Where We Belong Read online

  In some ways, the drift felt natural, expected. We were all preparing to go our separate ways, mentally gearing up for a new chapter in our lives—a chapter we had been anticipating and planning for and dreaming about for at least four years. And in some cases like mine, much longer, since my father, a Michigan grad, took me to my first football game in Ann Arbor when I was ten. My friends and I were excited and nostalgic, melancholy and nervous. We bickered with our parents, growing increasingly resentful of their rules and control, craving independence. But we were also terrified to leave them. We were happy for one another, but had the sad sense that these golden years would soon recede and fade, as they seemed to do with all grown-ups. College would usurp these memories—and our experiences there would change us, starting us down permanent paths toward adulthood. We would decide who we were, what we were going to become. We were hurtling toward something bigger and better. We could feel it in that thick summer air, waiting for us.

  In a funny way, Conrad was part of this transition. Even though I knew he wouldn’t be part of my future, he also wasn’t about the tired past, the childhood from which I so wanted to break free. We shared almost no memories, so there was no reminiscing to be done, except for some detailed analysis of our sporadic interactions. “What could have been” was a game we sometimes played—what if he had called me rather than just looking up my phone number? What if Janie and I had been brave enough to use our fake IDs and go see him play last year, the same night he met his ex-girlfriend. Deep down, I didn’t really think we could have been much more than friends, when my high school experience was about all the things he scorned—football games and cheerleading and student government and report cards—but that was all moot now. We had a clean slate, ready for new experiences—and Conrad was my first. He was a symbol of independence and possibility. The ultimate fantasy.

  There were moments, though, when I let my guard down and thought of him as something more, imagined that we could somehow endure in the months and years ahead. Realistically, I knew it couldn’t happen, but one night, as we ate Raisinets in a dark, cold theater, watching Braveheart for the second time, I wondered if things would be different if he were going to college, too. Any college. Maybe then I could have conceived of a long-distance relationship like my friends Emily and Kevin who were going to Wake Forest and Stanford but had plans to stay together. I told myself that it wasn’t so much that I’d be ashamed to have a boyfriend who wasn’t college-bound (although I knew that was part of it), it was more that we’d share no frame of reference. Our worlds would be even more different than they were in high school. It simply wasn’t possible.

  So there the two of us were. Frozen in time, living in the moment, focused only on our immediate desires. Which of course included sex. Lots and lots of it. “Fucking” he sometimes called it, which I always pretended to hate, but gave me a secret thrill. “Making love,” he once slipped and said. “Or something like it,” he quickly added. Whatever the name, we would do it nine more times, for a grand total of ten, and I memorized virtually every second, sometimes even recording the details in my journal.

  The second time was eight days after the first. We were in my bedroom. It was the middle of the day, and my dad was working, my mother at a charity luncheon. We were lying diagonal across my rainbow-striped comforter, the late afternoon sun streaming in through my window. Dave Matthews garbled his way through “Satellite,” on repeat, as I helped Conrad unroll the condom, ribbed “for her pleasure.” Our eyes were open and we never stopped looking at each other.

  The third time was at his house—a small ranch on the other side of town. I met his father that night, a silver-haired, thicker, tanned version of Conrad. Mr. Knight and I spoke only briefly, as he was occupied with his own lady friend, the two of them playing cards and drinking blush wine out of a large carton, which my mother had called tacky just the week before. After the introduction, Conrad openly took two Coors Lights out of the refrigerator and led me down the hall. His bedroom was surprisingly tidy (although I shouldn’t have been surprised after seeing the way he made a bed), the only decoration on the wall was a poster of Jimi Hendrix. He immediately locked the door and started roughly kissing me, stopping only to undress me and crank up his music. I didn’t know the band, had never heard the song, and later forgot to ask. Afterward, we drank our beers and shared a joint. My first.

  I had another “first” during our fourth time together, which I shyly confessed.

  “You’ve never had the big O?” he asked, mocking me with his expressive gray eyes. “Even by yourself?”

  I put my head in his lap and looked up at him, my endorphins still firing. “No … And I finally get what all the commotion is about. Goodness.”

  Number five came a few minutes later, yielding the same result.

  We went to a Super 8 for our sixth time, an impromptu stop after I couldn’t keep my hands off him on the way to a pizza joint in Evanston. He made me laugh in the middle of it—I forget the deprecating one-liner—but in that moment, I decided that I liked him as much as I desired him. I could tell he felt the same as there was a lot of talking and cuddling and laughing afterward. We even spooned, something Conrad told me he had once vowed never to do. As we dressed later, dangerously close to my curfew, he told me he could “really get used to this.” I told him he’d better not, but I smiled when I said it.

  He talked dirty to me during our seventh time; I talked dirty back during our eighth. I was starting to feel experienced, like I might, someday, even be considered good in bed.

  We went on our only proper date before the ninth, to a nice Italian restaurant in the city. I wore new, black lingerie for the occasion, flashing him my lacy bra during dinner. Later that night, we both smelled like garlic when he removed the ensemble and made love to me in the backseat of his Mustang, parked in an empty church parking lot. The smell of garlic still conjures that memory. As do all muscle cars and occasional church parking lots.

  “Look at us,” he said that night as I straddled him, checking for cops out the back window of his car. “It’s the first time I’ve ever been happy to be a cliché.”

  “A sacrilegious cliché, no less,” I said, trying to be clever.

  “Yep. We’re going … straight … to … hell,” he said with each thrust, his eyes closed, his head back, his hands tight on my hips.

  The tenth, and what would be our final time, was my favorite. We were in a forest clearing—even those two words sound romantic—with a picnic lunch that I made. Gouda and ham sandwiches with slices of mango, chocolate chip cookies, and a bottle of Chardonnay, all tucked into an old-fashioned wicker basket, complete with a red-checkered tablecloth. We hiked far into the woods, with the basket and his guitar, stopping on the embankment of the Fox River, mottled with sunlight. We got tipsy and naked—I’m not sure of the order. Afterward, he played his guitar for me, taking requests. He played Pearl Jam’s “Daughter” and “Small Town,” two of my favorites—and then he made up his own songs, first with serious lyrics, then funny ones, then serious ones again.

  As I watched him play, shirtless, his muscles straining as he strummed, the L word escaped my lips, but I amended it to “I love your body.”

  “What about my mind?” he asked. He was smiling but wasn’t kidding.

  “That too,” I said.

  “Even though I’m not going to college?”

  “That has nothing to do with anything,” I said, and for a second, I really believed what I was saying.

  “I love your body and mind, too,” he said. “And your eyes. And that smile. And those cute Dumbo ears of yours that stick out.”

  Blushing, I shook my hair to hide them, covering the tops of my breasts with it as well, although I was no longer shy about showing him anything he wanted to see. The answer was always yes.

  We were lovers, but we had also become the unlikeliest of best friends. He was all I could think about—and I knew he felt the same. Yet we stubbornly refused to name it, refus
ed to talk about the impending end—of the summer, of our relationship. There was a tinge of sadness, but in truth, I think the sadness made it better. It all felt impossibly passionate and romantic because we hadn’t named it, because no one knew about us, because it would all soon come to an end.

  * * *

  And then, the unthinkable happened. Or more accurately—didn’t happen. My period didn’t come on the twenty-ninth day of my like-clockwork twenty-nine-day schedule. Nor did it arrive the next day. Or the day after that.

  “It’s not possible,” he kept saying into the phone. “We used a condom every time.”

  “Condoms aren’t one hundred percent,” I said, remembering the chart in health class, indicating that the only foolproof “method” was abstinence.

  “That’s because of user error,” he said.

  “Well?”

  “I didn’t err.”

  I wasn’t convinced, carefully retracing the specifics of our ten times together. We had always been so careful, except for the first time at Janie’s house, when he found his way inside me for several long moments before he stopped, reached down for his wallet and began again.

  “It had to have happened then,” I said. “That was the only time you didn’t have a condom on. And the timing works out…”

  “You’re not pregnant,” he said, resolute.

  “Some must have, you know, leaked out,” I said. “A few drops.”

  It was another thing they had warned us about in health—preejaculatory fluid, a term that sounded as foreboding as it was.

  “Zero chance.”

  “It’s higher than zero,” I said, pacing, panic rising in my throat.

  “Okay. Higher than zero. But less than one percent. Less than a half of one percent.”

  “Well, that means it happens to someone! Someone has to be the less than half of one percent!”

  “Yeah. But it’s not us, baby.”

  “Don’t say that word.”

  “What word?”

  “Baby.”

  “Okay. You’re not pregnant, honey.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I’m psychic,” he said in a spooky voice.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and I could tell he was. “Do you want to come over? I could reassure you in person?”

  “Define ‘reassure,’” I said. “Because that’s how we got into this mess.”

  “We’re not in a mess. And that’s not what I meant. We don’t have to have sex every time we see each other.”

  “Apparently, we do,” I said. It came out an accusation, the first seeds of regret and resentment planted even though I initiated sex more than he did.

  “Come over. Please,” he said more gently.

  At that moment, I desperately wanted to be in his arms, but as I reached up and felt my breasts, detecting a phantom tenderness in the left one, I said, “I can’t. I have stuff to do. To, you know, get ready for college.” My voice was cool, a way I had never spoken to him before.

  He heard it, too, of course. “Right,” he said. “Got it.”

  * * *

  The next morning—a Saturday—I threw off my covers, pulled up my nightgown and held my breath, praying as I checked my underwear. Nothing. The liner I had hopefully inserted was still bright white. I called Conrad, with the teary report.

  “Shit,” he said. “I’m coming over. Now. I need to see you.”

  “No. My parents are here,” I said. I was still unsure why I was hiding him from them, why I continued to lie to Janie about what I was doing every night. There was the obvious explanation, at least when it came to my parents: that they would think Conrad wasn’t “good enough” for me. But until now, I swore to myself that that wasn’t the reason, at least not entirely. That it was more complicated than that—or conversely, quite simple: that there was no point in divulging details of something so temporary. But now, of course, I had a new reason to hide him.

  “I don’t care if they’re there. I’m coming over to pick you up and we’re going to go get a test. And then you’re going to take it. Okay?… Marian?”

  “Yes,” I whispered, feeling one drop better that, at least for the moment, I had no decision to make. All I had to do was follow instructions.

  “So be ready in ten minutes,” he said. “I’m serious.”

  * * *

  As threatened, he stood in my kitchen ten minutes later, in a faded Rolling Stones T-shirt, Levi’s, and blue Adidas flip-flops, shaking my father’s hand for the first time. A collared shirt would have gone a long way, I thought to myself, as my mother took off her reading glasses and put the Chicago Tribune down next to a plate of thinly sliced pineapple, complete with a raspberry garnish and dollop of yogurt.

  “So how do you know each other?” my mother asked, her head cocked to the side, as she does whenever she meets a newcomer, trying to determine how the person fits into her world. Or in this case, doesn’t.

  “From school,” I said, twisting my hair into a ponytail, unable to make eye contact with my parents, both of whom I loved and respected—and had never lied to in any significant way before Conrad.

  They nodded, smiling, asking a few more questions, until the inevitable one from my father, the Michigan grad with a law degree from Yale. “So, Conrad, where are you headed next year?”

  Conrad crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, leaning on the kitchen counter, as if to steady himself. Then he cleared his throat and said, “I’m not sure yet.”

  I thought of his words in the yearbook—Color me gone—and that night in Janie’s yard. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Maybe it was.

  Conrad glanced down at his feet as my father translated the answer and came up with the best possible spin. “Ahh. A gap year? To discover yourself?”

  “Something like that. Yes, sir,” Conrad said, his eyes darting over to mine as if to ask for help.

  “So anyway,” I said. “We’re going out for a little while.”

  “Oh. Where are you headed?” my mother asked, attempting to sound breezy when I knew she was consumed with curiosity, likely planning a course of due diligence on the phone with her friends.

  “Green to Tee,” I said, regretting my choice of lies as soon as I saw my father’s face light up.

  “Oh! You play golf?” my father said to Conrad. “We should play sometime. What’s your handicap?”

  Conrad gave him a blank stare; it was like asking my father what he liked best about The Smashing Pumpkins.

  “Let them go, honey,” my mother said, looking momentarily pleased that, at the very least, Conrad played golf. Maybe his family even belonged to Skokie Country Club where we had been members for years. She would find out soon enough.

  * * *

  Conrad and I silently drove across town, straight to the Jewel-Osco near his house, parking near the pharmacy end of the sprawling parking lot, already bustling with shoppers, mostly young mothers juggling shopping bags, carts, and small children.

  “I’ll be right back,” Conrad said, leaving the radio and air-conditioning on.

  Relieved that I didn’t have to buy the test myself, I slouched down in my seat, switching the stations, wondering what last song I’d hear before I got the bad news confirmed. TLC was singing “Waterfalls” when he returned with a plastic bag and a somber expression. I turned the radio off as he ducked into the car and handed me the bag filled with a jumbo pack of Juicy Fruit, a bottle of Dr Pepper, and a Rolling Stone magazine with Courtney Love on the cover. I pulled the magazine out of the bag, silently reading the headlines: “Live from Lollapalooza”; “Hole Is a Band; Courtney Love Is a Soap Opera”; and “How to Stay Cool This Summer.” Flipping through the pages, I did my best to ignore the last item in the bag.

  “Do you like her?” I said, pointing to Courtney.

  “I like her music. And I think she’s interesting—the subversive feminism and slut-diva image stuff. And her music is legit. Live Through This will stand the test
of time. I mean, ‘Doll Parts’? ‘Violet’? Pretty brilliant stuff. But she’s a mess,” Conrad said, backing out of the lot. “I feel sorry for her…”

  “Because she’s a single parent?” I asked, singularly focused.

  “Because the man she loved blew his brains out…”

  I nodded, then glanced out my window as he accelerated onto the main road toward his house. At some point, Conrad put his hand on my knee and kept it there, even as he took hard, sharp turns through his neighborhood, moving it only to shift gears as needed. When he pulled into his driveway, he took my chin and made me look in his eyes. “It’s going to be okay,” he said. “I got your back.”

  I nodded, only vaguely hearing him, and said, “Is your dad home?”

  “No. We’re good.”

  He opened the door, swung himself out of the car, and when I didn’t move, he jogged around to the passenger side, opened my door, and took my arm. “Come on now.”

  When we walked in his house, he handed me the pink box and pointed toward the bathroom door. “Go. Now. Just do it,” he said.

  “But I don’t have to pee.”

  He exhaled patiently, reached into the bag once again, grabbed his Dr Pepper, opened it, and handed it to me. I took a few swallows, then handed it back to him.

  “I still don’t,” I said.