This Is Not the Jess Show

by Anna Carey

  “For the cookies?” She smiled, and the dimple appeared in her right cheek.

  “For the cookies,” I repeated, then squeezed her feet under the blanket. “Just give me a minute to check.”

  9

  Monday, last period. There was only one minute left and Tyler was next door, in American History, a single wall separating us. If the timing worked out right we’d run into each other after class, but that meant something different now. We’d only spoken for a few minutes in band, and he hadn’t stopped by my locker the entire day. When we passed each other after third period, he just waved.

  A wave.

  Like I was some sophomore hall monitor.

  It was possible he’d heard about Patrick Kramer. People had seen us talking at Jen’s party, and if Amber and Kristen knew the rumor about the Spring Formal invite, it may have gotten back to Ty, too. Maybe I should’ve just told him I liked him, declared it in some formal way. But wasn’t making out with him enough? How could he possibly think I’d have any interest in Patrick Kramer?

  When the bell rang I grabbed my Discman from my backpack and put on Ani DiFranco, blasting it so loud it overpowered every thought. “Untouchable Face” hit the chorus just as I passed the cafeteria. Half the school was still out sick, and the halls felt so much lonelier than they normally did. I was right by the water fountain when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Tyler had caught up to me. I could only vaguely understand what he was saying, his lips mouthing each word as I tugged off my headphones.

  “What’d you say?”

  “I just said…wait up. Actually I said it like”—he raised his eyebrows and kind of yelled it—“Jess, wait up!”

  Then he smiled.

  Like that, we were back there, and I could feel him nuzzling into my neck, and I remembered how his hands had cupped my chin, his thumbs against my cheekbones. He had smiled while we kissed, and it had made it so much better but so much harder to actually kiss.

  “Did you want a ride home? I know Kristen usually takes you or whatever, but I thought maybe…” Tyler nodded to the junior parking lot behind us. He always drove to school, even though his neighborhood was just a two-minute walk through the trees behind the north gym. My mom would lose it if she saw me in his ancient Chevy Blazer, with the huge dent in the side.

  “Kristen has a Spanish Honor Society meeting, so I was going to take the bus. You’re sure it’s not out of your way?”

  He laughed. “It’s definitely out of my way, but I knew that.”

  I was smiling so much it was hard to look at him.

  “Okay, perfect.”

  Except for the part about my mom, and not wanting to die in a rollover accident, but I wasn’t going to mention that.

  “Want me to carry those?”

  He nodded to my textbooks, which I’d tucked under one arm. Maybe it was stupid, but it felt like a sign. Carrying your books was a very boyfriend thing to do. Wasn’t there so much more to that question?

  “You sure?”

  “Don’t let them tell you chivalry’s dead.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know, the same people who say ‘great minds think alike’ or ‘follow your heart.’ They’re saying things all the time.”

  “Oh, I know them. They also said ‘nothing in life is free’ and ‘love is blind.’ ”

  “Love is definitely not blind. They were wrong about that,” Ty said, and for the first time I noticed it—the googly love eyes. He was staring at me like he could see through my clothes.

  I passed the books to him and he hugged them to his chest.

  * * *

  We took a detour on the way home, stopping at Maple Cove, which Tyler loved almost as much as I did. It was still too cold to sit on the sand, so we stretched out on a warped picnic table, our shoulders pressed together. We stared up at the sky, watching a flock of birds change direction overhead. Our breath appeared and disappeared in front of us.

  “But really,” I said, “how many sweater vests do you think Ian Grand owns? If you open up his closet, are there just stacks and stacks of them?”

  “It’s like he decided that was his style. Forget JNCOs, forget Sambas: sweater vests.”

  “Sara went through a sweater vest phase,” I said. “Right after she saw Clueless.”

  “Yeah, a little different…” Tyler tipped his head to the side so he could see my face. “How is she doing?”

  “Do you want the real answer or the fake answer?”

  “Both.”

  “The fake answer is: she’s good, her spirits are up, and the doctors say she’s stable.” The back of my throat was tight, and I wanted to believe it. It sounded so much better than the truth. “The real answer is that it feels like we’re all on this train we can’t get off of. And we can see that there’s another train up ahead and we’re going to crash into it if we don’t do something, if something doesn’t change. But we can’t switch tracks and we don’t have control of the steering, and so we’re all just bracing for it. I keep wishing I could just slow everything down, like maybe if I had enough time they’d figure out a cure, or there’d be some medicine that really helped her. Maybe there’d be another way.”

  I pressed my hands deep into my pockets, working an old candy wrapper into a ball. I felt like someone was choking me. My throat was still tight, and the heat rose behind my eyes, a wash of tears blurring my vision. I started counting. I counted seven birds cutting across the clouds. I counted the three picnic tables on the beach, one lifeguard stand, and five trash cans. I only stopped when the back of my throat released and I felt further away from it, from anything that could hurt me.

  I’d gotten so good at Not Crying. I could compete in the Not Crying Olympics. I could give lectures on the cause. When Sara had gotten sick I couldn’t let her see me cry, so I started counting. In the doctor’s office, at the hospital, in her bedroom. When the sadness threatened to overtake me I’d count the chairs lining the wall, the overhead lights. I once counted sixty-two slats in a set of vertical blinds.

  “Even if my mom would let me go away to college, which is doubtful, I’m not going to leave Sara,” I said. “I just can’t be away from home right now.”

  His head was still turned to the side, but I didn’t want to look at him. Not yet. I counted the freckles on the back of my hand—six—until I felt steady and sure.

  “I know I told everyone I was going to UCLA,” I said. “California, the absolute farthest point from New York, from Swickley. Palm trees and endless sunshine and whatever. It just all seems a little silly now.”

  “It’s not silly. We wouldn’t have electricity or movies or museums filled with great art if people didn’t dream. Like, where would we be if Matisse thought dreaming was silly?”

  He propped his head on his hand and then I had to face him. A tiny leaf was stuck in his hair but it looked so cute that I couldn’t bring myself to brush it away.

  “Where are you going to apply next year?” I asked.

  “There aren’t a ton of schools with music programs, or not the kind I’d want to go to. New School in the city, Miami, Berklee, LA College of Music. I don’t know, we’ll see.”

  The thought of going away, of getting out of our small town for years at a time…it didn’t seem possible. I’d heard the whispered conversations behind my parents’ bedroom door. My mom had grown her business to twice the size it had been just a year before, but it still wasn’t enough to keep up with a barrage of medical bills. I’d found six different credit cards in her desk drawer, all too maxed out to actually use.

  “Why California?” he asked me.

  “Because of Unsolved Mysteries.”

  Tyler’s brows drew together. “Unsolved Mysteries? The TV show?”

  “Come on, it’s a great show,” Then I dipped my voice a few octaves, putting on my best Robert Stack impression: “Joi
n me…you may be able to help solve a mystery.”

  “Okay, now I’m really confused.”

  “I just saw this segment—no murder or anything—about this couple who was running scams there. That’s not actually the point. The point is that they lived on the beach and it had all these palm trees and this cool lifeguard house, and it just…it felt like a place I needed to be. I mean, I’ve never even seen the ocean. Part of me has always wondered what it would be like to live right next to it.”

  I didn’t mention the other, unspoken dream that was tangled up in that. Being on stage, just myself and a guitar, the audience barely visible beyond the spotlights. I’d heard about the clubs in Los Angeles—the Viper Room, Largo, the Troubadour. Maybe I wasn’t ready to play there yet, but I could be in the next few years, if I was ever able to get the money together to go.

  “You seem happy here, though,” he said. “Like there are definitely kids at school who have it really rough, but you have Amber and Kristen, and everyone just really likes you. But not in that obnoxious, popular-girl way.”

  “There are worse places, yeah. But I can’t help feeling trapped, like there’s so much more than this. I mean, this town is, like, five square miles. The place is totally dead at night. And I can’t even remember the last time I left. It’s a big deal when I go to the Blockbuster on the other side of Main Street.”

  Tyler lay back on the table, moving closer to me. He inched his hand toward mine until the backs of them were touching, and then I let my fingers curl around his, enjoying how good it felt to be close again.

  “Big things can happen in small towns,” Tyler said, squeezing my hand. “Even places like Swickley.”

  “Oh yeah? What kind of things?”

  “I don’t know. People make art, music. People fall in love.”

  The words sat there, between us. All the blood rushed into my cheeks, and my chest felt so full, I thought I might float into the sky. Maybe there was still something for me here.

  “We should watch Unsolved Mysteries together sometime,” I said, fighting back a smile.

  “I am always down to watch Unsolved Mysteries with you.”

  He leaned into me and I leaned into him.

  Then we were kissing again.

  10

  When we pulled into the driveway, my dad’s work van was the only car there. FLYNN PEST CONTROL, it said in big letters on the side. LICENSED TO KILL. LITERALLY. There was a picture of my dad wielding his backpack sprayer. Lydia must’ve left early, because her Corolla wasn’t parked on the street like it normally was. It would be another hour until my mom got home.

  Tyler was still holding my hand. He hadn’t let go of it the entire ride home. “What if we just stay here?” he asked, staring up at the house. The sky had gone dark, the moon just visible above the trees, a spattering of stars beyond it.

  “In the driveway?” I laughed.

  “In this car. We could order pizza, tip the seats back, and sleep. Skip school tomorrow and listen to every CD in my glove compartment. Get Chinese food and have my little brother drop off some clothes. We’d only go inside to use the bathroom and the phone.”

  “My parents would not like that.”

  “We’ll sneak through the back door.”

  “Start homeschooling each other,” I said with a smirk. “Drink rainwater. Give our college applications to the mailman.”

  “Come on, don’t leave,” he said when I finally reached for the door.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, promise.” I kissed him before jumping down from the Blazer. I waited at my front door, watching as he pulled out the driveway and up the block. My cheeks were sore from smiling so much.

  Fuller didn’t greet me the way he normally did, his tiny butt wiggling like crazy. The house was quiet. I glanced up the stairs and noticed Sara’s door was open, but her room was dark. She wasn’t blasting her stereo. The television was off.

  “Dad?” I started into the kitchen. The light above the stove cast ominous shadows. He was at our table, his chin resting on his hands. If we were religious I would’ve thought he was praying, but as soon as he turned toward me I saw that his face was flushed, his eyes red and watery.

  “What’s wrong? What happened?”

  “Lydia couldn’t wake Sara up. We had to call an ambulance.” He was already wearing his jacket. His boots were on and the car keys were already on the table. Before I could ask anything he grabbed them, wrapping one arm around me as he ushered us to the door. “We have to meet your mom at the hospital.”

  I barely had time to put my backpack down.

  * * *

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “She was fine this morning. It seemed like she was having a good day. A really good day.”

  My mom was sitting on the edge of the bed so I stood awkwardly beside it, not sure where to put my hands. I didn’t want to think too much about the private room we were in, with its windows looking into the woods, or the armchair that folded down into a cot. They’d never given us one that was so nice, and I didn’t want that—I didn’t want to settle in. Sara was supposed to be going home soon.

  “They think it’s pneumonia.” My mom was looking past me, her eyes unfocused.

  “But she didn’t seem sick this morning.”

  “It came on quick,” Lydia said, and leaned forward in the armchair, her elbows on her knees. “She was exhausted so I let her rest. I just let her rest and then she wouldn’t wake up.”

  Sara’s skin was pale and damp, long strands of hair sticking to her face and neck. My dad paced back and forth, watching her as though she might wake up at any moment and explain things to him.

  “I’m going to find the doctor,” he finally said.

  Sara’s nose and mouth were covered by a plastic face mask, the machines whirring beside her. My instinct was to do what I always did at home—adjust her bed, her pillow. Get a few snacks from the kitchen so she never had to ask for them. But now, here, there was no way to help.

  We’d come close before, but this wasn’t supposed to be it. It couldn’t be. She still had time, probably years, they’d said, and we had made plans. We hadn’t been on a boat together since we were kids, and her doctor said she could go when it got warmer. She’d use a wheelchair but they said we could take her out on the lake. We wanted to write songs together, me on the guitar and her singing, the lyrics pulled from her poetry. We were supposed to have a John Hughes marathon next week.

  I folded the thin blue blanket up from her feet, letting it cover her waist. There was no room for me in her bed, so I curled up on the floor beside the armchair.

  11

  Sara and I had agreed: Claudia Kishi was the coolest babysitter in the Baby-Sitters Club. It wasn’t just that she had great style, with feather earrings, a snake bracelet, and suspenders that held up purple pants. She had all the things we wanted: Unrealized artistic talent that was certain to be realized at some point in the future, in some remarkable way. A best friend from Manhattan. Junk food hidden in desk drawers and shoeboxes. A prime spot in a love triangle. Her own phone line.

  Long after Mary Anne, Dawn, and the others had faded in our memories, Claudia was the one who stayed with us, informing our decisions. Long after the series had been packed in boxes and deposited in the attic, she was the reason we’d bought the hollowed-out book from the Blackwell’s garage sale and then stuffed it with Charms lollipops. We’d hidden Warheads in my blue plastic piggy bank, and Big League Chew in the back of our pillowcases. The first thing I did that night, when I came home from the hospital, was dig a Baby Ruth bar out of the inside of my patent-leather umbrella and eat it in bed.

  I’d been the last one to talk to my sister that morning. I’d said goodbye to her after my parents left for work and before Lydia arrived, checking if she needed me to pop in a video or bring her something. I’d been so nervous about seeing Tyler and what t
hat would or wouldn’t mean that I must not have realized something was wrong. There was no way she’d go from talking, laughing even, to not being able to speak or open her eyes. What had I missed?

  I didn’t want to move, but I couldn’t stop thinking of Sara in that room, being prodded with needles. When I closed my eyes, I saw her in the hospital bed. It wasn’t until after nine, when I was desperate for a distraction, that I finally went downstairs in search of real food.

  A frenetic, rambling voice drifted into the kitchen, and I knew my dad was medicating the way he always did, by watching baseball. He was so obsessed with the Red Sox I could identify the different announcers without looking at the screen. My mom had stayed with Sara, and the house suddenly felt huge with just us there.

  The top shelf of the fridge was packed with medications. I couldn’t pronounce any of the names. There were amber pill bottles and large saline bags that Lydia hooked up to Sara’s IV. Vitamins and creams. I grabbed supplies to make a turkey sandwich. I peeled a few pieces of meat from the stack and folded them on the bread, then took some of the extra, smaller pieces for Fuller.

  “Fuller, I’ve got turkey for you,” I called, as if he’d understand. He was usually right there as soon as I opened the fridge door.

  He didn’t come. Actually, he hadn’t greeted me after school either, and not after we’d gotten back from the hospital. No one had even mentioned letting him out or walking him since we’d gotten home. His bowl was still full of kibble.

  I went to the top of the den stairs. “Dad, are the Kowalskis watching Fuller?” It took my dad a few seconds to register I was talking.

  “Fuller? No, he’s here somewhere. Did you check the usual places?”

  “Not yet…”

  “Maybe upstairs?”

  He looked at me, then back at the TV.

  I went upstairs, assuming he was just waiting for Sara to come home, but when I flicked on her light his crate was empty. He wasn’t curled up under the bed. Then I checked and double-checked my room. Sometimes he liked the chaise by my parents’ dresser, but he wasn’t there either.