“You know, I met my Oscar when I was sixteen and he was twenty-eight. Ooh-ee, was it a mess, I can tell you. A sixteen-year-old girl isn’t supposed to know what she wants, and a man that age ain’t supposed to want her at all.” She sighed, smiling. “My daddy woulda shot Oscar if he’d showed his face at our place, so we waited. Oscar was in the service, and he went away for a few years. We wrote letters back and forth. Then on the day I turned eighteen, I married him. During Vietnam, we were apart again.”
“How did you make it through all that?”
“It isn’t about being at the same school or the same town or even the same room, Lexi. It’s about being together. Love is a choice you make. And I know you’re young, but that don’t mean a thing. Do you believe in how you feel? That’s what matters.”
“I want to believe in it.”
“Is that the same thing? You might think on that.” Eva patted her hand and stood up. “Well. If I don’t head out now, I’ll be late for the night shift. Do you have plans for tonight?”
“The Farradays want to celebrate tonight. They invited me to dinner.”
“That isn’t the most sensitive thing I’ve ever heard. You okay with it?”
“I have to be,” Lexi said. When her aunt got to the door, Lexi said, “Thanks, Eva.”
Eva waved a gnarled hand as if to say, humpf!, and left the room.
Alone again, Lexi looked at the pictures and clippings on her wall. Then, with a last tired sigh, she got up, made her bed, and headed down the hall.
Forty-five minutes later—right on time—she was sitting in the living room, waiting. She had put on her best dress and taken extra time with her hair and makeup. When she was done, no evidence of her emotional meltdown remained.
Outside, a car pulled up. Headlights shone into the living room and then clicked off.
She meant to get up, but she couldn’t seem to move.
The knock on the front door rattled the whole mobile home.
Finally, she made herself rise, move, open the door. Zach and Mia stood there.
“Can you believe it?” Mia said, launching herself forward to hug Lexi, who did her best to reciprocate.
Lexi dared to look over Mia’s shoulder at Zach, who looked as devastated as she felt.
“Congratulations,” she said woodenly.
He nodded.
Lexi felt Mia take her hand, and she let her best friend lead her down the wooden steps and across the wet grass to the waiting Escalade, where the three of them got into the backseat, with Lexi in the middle, as usual.
“Hey, Lexi,” Miles said, looking at her in the rearview mirror. “We’re glad you could join us.”
“I’d never miss a celebration like this,” she said, managing a smile.
“We’re all celebrating,” Mia said. “Lexi got scholarships to the UW and WWU. It’s a dream come true, right, Lexi?”
“A dream come true,” Lexi agreed tiredly.
After they picked up Tyler, the conversation kicked into high gear. All the way to the restaurant, Mia and Jude talked about USC and Los Angeles and what it would be like to hang out on the beaches of Southern California. Every sentence began with some version of It’ll be so cool …
Zach held Lexi’s hand, squeezing it just a little too hard.
Finally, as they pulled up to the restaurant and parked, Lexi dared to look at him.
I don’t want to go, he mouthed. But he would, and they both knew it.
*
May came to the Pacific Northwest like a favorite relative, bringing sunshine. Gone were the perennial gray skies and ceaseless, dripping rain. Overnight, it seemed, color returned to this misty landscape. All over the island, curtains that had long been ignored were thrown open, barbeques were wheeled out of their garage hideaways, and patio furniture was uncovered and scrubbed clean. It was a glorious leonine month always, a bright respite before the pale gloom of June, and this year it was particularly bold. The combination of an egg-yolk sun and a surprising heat brought kids pouring into beach parks and bike paths.
On Saturday, the fifteenth, Lexi woke early. It had been a restless night, full of bad dreams about planes that taxied down runways and rose into cloudy skies. She padded out of her bedroom and headed down the hall.
Eva was waiting for her in the kitchen, wearing her old white chenille bathrobe and a pointed metallic hat. On the table beside her were two glazed donuts on yellow paper plates; one had a twisty blue candle in it. “Happy birthday,” she said, blowing on a noisemaker.
Lexi almost burst into tears. In all the college drama, she’d forgotten about her eighteenth birthday. But Eva had remembered.