by Sarah Dessen
At noon, Amanda put a sign on the desk that said WILL RETURN AT 1:00 and drew a bagel in a Ziploc bag from her purse. Bethany followed suit, retrieving an apple and a gingko biloba bar from the drawer next to her.
“We’d invite you to join us,” Amanda said, “but we’re drilling for our Kaplan class. So just be back here in an hour, okay?”
“I can stay, if you want,” I said. “And then take my lunch at one, so there’s someone here.”
They both just looked at me, as if I’d suggested I could explain quantum physics while juggling bowling pins.
“No,” Amanda said, turning to walk out from behind the desk. “This is better.”
Then they disappeared into a back room, so I picked up my purse and went outside, walking past the parking lot to a bench by the fountain. I took out the peanut butter and jelly sandwich I’d brought, then laid it in my lap and took a few deep breaths. For some reason, I was suddenly sure that I was about to cry.
I sat on the bench for an hour. Then I threw out my sandwich and went back inside. Even though it was 12:55, Bethany and Amanda were already back at the desk, which made me seem late. As I navigated a path between their chairs to get to my seat, I could feel them looking at me.
The afternoon dragged. The library was mostly empty, and I suddenly felt like I could hear everything: the buzzing of the fluorescent lights over my head, the squeak of Bethany’s chair as she shifted position, the tappety-tap of the online card catalog station just around the corner. I was used to quiet, but this felt sterile, lonely. I could have been working for my mom, or even flipping crab cakes with a spatula, and I wondered if I’d made the wrong choice. But this was what I had agreed to.
At three o’clock, I pushed my chair back and stood up, then opened my mouth to say my first words in over two hours. “I guess I’ll see you guys tomorrow.”
Amanda turned her head, her braid sliding over her shoulder. She’d been reading some thick book on the history of Italy, licking her finger with each turn of a page. I knew this because I’d heard her, every single time.
“Oh, right,” she said, as Bethany gave me a forced smile. “See you tomorrow.”
I could feel their gazes right around my shoulder blades as I crossed the reading room and pushed through the glass doors. There, suddenly, was the noise of the world: a car passing, someone laughing in the park across the street, the distant drone of a plane. One day down, I told myself. And only a summer to go.
“Well,” my mother said, handing me the salad bowl, “if you were supposed to love it, they wouldn’t call it work. Right?”
“I guess,” I said.
“It’ll get better,” she said, in the confident way of someone who has no idea, none at all. “And it’s great experience. That’s what really matters.”
By now, I’d been at the library for three days, and things were not improving. I knew that I was doing this for Jason, that it was important to him, but Bethany and Amanda seemed to be pooling their considerable IQs in a single-minded effort to completely demoralize me.
I was trying to keep my emails to Jason upbeat and reassuring, but after day two, I couldn’t help but vent a little bit about Bethany and Amanda and the way they’d been treating me. That was even before another dressing down in front of a patron, this time from Bethany, who felt compelled to point out—twice—that, to her trained ear, I’d mispronounced Albert Camus’ name while directing a sullen summer school student to the French literature section.
“Cam-oo,” she’d said, holding her mouth in that pursed, French way.
“Cam-oo,” I repeated. I knew I’d said it right and wasn’t sure why I was letting her correct me. But I was.
“No, no.” She lifted up her chin again, then fluttered her fingers near her mouth. “Cam-ooo.”
I just looked at her, knowing now that no matter how many times I said it, even if I trotted Albert himself up to give it a shot, it wouldn’t matter. “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”
“No problem,” she said, swiveling in her stupid chair, back to Amanda, who smiled at her, shaking her head, before going back to what she was doing.
So it was no wonder that when I got home that day, I was cheered, greatly, to see that Jason had written me back. He knew how impossible those girls were; he would understand. A little reassurance, I thought, opening it with a double-click. Just what I needed.
After I scanned the first two lines, though, it was clear that my self-esteem and general emotional well-being were, to Jason anyway, secondary. After your last email, he wrote, I’m concerned that you’re not putting your full attention into the job. Two full paragraphs about the info desk, but you didn’t answer the questions I asked you: did the new set of Scientific Monthly Anthologies come in? Have you been able to access the tri-country database with my password? Then, after a couple of reminders about other things it was crucial I attend to, this: If you’re having problems with Bethany and Amanda, you should address them directly. There’s no place in a working environment for these interpersonal issues. He didn’t sound like my boyfriend as much as middle management. Clearly I was on my own.
“Honey?”
I looked up. Across the table, my mother was looking at me with a concerned expression, her fork poised over her plate. We always ate at the dining room table, even though it was just the two of us. It was part of the ritual, as was the rule that she fixed the entrée, I did the salad or vegetable, and we lit the candles, for ambiance. Also we ate at six sharp, and afterwards she rinsed the dishes and loaded them in the dishwasher, while I wiped down the counters and packed up leftovers. When we’d been four instead of two, Caroline and my dad had represented the sloppy, easygoing faction. With them gone, my mother and I kept things neat and organized. I could spot a crumb on the countertop from a mile off, and so could she.
“Yes?” I said.
“Are you okay?”
As I did every time she asked this, I wished I could answer her honestly. There was so much I wanted to tell my mother, like how much I missed my dad, how much I still thought about him. But I’d been doing so well, as far as everyone was concerned, for so long, that it seemed like it would be a failure of some sort to admit otherwise. As with so much else, I’d missed my chance.
I’d never really allowed myself to mourn, just jumped from shocked to fine-just-fine, skipping everything in between. But now, I wished I had sobbed for my dad Caroline-style, straight from the gut. I wished that in the days after the funeral, when our house was filled with relatives and too many casseroles and everyone had spent the days grouped around the kitchen table, coming and going, eating and telling great stories about my dad, I’d joined in instead of standing in the doorway, holding myself back, shaking my head whenever anyone saw me and offered to pull out a chair. More than anything, though, I wished I’d walked into my mother’s open arms the few times she’d tried to pull me close, and pressed my face to her chest, letting my sad heart find solace there. But I hadn’t. I wanted to be a help to her, not a burden, so I held back. And after a while, she stopped offering. She thought I was beyond that, when in fact I needed it now more than ever.
My dad had always been the more affectionate of the two of them, known for his tight-to-the-point-of-crushing bear hugs, the way he’d ruffle my hair as he passed by. It was part of his way of filling a room. I always felt close to him, even when there was a distance between us. My mom and I just weren’t that effusive. As with Jason, I knew she loved me, even if the signs were subtle: a pat on my shoulder as she passed; her hand smoothing down my hair; the way she always seemed to be able to tell, with one glance, when I was tired or hungry. But sometimes I longed for that sense of someone pulling me close, feeling another heartbeat against mine, even though I’d often squirmed when my dad grabbed hold and threatened to squeeze the life out of me. It was another thing I never thought I’d miss, but did.
“I’m just tired,” I told my mother now. She smiled, nodding: this she understood. “Tomorrow will be better.
”
“That’s right,” she replied, with certainty. I wondered if hers was an act, too, or if she really believed this. It was so hard to tell. “Of course it will.”
After dinner, I went up to my room and, after a few false starts and a fair amount of deleting, composed what I thought was a heartfelt yet not too cloying email to Jason. I answered all his questions about the job, and attached, as requested, a copy of the school recycling initiatives he’d implemented, which he wanted to show someone he’d met at camp. Then, and only then, did I allow myself to cross from the administrative to the personal.
I know it may seem petty to you, all this info desk drama, I wrote. But I guess I just really miss you, and I’m lonely, and it’s hard to go to a place where you’re so spectacularly unwelcome. I’ll just be really happy when you’re home.
This, I told myself, was the equivalent of touching his shoulder, or resting my knee against his as we watched TV. When you only had words, you had to make up for things, say what you might not need to otherwise. In fact, I felt so sure of this, I took it a step further, closing with I love you, Macy. Then I hit the send button before I had a chance to change my mind.
With that done, I walked over to my window, pushing it open, and crawled outside. It had rained earlier, one of those quick summer storms, and everything was still dripping and cool. I sat on the sill, propping my bare feet on the shingles. It was the best view, from my roof. You could see all Wildflower Ridge, and even beyond, to the lights of the Lakeview Mall and the university bell tower in the distance. In our old house, my bedroom had been distinct for a different reason. It had the only window that faced the street and a tree with branches close enough to step onto. Because of this, it got a lot of use. Not from me, but from Caroline.
She was wild. There was no other word for it. From seventh grade on, when she went, in my mother’s words, “boy crazy,” keeping Caroline under control was a constant battle. There were groundings. Phone restrictions. Cuttings off of allowance, driving privileges. Locks on the liquor cabinet. Sniff tests at the front door. These were played out, in high dramatic form, over dinners and breakfasts, in stomping of feet and raising of voices across living rooms and kitchens. But other transgressions and offenses were more secret. Private. Only I was witness to those, always at night, usually from the comfort of my own bed.
I’d be half sleeping, and my bedroom door would creak open, then close quickly. I’d hear the pat-pat of bare feet across the floor, then hear her drop her shoes on the carpet. Next, I’d feel the slight weight as she stepped up onto my bed.
“Macy,” she’d whisper, softly but firmly. “Quiet. Okay?”
She’d step over my head, then hoist herself up on the sill that ran over my bed, slowly pushing open the window.
“You’re going to get in trouble,” I’d whisper.
She’d stick her feet out the window. “Hand me my shoes,” she’d say, and when I did she’d toss them out onto the grass, where I’d hear them land with a distant, muted thunk.
“Caroline.”
She’d turn and look at me. “Shut it behind me, don’t lock it, I’ll be back in an hour. Sweet dreams, I love you.” And then she’d disappear off to the left, where I’d hear her easing herself down the oak tree, branch by branch. When I sat up to shut the window she was usually crossing the lawn, her footsteps leaving dark spots in the grass, shoes tucked under her arm. By the stop sign a block down, a car was always waiting.
It was always more than an hour, sometimes several, before she appeared on the other side of the window, pushing it back up and tumbling in on top of me. All businesslike in the leaving, my sister was usually sloppy and sentimental, smelling of beer and sweet smoke, upon her return. She was often so sleepy she didn’t even want to go back to her own room, instead just pushing her way under my blankets, shoes still on, makeup smearing my pillowcases. Sometimes she was crying, but she would never tell me why. Instead she’d just fall asleep beside me, and I’d doze in fits and spells before shaking her awake as the sun was rising and pushing her back to her own room, so she wouldn’t be discovered. Then I’d crawl back into bed, smelling her all around me, and tell myself that next time, I would lock that window. But I never did.
By the time we moved to Wildflower Ridge, Caroline was in college. She was still going out all the time, sometimes way late, but my parents had given up trying to stop her. Instead, in exchange for her living at home while she attended the local university and waited tables at the country club, they required only that she keep her GPA above a 3.0 and make her entrances and exits as quietly as possible. She didn’t need to use my window, which was a good thing, because in the new house there was not a tree nearby and the drop was a lot farther.
After my dad died, she sometimes didn’t come home at all. My mind had raced with awful possibilities, picturing her dead on the highway, but the truth was actually much more innocuous. By then, she’d already fallen hard for Wally from Raleigh, the once-divorced up-and-coming lawyer ten years her senior she’d been seeing for awhile. She’d kept him, like so much else, secret from our parents, but after the funeral things got more serious, and before long, he asked her to marry him. All of this took longer than it sounds, summing it up. But at the time it seemed fast, really fast. One day Caroline was tumbling in my window; the next I was standing at the front of a church, all too aware of my uncle Mike walking her down the aisle toward Wally.
People made their comments, of course, about Caroline just needing a father figure, and how she was too young, getting married right after graduation. But she adored Wally, anyone could see that, and the quick nature of the wedding planning made it that much more of a happy distraction for all of us that spring. Plus, and best of all, their shared conviction that this had to be the Best Wedding Ever finally gave Caroline and my mother a solid common ground, and they’d gotten along pretty well ever since.
So after all that rebellion in her teens, my sister turned out to be surprisingly efficient, bagging a college diploma and a husband all within the same month. Now, as Mrs. Wally Thurber, she lived in Atlanta, in a big house on a cul-de-sac where you could hear a highway roaring twenty-four hours a day. It was climate controlled, with a top-of-the-line thermostat system. She never had to open a window for anything.
As for me, I wasn’t much for sneaking out, first because I was a jock and always had early practice, and then because Jason and I just didn’t do stuff like that. I could only imagine how he’d react if I asked him to pick me up at midnight at the stop sign. Why? he’d say. Nothing would be open, I have yoga in the morning, God, Macy, honestly. And so on. He’d be right, of course. The sneaking out, the partying, all those long nights doing God-knows-what, were Caroline things. She’d taken them with her when she left, and there was no place for them here now. At least in my mind.
“Macy,” she’d say whenever she called and found me home on a Friday night, “what are you doing? Why aren’t you out?” When I’d tell her I was studying, or doing some work for school, she’d exhale so loudly I’d have to hold the phone away from my ear. “You’re young! Go out and live, for God sakes! There’s time for all that later!”
My sister, unlike most of her new friends in the garden club and Junior League, did not gloss over her wild past, maintaining instead that it had been crucial to her development as a person. In her view, my own development in this area was entirely too slow-going, if not completely arrested.
“I’m fine,” I’d tell her, like I always did.
“I know you are, that’s the problem. You’re a teenager, Macy,” she’d say, as if I weren’t aware of this or something. “You’re supposed to be hormonal and crazy and emotional and wild. This is the best time of your life! You should be living it!”
So I’d swear that I was going out the next night, and she’d tell me she loved me, and then I’d hang up and go back to my SAT book, or my ironing, or the paper that wasn’t due for another two weeks. Or sometimes I’d crawl out onto the roof and
remember her wild days and wonder if I really was missing something. Probably not.
But the roof was still a nice sitting spot, at any rate. Even if my adventures in the outside world, my God-knows-what, started and ended there.
Work, despite my mother’s assurances, did not improve. In fact, I’d come to realize that the cold treatment I’d received initially was actually Bethany and Amanda being nice. Now they hardly spoke to me at all, while keeping me as idle as possible.
By Friday, I’d had enough silence to last a lifetime. Which was too bad for me, because my mother was down at the coast for a weekend developer meet-and-greet conference. I had the entire house, every silent inch of it, to myself for two full days.
She’d invited me to come along, offering the opportunity to lie on the beach or by the pool, all that fun summer beach stuff. But we both knew I’d say no, and I did. It was just one more thing that reminded me of my dad.
We had a house at the beach, in a little town called Colby that was just over the bridge. It was a true summer house, with shutters that creaked when the wind blew hard, and a front porch that was always covered in the thinnest layer of sand. While we all went down for the big summer weekends, it was mostly my dad’s place. He’d bought it before he met my mom, and all the bachelor touches pretty much remained. There was a dartboard on the pantry door, a moose head over the fireplace, and the utensil drawer held everything my dad considered crucial to get by: a beer opener, a spatula, and a sharp fillet knife. Half the time the stove was on the fritz, not that my dad even noticed unless my mom was there. As long as the grill was gassed up and working, he was happy.
It was his fishing shack, the place he took his buddies to catch red drum in October, mahimahi in April, bluefin tuna in December. My dad always came home with a hangover, a coolerful of fish already cleaned, and a sunburn despite the SPF 45 my mom always packed for him. He loved every minute of it.
