Wait for Me
Most of the night I'd been staring at Nathaniel's mouth, trying to read his lips. Now I stared into his eyes, trying to read his mind.
From what I could see, he was every bit as conflicted as I was.
I could think of so many reasons not to do what I was craving. (1) He probably has a girlfriend and/or a bitter ex-girlfriend, and for all I know she's down there in the midway looking up at us right now. (2) I met him only a few days ago, and I know almost nothing about him—not even enough to call him a friend yet. (3) I do know that he's leaving. August might seem like forever away right now, but it will come fast—and when it does, it's going to hurt if I let him get too close. (4) The whole point of Mom, Dad, and me moving was to start over—and I would be making the same mistakes all over again by putting my trust in the wrong person.
But Nathaniel wasn't 'the wrong person.' Absolutely nothing about being around Nathaniel felt wrong. It felt right. If I trusted anyone here, it should be him.
Nathaniel's irises subtly darted back and fourth as they regarded mine, as though literally trying to read me. He broke eye contact only to look lower on my face—down at my lips.
I couldn't take it anymore. If he didn't make the first move soon, I would.
And I was about to—until the generator that turned the Ferris wheel whirred back to life, and a mechanical jerk tore through the tender moment like a splash of cold water.
I whipped my head back around to stare straight ahead, and beside me Nathaniel did the same, his face turning bright pink.
Once we reached the bottom, Nathaniel squirmed out onto the metal platform, and I stumbled out after him, trying to regain control of my unsteady legs. The ride operator said something to Nathaniel that made him blush even redder.
I put on an awkward smile, suddenly giddy and breathless and dizzy. Was being cramped into that tiny seat for too long what's making me feel this way, I wondered, or did it have more to do with Nathaniel?
I had no idea what to do now, and apparently neither did he. He nervously raked his fingers through his hair, and I pushed mine behind my ears to rid it from my eyes as the wind swept through it.
Well, if I wanted to use the notebook to talk to him about this, I'd have to find another writing utensil, since the one he dropped was probably somewhere under the wheel where we wouldn't be able to reach it. From the top of the Ferris wheel, I remembered seeing a midway game that offered pencils as prizes, so I gently touched his arm and motioned for him to follow me, which he did unquestioningly.
The game I had in mind was pretty much just a kiddy pool full of floating rubber ducks, and if you picked a duck with a colored dot on the bottom, you won a prize. It took four ducks (and four dollars), but I eventually won the stupid pencil.
When I turned back to rejoin Nathaniel, he was gone. I looked up and down the midway, searching for him among the bodies, but I couldn't find his blond hair and navy blue shirt.
Hm. Should I text him and ask him where he is?
No, Johanna, you're not six years old. Nathaniel isn't your mommy. You're a big girl now. You can handle being by yourself for a few minutes until he finds you.
Yup. You just hang tight. Just stand there. By yourself. In the middle of a carnival. Full of hearing people.
…Then again, I hated waiting more than almost anything. I hated waiting for Nathaniel to text me all last week. I hated waiting for him to kiss me. I hated waiting here in front of the rubber duck game, getting in the way of all the little brothers and sisters who were also trying to win pencils and Tootsie Roll pops. I wanted to make things happen, not wait around for them to happen.
It wouldn't hurt to make one quick lap around the carnival, right? Maybe some other game distracted him. Or maybe he got pulled aside by one of his friends. He might have even tried to stop me or let me know where he was, but of course I didn't hear him, and he lost me in the crowd.
The sky above was darkening from orange to purple-blue, reminding me that my time was limited, and it was running out.
I backtracked to start at the beginning, at the edge of the courtyard facing the street. The very first kiosk next to the entrance, which wasn't set up when we first came in, was being used to distribute yearbooks to high school students on their way out. I recognized Nathaniel's friends Dakota and Candace; he peered over her shoulder as she flipped through one of the red leather-bound yearbooks, smiling down at the pictures nostalgically.
"I lost Nathaniel. You haven't seen him, have you?" I preemptively wrote with the scratchy lead tip of the pencil across a blank page. I approached Candace, tapping her on the shoulder.
Oh, hey, Johanna! she greeted me warmly when she remembered who I was.
I showed her the note, laying it across the open yearbook she already held.
She squinted at the line of words for a second, then gave up and shook her head.
Without missing a beat, Dakota leaned in closer and read it aloud for her. From up close, I noticed that the bridge of his nose was unnaturally off-center—but rather than take away from his gorgeous exterior, it added character.
I was curious as to how a scarred, tattooed, apparently Australian boy ended up with this tiny, practically blind redheaded girl. They were living proof that opposites really do attract.
I had to quickly go through the rigmarole with Candace before she would write a response. (Yes to her are you deaf? Yes, sort of to her can you read lips? No, I prefer to write to her can you talk?)
Once that was over with, I smiled tiredly and pointed to my original question.
She deflated slightly, reluctant to answer. Her dark brown eyes once again glanced up at Dakota for reassurance. She finally wrote in feminine half-cursive, "I saw him not too long ago, but I'm not sure which way he went." Not the most helpful answer, but it was something.
She handed the note back to me, revealing the pictures on the yearbook page underneath. The glossy photos were alive with the wild colors of prom dresses, gleaming bright in the camera's flash against the background of a blackened dancefloor. Curiosity got the best of me, and I couldn't help but ask to see the yearbook. Candace happily handed it over and pointed out a picture of herself in the corner. In it, she was wearing a short blue-and-turquoise dress and dancing with—not Dakota—but a tuxedoed boy so paradoxically tall compared to Candace they had to crop off the top of his head just to fit both of them in frame. The caption underneath read "Dajan Asad and Candace Emerson."
She must have been trying to distract me from the picture in the opposite corner—one of "Melody Geiger and Nathaniel Weiss" slow dancing forehead-to-forehead, their arms wrapped tightly around each other.
So Nathaniel had a girlfriend after all. Or at least he did when this picture was taken. Melody was pretty, swathed in hot pink tulle—and she looked deliriously happy. And so did he.
I forced a smile, trying to suppress contradictory sensations of jealousy and guilt.
Why did he act like he wanted to kiss me if he already has a girlfriend? Why didn't he tell me?
I guess I did just meet him. He couldn't exactly tell me the specifics of his dysfunctional relationship that morning on the roof. And judging from his reaction when Candace dropped her name in a text earlier, things between Melody and Nathaniel were on the rocks before I even got here.
I don't think I've done anything wrong, and neither has he. At least not yet.
The only one who could definitively answer the questions that were forming in my mind was Nathaniel—but before I could ask him, I had to find him.
On a more practical note, he was my ride home, so I really did need to find him sooner rather than later.
I closed the red yearbook and tucked it under my arm. "Can I take this one for Nathaniel?" I wrote to Candace to be read by Dakota.
Sure, she shrugged.
I curtly nodded my head, gave them a feeble smile, and turned to leave.
Dakota had no idea what as going on; he seemed content just to be with Candace, and very little else seemed to matter. She, on the other hand, knew more than she was willing to tell me. She stopped me with a small white hand on my arm before I got too far. Wait, she pleaded, her face heavy with worry. Um... She squinted at our shoes, not sure how to say what she was thinking.
What is it, Candace?
At that exact moment, my phone buzzed in my back pocket. It was a text from Nathaniel. "I didn't mean to abandon you. I'm coming right back."
I was so relieved I might have accidentally moaned out loud as I sighed. "Tell me where you are, and I'll come to you," I typed with avid thumbs.
"Wait for me outside the House of Mirrors?"
What? Wait for me?
As much as I wanted to tell him yes, I couldn't promise I'd wait. "I'll see you soon," is all I could tell him for sure.
Meanwhile, Candace frowned at me as I stood there texting. I re-pocketed my phone and re-opened the notebook, writing "Which way to the House of Mirrors?" with newfound motivation.
Dakota interpreted, and Candace wrote in reply: "All the way down past the games, right, then right again. They set it up in the school parking lot."
Thank you, I signed to them both, finally thrusting myself back into the crowd before she could stop me again.
I felt my heart starting to race as I stepped onto the asphalt parking lot and became encircled in the yellow glow of the concrete light posts. Was Nathaniel with Melody right now? If so, doing what?
The House of Mirrors was really more like the Tent of Mirrors. It looked rickety and not very impressive from the outside, draped in crinkled red-and-white canvas with a painted plywood sign—a ramshackle flea circus attempt at a carnival attraction. It wasn't very popular. There was no one waiting to go inside. There wasn't even a carnie regulating the entrance.
"Wait for me?" Nathaniel's text had said.
I tried. Honestly, I did. I paced back and forth. I twiddled my hair between my fingers. I recited a poem in my head. I signed the alphabet backwards and forwards.
After about five minutes, though, I decided I was through with waiting, and in I went.
Inside, I was immediately met my forty other Johannas, my own hazel eyes gaping back at me from every angle. Unable to help myself, I stepped closer to one of the mirrors, using the opportunity to fix the back of my hair where it had begun to frizz, scrunching my face into a critical grimace.
That mirror was actually the door that let out from the interior of the maze. I didn't know that, but I would find out soon enough.
Without warning, someone on the other side pushed the mirror so that it swung on its swiveling hinge, and it would have spun all the way around if the sharp edge hadn't collided with my forehead.
It was the initial scare that made me drop everything I was carrying, not so much the force. The pain didn't set in until seconds later—a sharp, stinging pain that reached back into my skull with surprising intensity.
I was shoved out of the way by impatient hands. I blinked a few times, still trying to cope with the pain in my head.
It was the snotty girl I'd seen throwing a hissy fit at the guess-your-weight kiosk. She was scantily clad in nothing more than ripped denim shorts and a green bikini top, flaunting her slutty belly button piercing and her spray-tanned skin. Identical images of her glowering face were reflected all around me, but I knew the one in front of me was the real one; the stench of her too-strong department store perfume made my eyes water.
She fussily tossed a lock of blonde hair over her shoulder, jostling her gold hoop earrings, then planted her fists firmly on her hips and looked me dead in the eyes. Her glossy lips jabbered as she talked, and she gnawed a wad of bubblegum with her back teeth. I couldn't read what she was saying, but I could render a guess: Get out of my way.
I met her gaze, rolling my shoulders back and lowering my hands from where they had been holding my head.
Who the hell does this girl think she is?
A second figure ducked through the mirrored doorway—a much, much taller figure.
He was easily the tallest person I'd ever seen, taller even than Dad, who was six-two. If I had to guess, I'd put him somewhere around six-six, maybe even six-eight. I wasn't surprised to see he wore basketball shoes with his athletic shorts and form-fitting black t-shirt. His dreadlocked black-brown hair was held behind his head with a thick rubber band. From under dark, expressive brows, his honey-colored eyes searched my face for signs of distress or injury, his lips forming the words are you alright? He even reached out with contrastingly white-palmed hands to steady me, as though afraid I might fall over.
The blonde girl scoffed and tossed her hair some more, reaching for the boy's long arm and trying to pull him towards the exit.
But he wouldn't be moved. He was strong enough to withstand her pulling as though she were nothing more than an annoying afterthought—and he did seem rightfully annoyed with her as he stooped to collect the yearbook and notebook I'd dropped, handing them back to me apologetically.
Defying explanation, the girl snatched the well-worn composition notebook out of his hand, her mouth still rattling on.
The pages fell open where the binding was creased, revealing the conversation I had with Nathaniel earlier in the evening—the part where he spilled his guts about not wanting to go to law school in Indiana.
Her green eyes flicked over the words in a matter of nanoseconds, then her mouth dropped open. Much to my dismay, her mouth formed his name: Nathaniel?
She must have recognized his handwriting. Or his story. Or both.
How dare she! That was our private conversation! He told me that with the understanding that I wouldn't tell anyone else. He probably put his trust in me specifically because he knew I wouldn't talk about him behind his back—because I can't talk at all.
She clenched her mouth shut and handed the notebook back to me with the fakest of smiles. Thanks, said her smacking lips, and turned on her heel to march purposefully out of the House of Mirrors, beckoning the tall boy to follow her.
Once again, he stayed put. He wasn't even looking at her. He was looking straight at me. I'm sorry, said his lips, his long lashes half-closed over his eyes.
Why is someone as nice as you hanging around with a bitch like her? I wanted so badly to ask out loud. But I couldn't say anything. I couldn't even thank the boy for his kindness; my hard-won four-dollar pencil had rolled away somewhere across the lined parking lot pavement. I just stared up at him, wide-eyed and silent.
He tilted his head, his expression softening into a heart-melting smile.
As I hugged my books to my chest with sweaty hands, I felt myself smiling back. He was pretty cute.
Who am I kidding? He wasn't cute. He was to die for.
Focus, Johanna! You're here to find Nathaniel, aren't you?
I hung my head and bashfully shuffled my feet.
The tall boy experienced a similar wakeup call as he remembered himself. His smile faded and he reluctantly followed the rotten blonde girl out into the parking lot, taking long strides with his sinewy legs. Just before he disappeared through the entryway, I saw him chance a glance back at me—and his smile returned.
Deep breaths, Johanna. Deep breaths.
I decisively forced my way through the swinging mirrored door, resuming my search for Nathaniel.