How Many Letters Are In Goodbye?

by Yvonne Cassidy

  Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it. Fuck it.

  It’s such bullshit, you know? I can’t believe these people. They’re so fucking obvious when they say no, the way they all look at where my arm should be, instead of my face. Even that kip of a diner with the “Help Wanted” sign in the window for a dishwasher said no. And every time someone else says no I can hear Aunt Ruth’s voice in my head, during one of our arguments about the prosthetic, saying how the only people who go without them in this country are street people and I don’t want everyone to think I’m one of them.

  And now I am one of them and everyone knows it, and that’s the real reason none of these people will even give me a chance when I say I’ll work twice as hard as anyone else, work for free even, so they can see how quick I am at bussing tables and setting them up again or doing dishes or mopping floors or cleaning toilets or anything that will mean I’ll be able to eat.

  The absolute worst is that guy in the Irish pub, the one from Galway, who keeps me talking for twenty minutes, but when I ask about a job he just shakes his head and goes, “Ah no, love, we’re grand at the moment.”

  Fuck him. Fuck them. Fuck this. Fuck you.

  I’m sorry for all the cursing. I am. It’s just, I don’t know, this stuff is hard and the rain makes it so much harder. Earlier, I was thinking it must be miserable to be homeless in Ireland, with all the rain, but I never really saw too many homeless people at home, none in Rush anyway, maybe the odd person on O’Connell Street. New York rain is worse than Irish rain anyway, it’s so heavy, you end up sloshing through water up to your shins when you cross the street. My Champion hoody is drenched, even through my jacket, and it feels like it’ll never dry. I wish I had a raincoat with me, an umbrella. You see loads of people using black plastic bags to cover themselves and their trolleys, I even saw a guy with Duane Reade shopping bags tied around his feet. My Docs don’t let in the rain much but even if they did, there’s no way I’d do that, just like I wouldn’t put a black plastic bag over myself because if you do that, everyone knows you’re homeless.

  I keep obsessing about how much money I have left, how many pizza slices it is, if I can afford to do laundry. The soap and stuff cost more than I thought—with tax it came to $7.11 for a bar of Irish Spring soap, a plastic soap container, and a roll-on deodorant. The cheapest shampoo was $2.99 and I decided that the soap was better because it can do both because I only have fuzz anyway. I took ages deciding between the bar soap and the liquid soap. Liquid soap was $1.99, which was cheaper than the bar soap and plastic container put together, and it’d be nicer for my head. But it was only fourteen fluid ounces and I think the most it would last is two weeks, whereas the bar soap will last longer and the plastic container is an investment because next time I’ll only have to buy the bar soap which is 79 cents. Working it all out in my head makes me think about Cooper, because he was always going on about investments and financial planning—it was the only time he was really happy, I think, when he talked about money.

  Apart from the time when he was planning our trip to Montana.

  He drove Laurie mad then, going around the house all the time in his Stetson. She always walked out of the room when he came in wearing it, but I thought it was kind of funny. Other than Cooper, I was the only one who was excited that we were going to Montana—Aunt Ruth wanted to go to Paris and Laurie wanted to go to Hawaii. I wanted to go to New York but I didn’t mind Montana either and, anyway, apart from the time I went to Sligo with Lisa’s family when her brother got sick in the car, I’d never been on holiday. Dad always said with the shop it was impossible to get away.

  For weeks, every night over dinner, Cooper talks about Montana and our forefathers on the frontiers and how it’ll be great to get away from urban sprawl and back to nature. Aunt Ruth asks about the bears and whether there’s a phone that works. Laurie mostly ignores him, but when she does say anything it’s about learning to surf properly and that she can’t do that in Montana.

  By then, we don’t hate each other anymore, Laurie and me. It’s the middle part, in between not hating each other but not being friends yet either. At home, we talk sometimes, even laugh sometimes, but in school and at soccer, we ignore each other unless we’re forced to talk. She’s mad at me because I don’t take her side about the Hawaii thing. She’s convinced that Cooper’s bringing us to some bumfuck town in the middle of nowhere to keep her away from boys, and I think maybe she’s right.

  To get to Montana we fly from Fort Lauderdale to Atlanta, Atlanta to Salt Lake City, and Salt Lake City to a town called Billings. Laurie says we could have flown to Hawaii in half the time and Aunt Ruth is scared on the last plane because it is so small. After all that flying, we’re still not there and a man comes to collect us in a van to take us on a three-hour drive to the ranch. We stop at a Walmart in case we need anything because the closest store is ninety minutes away.

  “Back to nature!” Cooper says, and heads towards the wine section.

  Looking back, it’s obvious that Laurie and me would be sharing a room, but I don’t think either of us had thought about that, I know I hadn’t. It’s only when we’re at the lodge and the lady opens the door to one room and hands the key to me and goes “that’s for you girls” and heads to the end of the balcony to show Aunt Ruth and Cooper their room, that I realise. Inside the room, everything is made of logs—the wardrobe and the desk and even the two single beds—and when I turn to Laurie she’s standing in the doorway sucking on a strand of her hair.

  “There’s no TV?” she goes. “Is he fucking kidding? What do people do around here without a TV?”

  We find out that night over dinner that what people do is go horse riding, and there’s this whole argument then about me not being covered by the ranch’s insurance and that they should have known in advance that there was someone with a disability in our group. They say that word seven times—“disability”—Cooper says it three times and the ranch owner says it four. I try and tell them about the horses I rode before on the beach in Rush but no one listens. Dinner is homemade lasagne and salad and mashed garlic potatoes and you can go up for more and I go up three times while the conversation about insurance is going on. The lady tells me to save some room for their desserts, but she says it nicely, not in a mean way. Outside the window, you can see the tops of pine trees, all the way into the valley, and I listen to the ranch owner’s wife at the next table telling an old couple about the bear cubs she saw earlier in the year.

  The next morning, I get up at six a.m. when it’s still really cold and there’s pink in the sky over the mountain. There’s only one horse in the paddock, a light brown one with a white stripe along her nose. She’s friendly, she lets me pet her and stays near the fence so I can use it to climb up onto her back. I walk around the paddock on her a few times and that’s what I’m doing when Bill, the wrangler, comes out of the stables and sees me. At first he looks mad, but then he smiles and calls the rest of the wranglers out to see. I’ve left my prosthetic in the room—I don’t know how to do it with that, only the way I learned at home, slightly tilting over to one side, holding onto the mane with my hand—and they’ve probably never seen someone with only one arm riding a horse before because they all start to clap.

  My horse’s name is Heather and they say it’s okay if I ride her, so long as Cooper signs a waiver and I use a saddle, stirrups, and reins. Laurie’s horse is a girl too, called Snowdrop, and Cooper is on a big black horse called Jackson. Aunt Ruth had made this whole big deal about keeping me company and I don’t think she’s pleased that they’ll let me ride after all, because even as Bill and Jamie are helping her onto a piebald called Apache she’s still asking questions about insurance. She looks scared in the beginning, every time Apache moves, but they keep her up front, in between Bill and me, and she’s getting the hang of it by the time we turn around to come home, so it’s a pity that she drops out the next day to look after Cooper, who hurt his back.<
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  I’m not going to go through every little detail about the holiday, Mum, even though I want to tell you about the bear-claw marks we find on the bark of the tree, and the picnic at the very top of the mountain the day we go hiking, and about the water of the Boulder River that’s cold as liquid ice the morning I dip myself into it.

  What I want to tell you about is the last night.

  They always have a camp fire on the last night. You can probably picture it. You know in the country how it gets so dark that everything is just shades of black and lighter black? Well, it’s like that—the lighter black is the sky and the darker black is the mountain and the trunks of the trees. You can only see parts of people’s faces, lit up by the fire, the other parts are in shadow. Every time someone throws on wood and the flames jump up, you can see more people and the trees behind and sometimes there’s sparks of fire in the air that float until they burn out. After the food, Bill takes out a harmonica and the singing starts and that’s when Jamie comes over and hands a flask of something to Laurie.

  Jamie’s the youngest wrangler and he’s kind of cute in his cowboy outfit, like a kid dressing up, except he’s not dressing up because he’s from Idaho and that’s how they dress there. I knew from the beginning that he liked Laurie. She passes me the flask and I drink some and it’s not as bad as I think it’s going to be. It burns a bit but there’s something sweet in there too—an orange taste. It’s easy to drink in the dark and we pass it back and forth, smiling a bit at our secret, and every now and then Cooper tips his Stetson at us.

  I don’t know what time it is when the singing is over and we all walk back through the woods with only a few beams of torch lighting the way, but I remember me and Laurie bursting out laughing every time Aunt Ruth gets jumpy when she hears a noise in case it’s a bear or a mountain lion. And back in the room, we’re still laughing, but it’s more awkward then, with the bright light and only the two of us, so we don’t talk properly until it’s dark again with me in my log bed next to the window and Laurie in hers next to the door.

  “Oh my God, I can’t wait for Dad to get rid of that hat,” she goes. “He’ll have to tomorrow, when we leave.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  “He’s super embarrassing. I swear I wanted this mountain to open up and swallow me up when he started singing tonight.”

  “ ‘Home, home on the range … ’ ” I sing, making myself sound like Cooper.

  “Stop it! Please! I’m sure Bill and Jamie think he’s such an asshole.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I’m sure they do. It’s okay, by the way, I know you think he’s an asshole too.”

  I don’t know how to answer that, so I roll over. The curtains are open, like we agreed to leave them on the first night because the only thing out there is mountain and trees and stars. But tonight the stars are hiding behind the clouds.

  From the bed across the room, Laurie starts to giggle.

  “What’s so funny?” I go. She tries to answer me but she’s laughing too hard, really cracking up. Finally, she gets some words out. “I was just thinking of Dad shaking Jamie’s hand, saying what an upright young man he is.” She giggles again. “Not like the young people in the city who only care about going out and partying.”

  I start to laugh too, roll back to face her. “Imagine if he knew. What was in that flask anyway?”

  “I don’t know, but it was super strong,” Laurie says. “I think he had a whole plan worked out to get me drunk. He asked me on the way back which room was ours.”

  “Did he?” I don’t know why it shocks me so much to hear that, but it does. “Did you tell him?”

  “No,” Laurie goes, “I told him about Mike—that I have a boyfriend. Don’t worry, we won’t be getting any company.”

  There’s silence for a second and I wonder if she’d have asked me first. What I would have done if Jamie did show up at the door.

  “If it hadn’t been for Mike, would you have? I mean, do you like him?”

  I’ve never asked her anything like that before, we don’t talk about that kind of stuff. She makes me wait before she answers.

  “I don’t know. Maybe,” she says. “He’s cute, don’t you think?”

  “I suppose.”

  “I mean, here, he’s cute. If you took him home, like brought him to school, he’d just look weird.”

  “Yeah,” I go. “Imagine him getting on the school bus in his cowboy outfit.”

  I think she’s going to laugh again, but instead she says something else. “Maybe I should’ve said he could come over. Mike’s not here. He’d never know. Anyway, I’d only make out with Jamie or whatever, I wouldn’t do anything else.”

  I want to ask her about the “anything else.” She’s a year younger than me but I bet she’s done more than I have.

  “Mmmmm,” I say instead.

  There’s silence for a bit then but I know she’s not asleep yet, her breathing hasn’t changed.

  “So, have you slept with Mike?”

  I launch the words out, like a missile into the dark. I don’t know why I want to know, but I do. I’m glad that she can’t see me. I hear her breathe in before she answers.

  “No,” she goes. “But I might, later in the summer. I’ve let him get to third base.”

  I don’t know what these American bases mean, but I can probably work it out. I’m afraid she’ll ask me something next but she keeps talking.

  “Tanya let Chris Trifiro go all the way and she said it was overrated. That it hurt more than anything else.”

  “Yeah,” I go. “I’d say it would.”

  I say that on purpose, to let her know I haven’t done it without her having to ask, but she asks anyway.

  “You’ve never done it with anyone?”

  “No.”

  “No one back in Ireland?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  I shrug, even though she can’t see me. “I don’t know, I think you’ve got to like someone a lot to do it, you know, love them a bit.”

  “Was there anyone you wanted to do it with in Ireland?”

  “No.”

  “So, you’ve never loved anyone? Like, been in love, I mean?”

  The question catches me off guard and I take too long to answer. Laurie hears the pause.

  “There was someone! Who? Tell me!”

  “There’s no one.”

  “Rae, I can tell when you’re lying. Come on, I was honest with you, it’s not fair if you don’t tell me.”

  I lie there, breathing.

  “I thought we were starting to be friends, Rae, but we can’t be friends if you don’t trust me.”

  “I do trust you!” I don’t know if I do or not but right then it seems like the right thing to say.

  “Well, then? Who is he?”

  “No one. There is no ‘he,’ Laurie, I’m telling you.”

  That’s the end of it, I think it is, but I don’t count on what she’s going to say next.

  “Is there a ‘she’?”

  In the dark, I’m wondering if I heard her right, if she really said what I think she did. I’m trying to figure out how to answer, but she speaks next.

  “It is a girl, isn’t it? I knew it! I don’t care, it’s no big deal, loads of people have girl crushes.”

  Girl crushes. I’ve never heard that before. I want to ask her how she knew, but saying that, saying anything, would let her know she’s right.

  “Come on, Rae, tell me something about her. What’s her name?”

  And I don’t know if I want to tell her then, but it’s more like I need to tell her. I need to tell someone.

  “Nicole.”

  I can barely hear my voice over the bam bam of my heart.

  “Nicole? Nicole what?”

  “Gleeson.
”

  “Nicole Gleeson.”

  Laurie says it slowly, like it’s the name of a film star. I’m in Montana, thousands of miles away from Rush, but I’m on the 33 as well, with Nicole’s leg pushed up against mine.

  “What does she look like?” Laurie goes.

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Is she gorgeous? I bet she’s gorgeous.”

  It feels weird, the question, and I don’t know how to answer, so I don’t.

  “Is she dark? Like you?”

  I’m about to tell Laurie that Nicole has blonde hair, but something stops me, makes me lie.

  “Yeah, she’s dark.”

  “Do you have a photo of her? Back at home? You can show me, if you want.”

  My school annual is under my bed with a class photo where Nicole is a blur of black and white, but the real photos are in my head.

  “No,” I go. “I don’t have any.”

  She doesn’t say anything after that and I don’t either. I’m lying there thinking about Nicole. After ages, Laurie talks again.

  “In case you’re worried about me telling anyone you’re a lesbian, I won’t, okay?”

  The matter-of-fact way she says it sends a jolt through me.

  “Shut up, I’m not a lesbian!”

  “Rae, you just told me—”

  I can’t let her finish her sentence, can’t let her say that word again.

  “Don’t ever say that, Laurie, I’m serious.”

  “Okay,” she goes. “Okay.”

  “You were the one who said loads of people had girl crushes, it doesn’t make them all, all—lesbians.”

  I say it low, in case the family next door can hear through the log wall, in case Aunt Ruth and Cooper can, all the way from the end of the hallway.

  “Whatever,” Laurie goes. “Whatever, Rae. Whatever you say.”

  She doesn’t say anything else about it, not that night, even though we both lie awake for what seems like hours, and she doesn’t say anything in the morning when we’re packing or on the journey back to Florida. And I wonder if maybe she forgot because of the drink Jamie gave us, the way Dad used to forget things sometimes.