The Upside of Falling Down

by Rebekah Crane

  Paudie’s fish-and-chips are divine, but the residual tension between Kieran and me sours the meal a bit. He doesn’t talk to me while I eat, but busies himself charming other customers. He wipes foam from another girl’s face. She laughs and blushes. I cringe.

  When I’m done eating, my belly is full, but an uncomfortable feeling is lodged in my throat. Kieran offers to get me a ride back to the cottage, but I turn him down.

  “I need the walk,” I say.

  The rest of the night I spend hiding in my room, afraid of running into Siobhan. The sea glass I tried to give her sits on the nightstand. I review what I’ve written in my notebook. My list is still dismally small, but thanks to Kieran, I add another item.

  I’m stubborn.

  Two days out of the hospital and still no memories. I won’t let myself think about a possibility that rattles me to my bones.

  CHAPTER 9

  “I can’t believe this is happening. I should know better. I’m from Cleveland. Home of ‘the Drive,’ ‘the Fumble,’ ‘Game Seven.’ Even when you think you’re winning, you’re always one moment away from losing everything.”

  “Don’t say that, Clementine.”

  “I can’t believe you waited until now to tell me.”

  He grabs my hand. His touch makes me cringe, and I pull away. The buzz of the engines muffles our conversation, but I’m pretty sure 5A and 5B have heard everything. They’d take my side, no doubt.

  “This doesn’t have to be the end,” he says.

  “Then what would you call this?”

  “Just a bump.”

  And as if on cue, we both lurch forward. I brace myself on the seat in front of me.

  “The problem with bumps is when you don’t see them coming . . . you inevitably stumble, and you usually fall.”

  I sit up in the dark. Something was just there in front of me. I search around my room in the cottage, desperate for what it was, remembering Kieran interrupting my sleep the night before. But the cottage is quiet. Not a single light is on.

  I could have sworn I heard a familiar voice, but the longer I wait for it to come back, the more dreamlike it becomes, and soon it’s gone.

  That’s what it was—just a dream, a vague figment the mind makes up to tangle with reality before it vanishes into the night.

  When a person gets used to failure, it becomes much less scary. A person will walk into fire, knowing full well she’ll get burned, but it doesn’t hurt as much. When you’re prepared for pain, pain loses power.

  Or so I think when I show up at the Secret Book and Record Store. After hiding out in my room for a few days, afraid of Siobhan, it has become like my hospital room, just without the machines. I feel trapped, which defeats the purpose of leaving the hospital in the first place. If only Kieran was around—but he’s gone every morning when I wake up and doesn’t come home until I’m asleep. I’m beginning to think he’s avoiding me.

  Clive is the only other person I know in Waterville. He’s the closest relationship I have to my friendship with Stephen, who I miss greatly after spending the past few days talking to myself, baking, and doodling in my notebook. On a positive note, I have managed to keep the cottage fully stocked with sugar cookies. They disappear rapidly.

  My boredom outweighs my knowing that Siobhan doesn’t want me at the store. I’ll fight through her spikes and prickles for more time with Clive. He offered me friendship, and at this point, it’s the only thing I have.

  “Did you make these?” Clive asks, and he takes a bite of the sugar cookies I’ve brought him.

  “Watch out, could be poison. You can’t trust her.” Siobhan’s been taking little jabs at me since I arrived. I came mentally prepared. They barely register as dull pokes now.

  “You didn’t seem concerned about poison when you ate the whole batch I made yesterday.”

  “I’m made of poison. It has no effect on me.” Siobhan gives me a pointed glare but speaks to Clive. “All I’m saying is be careful, Clive. People can surprise you.”

  He eats the last bite of the cookie, devouring it in record time, then licks each finger before picking up the crumbles and eating those, too. It makes me like him more.

  “I would never hurt Clive or anyone,” I say.

  “Is that true?” Siobhan pops her hip out. Behind the counter, she’s unloading a box of T-shirts that say, “Weird is a side effect of awesome.” I want to come back at her with a resounding yes, but that would be a lie. There’s a line of people behind me who I’ve hurt in just the past few days—my dad, Stephen, even my doctor.

  I don’t take Siobhan’s bait, but turn away from her and offer Clive another cookie.

  “Where’d you learn to bake?” he asks.

  I shrug casually and examine a display of colorful headbands and scarves. “It just comes naturally.”

  I put on a bright mint-green headband, checking my reflection in the mirror.

  “Gross. That clashes with your hair.” Siobhan walks past me, carrying T-shirts. “It looks like you’re wearing vomit. You should totally get it.”

  I take the headband off and try on a zebra-patterned one. “How about this one?”

  Siobhan ignores my question, so I turn to Clive. He gives me a thumbs-up. The headband is a nice pop of color next to my white shirt and jeans.

  “You have to pay for that, Muppet,” Siobhan says.

  “I know.” I set twenty euros on the counter, but Clive hands it back to me.

  “You get the friends’ discount.” He winks.

  “What?” Siobhan’s tone is sharp. “If you keep giving everyone that discount, you’ll go out of business in no time. The Yank’s not worth it.”

  “I didn’t open this place to make money,” Clive says. “I opened it to inspire people to be themselves. We need that in this town.”

  “Well, you need money to keep it open,” she says.

  When I walked into the store earlier, Clive instantly went to the used CD bin and took out a Celine Dion album. It’s been playing ever since, on full blast. Siobhan hasn’t stopped complaining about it.

  “You own this place?” I ask Clive.

  He nods and says pointedly toward Siobhan, “Though some people act like they own it.”

  “It’s for your own protection,” she says. “Trust me. Purple People Eater, here, will leave with a free headband, and all you’ll get is debt, bills you can’t pay, and a load of regret.”

  “Some might call protection avoidance,” Clive says.

  “Stop talking in undertones, Jane Austen. I get it.” Siobhan shakes her head.

  Clive laughs. “Jane appreciates my undertones. Don’t you, Jane?”

  “The Yankee Muppet is using you,” Siobhan says, “just like she used Kieran and my bottle of hair dye.”

  “I have a name,” I state.

  “Like I care.”

  Clive puts his finger to his chin and says, “All of these Janes might get confusing. You need a nickname.”

  I roll my eyes. “Kieran already calls me Bunny. That’s bad enough.”

  Siobhan turns, her arms still full of T-shirts. I can practically see claws come out and spikes along her spine. I should have kept that bit of information to myself. It’s clear she doesn’t want me getting close with Kieran, though why, I may never know. For the first time since I walked in the store, she eyes me directly.

  I qualify the comment. “He said I look like an Easter egg with my hair this color. It wasn’t a compliment.”

  “More like egg-stravaganza,” Clive says with a smirk.

  In an attempt to smooth over what I’ve just revealed, I try a new tactic—flattery. “Actually, I could use some fashion advice. All I have are boring white T-shirts. I want something with more pizzazz. What do you recommend to match my hair?”

  “Pizzazz? Did you really just use that word?”

  “Yes . . .” I hesitate.

  Siobhan’s expression gets contemplative. I don’t think my flattery registered in the slightest. “Kieran
said you were mugged. That they took everything. That you were a pathetic little girl he couldn’t just walk away from.” Her eyes narrow on me.

  “He called me pathetic?”

  Siobhan counters with her own question. “How is it you have money to buy things?”

  I woke up again this morning to one hundred euros on the bedside table. In reality, it wasn’t really morning anymore. It was more like early afternoon. At night, I fight with myself. I can feel it, like I’m struggling with the covers, pushing and pulling and trying to stretch them to fit, but they never do. A part of me is always cold. Always uncomfortable.

  I’m not proud that Kieran leaves me money, but it’s been helpful . . . until now. Now, I just feel ashamed.

  “Is Kieran giving you money?” Siobhan asks.

  A lie would really come in handy right now, but it would only make the gap between Siobhan and me bigger. I have only a split second to weigh my options. The truth won’t do me any good, but I decide to go with it.

  “Yes.” My voice is small.

  Siobhan’s face turns red. I brace myself for the storm she’s about to rain down, the names she’s about to call me. Yankee Muppet won’t be so bad compared to what’s about to come. She has an uncanny ability to state the truth in such a harsh way, I start to dislike myself. She reveals my ugly side and throws it in my face. And she doesn’t even know everything. I want to be helpful, but she reminds me how helpless I really am.

  But she doesn’t yell. She drops the T-shirts on the ground, turns to Clive, and screams at him. “Clive, turn this shit off, or I’ll tell everyone about your Jane Austen infatuation!”

  Now, inadvertently, I’ve hurt Clive. I should have stayed in my room.

  Clive is in midbite of a cookie, and his mouth falls open. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “And those cookies are going to make you fat.” Siobhan turns away from us, tossing her long pink hair over her shoulder and stomping to the back of the store, leaving the pile of shirts on the ground.

  I promptly start picking them up and refolding them, my heart beating wildly.

  Clive sets his cookie down.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, putting some of the shirts on the counter. “This is my fault. I’ll fix it.”

  “It’s not your fault. She’s been like this ever since I’ve known her. Her current condition isn’t helping, either. She’s a bloody basket case of emotion.”

  Her condition . . . Even Clive won’t say the word “pregnant.” No one seems to be talking about it, and I want to ask a million questions, but I can’t. It’s a bad idea. Avoidance won’t work forever. Pregnancies only last so long. Intuitively, Clive must see the confusion on my face. He hollers to Siobhan at the back of the store.

  “I’m taking a break! Don’t scare off the customers! And don’t eat my cookies!”

  Siobhan’s voice bellows. “Fuck off! And take the Yankee Muppet with you! She reeks of capitalism and McDonald’s!”

  Clive takes the remaining T-shirts out of my hands. “Come on. She just needs to cool off.”

  We walk to the Beachfront Café—a place that serves tea, sandwiches and salads, and pastries lined up in a glass display. There’s something vaguely familiar about the place. It’s comforting. Or maybe it’s just nice to be with only Clive. I can relax with him. My words don’t tend to backfire as much.

  He wastes no time introducing me to Mary, the owner of the café, who’s from Galway but moved down here five years ago for a simpler life. He recites her history as if it were his own. We chat with George, an Englishman who left Birmingham for Waterville after a bad divorce and now has “shagged half the women in town,” according to Clive. Maggie, an old widow, was once crowned the Rose of Tralee, which Clive explains is a festival held in the capital of County Kerry every year. I meet Kevin O’Reilly and David Aster and Clara Moore . . .

  When Clive has introduced me to nearly everyone except the tourists, we sit at a table outside in the sun, across the street from the ocean, people watching, the sound of the waves in the background. It’s a relief to be out of the store and away from Siobhan. I perpetually mess up with her because I’m trying too hard, but with Clive, the conversation is easy and light. I don’t feel like I need to explain myself constantly.

  His all-black outfit and spiky Mohawk are a wild contrast to the small white teacup in his hand. His pinky finger even points out daintily. He is a walking contradiction, but it suits him perfectly. I can watch Clive, and his truth is revealed on some level. Maybe not all his layers, but some. This is comforting and infuriating at the same time. To see others and know a piece of them feels empowering, but the inability to do it for myself defeats me.

  We drink our tea and watch the waves come and go. They are large and angry today, with big whitecaps.

  “Do people surf around here?” I ask, recalling the surfboard in Kieran’s room.

  The teacup lowers from Clive’s mouth. “Surf?”

  “Yeah, surf.”

  “Like surfing in the bloody ocean,” Clive says.

  “Yeah.”

  “You know the ocean is cold, right?”

  “Yes.” I giggle.

  “Have you ever been surfing before?”

  “It’s just a question.” I shrug, unable to answer him properly, unwilling to lie.

  “I’m kind of an indoor person.” Clive turns his pale face up to the sun.

  And just like that, I realize a truth about myself and wish I had my notebook to write it down. It lifts my mood and returns some of my confidence. “I’d rather be outside.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Your skin’s not pale enough to be a vampire like myself. I have to work very hard at maintaining this pasty glow.”

  My color has come back over the past few days, the dark circles under my eyes still there but less prominent. I’m starting to appear healthy again. Even my eyes seem brighter.

  The sunshine heats my whole body. I could sit here all afternoon with Clive. It reminds me why I left the hospital in the first place.

  “Clive . . .”

  “I know what you’re going to ask. No, I’m not the father.”

  I nudge him under the table. “That much is obvious.”

  “Really? You don’t think I could shag a girl like Siobhan?”

  “No,” I say. “Do you want to shag Siobhan?”

  “Siobhan . . . Kieran . . . I’m not picky when it comes to beautiful people.”

  I laugh. “If that baby was yours, you’d dote on Siobhan even more than you already do.”

  Clive nods. “I would. I’d spoil her rotten. I’ve always wanted a child.” He turns his face from the sun to me. “But you want to know if I know who the father is.”

  “Well . . . you seem to know everyone’s story.”

  But he shakes his head. “I do. And I can tell you that the father most definitely is not from Waterville. But that’s the extent of what I know. If you haven’t noticed, Von’s not much of a talker. Never has been.”

  “I’ve noticed.” I sip my tea. “How long have you known her?”

  “Since she was sixteen. She showed up one day, demanding I give her a summer job, but refusing to take any money for her work. Said she was doing it just to piss off her dad and that was payment enough. She had fewer tattoos then. That was the summer she shaved her head. It wasn’t a bad look, actually.” Clive has a reminiscent expression on his face. “Siobhan didn’t need the job. She just needed a place to be . . . accepted.”

  “Have you ever met her dad?”

  “From what I know, he would ship Siobhan and Kieran down here for the summer with some chaperone or another when they weren’t at boarding school. But he stays in London or Dublin most of the time. A total workaholic, I think. He owns a trading company or something of the sort. I’ve never been one for the corporate world.” Clive gives me a knowing glance. “If you couldn’t tell.”

  “And their mom?”

  “Gone. From what I gather, she up and left when they were l
ittle.”

  “She left?”

  Clive nods. It would be easy to keep thinking that Siobhan and I are nothing alike, and never will be, but knowing that her mom left, and that my mom is dead, connects us in a way. I don’t remember how it felt to lose my mom, but Siobhan has to live with that memory every day. And leaving is a choice. I get the luxury of forgetting, but Siobhan . . . I can’t help but feel a sort of compassion for her. No wonder she believes we all end up alone.

  “It was kind of you to take her in.”

  Clive shrugs it off. “I know what it feels like to not quite fit in properly.” He glances around the café, eyeing all the conservatively dressed people, including myself. No one looks like him. “I opened the store, hoping people like Siobhan would have somewhere to go. But in all honesty, I’m a bit worried we’re the only people in this town who are like . . . us.”

  I know that worry. Every morning I wake up and think I’ll be different. My skin won’t feel foreign anymore. The tattoo that’s haunting me will be explained. But that hasn’t happened yet. I’m not like anyone, and yet I’m not like myself, either.

  “Am I like you, Clive?” I ask.

  He sets his tea down and pats my hand. “Definitely. Except better looking.”

  “Thank you. I needed to hear that,” I say. “If it means anything, I think you’d make a great dad.”

  “Thank you. I needed to hear that,” he echoes. Clive leans across the table toward me and whispers, “I can tell you one thing I know about stories like Siobhan’s . . . In an Austen novel, it’s always the rogue who impregnates the girl. And the girl is always sent into hiding for fear she’ll shame the family name. I fear not much has changed.”

  “You think she was sent here to hide?”

  Clive shrugs. “From what I know about their father, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “That’s awful.”

  “Siobhan threatened that if I ever asked her about it, she’d kill me in my sleep.” Clive smiles. “Can’t blame her for that. I’ve always loved the girl’s spunk.”

  “What about Kieran?”

  “He showed up shortly after Siobhan did, a few months ago. Up and left his life in Dublin. I reckon he’s here because she is.”