What We Keep Is Not Always What Will Stay

by Amanda Cockrell

  I don’t know how to be around Jesse now. I must be doing something wrong, or this wouldn’t keep happening. I thought maybe Felix would know, so I went to see him and took him some coffee for his coffee pot. He was in the garden. I made him promise not to tell Mom anything.

  He didn’t like that. “I’m not so sure about this, Ange.”

  “I’ve always talked to you,” I pointed out. “You never told anyone before.” If he was going to be St. Felix, he couldn’t argue with that.

  “This might be special circumstances.”

  “Fine. Then I won’t talk to you, either.”

  He sighed and said, “Well, step into my office.” We went down to the basement and he put his coffee on a shelf. He’d unpacked the nativity we use in the kindergarten room and arranged the Virgin and her baby on the shelf too, beside a glass of lavender sprigs and a candle from the chapel.

  I sat on the bottom step. “It’s Jesse.”

  “Can I say I’m not surprised?”

  “No.”

  He fiddled with the lavender and the Virgin, making her a little crown, while I told him what happened at the pep rally. I said, “I don’t know how to be with him. I probably have too many opinions, but it’s not fair of him to tell me he needs me and then treat me like that.”

  “It’s not fair of him to tell you he needs you,” Felix said.

  “Don’t people who love each other need each other?”

  He didn’t answer that. He said, “You’re fifteen.”

  “That does not mean I’m not capable of loving someone,” I said back.

  He turned around and gave me a long look. Then he said, “Oh, shit. I guess it doesn’t.” He looked up at the ceiling. “That was really unfair. You hear me?”

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “God. Or the angels. Whoever’s in charge of these things.”

  “I thought that was Cupid.” I grinned at him, trying to lighten things up.

  “Cupid’s a fly-by-night. He’s the one that gives people crushes on their gym teacher. Which would be a better bet for you right now. Listen, you may love him, but Jesse doesn’t have good brakes. Believe me, I know. And you’ve got a right to opinions.”

  “He’s not always like that,” I said. “He’s really sweet. And when he gets upset, if I let him calm down, then he’s fine.”

  “And you want a boyfriend you have to walk on eggshells with?”

  “It’s not his fault.”

  “How does that make it different?” Felix said.

  “Because it’s not his fault.” I could see what he meant, but it does make it different.

  “So you’re going to give up the right to speak your mind because it’s not Jesse’s fault if it upsets him and he acts like a jerk?” Felix crossed his arms over his robe and raised his eyebrows at me.

  I hadn’t thought about it that way, but I think, Yeah. Yeah, I am. I’m going to learn to bend to Jesse when he’s like that because if I love him, it’s all I can do.

  I didn’t say that to Felix. I said, “Look, I’ll think about it, okay? Thanks for listening to me. And thanks for not telling Mom.”

  “Probably a mistake,” he said morosely.

  I don’t know if he meant for him or me, but it wasn’t a mistake. I let Jesse alone for a few days, which was hard, but I made myself do it. On Friday I knew it was all right when there a was a drawing in my locker again. This one was the Duchess of Alba, or maybe it was me. She had even more hair than either of us do. It curled up into the sky and made clouds around her head. There was a little figure of a tiny guy at her feet writing SorrySorrySorrySorry on the ground with a huge pencil. That made me laugh so much, it was all worth it.

  I wish I could find everyone somebody to pair up with—get Mom and Ben back together, find Lily a nice guy, even find a nice girl for Noah Michalski. He’s my biology lab partner this semester and has not thrown fetal pig parts at anyone yet, which for Noah is angelic.

  The Ben-and-Mom thing is probably the hardest. Jesse says he wishes his parents would split up; they’re hardly talking to each other now. I said I would trade him, I just want mine back together. I can’t even figure out a way to throw them into each other’s company anymore. I’m out of holidays.

  On the other hand, Jesse’s birthday is in a week. I’ve been trying to figure out a birthday present, but I can’t ask Mom’s advice, obviously, and I’ve been dodging Felix after the last time. I’ve finally decided I’ll take Jesse to see the otter. I’ll pack us a fancy picnic and a pillow for his leg and something silly like a book of poetry to read to each other. Jesse will have to drive, but Lily says she’ll cover for me one more time as her birthday present to him, which is really nice of her.

  I bought chocolate-covered espresso beans, which I know Jesse loves, and pomegranate soda just to be exotic, and crusty rolls from the bakery, and three kinds of cheese and sliced meat, and tiny seedless tangerines. For dessert I bought a chocolate torte. I packed it all in a wicker basket I found in some of Mom’s stuff that’s still in the closet. I couldn’t find a book of poetry. Everything on Mom’s shelves was either so obscure I didn’t know what it was talking about, or else about death and suicide. Or by people who committed suicide. There was also one volume of love poems that I would be too embarrassed to read. So I gave up on the poetry idea and bought silly hats at the thrift shop instead—a mini-sombrero for him and a vintage felt hat with a little net veil for me. I told Jesse he had to pick me at Lily’s house, and I was very mysterious about it, just to make him curious.

  When he rolled up, I hurried out before Lily’s mom could notice who I was leaving with and stuffed my basket in the car. I hopped into the front seat.

  “Where to, Duchess?” He smiled at me, but he was looking kind of grim.

  “Off to see the otter,” I said. I didn’t ask about the grim look, I just told him, “I have provisions and happy birthday otter-viewing hats in the basket.”

  Which was apparently the right thing to do, because he let out a long breath and said, “You are the most. Thank you. I needed to get away. I had a horrible morning.”

  I waited.

  “I blew up at Mom,” he said. “I lost it. She was ragging on Dad again for letting me enlist, but enlisting was my decision. I started shouting, and now my head hurts like hell and I scared Michael and Sarah.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Not a great birthday.”

  “It’ll be all right now,” he said.

  And it wasn’t. It so wasn’t.

  It started out okay. It was a beautiful day, warm enough to leave my jacket in the car. We scrambled up the slope and I unpacked the picnic and the hats. Jesse cracked up at his. He opened a pomegranate soda and dribbled a little on the rock floor. “For the otter,” he said. “And the gods of the place.”

  I gave the otter a few drops of soda, too. It really is a magical place. I wish I could have lived here when there were otters in the river. After we ate, we cuddled up to watch the sun turn the afternoon sky pink. He gave me a little squeeze and I melted into him, and we slid down onto the stone floor.

  Maybe I didn’t really think things through, going up there alone with Jesse after what had happened at the pep rally. But it felt so good at first, like he was somebody who belonged to me and everything was happening like it was supposed to, and the otter gave us his blessing.

  “Goya painted his duchess naked, too,” he whispered to me. “That’s the one I really think of when I look at you. I want to paint you that way some day. All your beautiful skin.”

  He’d moved until he was on top of me, and I felt his fingers sliding down the zipper on my jeans. That was when Felix’s dream came back into my head, the one about the girl in the bar. First I was me, then I was Felix. Then for a second I knew what it felt like to be that girl, too. And I knew I didn’t want to be that girl and I had to make him stop.

  Only I couldn’t.

  I put my hand over his. “Jesse, I’m not ready for this.”

  “
You promised you love me,” he said.

  “I do love you, but I just can’t.”

  “It’s that Michalski kid, isn’t it?” His face was crazy-intent now, like rubber bands were holding everything together.

  “No! Don’t be stupid!”

  “I’m not stupid!” His fingers dug into my arm. “I see him talking to you all the time!”

  “His locker’s next to mine!” I pushed back at him, but he didn’t let go. He kissed me and pressed his mouth on mine so hard that it hurt.

  I wiggled harder but Jesse still didn’t let go. I tried twisting my head away but he didn’t stop. “Let me up!” I was starting to panic.

  “Duchess …” He buried his face in my hair and I could feel his hands inside my jeans.

  “No! Jesse, don’t!”

  “I love you.” His voice sounded slurred, and stubborn. “I need you. You promised me.”

  “Let me go!”

  His hand pushed me down onto the stone, hard. I was scared and mad at the same time. I turned my head and bit him. I could feel my teeth break the skin on his hand.

  “Ow! Goddammit!”

  He pulled back just a little and I brought my knee up. I guess it must have hurt some, because he half rolled off me. I jumped up before he could grab me again and slid down the slope to the trail, holding my unzipped jeans up with one hand.

  “Angie, wait!”

  I could hear him coming after me so I ran, zipping my jeans as I went. I knew I could outrun him with his bad leg.

  “Angie! Please! I’m sorry!”

  I kept going, past the car and out to the highway. Highway 33 is a winding two-lane with a dirt shoulder, and I walked along it until I got my breath back. I felt safer out there. There was traffic coming along at a fairly steady rate.

  After a couple of minutes I heard a car slow down behind me. It was Jesse, with the passenger window down.

  “Angie, I’m sorry. Come on back, baby. I’m sorry.”

  He sounded so miserable, I felt sorry for him. But I kept walking. “No way.”

  “Please, baby.” Cars behind him were starting to honk. I think he was crying. “You can’t walk all the way back.”

  “I’m going to.”

  He kept following me, backing up traffic, but I wouldn’t stop.

  Finally he said, “Then walk!” and threw my jacket out the window at me. He turned his head around to look at the cars behind him. “And fuck you!” He stuck his hand out the driver’s window and gave them all the finger. Then he hit the gas and the car rocketed off, screeching around the next bend.

  No one offered me a ride, not that I would have taken it. They probably thought I was crazy, too. I walked all the way home. It was three miles, and I was still freaked out and mad and miserable by the time I got there. Ben wasn’t around. I slunk into my bedroom and called Lily.

  “Oh, Ange,” she said when I told her. “I did wonder if he might want to go farther than you would, but I didn’t think he was dumb enough to do anything like that.”

  I sniffled. “I really don’t think he would have quit. And the awful thing is that I do love him, and I really think he loves me.”

  “I think he does, too,” Lily said. “In fact, he told me so.”

  I started to cry.

  Lily hung on until I quit bawling. She’s patient. And she promised to go up there with me and collect everything we’d left. I can’t leave the otter’s cave full of stupid hats and garbage.

  “Please don’t say anything to Jesse,” I said before we hung up. “Or anyone else. I can handle this.”

  I could tell she doesn’t think that’s a good idea, but I absolutely can’t tell Mom or Ben because they will call the police or something and I can’t bear to do that to him.

  16

  And then, just to top it off, I took the Todal for a walk on Sunday after church so I could think and bumped right into Jesse’s mother at the Stop-In. I’d told the Todal to sit and went inside looking for a chocolate fix, and there she was, buying a quart of milk.

  “Angela! How nice to see you.” She waved the milk at me. “We’re always out of something if it’s Sunday. You looked just lovely New Year’s Eve. I’ve wanted to tell you.”

  “Um, thanks, Mrs. Francis.” I swiveled my head around to see if Jesse was with her, and he wasn’t, thank God.

  “How’s school?”

  “It was nice being on vacation. Kind of hard to go back.”

  “Oh, I expect so. I think Jesse was glad to go back, though. It’s hard for him to be idle.” The clerk bagged her milk and handed it to her, and she smiled at me. “I’m very glad Jesse has made friends with you. It’s been difficult for him, and having someone like you is such a blessing.”

  “We don’t really see each other at school much,” I said. “Except for art. I’m just a sophomore.” What happened to her worrying about him hanging out with younger kids?

  “When you’re such good friends, maybe that age gap doesn’t matter so much,” Mrs. Francis said, like she was convincing herself. “Jesse has always followed his own path, from the time he was little. I’ve stopped worrying about that, so don’t you worry about it.” She patted my shoulder. “I’m just glad he has you. I think he’s having a bad day today, though. Maybe you could call him.”

  “Um, sure.” No!

  She offered me a ride home, but fortunately I had the Todal with me.

  After obsessing about it all day, I went back to St. Thomas’s. I’ve got nobody I can talk to about all this. So if Felix thinks coming alive gets him off the hook, he has another think coming.

  He was in his basement. He looked up when he saw me clumping down the stairs. “Angela! I thought you’d given me the brush-off.”

  “I need to talk to someone. Where is my statue?”

  He’d been sewing a button on a shirt, and he put it down and scooted over to make room for me next to his space heater. It was chilly in the basement, and the space heater made a little puddle of hot air.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Felix—”

  He shook his head and looked sad. “No, I really don’t. I think it used to be me, or I used to be it. That’s what it seemed like. But I’m not sure.”

  He was wearing the bathrobe again. “Have you been to see a psychiatrist? Ever?”

  “Oh, yeah. Lots. But I hate the medication, you know? It makes me feel like I’m half there.”

  “You weren’t there at all, before,” I said. “But at least I could talk to you. I mean, to the statue.”

  “Do you miss that? You can’t talk to your mom?”

  “I mostly talked to you about my mom.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s not good enough. My mom got drunk New Year’s Eve and hooked up with Ben! I saw her sneak out of the house with her underwear in her hand!”

  “I didn’t think she was over him,” Felix said.

  “It’s not fair!” I could feel my eyes starting to sting. “I asked Ben if they were getting back together and he said no. How can they do that?” I sniffled. Tears were starting to run down my face, and I just let them. Everything was so awful.

  Felix put his arm around my shoulders, the way Mom used to when somebody had teased me. “Sex is a very mysterious thing,” he said, like he was thinking it over. “I’ve never understood it well myself. They may not, either.”

  “I don’t understand anybody!” I said. I was crying now, hiccupping and really bawling.

  Felix patted me and I put my head on his shoulder, sniffling into his bathrobe. It was warm from the heater and smelled like cigarette smoke. The heater was making little pinging noises and it was really nice to have someone hug me who wasn’t trying to kiss me or stick his hand in my clothes.

  “And I haven’t even told you the worst thing!” The thing I really need to tell someone.

  “Yeah?”

  “It’s Jesse.”

  He sighed.

  “You were right. I can’t handle this.” />
  “What happened?”

  “I thought I could make it all be okay if I just didn’t upset him, you know? And it was fine for a while. He was doing really well.”

  “Until?”

  I told Felix all about the otter’s cave and the picnic, even the silly hats. “It seemed like such a great idea for his birthday. To start with.” I sniffled because I’d liked the otter so much and Jesse had spoiled it.

  “To start with, and not later?”

  The heater made another pinging noise and shot sparks out of its back. Then the whole basement went dark.

  “Oh, crap.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “It blew the fuse. I can go fix it if you want.”

  “No, it doesn’t matter.” I didn’t want him to leave.

  “It’ll get cold.”

  “You can fix it when it gets cold.” I wanted to tell him about Jesse. That was spooking me more than the dark.

  “Okay. So what happened later?”

  “We made out.”

  “What kind of making out?”

  I was glad the lights were out. It was easier to talk about it in the dark. “Kind of extensive making out. And he wouldn’t stop.”

  “I don’t like that ‘wouldn’t stop’ part,” Felix said.

  “I didn’t either. And I got really scared and I bit him and made him let me go, and I ran off and walked home. He followed me in the car and made a scene and backed up traffic.”

  Felix gave a kind of chuckle. “You bit him, huh? You’re going to be just fine.” He chuckled again. “It feels awful now, but you’re going to be just fine.”

  I thought about how I knew how that bar girl in his dream had felt, and how I hadn’t wanted to be her. I didn’t say it though. He was only about Jesse’s age then. But the dream suddenly made more sense to me. All of Felix’s other dreams are things he feels guilty about. I bet he feels guilty about that one, too.

  “And I saw Jesse’s mom in the Stop-In this morning. She said she was so glad Jesse had me for a friend, but I could tell she meant girlfriend. She thinks it’s great.”

  “I expect she’s pretty desperate.” Felix was quiet for a long time then, just holding me snuggled up against him where I felt safe. “I assume you know it would be a good idea to not hang out with him alone anymore,” he said finally.