“Thanks,” I say again. I smile, reach for the box. She smiles shyly back and hands it over. Inside there are a couple DVDs, magazines, my dog-eared copy of Vampire Academy and a few other books, a pair of dress shoes I loaned her for prom.
“How was Italy?” she asks as I set the box down next to the door. “I got your postcard.”
“It was beautiful.”
“I bet,” she says with an envious sigh. “I’ve always wanted to backpack around Europe. I want to see London, Paris, Vienna….” She smiles. “Hey, how about you show me your pictures? I’d love to see them. If you have time.”
“Um, sure.” I run upstairs to get my laptop, then sit down with her on the living room sofa and cruise through my photos of this summer, her shoulder pressing into mine as we look at pictures of the Coliseum, the Roman arches, the catacombs, Tuscany with its vineyards and rolling hills, Florence, me making that dumb “I’m holding it up” pose at the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
And then up flashes a picture of Angela and Phen at the top of St. Peter’s.
“Wait, go back,” Wendy says as I click past it.
I reluctantly press the back button.
“Who’s that?” she breathes.
I get it. Phen is hot. There’s something magnetic about those brown eyes of his, the manly perfection of his face and all that, but sheesh. Not Wendy, too.
“Just a guy we met in Rome,” I tell Wendy. That’s about as close to the truth as I can come without going into the gory details of Angela and her secret, “swear you won’t tell anybody, Clara” boyfriend. Who is, according to her, a summer thing only. She’s been all “Phen who?” ever since we returned to Wyoming, like she never even met the guy.
“Did I mention that I want to go to Italy?” Wendy says, raising her eyebrows. “Wow.”
“Yeah, there are a lot of hot guys there,” I admit. “Of course, then they become beer-bellied middle-aged men in Armani suits with slicked-back hair who look at you like ‘How you doing?’” I give her my best pervy Italian grin, tilt my chin up, blow an air kiss at her.
She laughs. “Ew.”
I close my laptop, glad to get the subject off Phen. “So, that was Italy.” I pat my stomach. “I gained like five pounds in pasta.”
“Well, you were too skinny before, anyway,” Wendy says.
“Gee, thanks.”
“I hate to be the party pooper, but I should go,” she says. “I’ve got loads to do at home before tomorrow.”
We stand, and I turn to her, instantly choked up at the idea of saying good-bye. “You’re going to do awesome at Washington State and have all kinds of fun and become the best vet ever, but I am so going to miss you,” I say.
Her eyes are misty, too. “We’ll see each other on breaks, right? You can always email me, you know. Don’t be a stranger.”
“I won’t. Promise.”
She hugs me. “Bye, Clara,” she whispers. “Take care.”
When she’s gone, I gather up the box, take it to my room, and close the door. I dump the box out on my bed. There, among the things I loaned Wendy, I find some items from Tucker: a fishing lure that I bought him at a tackle shop in Jackson—his lucky Carrots lure, he called it—a pressed wildflower from one of the wreaths he used to make for my hair, a mixed CD I made him last year, full of songs about cowboys and songs about flying and songs about love, which he listened to a bunch of times even though he must have thought it was corny. He’s giving it all back. I hate how much this hurts me, how much I’m clearly still hanging on to what we had, so I put the stuff all carefully back in the box, and I seal the box with tape and slide it into the shadows at the back of my closet. And say good-bye.
Clara.