23. Darcy
23
DARCY
“ O h my God, what time is it?” I asked, suddenly noticing how the sun was setting outside the window. Liz was expecting us back at the school!
“The play!” Callum said as his eyes went wide. “I completely forgot!”
We were suddenly scrambling for our clothes, pulling T-shirts and underwear from on top of or between stacks of papers around the room. I ran my hands through my hair, desperate for a mirror, as Callum tried to find a missing sock.
“No time,” I said, slipping my feet back into my sneakers. “Liz is going to kill us!”
I watched Callum slide his sockless foot into his shoe, and then we were checking each other’s clothes and making sure we looked presentable. I rushed out of the office to find my purse and keys, and Callum grabbed his guitar as we rushed out the front door. As I locked the place up, I wondered if I felt something different about the store already. The storefront felt more alive than it had in months, as if the very walls of the store understood there was something exciting on the horizon.
“She called me three times!” Callum said as he checked his phone. I knew my phone would have similar missed calls from Liz. Instead of checking, I rushed toward my car and told Callum to text her that we were on our way.
“Where were you?” Liz whispered as Callum and I slid our way into the open seats. Someone was on the stage giving a speech about how hard all the kids had worked this week at camp and asking us to turn off our cell phones. I glanced at Liz but didn’t say anything. The smile she gave me seemed to say she knew exactly where we had been, and I felt my cheeks flush when she looked at me like that.
“We lost track of time,” I whispered back. Callum settled into his seat, and I took my place on a folding chair in between him and Liz.
“I bet you did,” Liz mumbled. The lights went down then, making me lose sight of Liz’s expression, and then the torn, red curtain opened with a jerk to reveal a group of kids dressed as jungle animals. The parents and grandparents “oooed” and “awwed” as they saw their kids up on stage. Liz’s youngest, Maggie, was front and center, taking the song far too seriously. We laughed as she nearly hit the child next to her with her aggressive choreography.
“She’s so cute!” Callum whispered to me. As he leaned into me his hand reached over to squeeze my leg right above the knee. It was an easy, casual gesture, as if he had done it a hundred times before. It made me smile as I felt a rush of joy in the moment. Everything felt surprisingly right . I was sitting with my best friend and a man who cared about me.
I reached down to the hand that still rested casually on my knee, and I took Callum’s hand in my own. He squeezed it in a warm gesture, and we turned our attention to the kids on the stage. We sat hand in hand as a parade of different animal groups crossed the stage. I spent the play searching for Liz’s kids on the stage and catching Callum’s expressions out of the corner of my eye. He was beaming as he watched his niece and nephew perform.
“I don’t want to miss this,” he whispered, and at first I didn’t understand what he was saying, but he continued. “I don’t want to miss them growing up.”
I squeezed his hand in response as the last note of the song was pounded out on the out-of-tune piano. The kids finished the song with their arms over their heads and we all clapped our hands in appreciation, wanting nothing more than to make them feel special. The lights around us came up as the kids shuffled their way off and that hiccupping curtain slid back across the auditorium stage.
“That’s intermission,” Liz said. “I have to get to the concessions table!”
Liz pushed her way out of the aisle, unable to wait for the people in front of her to wander out on their own. It left me and Callum alone, feeling slightly lost in a sea of parents and elementary-school-aged children.
“Should we help her?” I asked. Callum nodded.
“It’s the least we can do after being late.”
“We weren’t late!” I corrected. “We got in just in time.”
I began to shuffle our way out of the row, stepping around people’s knees as they looked through the program that had been printed on someone’s home printer.
“Even if we had been late,” Callum said, leaning into me so he was speaking to the back of my neck. “It would have been worth it.”
I felt my body flush with the memory of our time in the office. I wanted to turn around and kiss him, and if it weren’t for all the kids running around, I probably would have done so. Instead, I had to be content to take his hand and guide him to the snacks where Liz was manning the cash box. I saw Liz’s eyes drop from our faces to my hand that held tight to Callum’s.
“Good show, huh?” She asked.
“They’re so adorable!” I squealed. Liz made change for a twenty and handed it to the man in front of her as Callum and I gushed about her children and their performance onstage.
“They must get their talent from their uncle,” Callum said, teasing his sister. Liz shoved her shoulder into his as she counted the snacks the mom in front of her was buying. We were now standing behind the table with her, helping people pick out the bake-sale snacks they wanted.
“Did you forget about my stint in that a cappella group?” Liz asked. “The school newspaper said we were ‘radiant’.”
I snorted as the memory came back to me.
“Didn’t we join that group because you had some crush on a boy?” I asked, but Liz quickly corrected me.
“It was you who had a crush!” she laughed. “You went on and on about Darren Sykes for weeks until I finally got tired of you not doing anything, and I signed us up for his a cappella group.”
“And what happened?” Callum asked. “Was it a true-love connection?” He raised his eyebrows in mock interest, as if it were very important to know if this relationship worked out between us.
“We quickly realized Darren Sykes had no interest in me, though Liz did her best to push us together any chance she got,” I laughed. “Until we found out his boyfriend sang in the tenor section!”
I looked up at Callum, expecting to see a laugh spreading across his face, but he seemed disconnected, as if he hadn’t heard my story. Instead, his eyes were scanning the sea of people filling the auditorium. He looked slightly panicked, as if he had just caught sight of a ghost.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry—I just saw someone who looked familiar.”
In a town of a few thousand people, the chances of seeing familiar faces at the summer camp play were high. But I had to remind myself that Callum was only recently back in town. There were bound to be tons of people he hadn’t run into yet, and each new face could inspire a flood of memories for him.
“Callum Jones!” We heard in front of us. “Can I have your autograph?”
We glanced over to a middle-aged man holding out a napkin he had just picked up from the snack table. I was standing close enough to Callum to feel his body stiffen as he took in the man’s request. The evening had felt so normal, but I realized all at once that normal evenings were few and far between when you were Callum Jones.
“Why don’t we leave the autographs to the kids tonight?” Callum suggested, and a few of the parents around him chuckled in appreciation.
“It’s just an autograph, man,” the guy said. He continued to hold the napkin out and now he was pushing it even closer to Callum’s chest. It made me uncomfortable, and I wanted to push the man’s hands away from him and tell him to leave us alone. I looked up at Callum to see if he would appreciate my help, but his eyes were once again scanning the room. He seemed to catch sight of someone, and I read shock on his face once more.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Callum said, and then he was squeezing past me so he no longer stood behind the snack table. Liz and I shared a look as we tried to figure out what Callum was doing. As Liz took the next payment from the woman in front of her, I watched Callum cross the room and lock eyes with a short man with spiky hair dyed far too blond.
“Who’s that?” I asked, nodding over at the man, but Liz couldn’t look up. She was too absorbed in counting out the quarters that had just been handed to her.
I watched as Callum’s face grew dark and saw confusion in his features as he spoke with the man. I was too far away to hear anything, but they looked like they were arguing. I felt unease settle into my stomach and tighten the muscles along my shoulder blades. I didn’t like the look of things, and I suddenly wanted to be over there, protecting Callum from whatever unpleasantness was in front of him.
“Be right back,” I mumbled to Liz. There were plenty of moms behind the snack table, so it wasn’t a problem for me to leave. I locked eyes on Callum and the blond man and began to weave in and out of the people. I pushed my way past bouquets of supermarket flowers parents held in their arms, ready to give to their kids after the show, and I narrowly avoided cups of fruit punch and orange soda that others held, likely wishing it was alcohol.
But by the time I got to the spot where Callum and the man were standing, they were gone. I looked around and caught sight of them at the edge of the room and then saw Callum press against the crash bar on the door and push his way out, this man following behind him. I knew I should leave them alone. I told myself it was probably a private conversation and I shouldn’t get myself involved, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that this guy was bad news.
Even though I knew Callum could handle himself, I didn’t want him to be alone. I made the quick decision to go after them and, before I knew it, I was weaving through more gifts and oversized cameras on my way toward the door.