“I’ll show you.” She grabbed my hand; her grip was firm, though her fingers felt almost delicate intertwined with mine. I hoped my palms weren’t all gross and damp. We started running together, across the field toward the barn. I could barely keep up with her, giant backpack and all; I was excited that we were holding hands, so it took me a minute to realize that if I didn’t speed up I was going to wipe out, and that would be totally embarrassing. I wondered what Eric would think if he saw us and then put the idea out of my head.
We stopped running just before the barn. It was warm for October; I was a little sweaty, and the air smelled faintly of cinnamon, a smell I normally associated with spring—I think Mom had said it was from some native plant. The doors to the barn were enormous slabs of wood, with X-shaped planks across them. A latch held them together but Astrid just walked up and opened it; it wasn’t even locked. She slid the doors apart and I could see the sunlight shining on the knotted wood floor. The barn was basically one big room that smelled like sawdust, with a rickety-looking staircase leading to a loft perched just under a very high ceiling. “You’re not afraid of heights, are you?” Astrid asked, then led me upstairs.
Normally I wasn’t, but the stairs were really narrow and creaked as we climbed them, and the floor of the loft didn’t feel all that sturdy. I tried not to think of the prospect of it caving in and pitching us both to the ground, which I normally would, but somehow today I knew it wouldn’t happen. There was something about what was happening that felt so perfect that I felt almost certain that nothing could screw it up.
Astrid dropped her backpack and opened it up. I’d assumed it was full of books, since it looked so heavy, but she pulled out a patchwork quilt and laid it on the ground, then motioned for me to sit. “This is more comfortable than just the floor,” she said.
“No kidding.” I was impressed that she’d come prepared. She’d really put a lot of thought into this. “Does no one ever use this place?”
“I think sometimes people rent it out for parties, but no one uses it as a barn anymore,” she said. “It’s kind of sad. When I was a kid, there were people my dad knew living in the farmhouse down the road, and we’d go over there and play with the animals. Me and my dad would come up here and look out the window at all the fields. Now I come here when I need to be alone, which has been a lot lately.” She pointed, and I could see how sitting up here and gazing out at that expanse could be soothing, if you were sitting here with someone you liked, which I was. “We even carved our names into the wall—see? Still here.”
She pointed. Alison and Richard were here.
“Alison?” I asked.
She nodded. “That’s one of the reasons I brought you here. I wanted to explain.”
I was glad I hadn’t had to ask.
“Alison’s my real name,” she said. “Or it used to be. My dad died last fall, at the beginning of sophomore year.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, though it felt inadequate. I thought about the Elvis Costello song on the playlist. I hadn’t given much thought to what it might have been doing there; now I wondered whether it meant that Hayden had known all along.
“Thanks,” she said. “I know you of all people know that there’s not much else you can really say. But I wasn’t telling you so you’d feel sorry for me. I just wanted you to understand—he died really suddenly, in a car accident, and everything changed. I felt the loneliest I ever felt, and even though I had all these friends, and a boyfriend I’d been crazy about, it didn’t matter—it was like they were all strangers to me. I knew I’d never be the same person again, and it seemed really important to me that everyone else understood that, too. So I started calling myself Astrid, and I changed my hair and started dressing how I’d always really wanted to dress and acting how I’d really wanted to act and hanging out with who I really wanted to hang out with, because I realized that everything I’d been doing up to that point was bullshit. My old friends kind of freaked out, especially when I quit cheerleading.”
“Wait—you were a cheerleader?” I couldn’t picture it. Then I looked at her more closely, tried to imagine her hair a different color, her wearing one of those stupid outfits with the short skirt and sneakers with pom-pom socks, and all of a sudden I realized I had seen her around at school before she’d changed, surrounded by all her old friends. “Right. I see it now.”
“Too bad,” she said, and laughed. “I was kind of enjoying the fact that you seemed to be the last person who knew. Yep, I was a cheerleader, and I hung out with all of those guys, until the proverbial shit hit the fan. But let’s not talk about that now. Let’s have lunch and not talk about anything that makes us sad. We’ve got plenty of time for that.”
“Sounds good,” I said, and it really did. I liked the idea that she was assuming we’d have more conversations, that we would eventually be able to talk about everything. And it made me feel better about not asking all the questions I had, even though I was getting more and more curious about her relationship with Hayden. Had he actually known her real name?
But right now, I was happy to focus on the food she was digging out of that backpack. Packets of sandwiches, apples, a huge bar of chocolate, and a bottle of water. She really had planned ahead, and the thought of it made me nervous and happy at the same time. So much so that I worried if I’d be able to eat, but as soon as I unwrapped a turkey and avocado sandwich, I knew I’d be fine.
“Slow down there, buddy,” she said. “We’ve got all day. Here, have a drink.” She opened the bottle of water and handed it to me. I supposed we were sharing it, which seemed kind of intimate, in a good way.
“I can’t believe you did all of this.” I didn’t say “for me,” but that was really what I meant.
“I’ve been wanting to get to know you for a while,” she said, sounding almost shy, which wasn’t like her. “I wanted us to have a memorable afternoon, away from school and all the stuff that makes things hard.”
I knew exactly what she meant, though it made me kind of sad to think about the ways in which things were hard for her. From the way she said it I could tell there were more hard things than what she’d already told me, but now wasn’t the time to ask. “It’s definitely memorable,” I said. I wished I could think of the words to say it better, but being around her like this made me nervous, in a good way. I felt like I was hyperaware of every single thing about myself, and her—the way her sea-creature hair streaks somehow matched the vintage Celtics T-shirt I was wearing, as if we’d coordinated our outfits; the way a streak of sunlight coming through the window lit the spot on the floor where both of us were leaning on our hands, making her nail polish glitter and turning the hairs on my arm almost blond. I could hear that song playing in the back of my head.
Alison, my aim is true.
It was the only lyric that really fit. But Hayden couldn’t have predicted this.
We spent the afternoon working through the picnic she’d made. We talked a lot about our families; Astrid was an only child and was jealous that I had a sister, and nothing I said about pinching and tattling and practicing makeup on me would change her mind. “Come on, you’re telling me that she introduced you to all the music you love and you’re still mad about a little lipstick?”
“You can’t ever tell anyone about that!” I said. “That’s the kind of stuff you’re supposed to do with your mom, but ours has to work all the time.” I told her about my dad the d-bag, but I didn’t get into too much detail—I didn’t want her to think about hers again.