The Sky is Everywhere(29)
Author: Jandy Nelson

Gram chides him, “Hush now, you don’t even believe in that.” She doesn’t like anyone to perpetuate the rumor about the aphrodisiacal nature of her roses, because there was a time when desperate lovers would come and steal them to try to change the hearts of their beloveds. It made her crazy. There is not much Gram takes more seriously than proper pruning.

Big won’t let it go though. “I follow the proof-is-in-the-pudding scientific method: Please examine the empirical evidence in this bed. She’s worse than me.”

“No one is worse than you, you’re the town swain.” Gram rolls her eyes.

“You say swain, but imply swine,” Big retorts, twisting his squirrel for effect.

I sit up in bed, lean my back against the sill to better enjoy their verbal tennis match. I can feel the summery day through the window, deliciously warming my back. But when I look over at Bailey’s bed, I’m leveled. How can something this momentous be happening to me without her? And what about all the momentous things to come? How will I go through each and every one of them without her? I don’t care that she was keeping things from me – I want to tell her absolutely everything about last night, about everything that will ever happen to me! I’m crying before I even realize it, but I don’t want us all to tailspin, so I swallow and swallow it all down, and try to focus on last night, on falling in love. I spot my clarinet across the room, half covered with the paisley scarf of Bailey’s I recently started wearing.

“Joe didn’t come by this morning?” I ask, wanting to play again, wanting to blow all this everything I’m feeling out my clarinet.

Big replies, “No, bet a million dollars he’s exactly where you are, though he probably has his guitar with him. Have you asked him if he sleeps with it yet?”

“He’s a musical genius,” I say, feeling my earlier giddiness returning. Without a doubt, I’ve gone bipolar.

“Oh, jeez. C’mon Gram, she’s a lost cause.” Big winks at me, then heads for the door.

Gram stays seated next to me, ruffling my hair like I’m a little kid. She’s looking at me closely and a little too long. Oh no. I’ve been in such a trance, I forget that I haven’t really been talking to Gram lately, that we’ve hardly been alone like this in weeks.

“Len.” This is definitely her Gramouncement tone, but I don’t think it’s going to be about Bailey. About expressing my feelings. About packing up Bailey’s things. About going to the city for lunch. About resuming my lessons. About all the things I haven’t wanted to do.

“Yeah?”

“We talked about birth control, diseases and all that…” Phew. This one’s harmless.

“Yeah, like a million times.”

“Okay, just as long as you haven’t suddenly forgotten it all.”

“Nope.”

“Good.” She’s patting my hand again.

“Gram, there’s no need yet, okay?” I feel the requisite blush from revealing this, but better to not have her freaking out about it and constantly questioning me.

“Even better, even better,” she says, the relief evident in her voice, and it makes me think. Things with Joe last night were intense, but they were paced to savor. Not so with Toby. I worry what might’ve happened if we weren’t interrupted. Would I have had the sense to stop us? Would he have? All I know is that everything was happening really quickly, I was totally out of control, and condoms were the furthest thing from my mind. God. How did that happen? How did Toby Shaw’s hands ever end up on my breasts? Toby’s! And only hours before Joe’s. I want to dive under the bed, make it my permanent residence. How did I go from bookworm and band geek to two-guys-in-the-same-day hussy?

Gram smiles, oblivious of the sudden bile rising in my throat, the twisting in my guts. She ruffles my hair again. “In the middle of all this tragedy, you’re growing up, sweet pea, and that is such a wonderful thing.”

Groan.

Lennie! Lennie! Lennnnnnnnnnie! God, I’ve missed you!” I pull the cell phone away from my ear. Sarah hadn’t texted me back, so I assumed she was really pissed. I cut in to say so, and she responds, “I am furious! And I’m not speaking to you!” then she launches into all the summer gossip I’ve missed. I soak it up but can tell there was some true vitriol in her words. I’m lying on my bed, wiped after practicing Cavallini’s Adagio and Tarantella for two straight hours – it was incredible, like turning the air into colors. It made me think of the Charlie Parker quote Mr James liked to repeat: If you don’t live it, it can’t come out of your horn. It also made me think I might go to summer band practice after all.

Sarah and I make a plan to meet at Flying Man’s. I’m dying to tell her about Joe. Not about Toby. I’m thinking if I don’t talk about it, I can just pretend it didn’t happen.

She’s lying on a rock in the sun reading Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex – in preparation, I’m sure, for her very promising guy-poaching expedition to State’s Women’s Studies Department feminism symposium. She springs to her feet when she sees me, and hugs me like crazy despite the fact that she’s completely naked. We have our own secret pool and mini-falls behind Flying Man’s that we’ve been coming to for years. We’ve declared it clothing optional and we opt not. “God, it’s been forever,” she says.

“I’m so sorry, Sarah,” I say, hugging her back.

“It’s okay, really,” she says. “I know I need to give you a free pass right now. So that’s…” She pulls away for a second, studies my face. “Wait a minute? What’s wrong with you? You look weird. I mean really weird.”

I can’t stop smiling. I must look like a Fontaine.

“What, Lennie? What happened?”

“I think I’m falling in love.” The moment the words are out of my mouth, I feel my face go hot with shame. I’m supposed to be grieving, not falling in love. Not to mention everything else I’ve been doing.

“Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat! That is so unfreakingfreakingfreakingfreakingbelieveable! Cows on the moon, Len! Cows. On. The. Moon!” Well, so much for my shame. Sarah is in full on cheerleader mode, arms flailing, hopping up and down. Then she stops abruptly. “Wait, with whom? NOT Toby, I hope.”

“No, no, of course not,” I say as a speeding eighteen-wheeler of guilt flattens me.