by Sara Kocek
“I have to go to the bathroom,” said Madison, standing abruptly.
“Me too.” Abby let go of my hair and stood up, obviously following to talk to Madison.
And that was how I ended up alone in the room with Leah, wondering how long it would be before the four of us didn’t know each other at all.
On Sunday morning, I got up extra early and had the urge to go to Mass. I hadn’t been in ages—not since Dad’s accident. Mom used to go every weekend. Once in a while I would go just to feel closer to her, but sometimes being there would bring back too many memories and I’d have to get up and go to the bathroom to wait for my throat to stop feeling so choked.
Dad refused to come with me. (“Church was your mom’s thing, not mine,” he said.) He dropped me off while Lucy stayed home and cleaned the house. As we pulled into the church’s circular driveway, I felt a swell of excitement in the pit of my stomach. But when I glanced over at Dad, his eyes looked distant and clouded.
“Memories?” I asked.
He nodded.
“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?”
“I’m sure,” said Dad.
I rolled down the window to let in a gust of crisp autumn wind. The sky was a bright and vivid blue, the color of my old retainer—the one I got to match Abby’s braces in sixth grade.
“I just thought it would be nice to go together,” I told Dad, unbuckling my seat belt. “We can sit near the back, if you want.”
“Reyna, that part of my life is over now,” answered Dad, the expression on his face hard to read. “I’m going home to make an omelet.”
“Have it your way.” I climbed out of the car and closed the door. After seven years, I didn’t expect anything different. I just wished he could see what I saw.
Inside, the sanctuary was soaked in light. It poured through the stained glass windows and lit up the hairs on my arms. Mom was everywhere at St. Stephen’s—in every Bible, in every pew, in every nook and cranny of the sanctuary. Everywhere my eyes landed, I felt a memory move through me like a ghost. The day she took me to my first confession because I stole a dollar from Dad’s wallet. The night she brought me with her to light a memorial candle for my great-grandmother Alma. The morning of my first communion, when she reminded me a million times not to spit out the wafer because I was a picky eater and she knew I wouldn’t like the taste.
Dad didn’t know what he was missing. In here, she was still alive.
In History on Monday, Olive invited me over to her house again after school. “Or we could work in the media center,” she said, “but then we’d have to whisper.” She didn’t blink as she waited for my response, and it was hard to say no to a face that wasn’t blinking.
We ended up agreeing to meet in the parking lot at the end of seventh period, and as I waited by the flagpole for her to arrive, I remembered with a jolt that it was Dad’s first day back in the office. I pulled out my phone and texted him, How’s it going?
Busy, he wrote back right away. I have 900 unread messages!!!
The exclamation points were a good sign. Dad only used them when he was in a good mood.
“What are you so happy about?”
I jumped. Olive had appeared out of nowhere, ready to walk with me to her house. “Nothing important,” I said, slipping the phone into my pocket. “I’m ready if you are.”
But she wouldn’t drop it. “Exchanging texts with Lover Boy?”
“Lover Boy?”
“Banana Boy, if you prefer.”
It took a minute to click, and when it did, I had to remind myself not to get annoyed. In her own way, Olive was just trying to be funny.
“No, I don’t have Levi’s number,” I said. “I wish I did though.” If I’d been walking with Abby or Leah or Madison, they would have said, “What are you waiting for? Ask him!” but Olive just made a sound somewhere between a cough and a snort.
“What?” I felt the familiar prickle of annoyance that always seemed to lurk under my skin whenever I was near her. “What’s wrong with Levi?”
“Frankly? You want to know what I really think of him?”
“What?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
“As my Aunt Millie says, I’ve met more interesting carpet samples.”
“At least he’s friendly,” I said. Unlike some people.
“Sure, he’s friendly,” she conceded. “Like a dog that walks up to another dog and sniffs its butt.” Then she laughed at her own joke. “Plus, his hair is stupid. I hate red hair. Yours is so much prettier.” Without any warning, she reached up and touched the back of my head. “It’s so silky.”
“Whatever,” I said, stepping away from her hand. Why did she have to be so weird? For every rude thing she said to me, there was another opposite nice thing. The traffic light changed from red to green, and we crossed the street.
The worst thing about walking to Olive’s house was crossing the train tracks that ran parallel to her backyard. Ever since Dad’s accident, I was afraid of objects that moved quickly. Scratch that—ever since Mom’s accident. No matter how many times I looked both ways before crossing the tracks, I always held my breath as I stepped over them.
Olive didn’t understand, of course. When she saw me pause near the crossing gate, she just laughed, stepped out into the center of the tracks, and stood there with her arms wide open. “Hit me with your best shot!” she called in the direction of Talmadge Hill, where the next train would come from. Then she laughed, hopped off the tracks, and led me across the remaining distance toward the edge of her backyard.
Olive’s mom wasn’t home that afternoon, so we took a tub of ice cream and a canister of whipped cream to her room. She looked gleeful as we shut the door behind us. “I’m not supposed to eat junk in my room,” she explained, handing me a bowl. “I do it all the time, but not usually with a friend over.”
“Me too,” I said. “Sometimes I eat cereal in bed.”
“My mom would kill us if she saw this.” Olive sprayed whipped cream directly onto her tongue. “She’s opposed to gluttony of any kind, which is why she hates herself so much for being an alcoholic. And me, for being addicted to candy.”
I put down my spoon, surprised. “You’re addicted to candy?”
Olive scooted away from me on the carpet toward the same oversized filing cabinet where she’d shown me her mother’s alcohol. Only this time she opened the middle drawer instead of the bottom one, so I got to my knees and leaned over to see what was inside. Sure enough, it was filled to the brim with candy. There were hundreds of Tootsie Roll Pops, miniature Twix bars, Starbursts, and lollypops. “I have a good metabolism,” was all she said.
It might have been a sudden rush of sugar from the ice cream or it might have been the sheer quantity of candy in the drawer, but for some reason, I lost it. I started to laugh.
At first, Olive looked upset. She frowned, popped a Tootsie Roll into her mouth, and waited for me to collect myself. But I couldn’t. It was impossible. Laughing, like crying, becomes an automatic reflex capable of sustaining itself, and the more I tried to stop myself, the harder I laughed. “I’m not laughing at you—” I tried to say.
Olive chewed her chocolate slowly and stared at me as though trying to figure out what was so funny, but when I finally fell over onto my side, something changed in her face. She covered her mouth with her hands and began to laugh.
We were both embarrassed. Neither of us knew what was so funny. But we just kept laughing, and before I knew it, we were hysterical. Bent over and gasping for breath, Olive took a handful of Tootsie Rolls out of the drawer and threw them at me. They landed in the folds of my blue jeans, so I scooped them up and threw them back at her.
Somewhere in the corner of my mind, I saw us as though from above: the two of us sprawled across her bedroom floor, pegging candy at each other and laughing so hard our sides hurt. We collapsed onto the carpet to catch our breath, Tootsie Rolls littered across the triangular spaces between our arms and legs.
Congratulate me.
For what?
I made a friend.
On the forum?
No, in actual life.
Wow.
I know, right?
What’s she like?
Sad.
Ha. Go figure.
No, I don’t mean like us.
You mean she doesn’t have a death wish?
I mean she’s sad but she doesn’t even know she’s sad.
How is that possible?
She’s profoundly and sweetly sad.
Olive, have you gone off your meds?
I’m not on meds.
Are you OK?
I’m wonderful.
4.
October twenty-first, the due date of Mr. Murphy’s ancient China project, arrived amid a flurry of Halloween discussions across the school. In homeroom and in the hallways, everyone was talking about their plans for Halloween—even antisocial people like Olive.
“OK, here’s the idea,” she told me in homeroom on the morning of our Genghis Khan presentation. “I’ll be the man with the pitchfork, you’ll be the woman with the brooch.” She was holding out a photocopy of the famous painting American Gothic. “We’ll march together in the freshman parade, OK?”
I got the sense I didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Olive thought it would be a hilarious mockery of everyone who took the parade seriously. I thought it would be possibly awesome or possibly a disaster—I wasn’t sure which.
Amazingly, Levi liked the idea. While we waited for the second bell to ring in History, he tapped me on the shoulder and asked what I was planning to be for Halloween. Olive was in the back of the room, setting up the overhead projector for our presentation, and Mr. Murphy was busy writing out a hall pass for Timothy Ferguson—or Nancy Ferguson, as he’d taken to calling him. So I showed Levi the grainy photocopy of the painting and said, “Olive thought of it.”
He looked at it and grinned. “Awesome.”
I almost said, Really? like an idiot but stopped myself.
Levi smiled. “Maybe I could be the frame around you.”
I could’ve sworn I felt every little vein and capillary in my cheeks erupt, flooding my face with heat. I opened my mouth to say something, but he cut me off.
“Of course, then I’d have to be the frame around Olive too.” He twirled his guitar pick necklace between his thumb and forefinger. “Too bad.”
I wanted to say something flirtatious, but Olive chose that moment to summon me from the back of the room.
“Coming!” I called, trying hard not to trip over my feet as I stepped away from my desk. Then I turned and smiled at Levi, who was watching me with his head cocked to one side, as though he found me just as perplexing as the painting. “I’ll see you later,” I told him. And then, before I lost my nerve, “Maybe you can be the frame anyway.”
In the back of the room, Olive looked tight-lipped and pale, turning every knob on the projector. “I don’t know how this thing works,” she muttered. “And I can’t even think straight, I’m so pissed off.”
“Pissed off?” I stepped back. “At me?”
“Not at you!” She turned one knob with so much force, I was afraid it would snap off. “Did you hear what Mr. Murphy just said to Tim?”
I shook my head and reached over to turn on the projector. The bulb flickered on, casting a bright, blank light onto the screen across the room.
She narrowed her eyes. “He threatened to make him wear the sissy hat during his presentation, and then he called him limp-wristed.”
“So?”
“He’s a total homophobe. He hates gay people.”
“I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it,” I said, glancing over to check on Levi. He was still watching me, a smile in his eyes.
Olive’s eyes flashed. “Are you serious, Reyna? Didn’t you hear about that sophomore who had a breakdown last year after Mr. Murphy accused him of being gay? He had to go to Silver Hills.” She lowered her voice. “The mental hospital.”
“That’s probably just a rumor,” I said.
“Girls, are you ready?”
Olive jumped. Mr. Murphy had materialized behind us. I reached over to plug in the connector as he tapped his watch with one finger. A moment later, the image of Genghis Khan lit up the room. I felt unusually bold as I stepped forward, Levi’s eyes following me the whole way.
“We’re good to go,” I said.
Strictly speaking, I didn’t need to invite Olive over that afternoon. Our project was finished. But Lucy had been spending almost every night at our house, prowling around and rearranging the furniture like Mom never existed. Night after night I was forced to listen to Dad rave about what a good cook she was, which wasn’t even true—all she ever made was pasta. So when Lucy pulled into the school parking lot and told me she was cooking lasagna for dinner, I decided company would be a welcome distraction. I ran back over to the edge of the parking lot to invite Olive. She said yes in a heartbeat.
The drive home was awkward. We were mostly silent, and when Olive did talk, she was so quiet she didn’t sound like herself. The few questions Lucy asked—Are you buckled? Is the air conditioning reaching you?—Olive answered with a curt, “Yes, thanks,” or “No, thanks.”
When we got to the house, I led her straight through the garage, down the hallway, and into my room. It was the fastest path through the house, conveniently bypassing the messy living room. “Why are you always so shy around everyone besides me?” I asked, trying to distract Olive from all the crooked family photos on the walls. “Lucy probably thought you were mute.”
She just shrugged. “How long has she been screwing your dad?”
“They’ve been dating since April,” I said. “At least, that’s when they met.” I didn’t like to think about Dad screwing anyone, least of all Lucy.
Reaching my room, I dumped my backpack on the rug next to the closet as Olive followed me inside and asked, “Why do you hate her?”
I paused in my tracks. “I don’t hate her.”
“You so do,” said Olive. “I’m not blind.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
She rolled her eyes. “The hatred is practically dripping off you, Reyna. The whole ride home it was like you were sitting in a puddle of it.”
I had to laugh.
She grinned. “I rest my case.”
I glanced at the door to make sure it was closed. “I mean, she’s nice, but I can’t believe my dad is still dating her.”
“Why not?”
I sat on the bed and told her about the accident—how Lucy drove right through the intersection without stopping. How Dad’s car didn’t have side air bags. How she was the reason I almost became an orphan.
“Yeah, but you didn’t.”
“Barely,” I said. “There was a slab of glass an inch away from his spine.”
“But she didn’t mean for it to happen.”
“She almost killed him!” The hair on my arms prickled. “Isn’t that enough of a reason to want her out of my life?”
“Not if he really cares about her—”
“Can we just change the subject?” If Olive tried to defend Lucy for another second, I thought I might scream.
“Fine, jeez.” Olive looked down at her fingernails. “What did you mean before when you said I act quiet around everyone but you?’”
I leaned back against the headboard, relieved to talk about anything else. “Nothing, really,” I said. “Just that you take your personality and zipper it up around everyone else.”
She laughed. “Most people bore me to death.”
I gave her a wry smile. “I’m glad I can provide amusement.”
She moved toward the bookshelves along the back of the room and pulled out one of Mom’s old tennis trophies. Dust came off on her fingers. “This was your mom’s, wasn’t it?”
I didn’t answer. It was obvious—her name was on the trophy.
“How’d she die?”
Olive set it back on the shelf. “You never told me.”
I stiffened, and she came over and sat on the edge of my bed. “Sorry. I know I shouldn’t be so cavalier about people dying. I was just wondering.”
“You don’t always have to blurt out everything on your mind,” I told her. “You might actually have more friends if you didn’t.”
Her face softened. “It just means I trust you.”
“I know.” I relaxed my shoulders and tried to trust her too. “A drunk driver hit my mom when I was seven. On her way home from the grocery store. In the middle of the afternoon.”
“Shit.” The bed creaked as Olive leaned back and rested her back against the wall. “That sucks. I’m sorry, Reyna.”
I opened my mouth to say thanks, but she didn’t give me a chance.
“I’m not romanticizing tragedy or anything,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ear. “But that’s one of the reasons you don’t bore me to death, you know? That you’ve had to deal with shit. Do you know what I mean? We have a lot in common.”
I wanted to tell her that having a dead mother was nothing like having an alcoholic mother, but I bit my tongue. It wasn’t worth arguing over.
“Can I see this?” She picked up an old hacky sack that was sitting on my nightstand. As I opened my mouth to tell her it belonged to my mom, there was a soft knock on the door.
“Reyna?” Lucy poked her head into the room. “Madison’s on the phone. She said she tried your cell, but it was turned off.”
I jumped up and took the cordless phone out of her hand. “Thanks.”
“No problem.” She smiled as she turned to leave, like she was proud of herself for doing me a favor. I rolled my eyes at the back of her head.
She closed the door behind her.
I brought the phone to my ear. “Hello?”
