Golden

2.



“A breeze discovered my open book

And began to flutter the leaves to look”

—“A CLOUD SHADOW,” 1942



The tape sealing the box of journals snaps like a firecracker when I jab my pen into it. Ms. Moore, the librarian, looks up from her computer momentarily then goes back to scanning in books in a quick rhythm of beeps just like at the grocery store. I’ve come here plenty of times before to do projects for Mr. Kinney, so she doesn’t question me. I settle in, happy with the small measure of freedom, but when I look down at the open box packed tight with sealed manila envelopes and realize what a pain it’s going to be to track down every single address, I half wish I would’ve taken Kat up on her offer to ditch.

The other half of me wishes I had Mr. Kinney for English this year and not just my TA period. So I could be a part of this. Every year he makes a big show of gifting each of his seniors one of those black-and-white marbled composition books after spring break. Their only assignment for the remainder of the school year is to write in it. Fill it up with words that make a picture of who they are, things they may forget later on, after so many years, and want to look back on. Sort of a letter to their future selves. I know this because Kat did get Kinney, and the day she got her journal she started writing in it like crazy, which is funny since she doesn’t usually care about assignments she’s going to get a grade on, let alone work that won’t count for anything.

But that’s where Mr. Kinney’s a genius. He realizes that all of us are a little self-absorbed. It’s human nature. And so when his students get a chance to preserve what they see as important and worthy about themselves, they do. Then on graduation day, they hand over their journals, all sealed up with hope and pride and secrecy. And ten Junes later, those same kids who are now legitimate grownups get a brief little chapter of their teenage lives in the mail.

I know if I asked he’d give me a journal and let me slip it in with the others so that in a decade I could read the words of my seventeen-year-old self. More than once I’ve thought about it. But every time I do I come back to the same thought—what if ten years from now I got a chance to read about who I’d been, and I regretted it. What if I read it and saw past the accomplishments, straight through to all the things I missed while I was busy chasing them. I might wish I had done things differently.

The envelopes in the box are lined up neatly and sealed with a clear strip of undisturbed tape across each flap. Mr. Kinney’s done this project for so long that even if he did get curious and peek in the beginning, the musings of high school seniors probably didn’t hold his attention for very long.

I grab my first stack, bring them over to the computer station and put in Kinney’s password. Once I’m in the alumni directory, the first few go quickly since they’re in alphabetical order and they’re post office boxes that haven’t changed, according to the computer. It’s not all that surprising, since a lot of people don’t ever really leave town. I vaguely recognize one or two of the names, but wouldn’t be able to put a face to them. It’s small here, but not small enough that you actually know everyone. On the other hand it can feel like everyone you run into somehow knows you. Or your mom, in my case.

I roll through the first few names, and pretty soon I’ve got a rhythm and a system, and I can check addresses and daydream at the same time. Only now Stanford may not qualify as a daydream. It feels infinitely more real since yesterday, when I found the thin envelope from the Cruz Foundation in my mailbox. Much different from the early acceptance letter that came months ago. The excitement and relief that letter brought were all tempered with the knowledge that there are hundreds of thousands of dollars between getting in and actually being able to go. It was why I’d spent every waking moment of my life since then searching for ways to make it happen.

And now I have one in my back pocket. So today, instead of running numbers through my head, or wondering if I should’ve revised the application essays one more time, I let myself replay the morning exchange with Trevor. And I revise that instead. In this new version, when he dangles the keys in front of me, I’m the one who raises an eyebrow, right before I take them from his hand and lead him, dumbfounded, to the art closet.

I’ve never actually been in there, but in my mind’s eye, it’s dimly lit, with tubes of paint and coffee cans full of brushes lining the shelves—things that might go clattering to the floor if I were brave enough to ever meet his eyes longer than a second. And since it’s my daydream, I am, and I do. Trevor smiles in slow motion as he tilts his chin down to kiss me after six years’ worth of missed chances, and then—

The name on the next envelope snaps me back like a rubber band. I stare. Breathe. Stare some more.

Julianna Farnetti.

I look around, chilled. That can’t be right. But it’s right there in front of me, written in black ink with big loopy pen strokes just as gorgeous as she was. My first impulse is to see if anyone else saw. The clock ticks away the seconds on the wall. In one row of stacks are a couple of younger girls whispering and trying to look like they’re looking for books to check out. Ms. Moore’s keeping tabs on them from behind her computer, and the library TA, a tragically nerdy boy named Jake, shoves a book back onto the shelf then straightens out the ones around it for the millionth time. None of them look at me, but I’m nervous all of a sudden because right now it feels like I’m holding in my hands something I shouldn’t be. Like I’ve just brushed my fingers over a ghost. And by all accounts and definitions, I have.

Every town has its stories. Stories that have been told so many times by so many different people they’ve worked themselves into the collective consciousness as truth. Julianna Farnetti is one of Summit Lakes’. Shane Cruz is the other. And theirs—it’s a story of perfection lost on an icy road. They were one of those golden couples, the kind everyone adores and envies at the same time. Meant to be together forever. Teenage dream realized.

And both of them are frozen in time on a billboard at the edge of town for everyone to see. From behind a thick layer of plexiglass that’s replaced every few years, they smile their senior portrait smiles like they don’t know people have stopped looking for them. Somewhere along the line, the words on the billboard changed from MISSING to IN LOVING MEMORY OF, and I can remember thinking how sad that was, but it was bound to happen. Their parents buried empty coffins.

And still, we have the plaque in the gym, with a picture of Shane and Julianna together, his graduation gown arms wrapped tight around her shoulders and her cap crooked on top of her curly blond hair, both of them laughing like life was about to begin. His family started the scholarship in their name. Hers left town. And still, after ten years, they smile those frozen smiles that never age. Trapped behind the glass and the stories we’ve come up with for what happened to them.

I glance down again, read the name to be sure. Here in my hand is Julianna Farnetti’s senior journal. Pages she wrote before all of that, when the world was still at her perfect fingertips. When Mr. Kinney told her to capture herself in words she could read later.

There’s a post office box on the envelope, but it’s worthless. None of her family lives here anymore, and I don’t blame them. For a long time after, people talked. Speculated. Investigated. Eventually, the case closed and she and Shane became another town story that weaves its way back to the surface on stormy winter nights. And of course, before graduation. That’s when the Summit Times runs a tribute to the two of them in the same edition that features the current graduating class. That’s also when the old-timer search-and-rescue guys remember over coffee the fierceness of the storm the night they disappeared. The ones who found Shane’s mangled Jeep at the bottom of the gorge, half-submerged in the icy river, will talk about how their feet were instantly frostbitten as they plunged in for the two teens who were most surely trapped in the car. At this they shake their heads, maybe mutter “Such a shame,” and go back to their regular business, not wanting to linger in the memory of it too long.

I breathe slowly, turn the envelope over in my hands, check the flap that’s still sealed up tight. How did nobody think to ask about this? How did Mr. Kinney not open it? Not even out of curiosity about this girl-turned-myth? Maybe he didn’t even realize it was there with the others. Or maybe he did, but left it alone out of respect once the official statement came out that they were swept down the river and into Summit Lake, where the search had to end because of the piercing cold and plunging depth of the water. It’d be too sad after that. Like reading Romeo and Juliet and knowing all along how it’s going to end.

I flip the envelope back over to the side with her name and run my finger over it, teetering on the edge of something. The thing I should do, the most right thing to do, would be to give it to Mr. Kinney and let him decide how to handle it. I don’t let myself even think about actually reading it; that would be wrong for so many reasons.

Except.

It feels like history in a manila envelope. Like something that should be saved. My heart beats a touch quicker.

Kat would take it in a second if she were here. She wouldn’t even wait to open it. If she were here, I’d be the one to insist we put it back, because that’s what I do. It’s the role I play between the two of us—conscience to her temptations, reason to her impulsiveness. It’s also the role she’s always trying to get me to step out of, just a little. She never stops talking about the idea of pivotal moments in life, tiny ones that can either pass you by or make some big dramatic change somewhere down the line, depending on what you choose to do with them. This feels like one of those moments.

I know it’s wrong to take it, I do. But something in me decides to do it anyway, and it’s so quick and resolute I don’t have time to change my mind. I know the period’s almost over so I put Julianna’s journal on the bottom of the stack and walk it back over to the table where the box and my backpack sit undisturbed. I smile politely at Ms. Moore when she looks up, and when she goes back to her work, I take a deep breath and slide the bottom envelope into my backpack, zip it up quick. The bell rings, sealing my decision, and I have to hurry to get the rest of the journals in the box so I can get it back to Mr. Kinney like it’s any normal day and any normal project he’s given me to do. But as I step into the hall with the box in my hands and the stolen journal in my bag, I feel like I’m setting foot down a new road. One I’ve never traveled.