by Jen Doll
She nods. “Don’t tell anyone you found me like this, if you don’t mind? It’s just, sometimes acting like everything’s fine is so…”
“Exhausting?” I think about how it was right after Aunt Stella died. I didn’t know how to talk to my parents, to anyone. Maybe that’s how Mrs. Collins feels, too: alone, and unable to express how she feels to anyone who gets it.
She nods again. “I love my boys. I love Grant. But … there’s just this wall between us sometimes.”
“You’re his mother,” I say. “He’s a teenage boy. I think that’s maybe normal? Not that I know anything.”
“I think you know quite a bit,” she says. “You’ve got a good head on your shoulders. You know, I really liked your aunt. I’m so sorry about what happened to her. That must have been incredibly painful.”
“It was,” I say. “It still is.”
“Losing people is so hard,” she says. “Sweetie, can you do me a favor?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Please keep looking out for Grant.”
“I will,” I tell her.
“Thank you, Doris,” she says. She puts her sunglasses on to shield her puffy eyes and drives out of the parking lot, leaving me alone to sort through the latest of what’s at Unclaimed at the same time that I mentally sort through whether I should have told her the truth. One of those tasks, by the way, is a whole lot easier than the other.
* * *
Before I get off work, I call Nell from the stockroom to tell her about seeing Mrs. Collins.
“Whoa, what happened?” she asks. “What did she say?”
“She was worried. But she doesn’t seem to know anything.”
“Did you tell her what he told us?” asks Nell. “Or what happened at the balloon festival?”
“I was afraid to,” I say. “Wouldn’t that betray his trust completely?”
“Yes,” says Nell. “But I also worry, what if there’s something really wrong with him? And what if he’s not getting better, he’s getting worse?”
“Let’s keep an eye on him,” I tell her. “He’s doing so well! I think it’s better if we can help him for now. So he doesn’t cut us off. Or his parents don’t.”
Nell laughs. “Maybe, just maybe, you like Grant Collins.”
“I might,” I admit. “I never thought I would be saying this, but I might.” I decide to unload everything I’ve kept to myself since our campout. “He kissed my hand that morning at the balloon festival. After we ran into Chassie and Mac. I think it was just to thank me for being there, but…”
“You got chills, didn’t you.”
“I did.”
“Oh my God, Doris. You might love Grant Collins!”
“No,” I say. “I know you love love, but … we have to take this slow. He’s my friend. And I don’t entirely know if I can trust him. Much less date him. Not to mention all the other issues.”
“Even so. He’s kind of hard not to have a crush on, isn’t he?” asks Nell. “Never tell him I said that. And definitely never tell Ashton! But we could double-date! How fun would that be?”
“Until it all went wrong,” I tell her. “Even if he did want to date me, we should probably stick with how we are now. Romances have a way of getting complicated. Especially when you start as friends. Especially when he’s trying to get better.”
“You’re right,” says Nell. “Getting romantically involved could open up a whole can of worms. And our entire dynamic would change, the three of us.”
“Ew, a can of worms. Why are we even talking about this? There’s, like, zero chance Grant likes me.”
“I don’t know about that,” says Nell. “Hey, want to come over? It’s time I tell my parents about Ashton’s visit. And if you’re here, they can’t go ballistic.”
“Be right there,” I say.
37
Nell
We’re all hanging out in the kitchen, which is where pretty much everything important in my family goes down—Mom told me she was pregnant with Jack three kitchens ago; the kitchen after that was where Dad broke the news that Grandpa had died; Mom announced her new job and our impending monumental move in our last kitchen. So today I might as well add to the kitchen tradition. It’s about time I had some say about what happens in this family.
“Mom,” I begin. “Dad.” They turn from their respective occupations—she’s reading the paper, he’s unloading the dishwasher—and Jack lifts his head and looks at me, too. He’s been sitting at the table next to me coloring as I update the store’s Instagram account while psyching myself up for this talk. My group text with Nisha and Morgan has helped, too: JUST TELL THEM!!!!! is the last message on my screen. I press forward. Doris isn’t here yet but she’s on her way, and it’s now or never. “I have something to say.” My parents raise their eyebrows at me, and I blurt it out. “Guess what! Ashton is coming to visit.”
There’s a reason I decided to tell, not ask. I did a lot of internet research, and the prevailing opinion seems to be if it’s not clearly against the rules, go ahead and do something before you find out it’s not allowed. A person can always plead ignorance, or apologize and say they won’t do it again. However, in this case, a mom is involved, and from the reaction mine has, I would say the internet may have led me astray.
“Excuse me?” she says, putting her paper down and staring at me with all the fire she can muster.
“I like Ashton!” says Jack. “He’s cool! And fun! And—”
My mom hushes him with a look.
My dad is clanking around with the dishwasher, not wanting to get involved. I don’t exactly blame him.
“What do you mean, Ashton is coming to visit?” my mom asks.
“He bought a plane ticket. With his own money. He’s coming in two weeks, for the whole weekend! Isn’t that great?” I feign pure, unadulterated enthusiasm. How can she crush me if I’m this excited?
“Nell, my dear darling. You are sixteen years old. You are a minor. You do not own this house, or even rent a room in it. You are not an independent adult. Did you not think this was a matter that should be discussed with your family before you agreed to it? I can’t believe Ashton’s parents are just fine with this. Or haven’t reached out to get the OK from us, first!” she gets up and starts pacing, which is how she “thinks.”
“Jack is excited,” I say, and he looks up from his coloring book and grins at me and nods.
“This is not about excitement,” Mom says. “I’m sure we’d all be happy to see Ashton for a reasonable amount of time, and then see him go sleep at his own house at night. But this is something that you should have asked us about, not simply gone ahead and done.”
“You mean like how you moved us here?”
My mom’s mouth turns down, but I look at my dad and I think I see the hint of a something unexpected.
“You didn’t ask,” I point out. “You just told us this was how it was. We didn’t have any choice in the matter.”
She fumes. “I am the parent!” she says. “My job puts food on this table for you and Jack! What does Ashton coming to visit do for us?”
“It makes me happy,” I say.
Dad pipes up, surprising me. “I think he should visit. Why not? If he’s done the work to buy his own ticket, what’s the harm? It’s only a weekend. Oh, hi, Doris,” he says. “FYI: Family discussion underway.”
Doris has arrived, thank goodness. She slips her arm through mine and stands next to me. “I know this is a matter for y’all to decide, but I just wanted to say that Nell talks about Ashton every day and really loves and cares about him. I think it would be a mistake not to let him visit. She needs to see him and figure out what might happen between them.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” mutters my mom.
“Mom.” I stand taller. “I don’t know if I want to be with him forever, but I want to see if what I feel is real. In two years, I’ll be off at college. Maybe we’ll pick one to go to together. Maybe not. But just the way you had t
o take this job, don’t you see, I need to do this?”
“She’s right about the job,” Dad says. “Diana, you did just sort of say we were going to move, no debate. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I support you. I’m so proud of you. But this was a big change coming here, and it hasn’t been easy on any of us. Including me.”
“Where will he sleep?” asks my mom. That’s when I sort of know I’ve won.
“The couch folds out,” says Dad.
“Or maybe the playhouse,” I say. “We could put an air mattress in there.”
“Ooh, I wanna sleep out there, too,” says Jack.
My mom is pursing her lips; she’s still a little bit angry. “I’m going to have to have a call with his parents before he arrives,” she tells me. “Can you set that up, find some times they can talk? I really wish you’d given us more notice.”
“Yes … ma’am,” I say, and her eyes widen.
“Why don’t you girls go dig out the old air mattress from the garage? I want to make sure it works and that it fits in the playhouse,” she instructs. “But you have to promise me you won’t sneak out and sleep in there, too, Nell.”
I nod solemnly.
“And don’t call me ma’am,” she says. “We may be living in the South, but we’re still proud Yankees. Plus, it makes me feel like an old lady.”
“You could never be an old lady,” says my dad, who walks over and puts his arms around her waist and kisses her on the cheek.
“Thank you thank you thank you thank youuuuu,” I say.
All of a sudden, the Ashton visit I’ve dreamed about the entire summer is starting to feel real.
38
Grant
I’ve had a realization that goes greater than any nail polish: If I’m not bored or lonely, I’m not tempted to text Brod, no matter how many taco emojis he sends me. And if I stay away from Brod and the old gang, I don’t drink. I haven’t had another blackout. I make sure to look down at my fingers, and I repaint them when they chip. I ignore the stares of people who judge me for being a boy with glittery black nail polish on my fingers. To tell the truth, I kind of like it. I feel different. More like me. I don’t know if this can last forever, but for now it’s working. Working is working.
Today, Nell and I are unpacking a shipment from Des Moines International Airport, which contains a lot of business casual apparel, plus a suitcase full of dream catchers, when Doris comes into the back. She’s been working the register while Byron takes lunch—since she’s got so much store experience, Red’s been using her as backup cashier. She automatically looks down at the pile I’ve got in front of me, analyzing what’s good and what’s bad in the way that’s second nature to her. She pulls out one of the dream catchers and holds it in the air, letting it sway slightly on her fingers.
“I always wanted one of these,” she says. “A place to store my dreams, so every night before going to bed, I could pull out the one I wanted and lodge it back in my brain, like watching a movie or something. Why bother with new dreams when you can rely on those good, old ones?”
Nell nods like she totally gets it, but I can’t think of the last time I remembered an actual dream at all. “What’s been going on out front?” I ask.
“More of a nightmare,” she says. “Ms. Bunce is shopping for swimsuits.”
“Oh no,” says Nell. Ms. Bunce lives down the street and is about ninety million years old. She never buys a thing, but she comes in for hours at a time. She likes to ask as many questions as possible and try on anything that might or might not fit her.
“Today she wanted me to grade how she looked in bikinis,” says Doris, turning bright red. “She said she’s really into water aerobics now that she’s got a ‘new man in the mix.’”
“You should get a raise for that,” says Nell.
“So should you. Remember the dildo?” Doris asks.
“How could we forget?” I ask. “It’s burned in my brain.”
“Burned into my brain like Ms. Bunce in a bikini,” says Doris. “Except, honestly, she’s in shockingly good shape.”
“Hey,” says Nell, “not to change the subject, but look what else I found in the shipment from Des Moines.” She hands Doris a set of vintage playing cards, each featuring a quirky animal illustration. “It’s animal rummy,” she says. “Next time we camp out we should play! Check out the ‘Sassy Squirrel.’ How adorable is he?”
Doris inspects the card. “He is pretty sassy in that red cap and striped shirt. You know, I love squirrels. They’re so … human, in a way.”
“Don’t they lose like seventy-five percent of the nuts they bury?” I ask. “I heard that somewhere.”
“Actually, no,” she says, and Nell and I look at each other and smile because it’s so Doris to know. “There’s this misconception that gray squirrels only locate a small percentage of the nuts they’ve hidden, but scientists have found they have amazing spatial memory,” she continues. “They also pretend to hide nuts when other squirrels are watching to throw them off the trail. How smart is that? But this is a red squirrel.” She holds up the playing card. “Red squirrels don’t actually bury their nuts, they pile them up in caches. And they defend them vigorously! No one wants to get in a fight with a red squirrel.”
“How in God’s name do you know so much about squirrels?” I ask.
“YouTube videos, obviously!” says Nell.
Doris shrugs. “The internet is a very interesting place,” she tells us. “And there was a science project I did back in fifth grade that—let’s just say—I was really into.”
“If humans are like squirrels, which of us are the gray kind and which are the red?” I wonder.
“Gray squirrels are the type to check luggage, while red squirrels definitely carry on, and they’re probably pretty pushy about overhead baggage space, too,” Doris decides, laughing.
“Speaking of losing and finding nuts, we just connected someone to their own lost stuff through the Instagram account!” says Nell.
Doris claps. “Really! How?”
“Remember the Kermit the Frog puppet we found last month? It belonged to a set designer who lives in Malibu,” explains Nell. “He was trying to fly it to a shoot in Memphis a year ago. I posted the picture, and it kind of went viral, and he saw it online. He DM’ed just a few minutes ago. Look!” she shows Doris her phone.
“We’ll have to tell Red,” says Doris. “He’ll probably offer to give it back for free, knowing him.”
Nell starts scrolling through our feed then. It’s full of colorful product pictures and staged photos of us wearing different outfits. Each picture has a ton of likes and comments.
“You’re so good at this,” Doris tells her. “Maybe even better than Cat.”
“It’s not me; it’s the products,” Nell says. “People love looking at what someone else has lost. Every time I post a picture, there’s a surge in interest. Sometimes it’s people from here, but other times they’re randoms who live far away. We get calls about whatever I’ve put online, Red told me.” She aims her phone at me and Doris. “Smile!”
“Don’t you dare post that,” says Doris.
“I have so many ideas!” Nell continues. “We can show shipments from exotic places like London or Dubai and be like, This just in, come and get it before it’s gone! People are motivated when they think something’s going to sell out soon. But it doesn’t have to be new at all, we can just pretend it’s new to give it some momentum. Doris, how long have some of those boxes been here?”
“I don’t really know!” she tells us. “There’s stuff in the way back that we never seem to be able to get to. And the manatee came from a box that had been lost at an airport for eight years!”
I shudder thinking about a bag of Doritos waiting in a suitcase for nearly a decade. What a waste!
“Check out this one,” Nell’s saying. “A few days ago, I shot Grant pretending to play golf with those clubs that have been sitting in the store since I got here.”
I loo
k over her shoulder at the phone. “I look like an idiot in that picture. When have I ever worn a sweater over my shoulders? I’m like somebody’s golfing grandpa.”
“Did we or did we not sell the clubs?” asks Nell. “Plus there are fifteen comments asking if you’re single and what your phone number is.”
“Maybe I should start wearing a sweater over my shoulders more often,” I say.
“The more pictures you post, the more followers you get, and the more followers, the more sales,” explains Nell. “It’s a win-win!”
“Wait!” says Doris. “Let’s do one with that purple suitcase you named the Daphne. Maybe we’ll get a clue about why it’s empty.”
She heads to the corner of the room, where there are a bunch of suitcases we haven’t yet put out for sale, and yanks the Daphne from its place in the row, dragging it over to us.
“Our MacGuffin!” says Nell. “Except we don’t know why it’s a MacGuffin.”
I groan. “Y’all are gonna stay stuck on this, aren’t you? The mystery that isn’t a mystery at all?”
Doris sticks her tongue out at me. “Stop being such a party pooper.” She opens zipped pockets and presses the edges with her fingers, feeling for anything that might be beyond the norm. “So weird,” she says, looking crestfallen when she comes up empty yet again. “I think my powers are failing me. I still haven’t found Red’s master keys, either.”
“Maybe it’s that there’s nothing to find,” I say. “Maybe some things are just gone. Not everything has an answer.”
“Nope. There’s a story here, and it’s driving me crazy that I can’t figure it out,” Doris says. “Wait, what’s this?” She shakes the suitcase. “Doesn’t it make a weird noise? I think it’s more than the wheels turning.”
We crane our necks to listen, and there’s a faint rattle, or more like a metallic clinking. “Probably acorns,” I joke, and Doris rolls her eyes at me. She inspects the inside again.
