slammed on the brakes and leaned over to my side of the car. “Does that say thirty-one?” I nodded and Dawn pulled into the driveway, narrowly avoiding hitting the house’s decorative mailbox. She put the car in park and then got out, tipping her seat forward so she could grab the carrier in the backseat. I got out as well, feeling my pulse start to pound in my throat. I’d been distracted on the ride over, both by Dawn’s story and her driving, but now the reason that I was here—to hug one of Captain Pizza’s customers—was unavoidable.

“So which house is this?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light and pleasantly curious. I knew she had four deliveries to make this round, but I had no idea where Jamie Roarke fell in that order.

Dawn picked up the ticket on top of the carrier and peered down at it. “Greg Milton,” she read, then groaned. “He always orders like four kinds of meat toppings. I can barely lift his pizzas, they’re so heavy. Did you want to come to the door?”

“No, that’s okay,” I said. I knew I was going to have to psych myself up to hug Jamie Roarke, whoever that was, and could use a moment of quiet. “I’ll just wait here.”

“Cool,” Dawn said, heading toward the house. “Be right back.”

As I watched Dawn walk up to the front door and ring the bell, I leaned back against her car, a green Volkswagen convertible with a triangular Captain Pizza car topper. But rather than being on the roof, where I’d always seen them on pizza delivery cars, this was on the trunk of the car, like a shark fin.

She was walking back toward the car only a few moments later, tucking some cash into the front pocket of her shorts, and I let out a breath as I pulled the passenger-side door open and got in the car. I told myself that it didn’t matter if Dawn thought I was weird, or if I scared this Jamie person, or if I would feel like I couldn’t go back to Captain Pizza for the rest of the summer. I had to do this.

“So is this the last delivery?” I asked, twenty minutes and two other Jamie-free deliveries later, hoping I didn’t sound as nervous as I felt as Dawn pulled down the driveway of a small, light-blue house.

“Yeah,” Dawn said, shooting me a sympathetic look. “Has this just been so boring for you? It’s for Jamie Roarke. She’s the nicest, and she has the cutest puggle . . .”

Dawn got out of the car, and, hoping it sounded somewhat natural and spontaneous, I unbuckled my seat belt and said, “I think I’ll come with you this time, if that’s okay.”

“Sure,” Dawn said as she reached into the back and grabbed the carrier. “Come on.”

I got out of the car, feeling my heart beating hard. I was grateful that this Jamie was a woman—it just seemed like it would make things easier. I followed behind Dawn, noticing for the first time that there was writing on the back of her shirt as well. Captain Pizza—We’re a MAJOR deal! was emblazoned across her shoulder blades. I stood next to Dawn on the mat as she rang the bell, which chimed Pachelbel’s canon. The door opened, and a woman who looked to be in her forties stood behind it, a dog peeking out from around her ankles.

“Hi,” she said, fumbling in her wallet for some bills. “Sorry—you always get here so fast, I’m never quite sorted.”

“No worries,” Dawn said as she slid the pizza out of the carrier and dropped the now-empty bag at her feet.

I just stared at Jamie Roarke, my pulse pounding, willing her to come out from behind the door. She was still half hidden behind it. What was I supposed to do, pull the door open and hug her? What if she thought I was attacking her or something?

“I could have sworn I picked up some ones yesterday,” she murmured as I swallowed hard and tried to get my courage up. I could do this. I could hug a total stranger. As though somehow sensing the direction my thoughts were going, the puggle at Jamie Roarke’s feet started growling. “Quiet,” she said as the dog bared his teeth—I was pretty sure—right at me. “Okay, got it,” she said, looking up at Dawn and smiling as she handed over some bills. Her eyes landed on me, standing there in what was clearly not a Captain Pizza uniform, and her smile faded.

“That’s Emily,” Dawn said as she pocketed the bills and handed Jamie Roarke her pie. “She’s just . . . observing.”

Jamie Roarke gave me a nod, and I knew it was my moment. I just had to do this. Who cared what this woman or Dawn thought? I just had to reach out and hug her. My opportunity was right in front of me. I tried to make myself do it, just take a step forward and give her a hug. But I couldn’t seem to move. I just stood there, frozen, my heart slamming against my chest while I watched my opportunity slip away as Jamie Roarke thanked Dawn and then closed the door.

“So that’s how it works,” Dawn said as she picked up the empty carrier. She looked over at me in Jamie Roarke’s porch light, where the moths were beginning to circle, drawn toward the brightness. “You okay?”

I nodded, and walked to Dawn’s car without speaking, furious with myself. Who knew why Sloane had put this on the list, but she had—and it was one of the easier ones. And I couldn’t even do it. The second things got hard, or I couldn’t hide in the woods, I just gave up. I got into the passenger seat, slamming the door harder than I needed to, staring out the window, hating myself.

“Um,” Dawn said as she started the car, glancing over at me. “You sure you’re all right?”

“Fine,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as upset as I currently felt. “I’m just . . . really tired.”

“Oh my god, me too,” Dawn said with a sigh. “I just feel like this has been the longest day ever. Do you ever feel that way? Like some days take five years, and others are over in like a minute?” Dawn talked on as we drove back, and didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t saying much. I was happy to have her fill up the car with conversation, helping distract me from the truth of how I’d so decisively failed.

She parked crookedly in what I wasn’t exactly sure was a spot, and as we both got out of the car, I saw Dawn bite her lip as she looked toward Captain Pizza. “It’ll be okay,” I said, without even thinking about it first. I wasn’t sure I should have said it, since I had no way of knowing if it would be true. But Dawn shot me a smile that was much less trembly than the one she’d given me when she’d first shown up at Paradise that afternoon.

“I hope so,” she said. “And thanks for coming with me tonight. The company really helped.”

“Oh,” I said. I felt myself smile at her, and I knew now wasn’t the moment to tell her the real reason I’d wanted to come along. “I’m glad,” I said truthfully. Dawn lifted her hand in a wave, then headed back up to the pizzeria, and I crossed the parking lot toward my car. I started to head home—after all, I didn’t have anywhere else to go. But as I got closer, the thought of going back—to my quiet house and the hot, empty stillness of my room—started to make me feel claustrophobic. I turned off the road that would take me there and steered my car toward Stanwich’s main downtown. There didn’t seem to be a lot of activity going on—it was getting late, and this was, especially during the week, an early-to-bed town. The lights were still on in the diner, and I could see some booths that faced the windows were filled—the diner was pretty much the only place to eat after ten during the week. Most of the businesses downtown were closed, their lights off, and I could see, through the glass doors of the movie theater, a yawning employee cleaning the popcorn machine.

I knew I was just wasting gas at this point, but I kept on going. The mechanics of driving, plus the new mix playing on my iPod, helped me keep my mind off what I’d failed to do tonight, and the fact that I’d probably just blown my best chance to cross number eleven off the list.

I found myself driving farther and farther out, away from the main commercial districts, and it wasn’t until the streetlights fell away and the stars took over the sky that I realized I was heading toward the Orchard. I slowed as I passed it—down the drive, I could see a few cars parked, but there were none on the side of the road, and had a feeling that whoever was hanging out there now was a pretty small group—nothing like the weekend parties. I kept on driving past, and when I saw the lights of Route 1 Fuel up ahead, I realized that it might not be the worst idea to fill up, especially since I’d been driving around aimlessly and had lost track of where I was with my gas levels.

As I stepped inside the mini-mart, I saw that it was the same guy who had been working behind the counter as the previous time I’d been there. He gave me a small smile, like maybe he remembered me as he set down the book he was reading and took my twenty. I was in better gas shape than I’d realized, and the car only took fifteen dollars. I headed inside for my change, and the guy set the book aside again, but this time it was faceup, and I read its title—Beginning Sudoku: Tips and Tricks.

Suddenly, it all came back to me. Frank, trying to get this guy to try it—I’d have to mention it, if I ever talked to him again—and him telling me that this guy’s name was James. He handed me a five, and I took it, not quite able to believe I was going to do this. “You’re, um, James, right?” I asked as I pocketed my change.

“Yeah,” the guy said, sounding a little wary, probably wondering how I knew that, since he didn’t have a name tag on.

“That’s great,” I said, speaking fast, and probably sounding insane, but not really caring. “Did, um, anyone ever call you Jamie? Like, ever?”

“My nana,” he said after a pause, clearly confused as to why on earth I was asking this. “You know, when I was little.”

That was good enough for me. That counted, right? It had to. “Okay,” I said, nodding. I didn’t let myself think about what I was about to do, because I knew I’d talk myself out of it. I just reached across the counter and gave him a quick hug, my arms just touching his back before I dropped them again. I took a step back from the counter and saw that he was staring at me, looking taken aback and more confused than ever. “Um, have a nice night,” I said as I gave him a nod and hurried out to my car. I waited to feel incredibly embarrassed, but the feeling didn’t come. It was more like a small victory, a secret to everyone else but me.

I started the Volvo and glanced back once at the gas station before I drove away.  Through the window, I could see James still standing behind the counter, but not reading his book. Instead, he was looking down, off to the side, with a tiny smile on his face.

I pulled out into the dark night, feeling giddy, incredulous laughter starting to bubble up. I didn’t try and keep it down, but just laughed out loud, alone in my car, not quite able to believe I’d just done that. “Jamie hugged,” I said, in a mission accomplished voice to myself—or maybe to Sloane. I knew she would have loved that. If she could have seen me hugging the mini-mart guy, she wouldn’t have stopped laughing for about two weeks. I felt the smile still on my face as I turned up my music, louder than normal, and drove home, tapping my fingers on the steering wheel.

FEBRUARY

Four months earlier

I woke up with a start and blinked up at my bedroom ceiling and the inexactly placed glow-in-the-dark constellations that paraded across one side. I looked around, trying to figure out what had happened, why I was awake. I sat up and saw, at the foot of my bed, a pair of glowing yellow eyes staring back at me.

“Godot!” I hissed at him, flinging my pillow in his general direction. It wasn’t that I particularly wanted to injure the cat—not right then, anyway—but he had startled me, and my heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my throat.

My aim was wide, and the cat didn’t even flinch as the pillow sailed past him. He gave me a look that could only be described as contemptuous, then stretched and hopped off my bed, crossing to my door that was open a crack and squeezing himself through it. “Stupid cat,” I muttered as I got out of bed to reclaim my pillow. As I did, I noticed that a pile of shirts on my dresser was lighting up intermittently.

I crossed to my dresser and quickly found the source of it—my cell, which had been buried under my clean laundry. I saw that I had four texts, all from Sloane.

Hey are you awake?

I’m downstairs

Outside

It’s cold!!

I immediately typed a response back.

Be right there!

Then I eased open my bedroom door and made my way down the stairs in the dark as quietly as I could. Even though I’d seen on my phone when I texted back that it was technically Saturday, we were still solidly in the middle of what my grandmother called the “wee smalls.” My dad could be a notoriously light sleeper, and since he was teaching an eight a.m. class that semester, I didn’t think he’d appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night on a day when he could normally sleep in. I’d only taken a few steps when I realized it had been a mistake to do this without shoes or something warm on. The house was incredibly drafty, especially in the winter, and my feet already felt half frozen. I kept pressing the button on my phone to light my way down to the front door, illuminating the picture that was on the home screen—me and Sloane at the Call Me Kevin concert we’d seen in August, my shirt turned inside out because I hadn’t known until she’d told me, and made me change, that you weren’t ever supposed to wear the T-shirt of the band to their concert.

I crept down to the first floor and no longer needed the cell phone light, thanks to the moonlight streaming in through the windows. I also didn’t have to worry about being as quiet down here, and crossed to the mudroom as fast as I could. If I was freezing inside the house, I could only imagine what she was feeling outside of it.

I opened the front door wide and there was my best friend, her cheeks and nose pink, her shoulders sagging with relief when she saw me.

“Thank god!” Sloane gave me a tight, quick hug—one of her specialties; she somehow managed to make her hugs feel meaningful but also efficient—and crossed behind me into the mudroom. I could smell the perfume she always wore, more than usual tonight—woodsy notes mixed with gardenias. I pulled the door shut and she hustled into the house, rubbing her hands together. “I’m so glad you got my texts,” she whispered. “I was freezing out there.”

“What are you doing here?” I whispered back, even though we were in the kitchen now, a floor below where my parents were sleeping, and probably could have risked using something closer to full volume. I looked at her and took in, for the first time, what she was wearing. She was in a floor-length black gown with a neckline that dipped down and was gathered somewhere around her sternum with a rhinestone brooch. Over this, she wore a little fur capelet that I had no doubt had been found in one of her grandmothers’ extensive closets, or was from Twice Upon a Time, her favorite consignment shop, as it was clearly vintage. “Was there some dress code for tonight I wasn’t told about?”

“No,” she said, laughing. “I was at that party Milly and Anderson dragged me to, remember?”

“So how was it?” I asked. Something felt off, and I couldn’t put my finger on what, until I noticed that we were almost eye-to-eye, since I was barefoot and Sloane was in heels.

“Can we go upstairs?” she asked, yawning and covering her mouth with her hand. “I’m exhausted.”

I nodded and she turned and headed for the staircase, leading the way. She spent enough time in my house that she knew her way around and was finally comfortable enough to just reach into the fridge and take something if she was hungry. I followed a few steps behind, still not clear on why she’d come to my house after the party but happy to have her there nonetheless. She was walking a little more carefully than usual, her ankles wobbling just slightly in the heels, holding her dress out to the side so she wouldn’t trip on it.

When she made it into my room, she kicked off her heels and went right to the drawer where I kept my pajamas. Sure enough, she pulled out one at the bottom of the stack, the crew T-shirt from the disastrous Bug Juice movie. It had been beset by problems the whole way through, starting with the fact that the producers had changed the ages of the kids from eleven to sixteen, and the lead actress had been shipped off to rehab mid-shoot. The shirt read You Can’t Handle the Juice, a crew in-joke, and the first time Sloane had seen it, she had cracked up. She loved the shirt for some reason, and was always threatening to steal it.

“I swear,” she said, yawning again as she pulled the shirt on over her head and then wriggled out of her dress, dropping it into a pile at her feet and stepping out of it, “one of these days. This shirt will just disappear, and you’ll have no idea where it’s gone to.”

“I think I’ll have some idea,” I said. I went to the laundry pile on my dresser and saw my best pair of pajama pants was clean. “Want these?” I asked, holding them up. She nodded, I tossed them to her, and she pulled them on.

“Oh my god,” she said, yawning again as she beelined for my bed. My bed was old and the mattress sagged in the middle, but it was queen-size, and there was enough room that we could face each other and still have enough space to see each other and talk. She took the side she always took when she stayed over, nestled down under the blankets, then hugged her pillow and smiled at me. I knew when she had something to say, and I could tell that she had been waiting for this moment—quiet, with my full attention—since I’d opened the front door. “So I met a boy tonight.”

“You did?” I asked, getting into bed as well, pulling the blankets up and turning to her. “At the party?”

“Mmm-hmm,” she said. “He was there with his parents too.”

“Does he go to Stanwich?” I settled back, only to realize my pillow was still on the floor. I leaned half out of the bed to grab it, then plumped it once and settled into it, preparing to hear the story.

Boys had been besotted with Sloane since she’d shown up at Stanwich High, but she’d been picky. She’d dated a senior for a few weeks our sophomore year, then a fellow junior this past fall, and the summer before, had a brief fling with a guy who normally went to boarding school and was just in town for the summer. But none of these had lasted, and she hadn’t seemed particularly devastated when they didn’t—she was always the one who did the breaking up. But it had been a while since a guy had appeared on her radar—until tonight, apparently.

“No,” she said. “Stanwich Academy.” It was the private school in town, and while I vaguely knew some girls who went there, the two schools didn’t really have much overlap socially. “His name’s Sam. Sam Watkins.” She pronounced the name carefully, like it was a foreign word she wasn’t used to saying but nonetheless loved the sound of. She smiled, wide, and I saw in that moment that she really liked him.

“Oh my god,” I said. “You’re smitten already. I can tell.” She didn’t deny it, but buried her face in the pillow, so all I could see was her hair, the waves coaxed into curls for the evening. “So tell me about him.”

She turned her head toward me, yawning, but didn’t open up her eyes again when the yawn was finished. “He’s great,” she said, her words coming slower than before. “You’ll see.”

I waited for something else to come, an explanation of his greatness, when it occurred to me it was probably Sam who’d dropped Sloane at my house—Milly and Anderson would have just taken her back with them. Not because they would have cared if she slept over, but because they wouldn’t have wanted to make an extra trip. I tried to recall if there had been a car there when I’d opened the door, someone waiting to make sure she got in okay, but I just couldn’t remember.

“Hey,” I whispered. I nudged her ankle with my foot. “Did Sam—” I was about to ask her when I realized that she was breathing slow and regular, her mascaraed eyes firmly closed. Sloane could always drop off to sleep immediately, something she attributed to Milly and Anderson never giving her a set bedtime when she was little. “So you learn to sleep when you can,” she’d explained to me. “None of this story-reading, glass-of-water nonsense. I was always the one falling asleep on the pile of coats at a party.”

I waited to see if she was out for good, giving her one more gentle nudge. But she didn’t stir, so I figured I’d just ask her in the morning. I closed my eyes, and felt myself drift off, somehow comforted by the knowledge that when I woke up in the morning, Sloane would be there.

I woke up with a start. I looked around, trying to figure out why I wasn’t still sleeping. It wasn’t that the cat had fallen asleep on my head again, or that either of my parents were yelling at me to wake up. Pieces of the night before came back—delivering pizza with Dawn, Jamie Roarke, hugging mini-mart James—and I realized, with some surprise, these weren’t dream fragments. They had actually happened. I was about to try and go back to sleep, when the phone on my nightstand lit up.

A text.

I grabbed it and saw I had two—the first one must have been what woke me up. But despite the fact it wasn’t even eight yet, as I looked down at the phone, I was wide awake. Both texts were from a number I didn’t recognize. And as I held the phone in my hand, it buzzed with a third.

Emily. You awake?

I’m outside.

Let’s go.

It was like my brain short-circuited for a moment, then started working again, double-time. It was Sloane.

She was back.

I was out my door and down the stairs in a flash, not putting anything on over the T-shirt I’d been sleeping in, not trying to be quiet, not caring if I woke the whole house as my bare feet pounded down the stairs. Sloane was here, she was waiting for me, and she could tell me what had happened, where she’d gone—actually, I realized as I jumped down the last two steps to the first floor landing and launched myself into the mudroom, I didn’t even care about that. All that mattered was that she was here, and things could go back to how they’d been.

I pulled open the front door and stopped short. Frank was sitting on the steps, wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and sneakers, iPod strapped to his arm, and he stood and smiled when he saw me. “Hey,” he said. “Ready to go for a run?”

I opened my mouth, then closed it when I realized I wasn’t exactly sure what to say. I just stared at him as I felt my heart rate start to slow, my hopes fall. It wasn’t Sloane. She hadn’t come back.

She was still gone.

“Uh,” Frank said, and I noticed for the first time that he looked confused and a little uncomfortable.

I looked down at myself and suddenly realized that I had bigger problems. I was standing in front of Frank Porter—Frank Porter—in my nightshirt. Though it was slightly longer than a regular T-shirt, it wasn’t by much, and I quickly tugged it down. I was barefoot, and—oh god—I still had on some of the zit cream I’d put on my face the night before. I wasn’t wearing a bra. I quickly crossed my arms over my chest, then regretted this, as it caused the T-shirt to ride up higher.

“Sorry,” Frank said, and while I had a feeling he was trying to sound contrite, this was undercut slightly by the fact that he also looked like he was on the verge of cracking up. “I got your cell number and address from the school directory. I didn’t mean to wake you up—I guess I figured that if you weren’t awake, you wouldn’t . . . you know, come outside.”

I nodded, like this was a normal conversation. But part of me was still reeling at the fact that this was happening at all. I honestly couldn’t understand how I had gone, in the course of a week, from not speaking to Frank Porter, to knowing he had a sneaky hot body, to standing half naked in front of him.

“So,” he said, glancing down at my feet with a smile, “is this the barefoot running trend I keep reading about?”

“Oh,” I said. My face felt hot, like it was on fire, and I had a feeling it was bright red, which probably looked just fantastic with the white zit cream. “Um, no. Ha ha. I just . . .”

“Emily?” I turned and saw my dad standing behind me, wearing his robe and slippers and carrying his laptop, his glasses perched on top of his head. I truly hadn’t thought this could get any worse. But apparently Frank Porter was going to see the entire Hughes family in their pajamas this morning.

“Dad,” I said, hearing how strangled my voice sounded.

“Have you seen my glasses?” he asked, not, apparently, thinking anything was strange about the fact that his daughter was awake at eight a.m. and standing in the doorway in her pajamas, talking to a boy he’d never met.

“They’re on your head, sir,” Frank supplied from the porch.

My father reached up and patted his head, then nodded and put them on. Then he squinted out at Frank. “Do I know you?”

“That’s Frank,” I managed. It was possible to die of embarrassment, right? The expression had to have come from somewhere. “We were just, um, going running.”

“Oh,” my dad said. He stared at Frank a moment longer, then looked at me and frowned. “Well, be sure to put some shoes on.” Then he continued on inside, no doubt heading to the dining room to start working.

“Okay,” I managed. “I’ll just go upstairs and put on something to run in. And then I’ll be back.”

“I’ll be here,” Frank said, and it looked like he was trying—though not very hard—to suppress a grin.

I nodded but, not wanting to turn around, backed up until I reached the doorway, then took a big step backward and shut the door. I leaned against it, closing my eyes, wondering for just a moment if I was actually in a nightmare. Surely this qualified.

Ten minutes later, I’d washed my face and put on a long-sleeved T-shirt and long leggings with my running shoes. It was already getting hot outside, but I felt that I needed to balance out the accidental half-nudity that had started my morning. “Ready to go?” I asked as I joined Frank outside, iPod in hand. I was hoping that if I was brusque and businesslike, he’d forget all about the state I’d shown up in.

“Sure,” he said, walking to the end of the driveway with me. I could tell that he was trying to catch my eye, but I busied myself with selecting my new playlist and adjusting the volume, not putting in my earbuds yet or pressing play, since I still wasn’t sure what the etiquette with that was.

“Ready?” I asked. Frank nodded, and we started running, me on the outside like before. I kept the pace slower, knowing that I certainly needed a warm-up, as my muscles were cold.

“So I guess I surprised you this morning?” Frank asked after a few minutes of silent running, and I got the feeling that he hadn’t been able to keep this to himself any longer.

“A little bit,” I said, realizing now that I was surprised—I hadn’t expected him to want to keep running.

“I said we should do it again, and you said anytime,” he said. “I remember you did.”

“I thought you were kidding,” I replied. “It didn’t look like you’d really had a good time.”

“Nothing worth doing is easy,” Frank said. “Especially not in the beginning. But I’m not about to give up.”

“Wow,” I said, shaking my head. We ran in silence for a few steps, just the sound of our sneakers hitting the pavement, occasionally finding the same rhythm and landing in sequence, then falling out of it once more.

“Wow what?” Frank asked, a defensive note I hadn’t heard before creeping into his voice.

“No,” I said quickly, wishing I’d never said anything. “Nothing. Never mind.” Frank nodded and looked straight ahead, his mouth set in a thin line and a dull flush of color in his cheeks. Oh god. Had I just insulted him? If Sloane were here, I could have asked her this question with my eyes, and she would have been able to answer me in the same way. But of course, if Sloane were here, I wouldn’t be running with Frank Porter at all. “I didn’t mean anything bad,” I started, wondering even as I spoke if I should have just let this go. “I just meant that it makes sense.”

There was a low-hanging branch in front of us, and we both ducked in unison to avoid it. “What does?”

“Just that you’d have that attitude,” I said, trying to articulate what had been an instantaneous reaction. “It’s understandable. I mean, because of who you are.” Frank looked over at me, and from his expression, I hadn’t cleared anything up, but had just made things worse.

“Who I am?” he repeated, his voice quiet.

“Yeah,” I said, now really wishing I’d let things go and not tried to explain anything. I didn’t even know Frank Porter; why was I attempting to tell him who he was? I had the distinct feeling like I was not awake enough to handle this conversation. “You’re Frank Porter. You’re good at everything.”

“Not at running,” he pointed out. “I’m terrible at that.”

“But you’re not giving up, like you said. So you probably will be soon.”

Frank looked straight ahead, and we didn’t speak for a few minutes, and I wondered if I’d overstepped, made things worse when I was trying to make them better. I was on the verge of trying to figure out how to apologize when Frank asked, “So how’s the list coming?”

“You got my e-mail?” I asked, and he nodded. Even though I told myself it was a long shot, I could feel my hopes start to rise. Maybe there had been something in the list I’d just been overlooking, and the answer was right there, had been there all along. “Did you find anything?”

Frank shook his head, and I felt my hopes deflate. “But I’ve just started to look,” he said, shooting me a quick smile. “And in the meantime, I had some ideas.”

I looked over at him, then had to do an awkward skipping movement over a rock that had shown up in my path. But I was glad for the distraction; it allowed me to try and process how strange it was to hear Frank talking about my list like it was just ordinary, when it had been my secret, something I’d been turning over and over in my head but not ever talking about. “What do you mean, ideas?”

“For finishing your list,” he said, like this should have been obvious. “I can help you, if you want.” I looked back at the road ahead, trying to sort through how I felt about this. It was one thing to go running twice with Frank Porter. This would be something else. “I’m seriously in need of a project,” he went on. “I mean, even Collins has a summer project.”

“He does?”

“He decided he’s going to have a girlfriend by the end of the summer. Or, as he insists on putting it, a steady hang.”

“And how’s that going?”

Frank laughed. “About as well as you’d imagine. And I get to hear about it every day at work.”

We ran in silence for a while then, but it didn’t feel uncomfortable, and when I looked back at Frank, he held up his iPod, like asking if it was okay if we turned them on. I nodded and slipped my own earbuds in, listening to the same mix I had run to before. It was actually nice, running next to Frank but not feeling the pressure to say the right thing or keep the conversation going. It looked like he was occasionally laughing as he ran, which I didn’t get, unless he was listening to someone like They Might Be Giants, which was about as far into the nineties as I ventured. We had gone farther this time, and we were almost at the entrance to the town beach. I pointed ahead at it, and Frank nodded, and maybe it was because we’d raced to the end before, but we both started sprinting. My muscles weren’t protesting quite as loudly this time, but it was still a struggle to pick up my pace. I reached the carved wooden sign indicating the beach entrance before Frank did, but not by much. We both just gasped for breath for a few seconds, then Frank took his earbuds out and smiled at me. “Nicely done.”

“You too,” I said, as I pulled out my own earphones, bending over slightly, trying to take long, deep breaths and slow down my heart rate. I straightened up and we started to walk back, both of us grimacing, and I knew I’d be feeling this run tomorrow morning.

“Hey, what are you listening to?” Frank asked, and before I could stop him or even realize what was happening, he’d taken the iPod from my hands and was scrolling through my playlist.

“No, that’s not—” I started. “I was just, um . . .”

Frank looked at me, and he was smiling now as he looked down at it. “You know there’s a loop function, right?” he asked. “So you don’t have to keep repeating the playlist?”

“I know,” I muttered. “Mine’s just broken because I left it in my car when it was raining. My roof doesn’t work.”

“I’ve never even heard of these songs,” he said, frowning at it. “What’s the Downeaster ‘Alexa’?”

“It’s Billy Joel,” I said, and I could hear myself getting defensive, which was surprising, because I hadn’t known I felt that strongly about him. “It’s . . . about the plight of fishermen on Long Island.” I had meant for that to bolster my argument that it was a good song, but as soon as I’d said it, I started to rethink this, especially when Frank started laughing.

“I honestly don’t recognize half these artists,” Frank said, shaking his head. “And why aren’t there any g’s in any of these song titles?”

“It’s nothing,” I said, trying to grab it back from him. “Just . . .”

“You have a song on here called ‘Aw Naw,’ ” he said. He turned to me, and I could see he looked incredulous. “Emily, is this country?”

“Well, what are you listening to?” I asked, feeling uncharacteristically bold as I grabbed his iPod, looking down at his playlist.

Mix #4

West Coast

Coconut Records

Heartbreak Yellow

Andy Davis

Our Deal

Best Coast

Dance for You

Dirty Projectors

We Can Work It Out

The Beatles

Crystallized

Young the Giant

Breaking It Up

Lykke Li

Airplanes

Curtis Anderson

Dreaming

Smallpools

Kiss Me Slowly

Parachute

Magic (feat. Rivers Cuomo)

B.o.B

Peggy-O

Among the Oak & Ash

Step Out

José González

City Living

Curtis Anderson

Golden Slumbers

The Beatles

No One Does It Like You

Department of Eagles

Gone, Gone, Gone

Phillip Phillips

Fallen

Imagine Dragons

Spitting Fire

The Boxer Rebellion

Yesterday

The Beatles

Simple Song

The Shins

Passenger Seat

Death Cab For Cutie

Thoughts at Arby’s

Curtis Anderson

Midnight City

M83

About Today

The National

Wake Up

Arcade Fire

I didn’t recognize most the songs, so I pressed Play on the song that had been paused, slipping one of his earphones in. I was confused at first, because I didn’t hear music. There was just the sound of laughter, some people clapping, like I’d heard that first night in his truck. And then a guy with a Boston accent saying, “But seriously . . . in a well-ordered universe, we wouldn’t have doormen, am I right? Like, we open doors for ourselves all day long. But in this one instance we become totally helpless?”

I looked up at Frank, who wasn’t laughing anymore. “Is this that comedian?”

“Curtis Anderson,” Frank said with a nod. “I don’t know, I’ve always thought he was funny. Lissa thought he was really juvenile, but . . .” He shrugged.

“Is that what you’ve been running to?” I asked. Frank nodded, and I shook my head at him. “That’s your problem. You need to make a mix with songs that will pump you up and get you through the run.”

“I see,” Frank said, nodding, his expression serious. “Like songs about fishermen?” I laughed at that without even thinking about it first and looked back down at his playlist.

“These aren’t real bands,” I said, as I scrolled through it. “Like, these have to be made-up names.”

“You mean like the Beatles?” Frank asked, deadpan, as he tried to take his iPod back, and I pretended not to notice.

“Not like the Beatles,” I said, as I finished scrolling through the songs. “But there are a lot of their songs on here.”

“Told you I was obsessed.”

“But ‘Department of Eagles’ is fake, right?” I said as I handed him back his iPod and he gave me mine. “That’s not a real band.”

Frank just looked surprised. “You’ve never heard them? They’re great. I’ll make you a mix.”

He said this so easily, like he was sure we’d be seeing each other again, like these weren’t just isolated incidents. But I suddenly realized I didn’t want them to be. And so when we reached Frank’s house and he said, “Do this again soon?” I nodded, hoping that it would be true.

“Got any big plans for the weekend?” he asked as he stretched out his quads, and I found myself watching, with more interest than I probably should have had, to see if he’d lift up his shirt to wipe his face again.

“Oh,” I said, thinking fast. For a second, I thought about telling him the truth, but then immediately decided against it. “Not that much. You know.”

“Well, hope it’s good,” Frank said, giving me a wave. I waved back and I started to walk toward home, telling myself that I’d done the right thing. Because even if he had offered to help me out with the list, I had a feeling that the student body president would not have been happy to learn that I was planning on crossing off number three on Saturday night. I was going to steal something.