“When’re you going to fill out your applications?”
Eyes open. “I don’t know.”
“What do you think you’d want to do once you graduate?”
I’d shrug or try to change the conversation. “Let’s go to Taco Bell.”
“Well, what do you like doing?”
This was the most painful question he could ask, maybe because I knew how I would answer it—I liked eating cereal early in the morning on the front steps of the house, seeing how sure and confident Mom’s hands moved when she folded laundry, watching TV on mute while I listened to my iPod, reading under trees and watching sunlight leak through the leaves above and cast strange patterns on my skin and the pages, pulling off my jeans the minute I got home, Gummy Bears, I liked after we fucked, when we just lay in each other’s arms, not speaking—none of these answers were what he was looking for.
I never applied to any colleges, never was able to answer the question of my future purpose with anything other than the three words that’d made my former classmates squirm, made Billy frown and try to coax ideas out of me.
“Think of things you’re good at,” Billy would say. “Think of people you admire and the work they did, think about what mark you’d want to leave behind on the world.” Mom never minded my answer much, would hug me and tell me I had all the time in the world to decide, I could do all my deciding from the comfort of home and the room I’d slept in every night of my life.
“I don’t know.”
After a few deliveries, I realized my classmates thought I’d started working at Eddie’s as a result of the pregnancy, but I’d been working there for two weeks before I found out. Billy was talking constantly about USC, the community colleges nearby that I could take classes at that would inspire me; he bought a sweatshirt for himself, a bear for mom and me with words on its belly, “Someone Who Loves Me Goes to USC.” Meanwhile, I asked every person I was even slightly friends with if they knew of places hiring.
My old lab partner, Gina Ward, got me an interview at Eddie’s. I put on one of two button-downs I owned and pants without rips in them and sat across from her uncle Peter. I thought the interview went well, but didn’t hear back for over a week. I asked Gina at lunch one day if Peter had told her anything and she said, “Dude, you fucked up.”
“What do you mean?”
“Peter said you came in wearing a wrinkled shirt, the look in your eyes made him nervous.”
“What look?”
“Vacant, a little corpsey.”
“Corpsey?”
“As in ‘corpse’ with a ‘y.’ As in, you looked like a dead body.”
“Ah.”
I got the job because Gina begged him to give it to me. The first week I did my best to do everything he taught me perfectly. I mopped floors and wiped counters and drove to every address as quickly as I could without speeding. I sometimes thought about my life after summer, but mostly just mopped and wiped and drove and focused on little details directly in front of me. Finally, I had something to do after the final school bell rang.
The dull shine of clean linoleum counters, the gleam of wet floors, pizza smelled good, the dividing lines of the streets were better to stare at than clouds, there were no pictures to be seen in them, just dashes and lines of yellow and white, all the same, another job I could be good at—crouching low, inhaling asphalt and paint, flicking a brush straight and even, over and over.
* * *
—
I WASN’T RELIGIOUS AND THOUGHT anyone who said “Amen” seriously and not just as a way to blend in at church or to please someone else’s parents before dinner was weird. But every time I stood inside a church, I felt something bend in my chest.
It could’ve been how even small churches felt massive, how, when you stood and looked up at the high ceilings, you felt like you were about to be swallowed up by something bigger and greater than you were and later, when you emerged, blinking, you’d be bigger and greater. The cross was a simple symbol, a weighty one. Whether on the tip-top of a church’s steeple or plastered on the bumper of a pickup truck, you felt its quiet stare of judgment. Stone angels were impossible to make eye contact with.
I think it was the stained glass. Lots of things were massive, judgment was all around, I could walk with my head down, staring only at the rubber toes of my sneakers, but stained glass demanded to be viewed. I liked how the colors were both bright and dark, colors I would’ve happily bathed in. As if the colors weren’t enough, church’s stained-glass windows always had a picture within them. Men, women, children, animals, trees, sometimes just geometric patterns—the stained glass made them holy. I wished stained-glass windows were everywhere, not just churches. How lovely a McDonald’s would be if you could order a Big Mac while being surrounded by stained glass.
I stood on the sidewalk in front of the Holy Name of Jesus Church on the Thursday after I’d seen Jenny again and, for what felt like the million-and-tenth time, dabbed my forehead dry with the front of my shirt. To the left, the hardware store’s windows were dark, the owner and his friends, equally male, middle-aged, hairy everywhere except the tops of their heads, sitting on chairs outside drinking forties, passing a joint and the L.A. Times back and forth, exhaling smoke and yelling about the daily fuck-ups. The doughnut shop was lit, but empty except for the dead-eyed, moppy-haired dude texting behind the counter and the homeless woman sleeping in a booth in the back, near the restroom, clinging to her bulging garbage bag like it was full of precious jewels or cherished memories and not just dirty, dented cans. I dabbed my forehead again. It felt like a mistake to be there.
After my shift ended, I’d asked Darryl to make a call and lie for me on his phone. Together, we called Mom and told her that I’d be coming home late, I was going to Darryl’s house and we were going to eat pizza and watch a documentary about Jackie Kennedy. She liked hearing that I had friends and thought the former first lady was gorgeous and graceful and that Marilyn Monroe was a no-talent whore. We hung up the phone and Darryl frowned at me, but just said, “See you tomorrow?”
“See you tomorrow.”
Inside the church, the air was even warmer than it was outside. I didn’t want to go back outside, though, was worried I might start running toward my car, or even past it—how many miles would it take for my legs to give up and crumple against my will? I sat in one of the pews in the back and pulled my iPod out of my pocket, put the volume so low I had to work to hear it.
I hadn’t been inside the church for over a year, since my last Grief and Loss of a Loved One meeting. Billy and I had been fucking for two weeks at that point and didn’t think there was anything more we could get from the meetings. As I sat in that pew fiddling with my iPod’s volume, I asked myself for the first time if that decision was the wrong one.
What if those meetings were it? What if those meetings would’ve saved me? Maybe if I had kept going to those meetings I would’ve learned all the answers to all the questions I had. Like: Where am I going and how do I get there? What have I done and what will I continue to do? Will I ever wake up and look in the mirror and feel good about the person staring back at me? Another thought entered my mind, and I hated it the minute it did, but once it was conjured it was impossible not to repeat and repeat and repeat—what if going to those meetings would’ve stopped me from getting pregnant?
My favorite stained-glass window in the church was a small one. It was oval and centered right behind the altar. A man kneeling before a sun. His arms outstretched. The man was probably Jesus and he was probably praying, but I chose to ignore those things—you didn’t have to be religious to love the sun and the way it felt against your skin, to have a moment so beautiful and pure that it brought you to your knees.
“You came.”
I turned around and ripped the headphones out of my ears. Jenny was standing there with an armful of roses. She loo
ked like she’d jumped out of a scene of a bad rom-com. This was the third time I’d seen her and, like the previous two times, she looked tired, slightly out of breath, like she’d spent the whole day in constant motion. She was sweating more than even me. I wondered when the last time she sat down was and for how long. I hoped that I’d just seen her on three tough days. I wanted to pat her forehead dry with the front of my shirt.
“Do you have a hot date or something?”
“Huh?”
I pointed to the roses and she looked down at them and laughed. “Oh, right. Well, on my bike ride over here I saw the owner of a corner store throwing heaps of roses into the dumpster. Guess how long a flower lives after the stem has been cut.”
“I don’t know.”
“Ten days. And that’s best-case. Like, ten days even if you’re keeping it in a nice vase and watering properly and often.” She sat down next to me and I was happy to see her off her feet. “Ten fucking days. What a life. Doesn’t that just break your heart a little bit?”
We’d never sat next to each other before. She’d hugged me twice, but there was something more intimate about being close to someone and not touching. I could’ve counted the number of hairs on her arm if I’d wanted to and I kind of did. I imagined us lying in a meadow, even though I’d never been to a meadow and had no idea how to find one. It was just nice to picture and I liked the idea of us lying somewhere together outdoors, the smell of grass, no clocks, just me and her, counting hairs until it was too dark to see.
Jenny shoved a rose in my face. “Please take one. Give it a good home for however many days left it’s got to live.”
* * *
—
THE MEETING was in the church’s basement, the same room as before. The walls were a different color, though, a bright red. I couldn’t tell if I liked it or not, if it was warm and inviting or aggressive and exhausting. I also wasn’t sure exactly what color the walls were last year. I just knew they weren’t red.
The women at the meeting varied in ages and belly sizes. There was a woman who looked too old to be a mom, hair curly and pure white, the bones in her hands looked thin and crushable. One girl even younger than me, skinny everywhere except her very pregnant stomach, which peeked out of her tight shirt and hung over the belt of her jeans. She made eye contact with me and I knew she’d been a freshman last year. Another looked to be in her mid-twenties, and the way she smiled often and wide and how she kept her hands constantly on top of her belly made me sure that this was her first child. Most women were Jenny’s age, soft midsections and sagging upper arms, but none had a ponytail close to her length. Some had wedding rings, a lot did not. No one seemed to be in charge. We all just sat on colorful plastic chairs arranged in a circle, and after a beat, someone started talking, then another, then another. When someone finished speaking, we thanked her by first name and clapped. Those who clapped the loudest and hardest generally talked the longest. I tried to clap long and hard too, even though I wasn’t planning on speaking. My palms ached after the second speaker.
“I have a new baby, an old beagle, and a boyfriend who’s bad at wiping—there’s shit everywhere.”
“I hate the way everyone talks to me at work now. They just ask endless questions about Sam. It’s like they forgot I used to ride a Harley and host poker night.”
“He already wants another one. I can’t tell if it’s because he actually wants another kid or if he just wants me and my huge tits to stay at home longer.”
“Is it wrong if I rock the baby to sleep with rap music? Will that affect her SAT scores?”
“Just because I have blue hair doesn’t mean I’m going to be a bad mother.”
The rose Jenny gave me was thornless and fit neatly in my front left jeans pocket. I kept pulling it out and twirling it between my fingers as the women talked. Everything they said made me want to offer them a drink. A bottle of tequila would go quick here.
A woman gripping a Styrofoam cup of coffee tightly between both her hands: “Does anyone hear phantom crying?” The rest of the women blinked, a couple looked to their left, right, shrugged. She blinked twice. “Like, I’ll be chopping carrots, or going through the mail, taking a shower, and then, all of a sudden, I hear Daisy crying. I’ll hear it and my heart will stop for a second and then, the next second, it’s beating so hard the only thing I can hear above the beating is the crying.
“I’ll tell myself it’s not real or that, even if it is real, it’s okay, babies cry. But what if it is real? And what if it’s not just normal crying, what if something is really wrong? So, whatever I’m doing, I’ll stop. Dinner never gets cooked, bills’re thrown on the carpet, I’ll run out of the shower without a towel, and most of the time she’s just fine, lying in her crib and chewing on her stuffed bear. But sometimes she’s crying, and I hate that I prefer those times, that I’ll see her little face all red and wet and miserable, but I’m just relieved that I didn’t make it up.”
She takes a shaky sip of her coffee. “The worst is when I’m running errands or at work and Daisy is nowhere near. I just have to keep walking or keep typing, saying, She’s okay, she’s okay, she’s okay, until the sound goes away.”
The room was quiet. Everyone looked around, hoping for someone to break the silence. Finally, a woman whose name started with either an “H” or a “P” said loudly, bringing her hands together, “Thank you, Melissa. Thank you so much for your bravery.”
I slowly began clapping along with everyone else and, for the first time, made eye contact with Jenny. She stared at me, strained, uncomfortable, and I didn’t know what to do other than watch her until she looked away.
* * *
—
OUTSIDE AFTER THE MEETING some of the women gathered in mini-circles and chatted before they drove off or husbands, boyfriends, people who watched out for them, came to pick them up from the curb. I stood alone at the top of the church steps, trying to see where Jenny went.
I didn’t see her in any of the mom circles and didn’t expect to. She was the first one out of her seat once the meeting ended, taking the stairs out of the basement two at a time. I had given up finding her and was starting to walk toward my car when I heard a honk behind me.
Leaning out of an SUV, Jenny was smiling. “Hey, girl. You need a ride home?”
I didn’t. My car was only a few blocks away. If I rode with her, I’d have to take the bus back tomorrow before work. The buses were always late, and every time I took one I seemed to attract all the strangest people. The last time I was on a bus, I was sandwiched between a woman taking aggressive bites out of an apple and a man with a parrot on each shoulder. After every bite, the woman whispered the name “Ricky.” The man with the parrots told me I was pretty but he was married.
“Yeah,” I said, “a ride would be nice.”
* * *
—
WE ENDED UP AT A DINER across the street from my car. Jenny had taken one look at the flashing OPEN and BURGERS signs and turned to me. “We have to stop.”
“So—I’m going to tell you what my dad always used to say to me at diners,” Jenny said once we were seated. “Don’t look at the menu.”
I dropped the menu, frowned. “Why not?”
“Because, whatever you want, it’s probably on the menu. Diners are pretty much all the same,” she said. “Don’t let the menu influence you, just conjure an image of your deepest desire and then ask for it.”
“Your dad sounds like a cool guy.”
“He is. How about yours?”
“Dead.”
The waiter came by, reeking of weed and burnt bacon. Jenny handed him her menu and ordered a patty melt, fries, and a big side of ranch. “Big, China-big.” I was in a breakfast mood, but not a meat mood, asked for eggs over easy and hash browns to soak up the yolk with.
“See? You didn’t need a menu to know you wante
d that.”
Silence except for the frying of the grill and the occasional fork and knife scraping against plate. An elderly couple at the table next to us eating pancakes and not talking or looking at each other. A table of college-aged guys too enthusiastic about everything to have had anything less than a six-pack each. The guys cheered and pumped their fists in the air when the waiter refilled each of their waters. “Hey,” Jenny said suddenly, grabbing both my hands in hers. “I’m really sorry about your dad.”
“Oh.” I looked down at our hands. “It’s okay. I don’t really want to talk about it.”
She let go of them and nodded. “Okay, what do you want to talk about?”
It was an awkward question even though it shouldn’t have been. I realized that directness wasn’t a quality I was used to, that the conversations I had were often dictated by others and made me feel nervous, like I was trying to transport a handful of sand from location A to location B without losing a single grain. Conversations full of questions that were looking for very specific answers, leaving no room for any bit of thought or meaning. Existing on conversations like this was much like eating grilled chicken and steamed vegetables for every meal—doable, but dull. What did I want to talk about? So much.
Last week, I learned that raccoons were actually clean creatures. I was leaving Dad’s shed at around 4:45 a.m. to crawl back into bed before Billy woke up when I saw a raccoon hunched over the cat’s water bowl, meticulously scrubbing his paws as if he couldn’t stand the thought of sullying the taste of two-day-old garbage spaghetti with dirt. He was washing harder than I did before my shift started.
No one knew I was an avid basketball fan. It wasn’t that it was some big sort of secret, I just never had anyone to talk to about it. Dad had been a tight end for a semester in college and thought all sports where you weren’t pounded into the ground were pussy shit. Billy was the type of athlete that thought nothing of sports after he de-cleated, Mom liked admiring the player’s bodies but didn’t care about strategy, who won or lost, all my old high school friends thought sports were low-brow. Tim Duncan was a badass motherfucker and I just wanted to say that out loud to someone.
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