Always Chloe and Other Stories

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  Still, it makes me feel funny to think about him warning Kevin about me.

  “Are you scared?”

  That stops him in his tracks. He looks at me over his shoulder. “Maybe a little. I haven’t seen him for a long time.”

  “You seem scared.”

  “I guess I am. A little.”

  “Is he still single? Or is he with somebody else now?”

  Jordy looks like he did that one time I saw him seasick. Right after we moved to Morro Bay. When we went out deep-sea fishing with that guy that didn’t work out. I talked them into throwing back everything they caught. I hope that’s not why it didn’t work out.

  “I haven’t had the nerve to ask.”

  “Oh.”

  “I hope it’s okay that I’m bringing us back here in a cab.”

  “Of course it’s okay.”

  “It’s out of our savings. But it would just be so embarrassing to bring him back here on the county bus.”

  I think, But it would give you plenty of time to warn him about me. I don’t say it.

  “It’s okay, Jordy. You can even take a cab to the airport if you want.”

  “No. I’ll take the bus. We need to save money as much as we can for your kayak.”

  Then, just as he has his hand on the knob, I say, “Jordy?” He turns back again. “You look really nice. Really handsome. You’ll knock him right off his feet when he sees you. He won’t even be able to believe it.”

  His face changes. Gets softer. For a minute, he looks like he might cry. That would be some kind of progress for Jordy.

  “Thank you,” he says quietly.

  Then he slips out.

  Sometimes doing something nice for somebody can be just about that easy.

  It’s after ten, and they’re still not back.

  Ethel and I take a walk down the Embarcadero. It’s this street that runs right along the edge of Morro Bay. Well, according to Jordy, it runs along the edge of something called an estuary. He says Morro Bay is a bigger thing, and this is only one small part of it. I don’t quite get that, but I’m trying to say it right.

  Anyway, the Embarcadero is this street with shell shops and restaurants and fish markets and coffee shops and kite shops and bait & tackle shops and candy stores and T-shirt shops and kayak-rental places and just about everything else you could sell to a tourist. But then right on the other side of those shops is the water. I mean, so right on the other side that the shops are built on stilts that go down into the bay. Estuary. Like they’re part shop and part dock.

  So I walk Ethel on the other side of the street, where there are dirt parking lots, because she has to go to the bathroom before bed. And then I cross the street again, and we walk on the little patios that are right over the water.

  We’re down a couple of blocks, where everything is really pretty and nice. Upscale, Jordy calls it. Either that, or he calls it the high-rent district. Depending on what kind of mood he’s in. Anyway, there are a couple of upscale blocks. We don’t live in that part.

  We stop, and I lean on the rail, and I can see Morro Rock looking really nice in the moonlight. It’s this huge rock. About as tall as a building in New York with tons of floors. Like the biggest egg in the world, sticking up out of the water all by itself, only made of rocks instead of egg. I’m probably not describing it right at all.

  Jordy says it got made by a volcano.

  There’s a sand spit that comes almost all the way up to it from one side, and that’s what makes this an estuary. It keeps the ocean out enough that the water is flat and still. But on a quiet night like this, in the off-season, when all the tourists are gone, you can hear the waves breaking on the other side.

  It sounds like thunder.

  The sand spit looks really small and thin tonight. Which means the tide is in, and it’s high. I’m learning a lot about the tide. I watch it every day from our little tiny apartment over the restaurant. It makes me feel like the Earth is a thing that’s alive all on its own. Like it breathes in and out a couple of times every day.

  Ethel whimpers that she’s ready to go home. So we do.

  When we get inside, they’re back.

  This Kevin guy is sitting on our couch, looking handsome, and he’s laughing, and Jordy’s laughing. And Ethel is barking. Ethel is going nuts, because she didn’t expect anybody to be here. She’s doing that weird thing where her front end goes down and her back end goes up, and she sort of darts in and out at somebody’s feet while she barks at them.

  Kevin sits up straight and looks a little nervous, which seems funny, because Ethel doesn’t even weigh twenty pounds.

  I say, “She’s not going to bite you.”

  Kevin says, “She’s showing her teeth.”

  I say, “Her teeth just stick out. She can’t help it. Maybe she’s smiling at you. Did you ever think of that? Why would you assume she’s snarling at you when you could think the best about her? That doesn’t really seem fair.”

  Jordy is standing up now. He looks a lot less happy than he did when we came in. He goes over to Ethel and picks her up and holds her in his arms. And then it’s really quiet. All of a sudden. Quiet.

  Jordy says, “Chloe, you’re forgetting to be polite.”

  I say, “Oh. Sorry. I didn’t know that. That I was forgetting. I didn’t forget on purpose. Sorry.”

  He says, “Chloe, this is Kevin. Kevin, Chloe.”

  Kevin stands up and reaches his hand out to me. I never will understand why people do that. Not that I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it. I’ve seen people shake hands. I just don’t know why.

  After a while, he takes it back again.

  “Interesting-looking dog,” he says. Probably just to have something to say. It’s a little too quiet now. I don’t think Kevin likes that.

  “Ethel is the most beautiful dog in the world,” I say.

  He laughs. Just a little. He sits down again. Jordy is still holding Ethel. Still waiting to see which way things are about to go.

  Or anyway, that’s what I think.

  Kevin says, “What kind of a dog is she?”

  I don’t say anything, because I’m not even sure I understand the question. If somebody said, “That Chloe, what kind of a person is she?” that would be a very complicated question. I want to say that Ethel is nice but a little odd. But I don’t want her to hear and feel insulted.

  Jordy says, “We have no idea. Chloe found her eating out of the restaurant trash cans on the Embarcadero. It took almost a month to be able to touch her. And Chloe can usually win over any dog in a matter of minutes.”

  He sets Ethel back on the floor and she slinks off into the bedroom to sleep on the bed.

  Kevin says, “How did you happen to name her Ethel?”

  It seems like he’s talking to me, but Jordy answers. He says, “Chloe is a big ‘I Love Lucy’ fan.”

  “Oh. But you didn’t want to name her Lucy?”

  This time, I don’t let Jordy beat me to it.

  “Lucy is a redhead,” I say. Like I was saying, Duh. Which is more or less the point. “Ethel is the blonde.”

  I look up at Jordy, and he’s giving me another of those looks . So I guess I forgot again. To be polite. Then I feel mad at Jordy for bringing his old boyfriend here from Connecticut for five whole days, because that’s a long time to have to remember to be polite. In my own apartment. Remembering to be polite at the restaurant is hard enough.

  I shrug at Jordy. But then I shut up. So I can’t make any more mistakes.

  I lie on my back on the hard wood floor and let them do all the talking.

  Kevin says he has a theory about Jordy’s father. The theory is that Jordy’s father hated Jordy. Literally. Hated. His own son.

  “Think of this,” Kevin says. “Hypothetically.” That’s a word I don’t know. “Guy walks in, finds his wife with another man. What does he do?”

  “Gets a gun and shoots them both,” Jordy says. He’s lying on the floor with his arms behind hi
s head. Ethel is back, curled in a ball on his belly. She’s a little big for that, and I’m thinking she must be heavy, but Jordy’s letting her stay.

  “Not usually. He usually goes after the other man. Why? Simple. He blames the other man. He might be mad as hell at his wife later, but right in that moment, he wants to believe it’s all the other man’s fault. Now. Your father walks in on us. Who does he go after? Never even occurs to him to blame me. Now that’s hate.”

  “Yeah,” Jordy says. “I never went very well with any of his cufflinks.”

  “What?” Kevin and I say it at exactly the same time.

  “It’s sort of hard to explain,” Jordy says. “But I have theories of my own. I figure my parents always worked so hard to make everything go together just right, and then I came along, and I didn’t look right with anything they put on. How can you love a son who doesn’t even accessorize well?”

  First I think, It’s probably after midnight. I wish we would go to bed.

  Then I think, I never asked Jordy what happened with Kevin. How they got apart in the first place. I knew Jordy was scared of his father, but I never asked why or what happened. I knew Jordy’s head had been just about split open when I met him, and that he nearly died from it, but we didn’t talk about it much after that. I think I might’ve asked him once who did it, but he didn’t answer. And I never asked again. Why didn’t I ask again? He stayed with wanting to know about me until I told him all the awful stuff from before. Why didn’t I do that with him?

  I’ll never understand how other people are and how I am, and how different those two things are.

  I guess I figure if people want to tell me something, they will.

  While I’m thinking this, they’re still talking, but I’m missing it.

  Kevin reaches out to Jordy. His face. The tips of his fingers not quite touching the scar on Jordy’s forehead.

  “You still have a scar from that,” Kevin says.

  “I’ll always have a scar from that,” Jordy says.

  “And what’s this other one? By your eye?”

  “Oh. That. Just a little piece of trouble going through Arizona.”

  “I thought you said that trip was great. Magical. Beautiful.”

  “Well. It was. All except a little piece of trouble going through Arizona.”

  “Poor Jordan. Why so much trouble? It doesn’t seem to me like you deserve so much trouble all the time. Why does trouble always find you and not somebody else for a change?”

  “Kev,” Jordy says, “I’ll be goddamned if I know.”

  Just before bed, Kevin takes a cell phone out of his backpack and excuses himself. Takes it outside.

  Before he walks out the door, he says, “Just gotta check in with Mark.”

  Jordy is quiet. I’m quiet.

  I think Kevin is wanting us to say something. But we don’t.

  “Promised him I’d check in every night. I think it makes him a little nervous. You know. Visiting my old boyfriend and all.”

  More quiet. He lets himself out.

  I look over at Jordy. He looks like he might break into a million pieces if I say anything at all.

  I don’t say anything at all.

  I’m awake. I don’t know what time it is. But I want to know, for some reason. But I can’t turn on the light to look. Because Jordy and Kevin are talking.

  I think that’s what woke me. Not the talking, because they’re being super quiet. But when Jordy isn’t there in my sleep, it wakes me up. I haven’t slept without having him in the bed next to me for a really long time. Maybe years, but I don’t know, because I’m not good at time. Anyway, I can’t remember anymore how that used to go. What it was like without Jordy keeping me safe at night.

  He got up from our little air mattress on the living room floor, the one we slept on tonight so Kevin could have the bedroom all to himself. And he’s sitting over on the couch in the dark. And Kevin is up, sitting with him. And they’re talking real quiet, so I can’t hear.

  Or…maybe, to be fair, so they won’t wake me. But anyway. I can’t hear.

  Only after a while, Kevin gets a little upset, and when people get upset, they talk louder. Whether they meant to or not.

  “My God, Jordan. How could you think that? How could you not call me? Or write to me? Or something? You could have been dead, for all I knew!”

  I can’t hear what Jordy says back.

  I watch them in the dark. Leaning their heads very close together. Maybe partly so they can hear each other. But not mostly. I know what that means, when people keep getting as close together as they possibly can. Like they’re magnets that only pull on each other. It means they agree with each other about everything. It means they want to be together for real.

  After a minute, I hear Kevin say, “I waited as long as I could.”

  It sounds like the end of something.

  It sounds sad.

  They sit still, not saying anything. And then Kevin gets up and goes back to bed.

  I keep watching. Jordy is sitting very still. Like he froze there. I want to say, Move, Jordy. Wake up. Do something. Because I don’t want him to be broken. But I don’t say anything, because he doesn’t think I’m awake.

  After a few minutes, he gets up and goes to our big weird windows.

  We have these big windows that look out over the water. They go all the way down to the floor. You can see the sand spit and The Rock and the sailboats. You can see their masts waving back and forth a little in the dark, if you stand outside and look. I say outside because the windows open up onto what I call a balcony. Jordy laughs when I call it that. He says it’s more like a railing. There’s just room to get your feet outside. It goes out as far as a pair of feet. I figure that’s enough.

  He opens the window. Even though it’s really cold here in March. I watch his back. I think he’s looking at The Rock and the moon or both. Maybe the way the rock looks in the light from the moon.

  I get up.

  I open the other window. They’re right next door to each other, just a piece of wood between them. And I stand with my feet out, and I look, too.

  The rail doesn’t even come up as high as my waist. Only to about where my thighs bend at the top. So I feel like I have to hold on tight. We’re sticking out right over the dock. The water looks shimmery with moon when I look down. I shouldn’t look down. It makes me dizzy.

  Jordy looks over, but he doesn’t say anything.

  I say, “I never knew that, Jordy.”

  He says, “You never knew what?”

  “That your father was the one that hurt you so bad. And that it was because he found out about Kevin.”

  Jordy snorts. That weird kind of laughter that isn’t really laughing. Real laughing is a happy thing. “You make it sound like he heard a rumor. He walked right in on us.”

  “So that was why you left home. And went to New York. If that hadn’t happened, I never would have met you.”

  He ignores the obvious silver lining that I have been good enough to point out to him and says, “Yeah, when a family member tries to kill you, it starts feeling like it’s time to hit the road.”

  “Why didn’t you call Kevin? Let him know you were okay?”

  “I wasn’t okay. Remember?”

  “But all that time we lived in New York. All that time we were going on our trip all the way across the country. All the time we’ve lived here in Morro Bay. Why didn’t you call him?”

  No answer for a minute. There’s this ribbon of moon on the water, and I see something big and dark and shiny slice through it. Probably one of those big harbor seals. Or a sea monster. But I guess the seal would be more likely.

  “Because I’m an idiot,” he says. “Because I was so humiliated. About what happened. I didn’t think I could face him. I didn’t even know if he wanted to talk to me again.”

  “I guess it turns out he did.”

  Long quiet time.

  Then Jordy says, “Yeah, but anyway, now it’s too late
.”

  “Are you sad, Jordy?”

  “Yes,” he says. “I am.”

  Usually that’s me. Being sad. And Jordy fixing it. Now I have to fix it, which is much harder. I’d rather play the part I know.

  “I’ve been noticing the tide going in and out. Do you ever notice that, Jordy?”

  “Not really,” he says.

  He thinks I changed the subject. Like I sometimes do. I hear that in his voice. He doesn’t know I’m trying to fix it.

  “I’ve been noticing how it’s like the Earth breathing. Only it’s slow. It’s a lot slower than we breathe. Just in or out around every six hours. Two whole breaths a day. I think the Earth works something like we do, only it’s really slow.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Chlo. I’m still trying to cope with this Kevin thing.”

  “Hush, Jordy. I know. That’s why I’m telling you. I’m trying to tell you that maybe things are going to be okay. Maybe things are always going to be okay. Only we want them to be okay in our time. But they always end up being okay in Earth time. And that’s a lot slower. But it’s better than nothing. Right?”

  He looks over at me. He’s listening. All of a sudden, he’s actually listening.

  “Take me,” I say. “Who would’ve thought I’d be okay? I mean, as okay as I am. Which maybe is not that okay for anybody else, but for me, it’s pretty okay. I bet when you met me in that awful cellar in New York, you never thought I would be this okay.”

  He doesn’t answer that. But I can tell he’s listening.

  “Earth time,” he says.

  “Earth time,” I say.

  “When did you learn about tides, Chlo?”

  “Oh, you have to know about the tides. To kayak. When I get my kayak, I have to know the tide exactly. What it’s doing and when. So I’ve been watching. I’ve been teaching myself.”

  Jordy sighs. It’s cold. I wish we’d go back in.

  “I hate to even tell you this, Chlo. But after that cab tonight, your kayak fund is down to about thirty-seven dollars.”