36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You

by Vicki Grant

  “I’m the common denominator. It’s as if bad things happen merely because I’m there.”

  “You’re a jinx. That’s what you’re saying. A megalomaniacal jinx.”

  “You make it sound like I’m just being superstitious and—”

  “Jinx Sangster. Btdubs, excellent stripper name, should the occasion arise, but totally inaccurate.”

  Max pulled the cord for their stop and dragged her off the seat.

  “Nothing compels you to blurt things out. It’s not like you’ve got some particularly vicious form of Tourette Syndrome. A bubble came up on your computer. You read what was written therein. That’s not leaking government secrets to ISIS. That’s reading aloud—which I’ve always thought of as one of the Sangster family’s quainter traditions.”

  They got off the bus.

  “But why? Why would I do that?”

  Max grabbed her shoulder and snarled at her. “Because anyone would. Difference is, other people would feel bad for a while in an oops silly me kind of way. You, on the other hand, soak up all the guilt in any given situation. I wish you’d stop. The slurping sound is positively deafening plus—I hate to say this, sweetheart—it’s giving you a bit of a tummy. Such a pretty girl but positively bloated with guilt.”

  Hildy liked it when Max put his arm around her even when he was telling her off. He was tall and strong and smelled sort of cinnamony. He was also always the exact right temperature and she was always cold.

  “Know what? You’re not Jinx Sangster. You’re Sponge Sangster which, btdubs part two, is a terrible stripper name. No one’s going to pay to see someone called Sponge take off her clothes… Just thought I should mention that before you got any ideas.”

  Hildy laughed because it was funny and also because she was worn out. Max got a hot dog from a sidewalk vendor and they walked to the fish store.

  H2Eau Aquarium Supplies was tucked between a new Ethiopian restaurant and an old paint store. It was tiny and full of fish tanks and everything had a kind of eerie turquoise glow. They went inside. Max took a bunch of selfies with one eye pressed against an aquarium and various cartoony fish seeming to swim into it.

  Hildy talked to Barry the owner. He made her slightly uncomfortable. He was always a tad too happy to see her. When Gabe had still needed a babysitter, she’d been in the store all the time despite having absolutely no interest in fish. Gabe could never wait until their father finished work to go there.

  Barry asked how Gabe liked his King Kong. Hildy avoided the question and told him she was here to buy another one.

  “’Fraid you’re out of luck there, missy. That was my last one. I’m having a pile of trouble getting them in these days.” He hefted himself off his stool and squeezed around the counter. “Closest thing I’ve got is this little varmint.”

  He led her to a tank near the front. Hildy could see it wasn’t the same thing. Even if she hadn’t seen the difference, it wouldn’t have mattered. Gabe wanted a King Kong puffer fish and nothing else. Her dad and Gabe had talked about getting one for years.

  Her dad and Gabe had talked.

  That used to seem so normal.

  She shook her head and dredged up some kind of smile.

  “I’ll put you on the waiting list. Best I can do.”

  Max called her over to the other side of the store to see what he claimed were guppies in love. He read the look on her face immediately.

  “Disappointed. I get it. But this is not your problem to fix—even if a hundred-and-twenty-dollar fish could do it, which it can’t. It would have cheered Gabe up for a little while, but then what? He and your dad would be back to square one and none of your singing or dancing or flinging money around would be able to do anything about it.”

  Hildy couldn’t even disagree because she knew none of her arguments made sense in the way people expect arguments to. She decided it was better to just keep her mouth shut and quietly nurse them to strength. She was going to get another King Kong for Gabe no matter what anyone said. It would make him happy in that pure way of his, and her father would see that and he’d succumb. He’d stop all this nonsense. He’d be the man he was supposed to be.

  Hildy wanted to get out of H2Eau but Max coaxed her into sitting on the floor and watching the drama unfolding in the guppy tank.

  Fish are actually pretty boring just doing fish things, but Max put on a Planet Earth voice and provided narration. It started off as a slightly warped nature documentary, then morphed into a kind of cross between The Little Mermaid and Orphan Black. Hildy allowed herself to become distracted until a plot twist involving a mysterious angelfish brought her back to Bob.

  “I think I was drawn to him because we both have a secret.”

  “I think you were drawn to him because he’s hot. Everyone has a secret. Not everyone is hot.”

  Max waited until Barry went into the back office before tapping the aquarium tank and agitating the fish.

  “And I know that’s hard to ignore, but here’s the truth, Hildy. None of us guys is good enough for you—especially not Neanderbob. You deserve someone who’s kind and creative and super hot.”

  “And straight.”

  “Yeah, that too. Now shut up for a while and watch. We could all learn something from tropical fish. They’re utterly useless and yet content.”

  “Be still and find your inner guppy.”

  “Yeah. Basically.”

  Hildy shut up. After a while her ass hurt and Max had to pick up his skates at the sharpener’s so they left. He took the long way to the rink so he could stay on the bus and badger her into going to some stupid party with him that night, but then her stop came up and Hildy had to get off and go home alone.

  CHAPTER

  4

  Hildy’s parents were in the kitchen talking when she got in. They were slim and blondish and almost the exact same height. People always said they were made for each other.

  Her father was at the stove, his back to Hildy. Her mother was standing with her hands flipped out to the side as if she was acting out “WTF” in charades.

  They stopped talking as soon as Hildy walked in the back door. They did that a lot these days.

  “You’re early.” Her dad tried to make that sound like a good thing. His name was Greg but her friends always referred to him as Gregoire or occasionally Gregorinko. (He was their principal, and some of them had him for drama, too. They knew him well. He was simply not a Greg.)

  “No. Didn’t I say I’d be home by six? What are you making?”

  “Vindaloo.”

  Hildy looked at her mother who turned and straightened the cookbook shelf. Gabe hated spicy food.

  “Smells good,” she said because to say otherwise would be to open a can of worms. “When will it be ready?”

  “Forty-five minutes or so.” Greg threw something into the pot. “I started later than intended.”

  “How was your day, honey?” Amy glanced her way. She had the same small eyes as Hildy. When she smiled, even a little, they disappeared.

  “Good.” Hildy toed off her boots and put her coat on a hook. “I got some stuff done, went to the market, hung out. Nothing much.”

  Amy acted more interested than the non-answer deserved. Greg leaned his back against the counter. A long yellow booger of curry rolled down his black apron. He took a sip of wine. He usually went cold turkey between Christmas and Easter, just to prove that he could.

  “Gabe around?”

  Greg turned back to stirring the vindaloo.

  “Haven’t seen him,” Amy said. “Owen got a drone for his birthday. My guess is they’re doing something with that. Peering into people’s windows. Scaring old ladies. That kind of stuff.” She gave a little laugh. Greg started chopping the cilantro.

  Gabe wasn’t the type to scare old ladies but again Hildy didn’t say anything. She didn’t ask how her parents spent their day, either. She got herself a glass of water, looked in the pot, then moved some letters around on the magnetic scrabble boar
d stuck to the fridge.

  Awkward small talk followed with weirdly stiff body language and only fleeting eye contact. Hildy took the first opportunity to slip off to her room.

  She thought she’d read a bit more Brideshead Revisited or perhaps practice calligraphy from the art deco book Xiu had lent her, but it dawned on her that these might be some of the stereotypical things Bob accused people like her of doing, so she didn’t. She opened her laptop, put on her headphones, and mindlessly scrolled through her social media feed.

  When Hildy went downstairs an hour later, the vindaloo was simmering on the stove but her parents were out.

  Hopefully together.

  Hopefully talking.

  Hopefully screaming at each other, if that’s what it took.

  There was a note on the table in her mother’s handwriting saying Gabe was sleeping over at Owen’s. Her father had added, “Help yourself to curry but be careful.” He’d drawn three little fires beside it. Neither said when they’d be back.

  Hildy took it off the stove and put it in the fridge. She couldn’t eat. Maybe they’d get some food on the way to the party Max was making them go to.

  CHAPTER

  5

  Max had neglected to mention that the party he’d badgered them into going to was a fund-raiser for the university drama department. Hildy wasn’t keen on going back there so soon after the Bob fiasco, but she also wasn’t keen on staying home.

  The party was being held in one of the big old houses on the outskirts of campus that used to be mansions but were now slummishly cool frat houses. The walls were already pulsing by the time they arrived at eleven.

  They stepped into the massive foyer and Max was immediately sucked into the adoring crowd.

  “He spends every waking moment with us.” Xiu shook her head. “How could he possibly know all these people?” Hildy shrugged. She was always impressed by how he’d managed to parlay his special brand of weirdness into instant popularity even among the hockey players and the nursing students and the millionaires-by-thirty crowd.

  “How long before he takes his shirt off and/or starts juggling?” Xiu adjusted the massive shoulder pads on her silver jumpsuit. “I don’t know why he insists we come out with him. It’s not like he needs the emotional support.”

  They pushed their way through what must have once been the parlor and found a spot to sit on a windowsill. Xiu had a thing about always having to be near an exit. She believed she’d picked it up subconsciously during her time as a baby in a crowded Chinese orphanage. Hildy thought it more likely had something to do with wanting to make a quick getaway if things got boring.

  They scanned the crowd for people they knew—a few nodding acquaintances, some kids who’d graduated a couple of years before them—then Xiu said, “Ooh. Fabulous. They’re selling swamp juice at the bar. Want one?”

  Hildy wasn’t a big drinker of cocktails spiked with 100-proof medicinal alcohol, but a cup would at least give her something to do with her hands.

  “Sure.” She gave Xiu the purse. They only ever brought one purse when they went out, in case they felt like dancing. Less to keep track of.

  Xiu mouthed, Don’t move, then hobbled off through the crowd in her six-inch platforms.

  Hildy wasn’t going anywhere. She semi-liked it here. The party was noisy enough that she wouldn’t have to talk to anyone and she really didn’t want to talk to anyone at the moment. She didn’t want to think, either, and it was good for that, too.

  She leaned against the windowsill and people-watched. This was mostly a torn-jeans-and-ponytail-type crowd but there were a few outliers, wardrobe-wise, even by Xiu’s standards. One girl in particular—black bustier, ass-cheek-grazing skirt, fishnet stockings—stood out. It wasn’t until a large group of drunken Roman soldiers surged in that Hildy realized the girl was in costume.

  Fund-raiser, she remembered. Drama department. Hildy suddenly felt slightly ill.

  She looked around the room.

  They were all rolling in now. There was a guy in green pantaloons and a frilly Shakespearean collar. Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and most of the female cast from Into the Woods were grinding in a decidedly un-fairy-tale-like way. Xiu was at the bar playing with the mane of a guy with a bare chest and a horse’s head. Hildy didn’t expect to get her drink anytime soon.

  She looked up at the ornate plaster moldings and watched little squares of light from the disco ball flick across the ceiling. She wondered if Bob liked to dance.

  She was trying—and failing—to picture him getting down when she noticed a guy in a wide-shouldered suit and fedora coming toward her. Guys and Dolls, she thought.

  “Hildy!” he said.

  Oh god, she thought. No. How could she have been so stupid?

  “Evan,” she said. She managed a small exclamation point of a smile but it came too late to be convincing. She had no makeup on. Her clothes were dirty. She hadn’t even brushed her teeth. Why now?

  A dancing girl in a college hoodie rammed into Evan from behind. He lunged at Hildy, arms out. Their faces clunked together, his front tooth to her left cheek. They both went, “Ow!” then Evan said, “Thus from my lips, by yours, my sin is purged.”

  It took her a second to get it. She laughed. “Then have my lips the sin… damn. How does it go?”

  “Hmm. Something about temptation maybe?” Evan scratched his head like a hammy silent movie star. “Can’t remember. God. How long ago did we do Romeo and Juliet, anyway?” He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. I’m so glad to see you! C’mere!” He gave her a real hug this time, then held her out at arm’s length. “You look great!”

  He pushed his fedora off his forehead with an index finger and beamed at her. Evan Keefe and his megawatt smile!!!! That’s how Max always referred to him, but that was mostly just to protect Hildy. (He’d started calling Evan that after the non-ravaging incident.)

  It didn’t work. Hildy liked Evan’s smile.

  “You too. Love the zoot suit.”

  “I know. I’m mad gangsta.” He crossed his arms and raised his fingers in that hip-hop way.

  Xiu would have gagged but Hildy didn’t care. She laughed. This was exactly what she loved about Evan. His no-holds-barred dorkiness.

  “I can’t believe it’s been so long!” He looked into her eyes like he was searching her soul. It was one of his shticks. She fell for it every time. “All the time we spent together in high school, and now I never see you. What play are you doing this term?”

  “Don’t know yet. Find out this week.”

  Evan sat down in Xiu’s place on the windowsill. He seemed taller sitting (and, weirdly, too, onstage. Hildy had never thought of him as short). His face was a dizzying mix of grown-up (heavy whiskers and eyebrows) and kid (lashes and sparkly parts). She looked away.

  “God, I miss you! Best leading lady ever.” He’d stopped screaming and taken off his fedora so he could speak right into her ear. “You know how brilliant I think you are? When we did Grease, your Sandy was… hmm… Can I say brilliant again? No, I cannot. That would be boring and Hildy Sangster does not do boring… It was, like, innocent and real and… and I know the word I’m looking for! Sexy. Innocent and sexy. No wonder Danny fell for her.”

  He slicked his hair back with his hands like he’d done when he was Danny. Pretended to chew gum. Winked at her.

  He didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed. Had he totally forgotten what had happened?

  Or had she just misread it?

  Hildy considered the possibility that, all this time, she’d been torturing herself for nothing. A huge weight lifted.

  “Yeah,” she said. “And no wonder Sandy fell for Danny.” She winked back.

  Evan leaned his shoulder into hers, nudging her into the windowsill.

  “Ah. Good times. Nothing like the thee-ah-tah to arouse passions… Speaking of which.” He pulled a roll of tickets out of his pocket. “Can I interest you in our fifty/fifty draw? One ticket for three dollars or two for
five.”

  She laughed again. Evan. Always an angle. “Sorry. Xiu’s got the purse. I’ll buy a couple tickets when she comes back.”

  “Xiu’s here too? Wow. And I saw Max. I mean, how could I miss him? God. It’s like a high school drama reunion or something. Mr. Sangster would be so proud… Hey. How is he, anyway? I keep meaning to drop by.”

  A bunch of people whooped, then the music got even louder and the dancing kicked up a notch.

  Hildy looked at Evan and considered telling him. She’d told him a lot over the years, although always using words someone else had written.

  Which didn’t necessarily make them any less true.

  “Oh,” he said. “Oh no. There something wrong? Did something happen to him?” Evan looked genuinely concerned.

  Later, Hildy would be able to pull apart the various thoughts and emotions that had rushed through her head in the seconds that followed, but at the time they weren’t clear. There was some jealousy toward Xiu and Max and their newfound sex lives. Wounded pride after the thing with Bob. The revelation that she may have misread things. That liquid feeling she always got looking into Evan’s clear brown eyes. She’d probably never really know what the deciding factor had been.

  Whatever.

  Hildy took a breath, cupped Evan’s head in her hands and kissed him right on the mouth.

  His lips were soft and scratchy around the edge, but not at all willing.

  He held her by the arms and gently pushed her back. “Oh. No. Hildy.” He left a large parking space of regret between each word.

  She stood up. He stood up. Hildy would have bolted right then, but people were dancing practically on top of them.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She said, “No, no,” as if he’d accidentally stepped on her foot.

  Someone went, “Why, Sky Masterson!” and next thing there was a hand on his shoulder and a tall pretty girl squeezing through the crowd toward them. She was dressed in a skin-tight Salvation Army uniform. He put his arm around her and kissed her cheek and then, if that wasn’t enough to make his point crystal clear, he said, “Hildy, this is my girlfriend, Julia Ogurundi.” He turned to Julia. “I told you about Hildy. She played Sister Sarah in our high school production?”