Part 21 (2/2)
They're halfway through the song when she sees it. Baker and Clay, still dancing in the middle of the dance floor, are kissing. Baker's chin is tilted up to meet Clay's mouth, and Clay's hands are low on her back, and they're truly, freely, eagerly making out.
”Don't feel well,” Hannah says, jerking away from Wally. She turns on the spot and hurries off the dance floor, toward the double doors that lead to the hotel lobby. She rushes down a hallway until she finds an exit, and almost as soon as she's out the door, she retches all over a patch of plants near the parking lot.
She falls against the building, her body weak and broken. She gasps for breath, begging it into her lungs, wanting so badly to clean these anguished feelings from her body. Cars rush past on the interstate across from the hotel, and Hannah wishes she was in one of them, heading somewhere far away.
Eventually, once she's able to catch her breath, she walks shakily to the sidewalk and sits down upon it, even though she knows her dress will snag on the concrete. She wraps her arms around her knees and demands that her mind think of something else, anything else, other than the images that keep floating to its surface: Baker grabbing Clay's arm at the picture party-Baker dancing with Clay in the middle of the dance floor-Baker kissing Clay, kissing him with those same lips that have kissed Hannah- Please make it stop. Please take it away. Why can't you just take it away. What am I doing wrong. Why did you give me these feelings. Please help me. Please.
”Han? You okay?”
It's Wally, come to check on her. He lingers in the hotel doorway, his expression concerned but confused at the same time.
”Yeah,” she says, steadying her breath, smiling as nonchalantly as she can. ”Yeah, I'm fine. Just got overheated.”
”You want me to sit with you for a little while?”
”You don't have to.”
”I want to.”
They sit next to each other on the sidewalk, Wally's s.h.i.+ny black shoes splayed out before him, Hannah's dress scratching on the concrete. They listen to the cars racing past in front of them.
”You sure you're alright?” Wally asks after a minute.
”I am. You want to go catch the last dance?”
He shakes his head. ”Sitting out here is fine with me.”
They follow a long line of cars to Clay's house for the afterparty, and Hannah, feeling relaxed from Wally's soothing company and from the ever-growing distance between them and the hotel ballroom, starts to feel marginally better. Dr. and Mrs. Landry greet the procession of teenagers at the front door. ”Boys' things in the guest room, girls' things upstairs,” Mrs. Landry recites, hugging Wally and Hannah and a few others, while Dr. Landry stands behind her with a gla.s.s of wine. ”There's water and c.o.ke in the coolers!”
The house feels as crowded as prom did, but everything is brighter and closer. Hannah weaves her way through the hallway, saying hi to some of her friends, Wally following behind her and echoing the h.e.l.los, occasionally placing a hand on the small of her back.
”Let's go outside,” Wally says. ”There are too many people in here.”
The backyard is blissfully quiet-a welcome change from the loud music of prom and the booming ba.s.s in Clay's family room. Wally takes off his shoes and dress socks and rolls up his pants. ”Come on,” he says, extending a hand to Hannah, ”let's take a ride on the swings.”
She kicks off her high heels and hitches up her dress, then takes his extended hand. His palms are sweaty but warm, and she allows him to lead her across the dewy gra.s.s toward the swing set. He waits for her to sit down on the left swing; she tucks her dress under her and wraps her arms around the chains. He smiles and sits down upon the other swing, and then, wordlessly, they both kick off the dirt and start to swing up and down, surging higher and higher, lengthening their arcs each time, balanced by the two wooden triangular structures on either side of them.
”I'm trying to get in sync with you,” Wally laughs, ”but I can't.”
”That's about the hardest thing in the world.”
”Wait for it,” Wally says, holding up his hand, daring her with his eyes. She watches as his body hiccups on the swing, so that he slows the arc of his swing to more closely match hers, and a few seconds later, after another hiccup, their swings move in sync so that they are perfectly paralleling each other, even down to the lift of their bare feet. And Hannah remembers, with a jolt, what she and Joanie and the neighborhood kids used to call this phenomenon when they were younger.
Look! We're married!
The memory startles her, so that her whole body falls out of rhythm and she loses her momentum. The synchrony between she and Wally breaks very suddenly. ”s.h.i.+t!” Wally yells, his voice br.i.m.m.i.n.g with laughter. ”Catch up!”
She pumps her legs and arms hard, trying to recover from her mess up. She mimics Wally's hiccup maneuver, but she doesn't pull it off right: the gap between their swings grows more p.r.o.nounced. ”Han!” Wally calls, still laughing, and she yells, ”I'm trying!”, her voice pouring forth more desperately than she realized it would. She pumps her legs harder and harder and grows more and more frustrated, until Wally eventually does his hiccup maneuver again and restores their synchrony.
”Yo!” a voice shouts from the house. They whip their heads up to see a tall figure illuminated by the lights outside the door. It's Clay, his tuxedo gone and replaced by his normal clothes. ”Stop flirting and get in here!” he shouts at them. ”You're missing the party!”
”We're coming, you d.i.c.k!” Wally yells back.
Clay swats his arm over the air as if to say Yeah, yeah, and then he turns back into the house and shuts the door behind him. Wally and Hannah slow their swinging until they reach a gradual stop, both of them kicking up dirt in the process. ”I'm gonna ruin my pedicure,” Hannah says, scrunching up her face, ”but I don't really give a s.h.i.+t.”
”I'm gonna hit Clay,” Wally says, ”but I don't give a s.h.i.+t, either.”
Hannah can't fully see his face-not in the darkness, with only the lights on the back porch casting a dim blanket over the backyard-but she suspects his cheeks are red. ”It's okay,” Hannah says, affecting nonchalance. ”You know Clay just likes to make people feel awkward.”
”Should we head in?” Wally asks, extending his hand again.
They walk back over the damp gra.s.s. Wally doesn't let go of her hand. Just before they step onto the patio tile, he stops walking and pivots towards her.
He wants to kiss her. She knows it in an instant, even before she sees the look in his eyes.
Wally doesn't say anything; he just looks at her, his eyes making contact with hers before flitting down to stare at her mouth. There is a hunger in his expression, and though Hannah has always caught glimpses of it, tonight she sees the full manifestation.
She stands unsteadily on the gra.s.s, unable to look away from his mouth, unable to make a decision. She wrestles with her instincts, remembering Baker and the beach, but also remembering Baker kissing Clay on the dance floor tonight.
Why should she fight this? Why fight it when Wally is standing in front of her, wanting to be with her? Wally, who is kind, and loving, and who believes in good things even though he doesn't always receive them? Wally, who sees her, who wants to understand her, who makes her feel like she might be better than she is?
”Hannah-” he says breathlessly, and when he says her name, she thinks, Maybe this can be enough.
So she arches her neck up to kiss him. His lips are warm and tinged with the minty flavor of the Altoids she saw him eating in the car. She kisses him hard, like she means to, and he kisses back hungrily, and though her gut has no reaction, and though she feels no burst of magic, she at least feels safe, and like she is standing, for the first time in months, on solid ground.
They kiss for several minutes, until the kiss turns heated and Wally pulls back from her. ”Wow,” he pants, his eyes wide behind his gla.s.ses. ”Did I mention I'm glad you're my prom date?”
He stoops to pick up his socks and shoes. He picks up Hannah's heels, too. ”Come on,” he says, nudging her with his arm, ”let's go in before Clay comes out and acts like an a.s.s again.”
It's past midnight now, and everyone at the party has changed out of their formal attire. Wally looks down at his tux, then over at Hannah in her dress, and says, ”Guess we ought to follow suit?” He grins. ”No pun intended.”
Hannah smiles. ”That was awful.”
He shrugs, still grinning, and hands her her overnight bag. ”I'll see you in a minute.”
She takes the bag and winds her way through the forest of people in the house, her eyes on the staircase that leads upstairs to the second floor. She scoots around Ted and Kristen, who hug her as she goes by, and then, just before she reaches the stairs, she sees Baker.
Baker sits on the floor, her legs splayed out over the beige carpet, her hair taken down out of its elegant updo so that it now cascades down her back. Clay sits next to her, muttering something into her ear, his arm positioned behind her back. They sit in a larger circle of people, all of whom are paired off boy-girl, and Hannah notes the flask they seem to be pa.s.sing around the group when they think no one is looking. At that moment, right when Hannah moves into their line of sight, Baker meets her eyes.
Her expression is hard to read. She doesn't move a single muscle in her face; she simply stares directly at Hannah, her eyes deep and loaded with a meaning Hannah can't understand. She seems almost hurt, and Hannah wonders for a lightning-quick second if Baker saw her kissing Wally in the yard.
But then Baker breaks eye contact and the moment is gone. Hannah keeps moving, walking toward the stairs, plastering a fake smile on her face when the other people in Baker's circle call h.e.l.lo to her. ”Where you been?” they ask, some of them clearly tipsy already, and Hannah answers, ”Outside,” without pausing to explain. She waves at them all and promises to return, and then she makes herself climb the stairs to the second room. She carries the image of Baker's eyes the whole way.
Hannah spends most of the night huddled with Wally in a section of the family room, munching on Chex Mix and listening to David, one of their friends from their AP cla.s.ses, tell stories. All around them, boys and girls flirt with each other, kiss each other, sneak outside or into bathrooms to hook up with each other, taking advantage of the fact that Clay's parents have surrendered to sleep.
Around two in the morning, with the party around them still in full swing, Wally asks Hannah if she wants to go for a walk.
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