Before I Fall Page 0,137
Lindsay says. “After all, it’s her big day.” She emphasizes the word big, then starts cracking up.
Elody picks up on it right away. “I would say it was Rob’s big day, actually.”
“We can only hope.” Lindsay leans over and elbows me.
“Ew,” I say. “Perverts.”
Linday’s on a roll now. “It’s going to be loooong day.”
“A hard one,” Elody adds.
Lindsay sprays some coffee out of her mouth and Elody shrieks. They’re both snorting and laughing like maniacs.
“Very funny,” I say, looking out the window, watching the houses begin to stream together as we come into town. “Very mature.” But I’m smiling, feeling happy and calm, thinking, You have no idea.
There’s a small parking lot behind the Starbucks in town, and we get the last spot, Lindsay slamming into it and nearly taking out the side mirrors of the two cars on either side of us, but still yelling, “Gucci, baby, gucci,” which she claims is Italian for “perfect.”
In my head I’ve been saying good-bye to everything, all these places I’ve seen so often I start to ignore them: the deli on the hill with perfect chicken cutlets and the trinket store where I used to buy thread to make friendship bracelets and the Realtor’s and the dentist’s and the little garden where Steve King put his tongue in my mouth in seventh grade, and I was so surprised I bit down. I can’t stop thinking about how strange life is, about Kent and Juliet and even Alex and Anna and Bridget and Mr. Otto and Ms. Winters—about how complex and connected everything is, all threaded together like some vast, invisible netting—and how sometimes you can think you’re doing the right thing, but it’s actually terrible and vice versa.
We head into Starbucks and I get a latte. Elody gets a brownie, even though she’s just eaten, and Lindsay puts a stuffed bear on her head and then orders a water without blinking while the barista stares at her like she’s crazy, and I can’t help but throw my arms around her, and she says, “Save it for the bedroom, babe,” making the old woman behind us inch away. We come out laughing and I almost drop my coffee—Sarah Grundel’s brown Chevrolet is idling in the parking lot. She’s drumming her hands on the wheel, checking her watch, waiting for a spot to open up. The last spot—the spot we took.
“You’ve got to be freaking kidding me,” I say out loud. She’ll definitely be late now.
Lindsay catches me staring and misunderstands me. “I know. If I had that car I totally wouldn’t rock it past the driveway. I think I’d rather walk.”
“No, I—” I shake my head, realizing I can’t explain. As we pass, Sarah rolls her eyes and sighs, like, Finally. The humor of the situation hits me and I start to laugh.
“How’s the latte?” Lindsay asks as we climb back in the car.
“Like dog pee strained through a trash bag,” I say. We roll out of the spot, giving Sarah a little beep, and she huffs and zooms in as soon as we’re out of the way.
“What’s her drama?” Elody asks.
“PNS,” Lindsay says. “Parking Need Syndrome.”
As we pull out of the parking lot, it occurs to me that maybe it’s not so complicated at all. Most of the time—99 percent of the time—you just don’t know how and why the threads are looped together, and that’s okay. Do a good thing and something bad happens. Do a bad thing and something good happens. Do nothing and everything explodes.
And very, very rarely—by some miracle of chance and coincidence, butterflies beating their wings just so and all the threads hanging together for a minute—you get the chance to do the right thing.
Here’s the last thing that occurs to me as Sarah recedes in the rearview mirror, slamming out of the car, jogging across the parking lot: if you’re one tardy away from missing out on a big competition, you should probably make your coffee at home.
When we get to school I have a few things to take care of in the Rose Room, so I split up with Elody and Lindsay. Then, because I’m already late, I decide to skip the rest of first period. I wander through the halls and the campus, thinking how strange it is that you can live your whole life in one place and never really look at it. Even the yellow walls—what we used to call the vomit hallways—strike me as pretty now, the slender bare trees in