Chapter 2 Ordinary Time #2
“God, she’s pathetically jealous,” Hannah says. “That election was, like, four months ago.” She turns to look at Baker. “And you can’t help it that you single-handedly annihilated her. It’s not your fault you’re so cool and popular and pretty.”
Baker laughs self-deprecatingly. “Yeah, that’s what I tell myself every day.”
“Come on, we should go,” Wally says.
“Yeah,” Luke says, sweeping crumbs into his hands, “everyone’s going to think I’ve been taking a huge shit or something.”
“Thanks for the nice surprise, y’all,” Clay says, looking between Hannah and Wally as he stands up. “You know I love family meals.”
“Especially illegal family meals,” Hannah says.
Baker leans down and hugs Hannah from behind while the others talk and gather their trash. “Thanks,” she says quietly into Hannah’s ear.
Hannah ignores the somersault in her stomach. “You’re welcome,” she says, keeping her voice even, and then Baker and the others are gone, and Hannah reminds herself to return Wally’s smile.
The days go on. The sun rises earlier and sets later, and the afternoons grow warmer degree by degree, and the whole earth starts to trill with the anticipation of spring.
The live oaks that line the streets of the Garden District lean forward to whisper to each other, and the Spanish moss that hangs from their branches droops like heavy shawls they are ready to discard.
But Hannah clings to the static of winter as long as she can.
She and her friends meet in the school parking lot each morning, thumbing their book sack straps while they wait for Luke to show up just before the bell rings with his Oxford shirt unbuttoned and his tie not yet fastened; they gather in the senior courtyard at lunchtime and dare Clay to eat French fries with yogurt or apple slices dipped in ketchup; they untuck their uniforms and lean against their cars at the end of the day, exchanging jokes and stories before Clay has to leave for basketball practice and Wally and Luke have to leave for track and field; they text each other late at night while they study their Theology notes and solve their math problems.
They spend every weekend together, wrapped securely in the knowledge that it is still early in the semester, that they do not have to seriously worry about college and new lives until spring is in full bloom, that for now they are simply six high school kids allowed to plan their lives around Friday night hangouts and Saturday night parties.
Hannah knows the terrain of her kingdom: She knows what it is like to steal away to Waffle House to meet her friends late at night, to lie on the floor at Clay’s house and pelt him with ice cubes when he tries to make them all talk about sex, to spend her Friday afternoons riding in Baker’s car with the country station playing and the vanilla scent of the air freshener seeping into her clothes.
On Saturday mornings Hannah and Baker take Baker’s handsome saluki, Charlie, to the dog park on Dalrymple Drive. They sit on the circular bench that wraps around the giant oak and watch Charlie gambol around the park with the other dogs.
“He’s really happy today,” Hannah says.
“He is,” Baker agrees. She pulls at the threads on her scarf as a thoughtful expression comes over her face.
“Sometimes I wish we could shut down all the roads in Baton Rouge,” she says, “so there would be no cars, no traffic, and everyone could just walk around beneath the trees, and the dogs could run and play wherever they like.”
“Charlie would probably run all the way down to New Orleans,” Hannah says.
“As long as he came back.”
“He would. You know he would.”
They go to Zeeland Street Café for breakfast afterward. Baker leads the way to their favorite booth, the one in the back left corner beneath the painting of an old Cajun man. She sits like she always does, with one leg pulled up on the seat so she can lean against her knee.
“Your mom would yell at you for sitting like that,” Hannah says, tapping her foot against Baker’s.
“My mom’s not here,” Baker says, her brown eyes dancing.
They eat bacon and eggs, hash browns with Tony’s seasoning, and biscuits with jelly.
Baker spreads the jelly onto her biscuit in that quirky way she always does—with grape jelly on one half and strawberry on the other.
Hannah catches her eye and shakes her head, and Baker grins and asks, “What?” even though she knows what, and Hannah just shakes her head again.
“I’m getting you a coffee refill,” Baker says, lifting Hannah’s empty paper cup.
“I’m stealing your hash browns while you’re gone,” Hannah says.
They talk about the boys and Joanie and their classmates, and neither one of them mentions how the semester is ticking by and they don’t know whether they’ll be together next year, though Hannah knows they must both be thinking about it.
Hannah taps the salt and pepper shakers together and watches Baker sweep her long brown hair over her shoulder while she talks, and all the while Hannah feels that happy, sweet feeling in her stomach—the one she always feels when she’s with Baker, the one that’s been growing stronger and stronger inside her lately.
On Saturday nights they play music in Hannah’s bedroom while they dress and do their makeup for whatever party they’re going to that weekend.
Joanie breezes in and out of the room, asking them which flats she should wear and whether they can see her thong through her dress, and all the while Hannah cannot stop looking at Baker, cannot stop yearning to take her hand or touch her waist, cannot stop wanting to make her laugh or hear what she’s going to say next.
When they stand next to each other at the dresser mirror—when Baker is so close that Hannah can marvel at the length of her eyelashes, can breathe in the scent of her hair, can glance at her eyes and wonder what exact shade of brown they are—when they stand next to each other, all of the goodness inside Hannah swims to the surface of her skin and shines outward into the air, until she feels like a conductor for light and electricity.
“You look happy,” Baker says, tapping her eyeliner on Hannah’s wrist.
“I am happy. It’s Saturday night and we can do anything we want.”
“We should blow off this party and binge Parks and Rec. Your mom has ice cream in the freezer.” She waggles her eyebrows. “And we could get real crazy and bake cookies, too.”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time,” Hannah says, leaning toward the mirror to fix her blush.
“I’m only half-kidding.”
“We promised the boys we’d go,” Hannah reminds her, laughing when Baker makes an exaggerated puppy dog face. “Come on, it’ll be fun. What are you wearing?”
They stand before Hannah’s closet and try to make sense of the kaleidoscope of clothes. Summer dresses hang next to winter sweaters, green pieces next to black, brilliant scarves next to worn-away sweatshirts.
“This would be a lot easier if you color-coded and separated everything by season,” Baker says.
“But then I’d be a dork like you,” Hannah says.
Baker looks sideways at her, then pulls a scarlet dress down over Hannah’s head, smothering her and messing up her hair, and Hannah isn’t aware of anything except Baker’s laugh, a laugh with a life force all its own.
They go to parties, and the six of them fall into the same routine every time: Luke and Joanie team up against another couple in a game of beer pong, Wally sips his beer slowly and catches Hannah’s eye every once in a while, Clay walks over and talks to every person in the room, every person in the room walks over and talks to Baker.
And Hannah, standing in the kitchen with Wally, looks over to Baker and feels drawn to her by a force so powerful, so lovely, that she can almost see it shimmering in the air between them.
She wants to go to Baker immediately, to walk on water across the space that separates them, to wrap her in a hug and hold her forever.
Instead, she stays planted where she is, clutching a cheap beer and talking to Wally and some friends from their AP Calculus class.
“You look pretty tonight,” Wally says when the others aren’t listening.
“Thanks,” Hannah says, affecting as much nonchalance as possible. “So do you.”
Then he laughs in that shy way he has, and Hannah turns away from him and talks to whoever is on her other side.
Baker always finds her after a while, whenever she manages to break free from other conversations, and Hannah’s heart skips when Baker skates her nails over Hannah’s wrist to get her attention. “It’s loud in here,” Baker always says. “Do you want to go outside?”
So they step onto the back porch when no one is looking, and they shiver in the early-February air, and Baker looks over and asks, “Are you having fun, Hannah-bear?” with an expression that means she wants to know the real answer.
“Yeah,” Hannah says, because she’s always happy just to be around Baker. “Are you?”
Baker smiles her half smile and looks down at her drink. “I’m bored.”
“You do realize you don’t have to whisper that like it’s a guilty secret, right? It’s not a sin to be bored.”
“I just feel like I should be more excited to be here. Aren’t parties supposed to be, like, a teenager’s dream?”
Hannah peers at her. “You really weren’t kidding about bingeing Parks and Rec.”
Baker raises a tempting eyebrow. “I really wasn’t.”
“Do I still get cookies?”
“Oh no, no no. At this late hour, we’re making mac and cheese.”
“Sold,” Hannah says immediately, throwing the rest of her beer into the grass.
They work out the logistics, deciding which one of them should drive—“I’m way more sober than you,” Baker says, “you know I only had one drink”—until Clay pokes his head out onto the porch and says, with an edge to his voice, “What are y’all doing?”
“We’re stargazing,” Hannah says with a straight face. “Baker’s really into Ursa Major right now.”