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THEN
Just a few weeks later, and with no effort on her part at all, Joanna was suddenly a senior in high school. Walking through the doors of Grace High on that first day, she felt a buzz. The air was thick with her classmates’ energy and plans. Friends that she had all but forgotten about during the previous year were preparing themselves to leave hearth and home—Mary to Smith College, a handful of people to international schools, a sizable minority to jobs or apprenticeships instead of college, and everyone else to one of the U-Maine campuses.
Joanna found it unnerving to wade through that atmosphere of palpable excitement. Whatever progress she’d made over the summer seemed to vanish. She had no plans—not a single one. Before Josh had left, this point in time had felt too far away to think seriously about and now, the whole question felt small and petty. Every option she could think of seemed as bleak as the rest, and most of them required leaving home, which felt patently disloyal to Poppa after all he’d been through.
And then, one day in early November, Mr. S. handed Joanna a brochure for Roosevelt College, a school in southwestern Connecticut that she’d never heard of.
“I know it might be too early for you to think about leaving home,” he said kindly. “But when you are ready, I think you should consider this place. It’s a small and nurturing community overall, but its theater program—especially relative to its size—is impressive. And it’s a one-hour train ride from New York City.” He folded his hands and leaned in, close to Joanna’s face. “I think you can go places, Jo, if you decide you want to. But you can’t do it from here.”
Joanna eyed the brochure with little interest. There were glossy pictures of well-dressed students laughing on couches, strolling down tree-lined walkways, raising their hands in small classrooms. It looked like every brochure from every school she’d ever seen.
And then Mr. S. handed her a second brochure, this one specifically for Roosevelt’s theater program. The photos here showed erratic lighting, grotesquely made-up faces, performers emptying themselves on stage. As she perused these photos, she felt a tingling in the back of her mind. There was something awfully compelling about these pictures.
I could do this, she thought. It had been a long time since she’d felt that way.
“They do some feel-good stuff,” Mr. S. was saying. “That keeps ticket sales high. But the director of the program, an old friend of mine, is full of creativity and imagination. He’s always pushing the envelope, and he produces some very challenging material. A theater student who graduates from Roosevelt can be sure that he or she will have received the very highest level of undergraduate theatrical training out there. If you go here,” he told her seriously, tapping the brochure with his forefinger, “I guarantee that, when you finish, you will be able to do anything.”
Joanna glanced up at him. Over the last three years, Mr. S. had become much more than a teacher to her; she trusted him and his opinion implicitly. And he had just said she could do anything.
The brochures stayed in her back pocket all day, warming her with their promises of distance, success, anonymity. When the final bell rang, she told Mary she’d call her later and walked home as fast as she could. Erik wasn’t working that day, so she threw her backpack inside the house, jumped into her car, and drove out to his shack on the beach.
She parked in front, next to his car, and then walked through the cabin, exiting through the screen door in the back that faced the beach. Erik was working Ro about fifty feet away. He hadn’t seen her yet, so she jogged down the porch steps and took a few seconds to watch them. Ro was panting, and Erik was sweaty. They both looked so happy—she had the sudden, unbidden thought that they were both, exactly, in the place they were made for. She wanted that too.
Erik saw her then and waved his left arm in an arc above his head. “Hey, Joanna!” he shouted and then turned to Ro.
Oh no, she thought, bracing herself.
“Ro, look! It’s Joanna!”
Ro turned and ran at her, tongue hanging and tail wagging. When she reached her, she jumped up, licking every part of Joanna’s face that she could reach and butting her nose against Joanna’s stomach, her shoulder, her hip. She grabbed the tail of Joanna’s shirt in her mouth and pulled at her, trying to get her down on the ground with her to play. Erik had taught her to be gentle, but he relaxed all the rules with himself—and her. He thought it was hilarious. “Don’t fight her; she’ll think you’re trying to play!” he called cheerfully, jogging over.
“Get her off of me!” Joanna yelled, trying to fend off Ro’s persistent, enthusiastic attempts to get attention.
“All right, girl, come!” he called. Ro immediately—Erik really was very good with her—left Joanna and ran to Erik, stopping in front of his outstretched hand. “Sit.” Ro sat. Erik helped Joanna up while Ro craned her neck to look back at them. “Is she moving?” Erik asked Joanna. She shook her head. “Good. We’ve been working on that. She’s supposed to stay still until I say b-r-e-a-k. She’s been kind of iffy so far.”
“You know, one of these days, she’s going to jump on the wrong person, and you’re gonna get sued,” Joanna muttered, brushing the sand off of her.
“Nah—I only taught her to pounce on you, and you’d never sue.” Erik put a hand on each of her cheeks and pulled her in for a long, exuberant kiss and then gave her a big, goofy smile. “You are soaked in Ro drool, but you’re still so lovely.”
Joanna laughed despite herself and shook her head. The slobber was exasperating, but what Ro did for Erik’s mood and outlook was worth it. He was like a little kid with her—running, throwing, jumping, swimming right along with his puppy.
“What’s up? Break!” Erik took her hand, and they walked back to his little dilapidated porch as Ro bounded over to them. She stuck her nose into Erik’s hand as he sat down in one of the rickety old chairs. Erik patted her and scratched behind her ears absentmindedly, watching Joanna. She sat across from him in the other, also rickety, chair and pulled the brochures out of her pocket, setting them down on the ugly, rough, tiny table between them. Erik glanced at them and then at her. “What’s this? A school?”
“Yeah.” She took a deep breath. Why was she so nervous? “Erik, what if I go to Connecticut next year?”
Erik’s hands on Ro’s scruff slowed down as he looked at her. He picked up the first brochure, the generic one, and flipped through it. She watched his eyes move over each section in turn, but she couldn’t discern any reaction. He finished that one and picked up the theater one, flipping through it just as slowly. He raised his eyebrows at some of the more startling images, but he still didn’t say anything. Then he put both back down on the table and looked at Joanna.
“So—tell me,” he finally said.
Joanna braced her hands on her thighs and looked across the table at him tentatively. “Mr. S. gave me these today. I’d never heard of the school before, but he knows the director and the program pretty well. It sounds pretty good—it’s small, it’s close to New York City, and the theater department is apparently, like, crazy-good. He made it seem like, if I go here, and if I study under this guy, I could do anything when I graduate.”
“You can do anything. Even now.” Erik was smiling at Joanna, his elbows on his knees and his hands folded loosely in between. She smiled back at him indulgently.
“Thank you, but you’re wrong. Mr. S. is great, but I’m going to graduate high school and still not really know anything.”
“What’s to know?”
“Erik. How am I supposed to be an actress with nothing but a high school diploma from nowhere?”
“What’s wrong with the place in Harper? You’ve been working for them forever.”
Joanna looked at him to see if he was serious. He was. “That’s summer stock theater for tourists. It’s good training, but I don’t want to be stuck doing that for the rest of my life.”
Erik didn’t speak for a minute. “I—didn’t realize you were so serious,” he said finally in a quiet voice.
“Well…I am.” Truth be told, this may have been the first time Joanna had ever said so out loud. She sat up a little straighter.
“Huh.” Erik nodded several times, his head bouncing in a slow rhythm. Ro nosed her way inside, leaving the two of them on the porch.
“Erik, I think this might be a good place for me. Safe. But hard too. Not too scary, but a little scary, maybe. Maybe I need something a little scary…?”
His head was down, but he lifted his eyes to look at her. “You sure about that?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, trying not to feel how her skin hardened at the question.
“I just mean—” He spread his hands out and then folded them again. “You’re already scared, all the time, and you’re still here. What do you think it’ll be like when you’re in a whole new place?”
“I’m just talking about college,” she said in a careful tone. “People go to college every day.”
“Not people who’ve had the year you just had,” he responded quietly.
Joanna took the brochures off the seat next to him gently, re-folding them and sliding them back into her pocket. She was feeling something she’d never felt around Erik before, like she was absorbing too much of him through the skin. She felt prickly.
“I don’t get this,” she said finally, her tone still careful. “Do you just not want me to go anywhere?”
“How am I supposed to want you to go somewhere? What about us?”
“It’s only, like, a six-hour drive,” she reminded him meekly. Erik shook his head and looked out at the water without answering. “Well…” she continued. “I mean, what do we do now? It—it’s college. It’s kind of a big deal.”
“I don’t want to be that guy, Joanna,” he said, finally sitting up straight again. “Obviously, I’m not gonna tell you not to go. But—you asked me what I think, and that’s what I think.”
“Erik…what did you think I was going to do next year?” she asked him gently.
Avoiding her gaze, Erik crossed his arms across his chest and jiggled his foot. It dawned on her like a wave. He’d assumed she’d stay in Grace. With him.
Her stomach turned. Suddenly, this conversation was much more than just a conversation. She didn’t know what to say as the implications of his assumption washed over her.
Erik knew she’d figured him out; he watched her, almost defiantly, a tiny bit of pink high on each cheek.
“Erik—”
“Joanna, listen. We don’t have to make this into some thing, all right?”
“…okay.”
“Just…don’t go anywhere without telling me.” He smiled ruefully and went inside. Joanna heard him calling for Ro and then pouring her some food. She knew that he was avoiding her; he usually didn’t feed Ro until a couple of hours from now. He’d laid every card he had out on the table, and she had left them lying there. She loved him—maybe, but how did a person ever really know something like that, for sure?—but had he really expected her not to go to college?
“I guess so,” she muttered to herself, sighing.
She went inside a minute or two later, when she thought Erik had probably recovered from his embarrassment. They hung out for another hour or so, but it was awkward for both of them. They were both on their best behavior, self-conscious and solicitous, and she could tell it was getting on both of their nerves, so she left.
That night at dinner, Joanna told Poppa about Roosevelt College, handing him the brochures. He looked both of them over silently and then said, “If you want to go, Jo, we can figure it out.”
“Really?”
“If you…if you think you’re ready.” He eyed her. “College is hard enough, even for people who haven’t had the year you’ve had.”
“Okay, so one sort-of for, and one against,” she said.
“Who’s against?”
“Erik.”
“Ah.” Poppa folded his hands. “Whatever you do, Jo, don’t decide because of Erik. We both love him, but you’re too young to start building your life based on what a boy wants.”
She nodded and put the brochures in her pocket again, still thinking.
As soon as dinner was over, she went upstairs to call Mary. When she told her that Roosevelt was in Connecticut, Mary squealed. “You’d be closer to me there than you would here!”
“Yeah—I just…I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?”
“What if I can’t, you know, handle it? What if this is too much too soon?”
Mary paused. “Is this you talking or Erik?”
“What do you mean?”
Mary sighed. “Listen, he’s great. Obviously. And I love you two together. But have you noticed that he doesn’t seem to think you can handle anything since Josh died?” Melissa Etheridge popped into Joanna’s mind, but before she could dwell on it, Mary continued. “He means well, but maybe this is a chance for both of you to get some…air, or, like, perspective, maybe? I think—” She blew out a hard breath. “J, I just…think you’re stronger than either one of you thinks you are.”
Joanna didn’t answer, except to say huh quietly.
Mary had to go soon after, so they said goodbye. Joanna thought about their conversation while she brushed her teeth and got into pajamas. Mary was right—there was no denying that Erik had become protective. It was like he felt like he had to fill Josh’s shoes and his own. And maybe she had needed that for a while. But maybe she didn’t anymore.
Her phone rang as she was finding a book to read.
“Hello?”
There was a slight pause, and then, “Hey, baby.” It always made Joanna smile when he said that.
“Hey.”
A couple of moments passed, and then he said, “Well, that stuff this afternoon really threw me off.”
“Yeah. I could tell,” she said, laughing a little.
“I’m not gonna tell you what to do with your life.” He sounded more tired than he usually did at this time of night. “I just…hope we’ll stay together either way.”
The memory of his face as he’d avoided her gaze came into Joanna’s head, clenching her stomach.
“Erik, I made up my mind. I’m…going.”
There was silence on the other end of the phone, and then Erik took in a deep breath. “You’re going.”
“Yeah. Or—I mean, at least applying.”
“Huh. I, ah…I see.”
“I hope we stay together too…for what it’s worth,” she told him quietly.
“Well. I guess that’s that.”
“I guess.”
He laughed under his breath. “I was preparing myself for a much longer conversation tonight.” Joanna laughed too, hating the defeated tone in his voice. “Well—good night, baby. Sweet dreams.”
“Good night.”
Joanna hung up the phone and stayed on her bed, staring into space for several minutes. She had decided. A tiny bubble of anticipation formed in the pit of her stomach. It had been over a year since feeling anything but numb; she almost didn’t recognize it.
And she and Erik would be just fine.
+++
The next morning, Joanna walked into Mr. S.’ classroom just before the first bell rang and told him she wanted to apply to Roosevelt, for the next year. “I know it’s a long shot at this point,” she told him. “But I don’t want to wait. If I do, I’m afraid I’ll talk myself out of it. And,” she took a deep breath. “If I don’t do something now, I’m afraid I never will.”
“All right, then,” Mr. S. said, nodding seriously. “Well, we’ve got our work cut out for us, haven’t we? Let’s get started.”