Never Always Sometimes Read online

  Dave reached over and grabbed Julia’s head, shaking it from side to side. Long ago, in the awkward years of middle school, that had been established as his one gesture of affection when he didn’t know how else to touch her. “Julia! That’s great.”

  “You goof, I’m gonna choke on my apple.” She shook him off. “I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

  “Her hopes should be up. Her biological daughter is awesome.”

  “She’s lived in eight countries and has worked with famous painters and sculptors. No offense, dear friend, but I think her standards for awesome are a little higher than yours.”

  Dave took another forkful of rice and chewed it over slowly, watching the basketball players shoot free throws to decide on teams. “I don’t care how great of a life she’s led, if she doesn’t come visit you she’s a very poor judge of awesomeness.”

  He glanced out the corner of his eye at Julia, who set her apple core aside and grabbed a napkin-wrapped sandwich out of her bag. He was waiting to catch that smile of hers, to know he had caused it. Instead, he only saw her eyes flick toward the Nevers list, which was resting folded on his knee. They turned their attention to the pickup game happening on the court, each eating their lunch languidly.

  For the last two periods of the day, Dave could feel the seconds ticking by, like bugs crawling on his skin. He reread the Nevers list, smiling to himself at the memory of him and Julia stealing the pen away from each other to write the next item. He gazed out the window at the blue California sky, texted Julia beneath his desk, scowled at the two kids in the back of the room who somehow believed that what they were doing was quiet enough to be called whispering. Next to him, Anika Watson took diligent notes, and he wondered how she was mustering the energy. He wondered how many of the items on the Nevers list she’d done, whether she was going to the Kapoor party that he’d overheard was happening that Friday night. Looking around the room, he imagined a little number popping up above each person’s head depicting how many Nevers they’d done.

  At the final releasing bell of the day, Dave and Julia met up in the hallway, silently making their way out to the parking lot, where Julia’s supposedly white Mazda Miata should have been glimmering in the California sun but was barely reflective thanks to the year-long layer of dust she’d never bothered to clean off.

  Before Julia said anything, Dave knew what she’d been thinking about. He knew her well enough to read her silences, and there’d been only one thing on her mind since he’d found the list. He smiled as she spoke. “What if we did the list?”

  Dave shrugged and tossed his backpack into her trunk. “Why would we?”

  “Because two more months of this will drive me crazy,” Julia said. She unzipped her light blue hoodie and threw it into the car on top of his backpack, then stepped out of her sandals and slipped those into the trunk, too. “We’ve got nothing left to prove to ourselves. High school didn’t change us. Maybe it’s time to try out what everyone else has been doing. Just for kicks. God knows we could use some entertaining.”

  It was one of those perfect seventy-five-degree days, more L.A. than San Francisco, though San Luis Obispo was perfectly in between the two cities. A breeze was blowing, and now that Julia was wearing only her tank top it almost tired him how beautiful she was. It’d been a long time of this, keeping his love for her subdued. It’d been a long time of letting her rest her head on his shoulder during their movie nights, of letting her prop her almost-always bare feet on his lap, his hands nonchalantly gripping her ankles. He’d been a cliché all four years of high school, in love with his best friend, pining silently.

  He opened the passenger door and looked across the roof of Julia’s car, which was more brown than white, covered with raindrop-shaped streaks of dirt, though it hadn’t rained in weeks. “I hear there’s a party at the Kapoors’ on Friday.”

  Julia beamed a smile at him. “Look at you. In the know.”

  “I’m an influential man, Ms. Stokes. I’m expected to keep up with current events.”

  Julia snorted and plopped herself down into the driver’s seat. “So, no Friday movie night, then? We’re going to a party? With beers in red plastic cups and Top 40 music being blasted and kids our age? People hooking up in upstairs bedrooms and throwing up in the bushes outside and at least one girl running out in tears?”

  “Presumably,” Dave said. “I’ve never actually been to a party, so I have no idea if that’s what happens.”

  Julia lowered the top of the car, then pulled out of the school’s parking lot and turned right, headed toward California One and the harbor at Morro Bay.

  “So, we’re doing this?” Dave asked. “We’re gonna join in on what everyone else has been doing?”

  “Why not?” Julia said, and Dave couldn’t help but smile at the side of her face, the way the sun made her eyes impossibly blue, how he could see her mom on her thoughts. “I’ll come over before the party so we can decide what we’re going to wear.”

  “And we can talk about how drunk we’re gonna get,” Dave added.

  “And who we’re gonna make out with.”

  “Yup.”

  Dave turned to face the road and sank into his seat. He lowered the mirror visor and stuck his arm out the side of the car, feeling the sun on his skin. He kept smiling, too experienced at hiding to let the tiny heartbreak show.

  FRIDAY AT THE KAPOORS’

  BY FRIDAY, DAVE had mostly forgotten about their plans to attend the party. It was only during homeroom when he asked Julia what movie she wanted to watch that night that she reminded him about their plans to attend the Kapoors’ party. A mild dread filled him as he pictured his night full of drunken jackasses and shitty music rather than sharing snacks with Julia in a darkened theater, getting coffee at a diner afterward.

  At six, Julia came over to get ready. She was wearing the same clothes she’d worn to school, shorts and a T-shirt with the logo of a bookstore in San Francisco. Her feet were bare, but she was holding a plastic bag through which Dave could see a pair of high heels and a few boxes.

  “You’re joking with the shoes, right?”

  “Hey, if I’m taking part in a cliché, I’m going all the way.” She entered the house, moving past him with a light touch to his ribs. “I can’t wait for that moment when all the other girls take their high heels off to go barefoot and they finally see what a genius I am for not wearing shoes in the first place.”

  “I don’t think that’s a high school thing,” Dave said, following her into the kitchen. “I think high heels are more of a grown-up cliché.”

  Julia plopped the bag down on the counter and scowled at him. “Don’t take this away from me, Dave. Tonight the universe vindicates my disdain for footwear.” She reached into the bag and took out cupcake mix, some eggs, and a container of rainbow sprinkles.

  “What’s all this?”

  “The dads said it’s rude to show up to a party empty-handed,” Julia said.

  “So we’re gonna bake the Kapoors cupcakes?”

  “If I’m being honest, I fully expect the two of us to eat most of these. But yes.”

  Dave picked up the cupcake mix and examined it, uncertain about how the gesture would be received by their classmates, but finally deciding that if he was going to get made fun of for being considerate, as confusing as that would be, it was something he could live with. “If we’re going to this party, I guess there may as well be sweets involved.”

  “Damn right,” Julia said, leaning over to preheat the oven.

  “You are the only two high school seniors in the world that would be baking on a Friday night.” Brett stood at the entrance to the kitchen for a second, shaking his head before going to the fridge and grabbing himself a beer. Dave wasn’t a small guy, six feet and an above-average build, but when Brett stood at his full height, Dave couldn’t help
but feel small. Dave was almost a carbon copy of his dad, but in Brett, their mom’s features lived on: the sharp nose and lighter eyes.

  “For your information, Judgey McHigh Horse, we’re going to a Kapoor party tonight.” Julia opened a few cabinets until she found a mixing bowl.

  “You two?” He looked at Dave, who could only shrug. “I wish I could see that.”

  “I’m sure you would take any chance you got to hang out around high school girls again.”

  “With you over all the time, I don’t really have a choice, do I?” Brett took a swig from his beer. He’d just turned twenty-one, which was a huge relief for their dad, who’d been letting Brett drink for a while now. After their mom had died, Brett had helped take care of Dave, and in his dad’s eyes, that earned him the right to do anything he wanted. “So what’s with the baking?”

  “It’s rude to show up empty-handed,” Dave offered.

  Brett laughed.

  “Okay, then. Good luck with that.” He lingered by the fridge for a few minutes, finishing his beer. “How are there still Kapoor brothers going to that school? I thought the youngest one graduated the same year I did.”

  “The triplets are juniors,” Dave said, pouring sugar and cream into a mixing bowl for the frosting. “And I think there was an oops baby that’s in junior high now.”

  “I heard a rumor that the Kapoor parents only procreate because they’re building up an army,” Julia said. In the few minutes since they’d started working on the cupcakes, Julia had managed to get herself covered in cupcake mix. It coated her brown hair and the tip of her nose, and there was a smear of batter on her chin. Dave had to resist the urge to take a picture of her or call her adorable. “They’ve been planning to take over San Luis Obispo for generations.”

  “I could actually see that,” Brett said, tossing his beer into the recycling bin and grabbing another can, letting loose a burp that sounded less like a burp and more like a bass line. “Dad, you want a beer?” he called out into the living room, where their dad was likely watching college basketball. There was a grunt of a response, so Brett grabbed another one and set it on the counter next to him.

  “Don’t open that,” Dave said to Brett. “We need a ride to the party.”

  Brett popped open the new beer defiantly, sucking up the foam that hissed out. “You really need to get your license already. You’re eighteen.”

  “This is more of a situation where we intend to, as you and your brainless friends would call it, ‘get wasted,’ and less of a Dave-not-having-a-license thing,” Julia said. “I could have driven if I wanted to.”

  Brett shook his head. “You two are so codependent.”

  Dave blushed, but Julia kept on mixing cupcake batter without missing a beat. “It’s not codependence, it’s attachment,” she said.

  “Attached at the hip, maybe,” Brett said, drinking from his beer. “You should take it easy on the booze; you two probably share a liver. You won’t last an hour at that party.”

  Julia scowled at him, then clapped cupcake mix off her hands in front of his face. “Why the hell not?”

  Brett coughed, brushing the white cloud away from his face. “You’re too... I don’t know. Artsy.”

  Julia laughed. “I don’t paint, write, sculpt, or play any music. I don’t think you know what artsy means.”

  “I think he’s trying to call you intelligent, but in a derogatory way,” Dave said.

  “I mean that you go to parties ironically, barefoot, and you bring cupcakes.” He took another drink, mulling something over in his head. “You’re right, artsy was the wrong word. I should have said clueless. The Kapoor parties are legendary for being wild. I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourselves into.”

  “I’m sure the beer-pong tournament will be really intimidating,” Julia said, turning back to the cupcake batter. “You know, I had second thoughts of going before you came in. But now I’m sure it’ll be a blast. I can’t wait until I see that glimmer in someone’s eyes when they start thinking high school days are the glory days. Like the look in your eyes, Brett.”

  Brett looked around the kitchen, giving his derisive laugh that was more like a snort. Dave could tell he was trying to think of a comeback. After a while, Brett scowled, muttered something about cupcakes, and then went into the living room to rejoin their dad. Watching TV was their favorite thing to do. They did so silently, never acknowledging that it drew them together. Sometimes Dave felt like joining them, but it seemed to belong just to the two of them. Dave didn’t mind so much; he had his own silent way of feeling close to his dad: They cooked for each other, meals that Dave’s mom used to make for all of them.

  “You have to teach me how to do that. I never get the last word with him,” Dave said, dipping a finger into the frosting to taste it. There was something delightful about watching Julia move about the kitchen recklessly, a trail of batter and eggshells in her wake. The tiled floor was a mess when she was done with it, polka-dotted with vanilla extract. Her fingerprints were all over the black cabinets and on the stove. A pile of dishes sat in the sink, way more of them than she had needed. On his own, Dave was a bit of a neat freak. But when Julia was nearby, messes seemed beautiful, life’s untidiness easier to comprehend.

  “So this is how tradition falls,” he said, taking a seat on one of the stools at the breakfast counter. “With cupcakes and the Kapoor army.”

  “Better a bang than a whimper,” she said, easing onto the stool next to him. She reached over and brushed something off his shoulder, as if he were the one covered in ingredients. “Plus, don’t be so dramatic. It doesn’t suit you. We’ll watch a movie next Friday, when we get bored of this. And them.”

  Dave nodded, understanding what she was getting at, though maybe not in the exact way she’d meant it. Julia kept mostly to herself at school, and by extension he did, too. He was friendly enough with classmates, though, especially when Julia wasn’t around to draw his attention. There were a couple of guys he might even go so far as to call friends, though he never really spoke to them outside of school. Once or twice he’d hung out with them, gone to lunch and then played video games in a curtain-drawn den. There’d been dog hair on every surface, a stale smell of Doritos in the air. Their conversations had bored him, and within an hour or so he’d found himself longing for Julia’s company, an urge so sharp it felt like homesickness. He had no trouble being alone. But if he was around anyone, he wanted it to be Julia.

  “You’re right,” Dave said, the worry over the party melting away. “I might even try breaking the promise to never go streaking while we’re at it.”

  “I’ll make sure that the picture goes viral and you live the rest of your life in regret and shame.”

  “You’re such a good friend.” Dave put a hand on top of her head and shook lightly. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

  “Show up to parties empty-handed, for one.”

  Dave chuckled, dipping another finger into the frosting. “You have to admit it’s kind of weird, though. Doing this after avoiding it for so long.”

  Julia shrugged, using her pinky to steal the frosting from his finger before he could lick it away. “I don’t think it’ll be that bad. Just see it as a brief social experiment.” She hopped off the stool and went to the oven, peering in through the glass to check on the cupcakes. “My mom did this once.”

  “Went to a Kapoor party?”

  She rolled her eyes at him. “No, goof. She came back to the States, got a regular job. This was when I was around nine or so. She worked at a bank, tried to go back to school. She calls it her ‘social experiment with the sheep.’ Six months later, she’d taken off again, even happier to return to her unordinary life.”

  Julia leaned back against the counter, crossing her arms in front of her chest, not really meeting Dave’s gaze. She knew she was be
ing transparent, but she’d never been good at hiding her feelings when it came to her mom.

  “I see what you’re doing. You’re drawing parallels between us and your mom so I will feel as cool as she is.”

  Julia smiled and tossed a towel at him. “If it is too lame we’ll just leave. We can even have a secret signal.”

  Dave groaned. “Why a secret signal? We could just turn to each other and say, ‘This sucks,’ and then leave.”

  “Will you get into the spirit of this thing, please? Our secret signal will be to start a dance-off.”

  “You’re ridiculous.”

  “And you love me for it,” she said, smirking.

  o o o

  The Kapoor house was near school, about a fifteen-minute walk away. It was a route they were deeply familiar with, having driven it, walked it, and ridden their bikes down it countless times. But the streets took on a strange feel that Friday night, like walking into your own house and finding the furniture rearranged. The trees looked funny somehow, leafier than usual, or taller, or ominous. Okay, they looked pretty normal, but it felt weird noticing them while on the way to the Kapoor house for a party. Even walking next to Julia joking around felt a little strange in this context.

  When they arrived, Dave rang the doorbell, confused by the relative silence coming from inside the house. He’d expected the rhythmic thumping of what passed for pop music. He crinkled the tinfoil covering the tray of cupcakes as they waited for someone to answer. Julia leaned on his shoulder as she stepped into the high heels, the soles of her feet gray from the sidewalks. Once she was in them she grimaced at him. “Why,” she said, not a question, he knew, but a complaint.

  One of the Kapoor triplets opened the door, the collar of his polo shirt popped up, the sight of which always caused a dull ache somewhere in Dave’s chest. Julia let out a short “Ha!” at the sight of the red plastic cup in his hand.

  “Beer’s in the fridge, the sink, and the bathtub. We’ve got a game of beer pong going if you guys want next. Shots of tequila start once someone brings tequila.” He closed the door behind them and then peeked under the tinfoil of the cupcake tray. “You guys made cupcakes?”