Page 41 of The Getaway List
“I beg you to stop saying that. I’ve worked so hard to repress those memories. You’re going to make them fester in my bones.”
Tom looks mildly concerned as he also disobeys me by adding a box of Oreos to the cart. “You guys looked like you were having fun in all the karaoke photos from the party.”
“Because it was fun,” Jesse says, and then backtracks: “Well, as fun as it can be without the vocal stylings of Tom Whitz.”
Tom nods and gives a gracious little bow, knowing full well that his vocal stylings are about on par with a dying cat’s. It’s the only part of the whole “re-create Riley’s sixteenth birthday party” thing I’m looking forward to tonight. At some point we’re going to get Tom amped enough to do a rendition of “Before He Cheats” so unholy that somewhere in the world Carrie Underwood will flinch without knowing why.
Actually, I’m hoping to get him to do another song, too. But I’m not sure if he’d even remember the gist of it, let alone the elaborate series of dance moves along with it, so I’ve mostly been focused on the snack heist.
“That reminds me,” says Tom, skimming the aisles. “Better grab everyone some earplugs.”
I lightly swat at him, then turn back to Jesse. “Maybe it was fun for you. I had just made the mistake of getting blunt bangs I had no idea how to style and wearing combat boots that gave me blisters the size of the moon and was—”
Crying a whole lot, if I’m being honest, because we only found out a few hours before the party that Tom wasn’t going to be able to come. I forgot how worked up I’d gotten about the whole thing. How I didn’t even care so much about the party itself as I cared about finally getting to see Tom, because at that point it had been just over a year. Back when the Getaway List was something we were adding to in earnest, never imagining we weren’t even halfway into our separation.
That time it wasn’t even my mom’s fault. Vanessa was going to take a road trip to her next film set in Florida and drop Tom off in Virginia on the way down. Only that afternoon she found out they needed her immediately, so she took a flight down and took Tom with her. My mom had just let me open the combat boots early and done me up in a fresh face of glittery makeup for the party when I got his call from the taxi on the way to the airport, and even though I held it together while he told me, I was a mess of bright blue eyeshadow streaks and snot within a minute of hanging up.
I pulled it together for the party an hour later—about fifteen of us rented a karaoke room for the night and brought a bunch of snacks—but the whole time I was singing High School Musical throwbacks and sucking on Atomic FireBalls, I just sort of wished it was over. I didn’t feel like celebrating anymore. I had one wish, really, something that shouldn’t have even been a wish so much as a given, and it hadn’t come true.
What happened instead was it got added to the Getaway List, same as all the other missed chances. We wrote it down as “go to karaoke.” What we didn’t write was “semitraumatize Riley by re-creating her sweet sixteen two years later, while also unearthing the pictures of the terrible bangs everyone tried to talk her out of but she was determined to get.”
Alas, that is how Jesse and Tom interpreted it, and Mariella and Luca were more than happy to get on board.
“And was what?” Tom asks.
“Awkward as all fuck, I’m sure,” I mumble, because Tom’s got enough of a self-inflicted guilt complex to know I openly wept about missing him when Jesse got lawless enough to put the ten-minute version of “All Too Well” on that night.
“All right,” says Jesse, surveying our cart. “I think that ought to do it. At least for now. You still on for getting the rest of the camp supplies tomorrow?”
I nod, grateful for the change in topic to the part of the weekend I’m actually excited for. Everyone took this weekend off work, so we’re knocking two items off the Getaway List back-to-back—Friday is karaoke night, and then Saturday we’re going to take the train upstate to a campground and pitch some tents to stay overnight to make up for the camping trip we were supposed to go on junior year. Our plan is haphazard at best, but between Luca’s experience camping, Mariella’s parents’ camping gear, and Tom’s mom-adjacent paranoia, I’m pretty sure we’ll be fine.
Unless Jesse and I forget the s’mores supplies, which is probably grounds for leaving us out in the wild as bear food.
“Good,” says Jesse. “I feel like we haven’t had any time to catch up yet.”
This is an unfortunate truth that is only getting truthier by the day, and not for lack of trying. Between Jesse’s shows and my shifts we haven’t had a chance to catch each other one-on-one yet. And the way Jesse’s looking at me with a hint of that same uncertainty he had in the park a while back, I can tell it’s less about the guitar playing and flyer making we were going to do, and more about something else.
Tom dips back into the candy aisle so I lean against the cart and say to Jesse, “Yeah. I’ve been meaning to ask, how’s the band adjusting?”
He shifts his weight to his other foot and says, “Good, good, good. Busy. Going through a lot of peanut-butter jars. Also we all just gave up on keeping them separate and decided all socks are everyone’s socks.” He shows me one blue-striped-clad ankle and a wooly brown one, which I somehow missed with the rest of his mismatched-but-in-a-cool-way getup today.
“So everyone’s getting along in cramped quarters?” I ask.
Jesse goes entirely pink before ducking down to a lower shelf with alarming speed to examine the laundry detergent at his feet. “Yeah,” he says. “Peachy. Like you and Tom.”
Now I’m turning pink because there’s a slight edge in Jesse’s voice and I’m wondering if the two of us just accidentally touched a nerve here. The unspoken “what’s going on with Jesse and Dai” line rubbing right along the “what’s going on with Tom and Riley” one, both of which we have diligently avoided, even if Mariella certainly has not. I think her precise words when the two of us got lunch yesterday were “There’s enough sexual tension between the four of you to crack this island in half.”
The imminent destruction of Manhattan aside, whatever these feelings for Tom are that I’m contending with, I’m squashing them down nice and tight for now. It’s not just because of all my mom’s cryptic opinions on the matter. It’s that before I even examine those feelings, I want to be set in my plan to move to the city. Set enough that I can tell Tom about it before I tell him anything else.
And that’s the plan—to tell him after we get back from karaoke tonight. I’ve already taken a good look at my savings and calculated how much money I’ll make if I keep doing the delivery service and get a job as a barista up here, and done the math on how much I can afford to pay for rent with roommates and what neighborhoods I can start looking in. I’ll stay at Tom’s through early August like we initially planned, but after that I’ll move into a place of my own. Start looking into classes I can take on my own terms. Make my own schedule. Live my own life.
If something else happens between me and Tom after everything gets squared away—well. I don’t want to look that far ahead just yet. It feels like everything is too jumbled right now. I’ve been so absorbed in my stories and my planning that I haven’t come up for air long enough to examine the strange new friction of loving Tom as a best friend and biologically responding to him as a something else entirely. I don’t even know what I’m feeling, let alone any idea what he might.
So I dismiss that whole train of thought in favor of another, which is that Jesse and Dai are one moony-eyed look away from someone screaming “JUST KISS ALREADY!” during one of their shows, but have done everything just short of it. Everyone in the band is very publicly out and their families and friends have always been supportive, so all I can think is there’s some unspoken punk-rock rule against band fraternizing I don’t know about. Or maybe they are together, and Jesse somehow hasn’t hired a plane to announce it in skywriting like he nearly has anytime he’s dated someone.
Tom returns then with a slight frown.
“Oh no,” I deadpan. “They didn’t have a sixth flavor of Oreo?”
