Letting Go of Gravity

by Meg Leder

  “Yes,” she says, grinning, and the smile I return feels like my first genuine one in ages.

  Twenty-Nine

  MAYBE IT’S THE FACT that the meager air-conditioning at Carla’s is no match for the day’s humidity, especially with the kiln blazing in the basement. Or maybe it’s an effect of their ride over with the new bus driver, who all the ladies think drives too fast. Whatever the reason, when the Wild Meadows crew arrives the next afternoon, Carla lasts about thirty seconds before shooting me a sympathetic look and fleeing back downstairs.

  The ladies are in a mood.

  I can see the warning signs immediately, like prickly little flashes of heat lightning: Miss Peggy’s extra-straight posture, Lorna’s anxious hair patting, Harriet’s misapplied makeup, Alice’s inability to make eye contact with anyone or anything other than the floor.

  “Hey, everyone!” I say.

  “These paintbrushes are dirty,” Miss Peggy says as she sits down, holding up a handful.

  “We had a kids’ birthday party in here this morning,” I say, taking them from her and heading to the sink. “I probably didn’t clean this bunch yet.”

  “You could have cleaned them yourself, Pegs,” Harriet points out, and I smile since I couldn’t say it myself. But my appreciation for Harriet is short-lived. “Ugh, are we just painting boring old mugs again? I don’t need any more mugs. I have mugs coming out of my ears and mouth and—”

  I interrupt before she can name any other body parts. “There are also bowls and plates,” I offer. “And some cat and dog figurines?”

  “We’ve painted all those already,” Lorna says. Today she’s decked out in purples—lilacs, lavenders, grapes—with a small delicate violet brooch. “Before you got here. But that’s okay. There’re always new ways to paint old dogs!” She chuckles appreciatively at her joke and grabs one of the dog figurines. “Get it? New ways? Old dogs?”

  I smile weakly, but Harriet rolls her eyes and even Miss Peggy seems offended by how bad the joke is. Lorna immediately deflates.

  “Boring,” Harriet mumbles, tapping her fingers on the table, and I wonder if she’s always been this rude, or if she’s just letting it all out now that she’s older and no one’s stopping her. “Dying of boredom here.”

  “We should only be so lucky,” Miss Peggy declares, snatching the newly cleaned brushes out of my hands.

  God, these two are being awful. I suck in my breath, choosing to ignore them, and sit next to Alice instead.

  “How about we work on this one?” I ask her, holding up a smiling ceramic flower and grabbing some bright-yellow paint. She looks harder at the floor, but I pick up the brush and start painting the petals anyway.

  After ten minutes, the atmosphere in the room has gotten worse. Sure, Lorna is painting, carefully biting her lip as she coats her dog statue in an electric-blue color, but Alice seems to be getting smaller and more withdrawn by the second, actively shrinking from me each time I show her the smiling flower. Harriet has fallen asleep and is loudly snoring. Miss Peggy still hasn’t settled on a paintbrush, drying each one by hand and then holding it up to the light, insisting, “It’s very hard to work with substandard equipment.”

  It pretty much stinks.

  I scowl at the smiling yellow flower I’m painting and set it down on the table.

  Right then, Harriet bolts awake and belts out, loudly and off-key, the opening lyrics to “Piano Man” by Billy Joel.

  The interruption startles all of us.

  Lorna’s hand jerks in surprise, and blue paint accidentally spatters across the dog’s face. She mutters “Drats!” right as Miss Peggy drops a handful of paintbrushes on the table. Even Alice jumps in place, the outburst is so unexpected.

  “. . . play us your songs right now . . .”

  “Oh, Harriet, honestly,” Lorna says, looking sadly at her ruined dog.

  Miss Peggy shakes her head. “Her voice is going to give me a migraine.”

  “Harriet, can you please sing more quietly?” I ask.

  She ignores all of us, crooning, “We’re all in the blue for your memories . . .”

  “Those aren’t even the right words!” Miss Peggy cries.

  “. . . and you left us wanting you all night!” Harriet bellows, sweeping her hand dramatically across the table, knocking my smiling yellow flower onto the floor, where it breaks in half.

  “Oh no,” Lorna says, sounding so dismayed as I pick up the pieces, I’m worried she might actually start crying.

  Miss Peggy looks smugly at me, like, See? I told you she was trouble.

  Harriet seems slightly chagrined. “I can glue it back together—”

  “Argh, enough!” I stand, grabbing my phone, and walk hastily over to the stereo. I find a USB cord on the side and plug in my phone.

  I can practically feel the ladies watching me through my back, waiting to see what I’m going to do next, but I don’t turn around, instead scrolling through iTunes until I find the playlist I put together for Dad’s birthday last year. It’s big-band music, but as I’m guessing no one in this room is a Taylor Swift fan, it’s the closest thing I have to anything they might like.

  I hit play.

  “Sing Sing Sing” by Benny Goodman starts playing, punchy and lively. I don’t always love Dad’s eclectic tastes, but this song makes me want to move, to tap and shake my hands and dance.

  I turn around. “Paint this.”

  “What?” Harriet wrinkles her face.

  “You’re bored? Paint this. Paint this music. Go on. Let the music dictate your choices.”

  Lorna looks helplessly at her dog. “You can keep painting that, Lorna, if you want. But the two of you?” I point to Harriet and Miss Peggy. “My grandma used to say only boring people get bored.”

  As soon as the words leave my mouth, I worry I’ve gone too far. Even though they’re not acting like it, these are grown ladies, not the Delaney boys, and I can’t imagine Carla would take kindly to the rest home withdrawing their business because I’m being a disrespectful jerk.

  But then, much to my surprise, Miss Peggy sits up straighter and pushes her sleeves back, like she’s rising to the challenge. She picks out a thin brush and a magenta paint and then begins to sweep lively loops all over a plate.

  Lorna returns to painting her dog, contentedly humming as she works the misplaced splash across the face into the design.

  Alice has closed her eyes, but there’s a small smile on her face as the music dances through the room.

  And then I look over at Harriet, who’s nodding appreciatively at me, tapping her hand on the table with the beat. “Not bad work at all, girl,” she says, before picking up a paintbrush and an empty mug.

  I fall back in the chair, exhausted with the close call, but feeling strangely proud of Harriet’s compliment. Not bad work at all.

  Thirty

  “I’LL TAKE TWO CHEESE Coneys, mustard, but no onions, and water,” Ruby tells the waitress.

  “A Three-Way, dry, and a Diet Pepsi,” I add.

  Last night, when my parents mentioned that they were attending an outdoor concert of Broadway’s Greatest Hits in Sharon Woods tonight and wouldn’t be home for dinner, I texted Ruby to see if she was free to grab Skyline Chili with me. She texted back with an immediate My parents are going to the same concert and this gives me the perfect reason not to go with them, which is good because Broadway show tunes are so earnest, they make me embarrassed, so YES YES YES!!!

  The waitress drops off a bowl of oyster crackers for each of us, and Ruby turns back to me. “Harriet and Miss Peggy both liked the big-band music?”

  “Yeah. Turns out I might have accidentally discovered the one thing in the world they agree on. I don’t know if Lorna is as big a fan, but she seemed happy no one was fighting.”

  “That’s a really cool idea. How did the lady with Alzheimer’s do? Alice, right?”

  “That’s the most amazing part. She actually picked up a paintbrush for the first time since I started! He
r hand was shaky, but I helped her steady it, and she made all these tiny dots across a plate.”

  “Parker, that’s really cool,” Ruby says, popping an oyster cracker in her mouth.

  I try not to grin too hard, but she’s right—it’s the coolest thing I’ve been part of in ages. After the ladies left today, Carla told me, “You have a real knack for working with them, Parker.”

  I wish I could tattoo her words on my arm, a reminder for when I’m not sure what I’m doing. Even now, two and a half hours later, my limbs still feel buoyant.

  “How was the Float today?” I ask.

  “It was okay. Finn’s been in a super-crappy mood lately, so that’s not fun. But he’s been asking about—” She stops as she looks up behind me. “Um, hi?”

  I turn around to find my brother standing there.

  “Oh, hey,” I say.

  He nods awkwardly, and the two of us don’t say anything further, until Ruby extends her hand. “I’m Ruby,” she says.

  “Charlie McCullough,” Charlie says, shaking her hand back. “Parker’s brother.”

  I wait for Ruby’s face to register who he is, the subsequent face-fall of sympathy, but she brightly smiles, squeezing his hand instead.

  “If you’re half as cool as your sister, I like you already.”

  Charlie blushes.

  That I did not expect.

  “Well, I’ll see you at home,” I start to say to him, but Ruby’s a step ahead of me.

  “Are you eating by yourself?”

  “Getting takeout,” Charlie says.

  “Why don’t you join us? That’s okay with you, right, Parker?” She turns to me, her smile as big as it was the night I met her.

  I frown. I don’t want to disappoint Ruby, but considering Charlie’s and my exchanges of late have been downright nuclear, the last thing I want to do right now is hang out with him.

  But Charlie’s got this look on his face that I haven’t seen in a while—he actually seems nervous I’ll say no.

  He wants to join us.

  “Yeah, okay,” I say, and it takes approximately two seconds for him to slide into the booth next to me.

  Charlie smells sweaty and he’s taking up too much space, and I immediately regret my decision. He leans over and grabs a huge handful of the oyster crackers from my bowl.

  The waitress comes by again. “Something for you, too, hon?”

  “A Five-Way, please,” Charlie says to her.

  She nods and heads back to the kitchen area.

  Charlie starts his ritual of intricately dripping hot sauce into a partially cracked oyster cracker and then eating it.

  “Do you go to our high school?” Ruby asks him.

  Charlie swallows. “I’m going to be a senior next year. You?”

  “Junior. But I’m ‘young for my class,’ ” she says, making ironic finger quotes. “I’m taking my driver’s license test at the end of the summer.”

  “Well, when the time comes, I hope you’re a better driver than Parker,” Charlie says.

  “Why? What happened?” Ruby asks, looking between us.

  Oh, for God’s sake. “Our parents are terrible teachers. And learning on a stick is impossible,” I say, indignation making my voice louder than I want.

  “She’s not good at not being good at something,” Charlie whispers to Ruby, who giggles.

  I scowl.

  “After she applied the clutch too hard one too many times, our dad took the keys and left her in the car because Parker was making him carsick. And our mom, who’s a teacher, mind you, said she never met anyone who was worse at learning something,” Charlie says.

  “Dad was being a jerk and Mom kept yelling at me. That’s not a productive learning environment.”

  “It sounds hard for everyone,” Ruby says diplomatically.

  “Meanwhile, I learned in about five minutes and passed the test a full month and a half before her,” Charlie says. “I’m clearly a natural.”

  “Wait a minute. Why did you take yours at the same time?” Ruby asks.

  “Twins,” I say, making room on the table as the waitress brings us our food.

  “No way,” Ruby says, looking rapidly from me to Charlie and back again.

  “She got the brains. I got the looks,” Charlie says, and Ruby giggles.

  I realize with a shock that Charlie is flirting. I’ve never seen him flirt before. It’s totally irritating and gross.

  But the chili smells delicious, so I twirl a big mess of spaghetti and cheese and meat sauce around my fork, trying to ignore Charlie.

  All three of us are happily eating, when Ruby stops, Cheese Coney in hand. “Wait. If you’re twins, how come you’re a senior but Parker graduated?”

  I swallow quickly, not wanting Charlie to have to explain, but he gets to it first. “I got sick last fall and I missed a lot of school, so they held me back. It was going to be just a half year, but it took longer than we thought for the treatment to work.”

  “Sick?” Ruby asks.

  My whole body tenses, and Charlie gives a terse nod.

  “Leukemia,” he says.

  “Whoa. That stinks,” Ruby says.

  “I’m better now, though,” Charlie adds quickly.

  Ruby’s sprinkling oyster crackers on top of her Cheese Coney, and I can see Charlie stiffen, waiting for her response. Finally, she looks up. “It’d be cool to be friends with a senior next year. If you see me in the halls, you won’t pretend you don’t know me, will you?”

  Charlie’s smile is genuine. “I don’t think I could forget you,” he says.

  “Well, that’s good news,” she replies matter-of-factly, but underneath all her cool, she’s beaming as hard as Charlie.

  Even though I’m totally irritated with everything Charlie-related right now, I have to stop myself from hugging Ruby Collie right then and there. I haven’t seen him like this in ages.

  “So, do you want to be a doctor like Parker?” she asks Charlie.

  “God, no!” he says. I’m surprised by how vehement he is. “I’ve had enough of hospitals to last me the rest of my life. I don’t know how she can stand that internship.”

  Ruby shoots an uncertain look at me, and I subtly shake my head. She recovers quickly. “What do you want to do, then?”

  Charlie opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

  “Baseball,” I say. “Charlie’s a phenomenal pitcher.”

  “Not anymore. I’m too out of practice for the recruitment camps this summer.”

  “That doesn’t mean you couldn’t still get on a team next year—” I start, but Charlie interrupts me.

  “I don’t know if I want to do that anymore.”

  “What?” I ask. “But it’s what you’ve always wanted to do!”

  “Where was all this support last summer, Parker? I didn’t really have an option in my future then, did I?” Charlie asks, and I look away, my face flushing.

  “Well, maybe it’s time to make it an option again,” Ruby says.

  My stomach does a little somersault.

  Charlie scoffs. “It’s not that simple.”

  “It totally is,” she replies.

  I give her a warning glance, but she’s not watching me. Instead, she’s using the last bit of her bun to soak up the chili grease on her plate.

  Charlie shakes his head, but Ruby jumps in before he gets a chance to say anything more.

  “Did you know that in Spanish, the future tense also works to express possibility in the now?”

  I slowly shake my head, and Charlie looks confused.

  “It works like our future tense, like Trabajaré este sábado—‘I will work this Saturday.’ But you can also use it to wonder now—¿Quién será el? ‘I wonder who he could be.’

  “I like thinking of time that way—that it’s a little more fluid in Spanish. Like maybe to start thinking about the future, you need to think about the possibility in the right now, you know?” Ruby looks first to Charlie for a reaction, then to me, but
Charlie’s face is skeptical, and I’m sure I look equally flummoxed.

  Ruby immediately deflates, her whole body cringing. “Oh God, sorry. I’m doing that thing I do.”

  “What’s that?” Charlie asks.

  “Nothing,” she mumbles. “Forget I brought up the Spanish stuff. I’m sorry.”

  “Ruby,” I say.

  Her eyes meet mine. “I know I’m too much for people sometimes. Even my mom says so.” She tries to smile, like it’s not a totally terrible thing for a mom to say to her kid, then sucks in her breath and straightens. “Anyway, subject change, like I was saying earlier, Finn’s been asking all about—”

  “Hey—” Charlie starts to say, but the look on Ruby’s face is desperate. She wants to change the subject.

  I bite. “What was he asking about?”

  She lets out a grateful little sigh. “You.”

  “Who’s Finn?” Charlie asks.

  “No one,” I say too quickly.

  Charlie perks up, smirking, and I mentally curse myself. “Doesn’t sound like no one,” he says.

  “He works in the kitchen at the Float,” Ruby says. “You probably know him. Finn Casper?”

  I hold my breath, hoping he doesn’t remember.

  “Finn Casper?” Charlie says, shooting me a disbelieving look. “The one who broke your wrist?”

  Rats.

  “Hold on, what?” Ruby asks.

  “He didn’t break my wrist,” I say. “His brother, Johnny, did.”

  “But didn’t he get expelled for attacking a teacher?” Charlie asks.

  “Again: his brother.”

  Charlie lets out his breath in a scoff. “Come on. Finn’s still a Casper. Wasn’t their dad in jail for running a meth lab?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, purposefully focusing on my bowl of chili.

  Ruby gives me a doubtful look before turning back to Charlie. “When he’s not being an asshat, Finn’s actually a really good person. It sucks he has the family he does, but he’s more than just them.”

  Charlie ignores her, focused on me. He lets out a smug chuckle. “This is amazing. My perfect little sister’s associating with the Caspers.”