Things That Grow

by Meredith Goldstein

  “Lori,” he says, “if I can pass on one adult lesson—one I learned too late—it’s that sometimes having an awkward conversation makes life so much better in the long run. I should have had many awkward conversations with Seth. Maybe if we’d had them long ago, we wouldn’t have spent the last few months in misery, having to unearth all these things we’d been compartmentalizing for years.”

  I nod and smile, letting him know I understand, which I guess I do, despite the fact that he slurred all his words during that whole bit of advice.

  “Ethan,” I say.

  “Yes, dear?”

  “What happens to us? If Seth moves out and you guys are broken up, will I still get to see you? Are we allowed to stay in touch? You’re my family. At the moment, actually, you’re my favorite uncle.”

  Ethan pulls me in for a hug. “That doesn’t change, my dear. Romantic relationships end, but family is family.”

  “Good,” I say. “You’ve always been an honorary Seltzer.”

  “Thank you,” he says. “Meanwhile, on that note, can you try to forgive your uncle?”

  This shocks me. He knows what happened. He’s giving me a look that suggests he isn’t on my side.

  “You think I’m wrong to be angry?”

  “No,” he says, taking a beat to think. “Although I don’t know that I can condone your digging into your uncle’s notes without permission. It’s hard for me to be objective, I have to be honest. Seth told me that this is the first time he’s been inspired to write this much, this quickly, in years. I’m happy he’s unblocked. As someone who cares about him, I have to celebrate that on some level . . . I do know he has a great deal of respect for you, Lori.”

  I nod, even though I don’t believe that.

  “You’ll go upstairs now?” I ask.

  “Yes,” he says. “I suppose it’s time for bed.”

  “Will you be able to handle the awkward?”

  “It’s what we do,” he says, his hands up and out like the shrug emoji.

  After a glance at the side door again, he says, “Good luck out there.

  “Oh—and Lori,” he adds, “it’s nice to see your eyes. Quite lovely, my dear.”

  I smile and watch him walk away, not quite in a straight line.

  * * *

  I turn back to the glass door and press my nose against it and see that Chris has made his way to the center of the chessboard. He is standing there, under a light in the back of the property, moving one big piece to an open square and then another.

  I could let him have his privacy. To cool down and let him join me upstairs when he’s ready. Really, it’s probably easiest for me to go back to our room and fall asleep so he can return without having to acknowledge me at all.

  But I don’t want to let this go, and Ethan’s right—it won’t go away in the morning.

  I swing open the back door, close it behind me, and walk to meet him. He doesn’t notice my approach until I’m steps away. He raises his eyes enough to acknowledge me, but there’s no smile. Then his eyes are back to the board, and he stares at it like he’s thinking of his next move, like he’s actually playing a game. He’s wearing jeans again.

  “What are you playing? Because it can’t be chess.”

  He moves another piece, but doesn’t answer me.

  “I’m just getting some air,” he says in a too-cool voice, and then asks, “Are you okay?”

  “Of course, but . . . Ethan and Seth broke up.”

  “What?” he asks, concerned, his head snapping up to meet mine. “Just now? Because of the fight at The Mount?”

  Chris has transformed into my best friend again. His voice is back to normal, and he’s super concerned.

  “No, not just now. Months ago, apparently. I ran into Ethan in the hotel lobby, and he told me everything. They’re figuring out how to separate things, like a divorce without the divorce. Ethan’s here to be supportive.”

  Chris places his hand on the horse-shaped chess piece. “That’s too bad. I like Ethan.”

  “He promises he’ll still be my uncle.”

  “Of course he will,” Chris says. “You know I still see Papa Dale.”

  Papa Dale is Chris’s dead grandmother’s second husband. She’d been divorced from him long before she died, and he’s not related to anyone by blood or marriage anymore, but he’s at all the Burkes’ holidays. He is also a riot and makes incredible seven-layer dip.

  The example of Papa Dale gives me hope. Maybe Ethan can be around like that forever.

  “I feel so gross and bad about upstairs,” Chris says suddenly, and he pushes another chess piece to the open space in front of it. “I’m freaking out thinking I made you uncomfortable.”

  “Oh my god, no,” I say, and walk to Chris and take his hands. “It is not your fault, and you were not alone in feeling whatever you were feeling. Like if I had the same body parts, I would have been in the same boat.”

  He looks down and squeezes his eyes shut. I’ve embarrassed him. I don’t want that.

  “I was surprised,” I said. “That’s never happened with us before.”

  He lets go of my hands and walks to the other side of the board.

  “I’m not usually alone in a hotel room with you,” he says. “Hugging in the same bed. Again, my fault.”

  “Listen,” I say. “I didn’t run out because I didn’t reciprocate, I ran out because I did. I do, like all the time.”

  “Come on, Lor,” he says in disbelief.

  The fact that he doesn’t understand how much this is true is both tragic and hilarious. I know he’s thinking back to the talk—the one we had years ago, just to confirm that it was a friendship and nothing else. That was two full years ago, and we were fifteen.

  “Your clavicle,” I say.

  “My clavicle?” I see the outline of Chris’s hands on his hips.

  His stance is so unnatural, and I realize he doesn’t look like himself without his pen or a pad or his backpack holding a bunch of art supplies. His arms are usually full.

  “If I could draw for one day, if I could borrow your talent for twenty-four hours, I would spend the entire time drawing your clavicle from memory. The way it sticks through your stupid soft T-shirts. The way it moves when you laugh. God, I hate it so much because I am so desperate for it.”

  I groan, annoyed just thinking about it. Chris and his stupid clavicle.

  I look over at him, no longer embarrassed by any of this. Now that I’ve confessed my deepest, darkest secret—the clavicle problem—I feel better. I remember that we’re two friends negotiating a story the way we always do. This time it just happens to be our own.

  “You’re the first person who’s ever stuck around, and you’re the person I know and love most, not counting family. Or actually—go ahead and count family, now that Grandma’s dead. Mom and Seth are . . . I don’t know who I can count on anymore . . . But I can live with it, you know? Those feelings? That’s what we decided. That’s how it is.”

  There’s silence, and then, “We decided that a long time ago.”

  “Yeah,” I say.

  “But your feelings have changed,” he says.

  The stillness of Chris’s body tells me he is annoyed; I don’t even have to see his facial expression to know it.

  “You should have told me,” he says.

  “No. Because I didn’t want it. I didn’t want to change us at all. The clavicle thoughts were private, for me. I’m only telling you so you don’t feel bad about being a totally normal human person with an erection in a hotel room.”

  “Lori,” Chris says.

  “What? Is that word too much for your sensitive ears?”

  “No. It’s just humiliating,” he says.

  Chris puts both hands on his head, his elbows out. He walks to another chess piece, the one that looks like a tiny castle, and pushes it with his foot. “I’m thinking about ‘Vampiresplainer,’” he says.

  “What about him?”

  Chris smiles.

/>   “Vampiresplainer” was the title of a short story we wrote about a very sexy vampire named William who moves to a new town and enrolls in a high school—one much like ours—to hide from a new rising force of vampire hunters.

  Although William looks eighteen, he is more than six hundred years old and therefore has seen a lot. Basically, over centuries, he’s observed wars, the building and destruction of cities. He’s earned multiple degrees. Degrees on top of degrees.

  He’s a prolific knitter. His culinary skills are unparalleled.

  His expertise in all things has made luring victims very easy. All he has to do is seduce a woman with his knowledge, and she’s in. For anything, including biting. Women hear him speak of history and poets, then they look at his sexy hair, and the combination of it all makes them fall to pieces.

  Except not anymore.

  William gets to this new school ready to find young women to charm, but he seems to have lost his touch. Girls seem super annoyed with him. He can’t even get a prom date.

  After one epic fail with a classmate named Daphne, William says to her, “Daphne, what gives? Why are you so put off by me? Why does every young girl at this school behave as though I’m covered in garlic?”

  So she gives it to him straight.

  “William,” Daphne says, “I’m going to be honest with you for the sake of humanity and every girl at this high school. You, my friend, are the worst mansplainer.”

  William runs his fingers through his glorious hair and sputters, not understanding her. In six centuries, he has never heard this word. “What does it mean to be . . . a mansplainer?”

  He clenches his retracted fangs.

  “You don’t know?” Daphne asks with mock surprise.

  Chris’s illustration showed a vampire with sexy, bouncy hair. Above it, in a chat bubble, he had the vampire saying, “Well, actually . . .”

  It was so fun to write. It’s one of my favorites.

  “I always thought it was weird,” Chris says. “You gave him a sexy clavicle. That’s what you wrote.”

  Yikes.

  “I did?”

  “Yeah, and at first I thought it was some autocorrect thing, because who makes note of a clavicle, but you said it was the word you chose, so I just drew what you said. I figured it was a girl thing to notice about a guy.”

  “I guess I had real-life inspiration,” I say.

  “That’s one of my favorite stories,” Chris says. “We should finally put it in N-Files. If you stay.”

  “Sure,” I say. “Or you could publish it without me.”

  It must be late. The temperature is dropping, and I’m starting to hear new chirps and noises from the woods. The hotel’s window lights are starting to go out.

  “We should go to bed,” I say.

  “But what if it turns out you are moving for sure?” Chris asks, taking a step toward me.

  I don’t get it.

  “What if you were leaving for good in just a few days, and you knew we wouldn’t be together all the time. If you knew this was going turn into a long-distance friendship, and we only had a few nights together, and we went upstairs, and what happened . . . happened again. Would you still leave the room?”

  “I mean, I probably am moving,” I say. “It’s not about that. I’m trying to keep us us, no matter where we live. If we hook up, it’ll still be in our memories when I move. It’ll be there—like out there.”

  I wave my hand around to signify that I mean the ether. If I hook up with Chris, I will not be able to forget it, no matter what it’s like, no matter where we live.

  “Okay,” he says. “Right.”

  He leads us up the lawn to the back door, but it’s locked now. We have to work our way around the building to the front.

  The desk clerk flashes us a knowing look as we walk in, but we both smile and head to the elevator.

  Inside the room, Chris takes off his jeans, but not in a sexy way, and walks to the mirror on the wall. Then he pulls down his shirt collar a few inches, checking himself out. “I guess it is kind of majestic.”

  I burst out laughing, so grateful that he just made everything normal yet again. That’s all I want.

  We get into our separate beds, but I can still smell him a little on my pillow, and it makes me sad. But we are fine now, at least. Every adult in my life is a mess, but the people in this room are good.

  To punctuate that, Chris begins to snore.

  I let my eyes adjust, and I turn and watch him in the dark.

  Chapter 14

  I am still awake when light begins to sneak through the blinds. I’ve tried every position, I have tried counting down from a thousand, I’ve tried to read books on my phone, but I am wired and stuck on a hamster wheel of anxious thoughts, some about the decisions that will be made in the next few days, but mostly about how I will now have to live with the memory of what it felt like to be waist to waist with Chris.

  I am still thinking about those few seconds of possibility.

  Based on the way his body looks, he’s thinking of something interesting at the moment. His long lashes twitch on his face as he dreams. He sleeps on his back, mouth slightly parted; it’s almost a smile. He’s still snoring a bit, and there is dried drool next to his mouth, but I am totally into it. I need to get out of this hotel, which is somehow cursed with hormones and possibility.

  I edge out from under my covers and slide my feet into my slip-on sneakers. I put on a bra and grab my room key and phone and decide to take a quick walk. It doesn’t seem like an unsafe thing to do. We are in antique-market cow country. No one is around, and if they are, they’re inside their historic, precious bed-and-breakfasts. I make my way through the front door, past the same sleepy desk clerk, and I’m greeted by pleasant, cool air.

  I consider walking to the chessboard to relive whatever happened last night, but I see the driveway in front of me and feel a tug. Like I need to be somewhere else. It’s very Edgar Allen Poe, as if I’m some character being called by a bird or a heartbeat under the floor.

  And then I remember.

  “We didn’t do the reading,” I say out loud to no one. “We didn’t do the stupid reading!”

  Yesterday, when we crop-dusted Grandma all over Edith Wharton’s perfect garden, we didn’t read Dorothy Parker. We just left and went to the restaurant. I suppose we read the Edith Wharton quote on the stone beneath us, but I’m not sure that counts.

  I don’t want to be superstitious—or religious—but now that I’m outside, I feel like that’s one of the reasons I’m up this early. This nagging feeling is about unfinished business. I’m supposed to go back to The Mount and get the reading done.

  I can use my phone to find some Dorothy Parker quotes online.

  I walk down the driveway; my phone tells me The Mount is only a half mile away. The journey seems foreboding, I have to admit, because the sky is overcast and still kind of dark, and I’m in flip-flopping shoes and my Target pajamas.

  But when I get to The Mount, it seems safe. It’s early enough that I can walk right past the ticket booth; it’ll be hours before anyone shows up to man it. Once I make it past that checkpoint, I walk down the gravel driveway and see the shape of the white mansion. It looks more impressive and frozen in time than it did yesterday, probably because no one is here.

  I make it down the winding paved driveway; the greens on either side of it look shimmery, like they’re magic, but I know it’s just the morning dew. The huge gates, which were open yesterday, are now closed, but there are a few cars and trucks in the parking lot. I tread lightly, walking around the side of the house to make it to the back gardens without being noticed, and that’s when I see the creepy thing we missed yesterday.

  Up on a hill, on the far left side of the property, there are tiny gravestones coming out of the dirt. They look very old. I need to go up there.

  Up close, it is way more interesting than I expected. It is Edith Wharton’s pet cemetery. How did we miss it?

  “Pet
Sematary,” I whisper to myself.

  “Excuse me—”

  I hear a woman’s voice yell from down the hill, and I duck, as if I can hide from her, even if there is nothing to shield me.

  I turn around then and see the woman coming down the lawn toward me.

  “Excuse me—” she yells again. “Can I help you?”

  I am tempted to run, but on this wet soil in these flimsy sneakers I’d probably wipe out big time. Also, I’ll look more mischievous if I bolt, and I am not here to dig up a grave or steal something.

  I put up my hands and place them palms out so she knows I mean no harm, and when she gets closer, I recognize her.

  “Marge!” I say.

  She stops a foot away from me, confused.

  “I’m sorry, do I know you?”

  “Yes! I mean, no,” I tell her. “I was on one of the tours yesterday. You did an awesome job. You were an exceptional tour guide, really. But I’m sure you toured a ton of people yesterday, so don’t worry—I’m not offended that you don’t remember me.”

  Marge has reached the bottom of the hill, which means she’s close enough to give me a once-over, and she’s clearly trying to decide why I’m in my pajamas and sneakers on this hill.

  “I’m not here to cause trouble,” I tell her. “I’m staying up the street at the inn. I was just out taking an early-morning walk and thought I’d come back to the property.”

  “I’m sorry,” Marge says, looking less friendly and more disheveled than she did fourteen hours ago. “The Mount grounds are technically always open for walks, but we have a very big event happening today. There’s a lot of commotion on the grounds. I think it’d be best if you came back much later. With an adult.”

  “Sure, it get it,” I say, trying to think of what might calm her down. She looks like I might ruin her day, and it’s barely started. “I didn’t mean to come here . . . like this. In pajamas. I mentioned it yesterday . . . my family is here because my grandma just died, and she really loved the gardens at The Mount, so I wanted to check it out one more time. But I can come back another day.”

  Marge’s shoulders relax. Invoking my dead grandmother was a good move, and it is not a lie. Now she looks concerned about me instead of because of me. “I’m so sorry, dear,” she says. “Was your grandmother a patron of The Mount?”