The Girls' Almanac

by Emily Franklin

  Matt didn’t answer the question until later, when they were moored in the harbor, Sally’s Wish slapping the water every time a wake came their way. Justin grabbed two beers from the port-side icebox and handed one to Matt, who was up at the bow, leaning into the rail like the kid in that movie.

  “Hey, King of the World, take a breather,” Justin said so Matt would sit down. He did, letting his legs go loose on either side of the bowsprit.

  Matt pushed the sleeves of his T-shirt up and jerked his head back to get his hair out of his eyes. “It’s like—Lucy is the best. Everything I ever wanted,” he said.

  Justin didn’t say anything back, since Matt had a tendency to trail off and then pick up talking again. Matt sipped his drink, wiping the bottle’s condensation with his palms and slicking his hair back for good. Justin thought his friend looked younger that way, like he had in the autumns when they’d returned to school freshly shorn. They’d first met when they were both fifteen, caddying for the summer at Oyster Harbors, and sometimes it still felt the same, except taller.

  “Lucy.” Matt said her name and then turned around so he faced Justin, his back to the water. “It’s so good with her that I wonder if maybe I’m missing something.”

  “You mean too good?” Justin asked.

  “Yeah. Something like that. It’s no work—and I guess until now all my relationships or whatever have required at least some effort.”

  Matt’s an organic farmer and sometimes when he speaks—whether it’s about women or about which bar to go to on a given night—he sounds like he’s tending crops.

  “Who knows?” Justin said. “But I bet Lucy isn’t the kind of girl who’ll stick around if you do fuck up.”

  “Oh yeah?” Matt stood up and looked down to the water. “And you think you know this better than I do?”

  “Did I say that?” Justin asked. Then, the way they usually did when they were about to get pissed off with each other, they started their game.

  “Hello!” Matt wide-smiled out to an invisible, water-bound audience. “And welcome to The Justin and Matt Show!”

  “Hi, folks. I’m Justin, the smart one. This here’s Matt.” Justin thumbed to him and stood up. “Matt’s the dumb-ass who has never been faithful to anyone in his life! Watch as he skillfully fucks up yet another relationship! See the way he lets Lucy down like Bryn, Kelly, and Melissa before her! Hear the crying—experience the surround-sound sobs. Witness the drinking jags. But watch your shoes, folks—this could get messy.”

  “Or—take a look at Justin.” Matt held on to the rail as a Boston Whaler ignored the speed limit and produced a large wake that made the boat roll. “Could Justin be any nicer? Probably not! But—could he be any more of a mooch? A grand life-loser? I don’t think so!”

  They continued on like this as they went into the galley to slap some sandwiches together before they were due to be onshore to meet some friends of Justin’s at Dories Cove, where the shore angling was as good as at the breakwater. They’d toss live eels or big swimmers in at night, since dark fishing worked best that time of year; there was already too much action in the daylight. The summer crowds were filtering in on the ferry, traffic from the dock up into town already worse than a week ago, the beaches dotted with khaki-clad men and their bright-sweatered spouses city-breaking for the weekends.

  Matt knifed some cheddar from the plastic-wrapped hunk on the counter and ate it as he waved his free hand toward Justin as if he was a new car or a museum exhibit and said, “Justin is the perfect example of what happens when motivation doesn’t just fade but completely dies.”

  Justin rolled up some turkey and shoved it into the gaping pita bread mouth in his hands. “At least I treat women well,” he said.

  “See, folks, he can’t even defend his ineptitude for job or life stability!”

  “Thanks for joining us for our brief but enlightening show today!” Justin said. “Tune in next week, when we discuss how many times Matt has been treated at the STD clinic.”

  “And for our in-depth interview with Justin, world champion couch surfer and least likely to plan for retirement, since—let’s all say it together now—he already is retired!” Matt added, winking at the pretend camera.

  What was great about having known Matt so long, though, Justin thought, was how they could go right from the game into easy conversation about sea depth and the upkeep of wooden boats as they rode in the inflatable and motored to shore. Justin carried the tackle box, and they both had their rods. Matt was barefoot still, and Justin looked at his friend’s feet propped up on the side of the boat; Matt still had a toe ring from the trip they’d taken to Spain after college, but his feet had grown so the silver loop slid just over the nail of his second toe. Justin waited for Matt to catch up; then they walked up Water Street into town before catching a shuttle out to the other side of the island, where friends sat around drinking Bud and smoking Salems.

  None of them talked much while they waited for the sun to go down. They watched the water shift with the wind, and Justin silently replayed what Matt had said during the game. The Justin and Matt Show had started around sophomore year of high school, when they’d both been busted for drinking in the dorms and, later, for taking the school golf carts out and playing dodgem in the quad. While they’d waited in the headmaster’s office for their punishment, they’d acted out their story to an unseen camera, and from then on, they’d brought out The Show when one suspected the other of being an idiot, or if it were obvious to both. Today had been different, though, since it wasn’t a particular incident they’d poked fun at—more a general critique of each other’s lives, and Justin wondered if the nature of the jabs had changed for good.

  Justin’s island friends were over by the waterline, prodding at the dark patches of sand with driftwood, halfheartedly digging for clams, when the sun finally sank. Matt stood on a big rock by the jetty, balancing with his feet as he kept his hands pocketed.

  “Hey—lonely guy on the rock—are you fishing or what?” Justin asked.

  Matt shrugged and motioned for him to come over. “I think I’m going to head back to town and call Lucy,” he said.

  “Why don’t you stay for a little while, and then I’ll go with you?” Justin asked. Over at the shore they’d already reeled in three striped bass and set the fish, puff-gilled and panicked, in an empty cooler.

  “Don’t bother.” Matt shook his head. “I’ll walk to town and call, then just hitch a ride back to the boat.”

  “Don’t do anything stupid, like run aground or something,” Justin said. He watched the boat during the off-season, living rent-free on Sally’s Wish in return for maintenance and brass polishing for Sanders Pirth, a New Yorker who came to the island only twice a season, when Justin vacated his boat and stayed with friends on land or went to see his daughterless father in Connecticut.

  “I have no intention of doing anything other than talking to my lovely fiancée and then drinking myself to sleep in my tiny berth,” he said, “while you get the captain’s quarters.”

  “Yep,” Justin said. “Well, I’ll see you back there. Tell Lucy I said hi.”

  Lucy was a watertight example of what Matt had pointed out: Justin suffered from his own hesitancy to pursue anything fervently. Justin pictured Matt forgetting to send Lucy a hello and then felt annoyed with himself that Matt had made a move on Lucy before Justin had even come to terms with his desire for her. Maybe that was part of the problem: Justin’s pace was glacial; often by the time he realized what he felt within a moment—a confrontation or flirting or potential career interaction—the slice of minutes had passed and he was right back where he started, with only the dim notion that he’d failed himself.

  Matt loped off onto the paved road to call Lucy, and Justin could see him walk with his arms outstretched, touching the soft reeds that grew tall at the ocean side of the tarmac. Justin headed out to the water to see what there was to catch.

  “Where’d your buddy go?” Flinch asked. He wa
s a year-rounder and was nice enough to Matt, tolerant, but didn’t trust anyone who devoted himself to land as opposed to the sea.

  “To call his fiancée,” Justin said. “Back in town.”

  Flinch nudged Mark, and they laughed. “Bet he goes back to the Pier,” Flinch said.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Oh, Mr. Innocent over here.” Mark gestured to Justin with his head as he fished.

  “What do you mean?” Justin said. Under his feet, the wet sand gritted and slipped between his toes each time a wave moved in and back.

  “You’re telling me you didn’t see your buddy there—Matt—with Heather by the bathroom last night?”

  Justin shook his head. Heather was one of the Beautiful but Damaged girls who periodically showed up on the island—sometimes staying for a year, other times a season or only a month. Heather had already moved to Block Island when Justin had landed the boat job. She ran a pottery studio in town and never dated anybody, even though they had all tried their luck at some point.

  “Everybody else saw them,” Flinch said, his lips wet. “They put on a fuckin’ show back there.”

  “Yeah,” Mark said. “If I was him, I’d be going back for more of that. Never mind calling home.”

  When they got back into town, one of the guys came down to the dock and ferried Justin back to Sally’s Wish. Justin put the tackle and gear on the deck before he stood and pulled himself up to the railing. He used the head and then brushed his teeth before going down to the crew’s quarters to find Matt, who was passed out in his bunk snoring; Justin didn’t wake him to ask whether he’d talked to Lucy or gone home with Heather or both.

  Up early the next morning, before Matt was awake, Justin took the inflatable to shore to stock up on food and beer. Heather was by the checkout, and when he slumped the case of Sam Adams up on the counter, she gave him a quiet hello and stood there watching the grocer print each item on the charge slip before asking where his friend was.

  “Back at the boat,” Justin said. He thought again about Lucy, her wide mouth he’d never had the luck or motivation to kiss.

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, maybe I’ll see you both later. I’ll be at the Pier tonight—or you could come by the studio.” She twisted her hair up so it stayed off her neck, and Justin thought if Matt were there, he’d have reached over to touch the stray bits that came free, an admission of guilt.

  “Maybe,” Justin said.

  He loaded the groceries into the boat and started the motor before noticing that Sally’s Wish wasn’t on her mooring. Justin said “fuck” a bunch of times before he cut the engine and went to the dock house, where Flinch, who was part-time master there, sat reading the paper. He tried calling Sally’s Wish on the radio but didn’t get an answer, so he got someone to cover the harbor and came with Justin in the inflatable to look around Grace’s Cove and in the shallows behind Marsh’s Landing, where the stripers are plentiful.

  He imagined The Justin and Matt Show that would come of this morning—how Matt had probably grounded the boat or broken the anchor chain and was drifting at the current’s mercy. Justin had a vision of Matt sitting on top of the captain’s house staring out at the sea with a beer in hand, tipping his hat when he saw Justin approaching in the still water by the shore as if nothing had happened, and all the fuss had been fake.

  Instead, when he saw Sally’s Wish, properly set on a public mooring, Justin knew something wasn’t right. He and Flinch rounded the cove side and could see Matt’s rod and reel dangling from the railing, and just make out something beneath the surface. Justin waited for Matt to flip up from the sea, talking in his exaggerated show voice, but instead Matt was waterlogged, flesh pouched and nearly the color of the reeds he was tangled in. With Justin spotting him in case he got stuck, Flinch dove in. He hefted Matt’s body up to Justin, where it landed with a squelch on his chest, heavy and loose. There wasn’t even any point in calling for help; Matt’d been down so long, and they motored back with Matt slumped over onto Justin’s lap until they reached the shore, by which point a small crowd had gathered.

  Justin’s hand cupped Matt’s shoulder, and after a moment he realized he was pawing at Matt, trying still for some response. This was different than when he’d watched his sister go—she’d been half out of life for so long that her demise felt more as if she’d seeped away. He made his hand rest on Matt’s wet, wrinkled shirt and tried to remember his calling card number; he would have to call Lucy.

  Justin could see Heather off to one side of the dock, watching as an ambulance crew stretchered the body to the vehicle and left Justin there with Flinch, both of them soaked and shaken. Two of the other guys went back to bring Sally’s Wish over to the harbor, and Justin went to the pay phones to call Lucy. He dialed the numbers and stared at the tiny metal squares on the phone’s face.

  Aware that he was in shock, and that this might explain why he wasn’t crying, Justin thought about what Matt had said and how maybe it was time for him to find a home, even if it meant paying rent or owning furniture. He thought about senior year of high school in the dorms and how Matt had lied for him, saying whatever Justin had done was Matt’s fault so Justin wouldn’t get kicked out for his third offense. Then Justin heard Lucy’s voice and thought he might be sick. Matt was gone. He could taste ocean water in his mouth, the imprint of Matt’s dead back was still watermarked on his shirt, and he kept on having to swallow as he told her what had happened. He thought of saying “I have no best friend” and tried out the sentence in his head as Lucy turned down the music where she was so she could hear Justin. Instead, as Lucy asked again, “What, what happened?” Justin offered up the obituary this way: “You can’t marry Matt.”

  Back at the beach, the local police were shooing people away to their day jobs, telling folks that the show was over and, more than once, insisting it was time for Justin to speak on record, to come to the station and file a report.

  The Math of the Fourth Child

  At the Purple Room tea is a spread of cheeses ranging from comforting, known Brie to the less familiar though creamier Pierre Robert. To accompany the dairy products are crackers shaped like butterflies, reminders of the reason for the party: the three-year-olds left upstairs with babysitters as the parents mingle and confer about preschool progress. While pecking at hors d’oeuvres, parents offer grins and hellos, sidling up to the teachers to ask about their toddlers’ first six weeks of school: finesse at the manipulatives table, where puzzles and beads work the fine motors; circle time, where early ADHD symptoms might be in question; storytime attentiveness tested; dramatic play, with its shawls and fake kitchens, stoves that don’t heat, doll babies that can be skull-dropped and picked up unchanged.

  Gabrielle has her tiny soy and broccoli nuggets plated alongside other baby vegetables; slim carrots, zucchini slices, knobby cauliflower, testimony to the healthy eating habits the parents, as a collective, try to encourage, though they often give in, offering up fries and chicken fingers. Laura, whose name Gabrielle knows only from the rectangular sticker tag, inquires about Gabrielle’s child—if he is the one who asks daily to hug her daughter, Grace.

  “Yes, that’d be Danny.” Gabrielle sips at the carbonated water, scans the room for someone, the husband she does not have. She has brought, instead, Danny’s ailing father, her ailing father, Randall, the kind-faced hospitalist who is cornered at these events with talk of ears, conjunctivitis, sleep issues. Gabrielle tries to explain her boy’s hugs. “Danny’s very—you know—he likes to touch people.” All the chatter out of context sounds off, inappropriate somehow, but Laura only nods.

  “He seems very sweet.” She inserts a small square of brownie into her mouth, then apologizes for it. “I didn’t have any dinner.” Excuses for eating the desserts on offer constitute half of the mothering population’s conversation, Gabrielle notes, dismayed. She is determined to eat full meals with Danny.

  “No, no, eat away—they’re good. I would, but I’m allergic to wa
lnuts.” Gabrielle adds this last part even though she’s sure only about peanuts. Not all nuts. Not legumes—probably not, the RAST tests were inconclusive.

  This comment is all it takes to spur on talk of pediatric food issues, safety. “Is Danny allergic, too?” Laura asks. She tucks a sprig of her curly yellow hair behind an ear, where it refuses to stay. Gabrielle understands why Danny wants to touch Grace, Laura’s daughter, who has the same hair. It looks so soft and enveloping. Then she remembers Laura is waiting for Danny’s allergy report.

  “I…we…don’t know…” Gabrielle pauses, knowing the we is misleading—Danny is not her son, not her stepson. What is he, in fact? “We—I mean, my father and I—we thought he was fine, but then Danny went into anaphylactic shock, actually, a couple of weeks ago…”

  To Gabrielle’s relief, Laura skips over the whose father is whose issue and just gasps. This is among the worst scenarios she can imagine. “God—what did you do?”

  Gabrielle has instant guilt that the severity of Danny’s allergic reaction has deflected questions regarding her parental status. She does not have to explain that Danny is her father’s boy, her half brother, younger by three decades, whom she now treats as her own son. She does not have to mention Randall’s relapse, Diane, the wife who left him with a ten-month-old and poor prognosis.

  Gabrielle tells Laura the abbreviated story of Danny’s shock, the coincidental visit to the pediatrician’s office, how the hives started on Danny’s neck, spread to his belly, legs, the lips enlarged, eyes completely red, Dr. Dellosa’s yell for epinephrine, the ER visit. She has told the details enough times now (to Randall, to the ER docs, to school, playgroup) that compressing the tale is easy. The pattern then is sympathetic nod, worried exchange of “hopefully not again,” and a quick show of the EpiPen Jr. as proof Gabrielle’s got the situation under control.

  Gabrielle switches the topic the way she does when her obstetric patients—or anyone, she has realized—gets too personal. She is a master at guiding the conversation away from herself, investigating someone else. She says to Laura, “So—how many kids do you have?”