Taylor Before and After

by Jennie Englund

The bus stopped, and the doors flapped opened.

  “Okay.” He shrugged, right before they shut in his face. “Maybe another time.”

  FALL

  Prompt: Election results.

  Eli’s birthday dinner at Duke’s: a disaster.

  WINTER

  Prompt: Letting go.

  Grammie came. It was a surprise.

  “What’s going on here, John?” Her voice was as sharp as Mom’s garden shears. She was in the middle of the living room, her hands on her hips. She didn’t say hello when I came in from school. Instead, she was blasting Dad with questions: “How long has she been like this?” And “How long has this been going on?” “Why didn’t you tell me? I could’ve come earlier.” “This is the reason you couldn’t come visit. This is why you couldn’t come see me, isn’t it?”

  Dad was rubbing his lips, his chin. I know what he was doing—he was letting Grammie Stella go off, get it out. There was nothing else he could do. She owned his house, his kids, his wife, his life.

  “For Pete’s sake, John, that’s my daughter in there, in bed.” “All those pill bottles!” “What are the doctors telling you?” “Are you getting her help?” “Have you tried anything yet?” “For the love of god, how long has it been since she’s SHOWERED?”

  “Hi, Grammie,” I said.

  She held out one of her arms toward me but kept her eyes and hips pointed at Dad.

  “And no one tells me,” she went on. “I find out because the fruit basket I sent to her work last week gets returned. Does she even work at the hospital anymore? They wouldn’t tell me: ‘Employee rights,’ they said.”

  Grammie waved her hands in the air, all her gold bracelets crashing down onto one another.

  “Happy birthday, honey,” she said to me. Then, “My good god, your hair! What is this? What did you do?” And “What in the love of god happened to your EYE?”

  Then she said to Dad, “Honestly, John, for Pete’s sake, what is going on here?” And “What happened to my Olie, it’s happening here, too.”

  I could tell she didn’t even know about Eli. She hadn’t mentioned him yet.

  “I have to go back to work,” Dad said. “Department meeting.”

  Grammie threw her arms into the air again. “He just goes off to work, just like before. My daughter is lying in a rancid bed, rotting away, my granddaughter’s lucky to have her eye, and he has a department meeting. I always knew you were that kind of—”

  She stopped suddenly, and we all looked when Mom shuffled in, her head hung, her shoulders stooped.

  “My lettuce,” she said softly, “it’s gone. The fire ants got it.”

  FALL

  Prompt: Redo.

  I told Eli that maybe his closet can save him. I can pick him a look, and he’ll have a future.

  His birthday was so bad.

  The day before, the paramedics called Dad at his office to say Eli had hurt his shoulder surfing, that he didn’t need to go to the ER, but he did need a ride home from the station at Sunset.

  And right as we were leaving for Duke’s, OLR called to suspend him for too many tardies in economics.

  Then dinner happened.

  Even Stacy got there before him, and the first thing Dad said was how he reeked of alcohol, then he made Mom leave with him halfway through his huli huli chicken, when Eli said Tate was giving him a party after, and Dad said “No, it’s a school night,” and Eli said he was eighteen now and could make his own decisions, and Dad got up and said, “First you show up late, smelling like a brewery, then you tell me you’re going out on a school night. I’ve had it. Do whatever you want.” He slapped a twenty on the table for my mango burger and told me, “Take the bus home when you’re finished here.” But Eli and Macario didn’t have any money, so Stacy had to pay for the whole thing, even for Dad’s chicken he forgot about, and the only ones who made it to the hula pie part were Macario and me.

  There have been other times I thought Dad was going to strangle Eli. Over who used all the hot water, and who knows where all the towels are, and who forgot to put out the garbage on garbage day, and who was supposed to mow the lawn.

  Eli’s one of those people who just never gets a break.

  WINTER

  Prompt: How does being in nature inspire you?

  After Eli’s bad birthday in November, I knew it was on me to make my own birthday happen. I was getting my free Frappuccino at the mall, and right across from me, Stacy sat down. She was: polka dot halter, victory rolls, cat eye, and turquoise nails with dark blue swirls. I had not planned on spending my birthday with anyone. Especially Stacy.

  “Happy birthday, Taylor,” she said.

  “Thanks, how’d you know?” I asked her. I didn’t have Facebook or Instagram anymore. There was no point in seeing everyone live their lives when mine was pretty much over.

  Stacy said she heard me tell the barista when I handed him my Starbucks card.

  “Are you working today?” I asked, my tongue frozen.

  “A double,” she said. “I’m covering for someone.”

  Dad could say what he wanted about her, but she was definitely a hard worker.

  “Your hair is super brave,” Stacy said.

  “Eli was home,” I blurted for no reason. “Well, he was, but then he went to court, and got convicted, and now he has to go back to court again for sentencing, so he’s in—”

  Jail. My straw hung in mid–mall air. I couldn’t quite say that last part.

  Stacy said she knew, she’d heard. “How is he?”

  I put the straw back in the cup, moved it so that it scratched circles around the bottom, where the big ice chunks had settled. No one ever asked about Eli, how he was.

  “I didn’t see him much when he was back,” I said. The first and last time was just in the kitchen by the faucet. “But he seemed—mostly—the same as before.”

  It wasn’t fair. Mom had changed, and Dad had changed, and I had changed, but Eli hadn’t changed at all. He was exactly the same, drinking out of the kitchen faucet like he always had.

  Except.

  “He eats meat now,” I told Stacy. “He ate my pizza, and Macario and him got a Sausage Supreme from Big Kahuna’s. I saw him eating it. Are you sad?”

  “About the pizza?”

  “About Eli.”

  Stacy sipped her drink. She left a glossy lip print on the lid, then wiped it away with her turquoise thumb.

  “Sure,” she said. “Definitely, I’m definitely sad. I loved him—I love him still. But things change.”

  “Eli hasn’t changed,” I said again. “Except for the meat. He’s the same.”

  “He’s changed,” Stacy said. “There’s no way he hasn’t. For one thing, he must really miss Koa and Tate. He must be lost without them.”

  I had never thought about Eli missing his brahs. Why had I never thought about it before? Eli had lost his two best friends.

  Me, I lost Li Lu. I knew how much that wrecked a person.

  “He doesn’t want you to see he’s changed.” Stacy checked her phone for the time. “He knows he’s made things bad enough.”

  “You’ve talked to him about that?” I asked, surprised.

  “No, I haven’t talked to him at all.”

  The way she said it, I could tell they were over. Did he end it, or did she?

  “But I know him,” Stacy said.

  Then, “What have you been doing?”

  And of all things, I told her I joined the writing club.

  “That sounds nice.” Stacy said it like she meant it. “I always wished I was a better writer. Maybe things would have been different.”

  I asked her what she had been doing. She straightened her name tag and said she’d been working, saving up for beauty school to do nails or maybe massage, somewhere off the island, in California or Minnesota.

  Stacy had a plan. She had a future.

  She dropped her phone back into her bag—mustard-colored, brown-and-black strap.

  “Tha
t’s a good bag,” I told her.

  “Give me your phone for a sec?” Stacy said.

  I slid it over, and she tapped in her number, and smiled: “If there’s ever anything you need.”

  I kept it.

  If I ever made it through this, if all I needed to complete my life was the Victoria Beckham tote in citrus, I would need a credit card.

  FALL

  Prompt: In the spirit of Veterans Day, write what you think about when you hear the word veteran.

  Grandpa Olie was the only one who lived when his company’s helicopter got shot down in Vietnam.

  And even though it was all too much for him to carry in the end, at first he was making it. When I think of the word veteran, I think about survival.

  WINTER

  Prompt: First … Then …

  It all changes so fast. That’s the thing that stays the same.

  First, I was friends with Li Lu. In sixth grade, I told her I liked Kevin Loo. He wore tight, bright polo shirts and smelled like bologna. She knew Dad and Eli fought all the time.

  Then I was friends with Brielle. It started last year, at the end of seventh grade. We had Hawaiian studies together, and we had a lot of time to talk between arts and crafts and practicing “Aloha ‘Oe” on our ukes for May Day. Even though Isabelle and I weren’t really on Brielle’s level—she lived in Kahala and wore Marc Jacobs and Jimmy Choo, and her mom drove a convertible BMW—I guess Isabelle and I were more on her level than Fetua Tanielu was.

  One thing Brielle loved to talk about was why I was friends with Li Lu. She was obsessed. She didn’t get it.

  “She’s so straight-up boring,” she would tell me while we wove and printed and strummed. “What is even kind of interesting about her?”

  “I don’t know,” I would say. “I mean, yeah, maybe she’s boring, but we’ve been friends since sixth grade. We know everything about each other.”

  “No one EVER knows EVERYTHING about someone,” Brielle said.

  “Seriously, we tell each other everything,” I said.

  But Brielle wasn’t buying it. “EVERYONE has secrets.”

  Maybe she didn’t get Li Lu and me, because now that I think about it she definitely cycled through her friends a lot. In seventh grade alone, she was friends with Jasmine Fukasawa, then Isabelle. This year, she was besties with Noelani, then with me.

  “You could totally be in the popular group, if you wanted to,” Brielle had told me at the end of last year.

  At first, I didn’t believe that. I wasn’t from Diamond Head or Kahala.

  “Your brother is definitely hot,” Brielle said, “and you’re pretty interesting.”

  I had thought that was such a compliment.

  FALL

  Prompt: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reported that teens claim it is harder to be a young adult today than ever before.

  It’s about information.

  And it’s not always good.

  It can be seeing your group go on a helicopter ride without you. I needed that ride. It mattered to me more than they’ll ever know.

  Being a kid today is about surviving. Sometimes people you love get hurt along the way.

  From the start, I had been Team Kristen. She was eliminated pretty early on, but she came back for Last Chance Kitchen! The whole time, I wanted her to win, because if she did, she’d go back to Korea to meet her birth parents.

  But the competition’s fierce.

  Even though Brooke was afraid of everything—helicopters, which is completely understandable, and heights—she didn’t want to pass that on to her son. I could tell how scared she was that he’d be like her. She wanted to win to show him she was strong.

  Brooke and Kristen were besties. There were rumors that they were together.

  But there could only be one winner.

  That’s what’s hard about now. About being a young adult, I guess.

  There’s less spots, but more competition, and social media puts a huge magnifying glass on it all. Plus, the ice caps are melting, and polar bears are drowning because of it.

  Young adults today, we want to be happy, we want everyone to be happy, to be equal. In the end, it would be great if Kristen and Brooke could both win. But that isn’t how it is.

  Even the Top Chef judges are harsher than they used to be. They sent Jeffrey home for barely overcooked fish. And he was such a nice guy.

  WINTER

  Prompt: Progress.

  On the Top Chef season finale, Kristen broke the tie with celery soup. I wanted her to win from the very beginning. She could find her family now. But Brooke had lost. She was sad, I could tell. And even though Kristen was happy she won, she was sad for Brooke, too.

  After school yesterday, I was taking the #5 to the Mānoa Public Library to look for Grandpa Olie.

  When we had gone two stops, we passed by Bamboo, where Brielle—who had told me for a whole year straight how boring and bossy and plain Li Lu is—was arm in arm with her, my two ex–best friends, together.

  Wasn’t Li Lu smarter than that? Didn’t she know Brielle used people?

  What if Brielle brought Li Lu into the Next Cut? If Li Lu got Cut, she’d be wrecked. Seriously. She couldn’t even handle getting an A- on a Latin test.

  It was horrible, watching out the window. Like seeing a ship steer straight into a reef before it actually happened.

  And Soo was right behind the two of them, the three of their skirts all swishing together along on the sidewalk, then cramming all together through the door. They were going to have the spider roll, and they were going to sit in there together, laughing and talking. Talking about people like me.

  Was Li Lu going to tell them I liked Kevin Loo in sixth grade, that Dad and Eli fight all the time? Had she told them all already?

  The rest of the week, even into the next one, Li Lu and Brielle and Soo would laugh more about how they laughed at Bamboo, about all the funny things that had happened there.

  And me, I was on the #5, with glass and metal and pavement and betel nut spit between those girls and me, but really, I was far away, miles and miles and miles away, squeezed out of everything, and I wanted to be a part of it so, so badly. I wanted to laugh and talk with them over spider roll and mango passion fruit tea—now, and again a week from now, and every week for forever. And I hated myself for wanting that.

  I hated myself for wanting them to let me be a part of it, a part of them.

  I remember how it was having the group.

  And now I’m out of it, which is worse because I know how good being inside was. It would have been better never to know that.

  It would have been better to never have been inside at all.

  FALL

  Prompt: Binaries.

  I found it, my look for the party at Ehukai. White gauze top, peasant, tassels.

  Grammie Stella got me that.

  She came to take us holiday shopping, like she had at the end of every fall, no matter where we lived.

  Finally, Eli got out of bed. “How’s my handsome grandbaby?” Grammie Stella asked him.

  I was waiting and waiting for Eli to get up.

  In two weeks, we’ll be on Winter Break, and he can sleep in every day if he wants.

  We were supposed to go shopping, though, and I was waiting forever, and the stores were getting crowded, and all the good stuff was going to be gone, and Grammie was only going to be here for the weekend, and it was taking forever for Eli to get up, and when he finally did, he said he didn’t want to come.

  Seriously, he’s been so completely moody. He sleeps in later than I do now. A big swell is coming, and he’s not even kind of excited about catching it.

  Grammie hugged him, tucked his hair behind his ear.

  “No code against long hair?” Grammie said to Dad, her eyes narrowed. “For the $22,000 a year they charge me, you’d think they’d have a few rules.”

  Twenty-two thousand dollars. That’s how much OLR costs a year?

  Twenty-two thousand dollars x
Eli and me + haircuts + Christmas bikes + frozen pizzas and a Mānoa house seemed so much more than Dad and Mom could ever possibly make.

  Dad rubbed his forehead, then shifted in the green chair. “We’re grateful, Stella,” he said, but he didn’t seem grateful.

  Grammie asked Eli, “Can we pick you up some things? How are you doing with uniforms? Shoes?”

  I was going to tell Grammie I needed new shirts and shorts really bad, and probably a skirt, too, and definitely shoes—Steve Madden charcoal half-boots with side zippers and a chunky heel—but Dad said quickly, “They’re fine, Stella, thanks.”

  “How about a few shirts?” Grammie tugged at both shoulders of Eli’s Chili Peppers T-shirt.

  “He’s fine, Stella,” Dad said again.

  Grammie sucked in a breath, patted Eli’s shoulders with her taupe gel nails. “Okay,” she said, not really to Dad or to anyone.

  She and I went to Ala Moana—to Macy’s and Bebe and Anthropologie.

  We didn’t go in Miu Miu. And I told Grammie about the Victoria Beckham tote in citrus, because I thought there was a chance she’d understand that it would complete my life and get it for me.

  But she told me $860 was too much for a tote. That being an independent woman means making and spending your own money. That there is nothing in life more rewarding.

  FALL

  Prompt: Why is it important to honor privacy?

  Brielle read everything.

  And I don’t care if it takes me the rest of forever, I’ll come up with a way to show her how it feels.

  My notebook went missing. Miss Wilson met me at the door before class and told me it was just … gone.

  For days, I’ve been sick about it all. I’ve been asking myself if someone was reading it. Knowing all my everything? Spreading it all over everywhere? What was going to happen?