How to Save a Life

by Sara Zarr

  Call Annalee.

  Call Mom.

  Buy presents.

  Figure out how to get Mandy to C.B. without telling her what’s going on.

  Invite Ravi to C.B.

  I tap my pen on the Ravi sentence. Tappity-tap. I cross it out. I write it again. I tap. Dylan looks back at me, and Mrs. Espinoza also gives me the eye.

  I want Ravi to be there. For Mandy. She likes him, and it will even out the boy-girl thing and make her feel good. Don’t tell me that even at eight months pregnant, you don’t want to enjoy a little social interaction with a boy. Also, I don’t want him to be there. The situation is full of all kinds of potential awkwardness. But… man. I just want to see him. Like, I can’t go a whole day without seeing him. It’s bad.

  When the bell rings, I tell Dylan to meet me in the school lot at lunchtime—we have to go shopping. “That’s okay for me,” he says. “I don’t have any unexcused absences yet this semester. But you’re kind of on your last leg with that, right?”

  “Oh no, now I won’t get into Yale.”

  He starts to say something, then shuts it down. I take off to the bathroom to make my phone calls. Annalee answers her cell. The sound of her voice in real time instead of her voice mail makes me wince. After a bunch of excuses and a lot of hard-core negotiation that results in me being scheduled for the next five Friday nights, I get off work.

  Mom doesn’t answer her phone at first but calls me back while I’m leaving her a message. “What, honey? Everything okay?”

  She’s in a big rush, that’s clear, maybe even in a meeting. Her in a rush and me sitting in a bathroom stall do not add up to the right time to tell her about Mandy’s surprise party, which, with everything else that went on yesterday, slipped my mind. But I tell her, and she says, “Tonight?”

  “Yeah, tonight. It’s her birthday.”

  “It is? How did I not know that? A party, Jill, that’s… thoughtful. But I have a neighborhood meeting tonight to present the feasibility study. The one I’ve been working on for the last six months? I may have mentioned it once or twice.”

  Crap. “Oh yeah.”

  “And by the way, explain to me why you want to go Casa Bonita anyway?”

  Mom doesn’t appreciate the awesome badness of Casa Bonita. “I think Mandy will love it. So I’m sorry I forgot to tell you, okay? And don’t tell her—it’s a surprise.”

  “Fine, fine. Have fun. Take pictures. I want to see this.”

  The passing period is well over, and I’m alone in the bathroom. If I’m going to invite Ravi, it’s now or never. I scroll through my phone in order to simply reread one of his text messages and accidentally brush the touch screen where it says CALL RAVI DESAI. The universe has made my decision for me.

  “Hey, Jill.” He sounds subdued.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  “I wanted to see if… I mean, I wanted to tell you thanks for yesterday.”

  He’s quiet.

  “That was good for me,” I say. “To go there.”

  “Good.”

  I wait for him to say more. I stare at the bathroom door, freshly scrubbed of graffiti. “Also, we—I’m throwing this little surprise birthday–baby shower thing for Mandy tonight. I thought maybe you could come. As Clark.”

  “A baby shower? Isn’t that a girl thing?”

  “More her birthday, but the presents will be baby stuff. At Casa Bonita.”

  He pauses. “Who all is going to be there?”

  Someone comes into the bathroom. Through the space around the stall door, I can see whoever it is looking at herself in the mirror. “Me. Mandy. Dylan. Maybe some other people.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You can bring a date,” I say in a rush, with too much enthusiasm. “You can bring Annalee!” Digging my fist into my thigh keeps me from punching myself at how absurd it is to say that. As if I don’t know Annalee can’t take off work tonight because I’m going to. As if I don’t know she’s mad at him or they’re broken up or whatever.

  “Not likely.”

  The person in the bathroom is waiting for me to leave, I can tell. “Really, I just thought Mandy would enjoy it.”

  “I guess I don’t see the point, Jill.”

  No, no, I think. We were doing good. We were talking openly. We were figuring it out.

  On the other hand, he’s right. It’s a bad idea, and there is no point except my selfish desire to see him again, which isn’t fair to him and not fair to Dylan and not fair to me, really, since I’m so mixed up anyway. Which makes me angry at myself. Usually when I’m angry at myself, I take it out on people who mean something to me. This time I try to be different.

  “Ravi, it would mean a lot to me if you were there, but I totally understand if you can’t or don’t want to. Casa Bonita. Six thirty.”

  After a few seconds, he says, “Let me think about it.”

  “Okay.”

  My angry-at-self-plus-confusion mood is still evident when Dylan finds me in the school lot, waiting in my car, with what I’d guess—based on how it feels on my face—is a pissed expression. “I’d ask what’s wrong,” he says, getting into my car, “but I’m scared, in case it has something to do with me.”

  “Not everything is about you.”

  He laughs. “I know. Lately not anything is about me.”

  I resist the urge to drive over the speed bumps as fast as possible. “Meaning?”

  “Nothing, Jill.”

  Not just nothing. Nothing, Jill. And in this context, in this tone, you can pretty much substitute bitch for Jill.

  In an attempt at redemption, I ask with all sincerity if the Potato Rebellion is coming to the party.

  “Nope.”

  “You could go to Casa B early and get us a good table. Up near the divers. Then I could bring Mandy, and I’ll just tell her we’re going on an errand or to a drive-through or something like that. Then—”

  “Jill,” Dylan says, “I forgot I promised my dad I’d help him change the brake pads on his car when he gets home from work. It shouldn’t take long, but I don’t think I can get there early for the table.”

  We’re at a red light. I throw my head back and let out a huge sigh-slash-growl. “Seriously?”

  He speaks slowly, as if to a toddler throwing a tantrum. “ You go early and get the table. I’ll pick up Mandy. It will all work out. Okay?”

  It’s an effective approach. “Actually, that’s a good idea. You guys kind of bonded; she’ll go anywhere with you. You can make something up.”

  We work out the details of the plan on our way to Cherry Creek, where as soon as we see the tiny, adorable baby clothes, we’re overcome with the cuteness of it all and it’s like we were never fighting. We pick up some practical things, like blankets and bottles, but my mom can worry about most of that stuff. We’re clothes-crazy.

  “I want a baby,” Dylan says, holding up a miniature knit cap with a turtle on it.

  “Don’t look at me.”

  We wind up dropping nearly two hundred dollars between us, requiring more than one trip to the ATM. Afterward we stop for lemonades and look at all of our purchases again.

  “Do you think you’ll ever be a mom?” he asks, holding a lamb beanbag toy and touching its little ears.

  “I can’t picture it.”

  “Really? I can totally see myself being a dad. And I want to be a young dad, you know? So that when the kids are in high school, I could still potentially be a little bit awesome.”

  “Kids?” I ask. “How many are you thinking?”

  “Three?”

  Our eyes meet. I love Dylan. He loves me. We’re each other’s first. But we’re not going to be together forever. We’ve both known it, I’m sure. He’s going to college right after graduation; I’m not. He wants a bunch of kids, apparently; I don’t. It’s not like we’ve ever talked about forever. But we’ve also not made a habit sitting around talking about our future adult selves in a way that
makes it this obvious we’ll be on different paths. And letting go of Dylan means letting go of another piece of my life as it was when I still had my dad.

  I’m the first to break our gaze, stabbing at my crushed ice with my straw. “It makes me sad,” I say to my cup. “To think about it.”

  “Me being a dad?”

  “Ha-ha. No. You’ll be great. That’s not what I meant.”

  He places the lamb on the table between us, its beanbaggy legs splayed.

  “Yeah, I know. You know what else is sad?”

  “What?”

  “It just kind of occurred to me that we’re giving this stuff to Mandy for her birthday, but she’s not really going to be around to see the baby wear it or use it or whatever.”

  I pick up the lamb, hold it to my face, feel like I could cry. Because, holy hell. That is sad.

  Mandy

  In the afternoon, while Robin is gone—to the copy shop for her presentation things, to clients’ offices, getting her hair trimmed—I spend some time in every room in the house: Lying for a while on Robin’s bed, then on Jill’s. Sitting at the big kitchen table, where I’ve had my breakfast with Robin almost every morning for the last month. Touching the metal napkin rings that are cutouts of moose or elk or some animal like that. Standing in her office with my hand on the back of her desk chair. Looking at the pictures from the ultrasound that first day at Dr. Yee’s. Studying the baby’s face. Who she will be? Whose she will be?

  In each room I wait for a feeling of certainty that will tell me what I should do. Maybe this is panic. Maybe every woman who is planning to give up her baby feels exactly this way, but I don’t know about every woman, I only know about me, and what I feel is that I need to think. For the longest time I sit in Jill’s father’s chair. Sometimes when I think about Mac and the stories I’ve heard about him, I’m jealous of Jill. Why do some people get a father like that and some get what I got? It might be better to have a dead father like Mac than an alive one who doesn’t want to know you. As for my baby’s father, I don’t know. The ghost, the shadow of Mac that’s left here would be a better father than Kent. But if it’s Christopher…

  The phone rings. I let the machine get it, scared I might hear my mother’s voice.

  “Mandy? Hey, Mandy, pick up if you can hear this. It’s Dylan.”

  Dylan. There’s another person Jill has and doesn’t appreciate like she should. “Maybe you’re taking a nap or something. Crap. I hope you get this in time! Why don’t you have a cell? Everyone has a cell. Homeless people have cells. Okay, the deal is I’m going to pick you up at six tonight, and I can’t tell you anything else. I do promise it’ll be the most fun you’ve had since you got here. Maybe the most fun you’ve—” The machine beeps, cutting him off.

  A few seconds later the phone rings again, and again I don’t answer. I don’t think I’m strong enough to talk to someone as nice as Dylan right now. “As I was saying, six o’clock. Just wear whatever’s comfortable.”

  The machine robot voice says the time. Four fifty-eight PM; later than I realized. I don’t know if I can do what I need to do before six. Not that I have that much stuff, but I’m slow now, and I haven’t figured out how I’m getting to the pawnshop and then the train station, or even if I’m taking the train or maybe the bus, or where I’m going. East. West.

  I get up to make and wrap some peanut butter sandwiches and take them to my room to pack. I put my vitamins in a bag, too, and fill a plastic bottle with water. Everything needs to fit in my duffel, and it can’t be too heavy. I remember my trip here, dragging my bag in the snow, no one offering to help. And here I go again, alone. I rearrange everything to be more compact and have to leave behind a few of the heavier sweaters that Robin bought me. Of all the things that could make me cry, that’s what gets to me.

  I sit on the edge of the bed. My whole body is pain: my feet, my back, my rear, even my fingers, which are puffy and tight-feeling. All I want to do is rest a little bit. It will be a good chance to go through the plan in my head, anyway, so I lie back and stretch out. This will be the last time I sleep on a bed this comfortable. The final time these hopeful orange walls are the last thing I see before closing my eyes.

  “Mandy?” There’s a hand on my shoulder. I open my eyes. Dylan.

  “Hi,” I say, groggy.

  “Hey.”

  I sit up and Dylan stares down at me and I finally wake up, realizing what he’s seeing: me, and all of my things laid out on the bed beside me—the duffle with my clothes in it, the sandwiches and the water, my coat and a scarf I borrowed from Jill’s room. My Bible.

  “Um,” Dylan says, and he sounds worried. “Are you going somewhere?”

  He’s my friend. He hugged me. He understands about my mother. “I have to leave,” I tell him.

  “No no no!” He puts out his hands, his voice getting higher with every “no.” “You don’t have to leave. No leaving. I know Jill can be a bitch, but if she’s been acting weird the last day or two, it’s only because—”

  “It’s not Jill.” To help Dylan understand, I make it about the father. Dylan’s the one who said that if it were his baby, he couldn’t let it go so easy. “I need to talk to the baby’s father.”

  “Can’t you just call him?” He starts to take clothes out of my duffel and put them into the dresser drawers.

  I sit up and go to the drawers. “Imagine it’s your baby. I have to try to find him, one more time.” I move the clothes back to the bag. He watches me, and I can tell from how conflicted he looks that he believes me.

  “You can. Tell Robin. She’ll understand; you know she will. She’d even go with you.” He looks at the clock on the dresser. It’s ten after six. “You can’t leave, Mandy. You can’t.”

  “You’re my friend, Dylan. You can help me.”

  He clutches the sides of his head. The more excited he gets, the calmer I feel. “No, I can’t. I mean, I can help you stay. Talk to Robin. I’m telling you. You want me to do it for you?”

  How can I explain to Dylan what I don’t understand? It’s motherhood, it’s fathers, it’s fear, it’s the known and the unknown. It’s biology, an instinct that tells me to go, go. “I’m coming back” is all I can say just so that he won’t worry so much.

  “If you’re coming back, then why are you taking everything?”

  “I’m not.” I open the drawer and show him the sweaters that are too bulky to take with me.

  He glances around the room, worried, as if someone might come out of the closet and catch us. “Mandy, I totally agree that you should find the baby’s father and talk to him. As a dude, I am for that. It’s only right. But don’t run away.”

  We stare at each other. Dylan’s a good person; he’s trying to decide what’s more right out of two things that don’t feel right. I turn and zip my bag.

  “I’ll make you a deal,” he says, pulling the bag toward him. “Come with me now. Bring your stuff. This was supposed to be a surprise…. Jill is throwing you a little birthday party at this crazy restaurant she thinks—we think—you’ll love. Don’t tell her I told you. Come with me, please.” He takes a deep breath and holds it. “Afterward, I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

  A birthday party? “It was Jill’s idea?”

  “Yeah. You gotta eat anyway, right?”

  The train east leaves around eight. The train west doesn’t leave until the morning. The buses, I don’t know. Dylan is holding up my coat now. I put my arms into the sleeves. “Is Robin going to be there?” I wouldn’t be able to face her.

  “No. She has her meeting.” He pulls the coat around me as far as it will go and keeps hold of the lapels. We’re standing so close, I can smell the cinnamon gum on his breath. “I’ll help you, Mandy. I promise.”

  It’s hard to think clearly so soon after a nap. Dylan’s hands on my coat make me feel safe.

  “Well, I am hungry.”

  Jill

  Any trip to Casa Bonita is in itself weird, but it’s extra aw
kward to be sitting at a dimly lit Casa Bonita table with Ravi. We’ve been waiting for Dylan and Mandy long enough for that awkwardness to build in scope and intensity. Our food, which we picked up on our way in, because that’s how it works in a fine establishment such as this, is getting cold. But we do have a prime table, thanks to me getting here crazy early and begging the host. I never went home this afternoon for fear that I’d start acting weird around Mandy and spill the beans. When Ravi showed up, looking so nice in his glasses and sweater, I had to resist literally jumping up and down.

  He sips his virgin margarita and looks everywhere but at me. “Wow, this place is…”

  “I can’t believe you’ve lived in Denver your whole life and never been here.”

  “Gross parental neglect. Clearly.”

  I check my cell again for a reply to one of the three texts I’ve sent Dylan to ask what’s taking so long. Half-naked cliff divers run past us to climb the fake rocks that are built into a fake cliff in the cavernous restaurant. Mariachi music plays loudly. It’s all very festive—or it would be, under different circumstances.

  “We should eat,” I say. “The food is bad enough when it’s hot.” As I cut into my enchilada, bright orange cheese oozes out. “Thanks again for coming.”

  He nods grimly but says nothing and takes a cautious bite of his rice.

  “Remember that you’re Clark.”

  “I know.”

  Cemetery Ravi is long gone; I try to reel him back from the deep sea where I’ve allowed him to drift by being stupid. When we first met, there was no reason to tell him about Dylan. Dylan wasn’t even talking to me then. It all snuck up on me.

  Nerves make me all chatty, in hopes I can make Ravi more comfortable.

  “So you know that conversation we had about college and stuff?” I ask. “I was wondering if you were planning to stay in Denver longer, keep working for Margins, or what?”