Always Chloe and Other Stories

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “Why not? He was right. He said the bird’ll move. Every time. You can always count on the fact that the bird’ll move.”

  I’m walking fast now, but he’s walking just as fast, and he has very long legs, and I know I can never outrun him. Why didn’t I tell him to stay home?

  “It’s the only thing I remember from that class,” he says. “Maybe it’s the only thing I even heard. I used to sit right behind Jordan. And I would just stare at the back of his head. And if I leaned forward a little bit, I could smell his hair. His shampoo. I was so in love with him. It was impossible to pay attention.”

  “Let’s just walk home and not say anything.”

  He shuts up.

  I try not to think about Jordy and Kevin in driver class. Because I wasn’t even there yet. It’s like Jordy had this whole life before he met me. And I wasn’t any part of it at all. Because he didn’t even know me yet. And I guess he got along fine without me then.

  Maybe he could get along fine without me now.

  I look over at Kevin. This time, he looks hurt.

  Just before we get home, I lean down and pick up Ethel and hand her to Kevin. She looks a little nervous, but she doesn’t really do anything. She doesn’t try to get away.

  “Here. Take Ethel upstairs,” I say. And then, because I heard myself say it, and it didn’t sound too good, I say, “Please.”

  Then I go into the gift store on the next block and break one of The Humanist’s twenties to buy Ethel a pink harness and leash. They both say “Morro Bay” in bright red letters. After tax and everything, I end up with about a dollar and change left over.

  This is all Kevin’s fault. She was fine without a leash before he went and started putting ideas in my head.

  When I get upstairs, the sun has sunk down low behind The Rock, and Kevin and Jordy are watching it out our big weird windows. Standing one on each side, their feet out onto the railing, holding hands and watching the sun go down. Like it was the most romantic thing in the whole world. Which must be stupid, because if it wasn’t romantic every other day, why would it be today?

  I call Ethel’s name, and she comes out of the bedroom, and I show her the new pink harness.

  Jordy looks over his shoulder at me.

  “You got her a harness?”

  I always think it’s weird when someone asks a question when they can see the answer right there under their nose. Usually Jordy doesn’t do that. I think Kevin is a bad influence on him. Next thing I know, he’ll be laughing at things that aren’t even funny.

  “I didn’t want her to get hit by a car.”

  Kevin smiles over his shoulder at me. I pretend not to see.

  Meanwhile, Ethel is sitting there, like she’s waiting for me to put it on. Which is incredibly strange. Ethel hates new things. Any kind of change. She’s like me that way. I expected her to run and hide under the bed. I expected Jordy to have to practically sit on her while I tried to get it on.

  I hold it out the way I think it’s supposed to go, and she picks up one leg so I can slide it under. Then she picks up the other.

  It takes me a minute to get it. First I think it’s some kind of miracle. Some unexplained mystery like the kind you see on TV. Then it hits me. This is not a new thing to her. She had another owner, before she met me. She must have worn a harness lots of times before.

  That puts a thought in my head that I was definitely not ready for. A very bad thought. The kind that shakes the soft inside parts of me and knocks me off my wheels, and then sometimes it takes weeks or months to get back to where I was before, or at least it seems that long, but like I said before, I’m not always good with time. But it’s like I’m just barely balanced in that place of sort-of-okay. And it’s not too steady.

  This is the thought: I’m thinking of something like Ethel in driver class. She had a life before she ever met me. She had somebody else. I always figured Ethel would be lost without Jordy and me. But she had somebody else, and she lost whoever it was, and she survived, and then she met me. And put all that behind her.

  Maybe even Ethel could get along fine without me now.

  It makes me feel kind of sick, so I go lie down on the bed. The door is open, and I can still see Jordy and Kevin holding hands and looking toward The Rock, even though the sun is done going down.

  Then it hits me that this isn’t my bed anymore.

  I curl up on my side and wait to see how long I’ve got before somebody tells me to move.

  Ethel comes and lies beside me in her new pink Morro Bay harness.

  That doesn’t help. That only makes it worse.

  While I’m asleep, I feel a little stab of pain right under my chin.

  I open my eyes, and I’m in an alley in New York, sleeping on a bunch of old newspapers, and this guy with a scraggly beard is holding a knife there. Pushing just hard enough that the point cuts me a little bit and makes me bleed.

  I don’t say ouch. I don’t say anything.

  He tells me I have to do these nasty things to him or he’ll cut my throat.

  I’m not going to say what the nasty things are, because it’s nasty, and I don’t want to talk about it any more than I’m already talking about it now. I don’t like to go over things like that. Bad enough when they happen. I don’t have to make it even more real by talking about it.

  “You know what?” I say to him. “I’ve had it. I don’t even care. Cut my throat. That’s fine. Who even cares?”

  And I really mean it. I can feel in my heart how much I mean it. It feels easy. Maybe almost safe. Like sinking down into a hot bath, or being wrapped in a soft blanket or a fur coat, none of which I’ve done for a very long time. Actually, I’ve never been wrapped in a fur coat. But I used to touch them all the time, in stores, and I know it would be nice.

  It feels like I’m swimming upstream in a very big strong river, and have been for as long as I can remember, and I’m so tired, I could die, but I’ve been thinking I have to keep swimming to save myself. And now it hits me that if I don’t need to save myself, I can stop swimming. I can just stop, and rest.

  It feels so good it almost makes me cry.

  I just lie there, waiting for him to kill me.

  He never does.

  He holds the knife to my face, right under my eye, and says if I don’t do all that nasty stuff, he’ll start cutting my face.

  And I start to cry, but not in a feeling-good way. Not in a relief way.

  Because I know now I don’t get to rest after all.

  I can still feel the knife poking at my cheekbone, and the tears kind of going around it, and then this other strange thing that feels like a little warm tongue.

  I open my eyes, and I’m on the air mattress in our tiny living room, and Ethel is licking my face. I understand how a dog could know I’m upset, but how she knows while she’s sleeping is beyond me.

  I look up at the closed bedroom door. And I know I have to go in anyway.

  I get in on Jordy’s side, away from Kevin, which feels all wrong, because it puts me on the wrong side of the bed. I always sleep on the side near the bathroom, and now I’m on the side near the window, and I don’t like it. It’s about as weird as walking on my hands instead of my feet. Like something I could never get used to, never in a million years.

  Then again, I don’t suppose I’ll get much chance to try.

  I feel Ethel slither up under the side of the blankets and curl up against my back. I can feel the cold metal of the harness, those little rings that you clip the leash onto. I should have taken it off her before we went to bed. Too late now.

  Jordy sort of grunts. “Hey, Chlo.”

  Then he picks up his head. Looks over his shoulder at Kevin. It’s like I can see the wheels turning in his brain. Like he sees that I’m here, so now he has to double-check. Make sure Kevin coming home wasn’t just a dream. He looks back at me. Waking up fast now.

  “Ah. Chlo?”

  “I know,” I say. Quiet. Hoping Kevin doesn’t ever have to wak
e up. “I know. I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. But I had a dream about that guy in the alley.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one with the knife. The one who said he would cut my face if I didn’t do everything he wanted. You know. Right before I figured out about how there was a busted cellar window, and I could go hide down there to sleep. Which was really good, you know, because if I hadn’t found that out, I never would have met you down there. Right?”

  I know I’m talking too much, but I had to keep talking until I got to that place where things started getting better.

  Kevin’s voice. All of a sudden. Not very quiet, either. “There was more than one guy in an alley bad enough that you have nightmares about it?”

  I don’t say anything. Jordy doesn’t say anything.

  At first.

  Then after a minute, Jordy says, “I’m sorry, Kev. Chloe was just on her way back to her own bed. In the living room,” he adds. Like I might have the wrong idea which one. “Weren’t you, Chlo?”

  “But Jordy…”

  I don’t know how to finish the sentence. Also, I hate the sound of my own voice when I say it. I sound like a person with not even one good choice left.

  I guess that’s me.

  Kevin finishes for me. He says, “If she’s that freaked out, maybe she ought to stay.”

  Jordy says, “Our first night.”

  “It’s not like we weren’t pretty much just sleeping at this point.”

  “Yeah, but Kev…this is, like…an every-night thing.”

  Long space.

  Then Kevin says, “Oh.”

  The longest silence in the history of silences. Or maybe even in the history of the world. I want to say, “I’m right here, you know. You’re talking about me like I’m not right here, but I am.”

  I want to say, “Jordy, you’re being less nice to me than Kevin, what’s up with that?”

  I don’t say anything at all.

  Because I know. I know what’s up with that.

  The reason Jordy isn’t being nice is because I let him down. He asked me to do this one thing for him. And he tried to tell me how important it was.

  And I let him down.

  I crawl out of bed over Ethel and go back out into the living room. I grab my blanket and wrap it around me. I sit on the couch and look at The Rock in the moonlight. All wrapped up in the blanket like a mummy. Because I know I’ll never go back to sleep. I wouldn’t even dare try.

  Ethel comes out a few minutes later. When she figures out I’m not coming back.

  A few minutes after that, Jordy comes out and sits on the couch with me. He looks where I’m looking. Out the window, at The Rock and the moon.

  Then he says, “I’m sorry, Chloe.”

  “It’s my fault,” I say.

  “I should have been nicer, I guess. But this is so important to me.”

  “I know. It’s my fault. I let you down.”

  “I know you did your best.”

  “It wasn’t good enough, though. Doing your best doesn’t help a whole lot. If it isn’t good enough.”

  Nobody talks for a while, and I’m feeling like nobody ever will again, unless I get the whole talking thing restarted.

  So I say, “Go back to bed with Kevin.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive. Go back.”

  “Will you get back to sleep?”

  No way. No chance. Not in a hundred billion years.

  “I’ll try.”

  He gives me a kiss on the temple and then goes back to bed.

  So, are you satisfied, Dr. Reynoso? Did I finally do it right? I supported him on it, like you said. Is that the kind of blessing you had in mind?

  If so, it totally sucks.

  CHLOE’S CHOICE

  I don’t even have a paddling story for today. I was too tired to go.

  Kevin is taking me out to lunch in the high-rent district. He says he wants to celebrate, because he got a job. He got a job waiting tables at a place called Windows on the Bay. Which is also in the high-rent district. But we’re not eating lunch there, because they’re so fancy, they only serve dinner.

  I feel like crap because I’ve hardly slept for three days. Maybe I might’ve nodded off sitting up on the couch. But if so, it didn’t last long. Not long enough to have any dreams.

  We’re eating at a place called Henri’s. I think that’s French, but I wouldn’t know for sure. I even have my doubts about a lot of English.

  I wanted Jordy to go, too. But he can’t get off work at lunch, because that’s right when he has tables to wait on. I can take off for lunch and then come back just in time to hit the rush of dishes. But I usually don’t. I usually only eat at our restaurant, because it’s free.

  Anyway, this is free, too. Kevin’s paying.

  I order this chicken that’s stuffed with bleu cheese and herbs and bacon, because as long as he’s paying, I might as well eat something I wouldn’t normally get.

  Besides, he’s going to make me pay for it soon enough. Not in money, but he is. I may be different from other people, and there may be lots of things I don’t get, but I’m not totally stupid. He wants to talk to me about something major. I can feel it.

  So I order big to make up for it.

  He orders a hamburger, which seems like a waste.

  We’re at a table right by the window. I’m looking out, and I can see this big gray bird—the kind with the long flamingo legs—sitting on top of a pier piling. His neck is all bent in, like he’s trying to peck at his own chest, but his beak is so long, it’s hard to reach. He’s so close, I can see the fringe of feathers on the bottom of his long curvy neck. See it wave around.

  Kevin is fiddling with the salt shaker. I wish he’d stop. It’s making me nervous.

  “What kind of bird is that?” I ask him. Probably just to have something to say.

  “Great blue heron.”

  Then I wonder why he knew. I mean, I asked him. But I didn’t expect him to know. I’m the one who’s lived in Morro Bay for more than just a couple of weeks.

  Maybe he just makes it up as he goes along.

  “You’re lying.”

  “I’m not.”

  “He’s not blue.”

  “Well, that’s what they call them.”

  He sounds sure, so maybe he really does know. He’s still fiddling with the salt shaker, but now also with the pepper shaker in his other hand.

  “I brought you here to talk to you about something,” he says. Looking at the salt shaker. Not at me.

  “Like I didn’t know that.”

  “I’m just going to lay it right out here. I’m going to ask Jordy to marry me.”

  I laugh, that way that sounds almost like spitting.

  He says, “What’s funny?”

  “Did you happen to notice you’re both boys?”

  “Did you happen to notice that the California Supreme Court just ruled it’s unconstitutional not to allow same-sex couples to marry?”

  “It did?”

  “Yes. It did. Yesterday. Did you really not know? Jordan said he told you.”

  “Oh. Is that what he was trying to tell me? Sometimes he starts talking too fast and using words I don’t understand, and then I sort of go somewhere else and miss everything.”

  Kevin says, “Oh.”

  It’s that moment I hate so much. When people start to get it. How different I am. But Kevin has been in pretty close, and probably Jordy has told him a lot. I don’t guess I was keeping a very good secret anyway.

  I say, “Why are you telling me this? Why don’t you just tell Jordy if you want to marry him?”

  He looks at me. Looks up from his precious salt and pepper shakers for the first time. Or maybe it’s just the first time he looks up at me at the same time as I look up from my great blue heron—if that’s really what it is—and look back.

  “I wanted to talk to you first. I wanted to get your blessing.”

  See, I could have saved myself a lot of w
ondering. I could have just sat back and waited for the moment when someone said, “Give us your blessing,” and I got to say yes or no.

  I thought I had to figure it out. But it was getting ready to drop into my lap the whole time.

  “Yes,” I say.

  He looks like he’s about to pass out.

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. Yes.”

  “I didn’t think it would be that easy. I didn’t think you’d just say yes like that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not? Well…you haven’t exactly been my greatest fan up until now.”

  “Yeah, but Jordy needs to be happy. He deserves it. He saved my life.”

  “He said you saved his life.”

  “I doubt that. I think he said he saved mine.”

  “No. He said it was both. He said you saved his life twice. Once down in that cellar when he almost died from that head wound. And again in a different way. Sort of more general. Like if he’d kept going the way he was going…. Anyway, you turned it around. But yeah. I agree. That he deserves it. Thank you. Really. Thank you. It means a lot.”

  I thought I owed Jordy one for saving my life. I had no idea I saved his. Twice! But even if I’d known, I’d still have said yes to the blessing.

  Partly because Jordy deserves it.

  Partly because Kevin gave me a kayak. And most of a paddle. And didn’t make me get out of the bed the other night. I’d sort of like to say those things to him, but I can’t. I wish I could, but I can’t. It would be like making out that everything is okay. Like I don’t mind having him around, which I do.

  But those aren’t even the main reasons why I said yes.

  I said yes because Dr. Reynoso said I should.

  Usually I’m not all that good at doing what other people say I should. But this time, the whole problem was beyond me, and I asked her what to do. And you don’t break down and ask somebody what to do unless you’re going to do it. Otherwise, it’s just stupid and a waste of everybody’s time.

  “Well,” he says. Like that’s a whole thought.

  Just then, the food comes.