Bloom Page 3

  “Speak for yourself, Cornbread Queen. Tell your hips to watch out.”

  “Your kid’s kids are gonna be fat if you finish everything on your tray,” said Haven.

  “That’s where ‘marry rich’ comes in. Money fixes everything, don’t you know that?”

  They paid the cashier and turned around to find a table.

  “Oh my god!” said Kayla. She stopped walking and stared ahead.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “There’s your boyfriend!” She nodded to a table a few feet away.

  Jason Turner sat at one of the round cafeteria tables, surrounded by a group of his friends. He smiled and laughed easily, and always seemed to be in a good mood whenever Haven saw him.

  “Shut your mouth, Kayla!” she hissed between her teeth. Haven sidestepped around her friend and walked quickly to the other side of the room, looking away from Jason’s table as she passed. She took a seat at the first empty table and faced the wall.

  “Geez, you’d think you’d never seen a hot guy before,” said Kayla. She placed her tray on the table and sat next to Haven.

  “I just don’t appreciate you announcing it to everyone around, that’s all.”

  “Nobody heard me, you nutcase,” said Kayla. “And besides, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if somebody—oh my God!” She stopped talking and looked behind her.

  “Would you stop saying that?”

  “He’s coming over here!”

  “What? Who?” Haven turned and saw Jason walking over toward their table. She spun back around and stared at her tray. “What’s he doing?!” she whispered.

  “He’s still headed straight for us!” said Kayla.

  “He’s not turning away?”

  “Nope.”

  “Is he looking at you?”

  “Yep.”

  Jason sat on the empty seat next to Haven. “Afternoon, ladies.”

  “Hi!” said Kayla. “Oops! Forgot a napkin. Be right back.” She stood up to leave but Haven had a tight grip on her leg. Kayla lightly slapped her hand and smiled sweetly at Jason before walking away.

  “So,” said Jason. “How’s it going?”

  “Uh, fine,” said Haven. She mentally slapped her own forehead. Uh, fine. Uh, fine.

  “Look, I’m not trying to embarrass you or anything, but I heard you wrote my name on the gym wall.”

  Her face flushed with heat and her eyes felt like they grew to the size of saucers. He left out the part about the giant heart, so maybe he was trying to break it to her easy. “You sure have a funny way of not embarrassing someone,” she said. She kept staring at her food tray. “Who told you it was me, anyway?” Haven could tell she was getting defensive, even though she wanted nothing more than to be as casual toward Jason as he was being toward her.

  “Yeah, hey, it could have been anybody, right? I didn’t mean to say that you would draw my name instead of another guy’s, it’s just that if it were my name, I think it would be, I dunno, kinda cool.”

  Haven blinked. “Did you say ‘cool’?”

  “Yep.”

  “Don’t you mean creepy or pathetic or something?”

  “Nope. We should hang out sometime. If it was me, I mean.”

  “If what was you?”

  “The name you were writing on the wall,” said Jason.

  “Oh, right.”

  “I’m not asking you to marry me or anything, I just thought it would be nice to get to know you.”

  “Oh.” She thought for a moment. “It wasn’t you, but yeah, let’s hang out.” She looked at him. “It wasn’t you.”

  He smiled. “Fair enough. Listen, I’m having a party at my house tonight. You and your friend—Kayla, is it?—you guys should go.”

  Haven heard herself speak before she even thought about an answer. “Okay, sure. We’ll be there.”

  “Great!” Jason stood up. “Everyone’s showing up around nine.” He walked away and Haven heard his friends teasing him about the visit.

  “Oh my God!” said Kayla as she came back to the table and sat down next to Haven.

  “Seriously, Kayla! Broken record!”

  “What did he say?”

  Haven shrugged in an attempt to hide her excitement. “He just wants us to go to some party tonight at his house.”

  “Oh my G—I mean, wow, neat. So we’re going, right?”

  “I said yes before I really thought it out. My curfew’s still ten, but what about you? You have to be home before the party even starts.”

  “Haven’t you ever snuck out of the house before?” asked Kayla. “My parents go to bed early, so I can leave whenever I want as long as I’m quiet. Just tell your parents you’re not going out, then wait until they’re asleep and then boom, you’re at a party with the hottest guy that’s ever talked to you.”

  Haven thought about it for a moment. “They usually go to bed around nine if I’m not out of the house.”

  “So we’ll be a few minutes late. Big deal. It won’t really get started until we show up anyway.”

  “Oh, yeah, we’re real party animals,” said Haven.

  Kayla hugged her. “That’s the spirit.”

  6

  Colton started the long walk back to his apartment from the homeless shelter. The path he always took wasn’t the quickest, but he thought it was the most scenic. He passed three parks along the way, their wide, grassy fields providing a calm, momentary escape from the concrete jungle everywhere else in the city.

  The apartment building where he was staying was just on the edge of Parkchester in an area that barely clung to the image of wealth and power that had been slowly receding for decades. Even with the steady decline in real estate value, apartments in the building where Colton lived still cost a small fortune to rent. He tried to convince Reece to move someplace more affordable, but Reece needed what he called “the flash”. He didn’t seem to care that they could be paying half of what they shelled out every month and still live in a decent part of town.

  Reece’s family had money.

  His father was a partner at a major law firm in Manhattan and his mother was a well-known news anchor in the city. It was impossible to walk downtown without turning a corner and seeing a bench or a billboard plastered with one of their smiling faces. His father’s picture was on the benches, and as such suffered the wrath of marker-wielding teenagers who never stopped inventing new ways to draw a mustache on his face.

  Colton looked up at a huge banner hanging on the side of a tall building as he walked past. “Channel 8 News: Your Source For Truth”. Reece’s mother smiled down at him, beaming with confidence, sympathy, and wisdom all at once. If Colton actually watched the news, or any television for that matter, he would probably watch her show. Reece hated his parents’ success—even though it allowed him to live comfortably—and quickly changed the channel every time one of their advertisements aired.

  “Lousy phonies,” he would say, shaking his head. “If people only knew!”

  Colton had met them at a dinner party months ago when he first moved to New York. They seemed genuine enough to him, and as he watched their interactions with Reece over the course of the evening, he figured out that they were embarrassed by their son. Reece resented them for thinking they were better than everyone else—just not enough to stop taking the checks they sent him every month.

  Eventually, the small divide between Reece and his parents turned into a chasm. His father told him that they would pay for him to go to any college or trade school, but Reece sneered at the offer and told his father outright that it would never happen. He continued to accept the sizable checks they sent him every month, but beyond that he had no contact with his parents whatsoever.

  Reece’s biggest problem—as Colton saw it—was that he had never really had any true ambition. When he became old enough to realize that he could get away with not working a day in his entire life—thanks to the copious sums his parents raked in every year—he decided to become a “student of lif
e”, casting aside all responsibility and doing his best to live every day as if it were his last. Usually, that meant throwing as many parties as possible and drinking himself into unconsciousness, but every once in a great while he did something really stupid just to mix things up.

  Colton had barely been able to tolerate that crazy lifestyle before he got his new job at the shipping depot and was even less tolerant afterward. The long hours left him exhausted and the only thing he wanted to do when he got home from work was sleep. Reece had done his best to be respectful, which for him meant one or two halfhearted attempts to keep the noise level to a minimum, followed by willful ignorance that there was ever a problem in the first place.

  It was getting to the point where Colton was seriously considering moving out and finding his own apartment. There was no way he would find a place anywhere remotely as nice as where they were staying now, but he could see himself in a mid-grade studio apartment with a decent view of the city sometime in the very near future.

  He probably would have moved out a lot sooner, but he and Reece had been friends for almost five years and Colton felt like he owed him a little more time to get his act together. In high school, Reece had jumped on the back of a bully that was standing over Colton and kicking him repeatedly in the stomach. The bully—Kyle Hanoway, the biggest linebacker on the school football team—easily plucked Reece off his back and threw him to the ground. Reece shouted insults at Kyle the whole time the gorilla of a football player was kicking the two skinny kids lying on the ground. Eventually a teacher saw what was happening and ran over to separate the flailing mass of arms and legs.

  Colton and Reece became quick friends and stayed close throughout high school. They had their fights, as all friends do, and when Reece moved to New York City right after graduation, he left an open invitation for Colton to come join him. After things with his own father had deteriorated past the point of repair, Colton took Reece up on his offer and moved to Parkchester, bearing witness to his slow but steady decline into alcoholism and self-loathing.

  Colton was just opening the front door to his apartment building when Reece walked out of the lobby elevator. He was wearing tennis shoes—a rarity, since he almost always wore sandals—and runner’s shorts.

  “Uh-oh,” said Colton as he walked into the building.

  Reece smiled and spread out his arms so Colton could admire his new clothes. His blond, messy hair hung down over his eyes and stuck out in random clumps. “Uh-oh?” he said. “I don’t think that’s what you meant.”

  “You don’t exercise.”

  “It’s never too late to start.” He walked past Colton and slapped him on the back. “Come on, I need your help with something.”

  “Man, I’m tired and I need to eat. I just want to go upstairs and relax.” He tried to keep walking toward the elevator but Reece grabbed his arm and steered him back to the front door.

  “Plenty of time for that later, amigo. This is important. You only live once, right?”

  “The last time you said that you went missing for three days,” said Colton.

  “And I have one of the best stories in the world because of that experience. No regrets!” He pushed Colton through the doorway. “Come on, this way,” he said. He made a laughable attempt to stretch his arms and legs before walking away at a brisk pace.

  Colton sighed and jogged to catch up. “I hope we’re going to get food,” he said.

  “In a bit. First there’s a little project I’ve been working on.”

  “Can you at least tell me what it is?”

  “If I did, you wouldn’t help me.”

  “Probably not,” said Colton. He sniffed the air. “Are you wearing cologne?”

  “Half a bottle. Nice, right?”

  “You smell like gasoline. And your hair looks ridiculous.”

  “It’s called ‘bedhead’, genius. It’s a real thing and chicks love it.”

  They turned onto Third Avenue toward Melrose. Colton had only been to that area once or twice, and he looked around at all the buildings as Reece hurried down the sidewalk.

  “What’s the big rush?” asked Colton, jogging to keep up.

  Reece looked at his watch. “It’s almost shift change and we might miss her.”

  “This is about a girl?”

  “Of course it’s about a girl! You think I would buy all of these crappy clothes for no good reason? Give me a little credit.”

  “Gee, I just thought maybe you wanted to, you know, exercise?”

  “We both know that’s not gonna happen. Wait! There it is.” He stopped and pointed to a building across the street. Independent Records sold used albums and the latest indie releases, and attracted a wide variety of clientele, from business executives who had never expected to grow up and become nine-to-five office workers to young, tattooed, pale-skinned teenagers who laughed at the thought of one day wearing a suit and conforming to an establishment.

  “She works in there?” asked Colton.

  “Maybe say it with a little less disgust next time.”

  “Oh, give me a break. Can we just get this over with so I can go home? I’m starving.”

  “Okay,” said Reece, turning to face him. “Her name’s Jenna. I have it on good authority that she likes guys who exercise, but also guys with a little bit of a bad streak.”

  “‘Good authority’? You just described every girl, ever.”

  “So you’re my wing-man. Whatever I say to her, just agree, even if it’s a huge lie. And try not to act like a nerd. And don’t hit on her. I got dibs.”

  “What are you going to say?”

  “I dunno yet, but I’ll think of something.” He waited for a break in traffic and jogged across the street.

  Colton imagined Reece getting clipped by a passing car—not enough to seriously injure him, but enough to make him want to abandon his scheme. It didn’t happen, so Colton hurried over to the other side of the street and stood next to the front door of the record store.

  He looked at Reece and gestured inside. “After you.”

  Reece winked at him and held two fingers up to his neck, pretending to check his own pulse as he walked into the store. Colton shook his head and followed him.

  7

  Haven lay in her bed fully dressed, blankets pulled up under her chin. She stared at the glowing red numbers on her alarm clock: 9:17 p.m. Her parents were still awake; still walking around downstairs, opening and closing cabinet doors and turning the kitchen sink on and off. Haven groaned in frustration and sat up to look out the window. Kayla was sitting in her car—a rusty, twenty-year-old Volvo—in the shadows near the end of the street, waiting for Haven to sneak out of the house.

  9:17.

  The party of the century had already been raging for nearly twenty minutes. Haven tried not to think about all of the girls throwing themselves at Jason, begging him to pick them instead of some girl who didn’t care enough about him to show up on time.

  She smiled when she remembered their conversation during lunch. The embarrassment of her blushing face and stupid comments (“Uh, fine”) dissolved into the background when she focused on the fact that he had asked her to go to the party.

  Haven fell back onto her pillow and wriggled her head impatiently.

  Then she heard it: the unmistakable sound of her parents’ bedroom door closing. The latch clacked into place loudly and was followed by nothing but sweet silence. She quickly threw off her covers and picked up a pile of dirty clothes. She laid them on her bed in the shape of her own sleeping body. Haven covered the clothes with the sheets and fluffed up the shape to make it look a little more realistic. She looked at it and shrugged—good enough.

  Three soft knocks sounded from her bedroom door.

  Haven froze and was about to throw off the clothes on her bed and climb under the sheets before she realized that she hadn’t yet done anything wrong. She could always just say she was having trouble sleeping and was organizing her room.

  She smoothed
down the front of her shirt as she walked over and opened the door. Noah stood in the hallway rubbing his eyes sleepily. His dinosaur pajamas were twisted sideways on his small frame.

  “I had a scary dream,” he said.

  Haven knelt down next to him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Aw, Noah,” she said. “I’m sorry. It’s over now.” She pulled him close and hugged him, then twisted his pajama shirt back into place. “Do you want me to sit with you for a little while?”

  He nodded and walked back to his room. Haven quietly closed her door and followed him. Every once in a while he would get woken up by a nightmare, and the only way to calm him down was to stay by his side until he drifted off to sleep.

  Haven said a mental apology to Kayla as she sat down on the edge of Noah’s bed and pulled his covers up to his chest. His chore that day had been to clean up the floor of his room by moving all of his toys into the dedicated toy chest sitting in the corner next to the closet. He had managed to get most of them into the container, but a few of his favorites were still scattered around the floor.

  Small glow-in-the-dark stars were stuck to the ceiling directly over his bed. Noah looked up at them while Haven patted down his wild hair.

  “I don’t think you’ll ever have to worry about going bald,” she said.

  “You mean like Daddy?”

  She laughed. “Right, like him.”

  “His head’s shiny.”

  “Like a cue ball.”

  He chuckled. “Yeah!”

  “Just don’t tell him that,” she said.

  “No problemo.”

  He held up his right pinky finger and waited. Whenever one of them asked the other to keep a secret, they made a solemn oath of silence by sealing the promise with a pinky swear.

  Haven wrapped her own little finger around Noah’s and shook once, then bent down and kissed his forehead.

  “You going to be okay, squirt?”

  He nodded and turned away, yawning as he settled into the bed. Haven stood and walked to the door. She stepped into the hallway and left the door to Noah’s bedroom open a few inches so he would have a little light if he woke up again. Before she even reached the end of the hallway, she heard him quietly snoring.