Chapter Eighteen Bailey #2
“That’s not the point. You just have an entirely different standard for how people should live, and that standard is not only unattainable, but it’s tiresome.
I don’t want to spend my whole life feeling guilty because I am culturally less than you are, or because I can actually lie on the couch and relax while you have to move around constantly FIXING things.
We’re made different, Van. You don’t like that I buy things just because they are beautiful.
You don’t like that I use wrapping paper instead of old newspaper.
That I wear antiperspirant instead of deodorant.
You don’t like my sisters or my parents.
Honestly, Van? I’m not really sure you like me.
” Bailey couldn’t tell if she was angry or sad, if she was making shit up or telling the truth.
She pulled off her cycling shoes and stared at him.
“I like you so much, Bailey,” Van said quietly. But he didn’t go to her and she didn’t go to him either.
For her entire life, Bailey would always feel a jolt of guilt whenever she thought about the first time she kissed Van.
She was fifteen, it was the night of the Halloween party, and she was dressed as a white witch, silver makeup and hair sprayed with chalk.
Every year the upperclassmen built a maze in the Cave, the lockers under the cafeteria, duct-taping together cardboard boxes to make tunnels.
Some alleys were dead ends, some had strobe lights or tape recorders that played the sounds of screaming, some had kids hiding behind black curtains with plastic hatchets.
(A senior named James had petitioned to hide with a chainsaw to scare the freshmen but was denied.) Bailey and Augusta had gone to the party together but, somehow, they had been separated in the crowd of teenagers in rubber masks and wigs, and so Bailey had wandered down to the Cave.
From the door she saw Van across the room, standing on top of the stairs.
He caught her eye and pointed at the maze, wordlessly inviting her to go in.
She grinned and ducked down into the entrance: a big oval monster mouth carved with X-ACTO knives.
She crawled along on her hands and knees.
The tunnels smelled like a mix of floor polish and glue, and as Bailey felt her way along the path, she heard people calling out, laughing, the thrum of the dance party upstairs.
There were other people in the maze, and sometimes she could feel the walls shake as someone crawled past in a neighboring tunnel.
There was a shriek and then laughter. She crawled until she reached a dead end where it was so dark she couldn’t even be sure what she was touching, some paper pasted to the walls, bumpy and damp.
Bailey turned around and retraced her path, back into the middle of the maze.
She heard someone crawling toward her and she stopped and waited until there he was, Van, a small flashlight in his hand.
“Hi.”
“Hey, isn’t a flashlight cheating?” Bailey teased. They were face-to-face, both on their hands and knees.
“I helped build the maze, so I don’t need to cheat.”
“Oh, so you just crawl around looking for sophomore girls in distress?” Bailey took the flashlight and shone it at the floor, letting her eyes adjust.
“Nah, I was only looking for you.” Van wasn’t wearing a costume.
He had on a dark T-shirt and Bailey could see his collarbone where it gapped away from his chest. He had a freckle there and Bailey suddenly reached forward and touched it, her fingertip right below his neck.
Van froze for a moment and then leaned toward her on his hands, and she met him with a kiss.
She moved her fingers across his shoulder and into the back of his hair.
He smelled like fresh laundry and Speed Stick and Bailey felt his tongue with hers.
And then, a mental image arrived, unbidden: Van walking up the path to the school, wearing his bike helmet and backpack, straps over both shoulders.
Who walked around like that? She pulled away.
“Don’t tell anyone about that, okay?” she whispered.
“Okay,” Van whispered back, and she couldn’t quite read his smile.
Two weeks later they had sex in his childhood bedroom while his parents were at the American Repertory Theater in Boston watching King Lear.
They slept together off and on from that fall out, they went to concerts, they swam at the reservoir, they spent countless nights sneaking off together at various parties, they came to be so close, but whenever Bailey thought about their first kiss, she felt a rush of shame for the terrible thing she had said.
Van moved his stuff out that week. They cried and they hugged Dylan between them, and Bailey promised Van could come over whenever he wanted, he could sleep in the guest room, he could take Dylan on trips and read him bedtime stories every night of the week.
She could tell it was a relief to Van as well, that he had been struggling just as much as she had.
As she watched his car pull out of the driveway, she moved Dylan’s little arm back and forth in a wave.
Maybe it wasn’t that Van didn’t like her enough.
Maybe she didn’t like him enough either.
Or maybe they liked each other a lot but liking each other wasn’t the same as being in love.
They had tried. They had done their best and they had been kind, but deep down they had always known it wasn’t meant to be.
Truth
Two weeks later Bailey was feeding the swans in her nightgown like an actress with a niche OnlyFans when Vanny rattled up in his Subaru.
“Get in, loser, we’re going shopping.” He grinned.
“What?” Bailey stared at him.
“That’s a quote from Mean Girls.” Van blushed.
“Duh. But where are we going?”
“Eben and Max’s adoption came through.”
“Oh my God!” Bailey screamed, and ran upstairs to put on some pants.
The baby was in Ohio, so Eben and Max had left at four in the morning to meet her at the hospital.
They had been slowly moving into their renovated house on the Neck, figuring they had all the time in the world, but suddenly they were about to bring home a baby, and half their worldly belongings were in boxes.