“You both are being butt heads,” Color says.
The spots in my vision clear, and blood returns to my hands in tingles.
“I’m OK.” I try to push myself up against the wall, but my arms are weak. I slump back onto my butt.
“Don’t move.” Moss puts his hand to my forehead. “You’re cold.”
“That’s a first,” I say.
Moss goes and gets a hat from the box of winter items Color took from my house. He puts my own hat on my head, and I cringe. It has a fluffy ball on top. I can’t believe I almost fainted. How embarrassing.
Moss holds out the bag of chips. “Eat something.”
But Jesús pushes him away. “I thought you didn’t trust her.”
Moss seems to remember this and backs away. “Fine.”
“Don’t worry, mon chéri. Jesús is here. I won’t let you die.” He pets my head.
“Stop being so dramatic,” Moss says, pacing the other side of the room now. “She’s not going to die.”
“Telling me not to be dramatic is like asking a bird not to fly. I am who I am. Just like you are a fungus.”
I pull the hat down on my head, shivers peppering my arms. “Moss is actually a plant,” I say.
Both Moss and Jesús stare directly at me. Then Jesús laughs so loud the room feels brighter and lighter at the same time.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Jesús says. “She just stuck up for you, Fungus.”
“I think . . .” I look at the word I left on the wall. “I’m the one who’s damned.”
Complex Math Problem: If four people are sitting in Heaven and a tsunami of truth floods them all, how many people survive?
I pull my hat down even farther, but it isn’t big enough to cover me.
“You are not damned, Esther,” Color says, sitting down next to me. Gently, she wraps her arm around my neck and hugs me to her. I close my eyes and wonder if she’s telling the truth or just being nice.
“I can’t believe you had a baby,” Jesús says in my ear, as he snuggles up next to us. “Holy shit.”
“That’s one way to put it.” I laugh. Reciprocal giggles echo through me, and it feels so good. Laughter changes everything. Amit taught me that.
“You’re not . . .” I start to say.
“Not what?” Color pulls back with a confused look.
“Ashamed of me?”
“Ashamed of you?” When Jesús repeats the word, I cringe.
“Perfection is overrated,” Color says. “What’s the fun in that? It’s our holes that make us interesting.”
“It’s a pretty big hole,” I say.
“Well, it is now that you pushed a baby out of it,” Jesús says. “But if what they tell us in Sex Ed is true, it goes back to the way it was. Don’t worry.” He pats my shoulder and gives me a wicked grin.
I catch Moss laying his nondescript gray eyes on me. He doesn’t have to trust me. Half the time, I’m not sure I trust me. But he could stop looking at me that way—half intrigued and half wary that I’m even here. In defiance of his attitude, I say, “Now you know my biggest secret.”
But Moss doesn’t crack like I want him to. He stays securely whole, not allowing a single fissure for me to seep into and be a part of his life, like Color and Jesús did. He starts to collect all the markers on the ground, and when he’s done he says, “I’m gonna go watch a movie.”
Jesús helps me off the floor but doesn’t let go, even when I’m steady and standing. “Ignore him. He likes black coffee. How boring.”
I touch the word I wrote on the wall, just to make sure this is real. How did I end up here? Not just in Truth or Consequences—I know how that happened—but here. In this place with these people. It just feels like . . . magic.
It doesn’t matter. I ask too many questions. It’s going to get me in trouble someday. I’m here. And that’s all that matters for now.
We make a plan to meet up at HuggaMug next week. Jesús says now that I’ve seen Heaven, he can no longer charge me for coffee. It just wouldn’t be right, according to the laws of caffeine. Moss doesn’t say anything. He just eats. He’s moved on to Skittles, and his tongue has turned into a rainbow. I tell myself to stop looking at him and his tongue. It’s a stupid tongue.
When Mom pulls up to the Blockbuster, I get into the front seat of the van, and she asks, “How was it?”
“Great.”
She examines the boarded-up building. “What did you guys do at an empty Blockbuster? Nothing illegal, I hope.”
“Nothing illegal,” I say. A speck of magenta colors my fingertip. “Mom?”
“Yeah, Esther?”
“Do you ever think that heaven might be right here? Don’t we say things at church like ‘the kingdom of heaven here on earth’?”
“Heaven in Truth or Consequences?” Mom says with sarcasm. “God help us if that’s the case.”
11
When you’ve been to Heaven, it’s hard to come back to earth, especially when tortured by the painful sobs of Fantine singing about the daughter she has to give away in Les Misérables. Hannah and Peter sit huddled on the couch, watching the musical’s twenty-fifth anniversary special on PBS. When Hannah hears me walk into the room and sit down at the dining room table, she glances at me for a whisper of a moment before leaning into Peter. He grins and accepts the gesture. Our house is one of those open floor plans where every room leads into the next, and there are no doors except into bedrooms and bathrooms. It makes the emptiness worse. Beth told me last week that the air in a room can weigh up to one hundred pounds. Maybe that’s why I feel so heavy when I’m in my house. All of that emptiness weighs a lot.
Hannah’s Bible sits on the coffee table in front of her. For the past year, it’s never been out of her reach. It’s like I became pregnant, and Hannah became a Christian. I swear she does it to rub my sins in my face, but I’m pretty sure there’s a commandment against that. Which leads to my theory that Hannah’s Bible is Spanx, those things you wear underneath a dress to make you look skinnier. They suck you in and hold you in all the right places so it looks like you have really great curves. And then you take the Spanx off and stand naked in front of your mirror and what do you get? Reality. If I took that Bible away, I think Hannah would look quite different.
But I wouldn’t do that, because the truth is, we all are wearing some version of Spanx.
Hannah glances over her shoulder at me like she’s super annoyed that I’m even in the room. Hannah always cries when Fantine sings “I Dreamed a Dream.” You’d think she’d have more compassion for me, considering Fantine turns into a prostitute and gives her kid away to Jean Valjean. I only had sex with Amit once . . . OK, maybe twice. OK, it was five times, I think. The first few times were kind of a mess. I’m not sure they count.
“Would you leave?” Hannah asks over her shoulder. “We’re trying to watch TV, and your breathing is bothering me.”
That’s what our relationship has been reduced to? She’s mad I’m breathing now?
“I want to watch, too.”
Hannah huffs like she’s a dragon, spewing fire all over the living room.
Do you ever read that Bible or do you just carry it around so it looks like you’re reading it? I ask in my head. I don’t dare say it aloud. She wouldn’t answer even if I did.
I know I ruined her life. I know I’m the reason we had to move. I know that I don’t deserve her love or friendship, but that doesn’t mean I don’t miss it. Before I cut my hair, Hannah was the one who always curled it for me. She’d get the back section, where I couldn’t reach. That’s what we did for each other. We saw the parts that the other person couldn’t, and fixed them for each other.
But she couldn’t fix my pregnancy. And I cut my hair. And I couldn’t fix that Tom didn’t want to live in a town where we were the center of gossip. Where every time I went outside, people stared. Where Mom couldn’t go to the grocery store she worked at for eight years without being whispered about. Where Hannah, as an ei
ghth grader, had to carry the shame of having a sister who not only had sex as a freshman, but got pregnant. Our town was so full of questions, it was hard to see.
Is she going to have the baby?
Is she going to give it up?
Is she going to abort it?
What must her parents think?
Is her life over?
What will she do now?
Who’s the father?
I never told any of them about Amit. Not Mom or Tom or Hannah. He was and is my secret. Amit begged me to tell, and I begged him back not to.
“If you love me, you won’t tell a soul,” I said.
I ruined enough lives. I couldn’t do that to him. And it turns out, Amit loved me a lot, because he kept our secret.
The only person who knows the truth about Amit is the baby. She is made up of him. She is the truth, but we gave her away because sometimes it isn’t easy to look the truth in the eye. It’s easier to run.
Mom, Tom, Hannah, and I—we ran. But for Hannah, it was more like she was dragged by her long auburn hair.
“What about me?” she yelled the night Tom made the decision to move us to Truth or Consequences, and Mom agreed to homeschool us. It wasn’t the public school’s fault. They had condoms available in the clinic. Amit and I just didn’t get sick very often, so we weren’t in there much. And I was too distracted by his eyes, and the way he hugged me, like he was healing me.
“Can you feel it?” he whispered once.
Yes. I could feel it. Amit was giving me love. I just forgot that people have to be careful with love. You can’t go passing it back and forth to each other haphazardly, no matter how good it feels.
But I pushed Amit away along with his love. Hannah never cared about that, though.
“What about everything I’m losing?” she said one night, as the rain slashed on our windows and threatened to flatten our newly bloomed tulips.
I sat quietly on the couch as the baby hiccupped in my belly. She always got the hiccups at night.
“The high school is doing West Side Story next year. West Side Story. I was made to play Maria. Now I’ll never get to play that role. I’ll never even get to go to high school. I won’t go to a dance or cheer at a football game or hold hands with a boy in the hallway while people watch. I was going to have everything, and you’ve ruined it. I have nothing now.” Hannah talked about high school like it was High School Musical.
She stomped away, and I never said a word, because my words couldn’t give her back what she lost. That and my belly kept bouncing as the baby hiccupped over and over.
Hannah lost the lead role in the high school production, and I lost a baby. I know I should feel bad for Hannah, but I can’t. Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and think I still feel the baby hiccupping. I’ll grab at my belly and realize that what once was full is now empty.
Hannah doesn’t know what high school is like because she never got to live it. But I lived with a baby inside of me. I knew her. And I gave her away. I should feel bad for Hannah, but when I think about that, I can’t.
I watch Les Mis with Hannah and Peter until Jean Valjean sings, “Bring Him Home,” then I have to leave because I might cry.
Our words have made a maze of our friendship, and I’m starting to think there is no way back to the beginning. I go to my room, lie down on my bed, and stare at my fish.
“What’s your name?” I ask it.
She doesn’t respond, not that I expect her to.
12
Jesús balls up a piece of paper and throws it into the garbage with a grunt. I sit on the couch at HuggaMug, finishing my third iced soy mocha frap. My legs are shaking. It’s awesome. I can’t get enough. It’s like I’m on speed. Legal speed. I might do something impulsive at any minute, because I’m so hopped up on caffeine I can barely stand it. My whole body seems to scream, I love coffee! Jesús is so right. It brings you back to life. I am so alive right now.
“What is it?” Color asks him. She’s building a pyramid with to-go cups.
“Two words—‘senior statement.’”
“Ugh.” Color rolls her eyes dramatically.
“What’s a senior statement?” I ask. My heart is pounding so hard my shirt is actually moving.
“It’s like this stupid requirement all seniors have to do to graduate.”
“Be glad you don’t go to public school,” Color says.
“I actually miss high school.”
“Why? It’s torture,” Jesús says. “So many boys. So many boys who like girls.”
Color adds a cup to the stack. “Just wait until college.”
“I’m terrible at waiting,” Jesús says. “I need someone to froth my wand while I’m young. Where’s Moss when I need him? I’ve seen how he makes a latte.”
I’m actually glad Moss isn’t here. After the last time I saw him, I think avoidance might be the best option.
“Don’t miss high school, Esther,” Jesús says. “We’re the coolest thing at school anyway, and you’re already here with us.”
“What’s a senior statement?” I ask again.
“Oh, right. I have to write this ridiculous ‘statement.’” Jesús makes air quotes. “About my ‘truth.’” He makes air quotes again. “It’s like a protestation of life as we see it upon leaving high school. It’s supposed to”—he makes air quotes for a third time—“‘help guide our futures.’”
“‘That sucks.’” I put my words in air quotes because I’m high on caffeine, and it feels like it’s a funny thing to do in my head. Jesús laughs, so maybe I’m right.
“I mean, I don’t know what my truth is. And if this is living”—Jesús gestures around the shack—“working at a café that’s really just an old converted toolshed—kill me now.”
“What is truth anyway?” Color says, adding another cup to her pyramid. “It’s too esoteric a question. I mean, what is real, really?”
“Don’t go down this rabbit hole, Color.” Jesús shakes his head.
“Seriously, maybe this is all just one big mirage. Maybe this isn’t life at all. It’s just a play in our minds. We’re living in our mind’s world, thinking it’s really the world.”
“This is some Inception kind of shit you’re talking about,” Jesús says. “Stop watching that movie.”
“I love that movie,” Color says with a smile.
“Help me, mon chéri.” Jesús pretends to faint onto my lap. “Can I borrow your truth? No one will know.”
“I’m hiding out in a coffee shack. I’m not sure I have a truth.” My knees bounce and so does Jesús’s head.
The bell rings, and Jesús gets up to take a customer’s order.
“Welcome to HuggaMug; let me help you,” he says through the window.
I wish I could help him. But I’m the girl who got pregnant and hid it, who kept Amit secretly locked in my heart for no one to know. The truth is clearly not my specialty.
Jesús makes a double dry espresso and hands it to the person in the car. He asks the driver, “Is this world just a mirage?”
I hear her respond, “Well . . . we are in the desert.”
“You are a wise woman. Have a beautiful day.” When she’s gone, Jesús says, “She was no help.”
“It’s not due until the end of the year,” Color says. “You have time to find your truth.” Then her pyramid crumbles to the ground. She looks at me. “I knew it wouldn’t last. Everything crumbles.”
Color and Jesús pick up the fallen cups, but I’m so stuck on the couch in my geeked-out coffee haze that I can’t get up. I don’t know how I went fifteen years without this stuff. Life is simply better on coffee. That’s the truth.
As Color and Jesús collect the to-go cups from the ground, they glance at me over their shoulders and whisper in hushed giggles.
“What?” I say, getting self-conscious. They giggle some more. “What?”
“We have a question for you,” Jesús says.
“We covered this. I’
m not great with answers.”
“Oh, you know this answer,” he says. And then they turn around, Color with two cups over her chest like gigantic boobs, and Jesús holding one over his crotch. He swings the cup around. “We want to know about sex.”
“What?” I balk.
“Sex.” Jesús pokes Color in the side with his penis cup.
“You mean, you haven’t . . .”
Jesús puts the cup on his head now, like a crown, and walks toward me like a model. “Gay in a small town. Not happening anytime soon for me.” The cup falls from his head, and he catches it.
I eye Color, and she shakes her head. “I need love first.”
When she came to clean my house this week, Color told me more about her mom. How she was with their dad for two years, living in Scotland (hence Color’s red hair) because she’s a wanderer and can’t stay still for very long, and how it was wonderful for a while, but then it all fell apart. Just like her cup pyramid.
Her dad still lives in Scotland, but her mom brought her and Moss back to the States. He sends money every now and then, which is more than my dad does, and she thinks someday she’ll go overseas to visit him. And her mom still wanders. “She’s like the river,” Color said. “Always moving. My brother has a hard time with it. He’s actually like moss. He gets attached to things.” And the whole time Color was talking, I couldn’t tell if she was mad at her mom, or sad, or understanding on some level, because Color’s like a river, too.
Jesús kneels in front of me with big doe eyes and places his penis cup on my head.
“Tell us everything,” he says.
I hold the cup out to him. “I might need more coffee for this.”
Jesús makes me another iced soy mocha frap. I am never going to fit into the dress by Christmas, but I take a drink anyway, because fitting into a dress is overrated compared to coffee. At this point, I’d sacrifice a limb for my java.
“You mouthing that straw only makes the anticipation better,” Jesús says. I swat him in the arm.
Swirling my drink around, I say, “I guess it’s awkward at first.”
“Did it hurt?” Color blurts out.
The Infinite Pieces of Us Page 6
