Closer Than They Appear

by Jess Riley

  “No! Not true!”

  “And you had that ridiculous skater boy haircut, and those glasses. You were so cute and serious.”

  “I also liked Creed back then. Does that ruin everything?”

  She laughed, running her thumb over his knuckles. “Well, I smoked clove cigarettes and listened to a lot of Morrissey. I think we might be even.”

  Cindy was saying something to him.

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “I asked if you’re in for another round. We still have time to kill before the class.”

  She was right about most things, but Andrea had been so wrong about Jenny Sherman.

  Kia Rio, he suddenly thought. It felt like an incantation. Something you might say before you blow out your birthday candles or when the clock strikes 11:11. Make a wish.

  Harper

  HARPER’S PHONE RANG at three thirty on Sunday morning. Eyes still closed, she groped for it. She knew who it was without looking. “You have to stop calling me.”

  He didn’t say anything for a moment. “Then stop answering.”

  “This isn’t good for me.”

  “Yes it is. I’m always good for you. Can I come over?”

  Her body still ached for him, and she hated the fact that one of her first thoughts was whether her legs were too hairy to see him. “You’re drunk.”

  “No, I just miss you.”

  “You only miss me after bar time.”

  “I miss you all the time. Baby … come on.”

  It would be so easy to say yes. So easy to slip back into old habits. But then he called her “baby,” and she remembered why she’d stopped letting him come over in the middle of the night to begin with. “I’m sorry. I can’t do this anymore.” She hung up before she lost her nerve and hugged her body pillow close, which was a poor substitute for a human being with arms that could hug you back. She braced herself for the phone to ring again, but it didn’t, and she felt disappointed in herself for wanting it to, on some level. She laid awake the rest of the night, watching the apartment grow brighter as dawn approached. It was hard to say no when she felt like a tiny bean rattling around the place. But wasn’t it funny how something as simple as green eyes and a smile could remind you how much more there was, out there in the whole wide world?

  Natalie called Harper on Monday morning at 8:30 sharp and greeted her with, “It looks like we’re taking a trip to Disney World next year. Kill me now.”

  “Last week I couldn’t fall asleep because I had ‘Zip-a-dee-doo-dah’ playing on a loop in my head, but not just the song—it was the soundtrack for the Disney commercial from a few years ago where the kid says about his parents, all gee-shucks, ‘I’ll never get them out of here!’ Zip-a-dee-ay!”

  “That’s awful. Why would you remember something like that?”

  “I also know when Stephen Hawking’s birthday is. Wow, the traffic is horrid today.”

  “I would hate to be a pathogen that took a wrong turn and ended up in your brain. It must be terrifying in there.” There was the sound of water running, and Natalie covering the receiver to murmur No, you already had three today to one of her children. “So how was your weekend? Any late night calls from He Who Shan’t be Named?”

  Harper sighed heavily. The question felt like a cloud passing over the face of the sun.

  “You didn’t answer, did you?”

  Harper sighed again.

  “I’m not going to say anything, because I’ve already said it all before.”

  “I hung up on him.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes. And now I’m going to change the subject.”

  “Okay, what have you got?”

  Harper felt a swell of love and gratitude for Natalie. “Did I tell you Aunt Ginger found me a new client?”

  “Are they the broccoli lickers who pray to the Lord God Vegan?”

  “They’re really nice. Dick and Sally Westfield. You should see their house.”

  “Why, do they have more money than God?”

  “No, but almost as much as the Pope. When we had our first meeting Sally said she wanted my meals to be ‘the weirder the better! Expose us to new things. Seaweed for example!’”

  “Seaweed?”

  “And then her husband was like, ‘Probiotics, fermented foods, that thing that’s got the funny name.’”

  “Hu Flung Dung?”

  “Sometimes I really wonder about you.”

  “In my defense, I live with a six-year-old.”

  “He was talking about quinoa. And then his wife said, ‘Give us chia seeds, tempeh, and turmeric!’”

  “Give me liberty or give me death!”

  “And kale! They said, ‘Give us more kale than you can shake a stick at!’” Harper glanced to her right and froze. “He’s here!” She dropped her cell phone as if it had burst into flames; it tumbled to the passenger seat, and she could hear Natalie squawking: What? Who? What’s going on? Are you still there?

  To her right, in the dark blue company truck with the white lettering on the side. Giving her a crooked, sunny grin. Her stomach flipped and she felt herself break into a wide, ridiculous smile. Today he was wearing silver aviator sunglasses and a straw cowboy hat, which he tipped at her politely: “Ma’am.”

  I’m hanging up now, came a tinny voice from her cell phone. The light changed, but she hesitated before turning, until the car behind her honked. He laughed at this, and turned right. He lifted his left hand to her in farewell. His sleeve was pushed up, his forearm wrapped in a white bandage, and Monday morning suddenly looked better than you ever thought it could.

  “Hey, how did Healthy Classics go Saturday night?” Harper asked her professor after class. “I almost went, but my mom called and the next thing I knew we’d talked for over an hour and it was after eight.” This was true, but the real reason she didn’t go is that the only person who’d seemed remotely interested in going with her was a classmate named Serenity Wilson, and spending more than an hour with Serenity at a stretch always left Harper agitated, full of non-specific rage.

  “Well, other than some idiot setting his sleeve on fire, it wasn’t bad! Better turnout than last time.” Darla Clark (who had become more a friend than instructor to Harper) finished stuffing papers into her bag and shouldered it along with a purse as bulky and unwieldy as a trampoline.

  Harper felt her heart flutter. His forearm wrapped in a white bandage… It would be quite the coincidence, but he was on her mind, and increasingly so these days. “Was he cute? Or handsome? Maybe cute-handsome?”

  “The guy who set his sleeve on fire?”

  “Yes.”

  Darla considered this. “He was, now that you mention it. He looked like he could model for the Gorton’s fish stick box in about thirty years.” She turned off the classroom lights, and they walked together down the hall. “Oh, I wanted to ask how the personal chef thing is going.”

  “Pretty good,” Harper said, still smiling at the image of her pretend boyfriend modeling for fish sticks, all rugged in his cable-knit sweater and orange rain slicker overalls. It couldn’t have been him, but how fun to pretend it was! “Most of my clients are older, so I have to research their meals so there are no bad reactions with their prescriptions.”

  “Right. No grapefruit if they’re on lovastatin.”

  “And watch the Vitamin K if they’re on Coumadin.” She got into character and added, “No greens for you!” like the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld. Which was a real shame for those folks, since it was nearly peak season and she’d found a wonderful local farmer known for her chard and spinach.

  Darla chuckled. “Getting old. What a trip.”

  Zach

  “I DON’T THINK it went all that bad,” Cindy finally said to him. “Considering you set yourself on fire at the end of the night.” She began to sing and shimmy her hips: “Let me stand next to your fi-yah!”

  It was inventory time in the warehouse; only priming an entire pallet of toothpicks with tiny paintbrushes
would be more tedious. “Best date to end in fourth-degree burns ever!”

  “Well, don’t feel bad. Nicole told me yesterday she’s still technically married.”

  “What?!”

  “She’s separated. Getting a divorce, I guess.” Cindy finally stopped dancing and went back to her inventory spreadsheet. “God, do I hate bean-counting.” Inspiration struck and she started dancing again, this time singing, “Brass nipple! That stippled nipple! Brass nipple! And five, six, seven eight, step ball valve change!”

  Zach shook his head. Cindy was a nut, but she didn’t care one bit if anyone thought she was weird or zany, which made her cool, in her own nutty sort of way. It took him a few months to get used to her, but now he found her penchant to adapt song lyrics in answer to nearly any question endearing. “Guess I dodged a bullet there, huh?”

  “Yeah. Sorry about that. I probably won’t try to set you up with anyone again.”

  “Probably?”

  “The girl can’t help it, she’s just that way!”

  He groaned and wandered back to the gas connector section, past the pipe threaders and hose clamps, the bins of brass nipples and step ball valves. What was he doing working here? Earning a paycheck, sure, but could he do this for thirty more years? He looked around at the industrial shelving piled high with gaskets and fittings and PVC pipes of every imaginable size and length. The room smelled of rubber and solvents. He tried to imagine what his dream job would smell like: coffee, maybe. Beer. Coppertone sunscreen. The desert after it rained. Maybe he could find a job as a bartender at a swim-up bar somewhere in Arizona.

  At lunchtime, Cindy left with a few of the other warehouse schlubs to hit the Chinese buffet down the street. Zach sat at the grimy front desk with a chicken salad sandwich and flipped open the spiral notebook he sometimes scribbled ideas in at work. He winced as he accidentally smacked his bandaged forearm against the edge of the desk. Battle Scar Galactica, he absently thought, and began to write. When it was time to return to work, he had twelve pages written.

  Harper

  ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON Harper had a new client consultation at the home of Clarence and Ethel McKinnon. If they signed up for her personalized meal prep service, they would bring her total number of clients (most of whom were referred by Aunt Ginger, her senior connection) to fourteen. They would also be her oldest clients, at ninety-two and eighty-eight respectively, which made Harper more than a little nervous. But they turned out to be a young ninety-two and eighty-eight, still doing daily “calisthenics,” Clarence proudly pointed out, still taking regular walks around the neighborhood when the weather permitted. They greeted her at the door in friendly smiles, matching blue nylon track suits, and beige orthopedic shoes with Velcro closures. Harper immediately worried for Ethel, who was such a wisp the tailwind from a passing school bus could blow her into the next county.

  They lived in a quaint little house on the south side of town near the airport, one of those pocket-sized homes that you always marveled at when you drove by: “Entire families used to live there together in the 1950s!” It smelled like Pine-Sol and kitty litter inside, the newest appliance or piece of furniture purchased long before Kevin Bacon hit menopause, but things were clean and organized.

  “So why are you better’n Meals on Wheels?” Clarence asked, sitting across from her at the kitchen table. He pulled a handkerchief from a zippered pocket on his track suit and blew his nose. It made a honking sound. Ethel poured them all cups of chamomile tea and sat next to Harper. She smiled and gave Harper an encouraging nod.

  “First of all, my food is much better-tasting. And I cook you dinner any night you want.”

  “How much this gonna gouge me?” Clarence asked with a smile and a wink.

  Harper laughed, feeling her face go red. “It’s really not so bad. I charge fourteen dollars for a meal for two, which covers labor, delivery, and the cost of the raw ingredients, unless there’s a special request for something expensive or hard to get. If people prefer that I cook on-site, it’s twenty dollars.” She handed them her brochure, which included pricing and a sample menu heavy on creamed soups. “But I also do a discount for regular customers. The more you book, the more you save.” She winced as the last sentence came out. She sounded like an ad for a hotel rewards program. The more you save, the better you feel, so eat your beans at every meal!

  Ethel read the sample menu, a wistful look on her face. “Mexican Tortilla! I used to make soup every Saturday, and homemade bread. But not since Arthur started hanging around so much.”

  “Arthur?”

  “Her arthritis,” Clarence explained, rolling his eyes. “She talks about it like it’s her boyfriend.”

  “So … it says here your food philosophy is ‘seasonal, local, and organic.’” Ethel said. “That sounds pretty!”

  Harper nodded. “Yes. I have relationships with several area farmers, and all the eggs I use are from pastured chickens.”

  “Pastured chickens?”

  Harper’s blush deepened. “Basically, that means the chickens are free to run about the yard, eating grass and bugs and doing chicken-y things.” Chicken-y things?

  “In my day, all the chickens were pastured,” Clarence pointed out.

  “You sound like such an old fart when you say, ‘In my day,’” Ethel said, frowning. She affected a masculine tone and added, “Hey, you kids! Get off my lawn! Hey! I need someone to help me program the VCR!”

  “Bah,” Clarence said, making a sour face.

  She turned back to Harper, and nodded. “Cookie, go on.”

  “Okay, um, vegetarian is my specialty, but we can do grass-fed beef, wild-caught salmon, gluten-free, the Dr. Weil anti-inflammatory approach … I tailor everything to your specific medical—”

  “Who’s Dr. Weil?” Clarence asked. “Is he a real doctor? Does he work at Mercy?” He leaned back and pulled a reaching tool with a telescoping aluminum pole from behind the buffet, pointed it at Ethel, and pulled the trigger on the handle. The claw at the opposite end snapped open and shut, open and shut.

  “Would you get that thing outta my face?” Ethel batted it away and returned her attention to Harper. “Gluten-free. You hear a lot about that these days. Should we be doing gluten-free?” She looked worried.

  “Yes he is,” Harper said, “and no. I mean, I don’t think it would hurt. Doing gluten-free is up to you. It does make things more expensive. The only thing I don’t do is fad diets. It’s basically a common-sense approach to eating. Less processed foods and sugar, more fruits, veggies, whole grains—”

  “Can I still have bacon?” Clarence demanded, triggering the Nifty Nabber again. Click-click, click-click.

  She nodded, beginning to wonder if they’d flip a hot spotlight on her, maybe turn on a tape recorder. Vee haf veys of making you talk. “Well, maybe, but it depends—”

  “We can’t eat a lot of salt. Clarence has been on a low-sodium diet for years. And I have diverticulitis, so no small seeds. I can’t even have strawberry or raspberry jam. Can you imagine?”

  “Okay, the good news is that—” and that was when Clarence pushed his chair back with a squawk and shuffled out of the kitchen and into the attached garage. They heard the sound of a car door slamming, then the engine rumbling to life, and the garage door squeaking open. “Um, is Clarence leaving?”

  “Yes,” Ethel said, “he’s going to see a movie at the budget cinema.”

  Harper could barely hide her concern. “He still drives at night?”

  “Sure! But neither of us can eat popcorn, due to the diverticulitis.” At that point, an ancient, one-eyed Maltese with a severe under bite and brown stains around its muzzle limped over to sniff her legs. “Diamond, leave her alone,” Ethel shouted. “Go play with your silky. Go find your crispy. Get your ball! Where’s your ball?”

  Diamond looked up at Harper with a confused, cataract-filled eye, decided nothing interesting was afoot, and dottered off. She wasn’t so much a dog as an origami approximation of a d
og. “How old is she?” Harper asked politely.

  “Nearly nineteen. Blind and deaf, pees everywhere, but what can you do?”

  “We had a Cairn Terrier growing up. Lived to be eighteen. We named him Lazarus because he almost died as a puppy. He was such a character, but it did get hard at the end—” Clarence’s abrupt departure had thrown her, and now she was dangerously close to a conversation that included the words “incontinent” and “put to sleep” with an elderly client. She felt as if someone had blindfolded her and spun her near a piñata but when the blindfold came off she was standing at a podium in a ballroom packed with realtors.

  “Ginger’s your aunt?” Ethel asked her, kindly changing the subject.

  Harper nodded, still disoriented.

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Ethel said, leaning forward and lowering her voice. “but she’s kind of loose.”

  Harper laughed. “Well, I—”

  Ethel patted Harper’s hand. “Put us down for two meals a week. I’ll fill out your survey with our likes/dislikes, pills, and medical whatnot. Do you take a check, or should I PayPal you?”

  “You use PayPal?”

  “Oh sure! My daughter has an Etsy shop, and my grandson is a web-a-majigger. You’re on Pinterest, right? You really should get on there, if you’re not.”

  On the ride home from Clarence and Ethel’s house, Harper phoned Natalie for a debriefing.

  “So he just up and left? Right in the middle of your appointment?”

  “In his defense, The Hobbit was a pretty good movie.”

  “Eh. If you like wizards and men with hairy feet. Speaking of which, they told Brian that his job is being considered for outsourcing. It’s so nice to have something to look forward to.”

  “Oh my God, that’s awful! When will they tell you?”

  “I’m not sure. They crunch the numbers like this every two years, to see where they can trim the fat.”