I grabbed the corsage and rang the bell, wondering if I’d finally meet her parents. No one answered, so I knocked louder, and rang the bell again, trying not to be too rude about it.
“Hello? It’s Ezra,” I called, in case they thought I was one of those kids on the bicycles who went door to door preaching the joys of the Church of Latter-day Saints. I mean, I was wearing a tie. A limo drove past, with Tommy Yang from JV tennis sticking his head out the sunroof. He hooted at me, and I waved back. It wasn’t until the limo disappeared around the corner that I started to panic.
I gave Cassidy another call. Her phone rang five times before I got voice mail.
“Hey,” she said laughingly. “Leave me a message in a hundred forty characters or less and—oh my God, Owen, stop, I’m trying to record a voice-mail greeting—sorry, well, leave a message. Or send a telegram if it’s urgent.”
“Um,” I said. “Hi. It’s me, Ezra. I’m staring at your front door, and your corsage is sweating. Wait, no, that sounds gross. It’s moist. Sorry, that’s worse. Anyway, you should come open the door soon because I’m leaving fingerprints all over your doorbell.”
Some people have a fear of public speaking; I have a fear of leaving voice mails. Something about talking into a void, about having your voice recorded, unrehearsed and with no warning, has always made me hopeless at getting the point across.
I was fairly certain that no one was home, so I climbed back into my car, trying not to panic. Cassidy was, well, gone, and I was totally confused by what was happening. And then, because I didn’t know what else to do, I called Toby.
“Hey!” he said, answering after the first ring. “You two on your way?”
“Cassidy’s missing,” I said hollowly.
“What do you mean, she’s missing?” He sounded amused, as though he expected the explanation to be hilarious.
“She never came over, and she hasn’t returned my texts, and I’m outside her house but no one is answering the door. Put Phoebe on.”
Toby told me to wait, and then I heard a muffled conversation, and finally Phoebe got the phone and asked me what was going on.
“I don’t know,” I said, my voice cracking. “Cassidy isn’t home and she isn’t answering her phone. Didn’t you two get your hair done together or something?”
“No,” Phoebe said. I could hear the frown in her voice. “I haven’t talked to her since yesterday.”
“I talked to her this afternoon,” I said doubtfully. “Can you call her? Maybe she’s just avoiding me.”
“Sure,” Phoebe said. “Hold on, I’ll use my phone.”
I heard the noise of the restaurant, and the faraway sound of a cell phone ringing, and then a faint beep and “Hey, leave me a message in a hundred forty characters or less . . .”
“Sorry.” It was Phoebe again. “She didn’t pick up.”
“So I heard.”
We studied each other’s silence.
“Maybe her hair appointment went late?” Phoebe suggested.
“Maybe.” I didn’t sound very optimistic.
“Well, Austin just got here and oh my God, his date is full-on goth, I’m not kidding. She’s wearing black lipstick and everything.”
There was a bit of noise as Toby grabbed the phone back.
“We have to go make fun of Austin now. Let me know when you’re on your way, okay?”
“I will,” I promised. “Go ahead and order without us.”
I hung up and put on the playlist I’d made for tonight, listening to the Kooks croon about the seaside while I waited for a car to pull into the driveway, or a light to flicker on, or my phone to buzz. But none of those things happened.
After a couple songs, I put on my seat belt and pulled away from the curb. Something felt wrong. She was always waiting for me. Always there, with her flashlight in her bedroom window, always hurrying down the front walk with a smile on her face, never late or missing.
More than anything, I was worried. I pictured her in a ditch on the hiking trails, a car accident on the side of the freeway, lying in one of those patient annexes surrounded by a flimsy curtain in the ER. I pictured her tragically; it never once occurred to me to picture her as the tragedy.
Since I didn’t know what to do, I wound up driving around Eastwood. Driving always calmed me, especially at night, with the streetlights wavering slightly out of focus and the empty roads and the dark stretches of the old ranch lands.
And then I passed the castle park, and something made me stop. One figure atop the highest turret, the one with the steering wheel. A girl.
I pulled into the lot, my heart pounding in my ears, not wanting to know but unable to stop myself from finding out.
There were stadium lights trained on the tennis courts, the overflow casting a soft glow against the concrete castle. As soon as I stepped out of my car, I could see it; the unmistakable green of Cassidy’s favorite sweater.
I crossed the grass, calling out to her. She jumped down from the turret easily, vaulting over the castle’s sandbox terraces and walking across the playground.
As she came toward me, I took in her jeans and plaid shirt, her sneakers, her hair in its ponytail. She looked like a girl who had no intention of attending a formal dance, and whatever this was about, it wasn’t going to be good.
“What are you doing here?” Her expression was dark and cold, like I was the last person she wanted to see, and the anger in her voice confused me.
“The dance,” I said, forcing myself to smile, to make a joke of it. “Remember?”
Cassidy opened her mouth as if to say something, but then she stopped herself.
“I’m not going,” she informed me, as though it should have been obvious.
“Okay. Well, maybe you should have told me that before?” I shrugged helplessly.
The stadium lights seemed harsh all of a sudden, like the lights they use in operating rooms.
“Go away, Ezra,” Cassidy pleaded. “Please, just go.”
“No,” I said stubbornly.
Cassidy glared at me, her eyes not so much filling with tears as lacking the capacity to hold any more of them.
“God, can’t you see that you’re the last person I want to talk to right now?” she asked.
“Yeah, actually,” I said. “And I have no idea why.”
“It’s complicated.” Cassidy wrapped her arms around herself as though she was cold, and my first instinct was to offer her my jacket, but of course I didn’t. Not with the two of us standing on top of that grassy hill in the castle park, a corsage going limp in the passenger seat of my car while our friends ate their entrees at a table with empty seats.
“Maybe you can explain it to me anyway?”
“Oh, honey.” She’d never called me that before, and I didn’t like it. “Isn’t it obvious? You. Me. Dating. I was amusing myself. And then my boyfriend drove down from San Francisco to surprise me. He just ran to the gas station to buy cigarettes. You probably don’t want to be here when he gets back.”
Cassidy nodded toward the neon lights of the gas station, which was just across the street. I thought about going in there and punching that asscanoe right in the face. But then Cassidy sniffled, and asked me again to leave.
We stood there, coolly regarding each other. The castle park was behind her, like a photograph of a night we’d shared a million years and two weeks ago.
“I—just—the whole time, it’s been someone else?” I said numbly.
She cocked her head slightly, her hand on her hip, as though it pained her to have to explain it to me.
“How could it have been you? My God, Ezra, look at yourself. You’re a washed-up prom king who lost his virginity to some cheerleader in a hot tub. You take me out for burgers and Friday-night movies at the multiplex. You’re everything I make fun of about small hick towns like this one, and you’re still going to be here in twenty years, coaching the high-school tennis team so you can relive your glory days.”