First & Then(60)

“Thanks,” I said.

Foster stayed in the foyer while I followed Ezra upstairs. I waited in the hall while he was in his room.

There was a whole host of framed photos lining the hallway. A quick survey showed the same cast of characters: a pretty, dark-haired woman and a middle-aged, slightly balding man, posing together on beaches and on the decks of cruise ships. Ezra appeared at varying ages, frowning out of a junior-class portrait, posing on the field in uniform.

I stopped in front of a picture of a middle school–aged Ezra, standing on the banks of a creek and holding up a fish proudly. Behind him, a lanky teenager with a tight smile looked on, a fishing pole resting against his shoulder. What struck me was that I didn’t think I had ever seen Ezra look that happy before. Amused, for sure, or pleased, or sheepish, but not like that, not that undiluted, unabashed kind of happy. Was that the kind of thing you lost with age?

“Cute, huh?” someone said. I wheeled around.

I hadn’t noticed a door open, but now light flooded the hallway, and here in its glow stood Marabelle. She was wearing a fuzzy bathrobe and SpongeBob slippers.

“What—what are you doing here?” I asked, even though it was a dumb question. One of her child beauty queen portraits smiled eerily at me from just a few feet away.

“I live here,” she said. “Part of the time, anyway. Mostly I stay with my mama, but my daddy got this house so we could all be together, and they have a nice room for me here.” She gestured to the picture. “It’s cute, isn’t it? His daddy used to take them fishing.”

“Ezra’s dad?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I thought he didn’t have one.”

“They don’t talk anymore.”

This was news to me. But before I could speak, Marabelle looked over at me, and as if she was seeing me for the first time, said, “Why are your clothes wet?” And in great imitation of Foster, before I could answer, she continued, “Why are you inside? Is Ezra here?” Her eyes grew as wide as saucers. “Did you have sex with Ezra?”

The only thought I could manage to express was, “Why would my dress be soaked?”

“Maybe you were in the shower.”

“With my dress on?”

“Who am I to judge a person’s tastes?” she said as Ezra’s bedroom door opened and he emerged with a bundle of TS warm-up sweats.

“Are you doing okay?” he asked Marabelle.

“Better than Devon,” she said. “She’s getting water all over the floor.”

“Here.” Ezra pressed the clothes into my hands. “There’s a bathroom at the end of the hall.”

“Thanks.”

I went into the bathroom and peeled off the dress, letting the ring of fabric slump gracelessly to the floor around my feet. Obviously my bra and underwear were soaked, too, and I silently debated over how to handle that, meanwhile admiring that this bathroom was fully as big as my bedroom.

I resolved to wring out my bra and underwear in the sink and then put them back on, hoping they wouldn’t make damp spots through Ezra’s clothes. I slipped the T-shirt over my head and pulled on the standard TS warm-up pants, finishing off with a Cavaliers sweatshirt.

The whole house was silent. That is, until I heard footsteps pounding up the stairs, and a small cry.

“There you are!”

Ninety-eight percent of me said I should stay put. But the other stupid, persistent 2 percent forced my hand to the doorknob and cracked the door a bit so I could stare through.

Lindsay had her arms around Ezra. Why did she have to hug people so much? They were positioned so that I could see her face in the crook of his neck. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and she didn’t seem to mind that his hair was still wet as she pressed up against him. Ezra had changed into a getup similar to the one he had lent me—TS sweats and a T-shirt—but Lindsay probably wouldn’t even have cared if he was still sporting pool-water formal wear.

“Are you okay? I just heard what happened.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Ezra’s voice was soft. “Thanks.”

“Where’s Devon? Is she all right?”

“I think so.”

Why was she standing so close? Why hadn’t he let go? I wished I could see his face, but at the same time, I wanted to slam the door shut and never come out again. I could live in this bathroom. It had almost everything I needed. There was even a television hanging over the bathtub.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from them, and I couldn’t tamp down the dread that welled up inside me at the sight of Lindsay’s hand on Ezra’s face. For a moment I had no idea why I felt that way, but then all at once the truth rang clear: I wanted it to be my hand. I wanted the license to stand close to him like that, to smooth his hair back from his face.

And suddenly it all made terrible sense. I couldn’t account for Ezra, but Lindsay’s feelings were crystallizing before my eyes. She had asked me to hint to Cas about Homecoming. But she had never said Cas’s name outright.… Only that she knew we hung out. And she wanted to gauge his interest, but what was there to gauge of Cas? He was clearly into her. Ezra’s feelings, however, you needed a f*cking Rosetta stone to decipher.

The look she had given me when we were at the mall shopping for dresses, when Maria asked about Ezra and me.… Her cuddling up to him in the van on the Reeding trip …