by Paula Garner
For the first time in what felt like maybe ever, I kind of clung to my mom. She was there for me in ways she never had been, and I depended on her in ways I never had.
Together, we started looking for an apartment, but the places we saw were ugly boxes: square and carpeted and plain. I thought of Luke’s darling, idiosyncratic attic space. Would I ever get to visit him there again? It seemed unlikely, since he would be graduating soon. . . .
Over spring break I cat-sat Faustus while Gab sent me photos of herself at her top two East Coast contenders — Middlebury and Amherst.
Leila sent me pictures from their family vacation in Costa Rica. One in particular hit me in the heart, although I know she didn’t realize it. It was a picture of her and Garrett in front of a waterfall. Garrett was on her back, clinging tightly to her, a big grin on his face.
How that little boy loved his sister.
How lucky they were.
Eli was a comfort, in his way. At least he understood playing the hand you were dealt, even if it wasn’t the hand you would have chosen. He held his terrible job and worked his way toward the end of his great American novel. Late one night, he sent me a picture of Jay’s napkin obituary, which he’d framed and put up on his wall next to his mother’s. After, he texted me, You also are objectively better than most humans.
It made my eyes fill with tears. It was unlike Eli to say things like that. It was timely, as these days I mostly felt like a worthless, horrible person.
I went through the days in a numb fog, just trying to endure all the moments.
And then Gab came back from her trip to the East energized, organized, and galvanized. “Pack a bag,” she said by way of greeting when I answered her call. “I have a plan.”
“What is it?” I said. I was reading The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter, and I didn’t want to put it down.
“You’ll see.”
An hour later she showed up and packed a bag for me herself, since I still had my nose in my book, randomly picking clothes and toiletries and dropping them in. She dragged me out to the car.
“Are we getting Leila?” I asked as she backed out.
“Yup.”
“Just tell me what we’re doing.”
“Nope.”
We lassoed Leila, who had just gotten back from the airport and was tanned and glowing. She climbed into the backseat, and Gab headed down Kingston and then turned on Summit, slowing in front of our grade school. She parked and jumped out of the car. “Come on!”
Leila and I followed her past the magnolias in front of the school, not yet in bloom, past the mulberry trees, which had yet to stain the sidewalks with their inky berries, and behind the school to the playground, which, at 4:30 on a Saturday, was deserted. The old play structure had been replaced with a new one — plastic, neon orange and blue.
“Good,” Gab said, heading off to the right. “It’s still here.”
“The roundabout?” I asked.
“Get on,” Gab said, grabbing one of the bars on the rudimentary carousel and waiting.
“Why are we doing this?” I asked, climbing on after Leila.
Gab didn’t answer — she just held on to the bar and pushed.
“I’m probably going to puke,” I told her as she ran alongside, spinning us faster and faster. She finally let go, then stood back and waited for the right time to jump on. She launched herself after a couple of rotations, lurching to her knees, then pulling herself up and standing in the center, facing us. “Who remembers something that happened on this roundabout?”
“I showed you guys the note I got from Jake Herman in second grade,” Leila said, holding on to a bar with both hands as the world spun around us. The wind blew her hair into her face. “Where he told me I was pretty and if I wanted to be his girlfriend, I should wear a blue shirt the next day so he’d know the answer was yes.”
I smiled. I remembered that. Mostly I remember being jealous, wishing I were as pretty as Leila so boys would be smitten with me and give me notes.
“Excellent,” Gab said, turning her gaze to me. “Jules? Whatcha got?”
I sat down, wrapping both arms around a bar. “Fourth grade. I remember eating Wild Cherry Life Savers that Gab stole from Mrs. Silberman’s desk.”
“Yes.” Gab grinned, lowering herself to a seated position as the ride began to slow. “And I remember Jules crying because Mrs. Hall yelled at her for touching the glitter after she told everyone not to. We fantasized about egging her car and booby-trapping her front porch.”
“With a bucket of pig’s blood,” Leila added, “like in Carrie.”
Gab pulled a little bag out of her hoodie pocket.
“What’s that?” Leila’s voice was sharp.
Gab stuffed something into a little ivory-colored pipe.
“Where did you get that?” Leila demanded. “What, are you, like, hooking up with drug dealers now?”
“Ha. Been there, done that,” Gab said, pulling out a lighter.
I couldn’t help smiling at that. “Did you get that from Byron when we were there?”
“No, I just got it. It’s not like trying to find the lost ark of the fucking covenant. It’s not hard to get.”
“I’m not smoking that,” Leila said as Gab held the flame to the bowl and sucked on it until it glowed. Gab passed me the bowl, holding her smoke.
I hesitated because of Leila’s disapproval. And other things.
“Is pot really addictive?” I asked Gab, staring at the pipe. “Or is that just a scare tactic?”
“In my semi-professional opinion,” she said, breathing out the smoke at last, “you are in very little danger of becoming a pot addict.”
“But . . .”
“You’re not your parents, Jules,” she said softly. “And there is no gene for pot addiction that I’m aware of.” Gab took another hit, then tipped her head back and stared at the sky, which was darkening. She exhaled through pursed lips. “We three have experienced many rites of passage together. Getting high is another rite of passage. I think we should do it together. Besides . . .” She grinned. “It’s the perfect warm-up to our next stop.”
She held out the pipe to me, a question. I thought back to the day we went to Lawrence, how much pot Gab had smoked, and she was okay. I didn’t think one or two puffs would be the end of me. I took the pipe.
She peered over at it. “Is it still lit? Take a hit, let me see.”
Keeping my eyes far from Leila, I took a puff.
“Here,” Gab said, flicking the lighter and holding it over the bowl. “Try again.”
This time the weed crackled and lit up red. My throat burned. I tried to hold it, but I made it about a half second before I started coughing.
“That’s okay,” Gab said softly. “You’ll get it.”
I looked at Leila, who was watching us, arms crossed, leaning on the vertical bar behind her.
Gab turned to Leila. “Your rite of passage can be saying no drugs.”
“Shut up, Gab.”
The sharp edge to her tone caught at me. It made me sad. It worried me.
I glanced at the sky, which was now a dark gray. “I don’t think it’s so wrong to try pot, Leila,” I said. “It’s not worse than alcohol, I don’t think.”
“You drink, and that’s completely against the law,” Gab pointed out. “So even if you spend the rest of your life coloring inside the lines, you’re already an outlaw.” She turned to me. “Here, try again.”
I took another hit — a little less this time, so I was able to hold it. After a long moment, I let it out and lay flat on my back. Gab lay down next to me.
After a while, I said, “My head feels like there’s helium in it.”
“Cool,” Gab said. “Not everyone gets high the first time.”
I heard Leila shift. “I guess it’s true, I’m already an outlaw.”
Gab sat up and helped Leila take a hit. She did better than I did, holding it longer before coughing.
There wasn’t enoug
h room between bars for Leila to lie down next to us, so she lay the opposite way, tucking her head between ours, her feet facing the other direction. No one talked for a while. There was a rumble of thunder in the distance, and Gab started to laugh.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
“A thunderstorm is coming, and we’re out in the middle of an open area on a large metal structure.”
Leila snorted, and that started me up. Soon I was laughing so hard, I had to sit up. I crawled off the edge of the roundabout and pulled on the bar to spin it. I caught each bar as it came by, pushing them, rotating it faster. I went to jump back on and hit my head on one of the bars as I lost my footing and fell down, which made me laugh more. I crawled over to them and resumed my position, watching the sky spin above us.
“This is so cool,” Leila said.
Thunk. A huge drop of water hit my eye. A moment later, another hit my hand. “You guys? It’s raining.”
As it started coming down harder, none of us moved. We just lay there getting wet, still spinning slowly.
A loud crack of thunder nearby jerked us out of our stupor.
“Come on,” Gab said, rolling over and climbing off. “Let’s go to the play structure.”
We ran after her over the freshly laid mulch, which stank of manure and wet bark. As we got soaked with rain, the sky lit up. “Did you see that?” I called to them. “That lightning looked like a human skeleton! Did you see?”
Gab climbed up the wooden rungs and ducked under the roof of the encased portion of the structure, near the tube slide. We all squeezed in there, the rain needling off the plastic overhead.
“Anyone want another hit?” Gab yelled.
“I don’t think I need one,” I said.
Leila reached out her hand, and Gab held the lighter for her.
“Where are we going next?” I asked. It was getting darker, and the cracks of thunder seemed to get closer each time. “This better be about food.”
“Where was our favorite place to eat when we were younger?” Gab asked.
“Mario’s?” I asked. The sudden thought of hot, cheesy pizza made me ravenous.
“No, before that.”
“Taco Bell,” Leila said.
“Ding, ding, ding!” Gab said. “Next, we slay the munchies the way we did when we were ten.”
“Technically, we didn’t have the munchies when we were ten,” Leila said. “But, oh my God — I could go for some tacos. Or that new nacho burrito thing! With lots of sauce. And extra sour cream.”
So when the rain died down, Gab took our baked, hungry asses to Taco Bell, where we ate an embarrassing amount of fake Mexican food with about a thousand packets of sauces. The stubble-bearded slacker behind the counter side-eyed us the whole time. He could probably smell the weed.
“Our favorite movie in junior high: go!” Gab scooped some shredded cheese and diced tomatoes from a taco wrapper with her fingers and slurped them up.
“Pitch Perfect?” I asked.
Gab pointed at me with one hand and pointed to her nose with the other. “Next stop, Lou’s Quikmart for . . .” She looked at us expectantly.
Leila’s hand darted up, as if she were in a classroom. “SweeTarts!”
“And Peanut M&M’s,” I added.
“You guys are good at this,” Gab said, wiping her mouth and tossing her napkin down on her tray. “Let’s hit it.”
Half an hour later, Leila and I were cozied up in Gab’s basement, candy poured into bowls, movie cued up. Gab’s parents were out for the evening, which was convenient to the next part of her plan. She came down the stairs, holding out a green liquor bottle for us to inspect.
“Absinthe?” Leila said. “What’s that?”
I looked at the label, which featured a dreamy rendition of the “green fairy.” “It was really popular with artists and writers in the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds. Supposedly it brought, like, visions. Van Gogh and Oscar Wilde were big absinthe drinkers. I don’t know who else — Eli probably knows.” I took the bottle and examined it more closely. “I thought it was illegal.”
“Don’t know, don’t care,” Gab said, squeezing in between Leila and me.
I opened the bottle and sniffed. “It smells intense. Like medicine. But licorice-y. Holy shit, Gab, this is a hundred and twenty-three proof!”
Leila reached for the bottle. “Ooh, I like the smell.”
“I think you’re supposed to add water or sugar or something,” I said. “I could ask Eli.”
“Then we’d have to invite him over, wouldn’t we?” Gab said, pulling out her phone and opening a browser window. “No offense to Eli, but tonight is about us three.”
“Yeah, what is this, Gab?” I asked. “Is this, like, renewing our vows or something?”
She smiled. “Something like that.” She got up and sat on the coffee table so she could face us. “Here’s the thing. This fall, we’re all going our separate ways. We’ve never not been together. You guys have been one of the biggest parts of my entire life.”
A sinking feeling hit me. This day, this evening . . . it felt so good. I didn’t want to think about the future.
“Visiting that last round of schools,” Gab said. “It made it real. You know? We’re really going to be apart. We might only see each other a few times a year. It just — it hit me. Oh, Jules. Don’t cry — we’re going to be okay.”
I wiped my eyes. “It’s really going to happen, isn’t it.” It’s funny how you can know things without really understanding them.
“I know people don’t always stay friends forever,” Gab went on, “but losing you guys would be like losing a part of myself. I would not be okay, ever. So I’m hereby pledging thee my troth, both of you.” She reached for our hands. “Even if I sometimes do stupid shit that freaks you out or makes you mad.” This was addressed to Leila. “And even if I’m not always perfect about keeping in touch and reminding you guys that I love you. I do. Both of you. And I always will. Okay?”
She leaned forward for a group hug.
“I’ll always love you guys, too,” I said.
“Me, too,” Leila said.
“Now,” Gab said into our hair, “let’s have some absinthe.”
We tried to do it according to instructions we found online, but we didn’t have the right utensils or sugar cubes. So we just added some sugar and water, and it was pretty good. Gab liked it least, probably because she hated licorice. Leila and I liked the taste, though, and the high-proof thing was no joke. We were seriously buzzed after one glass.
“How much more do you think we’d have to drink to see the green fairy?” Gab asked, staring at the TV screen. “Do you think that’s really a thing?” We were watching the movie on mute, which wasn’t a problem because we knew the dialogue by heart.
“It’s probably a myth,” Leila said.
We fell into a companionable, buzzed silence. I examined an etched pink bowl from a side table, wondering if it was Depression glass. I was pretty sure it was — 1930s, then.
After a little while, Leila turned to me. “Hey. Any word on . . . ?” She let the sentence dangle, unfinished.
I shook my head.
“Have you heard from Luke at all?” Gab asked.
I shook my head again.
Leila sighed.
I glanced at her, puzzled. “What?”
“I don’t know,” Leila said, cringing a little. “It’s just . . . it’s pretty messed up, what happened.”
I realized, with a sinking feeling, what she was referring to.
“Hey,” Gab said to Leila. “Don’t do that.”
Leila glanced at me. “I’m sorry. I mean, I know you’re not technically related, but . . .” Leila shrugged. “I mean, that’s how he saw you.”
Why hadn’t Leila said any of this when I’d first told them what had happened? Were the pot and alcohol making her more honest? What else did she secretly think about me?
“Lei! Don’t judge her.” Gab put
a protective arm around me.
Leila said, “I’m not judging! I just can’t help thinking of it from Luke’s point of view.”
As her words stung me, Leila and Gab exchanged a tense glance. I felt bad that my stupid actions were causing friction between them, as if all the grief I’d caused myself wasn’t enough. I said, “Hey, could we maybe not talk about it? I just want to forget it ever happened.”
Gab jumped up. “I’m getting more absinthe.” She disappeared up the stairs.
Leila turned to me. “I’m sorry for the way that sounded. I’m really not judging you.”
Well, yes. She was. But I could never stay mad at either of them for very long. “Have you decided about college?” I asked her, changing the subject.
She leaned her head back on the sofa. “I think Michigan. It’s the biggest. I want a big pond. I want to disappear.”
“Beautiful girls can’t disappear, Leila. It’s one of the laws of the universe.”
“Well, then, I guess you can’t disappear, either.” She smiled at me.
When Gab came back with replenished drinks, she pushed in between us and sat down. She unmuted the TV, so we watched for a while, sipping our drinks.
“Can I tell you guys something?” Gab said. “About Byron?”
“Of course,” I said, turning to face her. I tucked my legs up and leaned against the arm of the sofa.
She stared at her lap. “The thing is . . . well, it wasn’t that great.”
My eyes met Leila’s, but she quickly looked away.
“Maybe he just wasn’t very good at it,” I said.
“He wasn’t,” Gab said. “It was kind of rushed and, I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t even . . .” She rolled her eyes. “You know. It was kind of a letdown.” She glanced down. “I was embarrassed to tell you.”
“Maybe you just weren’t into him,” Leila said. “I’m not being a priss, I swear, but when you do it with someone you’re really into, and they’re really into you, it’s different.”
I knew that was true — for me, anyway. My kiss with Luke, compared to every other kiss I’d ever had, was proof enough of that. But I didn’t want to talk about it. I was trying to forget my broken heart, not trample on it.
