Tack & Jibe

by Lilah Suzanne

  It seems that while she was busy trying to be someone else, Bodhi saw her anyway. Bodhi was her best friend no matter what.

  “Bo, you’re, like,” Willa voice cracks. God, how many times can I cry today? “Like my sister, even though I have a sister, but she’s a baby and only says like five things.” She sniffles. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do, yeah.” Bodhi curls up next to her with her head resting on Willa’s shoulder. She smells like sunscreen and bug repellant and sunshine. “So… You and Lane…”

  Willa brings Bodhi’s arm over her stomach. The truth is, she likes to cuddle all the time though she only lets herself do it when she’s drunk. “Nothing happened. We got rained on, and some waves were coming overboard so that’s why we didn’t have clothes on.” Bodhi makes a disappointed noise. “I mean, we did kiss.” Bodhi makes an interested noise. “But that’s it.”

  “Boo.” Bodhi gives a thumbs-down.

  “I really like her though,” Willa admits. “Really, really like her.”

  Bodhi taps Willa’s hip. “Then what’s the problem?”

  The last several months of trying to figure out what Lane really thinks about her seem just confusing now. If she hadn’t been so insecure, she could have just asked. “I thought she was into you,” Willa says. “And she thought I was into you.”

  “Yeah?” Bodhi’s voice is way too smug for Willa’s liking. “Everyone wants a piece, and I can’t say that I blame them.”

  Willa laughs; it hurts her head but it feels great. “Shut up.”

  “You know I’m all about free love,” Bodhi says, smug in a joking way now. “The more the merrier. I’m into it. I say we do this.”

  Willa groans. “Ugh, why am I friends with you?”

  “Best friends,” Bodhi says, squeezing her tight.

  Willa smiles against her soft, sunshiny hair. “Best friends.”

  Ch. 29

  Willa’s new doctor at the hospital is a soft-spoken old man with sparse white hair and the fine bones and stature of a very large, very thin bird. He reminds Willa of Mr. Rogers, if Mr. Rogers had become a doctor who was still practicing well into his eighties. He has a cardigan buttoned up beneath his white coat and everything.

  “How about we try to walk in a straight line, just as far as you feel comfortable,” Doctor Pascal says, in a voice so gentle and kind and soft that it makes Willa burst into tears.

  “I’m sorry,” Willa says, crying harder because she’s crying and doesn’t know why. “This ke— keep—” She sniffs. “—keeps happening.”

  “Oh, it’s quite all right.” Dr. Pascal stands, patiently stooped, next to her bed. “Concussions can cause mood swings; it is to be expected.”

  After she stops blubbering, Willa scoots to the side of her bed and stands, holding on to the railing as the room spins. Her mom bought her some warm socks from the gift shop; Willa wiggles her toes against the fuzzy insides.

  “Are you feeling dizzy?” Dr. Pascal asks, his just-above-a-whisper voice nearly drowned out by the whooshing of blood in Willa’s ears.

  “Yes. And my head hurts.” An understatement. Now that she’s on milder painkillers, her head feels as if someone is intent on driving the entirety of her brain out through one ear with a pickaxe.

  “Well, that is also to be expected. Whenever you’re ready, dear. No rush.”

  Dr. Pascal makes her walk in a line, back and forth. Then she has to spin in a slow circle with her arms stretched out. She touches her nose with one finger while her eyes are closed, then stands on one foot, then the other, then she has to hold her hands out flat as though she’s carrying a pizza and count to ten. When Dr. Pascal pushes against her raised arms and tells Willa to push back, she’s more than a little afraid that she’ll break the man right in two. He’s stronger than he looks.

  “Now,” Dr. Pascal says, after testing her muscle tone and coordination, then her reflexes, vision, and hearing. “Do you remember what happened?”

  “Yes.” Willa settles back in bed, dizzy and exhausted. “We were on the boat in a storm. There was a loud noise, and I ran up to check on it. The mast broke, and I fixed it, but then I fell because it was wet and slippery, and we’d been drinking wine.”

  “And after that?” Dr. Pascal’s hands are splotched with gray-brown spots, Willa stares at them as she tries to think.

  “After that… I was in the hospital.”

  Dr. Pascal hmms and writes something on Willa’s chart. “You regained consciousness in the ambulance.”

  “I did?”

  “Mmhmm. Says you were asking about someone named Lane. That you were worried about her because she’d hurt her ankle. You didn’t seem aware of your own injury.” Dr. Pascal looks up from his notes. “Does that sound familiar?”

  With some effort, Willa shakes her aching head. Could Bodhi be right? Is she a better person than she’s been giving herself credit for? Or was it just the concussion talking, that she was focusing on Lane because she was confused and afraid?

  “Some memory loss is normal,” Dr. Pascal continues. “Yours is very minimal, I wouldn’t worry. In fact, I do believe we can release you to go home.”

  At that, of course, Willa begins to cry.

  The cottage has been emptied of spring-break tourists early, most likely thanks to Christina’s insistence. It probably cost her grandparents a good chunk of money, which Willa will certainly hear about once she’s better and which makes her feel guilty, as if she got a concussion on purpose. Her mom stays in the cottage for several days, sleeping on the pullout couch in the living room and bustling about the kitchen making meals that Willa doesn’t eat. Mostly, Willa sleeps: all day, with the curtains drawn tight and a blanket crammed against the bottom of the door to keep the light out; all night, only waking to use the bathroom and take the pills that make her even sleepier. Her head hurts, always, endlessly.

  “You call me if you need anything at all,” Christina says to a groggy Willa. Her life and family back in Kansas City can wait no longer; Tim has to go back to work, and Christina has no one to watch the kids all day. “Or I can stay. I’ll figure something out—”

  “S’fine,” Willa slurs it into her pillow. “I’mma sleep anyway.”

  A kiss lands on the top of Willa’s head, and she sleeps.

  “Okay, sleeping beauty, medicine time.” Bodhi shakes her awake. It seems as though a second has passed since her mom left, but that was in the morning when it was bright and it’s dark now. A sliver of moon is revealed in the tiny crack between the drawn curtains. Willa sits up, holds her hand out for the pills then for a glass of water, clutches Bodhi’s arm and shuffles to the bathroom, and feels a tiny bit better. Her head hurts a little less. She’s a little steadier on her feet, a little less confused about the day’s events.

  “Was Lane here?” Willa walks back to her room under her own power, just with Bodhi’s hand at her elbow as a precaution. She vaguely recalls hearing Lane’s voice earlier.

  “Yeah. She brought you a plant and a coloring book.” Bodhi waits until Willa gets situated in bed, then flops across the end of it.

  A plant and a coloring book. “Oh. Okay.”

  Bodhi shifts to her side and props her head up on one bent arm. She grins. “Yeah, a plant because she was worried the stronger smell of flowers might aggravate your traumatic brain injury. And a coloring book because you can’t do jack squat and she thought you might get bored. That is, once you’re done being a total zombie.”

  “Oh. Well. That’s… thoughtful.” Willa pats flat the blanket lumps next to her. “Can I have them?”

  Bodhi bounces up off the bed. “Sure.”

  The plant is a squat succulent with purple-tinted leaves in a terra-cotta pot; the coloring book is titled Zen Coloring and is ocean-themed.

  “Dude,” Bodhi says, flopped onto the end of Willa’s bed once again. “She’s way
into you, right?”

  Willa shrugs. It’s too confusing for her to parse right now, when sorting out how to flush the toilet is challenge enough for her. She’s hurting and sluggish and under a heavy fog of prescription painkillers. But when she thinks of Lane, she can’t help the smile that stretches across her face and the warmth that settles in her chest.

  “I’m tired,” she tells Bodhi. After she leaves, though, Willa is able to stay awake for a bit. She touches the pointed ends of the plant and smiles.

  Ch. 30

  After one full week of being totally headache-free, Willa does a deep clean of the cottage, catches up on bills since Bodhi hasn’t paid a bill on time in her entire life, and replaces some worn-out light bulbs in the bathroom. Willa crouches precariously on the counter, one knee on the raised lip of the sink and the other wedged between a giant bottle of aloe and a decorative candle—sea-breeze scented, of course—as she screws in the new bulbs and notices that the toilet has been running lately.

  Willa and this toilet go way back; she can remember being small enough to crouch between the tub and the toilet bowl holding a flashlight while her mom replaced a valve or fixed a leak, snaked out a clog or reattached the flapper. She already has a hunch as to what’s going on before she lifts the lid to the tank: The fill valve is broken. Willa fiddles with it, hoping she’s wrong and it’s an easier fix, but no luck. She turns the water supply off and goes to the tiny hardware store. She walks, not quite ready for her skateboard.

  “Hey, Willa, you get that ceiling fan fixed up all right?”

  The hardware store is little more than a large storage space with rows of white metal shelves stacked to the rafters, with sawdust and potting soil scattered on the concrete floor. There’s a key cutting station next to the analogue-style cash register, and behind it rises a wall of cubbyholes containing various washers and knobs and specialized screws. It smells like plant fertilizer and varnish, and Ms. Purcell has been running it for longer than Willa has been alive, taking over for her parents who ran it for their whole lives.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Willa says, her accent slipping stronger to match Ms. Purcell’s coastal Southern drawl. “I’m here for a fill valve today.” The capacitor she needed for the fan had to be special-ordered and took forever; she hopes the valve is standard and she can get it today. The water bill is going to be bad enough as it is.

  She’s in luck. Ms. Purcell rings her up after they find the valve Willa needs, painstakingly punching in the numbers on the little orange sticker. “I was real sorry to hear about all the troubles you’ve had lately,” Ms. Purcell says, moving her finger over the price tag and then back to hover on the keypad. 1…

  Willa’s neck goes hot with shame. She doesn’t know if Ms. Purcell means the whole race debacle or the boat stealing or sailing off into a storm or nearly cracking her skull open, but she doesn’t ask. Probably all of it. “Uh, thanks.” 8…

  “Well, take it from an old lady: Some day you won’t even care about all that mess.” 9…

  “No?” Willa bounces on her toes.

  “No, no.” 5. “That’ll be nineteen… ninety… five.” Willa doesn’t correct her, fishes out a twenty and tells her to keep the change; god knows how long it would take her to get a nickel from the drawer. Ms. Purcell slowly bags the part and then slowly rips off the receipt and slowly hands over the bag. Willa is nearly hopping in place. “If you aren’t making mistakes, are you really living?” Ms. Purcell says.

  Willa smiles. “No, ma’am.”

  She swings the bag at her side as she walks home, happy to be free from pain and out of bed, though the sunlight still hurts her eyes even through sunglasses. She doesn’t know what’s next, where she goes from here, but for now Willa is happy to be here at all. Maybe, she thinks, as she rounds the corner to her quiet street, she’s gained a little perspective, a little more confidence, a second chance. Maybe even a girlfriend.

  She’s got the tank open, the water drained out, and her hair twisted into a lopsided bun when the doorbell rings.

  “Oh. You’re up.” Lane looks surprised, then relieved, then awkward, moving back on the porch and crossing her arms low on her waist. ‘Well, I just came to check on you, so…”

  It’s as if they’re playing the world’s dumbest game of romance chicken where the loser confesses their feelings first. “Well, here I am,” Willa says.

  Lane rubs her arms and looks up at the sky. “Right.”

  “Do you want to come in?” Willa asks, and Lane says, talking over her, “What are you doing right now?”

  “Fixing a toilet.”

  “Sure, yeah.”

  “Okay,” they both say, at the same time again.

  Willa leads her to the bathroom where the toilet sits empty and exposed. Music streams from Willa’s brand-new phone, which, between financing a new one and still being on the hook for the old phone that she dropped into the ocean, she will likely be paying for well into old age. Lane perches on the edge of the bathtub. She’s dressed casually, in shorts and tank top; her shoulders are pink and dusted with freckles, as if she’s been out in the sun a lot lately. Willa envies her. That dark room was making her feel like a trapped animal.

  Willa grabs her wrench and has to scoot past Lane to loosen a bolt on the underside of the tank.

  “Shouldn’t you call a professional for this?” Lane says, eyes wary. “What if you break something?”

  Willa locks the wrench in place and tugs. “If I break something then I’ll fix that too. You aren’t really living if you aren’t making mistakes,” she tells Lane, just as the bolt comes loose.

  Lane raises her eyebrows but says nothing else as Willa works. Technically, she doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she did watch a few YouTube videos and there are also instructions on the package. It’s easy enough, until she can’t seem to get the fill cup positioned right; the little tab she’s supposed to easily click into place is in a fiddly spot that she can’t quite maneuver.

  “Wouldn’t have taken you for a Veruca Salt fan.”

  “Huh?” Willa is literally elbows-deep in the toilet, hunched over the tank with her messy bun coming unraveled. “Volcano Girls” blares from her phone. “Oh, the music? Yeah, my mom was big fan of theirs. I guess I grew up listening to classic stuff like that.”

  “Oof,” Lane says.

  It takes Willa, preoccupied with the latch that won’t latch, a minute to realize what she said. “I mean, like, they had a pretty long career.” Lane is not her mom’s age, though she is closer to it than Willa had considered. Not that it matters, not to her anyway. “I like a lot of types of music. Old stuff, new stuff.” Willa says as she struggles with the fill cup. “Though all I seem to listen to is jam bands when Bodhi is around, and they all kinda sound the same to me? Though I guess they’re really a live band, which sort of defeats the pur— Ugh, why won’t this thing latch!”

  Lane, who had been watching Willa struggle with what looked like bemusement-meets-concern, stands up. “Need some help?”

  Willa wants to say no, but she does need another hand to keep the fill cup in place while holding the lever out of the way so she can push the latch into place. “Yes, please.”

  Together they get the new fill valve installed, and Willa turns the water back on to test it. She flushes a few times while Lane watches, her mouth tipped up into a pleased smile. “You know I was never really allowed to do that.”

  “Fix toilets?”

  Lane laughs a bit. “No. Make mistakes. If I wasn’t perfect, then why bother, right? And look what it’s gotten me. I just gave up. I’m trying to unlearn years of this shit, and you just—” Lane laughs again, but it’s humorless. Willa doesn’t know what to say, afraid to break the spell of Lane being open, that maybe this is it, this is the moment when they finally clarify what they are to each other. “But you— You fall and you get up and you fall and get up, over and over
and over and ov—”

  “I don’t fall that much,” Willa protests.

  “I just mean.” Lane’s mouth presses flat. “I mean, I’m trying here, okay. Undoing this stuff at my age is hard.” Her eyes on Willa’s are beseeching, and Willa doesn’t know exactly what she wants Willa to do, but she does get that Lane needs time, and Willa can give that to her. It’s a step somewhere, at least, even if it isn’t moving them forward.

  “Yeah. Yes, that’s okay.”

  Lane’s shoulders relax. “Are you hungry?”

  Ch. 31

  Things mostly return to normal. Willa has a tough conversation with Jenn and Robin, though it’s easier than she expected. They “sort of knew” she couldn’t really sail. After all, they’d watched her sail that one evening and, though they were proud of her hard work, they said, she didn’t look like someone who had been sailing her whole life minus some time off for an injury. In the end, they said they were disappointed but still wanted her to continue working at the shop. And they still care about her, of course, and are glad she’s okay. For Willa, it seemed like the best she could hope for.

  Willa wakes once again to the mournful song of the ferry beginning its early morning route. She sits up, swings her leg over. She gets up slowly; sometimes she gets dizzy if she stands up too fast. Does it ever get tedious, she wonders for the first time, how the ferry leaves port on the same schedule day after day, week after week, year after year. Does the captain ever wish they could just mix it up once in a while? Go late or early or even not at all? Willa pads across the gritty hardwood floor, past Bodhi’s bedroom and the predicable sleeping lump of Bodhi in her bed.

  She gets ready for the day, hops on her board, and coasts out of her street with the sun on her face, the wind at her back, and a shiny new helmet strapped tight beneath her chin. She passes the small, older cottages of her neighborhood. She glides past the upscale condos, the pastel vacation homes, the clutch of buildings housing the general store and hardware store and gas station, the municipal building, and the small elementary school. She passes the same restaurants and hotels and shops and cafes.