Again Again Read online

  Then the Buchwald family left Boston. They moved to Baltimore for Toby’s treatment. Adelaide had accepted that she’d never see the boy in the leather jacket, ever again.

  Now here he was.

  * * *

  He picked up a tennis ball that was lying in the sand. “Birthday! Come here, boy.”

  “She’s a girl,” Adelaide said.

  “Come here, girl.”

  B-Cake ignored him.

  “She doesn’t fetch,” Adelaide told him. “I know that dog.”

  The boy laughed. “Okay. I don’t need to throw if she’s not into it.” He sat down.

  “Did you hurt your leg?” Adelaide asked.

  “No.” He didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “Actually, a plesiosaur bit me. I didn’t want to tell you because you seem to have a phobia.”

  “Ha.” She chewed her lip. “Was that rude of me, asking?”

  “A little.” He sighed. “I was born this way. It’s a skeletal limb abnormality.”

  “I’m sorry. I asked without thinking.”

  “You’re not entitled to the knowledge, is all. It’s my personal info. You know?”

  “Okay.”

  “Okay.”

  “D’you want to ask me something intrusive now?” she said. “You can. I feel I owe you.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Ask me.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “Go on.”

  “Fine. Ah, besides plesiosaurs, what scares you the most? Really, truly terrifies you?”

  “My brother,” Adelaide said, the answer coming out before she had time to craft an amusing reply.

  * * *

  He picked up a tennis ball that was lying in the sand. “Birthday! Come here, boy.”

  “She’s a girl,” Adelaide said.

  “Come here, girl.”

  B-Cake ignored him.

  “She doesn’t fetch,” Adelaide told him. “I know that dog.”

  The boy laughed. “Okay. I don’t need to throw if she’s not into it.” He sat down next to her. “I’m just taking her this weekend while the owner’s out of town. Are all of these yours?” He was talking about EllaBella, Rabbit, and the rest.

  “I just walk them.”

  He reached down to pet EllaBella, who was lying at Adelaide’s feet. “This dog is my favorite,” he said. “She has an excellent beard.” EllaBella was a bushy black mutt, nearly fifteen years old.

  “She’s my favorite too,” Adelaide whispered. “But don’t tell the others.”

  EllaBella was owned by Derrick Byrd, a single teacher of history. He’d come to Alabaster last year. He still had unpacked boxes in his house, which was two doors down from her dad’s.

  “I never tell secrets,” said the boy. She liked the way his mouth moved when he spoke. He had blue paint underneath his nails.

  “What did you paint?” she asked.

  “I have access to the art studio for the summer. I’m painting abstract shapes, I guess you’d call them. Things that look like other things but aren’t those things.”

  “Like what?”

  “This one I’m doing—don’t laugh.”

  “I won’t.”

  “Well, you can laugh. It’s kind of a hippopotamus and it’s kind of a car. And also, it’s kind of a church. The meaning is what the viewer sees in it.”

  “Hm.”

  “I’m not getting the effect I want,” he said. “A lot of them look like blobs, not church hippos or whatever. It’s just the start of an idea.”

  “What year are you?” she asked.

  “Rising senior.”

  “I’ve never seen you. On campus.”

  He told her he had just transferred in. “My mother died six months ago.” She’d had leukemia. He and his father had just relocated from Spain. His dad used to teach at Alabaster and was now going to head the Modern Languages department.

  “I’m so sorry,” Adelaide said. “About your mother.”

  “Yeah, well. Thanks.” Lord Voldemort came up and wagged his stubby tail. “How come you walk so many dogs?”

  “The teachers go away on summer travel. My father teaches English, but this summer he’s working in Admissions for extra money. I got the idea to collect people’s dogs and take them out, morning and evening. I feed them, too.”

  “I’m gonna get Birthday to fetch,” he said. “Watch me.”

  He chased after B-Cake, showing her the tennis ball. “You know you want it. Look at it, so yellow. Covered with awesome dog slime. Watch it, watch it!”

  B-Cake ignored him. Finally, Pretzel leaped up and grabbed the tennis ball from the boy’s hand, then took it off to a corner to enjoy.

  Adelaide smiled for the first time since Mikey had broken up with her.

  “What are their names?” the boy asked.

  “The big black one is EllaBella. The small hairy one who took the tennis ball is Pretzel. The pit bull is Rabbit.”

  “Aren’t pit bulls vicious?”

  “They have a strong bite, but nah. If they’re treated well, they have good personalities.”

  “Wait, isn’t this one a pit bull too?” He pointed.

  “Nuh-uh. The Great God Pan is a French bulldog.”

  “And that one?”

  “Lord Voldemort is a bull terrier.”

  He shrugged. “Variations on a theme. Same basic thing.”

  “You said something similar when we met at the rooftop party.”

  He shook his head, not remembering.

  “You said,” explained Adelaide, “that all the roof parties were variations on a theme. You said the parties echoed each other. Warm summer nights, drinks in plastic washtubs and people in shorts. The same songs playing.”

  Remember me, she willed him.

  Remember the party. And the poem.

  Remember what you said. Then remember what I said.

  “That dog is trying to jump the fence,” the boy announced.

  Adelaide looked.

  Rabbit the pit bull was crouched, waggling her back end like a cat about to spring.

  “She can’t go over,” Adelaide said.

  “She’s trying. Look at her try.”

  And Rabbit jumped.

  Rabbit was burly and dark gray, with a white chest and white paws. Her mouth was that wide pit-bull mouth that looks like a smile, and her legs were short and stocky. Her neck was so thick it could not properly be called a neck at all.

  She cleared the fence.

  In a hot second she was followed by B-Cake. It defied the laws of physics.

  Adelaide took a run at the fence and jumped herself over. The boy came out through the gate holding the leash. “Birthday! Come here, Birthday!” he called.

  B-Cake and Rabbit were tumbling on the lawn, running in manic circles.

  “She goes by B-Cake,” Adelaide informed him, stopping her chase to rest. “Not Birthday. She won’t even know Birthday is her name.”

  “Why wouldn’t Kaspian-Lee tell me that?” the boy moaned.

  Sunny Kaspian-Lee was Adelaide’s teacher. She taught Set Design and Design for the Theater, which was a class on costumes, props, and lighting. And Set Design. Adelaide had taken them both.

  When they ran into each other on campus, Kaspian-Lee always said “Hello, Adelaide Buchwald,” and Adelaide always said “Hello, Ms. Kaspian-Lee.” The teacher wore sculptural clothes and had short bangs that stopped midway down her forehead. In cold weather, she’d be wrapped in a burgundy trench coat, with a black watch cap, walking B-Cake to and from the Arts Center. She often carried unwieldy bags full of poster boards, long wooden dowels, and once, feathers. She would hold them against her torso with both arms, with B-Cake’s leash hooked around one wrist.

 
Now, as the dogs raced and tumbled over each other, Adelaide chased Rabbit. The boy threw himself across the grass to tackle B-Cake. He missed her, though, and she ran past him.

  “She’ll murder me if I lose her dog,” he said, scrambling to his feet.

  * * *

  Adelaide took a dog biscuit out of her jacket pocket and whistled.

  B-Cake and Rabbit ran over.

  “Sit,” Adelaide commanded.

  B-Cake sat. Rabbit didn’t sit.

  Adelaide took a second biscuit out and held it up. “There’s one for each of you. Sit.”

  The boy snapped the leash onto B-Cake. He bent down and took hold of Rabbit’s collar.

  Adelaide gave each dog a biscuit. They took the treats gingerly, being careful not to hurt her with their fangs.

  “I like that you have dog biscuits in your pockets,” said the boy. “It takes a certain kind of person to always be prepared with a treat.”

  Adelaide was the type to have biscuits in her pocket, and gum in her backpack, and ChapStick, and hand cream that smelled like apricots. That morning she had coffee with three sugars in a thermos. “I carry a lot of treats,” she told him as they returned to the dog run. She pulled some warm toast, wrapped in foil, out her bag. “Want some?”

  “What is it?” He bent over and smelled.

  “Rye toast. With butter.”

  “I’ve never had rye.”

  “It’s good. I mean, it’s not bacon. But nothing’s bacon.” She handed him a piece and he ate it thoughtfully.

  “My name is Adelaide, by the way.”

  “Jack.”

  She already knew his name. From the party. “Why are you walking B-Cake?” she asked.

  “Kaspian-Lee went off for the weekend with Mr. Schlegel,” he said. “She asked me to walk the dog. Did you know they’re lovers?” He emphasized the word.

  “I knew they were a couple. They’ve been to my dad’s for dinner.”

  “She used that word. Lovers.”

  “Ew.” They were quiet for a moment. Jack stood up. His mood seemed to have shifted. His eyes didn’t meet hers. “I appreciate you saving me with dog biscuits,” he said.

  “Can I text you sometime?” Adelaide asked.

  He shook his head. “I would say yes, but I’m super busy this summer. See you around, Adelaide. Fun chat.”

  * * *

  Adelaide gave up on Rabbit and tackled B-Cake, rolling in the grass as the dog scrabbled with her paws. She hugged B-Cake to her chest.

  Are we wrestling? asked B-Cake, switching immediately from recalcitrant to licky.

  “Oh god, she’s slobbering me,” Adelaide called.

  The boy loped over and bent to clip the leash on, but Rabbit had circled back and B-Cake lunged, pulling him as she leaped away. He kept hold of the dog but fell to the ground next to Adelaide.

  Pushing herself up, Adelaide managed to grab Rabbit’s collar as she ran by. “These are rotten dogs,” she said. “You’re rotten dogs, did you know that?”

  They didn’t know. They loved themselves.

  Adelaide took firm hold of Rabbit’s collar, pulled the leash out of her pocket, and clipped it on. Rabbit grumbled, but Adelaide ignored her and lay back in the grass to catch her breath.

  Jack lay back as well. His shirt rode up, and Adelaide could see a thick, puckered scar on one side of his abdomen. His ordinary skin looked unbelievably soft and vulnerable next to the wound.

  “Well, that was a thrill,” he said. “Good catch, there.”

  “Yeah, well,” she said. “I am a professional dog walker.”

  He laughed and stood up, making his scar disappear.

  He held his hand out to her. She took it and he pulled her up. His hand was warm and she wanted to touch him more, wanted to run her finger up his arm.

  But he let go. “Thanks for the B-Cake capture,” he said. “I should get her back home before something worse happens.”

  That was so fun, said B-Cake. Rabbit is my best friend.

  “Will you be here tomorrow, then?” Adelaide asked.

  “I might be.”

  “I’m here all summer,” Adelaide said.

  He smiled. She told him her phone number and he texted her, “Hello.”

  Then he disappeared down the path.

  A moment later, he returned with a reluctant B-Cake under his arm. “Adelaide with the cerulean dress,” he called. “I remember now.

  Cerulean dress and

  wide eyes, like a lion.

  A raging wave of disobedient hair.”

  And with that recitation, Adelaide Buchwald gave Jack Cavallero her heart.

  Impulsively,

  gloriously,

  openly,

  she gave it to him, falling in love with someone she did not know, wondering at the curve of his cheek, and the wave of his hair, and the way his shirt draped over his shoulders.

  He made her laugh. He dared to write poems. He risked looking foolish in order to create something beautiful or strange.

  She wanted to know the story of the scar on his abdomen. How had he gotten that wound? How well had it healed?

  She could see by looking at him that he had been

  vulnerable.

  That he had

  lived.

  Survived.

  She wanted to see all his scars, see all of him, and she felt

  suddenly,

  intensely

  certain

  that he was a safe person to show her own scars to.

  She thought, Maybe we have known each other always. Maybe our hearts encountered each other somehow,

  like two hundred years ago at a cotillion, with him in a frock coat and me in whatever, some kind of elegant and complicated dress.

  Or maybe our encounter was in another

  possible world. That is,

  in one of the countless other versions of this universe, the

  worlds running parallel to this one,

  we are already

  in love.

  Alabaster Preparatory Academy is a boarding school. It is the sort of place that offers classes like Eastern Religions, Theories of Popular Culture, and Microeconomic Theory. Students play lacrosse and row crew. They live in quaint residence halls that smell of wood and have no elevators. There is a chapel with large stained-glass windows. Most of the buildings are gray stone. There are woods on one side of the campus, and there’s a small town on the other.

  The place is full of fairly smart, mostly moneyed kids, largely Protestant, largely white. As such, its history and biases are worthy of some interrogation, which shall not be done thoroughly here, but which has been done elsewhere, you can be sure.

  In recent years the student body has become more socially active, and more diverse. Protest posters decorated the dormitory hallways, speaking out against voter suppression, in support of gun control laws and gender-neutral bathrooms. The cafeteria had a well-stocked salad bar and gluten-free options. There were multiple student affinity groups.

  Still, the place smelled of old money. And a century of male dominance.

  As a middle-class white Jewish “faculty brat” with a public school background, Adelaide was conscious of both fitting in and not fitting in.

  Levi Buchwald, Adelaide’s father, had loved teaching public school. He got all passionate about pedagogical methods and presented his ideas at conferences. But when the family moved to Baltimore for Toby’s treatment, he had been hard-pressed to find a job. It was the middle of the school year. Nobody was hiring. And even for positions that would start in the fall, there were very few openings. Eventually he applied to teach at Alabaster, where an old colleague was head of the English department.

  He got the job and it paid reassuringly well, more than he’d made b
efore, which was needed, since Rebecca was focused on Toby and managing his care. Levi’s children could go to Alabaster for much-reduced tuition, so he and Adelaide had moved in late August, leaving Toby and Rebecca in Baltimore.

  Adelaide lived in the dorms during the school year, but now, during the summer, she’d be with Levi in his two-bedroom house, sleeping in what was usually his office.

  Adelaide’s experience at Alabaster had been all right. Good, in a number of ways, though disastrous in one. She marveled at the bright green of the lawns, the stone buildings, the cobblestone paths. The Alabaster students were sporty and arty and often lax about their homework in a way she found endearing. They forgot their binders or lost their books. They carried everything from building to building in enormous backpacks, never even thinking about using the lockers they supposedly had combinations to. Their clothing seemed to be at its peak of fashion when threadbare. Girls wore ancient jeans, scuffed winter boots, and T-shirts that looked handed down generations, loose at the neck.

  The disaster was that because of the terrible stuff going on with Toby, Adelaide dreamed of him at night, bad dreams about Toby’s

  babyish white tube socks, his

  lime-green toothbrush, his

  bluish mouth, and his

  wheezy breath,

  dreams where the only noise was that

  sad, fragile Toby breath, wheezing, louder and louder.

  Adelaide would wake up sweating.

  And because her sleep was terrible and also because of the

  massive distraction

  of falling deeply and head-spinningly in love with Mikey Double L,

  Adelaide did not do her schoolwork.

  Alabaster was significantly more challenging than either of her previous high schools. She turned in papers that would have been deemed strong back in Baltimore, only to have them handed back as unacceptable. Science labs went okay, and she caught up in math, but she found herself unable to force herself to rework the already-written papers. She didn’t really understand what was wrong with them, and diving back in meant she had to relive the humiliation of having done badly. Plus Mikey Double L was around, texting “Come to my fencing match? 3 pm,” or “Let’s get pizza off campus,” or “There’s nobody in my suite for the next hour and I wish you were here please please please come see me please love Mikey.”