Elizabeth Scott - Between Here and Forever

“Why are you so quiet yourself?” Claire says. “Oh, wait. Your plan. Abby, you didn’t real y think it would work, did you?”

“It’s going to work,” I say. “I just—okay, how do you get a guy to talk? What would you ask a guy if you were talking to him? What would Tess ask?”

Claire laughs, but the sound is bitter. “Tess never had to ask—”

“Exactly,” I say. “I just thought … I thought when he saw her, he’d just start talking. But he didn’t, and I don’t—I’m not good with this kind of stuff.”

Claire laughs, for real this time. “You’re ful of it, and you know it. You thought the guy would see Tess and say her name and she’d wake up. I hate to break it to you, Abby, but you’re as much of a believer in that happily ever after, perfect ending stuff as Tess was.”

“Is,” I say automatical y and Claire looks down at the ground. I hand her the toy I’m holding and add, “And I’m not—you know I’m not like Tess.”

Claire takes the toy and lets out a little sigh. “Ask him about himself,” she says. “What he likes to eat, does he have a car, does he play sports, whatever. Just ask lots of questions.”

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

“Okay, I’l try it,” I say, and hand her another toy. “I should go home.”

“Do you ever wonder what she’d think?” Claire says. “About you and me being friends, I mean?”

“Sometimes,” I say, and wave as I get back on my bike.

But I don’t. Tess would be furious, and when Claire waves back, I see she knows that too. I wonder if either of us wil ever be able to do anything without Tess’s shadow looming over us.

That’s a question I can’t answer.

It’s a question I’m afraid to.

watch television in the living room, finishing it as Mom and Dad get in. Dad heads straight upstairs, pausing only to kiss the top of my head and murmur that he loves me.

“What’s wrong with Dad?”

“He’s tired,” Mom says, and gestures at my books. “How’s the homework going?”

I shrug.

“Just like your father,” she says. “He barely had to do anything and he made As. Tess was so much more like me, always having to study, always worrying about her grades …” She trails off, glancing over her shoulder at Tess’s chair at the kitchen table.

“Tess got great grades, Mom.”

“Oh, I know,” she says, turning back to me. “She just … it’s so easy for you.”

“That’s because every decent teacher fled town when the state decided Ferrisvil e High wasn’t meeting even minimum academic standards.”

“And not because you’re smart?” I make a face at her and she touches my hair. “Your father can’t take compliments either.”

To be honest, I think I’m about as much like Dad as the moon is like straw, no matter what Mom says. I guess she must see that, though, because she says, “You real y are a lot like him, Abby. How smart you are, how determined you are to—” She clears her throat. “You even get upset like he does.”

“Dad doesn’t get upset.” He does, but in a general swearing-at-the-lawn-mower-when-it-won’t-start sort of way. There’s no way he could ever be like me. He looks like Tess, tal and blond, so how could he? I know things were hard for him, with his brother dying when he was young, but stil .

I know Dad doesn’t walk around wanting to be seen and then hating himself for it. I know Dad never did anything as dumb as try to get someone who’d never real y want him to love him.

“Your father used to be—he was very unhappy after John died. And I know you’re angry about Tess now, but—”

Thankful y, the phone rings then, and when she answers it I go upstairs. Angry about Tess?

I wish.

The thing is, I am sort of angry at Tess. I mean, why won’t she wake up? What is she waiting for? What does she want? I pass Mom and Dad’s room and try to be quiet because the door is closed, like Dad has gone to bed, and then walk by Tess’s.

I look inside and see al the things she’s left on her desk and dresser and floor, things she thought she would be packing up. She hadn’t intended to come home to stay. She hadn’t intended any of this.

But she hasn’t come back either.

“You should wake up,” I whisper. “Mom just told me I’m like Dad. I’m not like him. I—” I take a deep breath. “I’m giving you what you want, Tess. I found you a guy, and he’s—you should see him. You have to see him. Just open your eyes, and then you can have him.”

No reply.

I walk to her desk.

“Have you ever loved anyone?” I ask the pictures on it. Her laptop is there too, plugged in and ready to go.

I look at it and tel myself I’l get Eli to talk tomorrow. I can ask questions. Anyone can do that.

Things start off okay. I get to the hospital and find Eli sitting in the main waiting room, hunched over a notebook, and seeing him I’m struck al over again by … wel , by him.

He looks up then, of course, and I wil myself to not look away, to not act like I care that he’s caught me staring at him.

He gets up, slipping his notebook into his bag, and comes over to me. “Hey. How are you?”

“Okay,” I mumble. “Ready to see who you’ve been waiting for?”

He starts to say something, and then just nods.

As we head for the elevators, we pass Clement. He waves at me, then pul s Eli aside to talk to him. Mostly he talks and Eli shrugs, although at one point Eli shakes his head “no” once, hard.

“How are you?” Clement says, turning to me. “Did you take the ferry over?”

“Wel , since I stil can’t walk on water …”

He chuckles and pul s out a cough drop. “Harriet used to like to take the ferry. We’d go over and walk along the beach. It reminded her of going to the sea with her family back in England. Of course, her parents never liked the seaside there—they told her it wasn’t Jamaica and never would be—but she loved it. She used to buy this horrible-sounding stuff cal ed rock candy when she was a girl. Ever heard of it?”

I shake my head and Clement nods. “Exactly. But she insisted I was the only person in the world who hadn’t. Stubborn, stubborn woman.” He sighs. “I miss her.”

“We should go,” Eli says, and Clement looks at him and says, “No harm in missing someone.”

“Shouldn’t we go?” Eli says to me, a hint of desperation in his voice, and maybe he just wants to get away from Clement and his stories. But maybe he also wants to see Tess.

The thought doesn’t quite lift my spirits like it should, so I make myself grin at Clement and say, “He just met Tess and look at him. When she wakes up, you’l never get him to leave her and go back to the gift shop.”

Clement looks at Eli, and then back at me, something measured flickering in his gaze. “I suppose the gum wil be safe, at least.”

I smile and wave good-bye as Eli and I get on the elevator. Eli doesn’t do either.

“You shouldn’t let Clement bother you,” I say. “He’s not that bad for an old guy, real y. I wonder what his wife looked like. I had no idea she was—”

“What, black?”

“No, the kind of person who’d actual y leave Milford and visit Ferrisvil e,” I say, my voice rising. “But thanks for assuming I’m racist.”

“I—it’s just that everyone in Milford makes a huge deal of acting like it’s not a big thing whenever someone who isn’t white shows up.”

“Oh.” I glance at him. “Real y?”

“Yeah,” he says. “It sucks.”

The elevator stops, and the doors open. We get off, and when we’re almost at Tess’s unit, I turn to him. “I—sorry about yel ing at you. And about Milford.”

“Me too,” he says, and when I nod and start to turn away he stops me, one hand on my arm. He even has beautiful fingernails—not al chewed off or jagged or anything. Mine always look like someone’s taken a rusty knife to them. “I—this must be so hard for you. Is there anything I can, you know … um, do to help you?”