All That Was

by Karen Rivers

  “Are you going to offer to do my errands?” He smiles. “Or climb a ladder on my behalf?”

  “I’m scared of heights,” I remind him, following him through to the kitchen, which is huge and ramshackle, with copper pots hanging in dusty webs from hooks above the restaurant-style stove. “And don’t you have people on the payroll for errands?” He fills a bright blue kettle with water and puts it on for tea, without asking. He makes his own tea from the stinging nettles that grow on the island in thick clusters. He credits the tea with keeping him young. “Young” is a stretch, but I guess he does look good for ninety. And he’s pretty spry, not like Grandma, and she’s only eighty-four.

  When I was little, I used to imagine that Grandma and Mr. Aberley would fall in love and that eventually Grandma would move out of our house and across the bay to live with Mr. A. That they would row out to the island together, morning and evening. That it would be a love story like in fairy tales. But Mr. Aberley loves Jean Paul, and Grandma insisted that she gave up love for Lent one year and decided she was better off without it. “Love will ruin you,” she always told me. “Love will be your undoing.” She’d pat me on the cheek. “Don’t ever fall in love,” she warns every time I visit her now, like an old crone in a fairy tale. I frown, trying to remember if that’s what started the No-Boyfriend Rule. Grandma has a framed photo of Grandpa when he was young on her side table. She sits beside it all day long, sneaking glances when she thinks no one is looking.

  “So what’s new from the west side?” Mr. A says now, pouring the boiling water over the dried leaves. We both watch as the water slowly turns a brownish green in the glass teapot, the leaves swirling in the current.

  “Same old, same old,” I tell him. “BUT only two more weeks of school, then the last summer holiday of my life.”

  “Of your life!” he exclaims, rubbing his hands together gleefully. “Sounds exciting. Suicide pact?”

  “What? No! I mean that after this year, it’s not like school is going to be, you know, the structure. I won’t have the structure of that. It won’t be ‘summer holidays.’ It will just be … summer.”

  “Ah,” he says, nodding. He smiles, and I have to look away from his old man teeth. He’s proud of having kept his teeth, but he should maybe reconsider dentures. Not that I’d ever say that out loud. “I see. But you’ll go to college, you’ll have summer breaks.”

  “I’m going to film school,” I say. “Different thing.”

  “Big change,” he says. “Then one day, you’re old, and everything is a break. Right now, for example.” He laughs his old man cough-laugh. “I’m on spring break. Next up, summer break. Then fall.” He starts coughing for real, bending over, rasping and hacking.

  “Mr. A? Are you all right?” I ask. I don’t know whether to pat him on the back or call 911. He raises his hand.

  Finally, it stops. “I’m fine,” he says. “Turns out, I’m an old man! Old lungs. Old everything. I forget, you know, until I look in the mirror. Or try to stand up after sitting for a while.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Right.” I take a sip of my tea, which is burning hot and tastes like the forest, green and dusty.

  “This will fix me up,” he says, lifting his cup with his trembling hand. “Now, Sloane, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something.”

  “You have?” I say, spinning my phone on the table. “What? Do you have any of those weird English biscuits? This tea needs biscuits.”

  The phone buzzes. Piper. I switch the sound to mute, but I don’t turn it off. I spin Piper on the table, my index finger over the image of her face. She’s calling about the dance and I’m not going. She’s going with Soup and if I went, too, it would be so awkward, I’d die. I cringe to think about it.

  “No biscuits, alas. It’s about the boat,” Mr. Aberley says. He slides his glasses down his nose a little and looks at me over the top of them.

  “Ohhhhh?” I say, stalling. His eyes are bright blue. It’s funny how eyes don’t age, not really, not like the rest of a person. I picture his eyes in a baby. In a little boy. He’s every age that he’s ever been. His eyes assess me silently. I blink to see if he will, too, but he doesn’t.

  “Well, for one thing, asking wouldn’t kill you, would it?”

  “I am SO sorry,” I say. “I don’t know why we didn’t ask. We won’t do it again. Mr. Aberley, we suck. I have no excuse.”

  He chortles in that way that only very old people can do. “I don’t mind,” he says. “Not really. Thing is, the boat has a leak in the bottom and I’m too old to fix it. And I figure since you girls like it almost as much as I do, maybe you can patch it up. Wait here.”

  He gets up and does his old man shuffle across the kitchen, which takes long enough for me to glance at Piper’s texts: “come over! help me do my face!” “Does this look good?” “Wish u would come 2” “Soup can be both of our dates! He’d like that. Hawt.” I delete, delete, delete.

  Mr. Aberley comes back, holding his brand-new MacBook Pro. I grab it from him quickly before he accidentally drops it. “Now look,” he says, dialing up YouTube slowly, typing each letter with the deliberation of a sloth. I grit my teeth, trying not to be impatient. The video is called, fittingly, “How to patch a fiberglass boat.” We watch in silence while a slow-talking man describes in painful detail the process of making a fiberglass patch.

  “Gripping, Mr. A,” I tell him when it’s done. “Can’t think why it hasn’t gone viral. And the camera angles”—I whistle—“it’s award-winning stuff.”

  “It’s instructional,” he says. “Not everything has to be amusing or beautiful, you know, except perhaps people.” He contemplates this. “Amusing and beautiful. Which also isn’t your job, you know. This idea that women must be beautiful is so archaic, yet people still buy into it. Why is that?”

  “I have no idea,” I say. “I don’t care about beauty. But amusing? Sure. I’ll try to be amusing.”

  “Hmm,” he ponders. “I wonder if that’s true, that you don’t care. Is it possible to not care? I’m an old man and I still buy new shirts each fall. I must care, mustn’t I?”

  “You buy them for Jean Paul,” I say. I make a heart sign with my hands, and a kissy face.

  “Oh, hush; you’ll fall in love one day, too, you know.”

  I groan. “Okay, Mr. A. We will patch your boat. I mean, I don’t know anything about any of what I saw on this video, but I’m sure I can figure it out. How hard can it be?”

  “Attagirl,” he says. “I knew you had it in you. Maybe you can get a beautiful and amusing boy to help you.”

  I snort. “I watched that whole video, and not once did it say that you needed to own a penis to patch a boat,” I say.

  He frowns, then smiles. “Valid point,” he says. “Fair. And I thank you in advance for repairing my yacht. Or our yacht, I should say.”

  “I’m a true hero,” I tell him. “That’s what you don’t understand about me. And thank you for sharing your yacht. And for this weird tea.”

  I take a last sip of the murky drink and pick up my phone. “See you later, Mr. A?”

  “Anytime, Ms. Whittaker,” he says, already scrolling through his Facebook feed. He’s a big fan of George Takei. He clicks like on the latest post and chuckle-coughs again. “I’m forwarding this one to you. You should make these viral videos while you practice to change the world with your films. Ask your parents for a cat. Cats really sell these things.” He laughs again. I stand and watch him for a second, and then I let myself out. It’s pretty tempting to open one of those closed doors in the front hall, but I resist the temptation. Everyone has a right to have their secrets, even the weird old men who live across the bay.

  After all, you never know when you might be asking them to keep your secrets, too.

  * * *

  The hardware store is cluttered and old-fashioned. The shelves are high and teeter above me, so crowded with mysterious things, they look like a trick of the eye. I wouldn’t want to be in here durin
g an earthquake, that’s for sure.

  I pause in front of the electronic rat traps. There are rats everywhere in this city. You wouldn’t expect it. It’s an affluent place, lots of big houses, nice lawns. The rats don’t discriminate. I could make a film about rats, a short one, something that could go viral, prove to Mr. A that I can make something go viral. Cats, rats, whatever.

  Once, when I was six, Mom was reading me bedtime stories on my bed and I glanced down to the floor and a rat’s tail swept out from behind the closet door. I screamed and screamed. We moved after that. Not because of it, but right after. I still have bad dreams about that door.

  After the earthquake, after the tidal wave, after any apocalypse, I bet the rats will survive. There are so many millions of them. Maybe, like most animals, they’re misunderstood, demonized by people who have more imagination than sense.

  “Rat on a Roomba,” I murmur to myself. “Grumpy Rat. Or maybe Pirate Rat on a Roomba chasing a cat dressed as a clown…”

  “Are you talking to yourself?” A voice, low, and right in my ear. I jump, my skin instantly prickling.

  “Argh!” I say. “You scared me half to death.”

  “You’re the one who was talking to the rat traps,” says Soup, leaning away from me to straighten one on the shelf. I’d forgotten that he works here. He does it to get discounts on paint is what he told Piper, but I’m sure it’s more than that. He doesn’t have a dad. I don’t get the feeling that his mom is very wealthy. I’m gleaning information about Soup via Piper, collecting it without meaning to. I don’t have a crush on him anymore. It’s not like that.

  It can’t be.

  Love is a decision.

  “I was thinking out loud,” I say. “It’s not a crime. I forgot you worked here.”

  He grins. “If you remembered, would you have shopped somewhere else?”

  I consider his question seriously. “Yeah,” I say. “Probably.”

  He clutches at his chest. “Ouch,” he says. “Sloane Whittaker with the knockout blow.”

  I roll my eyes. “You’ll bounce back,” I say. All my words feel wrong and strange, like I’m talking around bubbles that are forming in my mouth, sparking like Pop Rocks on every syllable. “I have faith in you.”

  He clears his throat. I let the awkward silence grow. Finally, he breaks it. “Well, seeing as you’re here, is there something I can help you find?”

  “I have to patch Mr. Aberley’s boat,” I say. “Long story. I need a fiberglass patch and … honestly, I have no idea.” I take my phone out of my pocket and open my list app, thrust it into his hand. His skin brushes against my skin and I jump back like I’ve been burned. His eyes look for mine, but I look away. He knows, he knows. I know he knows. I know.

  He has to know.

  He must feel this, too. Right?

  But: Piper.

  Piper comes first.

  Piper is my best friend, even when she drives me crazy.

  “Yeah, we’ve got most of this stuff,” he says. “I can round it up for you. If you want to go grab a coffee or something and come back, I can get it packed up.”

  “Thanks,” I say. “That great would be.” He looks at me funny. That great would be? My words don’t work around Soup.

  This is a problem.

  “Yeah,” I try again. “Great.”

  “Great would be,” he intones.

  I practically run out the door, the bell chiming like applause. My heart is racing, galloping, somersaulting in my chest. And then I’m outside in the afternoon’s shimmering air, gulping and gulping, trying to get enough oxygen to stay upright, to walk in a normal way next door, to order a mocha and to sit and wait, phoneless and shivering, even though it’s not cold.

  I get cold when I’m sad.

  I get cold when something goes terribly wrong.

  I get cold when I screw up.

  “I’m a terrible person,” I say to nobody. “I’m the worst.” I gulp down the hot drink, not caring that caffeine winds me up even more, trying to warm myself up from the inside, trying to do what the sun can’t.

  * * *

  When I get back to the hardware store, Soup is gone. “Had to get ready for the dance,” says the lady behind the register. She looks like a stock movie character: kindly older woman with sloppily applied lipstick but a heart of gold. I hope she’s got hidden depths: secretly, she is in charge of a cult, or she collects ancient human skulls. Maybe she knows how to translate hieroglyphics, has four ex-husbands, and breeds mountain dogs. “Ain’t you going to the dance, hon? You’re in his class, right?” I shake my head, my hair sliding around my face for emphasis. She smells like hair spray, but under that, something wet and woolly, an animal caught in the rain. Up close, I can see her pores. The thing with humans is that we’re so human, I think. I’m dying to take out my camera and interview her. “What is the secret to happiness?” I’ll ask. “How old were you when you fell in love?” Probably she’d kick me out of the store for being a nut. Unanswerable questions, answered. Actually, that’s a great idea.

  “Do you—” I start to say, but she interrupts.

  “He had to go home and ‘get ready,’” she says. “Isn’t that a thing. What’s a boy got to do to get ready, anyway? Put on a suit, that’s what. Not like they have to put on lipstick, do their face, not like we do.”

  “Truth,” I say. “It’s harder to be a girl. One is obligated to be so decorative.” I touch my hair, self-consciously. I’m not wearing any makeup. “Some people think, anyway. Not me.”

  “Oh, you’re plenty decorative,” she says.

  I glower.

  “In a good way, hon,” she says. “Don’t you gals want to be pretty anymore? What a world.”

  I shrug. “It’s complicated,” I say. On top of the pile of things Soup gathered for me, he’s left my phone. I pocket it quickly without looking at the screen. Piper will probably be mostly ready by now. If I were a better person, I’d stop at her place, take a picture of her, tell her how amazing she looks, which she probably does. But I’m not that good of a friend. I’m not that good of a person. I don’t know how to lie.

  Not anymore.

  “That’s thirty-eight ninety-nine, then,” the woman says, yawning wide. Her canines are pointy. Maybe she’s a vampire. A monster. “He gave you his discount. Sweet kid, isn’t he, that Philip. Now are you payin’ by cash or credit?”

  I hand her the Visa card that Dad gave me for my birthday for emergencies. A leaking boat is almost certainly an emergency, or would be, if it sank. She rings it through. “Have fun at that dance now!” she calls after me. I nod and wave. I don’t bother to remind her that I’m not going.

  I walk home the long way. The streets are pretty quiet, broken up by the occasional car or truck. I pass a young mom with a baby in a stroller and a toddler who is whining loudly. A middle-aged woman, hauling a growling Chihuahua on a leash. A boy on a skateboard, eyes hidden by sunglasses. I wish I had my headphones so I could listen to something funny or serious or scary, but listening without them seems rude, like a podcast would interrupt everyone else’s silence. My feet make slapping sounds on the sidewalk in my flip-flops, which weren’t made for long walks.

  I walk and walk.

  I try not to think about Soup and Piper, but thinking about anything else is a lie.

  I don’t know why I never told Piper he was my Manic Pixie Dream Boy. A long time ago we decided that we would only fall in love with MPDBs, as defined by MPDGs in books and films, girls whose major purpose is to be quirkily needy and make the boy hero fulfill his manly potential. But our MPDBs would be our quirky cheerleaders, our slightly befuddled but fun companions who would make us realize our dreams! Cue theme music! It wasn’t serious, but it also was. And Soup Sanchez: cute, quirky artist? I don’t know about MPDB, but he made me want to do better. He made me want to impress him.

  I think I didn’t want to explain how you can like someone but prefer the idea of them to the reality of them, but that’s how I fe
lt.

  I think I was scared of what would happen if we got together.

  I was scared of everything that would change.

  “Love’s just a chemical reaction.” That was Piper’s line. She said it so often, it was like her motto. “Love is for the weak. Biology makes you want to have sex: fact. We aren’t at the mercy of our biology. We’re different, you and me. Sex turns people into idiots.”

  I believed her.

  I believed that she believed it.

  I believed we were above love somehow, circling the crowd from the vantage point of something higher: birds or stars.

  I was embarrassed to like Soup. Liking him was too human. Too normal. Too lame.

  I was stupid to not tell her.

  But I did tell her.

  Didn’t I?

  So how could she be with him, if she knew?

  I close my eyes for a second, stumbling on the curb. I drop the bag and things roll out and my knees hit the pavement hard, the skin tearing. I stand up and blood trickles from the cuts, which sting like crazy. I blink back tears and stop myself from calling my dad to pick me up. He’d drop everything and come. He always would. But I’m seventeen and I’m not a little kid anymore, so forget it. Even thinking about how nice he’d be about the whole thing makes me angry for some reason, like I want to put my fist through something glass and feel it shatter.

  I pick the things up, hurry them back into the bag like I’m being watched, even though no one is around. A bus goes by and the air current it makes almost makes me fall into the road, so I lean away from it to right myself. A crow caws. The houses around me look blank and empty; suburbia has gone to work or to school, if they don’t have the day off because of prom.

  My phone beeps. I glance at it—the battery is almost dead and there is a series of texts from Piper—and turn it off. I start walking, ignoring how much my knees hurt. I start counting steps, like I’m my own Fitbit: one, two, three, eight hundred and fourteen, one thousand and sixty-two.

  When I get home, I put the bag of stuff in the garage. It looks out of place there. Real tools among Dad’s collection of antique cameras and lenses, all laid out on his pristine white “tool bench.” It was Dad who bought me my first video camera when I was in third grade. It was Dad who taught me how to use it, how to edit films using the computer, how to make things more interesting with sound, how to interpret meaning from small moments. Dad’s favorite is still photography. Up-close pictures of raindrops. Portraits of me and Piper. A million portraits of me and Piper. He helped me fall in love with film.