“I don’t want to join an a cappella group. And I’m not planning on looking at other girls, either.”
Oh. “Of course you’ll look at other girls. You have eyes, don’t you? I swear, that’s just as silly as when people say they don’t see color. Everyone sees everyone. You can’t help but see.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“I know, I know.” I sit up and put my French book back in my lap. “Are you really not going to study at all for your US history final on Wednesday?”
“All I need to do at this point is pass,” he reminds me.
“It must be nice, it must be nice,” I sing.
“Hey, it’s not like William and Mary is taking away your spot if you get a C in French,” Peter says.
“I’m not worried about French. I’m worried about my calculus exam on Friday.”
“Okay, well, it’s not like they’ll kick you out for getting a C in calculus, either.”
“I guess so, but I still want to finish well,” I say. The countdown is really on, now that May is nearly over. Just one more week left of school. I stretch out my arms and legs and squint up into the sun and let out a happy sigh. “Let’s come here every day next weekend.”
“I can’t. I’m going on that training weekend, remember?”
“Already?”
“Yeah. It’s weird that the season is over and we won’t be playing any more games together.”
Our school’s lacrosse team didn’t make it to state championships. They knew it was a long shot, because as Peter likes to say, “There’s only one of me.” Ha! Next weekend he is off to a training camp with his new team at UVA.
“Are you excited to meet your teammates?” I ask him.
“I already know a few of the guys, but yeah. It’ll be cool.” He reaches over and starts braiding a section of my hair. “I think I’m getting better at this.”
“You have the whole summer to practice,” I say, leaning forward so he can reach more of my hair. He doesn’t say anything.
24
THE END OF SCHOOL ALWAYS has a particular feeling to it. It’s the same every year, but this year the feeling is amplified, because there won’t be a next year. There’s an air of things closing down. Teachers wear shorts and T-shirts to class. They show movies while they clean out their desks. Nobody has the energy to care anymore. We’re all just counting down, passing time. Everyone knows where they’re going, and the right now already feels like it’s in the rearview. Suddenly life feels fast and slow at the same time. It’s like being in two places at once.
Finals go well; even calculus isn’t as bad as I thought. And just like that, my high school career is coming to an end. Peter’s gone away on his training weekend. It’s only been one day and I’m already longing for him the way I long for Christmas in July. Peter is my cocoa in a cup, my red mittens, my Christmas morning feeling.
He said he’d call as soon as he gets back from the gym, so I keep my phone by my side, with the volume up. Earlier this morning he called when I was in the shower, and by the time I saw it, he was gone again. Is this what the future looks like? It’ll be different when I have classes and a schedule of my own, but for now it feels like I am standing on top of a lighthouse, waiting for my love’s ship to come in. For a romantic kind of person, it’s not an altogether unpleasant feeling, not for now, anyway. It’ll be different when it’s not so novel anymore, when not seeing him every day is the new normal, but for now, just for now, longing is its own kind of perverse delight.
Late afternoon, I go downstairs in my long white nightgown that Margot says makes me look like Little House on the Prairie and Kitty says makes me look like a ghost. I sit at the counter with one leg up and open a can of cling peaches and eat them with a fork, right out of the can. There’s something so satisfying about biting into the skin of a syrupy cling peach.
I let out a sigh, and Kitty looks up from her computer and says, “What are you sighing about so loudly?”
“I miss . . . Christmas.” I bite into another slice of peach.
She brightens. “So do I! I think we should get a few deer to go in our front yard this year. Not the cheap kind, the classy wire kind that come covered in lights.”
I sigh again and set down the can. “Sure.” The syrup is starting to feel heavy in my stomach.
“Quit sighing!”
“Why does sighing feel so good?” I muse.
Kitty heaves a big sigh. “Well, it’s basically the same thing as breathing. And it feels good to breathe. Air is delicious.”
“It is, isn’t it?” I spear another slice of peach. “I wonder where you buy those kinds of deer. Target will probably sell them.”
“We should go to that store the Christmas Mouse. We can stock up on a bunch of stuff. Don’t they have one in Williamsburg?”
“Yeah, on the way to the outlet malls. You know, we could use a new wreath, too. And if they have lavender lights, that could be cool. It would give it a winter-fairyland kind of feeling. Maybe the whole tree could be in pastels.”
Dryly she says, “Let’s not get carried away.”
I ignore her. “Don’t forget that Trina has a lot of her own holiday stuff. She has a whole Christmas village, remember? It’s all packed away in those boxes in the garage.” Trina’s village isn’t just a little nativity scene. It has a barber shop and a bakery and a toy store; it’s intense. “I don’t even know where we’ll put it.”
She shrugs. “We’ll probably have to throw away some of our old stuff.” God, Kitty doesn’t have an ounce of sentimentality in her! In that same practical tone she adds, “Not everything we have is so great anyway. Our tree skirt is scraggly and chewed-up-looking. Why keep something just because it’s old? New is almost always better than old, you know.”
I look away. Our mom bought that tree skirt at a Christmas fair the elementary school had. One of the PTA moms was a knitter. Margot and I fought over which to pick; she liked the red with tartan trim, and I liked the white because I thought it would look like our tree was standing in snow. Mommy went with the red, because she said the white would get dirty fast. The red has held up well, but Kitty’s right; it’s probably time to retire it. I’ll never let her throw it away though, and neither will Margot. At the very least, I’ll cut off a square and put it in my hat box for safekeeping.
“Trina has a nice tree skirt,” I say. “It’s white fur. Jamie Fox-Pickle will love to snuggle with it.”
My phone buzzes, and I jump to see if it’s Peter, but it’s only Daddy saying he’s picking up Thai food for dinner, and do we want pad thai or pad see yew? I sigh again.
“I swear, Lara Jean, if you sigh one more time!” Kitty threatens. Eyeing me, she says, “I know it’s not really Christmas you’re missing. Peter’s been gone for like one day and you’re acting like he went off to war or something.”