Where It Began(24)

So I don’t call him. I don’t even try to cuddle. Not even.

So I don’t presume to follow Billy around or hang out next to him on Monday at school, curved into his side, hooking my fingers through his empty belt loops. Not me. I stumble around watching for him, longing for him. All I can think about is how his body feels, smooth and naked and a little bit damp, pressed up against me. And when he passes me, when I am close to him, the faintly salty smell of him fills me up.

“Hey, Gabs,” he says in the cafeteria the Tuesday after that Sunday in the beach house. “Don’t you like me anymore?”

I am shaking. I am afraid I’m going to drop my tray.

“What do you think, Nash?” I say as casually as possible under the circumstances. “You think you own me now or something?” Thinking: Own me own me own me.

Billy reaches over and he put his fingers through the hair behind my ear. “Yeah,” he says into my ear. “Oh yeah, I own you now.”





XVIII


THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SECRETLY, CONSTANTLY wanting Billy to own me and Billy taking actual possession is that now he just assumes I’ll be there, like his wallet and the keys in his front pocket.

It feels safe in there, like I am some indispensable but ordinary thing he can’t do without, because who doesn’t need pocket change and their school library Xerox card and gum? Who doesn’t miss that ordinary, indispensable stuff if they can’t find it? He would look up and there I would be, the everyday, always-there girlfriend.

I am Billy Nash’s girlfriend and even when he doesn’t have his hands on me, I am still her.

It’s perfect.

In my psychology elective, which is a lot less interesting than you’d expect, we are studying the minds of babies, how when you put their toy behind a barrier so they can’t see it, they supposedly forget all about it and don’t even know it exists anymore. By Thanksgiving, though, I am pretty sure that even when Billy is at the Four Seasons in Maui and I am sitting at my Aunt Adrienne’s country club in La Jolla eating dried-out, room-temperature turkey because being associated with my mother’s side of the family is the kiss of death for edible food, listening to my father and my uncle complain about the weakness of the watered-down mixed drinks, even separated by three thousand miles of blue sky, I am still Billy’s girlfriend.

I have my cell phone in my lap under the table and he texts me and says so.



Billy: If I can’t get out of this room and onto a

surfboard soon I’m going to throw a coconut





Gabs: Isn’t it like 7 a.m. there? Y r u up?





Billy: Forced family bonding. Caitlyn wants to

teach for America. Grandfather thinks she’s a

commie whore





Gabs: Isn’t Agnes a big democrat?





Billy: Don’t tell grandfather that. Ok Caitlyn’s about to

throw tropical fruit





Gabs: Does throwing things run in ur family?





Billy: Yeah well I’m the one with the arm





Gabs: Ur Thanksgiving sounds a lot more

entertaining than mine





Billy: This isn’t Thanksgiving. This is breakfast.

Gotta get out of here before they move on to me





Gabs:?





Billy: Commie whore’s not on probation. I am.

Jesus here it comes





Gabs: Duck





Billy: Ag says teach for America looks good for law

school. This should b good for 10 more minutes





Gabs: Can’t u stretch out T for A until they finish

eating and bounce?





Billy: Can’t open mouth except to eat.

Instructions from on high. Have to shut up

and eat until Monday





Gabs: Yowza.





Billy: That’s my line G. Wish u and me were on the

beach. Need gf fix.





Gabs: Me too.





Billy: What r u wearing?





Gabs: Jesus nash it’s family Thanksgiving. I’m wearing

a silk dress and pearls.





Billy: A boy can always hope





Gabs: xx





Billy: U know it





By the middle of December, I know which Christmas parties we are going to, and where we are going to be on New Year’s Eve. (At Andy Kaplan’s father’s party with Hell’s Gate providing the music and Andy’s latest stepmother wearing a dress held on by denture cream.) There we are, on the terrace by Andy’s pool, dancing to Hell’s Gate and wondering how much punishment the denture cream can take.

“Andy, that is so not nice to say!” Andie says. “That dress is by Helen Chang. It’s pretty, don’t you think?”

“Too bad part of it went missing,” Andy says. “Maybe Helen freaking Chang gave her a discount on a partial dress.”