Happy Birthday, Jennifer.
And a pencil-line drawing of a house. And under a piece of Scotch tape a ring, just a cheap ring with a blue glass stone.
I'm back, it read.
Love,
Cameron Quick.
How did you find me?"
"I've followed you for a long time." He must have mistaken the look on my face for alarm or fear, and said, "Not literally. I just mean I never lost track."
But it wasn't fear, or anything like that. It was an instant of realization I'd have a lot in the coming days: I'd been thinking of him as coming back from the dead, but the fact was he'd been there all along. He'd been alive when I cried in my room over him being gone. He'd been alive when I started a new school without him, the day I made my first friend a Jones Hall, the time I ran into Ethan at the library. Cameron Quick and I had existed simultaneously on the planet during all of those moments. It didn't seem possible that we could have been leading separate lives, not after everything we'd been through together.
"...then I looked you up online," he was saying, "and found your mom's wedding announcement from before you changed your name. I didn't even need to do that. It's easy to find someone you never lost."
I struggled to understand what he was saying. "You mean...you could have written to me, or seen me, sooner?"
"I wanted to. Almost did, a bunch of times."
"Why didn't you? I wish you had." And I did, I wished it so much, imagined how it would have been to know all those years that he was there, thinking of me.
"Things seemed different for you," he said, matter-of-fact. "Better. I could tell that from the bits of information I found...like an interview with the parents who were putting their kids in your school when it first started. Or an article about that essay contest you won a couple years ago."
"You knew about that?"
He nodded. "That one had a picture. I could see just from looking at you that you had a good thing going. Didn't need me coming along and messing it up."
"Don't say that," I said quickly. Then: "You were never part of what I wanted to forget."
"Nice of you to say, but I know it's not true."
I knew what he was thinking, could see that he'd been carrying around the same burden all those years as me.
"You didn't do anything wrong." It was getting cold on the porch, and late, and the looming topic scared me. I got up. "Let's go in. I can make coffee or hot chocolate or something?"
"I have to go."
"No! Already?" I didn't want to let him out of my sight.
"Don't worry," he said. "Just have to go to work. I'll be around."
"Give me your number. I'll call you."
"I don't have a phone right now."
"Find me at school," I said, "or anytime. Eat lunch with us tomorrow." He didn't answer. "Really," I continued, "you should meet my friends and stuff."
"You have a boyfriend," he finally said. "I saw you guys holding hands."
I nodded. "Ethan."
"For how long?"
"Three months, almost." I couldn't picture Cameron Quick dating anyone, though he must have at some point. If I'd found Ethan, I was sure Cameron had some Ashley or Becca or Caitlin along the way. I didn't ask. "He's nice," I added. "He's..." I don't know what I'd planned to say, but whatever it was it seemed insignificant so I finished that sentence with a shrug.
"You lost your lisp."
And about twenty-five pounds, I thought. "I guess speech therapy worked for both of us."
He smiled. "I always liked that, you know. Your lisp. It was...you." He started down the porch steps. "See you tomorrow, okay?"
"Yeah," I said, unable to take my eyes off of him. "Tomorrow.
So, Cameron," Steph continued, "auditions for the school play are next week. You should come. We need more males of the species to try out."
"Not my thing," Cameron said.
"okay, so you don't want to be onstage. You could be backstage."
"With Jenna," Gil said helpfully. "She's the stage manager-"
Ethan talked over Gil. "But if it's not our thing," he said, "it's not your thing. You don't even have to have a thing if you don't want."
"Right," Katy said, "no thing required."
Cameron didn't respond, didn't even act like anyone was waiting for him to say anything. He just ate his lunch, scooping spaghetti onto a piece of bread and folding the bread over into a sort of sandwich before putting it in his mouth. I was fascinated by the most mundane little details of him-how he held his paper napkin in his left hand while he ate with his right, the space he took up when both his elbows were on the table.
I was suddenly aware that I'd been staring at him, and everyone else at the table was staring at me. They were all done with their lunches. I wondered how much time had passed.
"Um," Katy said to me, "are you all right?"
Steph caught my eye and smiled slowly.
"Oh,yeah." I concentrated on my half sandwich trying to think of something witty to say, but I was in total Jennifer Harris territory now, spacing out and forgetting how to make simple conversation.
Cameron picked up his empty tray. "Nice to meet you all. See you later." He lifted a finger toward me. "Bye, Jennifer."
We watched him leave, then Gil said, "How come he calls you Jennifer?"
I crumpled up my lunch bag. "because that used to be my name."
"Really?" Ethan said. "I didn't know that."
"I changed it a long time ago."
"He's shy," Steph said, still watching the spot where Cameron had been sitting.
Katy smirked. "Not with Jenna."
Ethan surprised me by coming to Cameron's defense. "That's because they've known each other forever. I'd be nervous, too, if I were meeting all you retards for the first time."
"Good point," Junior Dave said.
Watching Cameron come toward us I could see why Katy used the words "hot" and "gorgeous" to describe him-he definitely had nice hair and a long, lean body with broad shoulders, and the eyes. I wondered what Jordana would think now if she saw him. He set his tray on the end of the table, not particularly near any of us.
"Everyone," I said, "this is Cameron Quick."
Ethan stood to reach over the table and shake his hand. "Hey. I'm Ethan."
"We were...we both went to the same elementary school," I said, even though they'd heard that basic explanation already, "and then he moved, and...now he's moved back, so he's here. Here he is."
Steph looked at me like she knew I needed help, and said, "I'm Steph, this is Katy." Katy smiled and waved; Steph pointed down the table, "Gil, Freshman Dave, Junior Dave, and obviously Jenna."
Cameron finally spoke, mostly to his lunch tray, "Hi. Nice to meet you all." I watched him to see if he sneaked any looks at Steph, like most guys did when they first met her, dazzled and intimidated by her starlet body and model face. He barely seemed to notice.
Ethan took a bite of his burrito. "So you and Jenna were in the same class when you were kids?"
Cameron glanced at me. "Basically."
"What was Jenna like back then?" Gil asked. "Got pictures?"
Cameron smiled. "Don't need pictures. I got her up here," he said, tapping his forehead. I groaned, making a joke of it, while inside I worried over what he would say. He might tell them I was fat, or about my lisp or my thrift-store clothes or how much I'd changed. "Two braids. Sweet eyes. Good heart. Adorable. Just like she is now."
Gil looked at Ethan.
Katy studied her apple, eyebrows raised.
Steph said, "Jenna has all that and more, except maybe the braids. Which is why everyone loves her. I dare you to find one person in this school who does not like Jenna Vaughn." Based on the color of Katy's neck, I think there might have been one person who didn't like me, at least for the moment.
We should just get a giant bottle of bargain vodka or something," Gil said, pushing his gorilla mask back on his head.
"Not classy," Steph said. "This is a special night, not a frat party."
"Special? Classy??" Ethan asked. "Steph. We're seniors in high school going trick-or-treating. We look like third-rate street performers.
You didn't call me last night."
"Was I supposed to?"
He looked down. "Just figured now that you had my number...Kept my phone on all night, just in case." He laughed. "I started to worry that it didn't work. Actually went out to a pay phone to test it."
"You could have called me. That way you left me after lunch on Saturday, I figured..." I ended there and shrugged, not wanting to be mad at him or get into any kind of argument. "Anyway, after auditions I went to the gym with Steph, and I'm so behind in my homework it's not even funny." Of course I'd punched in his number about eighteen times without actually ever calling him. I wasn't sure what I'd say, and worried about how I'd feel if he didn't answer.
"I shouldn't have left like that on Saturday."
"Yeah, well." I waved my hands. "Don't worry about it. I have to finish getting ready. There's cereal and stuff...just make yourself at home.
He said I didn't need to save him."
"But you want to."
"Yeah. But I can't. Right?"
"Probably not. Usually not.
Do you ever feel helpless?"
"Helpless, useless, clueless. And old. Don't forget old.
Trust me, Jennifer. Just...trust me."
I drove another block or two. "Why should I?"
"Why shouldn't you?"
Because you left me, Cameron. After everything we went through. But I knew it wasn't his fault, any more than it was mine. It wasn't like either of us had control over our lives. We were at the mercy of our parents, both of us. Anyway, I'd already turned the car toward the freeway entrance. I turned on the car radio and we drove twenty minutes without talking. When the exit finally came into view, ugly warehouses and the new Wal-Mart looming before us, I said, "Let's go to my old apartment first. I haven't been there since we moved."
"I've gone by it a couple of times."
"Really?"
"Yeah. Living there with you was kind of my best memory."
I imagined that, him going to the apartment and looking up at the window and thinking about me.
He crouched down next to me. I put my hand on the hem of his jeans. It was the first time I'd touched him since that day in the cafeteria line.
"I've got so much to tell you," he said, so quietly I almost couldn't hear. "Been thinking about how to even start."
"Start anywhere," I whispered. "I just want to know."
"I feel like I've already told you everything, in a way. I've been talking to you in my head for eight years, writing epics and sequels to epics, and sequels to the sequels."
I let my fingers move down to the laces of his boots, then up to the top of his sock. One more millimeter and my fingertip would be against his skin. I moved it back down, resting on the knob of his ankle. "I'm here now," I said. "You can talk to me, right out loud."
Just then, two boys, eight or nine years old, crashed into the grove, leaping over the stream like we had. They froze when they saw us; I jerked my hand away from Cameron's ankle and sat up.
"Oh," one boy said, "hi."
"Hi," I said. "We were just leaving." I got up without Cameron's help, brushed myself off, and followed him back to the parking lot.
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