Always Chloe and Other Stories

by Catherine Ryan Hyde

  “Tell me about your big road trip,” he says.

  But the chicken with the bleu cheese and stuff is so good that I don’t want to stop eating it to talk.

  “Didn’t Jordy tell you about it?” I ask with my mouth full. I guess that’s rude, but I don’t really care.

  “Some. A little. But it still feels a little confusing. That’s why I wanted to hear it from your side.”

  “What’s confusing about it?”

  He sets down his burger for the first time. I can see where melted cheese and some kind of gooey sauce has dripped onto his plate. He has a little at the corner of his mouth, which makes me laugh.

  “What?” he says.

  I reach over with my napkin and wipe it off.

  “Oh. Thanks. I don’t know. I guess the thing about trying to decide if the world is beautiful. He said the whole point of the trip was that you had seen so much crap…lived through so much crap….”

  I can feel my eyes get wide.

  “Don’t worry,” he says. “He didn’t tell me any of the details. He said he promised you he wouldn’t tell anybody.”

  I can feel myself breathe again, even though I didn’t know I’d stopped.

  “Anyway, he said he took you out on the road because he was afraid you were going to kill yourself, and he wanted you to see it was a beautiful world.”

  “What’s confusing about that?”

  He takes another bite of his burger and chews while he thinks. He takes big bites. The kind your mother would tell you not to take. Not my mother, but normal people’s mothers. The kind of bites some people would call bad table manners. It makes me like him a little better. Like we have something in common. At last.

  But he doesn’t talk until after he swallows. So he loses the point back again.

  “I guess the part where it doesn’t seem like it would be about physical beauty. I mean, if you had a tough time, it would be because of people. Right? So, I mean…if the Grand Canyon is beautiful, that doesn’t really fix things. Besides, you could see it in a picture book.”

  “It looks better in person.”

  “But it’s really more about whether people can be trusted.”

  “We met some really nice people.”

  “Like the guys who messed up Jordan’s face?”

  “No. Not them. Pretty much everybody but them. Well, no. Not everybody. There were a couple other bad ones. A guy who ran us off the road, because he wasn’t looking. And one lady gave us a ride who was sort of crazy. But mostly, everybody was nice.”

  “So why did you decide the world was beautiful? Because of how it looked? Or because most of the people were nice?”

  “I didn’t decide that. I didn’t decide one way or the other. I just decided that it wasn’t really fair to decide at all. Because I haven’t seen everything yet.”

  He lets that one sit on the table for a long time. It gives me a chance to eat more chicken with bleu cheese.

  I nab a couple of his fries, and he doesn’t argue.

  “So you still aren’t sure you’re staying?”

  “Well, things got to going pretty good after that.”

  Until Kevin came along. But I don’t say it.

  “But you’re still not sure.”

  He says it like he’s worried. Not like he’s hoping I’ll get out of his way soon.

  “I never really decided.”

  “He didn’t tell me that.”

  I look out the window at the bird, but he’s flown away.

  “Maybe he doesn’t know that?” Kevin says.

  “Maybe he doesn’t like to think about it,” I say.

  It’s night, and I’m sitting propped up on the couch. Not sleeping. Wrapped in my blanket.

  I hear a noise, and then something touches my arm, and I scream. Or at least I think I scream. I definitely start hitting the person who touched me, and I thought I was screaming, but now I hear I’m not really making any sound at all.

  I get the guy by the throat, but he shakes me right off and holds me by both wrists, and then I’m looking right into his face, and then it’s Kevin.

  He looks scared.

  And it’s not really night anymore. It’s more like almost morning. So I guess maybe I was asleep, but I didn’t know it.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m really sorry. I had no idea you were asleep. Your eyes were open. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  He lets go of my wrists, and I breathe a few times until I think I can talk again.

  “I was sleeping with my eyes open?”

  “I guess. I wouldn’t even have bothered you except I thought you were just sitting there.”

  Wow. That’s interesting. I guess I learned to sleep with my eyes open. Maybe I can fool the dreams into thinking I’m awake.

  “Oh. It’s okay. What do you want?”

  “I want to know if I can borrow the kayak.”

  You would think loaning out Blue Boat would be easy and blessing Jordy to get married would be hard. Actually, they’re both hard. But part of me doesn’t want to bless this. I keep thinking I might want it for myself, and then it won’t be there. But that’s not really fair, because I’ve been too tired to paddle anyway.

  I think Kevin can tell I’m not much liking the idea.

  “We’ll be back in half an hour. I swear.” He holds up his right hand like he’s testifying in the Court of Chloe.

  “Okay,” I say.

  And then he disappears.

  It still doesn’t really feel okay. But Kevin found that kayak in the trash, and he could have kept the whole thing for himself, but he didn’t. He gave it to me. And now he only wants half an hour with it. And I shouldn’t mind.

  But I still do.

  A couple minutes later, he tows Jordy out of the bedroom by one arm. Jordy’s wearing jeans and his jacket, but he’s still mostly asleep, and his hair is all sticking up on top, more on one side than the other, and when Kevin stops towing, he stands up by himself and all, but his eyes close again.

  “No, really,” he says, going from closed eyes to blinking a lot. “What’s it all about?”

  I’m pretty sure I know what it’s all about.

  But Kevin doesn’t tell him.

  Just tows him out the door.

  I watch them out the window.

  Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.

  I mean, nobody said, “Don’t watch out the window.” Right?

  Kevin gives Jordy the seat with the seat, and he sits up front and paddles without leaning back. Jordy is kind of huddled over himself, like he’s cold and mostly wants to go back to sleep.

  It’s not even really all of morning yet. The sky is mostly light, but you can still see a few stars, kind of pale, and you can see it’s going to be a very red sunrise. Even though I’m looking west, I can tell. I can see it in the sky south of The Rock, and I can see it in the water that Jordy and Kevin are paddling on, like looking in a mirror. It’s like they’re boating through clouds and fire, going someplace I know I could never go.

  Actually, I think they’re just going to the sand spit. But it doesn’t matter. Even if I go to the sand spit later, the fire will be gone, and I’ll probably find out I can never go where they went.

  It’s just a whole different thing that I can never touch.

  It makes me tired to think about it.

  I’m kneeling in front of our big weird windows, watching, and Ethel lies down on my ankles.

  They get out of Blue Boat at the sand spit, and Jordy is in his bare feet, and he hops around like a girl, because the water is cold.

  Then they’re standing on the sand, facing each other, and Kevin is holding both of Jordy’s hands, and then he drops down onto one knee, like men do in old movies from the fifties. When they ask a lady to marry them.

  What the hell did I do?

  Why did I say I gave my blessing? Who cares what Dr. Reynoso said? What does she know, anyway? Is she here? Is she the one losing the only person she ever had who was really even wor
th having?

  I pound on the window to see if I can get their attention, which is incredibly stupid, because they’re about twenty times too far away to hear. It’s too late to change my mind. I said yes, and now that’s that.

  Ethel gets nervous from the pounding, but she doesn’t move off my ankles. Just tenses up until it’s over.

  Jordy sort of drops down on Kevin and lands on him, like he was trying to hug him without giving him time to stand up first. And he knocks them both down. And when they get up, they’re brushing sand off their faces and out of their hair, but it looks like they’re laughing, too. But I could be wrong about that. I’m not sure why I think they’re laughing when they’re really too far away to know.

  My ankles are sore from having Ethel on them, but I don’t move her. I just close my eyes so I don’t have to watch anymore.

  I wish I was better with time, so I knew for sure how long there was a Jordy and Chloe. I really wish I could know, right here and now, exactly how long that wonderful time lasted.

  But one thing I do know for sure. That time is all over now.

  The door bangs open so hard that it flies back and hits the wall, and it makes me jump. And it makes Ethel jump, too.

  But it’s only Jordy.

  Not Kevin and Jordy. Just Jordy. Just like it used to be.

  His face looks really intense, like he could be feeling either really good or really bad, but I can’t tell which.

  He flies across the room to me without even closing the door.

  It kind of scares me. Like I don’t know what he’ll do when he gets here.

  He grabs one of my wrists and pulls me up so I’m standing, and then he throws his arms around me and holds me close.

  And holds me.

  And holds me.

  And holds me.

  It feels so good. Like being safe.

  Part of me thinks, See? He isn’t gone. He’s right here. Things are just what they always were. All that other stuff must’ve been a dream. A bad one.

  Then it hits me that if I’m wrong, and it wasn’t all a bad dream, I might fly apart into millions of tiny little pieces, and the wind might just blow every single little piece of me away.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  Silence. He just keeps holding me.

  Then he says it again. “Thank you.” And again. And again. I think he maybe says it around six or seven times. With lots of spaces in between. So I have to wait a long time to make sure he’s done.

  “Did I do something good?”

  He backs up just enough to look at my face. “Kevin says he asked for your blessing, and you said yes.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I did.” Finally, my big chance to take it back. But I can’t. Because I could never bear to change the look on Jordy’s face. It’s too wonderful. “It was Dr. Reynoso’s idea, really. I asked her what I should do, and that’s what she said.”

  “Well, it was amazing. I just…it just means so much to me. I have no idea how to tell you how much it means to me, that you would do that for me. For us. It’s like…I’m not used to being speechless. I’m usually pretty good with words. But this…I just…thank you.”

  He moves back closer again, back into the hug, and I put my head down on his shoulder and stay as close as I can get to him, in case I never get another chance like this again.

  “I’m happy you’re happy, Jordy.”

  “We’ll all be happy, Chloe. You’ll see. When we get the new place, we’ll get you your own room and everything. No more air mattresses or couches or….”

  He stops talking. Because all the muscles in my body just turned into rocks, and we can both feel it.

  I say, “New place?”

  “Well…yeah.”

  “What’s wrong with this place?”

  He lets me go. Just like I knew he would. Sooner or later.

  “Are you kidding, Chlo? It’s tiny. It’s barely big enough for one person. For two, it’s a joke. Three is just impossible. Kevin has almost all his stuff in storage. He even had to put half his clothes in the storage space. There isn’t even room here to hang up his clothes.”

  “But I love this place.”

  “I know you do, Chlo. But we’ll find someplace good.”

  “Oh. Well. Okay. I guess so long as you can see the sand spit and The Rock, and so long as Blue Boat is still tied up right where I can go paddling, I guess that would be okay.”

  Nobody says anything for a long time. It’s one of those quiet times when you can tell there’s a very big reason why the next thing isn’t getting said yet. You can feel it. Like before words get said, they’re hanging out there in the air. Brushing against your face. Getting tangled up in your hair. Making it hard to breathe.

  “Um. Chloe. There’s no way we’re going to be able to afford a place right on the water. Do you have any idea how much that would cost?”

  “But we can afford this place.”

  “That’s because it belongs to The Humanist, and we work off the rent. We aren’t going to be getting any deals like that again.”

  “Then let’s keep this deal!”

  Something happens when I say that. Something terrible happens to Jordy’s happiness. It just leaves. Just sort of drains away, like water pouring out of the sink when you pull out the plug. I watch his face, and I can see the happiness pour out. It’s the saddest thing I ever saw in my whole entire life. And I have seen some things. Believe me.

  “I’m sorry, Chlo,” he says. His voice sounds small. Like anything he ever had to make it loud drained away with the happiness. “We can’t stay here forever. It just won’t work.”

  I sit down hard on the couch.

  I’m not going to tell him all the reasons why I can’t bear to move from this wonderful place. Because it won’t change anything, anyway. I can see that. It’ll just change Jordy’s face, even more than I changed it already. It won’t do anybody any good.

  Jordy sits down next to me.

  “You could stay,” he says. “I could even maybe still help you work off your rent.”

  “By myself?” I don’t even bother screeching when I say it. I don’t have the energy, and besides, the screech pretty much goes without saying.

  “With Ethel. We’d still see each other every day.”

  I look out the window. Watch about twenty seagulls circling in the air in front of The Rock, dipping and screaming.

  “So, those are my two choices? Live here alone or live someplace where I couldn’t paddle my boat?”

  “You could still paddle. Sometimes. You could walk down to the estuary. Well, not with the kayak, I guess. Or Kevin could drive you down. With Blue Boat. In his pickup. Now and then.”

  I don’t answer. I don’t even need to. We both heard what a bad system that was, right as he said it.

  I try real hard not to look at his face. Because I ruined it. I ruined Jordy’s face.

  I say something that I usually would never say. That I probably never said to Jordy before, in all the time I’ve known him. Which I think is pretty long, but I’m not so good with time. Like I probably already mentioned.

  I say, “Could I just be alone to think, Jordy?”

  His face falls farther down. Farther away from happiness. If that’s even possible.

  He gets up.

  “Yeah. Sure, Chlo. Okay.”

  He kisses me on the top of my head. For a minute, his lips just stay there, pressing, and they feel warm. I can feel how warm they are right through the part in my hair.

  Then he walks out the open door.

  I have a very clear picture of something now. I see it so plain that I can’t imagine why I didn’t see it all along. The whole time.

  I know what’s standing in Jordy’s way. I know now. What keeps getting between Jordy and happy.

  Actually, I don’t so much know it. I am it.

  HAPPINESS

  I don’t have a paddling story for today. I haven’t been paddling in ages.

  It’s about ten at night, and I
’m wrapped up in my blanket on the couch. I pretty much always am these days.

  I haven’t even gone down to work for a really long time.

  I think Jordy is out doing laundry, but I’m not really sure. I never ask him where he goes anymore. Sometimes he’ll be saying something to me on his way out the door, but it really isn’t until after he’s gone that I notice I wasn’t listening.

  Kevin walks in. Just back from work, a little early. He’s wearing his good clothes, his black waiter’s pants and his white waiter’s shirt. He has a couple of takeout cartons in his hands.

  The way he smiles at me makes my stomach hurt. Because I know he’s going to try to cheer me up.

  When I’m depressed, I don’t like for anybody to try to talk me out of it.

  When I’m depressed, I just am.

  Why can’t everybody leave it at that?

  It’s not going to go away, no matter what they do. So they keep working at it, because it’s obvious they’re not getting anywhere. I think if I wasn’t getting anywhere, I would just stop. But I guess I’m the only one on the planet. Because nobody else stops.

  When you don’t even have the energy to get up off the couch, it’s amazing how tiring that can be.

  “I brought you your favorite,” he says. “The stuffed salmon. And a piece of the pecan pie you like so much.”

  He says all that like it’s a good thing.

  When I’m depressed, I don’t feel like eating. So Kevin and Jordy are getting nervous now, because I’ve lost a lot of weight in a week, or ten days, or two weeks, or however long it’s been. I’ve probably mentioned I’m not very good with time.

  He pulls a plastic fork out of his shirt pocket and sits next to my hip on the very edge of the couch.

  This is bad. This means he’s going to stay here and watch to see if I eat it.

  “I’m not really very hungry,” I say. And of course, he frowns. “Even though it was very, very nice of you to bring all that nice stuff. Just because I’m not very hungry doesn’t mean it wasn’t nice. Because it was. Really. Nice.”

  Ethel is lying on my feet, and Kevin looks at her for a while. Like he never saw her around the house until this very minute.