Read Online Her Name in the Sky by Kelly Quindlen - Free Book Online Page A

the songs that play through the speakers. She loves every song that comes on, even the ones she usually skips when she hears them on the radio, and as she looks around the room, she feels elated to see Joanie and Luke belting out lyrics until their faces turn red; to see Clay raising his cup into the air in the middle of the crowd; to see Wally, who rarely sings, throwing his arms around his track teammates and letting them pull him into the song; and to see Baker, who stands next to her, laughing hard as she mixes up lyrics, her skin flushed and her eyes bright.
    Hannah’s not sure how it happens. One moment her friends are all walking toward them, and then the six of them are singing in a circle, their arms laced around each other’s waists and their drinks spilling onto each other’s clothes, and the next moment Clay’s trying to kiss at Baker’s cheek. Hannah watches, in a drunken daze, as Clay’s lips graze Baker’s face once, twice, and as Baker jerks back and gives him a look that’s entirely sober, and entirely unlike any look Hannah has ever seen her give before. And then Baker’s gone, and Clay’s looking in confusion at Wally and Luke, and Hannah finds herself suspended in time, until all of a sudden she blinks herself back into awareness and moves into the crowd, following Baker’s path out of the room.
    It’s like she’s in a trance. She sees Baker pushing ahead of her—the dark hair, the sharp movements—and she vaguely registers the people all around them trying to stop Baker, and then Hannah, to ask what’s going on. Hannah keeps moving, moving, moving, her legs and her heart carrying her, until she’s face to face with a tall door and the whip of Baker’s hair disappearing behind it.
    “Hold on!” Hannah says, throwing her hands against the door to keep it from shutting. “Bake—you okay?”
    Baker allows her into the bathroom with her. Hannah shuts the door behind them and locks it without thinking about it. “What’s wrong?”
    “Nothing.”
    “Something.”
    “I’m fine.”
    “You’re not fine.”
    “I’m fine.”
    Baker sits down on the edge of the bathtub. Hannah walks toward her until she’s standing above her, able to look down at Baker’s eyelashes and the serious expression on her face. “Hey,” she says softly, tucking Baker’s hair back behind her ear. “What’s going on?”
    Baker breathes in. Her eyelashes still; her lips stay parted around her breath.
    “Is it Clay?” Hannah asks.
    Baker closes her eyes. Hannah keeps tucking her hair back behind her ear.
    “Bake, it’s alright. Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me how we can fix it.”
    “Nothing’s wrong,” Baker says, keeping her eyes closed. “I just—do you ever just feel not right about something, but you don’t know why?”
    Hannah sits down next to her on the edge of the tub. “Sure,” she says. “I think it just happens at our age. You know?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Was it—was it him trying to kiss you?”
    Baker’s eyes open. Her eyes are dead; her expression is vacant. She doesn’t answer the question.
    They sit in silence for a long minute. Outside of the bathroom, on the other side of the door, Hannah knows that the party is carrying on, that the music is pulsing, that people are laughing and singing and drinking and waiting to welcome her back. But she has no desire to leave this bathroom. So she looks down at her dark-washed jeans, at her black ballet flats, at the bathmat below them, and she waits.
    “Maybe I’m just drunk,” Baker ventures after a few minutes.
    “Maybe,” Hannah says.
    “It’s a weird feeling. I like it, but I—I feel scared. Does that make sense?”
    Hannah looks at her. The expression in her eyes is vulnerable and uncertain, and Hannah wants nothing more than to gather her in her arms and tell her that everything is alright. She takes her hand instead.
    “It makes absolute sense,” Hannah says. “I feel the same way.”
    Baker’s mouth shifts slowly into