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This is crazy, Andy thought to himself as he regarded the objects spread across his bedroom floor: his phone, the phone book, last year’s yearbook, and the one from the year before for good measure. Well and truly crazy. It would have been one thing if Allison had told him her last name and then he’d looked her up in the phone book. But no, he’d been too stupid to think to ask for even that, let alone her phone number. And now here was, stuck with only a first name, a vague notion that they might be in the same grade, and a face he’d never, ever forget.
He let out a short, hopeless laugh as he pulled the first yearbook toward him and started paging through it. What if she’d lied about her name? Or been absent for picture day every year? What if her last name was Smith, or Brown, or Jones, and he had to try dozens of phone numbers before maybe – maybe – finding the right one?
He didn’t even know what he wanted to talk to her about. He just wanted to hear her voice.
He was just beginning to wonder if he’d been wrong about them being in the same grade when he found her, glaring and unmistakable in a sea of last year’s sophomores. Reynolds. Allison Reynolds.
Andy shook his head and began flipping to the “R” section of the phone book. At least it wasn’t Smith.
There was no way of telling which of the many listed Reynolds she might belong to, so Andy started with the first and began doggedly working his way through them. The first four or five he tried were less than thrilled about a wrong number calling at ten o’clock on a Sunday night. The sixth didn’t even pick up. He dialed the seventh number in a kind of meditative trance, watching the dial whir around, closing his eyes and listening as the line connected.
“Reynolds residence.” The voice that answered was female, older, vaguely bored.
“Hi, yes,” Andy said without any hope, tilting his head back toward the ceiling, eyes still closed. “Is Allison there?”
There was a slight pause. “Yes, I – yes, I think she is,” said the voice, now sounding ever so slightly surprised. “One moment.”
Andy nearly dropped the phone. “Tell her it’s Andy,” he managed to get out. “Andrew Clark.”
The wait was interminable. Andy tugged at the phone cord so hard, he was surprised it didn’t rip right out of the phone itself. What if she didn’t want to talk to him? What if she was creeped out that he’d gone to all this trouble to look her up? Then he remembered that this was Allison, who in all probability knew his address, phone number, class schedule, and social security number by now. Maybe she’d been waiting to call him. Maybe she was nervous, too.
The line crackled as someone picked up the phone again. Andy was positive his heart stopped beating for a second.
“I didn’t give you my number.” Allison’s voice was as unmistakable as her picture.
Andy exhaled. “I know. I looked you up in the phone book. You were the seventh Reynolds.”
“Hmm.”
Andy was pretty sure this meant she was impressed, or at the very least not creeped out. He felt his heartbeat slow a little.
“So, uh…” He scratched his head, suddenly at a loss for words. “How was your day?”
There was a rustling sound on the other end of the line.
“That’s why you looked me up in the phone book and called seven different people with the last name Reynolds? To ask me how my day was?”
“Yes. No. I don’t know. I just… wanted to talk to you, I guess.”
“About what?”
“I don’t know.” Anything to get his father’s voice out of his head. Anything to remind him that yesterday had been real. “Anything.”
There was a long pause. Andy heard Allison breathing out slowly; a long, whistling sound.
“I didn’t do anything today,” she said finally.
“You must have done something.”
“Breakfast. Homework. Blah, blah, blah. I picked out some rocks from the backyard to use for an art installation, or to throw at people’s heads. But they were too round, so I put them back. You don’t want to hear any of this.”
“Sure, I do.” He leaned back against the edge of his bed, already feeling more relaxed than he had all day.
“Liar. What did you do today?”
He closed his eyes. “I’d rather not talk about it.”
Another pause.
“Your father,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
Andy drew in a deep, shuddering breath.
“I’m sick of him, Allison,” he said quietly. “And I know it’s – he’s not like, you know. Bender’s father, or anything like that. I guess I should be thankful for that. But he’s just – he’s in my head all the time, you know?”
“So evict him. That’s what I did with my parents. Presto, gone-o.”
Andy couldn’t help but smile, picturing her writing out a formal eviction notice and slapping it on her forehead.
“I guess that was your mother who picked up the phone. She sounded…”
“Cold? Frigid? Totally unaware of her surroundings?”
“Bored, is what I was gonna say. But yeah.”
“She was surprised I had a phone call. Since I don’t have any friends.”
“You have friends now,” Andy said. “Me. And… and Brian.” Probably not Claire, he chose not to say. He couldn’t even imagine anyone trying to be friends with Bender.
“Brian,” Allison repeated.
“And me.”
“Friends don’t kiss each other.”
It was hard to tell if the edge in her voice was just the usual, or if there was something else to it now. Even harder to tell when his mind was suddenly full of that moment again – his hand in her hair, lips soft against his.
“No,” he agreed. “No, not usually.”
Silence stretched out for a few moments. Andy twirled his finger through the phone cord, imagining it was a strand of her hair.
“I’d never kissed anyone before,” Allison said.
“I thought so.”
“Why?” The edge in her voice was back, and unmistakable now. “Because I was bad at it?”
“No, no, no,” Andy said hastily, and hoped she could tell that he wasn’t lying. “Because – I just thought you looked a little nervous, just before. That’s all.”
“I suppose you weren’t.”
“Are you kidding? I’m nervous now.” Andy laughed a little. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this – much about a girl. Maybe never.
“Really?” The edge was still there, but softening. He could almost hear her crooked smile through the phone.
“Really.”
There were so many things he wanted to say. Like how what she had said about being supposed to want sex, and then feeling bad about it afterwards, wasn’t something that only happened to girls. That he agreed with her, that it must be better with someone you really loved. How that, and so many other things she’d said – even the crazy things – had been bouncing around his head all day. How they had been a lifeline to cling to while he worked in the yard with his father, trying not to listen to his rants about what it meant to be a man; and later, too, while his mother stewed in silence throughout dinner.
The thing was, though, Andy felt like he had time to tell her these things. He didn’t have to say it all right now. The silence felt just as real.
“What’s your first class tomorrow?” he asked her.
“Why?”
He shrugged, then remembered she couldn’t see him.
“Just thinking about when I might see you.”
“I might skip,” she said, in the airy tone he was already beginning to notice she reserved for the more outlandish lies.
He grinned. “You know, if you did cut class, you could tell them you already did your detention for it.”
She laughed, loud and sudden. “That’s right. Preemptive detention. I like to plan ahead.”
Wild, half-formed thoughts about cutting class together ran through Andy’s mind, but evaporated quickly. Detention again next Saturday with Bender was not an appealing prospect. And he really couldn’t miss that meet.
“I have gym tomorrow first thing,” he said. “And practice after school.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Maybe I can see you at lunch?” he pressed on. “You know, if we don’t have classes near each other any other time.”
Still no response. The silence felt heavy, weighted.
“Allison –”
“You don’t have to, you know,” she said abruptly.
Andy blinked. “Have to what?”
“Talk to me,” Allison said. “At school. Where your friends might see.”
Here it was. “Allison, I want to talk to you.”
“They’d laugh.”
“Screw them,” Andy said, and was surprised by the vehemence in his own voice. He meant it, though. He’d spent the whole weekend trying not to imagine how his friends would react if they saw him even talking to Allison, let alone… well. Every time he pictured their reaction, it flickered into an image of them back in the locker room that day, all of them just standing there and laughing, cheering him on. It made him feel sick.
“Screw them,” he said again.
“Easy for you to say that now,” Allison said. “When you’re alone.”
Andy closed his eyes, the sick feeling twisting his gut even further. She was right, of course, which made it worse. He knew exactly how his friends would react, but he had no idea how he would react to them. Right this second, he felt like his response to their laughter would probably involve throwing more than a few punches, which would create a whole slew of other problems. He saw it all spiraling out: getting kicked off the team, losing any hope for a scholarship. For a future.
“Forget it.” Allison’s voice broke through his thoughts, shattering the fog. “Just forget it.”
“No.” Andy opened his eyes again. His letterman jacket glared at him from where it hung on the back of his bedroom door, threatening to drag him back into that locker room. He forced himself to focus on what was real right now. Allison was real.
“No, what?” she bit out.
“No, I’m not forgetting this. I can’t. Allison, I –” He drew in a deep breath. “I know I’ve got problems. But I’m going to work on them. I want to work on them. And we can figure this out. You and me.”
There was a pause so long, Andy began to wonder if she’d hung up. He willed himself to wait, staring up at the ceiling, fingers drumming anxiously against his knee.
“Third period,” she said at last.
Andy blinked, not sure he had heard her right. “What?”
“Third period. That’s when you’ll see me tomorrow. Your English class is next to mine.”
Of course she knew that. And of course he didn’t.
“Meet you before class, then?” he said. “At the end of the hall, by the water fountains?”
Another long, long silence. He could have sworn that he could hear her breathing, which was the only reason he was sure that she was still there.
“Yeah,” she said at last. “Okay.”
Andy could hear the smile in her voice, could even hear her trying to fight it and failing. He wasn’t fighting his own grin at all.
“Don’t freak out if I look more like I did before Claire got to me,” she said, a warning note in her voice. “Can’t expect her to come over and do my makeup every day. Anyway, I’m not sure I liked it.”
He’d thought about this, too. He’d never really expected her to turn into a copy of one of Claire’s friends.
“I like you,” he said simply. “Whatever you’re wearing.”
“Don’t lie.”
“I’m not lying,” he said. “I’ll never lie to you. I promise.”
“You better not.”
Andy's smile was threatening to crack his whole face open. “Now you’re supposed to say that you’ll never lie to me, either.”
“I’m a compulsive liar, remember? If I told you I’d never lie again, that would be a lie.”
Andy couldn’t help but laugh, and she was laughing, too, and he wanted to live in this moment forever but he also wanted so badly to see her. Tomorrow.
His glance fell on his alarm clock, and with a jolt, he remembered that he should already be in bed. “I should get some sleep. You, too.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Clark.”
He grinned again. “Yeah, okay. Sorry.”
Silence stretched across the line – a comfortable one, this time. Andy wound and unwound the phone cord around his finger, trying to find the will to hang up and failing miserably.
Finally, Allison spoke again, so softly he almost didn’t hear her.
“Andy?”
He felt a warmth spread through his chest. “Yeah?”
“I’m working on my shit, too, you know.”
“I know,” he said. “We can work on our shit together.”
“Okay,” she said. “Good.” There was a rustling sound at her end of the line, and he pictured her adjusting the phone from one ear to the other. “I’m going to bed now.”
“Okay,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”
“By the water fountains.”
“Yeah.”
Neither of them hung up.
“I’m going to bed now,” she said again.
“Okay,” he said again. “Good night, Allison.”
“Good night.”
The line clicked. Andy kept the phone cradled between his ear and his shoulder a few moments longer. Then, suddenly, he put the phone down and pulled the yearbook back towards him, scrambling to his feet and sitting back down on the edge of his bed, the book balanced in his lap.
Allison’s picture stared up at him from the pages, defiant behind her bangs and thick eyeliner. He stared at it for a long time, trying to memorize every detail, before finally switching out the light.
He should have given her his phone number, he realized as he leaned back against his pillow. He should have told her thousands of things.
Tomorrow.
There would be time.