The Promise Read online

  She gave me a quiet smile and returned to her reading, and I went back to clean-up, but her words stayed with me—and the regret simmering just beneath the surface. From my very first day, Kelsey had seemed unshakeable, steamrolling past customer complaints and any urging from Mika to at least try to act like you give a damn with an attitude I envied. But it turned out she did give a damn, after all.

  Was she right about Theo?

  It didn’t matter anymore, I reminded myself, with a low pang of regret. He had Brianna, with her glossy hair and berry-red lips. And me, I had a different future planned.

  It was dark by the time I finished my shift, but I lingered, snagging a seat on the worn velvet couch and curling up with a mug of tea and my sketchpad. Tessa had texted to let me know her study group was coming over, and I didn’t want to be in the way of their whip-fast flashcard tests. Besides, the café already felt more like home to me than that attic apartment, my bedroom walls still bare, a single inherited box spring and mattress beside the chipped dresser. Here, the lights were warm and cozy against the worn, polished wooden floors, the walls filled with old photographs and new local artists, and the soundtrack that blurred from old Sinatra to the Beastie Boys, James Bay and back again. The comforting hum of conversation lulled me into a sleepy haze as I absently sketched the hurried crowd outside the breath-fogged windows, people pushing through the rush-hour traffic to make it back to their own small corners of the world.

  “I didn’t know you were an artist.”

  A surprised voice behind me made me jolt. I knocked the mug beside me as I turned, and it spilled, splashing over my sketchbook page.

  “Shit,” Theo swore, looking mortified. “I keep doing this today.”

  He left me for the front counter, and I tried my best to shake the liquid from the pages and steady my nerves, but by the time Theo returned with a handful of paper napkins, my pulse was still skittering, double-time in my chest.

  “Here, is it ruined?” He looked on anxiously as I dabbed at the faint stain.

  “No, it’s fine. It wasn’t important,” I added, putting the book aside. “I was just messing around.”

  “But it looks great. You’re talented,” he added, sitting beside me on the couch. Before I could stop him, he reached for the sketchbook and started leafing through the pages.

  “No!” I gasped, snatching it back just as the page settled on one of my late-night portraits of him. I prayed to God he hadn’t had time to register his own reflection as I slammed it shut and hugged it protectively to my chest. “Sorry,” I added, seeing his startled look at my outburst. “It’s personal, that’s all. I don’t like to show anyone.”

  “Sorry, I should have asked first. I don’t like to share my writing either,” Theo added. He paused, then gave me a hesitant smile. “Maybe one day, you’ll want to show me.”

  One day . . .

  I took a shaking breath and focused on mopping up the last of the spilled tea. When there was finally nothing else to distract myself with, I looked over at Theo again. He had on a blue sweater, something soft and finely knit, with a shirt collar peeking up from underneath. I’d never liked the preppy look, but on him, it sat well-worn and just right.

  “What did you want?” My voice sounded almost accusatory, and I cringed inside. “I mean, Kelsey said you were looking for me before.”

  “She did?” Theo looked away, and cleared his throat. “I was, but that wasn’t . . .” He trailed off, then looked back at me. “I wanted to return this.”

  He took a small notebook from his inside pocket and carefully laid it on the couch between us. There were faded lines and a torn edge, doodled hearts and boxes fringing one side in smudged blue ink.

  Hope’s list.

  I inhaled in a rush. “When did you find this?” I picked it up, careful, cradling it like tissue paper. How could I have been so careless? I didn’t even notice it was gone.

  “You dropped it outside,” Theo said, but there were a hundred questions in his eyes.

  “You read it,” I said slowly.

  He looked caught. “I didn’t know if it was important, something you needed back. So . . . yes. I did.”

  I didn’t know what to say. I felt exposed, even though those weren’t my words on the page. “Thank you,” I said instead, tucking it safely into the back flap of my sketchpad, where it belonged.

  “Are you going to tell me what it’s about?” Theo flashed me a smile, boyish and charming. Any other time, and I would have offered him whatever he wanted in exchange for a smile like that: rubies and golden bars and all the treasure of the kingdom, but this time, it wasn’t enough.

  “It’s a long story.” I looked down at the paper in my hands, tongue-tied. Ask me anything else, I silently implored him. I’ll talk for hours, I’ll tell you everything.

  Just not this, not right now.

  The seconds ticked past in silence, and eventually, he got to his feet, and hoisted his bag again. “OK, well, glad you got it back.” He looked down at me, as if making his mind up about something. “There is one thing . . . number four, on the list.”

  I didn’t have to look; I knew the list by heart.

  Sneak into a show and hang backstage.

  “My roommate’s in a band,” Theo continued. “They’re playing Wednesday night at this club in the city. They don’t check IDs, and I just thought, if you want . . .”

  His voice trailed off but there was a hopeful look in his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” I managed, my mind racing. What was he asking here? Me to go with him, together, a date?

  “Sure, well, you don’t have to decide just yet,” Theo said, casual. “I’ll put you on the list, and then if you make it . . .” He shrugged, then gave me a smile. “Maybe you can tell me about that list of yours.”

  “Maybe,” I echoed, but he was already gone, back out of the door and into the darkness, his invitation lingering behind him in the cinnamon-scented air.

  Chapter Five

  Hope had already started the list when I met her. Back then, it filled a whole notepad, one of those spiral-bound drugstore books with a battered red cover, and she’d scribble new entries just to cross them off with a triumphant strike.

  “That’s cheating,” I would protest, every time she’d write something down when we’d already done it, or pick things that didn’t mean anything at all. Wear my blue baseball cap. Sing along to the radio. Have a turkey meatball sub. “These are supposed to be big dreams, the important stuff, not everyday bullshit.”

  But Hope would just grin, chewing on the end of a cheap ballpoint pen she’d probably stolen from the cafeteria along with the check. “It’s not cheating when you make the rules.”

  This version, the last version, I knew by heart. She gave it to me two weeks before she died, on what I’d always remember as her last good day.

  “It’s your turn now,” she said as I opened the notebook. She still wore that cherry-pink lipstick, had the nurses paint it on every morning without fail, and now it slashed across her sallow face in a grim smile under the harsh hospital lights. “I’m tagging you in to the grand game called life. Don’t you fucking dare let me down this time.”

  Sometimes, I thought it was her parting gift to me, the answer to every last one of the excuses holding me back, but some nights—nights I’m not proud of—it felt more like a curse. I’d look at that page, the commandments unfinished, and feel like she was taunting me, bullying me even from beyond the grave, trying to push me into a life I’d never wanted, using her trademark cocktail of guilt and sly persuasion to rig the game so only she could win. That list taunted me for months, until I was so wrapped up in razor-sharp guilt I could barely look at it, but every time I was ready to tear that damn book up and forget the whole thing, I’d remember her there in that hospital gown: brittle and frail, but so determined. She’d wanted this for me, enough for the both of us, and she wouldn’t want anything ever again.

  It turns out it’s easy to change your l
ife when you have nothing left to lose. That list became my bible, the only thing that gave me any faith or sense of solace in the darkness of last year. I had power over something, at least: one moment at a time, one new thing she never got to have, the neat check marks slowly marking that sacred page. And now that her plan was in motion, gathering speed in this foreign city so far from home, my world getting bigger and brighter by the day in the crisp winds of fall, I knew she’d been right.

  Dammit.

  Hope had always loved being right.

  Chapter Six

  Tessa was busy Wednesday night. I thought about not going at all. I went back and forth in my head all day, wondering if people would notice if I showed up to a club alone. What would I do by myself, drifting on the edge of the crowd? I couldn’t exactly pull out a sketchbook and draw to pass the time, in some sweaty downtown rock club with the lights dimmed low. But Hope’s instructions were clear. Besides, the promise of Theo’s invitation lingered, shimmering on the horizon.

  He’d asked me. He wanted me there.

  Maybe one day . . .

  I took the subway after work into Boston, watching the jeweled city lights ripple on the dark water of the River Charles as we sped across the bridge, the skyline beckoning, blazing in the night. I had directions scribbled on a slip of paper in my jacket pocket, and I carefully made my way through the evening crowds, heading away from the glittering avenues filled with shoppers and busy stores until I strayed to the darker part of town. It was quieter here, a stretch of mostly shut galleries and record stores set grimy and graffitied between old warehouses and abandoned buildings. I walked faster, hitching my bag tight as I passed the cardboard blankets and heart-tugging rows of old, worn drunks, but as I approached the club, I realized the street was empty. Nobody was outside.

  The door opened, and a burly guy with a greasy beard sat himself heavily on a folding chair.

  “Hello?” I asked, looking around. I had the right day, the right venue, didn’t I?

  The bouncer looked at me, bored.

  “I’m here for the Bad Alibi show. It said eight o’clock online.”

  He gave me a pitying look. “Doors at eight, support nine thirty. BA’ll be on around eleven.”

  “Oh.” I flushed. “Thanks.”

  I hurried away, around the corner and out of sight before anyone could witness my naïve mistake. I should have guessed the show wouldn’t start so early, anyone who went to clubs would know, but I’d been so eager to see Theo again, and slip casual into the crowd like I did this all the time. I’d even rehearsed my nonchalant greeting, cool enough to ice over all my previous hot-mouthed fumbling. Sure, I figured I’d stop by. Why not? Now I had hours to kill.

  I walked another couple of blocks until I found a bright-looking diner, the neon lights winking invitingly in the cold. Inside, a bleached waitress nodded me to a booth, and I ordered coffee and some hot chicken soup. I pulled a handful of paper napkins from the dispenser and began to doodle, idly sketching until the thin paper was covered in a mesh of boxes, neat and contained, as if I could corral my own skittering nerves by sheer force of will. I sipped on my coffee, spooned my soup slow, but still the hours dragged on, and all the while, I kept one anxious eye on my phone, watching for the moment I could stroll back to the club without betraying my own eagerness.

  There was a banging on the window, and I looked up with a jolt as the doors swung open, and Kelsey barreled inside. She was dressed up under her leather jacket, in a short black skirt and thick tights, her boots clattering on the linoleum floor as she bounced over and slid into the booth opposite me. “What are you doing out here?” she demanded, looking as surprised as I felt. Her eyes were rimmed thickly in smudged midnight liner and her wrists jangled with a dozen bracelets as she reached across and stole the pack of dry crackers from the edge of my plate.

  “I’m here for a show. Bad Alibi,” I explained. The waitress moved closer, waiting for Kelsey’s order, but she cheerfully ignored her.

  “Me too. Huh.” She studied me. “Aren’t you just full of surprises? I wouldn’t have figured you for a rock fan.”

  “I contain multitudes,” I shot back lightly.

  She laughed. “Don’t we all. You meeting people?”

  I shook my head.

  “Great, you can keep me company. My friends bailed on me, so now I’m stuck solo.” Kelsey looked unconcerned by the thought of being alone. She got to her feet again, and I saw a flash of a red plaid shirt under her jacket and scarf. “Coming?”

  I quickly left ten dollars for the check, and followed her back outside. Her boots strode, quick on the dirty sidewalk, and I hurried to keep up. “How did your book group go?”

  “Ugh,” Kelsey sighed. “There’s this new girl now, she’s always trying to run the show.”

  “Over you?” I asked, teasing.

  Kelsey laughed again. “Hey! I’m a benevolent dictator, she’s just a bitch.”

  “What are you going to do to overthrow her?”

  “I don’t know,” she sighed. “I’m sure I’ll think of something.”

  We rounded the corner back to the club, but this time, the street was busy: a line snaking from the doorway all the way down two buildings back. Kelsey’s face fell. “Shit, now I’ll never get a ticket.”

  “That’s OK,” I said, “I’m on the list.”

  I felt Kelsey’s eyes on me with a new admiration as I walked to the head of the line where the bouncer still lounged, reading a beat-up newspaper. “Claire Fortune,” I told him, my pulse suddenly racing with nerves. What if Theo had forgotten to put me down, after all? What if this guy asked for ID? But after a moment of glancing at his clipboard, the bouncer nodded us through, bored.

  “Thanks,” Kelsey sounded impressed. “I owe you one.”

  I pushed the door open, and it took a second for my eyes to adjust to the dark. We were in a narrow hallway, the walls papered with fading show bills and lipstick graffiti. A staircase led us down into a small basement room with a stage set up at one end, a bar at the other, and about a hundred bodies in between.

  Kelsey surveyed the room with a practiced air. “I need a drink.” She struck out for the bar, and I followed, looking around. There were bearded hipsters, and punk guys, and girls with vintage lipstick and cute print dresses, too, all of them slowly shedding their winter jackets and loitering, impatient near the stage.

  “Jack and coke,” Kelsey instructed the lithe, tattooed guy behind the bar. She quirked her eyebrow at me.

  “Just the coke, thanks.”

  He slammed our drinks on the pockmarked bar and yawned. “Service with a smile,” Kelsey quipped. I reached for my wallet again, but she waved it away. “My treat. It’s a good thing you’re such a cheap date. Cheers.” She clinked her glass to mine, then drank, her dark eyes already searching around the room. She waved to a few people, nodded too, but didn’t shift from her position beside me.

  “Did you see Mika’s bullshit notice about dress code at the café?” she asked. “ ‘Professional attire,’ c’mon, we’re serving coffee, not teleconferencing with the New Jersey office. I swear, he wants to turn us into Starbucks.”

  “I like Starbucks,” I replied evenly.

  “Of course you do.” Kelsey gave me a look. “You probably Instagram pumpkin spice season, floss twice a day, and sing along to Taylor Swift in the car.”

  I looked at her, puzzled. “Why would those be bad things? You don’t know me,” I added, feeling strangely defensive. I liked the anonymity I had at Wired, liked the privacy and ease with which I slipped unnoticed through the crew, but still, something in her certain tone made me pause. She was just like Jamie the other night. She thought she had me all figured out. “You don’t know anything about me at all.”

  Kelsey blinked slowly, but she didn’t back down. Her lips edged in a smile, still the know-it-all. “So, kitty cat’s got claws, after all.” She smirked. “Good for you.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want a fight, not to
night. “I’m going to find a bathroom,” I said instead, and left her there surveying the room like it was her own personal domain.

  As I slipped my way through the dark crowd, I wondered why she was so defensive; easy to joke, but quick to slam those steel shutters down and keep her distance. Every nice word had a bitter aftertaste, a sugar coating dissolving to leave a tiny razor blade. She judged me, but never asked for more. Either way, it was my own fault, I reminded myself, rinsing my hands over the cracked porcelain tile. I’d learned to hold my cards so close to my chest, I could feel the steady ring of my heartbeat under the ace, secrets hidden so deep even a whisper wouldn’t sound. Was it any wonder that Kelsey thought I had nothing to hide?

  When I rejoined the crowd, the support act were on stage: a monochrome pair frantically strumming their guitars to an ambivalent crowd. I headed back to the bar and found Kelsey still holding court—with Theo.

  My breath caught. Messy hair, dark denim, his bag still slung across his chest. He had on a dark T-shirt with scribbled type I couldn’t read, and the pale elegance of his bare arm—the faint curve of bicep, the shadowed forearm stretching down to those steady hands—sent every thought tumbling from my mind. You could have asked me my own name and gotten nothing from me that night, not a goddamn thing.

  It wasn’t fair.

  “Look, I found your friend,” Kelsey said meaningfully, once I’d steeled myself enough to approach them.

  Theo smiled at me, warm as molasses. “You made it. I didn’t know if you were coming.”

  “I figured it could be fun,” I said, trying to stay cool even as my blood ran hotter, my pulse beating in time with the drums rattling through the room.

  “I don’t know about that.” His grin turned playful. “Guy’s threatening to play Nirvana covers all night, it might not be pretty. He’s my roommate,” he explained to us. “The rest of the band, too.”