Blue

by L. E. DeLano

  “You know he can’t help it,” Mom says sharply. She pushes the bowl of kale toward me again. “Put some green on your plate. Please.”

  I toy with the idea of taking some just to get her off my back, then feeding it to the dog when she’s not looking, but even Mojo won’t eat kale.

  “I’m good,” I tell her.

  She makes a face. “Would you rather have one of the super spirulina shakes? They taste just like mango water ice.”

  “Mango water ice isn’t chalky. Or green,” I remind her. Nice try with making it sound like something enjoyable, but I know better. Mom has been selling diet shakes—oh, excuse me—lifestyle shakes for a couple of months now. It’s her latest woman-empowering venture into Boss Babe entrepreneurship, and from what I can tell, it’s all the same sales pitch, with a slightly different product.

  We have shelves full of powdered protein shake mix in the garage, right next to the boxes of revolutionary skin care products—three different brands, maybe more. It’s hard to keep track because she cycles through a new multi-level marketing company about every eight or nine months, and sometimes there’s overlap. Along with shakes and anti-wrinkle cream are the herbal supplements, spice dips and kitchen gadgets, tote bags and lunchboxes with bright patterns, boxes of clunky, overpriced silver and costume jewelry, bottles of essential oils, soap making kits, and enough makeup to keep a theatre company running for a decade. And that’s just the garage.

  The hall closet upstairs has soy candles and wax melts. My dad’s walk-in closet in their master bedroom has been half taken over by leggings in every funky color and pattern you could imagine or never ask for, along with nail wraps to coordinate or clash, and even boxes of long-distance phone calling cards from some home business she ran decades ago. My mom is the undisputed MLM queen of the neighborhood. Maybe even the state. None of it has made her rich when you figure in all the time she’s spent and all the profit she’s funneled back into buying more products, so it’s good my dad makes bank. All over the house are her ridiculous affirmation statements on post-it notes attached to the fridge, to bathroom mirrors, even on the corner of the TV screen, which is seriously beyond annoying. This week’s batch includes:

  Every day is another opportunity for success!

  I am a confident, successful, and professional Network Marketer!

  I now consciously and subconsciously flood every atom of my mind, body and soul with prosperity!

  Yeah, that last one is a mouthful. So right now it’s shakes and baked chicken breast and kale because we’re empowering our bodies to carry our best selves out into the world.

  “Well, are you coming on Sunday, or not?” she persists.

  The last bite of chicken goes down.

  “Not.” I push to my feet, but Mom isn’t ready to let it go.

  “Blue.”

  “Mom.” I answer her in the same flat tone she used on me.

  “He’s been there seven weeks and you haven’t visited once—not even on Christmas! I don’t think an afternoon is too much to give to your only brother.”

  “I’ll get around to it.” I refuse to let her guilt me into this. “Stop pushing.”

  Color floods her face. “What is wrong with you? Would it kill you to stop being so miserable and spend the day with your family?”

  “Maybe it’s my family that makes me miserable!” I snap, just as the front door opens and closes. My Dad gives us both a wary look as he walks into the kitchen.

  “Is the food cold?” he asks, gesturing to the table. “Or did you two incinerate it shooting fire at each other?”

  “I’ll warm it up.” Mom moves to the stove. “Blue can explain why she doesn’t want anything to do with her brother—or us, apparently.”

  I roll my eyes. “Don’t be so dramatic. I work on Sunday and I have a ton of homework.”

  She shoots me a look over her shoulder. “This early in the semester?”

  Dad slouches tiredly into his chair at the table and reaches into his bag for his laptop. “You can’t spare a couple of hours?’ he asks me.

  “It’s a two hour drive up there,” I remind him. “And then two hours back, plus the visit time.”

  He gives me a look that says he’s not really buying my excuse but he’ll let it ride. “Next time, then,” he says, setting his laptop down on the table.

  Mom makes a sound of disapproval as she sets a plate of food down next to the laptop. She’ll probably unload on him after I’m out of hearing distance.

  I make it to my room just as Jules FaceTimes me.

  “Yo!” She calls out. I throw myself across the bed, rolling over to look at my phone.

  “Thought you worked tonight.”

  “I’m here.” She pulls the phone back to show me her surroundings. “Hank is mental today so I’m eating fries in the freezer.”

  “If he catches you on the phone, you’re toast.”

  “Meh. He can’t hear through the door. So—Allie B. told Lauren that Austin drove Maya home.”

  I try to sound unconcerned. “So?”

  “So?” She repeats back. “He’s ghosting you again, and now he’s all up on her, of all people?”

  “He’s not ghosting me. We stopped talking a while ago.”

  Jules isn’t fooled. “Thought you texted him last Friday?”

  “It was nothing,” I snap. “We’re not like that anymore and it’s fine. I don’t need you going around telling everybody we’re together when we’re not.”

  “I’m not saying a thing!” Jules protests. “You were the one talking about him just the other day.”

  “Well, I’m not now. I’m not talking about him or Maya—at all. Got it?”

  “Fine. Whatever.” Jules is clearly pissed I don’t want to rant about this with her. “Go be miserable. I gotta work.”

  She cuts me off before I can formulate a snappy comeback. That’s twice in ten minutes I’ve been called miserable and who the hell could blame me if I am? I swear, everybody is out to make me that way.

  Okay, I am miserable. I know I’m wallowing. But I really don’t need the reminder of how lousy everything is in my life right now.

  My brother’s possible negligence got him incarcerated and killed a guy. Check.

  My sort-of boyfriend is trying to hook up with the girl who hates me. Check.

  The girl who hates me raised her hand in class today during a discussion about government action and the opiate epidemic to say that alcoholism is just as rampant and it kills people, too—and she gave me a pointed look that everyone saw. Check.

  My parents tried to serve me guilt for dinner, along with kale. Check.

  My best friend is determined to milk my rotten life for her own entertainment. Check.

  I catch sight of my miserable face in the mirror over my dresser. Twenty minutes of every morning is spent straightening my dark hair to a sleek, beautiful shine, but you’d never know it now. My natural curl is sending it in various directions, making me look frayed. My eyes are more gray than blue, matching my mood, and my face is splotchy with residual anger. And hanging over my head in the reflection is yet another post-it note affirmation, courtesy of Mom the Boss Babe.

  I roll off the bed and yank the note down, flipping it over my shoulder before I dig in my backpack for my copy of Fahrenheit 451. Might as well get started on it. Who knows, maybe I’ll like it and memorize it. Although, there are other titles that might work better as my story. Misery comes to mind. Is Drag Me To Hell in book form, along with the movie? That would work.

  Devon the unflappable new guy might have an inner book filled with rainbow-farting unicorns, but mine is frizzy hair, spirulina shakes and jailed family members. It’s like memorizing an endless bad reality show. But hey, I made it through today. It’ll get better, right?

  My phone lights up with a text from Lauren, making sure I h
eard from Jules about what Allie B told her about Austin and Maya.

  Flipping the covers over the phone as I open the book, my eyes stray to a bit of yellow on the carpet—the post-it note affirmation from Mom.

  My story begins with this beautiful day.

  Right.

  6

  It doesn't get any easier on day two. We were having a discussion about personal observations in Political Science and the definition of child abuse. Is a parent screaming at their child on the playground being abusive? Or are they just having a hard day and you’re seeing a bad moment? What if they were yelling at their child out of fear for their safety? Mr. Jones was trying to get us all to examine the variables of social norms and discuss the difficulties and nuances of trying to judge behavior without context. At least that’s how it was supposed to be.

  Instead, Maya brought up a point about privilege and assumptions of privilege and how they play into the narrative of child abuse. “For instance,” she said, “wealthy parents might be perceived as better parents due to their privilege, when they’re really neglecting their kids. The kids can become reckless and feel like they can get away with anything—maybe even killing someone.”

  She said it very innocently, and Mr. Jones sputtered a bit before he told her it was an interesting point. He totally missed the Cheshire Cat smile that followed the remark. The kind of smile that makes you wonder if there are fangs behind those lips.

  And of course, this was after I spent lunch once again listening to Devon chatter his sunshine and lollipops while I tried not to stare at Austin and Maya. They didn’t look like they were together together exactly, but they were awfully friendly. Nobody seems to know just what they are to each other, which isn’t surprising because Austin is really good about not being particularly anything to anyone—at least that’s my experience.

  I have a shift at BurgerMania right after school so I don’t have to go home and deal with my mom in my face again. I’m restocking the cups when a familiar powder-blue VW Bug pulls up to the drive-thru.

  “Really?” I ask as he rolls down his window. “Triple bacon cheeseburger and a side of cheese fries with a milkshake? Do you want to die young?”

  Devon stares up at me for a moment and then breaks into his easy grin. “A guy’s got to eat,” he says. “I signed up to run a 5k in the fall, so I have to start building muscle mass.”

  “You’re a runner?”

  “Nope. Trying something new.”

  “I’m pretty sure you need clear arteries for that kind of activity. Does your mom know you eat like this?”

  He shrugs. “I’m on my own for dinner most times.”

  “You need anything else?” I ask, taking his money and giving him the change. “There’s ketchup and salt in the bag.”

  “Got a burger, got to see you,” he says. “I’m good.”

  “You just saw me at lunch.”

  “That was an entire meal ago.”

  I wave him off. “Enjoy your heart attack.”

  “Will do.” He waves back before the Bug zooms off. Jules comes up over my shoulder.

  “That the new guy?” She asks “The stalker from the playground?”

  “That’s him,” I nod. “His name is Devon.”

  “I know his name, buttmunch. I just didn’t get a good look at him in the car, is all. So is he hot for you?”

  “I don’t think so. I’m just one of the first people he talked to and he lives in the neighborhood so he sort-of latched onto me.”

  “And you latched right back because Austin’s jerking you around,” she notes.

  I don’t like the picture she’s painting. “I’m only being nice.”

  “I’m just saying—he’s not hard on the eyes and everybody’s going to start noticing him once you and Maya aren’t news anymore.” She shrugs. “Nobody knows anything about him. He says he comes from somewhere in Florida?”

  “Yeah, I think.” I answer. “I don’t know that much about him.” That might be because I’m trying to look like I’m talking to somebody other than Austin, but the fact is I haven’t asked Devon much about himself. I feel kind of bad about it, now that I realize it.

  “Well, get the deets as soon as you can. People want to know,” Jules tells me.

  The drive-thru bell chimes again and I tap my headset, waving Jules back to the back counter where she’s supposed to be pulling orders. We work steadily for the next ninety minutes or so and I’m glad because it takes my mind off of everything. My world turns into bagging orders, pouring drinks, taking money and handing change out of the window, mind-numbing and perfect.

  It was too good to last, of course. I know his voice the minute it comes through the speaker.

  Austin.

  He pulls up to the window and I let out a breath when I see he’s alone. He at least manages to look a little guilty when the window opens and he sees it’s me.

  “Hey,” he says.

  “Hey,” I answer flatly—like he’s just another customer. “It’s $8.28.”

  He puts his debit card into my palm. A brief fantasy scenario plays in my head where I take off running to my car, floor the gas pedal and go straight to the mall, where I clean out his bank account buying a closet full of shoes and an entire skin care line at Ulta. He forgets he told me his pin number is his football jersey number repeated twice. The card is swiped and handed back along with his food.

  “See you,” he says, not bothering to make anything further in the way of conversation. I should probably be grateful for that—it would have only been awkward and really uncomfortable—but I’m still stung by it. I didn’t even know he knew who Maya was before they started hanging. I mean, it’s a small school, so of course he knew Maya, and after everything with Jack and the accident, everybody knew Maya. But she wasn’t somebody that Austin hung out with before. It makes me wonder why he suddenly sought her out now.

  My mind chews that over and over as the dinner rush winds down. Hank, my manager, is in the back stockroom, so I walk across to Jules, poke her in the ribs from behind and laugh as she jumps.

  “What the f—” she stops herself before she says a word in front of customers that would get her in trouble.

  “Do you have English Lit this semester?” I ask her.

  “I had it last semester,” she says. “I had to read 1984, remember?”

  “You mean you watched the movie and skimmed the Wikipedia article.”

  “Works for me,” she shrugs. “Want to borrow my paper so you can fudge it up a little and make it your own?”

  “We wouldn’t get away with that. Besides, Linza’s got us reading Fahrenheit 451. It’s about people who memorize books because the government outlaws them.”

  “Who could memorize a book?” she asks, wide-eyed.

  “Depends on how big the book is. I have to pick a book to give my presentation on. What would you pick to memorize?”

  She rolls her eyes. “I’d pick Fifty Shades of Grey. All those middle-aged ladies paying me just to hear a few pages of my story,” she says, waving her hand as if seeing it unfold in front of her. “They’d be driving me around like my personal chauffeurs just so they can get an hour of read time in. And I’d make it worth their while—lots of moans and grunts and heavy breathing.”

  I laugh at the mental picture, then check to be sure Hank isn’t going to come up from the back room and bust us for not working hard enough.

  “Austin came through.”

  Jules blinks like an owl as my words come out of nowhere. “Was he alone?”

  “Yeah. Whatever. I don’t care what he does.”

  “Then why are you talking about him?”

  “I guess I’m trying to figure out how he and Maya fit together,” I say. “It’s not like they used to hang out or anything. I mean, they barely knew each other.”

  “Didn’t I
tell you?” Jules shoves a french fry in her mouth. “Haylee told Other Julia that Maya started following Austin on Instagram. Then a week before the semester starts she went back and liked all of his pics in one night. Then she sends him a message to ask him about the football program at Audubon because her cousin is interested. That’s how they started talking.”

  My drive-through bell rings and is ignored for a second as I pull my phone out and scroll back through Instagram. Just after break started I posted a pic of me and Austin taken at a local carnival back in the fall. Austin hadn’t texted me for a few days when I posted it, and even though we were supposed to get together over break to hang out he still hadn’t found the time. I was feeling needy and put the pic up with the caption: Can’t wait to do it all again.

  Maya must have realized he and I were together after that pic and made her move.

  A voice calls through my headset.

  “Uh . . . hello?”

  I turn on my mic. “Sorry. Can I take your order?”

  I rush back toward the window but I know Jules saw me looking at my phone. Why hadn’t she let me know what Other Julia had told her before now? Probably because I bit her head off for being in my business earlier. But this is one of those times when you really should let your friend know what’s going on.

  It’s clear Maya has drawn a target on me and she’s determined to take me down one piece at a time—with Austin, with my classes—wherever she can. She’s trying to destroy my life the way hers was destroyed. She can’t get to Jack, so she’s going through me. And if I fight back I’m the one who’s going to look like the asshole because she’s the one with the dead father.

  I hand the next order out the window, fuming over the unfairness of it all. Part of me wonders if Austin should be warned that he’s being used, but he deserves it. I throw myself back into work again, mindlessly cleaning counters, scrubbing down every inch of chrome on the shake machine and even meticulously wiping down the grate on the soda fountain tray. Hank pronounces me employee of the year as my drive-thru station positively sparkles by the time my shift is over. I smell like bleach and grease and my hair is back to being a frazzled mess again.