Davis made a long, brushing motion with his hand, from his head, all the way down, and pointed at her. Beautiful, he mouthed, and gave a thumbs-up.
Thank you, Kelsey mouthed, and smiled.
Everything was beautiful. This afternoon, just as the green of the backyard trees had realized its full potential, Kelsey’s mother had strung the leaves with Lions’ red streamers, like Christmas. Even the halfhearted peonies that her father had planted long ago looked fertile and content, thick white petals drooping in droves.
Bees swarmed the sugar-soaked rims of margarita glasses.
Someone had brought their French bulldog to the party, who made his rounds licking sauce off of fingertips.
“The frat boys are going to eat all the tacos,” Ingrid complained, examining her manicure.
“Let them eat tacos,” Kelsey said with a flourish of her hand like a queen over her subjects. She didn’t know most of the people crowding the speakers, which were blasting Beyoncé, or at least she didn’t know them anymore. But she had barely known herself until now. Today, she was weightless.
She was a graduate. She was a future Rock Chalk Dancer. She was in love with Peter, who would be home in a matter of months.
Which reminded her.
“Be right back,” she told Gillian and Ingrid, and went inside to get her phone.
Meg had texted her earlier, asking her what her plans were today.
Can’t come help you practice, Kelsey typed, because she couldn’t see any other reason why Meg would be asking. My parents are throwing me a graduation party!
Before she hit SEND, she paused, remembering. Meg still didn’t know about Michelle.
She debated, then edited the text to read My parents are throwing us a graduation party! and sent the message. Eventually Meg would understand, once Peter got home to explain it to her.
She returned to her side of the porch, which would always be her side. Even Gillian and Ingrid hadn’t spread out to Michelle’s section, out of habit, or perhaps out of quiet respect.
“To Mitch,” Kelsey said, lifting up her glass.
“To Mitch,” they repeated, and Gillian put a hand on her shoulder.
Kelsey was transported to last year at this time, when the four of them were attending Davis’s graduation party.
Kelsey and Michelle were just about to turn seventeen. They were standing around an enormous sheet cake. As they gathered, Kelsey’s mother, Davis’s parents, and his grandparents began to take their photo. Flashes sprayed their vision for a few minutes, the lot of them united, barely touching each other’s backs as they stood, imagining it was just another five minutes they had together. Together as they were, seventeen and nothing else.
Michelle had chosen that moment to whisper to Kelsey, “This time next year, I’ll be long gone.”
“Yeah, right,” Kelsey had whispered. “Miss your own graduation? Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. The East Coast. Maybe Europe.”
Kelsey had looked at her sister and raised her eyebrows, sarcastic. “Fine. Good riddance.”
Kelsey was pulled back to the present by the stone in her gut. Gillian and Ingrid stood beside her, soaking up the midafternoon heat.
She wished now she would have said something else. No, asked something. She wished she would have asked Michelle what she wanted to do when she got there, what art she would make, who she wanted to be. Had she asked, her sister wouldn’t have been such a mystery to her now, in the present.
Then again, maybe Michelle didn’t know, either. She might have been a completely different person by now. So much could change in a year. So much could change in seconds.
Thank you, she thought, though she didn’t know who or what she was thanking. She was thankful for the memories, at least, that would never leave her, but didn’t have to haunt her, either. Not all ghosts are meant to make you sad or scared.
She was grateful for the passage of time.
“I wish Peter were here,” Kelsey found herself saying aloud.
Gillian glanced at her, winking. After Peter had called the other day, she had told Gillian and Ingrid straightaway. They had pestered her with questions: What would she do once he got back? Would he move to Lawrence? Would she follow him out East? Would they live out the summer, and leave it at that?
Kelsey didn’t know. Love had a way of dissolving every object and detail and fact of reality that wasn’t immediately blooming, offering itself to the feeling. She let herself be carried by it.
All she knew was that in two days, she would attend the official tryout for the Rock Chalk Dancers. She had practiced the assigned routine for hours, until it had become pure muscle memory. Ingrid, while watching her, had told her the only thing missing was her face. Kelsey didn’t look like she was enjoying it, Ingrid said.
In two days, Ingrid would start her summer job, lifeguarding at the local pool.
In two days, Gillian would leave town, visiting her older sister in New York.
Two days didn’t matter right now, though.
Now they were sipping margaritas, all of them in heels that made them several inches taller than usual.
Beside her, Ingrid hit her arm.
“What?”
“We have to go downstairs,” Ingrid said, her voice squealing.
“Please don’t tell me it’s another picture,” Kelsey said, rolling her eyes as she stared into her empty margarita glass. “My mouth hurts from smiling.”
Gillian also gasped, and pulled Kelsey away from the porch railing, toward her room. She licked her thumb, rubbing a dab of taco sauce off of Kelsey’s cheek.
“What the hell, Gil?” They must have seen something she didn’t see. She made for the porch again, but the two of them yanked her away.
“Downstairs. Now,” Gillian said.
She followed them as they stomped quickly down the steps, trying not to trip on their heels. When they reached the kitchen, Ingrid opened the back door, and Gillian ushered Kelsey outside.
Against the fence, he stood, almost unrecognizable in army dress blues. He was holding his beret in one hand, and a bouquet of roses in the other, searching through the faces for hers.
Finally, they found each other’s eyes from across the yard.
Her mouth fell open.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
“Peter.”
He pushed past the mingling crowd and was suddenly in her arms, swaying back and forth, her body pressed against the buttons of his coat.
“We got pulled,” he whispered in her ear. “My company got pulled early.”
“When did you get here?” she said, still muffled in his shoulder.
“Just now. Just landed in Kansas City. I asked Meg where you were. I wanted to surprise you,” he said, running his fingers through her hair.
“You did!” she said, laughing.
She had so much to take in about him, she didn’t know where to look. His smile, sly and sweet and proud, or his dark blue eyes. She found her favorite part, the white blonde streak in his eyebrow, and brushed her thumb over it.
People were looking. She didn’t care.
She pulled him to a corner of the yard, away from the crowd. “Look at you.” She held him out in front of her.
Peter looked down at the flowers in his hand. “I didn’t know if you like roses, but I figure, who doesn’t like—”
“Everyone likes roses,” she said, and giggled. She led him inside. Shivers poured through her from her chest down to her feet, washing her calm, almost sleepy with happiness.
They sat in the still house, making room on the couch among the balloons.