We Were Never Here

by Jennifer Gilmore

College. It really wasn’t like where Connor was. It seemed like such a faraway magical place. Oz-like.

  I told her about Connor then. About the hospital and about how far away he was. In all ways. What I left out was the Thing. I left out the part about the Thing.

  “I’m going to go see him,” I said. “This weekend. My parents are taking my sister to look at her last few schools. I’m supposed to stay at a friend’s, but maybe I won’t.”

  “That sounds like a shaky plan. I’ve got some experience here, and that is a weak plan.”

  “I know. I haven’t thought it through exactly,” I said. And I hadn’t. I just knew I wanted it to take place.

  “Shaky.”

  I wanted to talk more to her. “Hey, should we go out for, like, hot cider or something?” I asked.

  “I guess,” she said. “Why not?”

  “Well, this is a little embarrassing, but I’d actually need you to take me back. I live just over the bridge. Is that a total pain?”

  She squinted at me, her head tilted. “It’s okay.” She rolled her eyes. “The one thing about the mother’s Ford Fiesta is it loves to be driven. And me? I love to drive it. It’s such a bizarre thing. I just fucking love to drive. So now I have somewhere to drive to tonight.”

  That’s when my mom came trotting out with Greta. “She’s doing great!” she said.

  “We’re going to go get tea, Mom, okay?” I pointed at Stella and then back to myself.

  “You said hot cider,” Stella said, pretending this was a deal breaker.

  “Cider. Hot cider, Mom.”

  My mother was not laughing at our joke. And I could see her gears turning. She was thinking: Hmm. Where will they go? Will it be tea or will it be cider? Why have I come all this way only to return home alone? And then, I saw her settle on something. Post-hospital rules, I was sure.

  She shrugged. “Sure,” she squeaked out.

  “Great,” said Stella.

  “Greta, sit!” my mother said.

  But there was no sitting. Just a lot of tail wagging.

  “Sit!” She pointed her finger at Greta.

  Stella B laughed. “I can tell it’s really working, Daphne!” She stood up and eased Greta’s leash out of my mother’s hand. Her rusted bike chain bracelets clinked together. She had the teeniest stick ’n’ poke at the tender place between her thumb and her index finger: a crescent moon. Without touching Greta, she lowered her hand a bit to indicate a sitting position. And Greta sat and stared at Stella, stars in her pearly eyes.

  “Dog whisperer,” my mother breathed, clasping her hands together.

  “It’s about authority,” Stella said, and we all nodded our heads. “Confidence.”

  Stella had this power. It was a different power than Nora had. Far as I could tell, it was being used for good.

  “It really is,” my mom said, taking back the lead. Instantly Greta jumped up and strained to free herself.

  My mom was untangling herself and Greta. I looked over at Stella. She was a mess. I mean a cool mess, but still a mess, all smudged and smeared and cut and pasted. And yet I don’t think I knew a being more together than Stella. Who was more together than Stella B?

  Maybe Mabel, but anyway, we were all together now.

  Well, we were . . . existentially together, because my mom took the dogs, and I went with Stella and Samantha. “There’s a Starbucks near my house,” I said. “I mean, since you’re going to drop me there anyway.”

  “I don’t do Starbucks,” she said, opening the car so Samantha could jump in back. We both got in front, and Stella started the car and then scanned her music with purpose.

  “I’m queen of the world, I bump into things, I spin around in circles, and I’m singing, and I’m singing, I’m singing.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “This good?” Stella eased out of the lot, and as she waited to get onto the road, she hit the gear shift with her ringed fingers. The Ford Fiesta was a stick shift. Lame car and so not a lame car at the exact same time.

  “The music?”

  “You don’t know Ida Maria?”

  “Nope.” When would I actually know the right song and the right band and the right, right, right way?

  “She’s good.”

  “I like,” I said. I did. Queen of the world was a good strong person to be.

  “In a punky, poppy way. More pop than punk, right?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  “Anyway, Starbucks, it’s just gross, you know? There are a million. Let’s go somewhere where there is only one or two of them in the world.”

  “Let me restate,” I said. “There’s this café not so far from my house. Since you have to take me back anyway.”

  “That sounds great!” Stella said. “Where?”

  “I’m looking,” I said. I took out my phone. “Because actually I usually just go to Starbucks.”

  “Ha,” said Stella.

  “Ha-ha,” I said as I directed her to Greenleaf. “There are three of these in the world. Will that still work for you?”

  “Three? Hmm.” Samantha thrust her head between the front seats, panting. “Yes. Three is the cutoff,” she said. “Three.”

  Samantha stayed in the car, which Stella had parked just outside the café. We took a seat by the plate glass window, and it was almost like we were all there together. Almost but not really.

  “They have great hot chocolate here,” I said. “You want one?” I stood up and patted my jacket pockets, looking for the little pouch I put money and dog treats in.

  “Really? Sure. I thought you’d never been here.”

  “That’s what the phone told me,” I said, making my way to order, orange streamers and witches’ masks and cutouts of beheaded heads dangling from the counter.

  After refusing the invitation to “pumpkinify” my drink with that relentless autumn flavor I have always despised, I came back with two normal hot chocolates, regulared, swirled high with whipped cream.

  “I despise Halloween,” I said as I handed Stella hers.

  “Is it Halloween?”

  “Thursday,” I said. “Cannot wait.”

  “I’m in costume all year long,” Stella said. “This day is no different, right?”

  “Hmm.”

  “So.”

  “So tell me about Jared.”

  “Oh, what for? I need a life. I’ve got, like, no friends because of that guy. It’s kind of nice to just sit here in fucking Greenleaves or wherever we are with someone my own age.”

  “I think you’re older.”

  “Roughly,” she said.

  I nodded into my hot drink. “My sister’s age.”

  “Anyway, your plan. Why don’t you stay with me!” she said.

  “That’s a nice offer, but I’m not really staying with anyone,” I said, blowing on my hot chocolate. “I mean, I guess I’ll be staying with Connor.” The thought exhilarated and panicked me.

  “Well,” she said. “Just as like a base camp. Whatever you decide.”

  I took a sip and a huge swipe of the cream. “He wants to meet in Annapolis,” I said. “So weird. He’s coming from New Hampshire.”

  “Huh. Is he really into crab cakes?”

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  “So how are you getting there?”

  “Hadn’t thought about it yet,” I said, though my first thought had been Tim. He would have done it. But then I would have had to tell him why.

  “I’m thinking out loud here. I mean, why Annapolis? How on earth does a person get to Annapolis?” Stella asked.

  “It’s not that far. But it is, umm, an unusual destination.”

  “Yeah. I know a couple of people who got fake IDs in Annapolis. But that’s kind of it.”

  “So you,” I said. “Are you going to get back with the Philly boy? With Jared?”

  Stella went dark. Like the lights went out. “Doubt it,” she said.

  “Okay then,” I said.

  At first I thought it was t
he heat of the chocolate, making its way, like, through my body as I went to ask her more about this development, but I soon realized that was not in fact what I was feeling. “Oh my God,” I said.

  “It’s not a big deal. I just don’t want to talk about him now.” Stella clearly had not heard me. She took a massive gulp of her drink.

  It was still happening. A warm rush down my leg. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t move. I didn’t know which would be worse. To get up and run to the bathroom, leaving a trail of who knows what behind me, or to sit there and just, I don’t know, die.

  “Stella,” I said quietly.

  “I’ll totally take you.” She nodded at me like it was a pact no one could break. “Like I said, I just really dig driving. Listening to music on my own.”

  “Hey,” I said again.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I can’t say what my face revealed in that moment. If it appeared as stricken with horror as I was, or if it looked as sad, or as in disbelief, as I also was. I can’t say anything about that moment other than I hope I never have one like it again.

  “Lizzie, what’s wrong?” I heard the swoosh of her jacket as she reached across the table to touch my arm.

  “It came undone.”

  Stella looked around the room. “What?” she said. And then I saw her look of recognition.

  I nodded.

  “It’s okay.” She stood up. “It’s not a big deal at all.”

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said.

  “It’s okay. Let’s just go to the bathroom. Take my coat and wrap it around your waist.”

  “It’s not my back that’s the problem. I didn’t get my fucking period. It’s my front.” I was back in the land of illness and weakness and not knowing. Just back like I had never again been anything other than this.

  “I’ll walk in front of you then, and you’ll follow me to the bathroom.”

  “Okay.”

  Stella stood in front of me and grabbed one of my hands from behind, and I stood and followed behind her. I can’t say if there was any evidence of this undoing, as I just looked ahead and went to the bathroom behind Stella B.

  I ran into the stall and locked it sort of violently and sure enough, the clasp had come unclasped. I must not have secured it properly. I closed it now, grateful that I had emptied it before Petiquette so it was not the mess it could have been. I tried to clean myself up.

  “What do you need?”

  “Paper towels,” I said.

  And just as soon as I’d said so, a huge brown wad of them appeared at the top of the stall door. “Here,” she said. “Take.”

  And then another batch. “Wet with soap and just wet,” she said. “Pick your poison.”

  I could work with both and I did and after several minutes of cleaning and then trying to gather myself up, get myself gathered, I opened the door.

  “Hi,” Stella said.

  “Hey.” I looked down and went to the sinks. I washed my hands for a long time.

  Stella put her hand on my shoulder. “It’s okay,” she said. “This is nothing.”

  I shrugged her hand off.

  “Hey.” She placed her hand back on my shoulder. “This is nothing.”

  I looked at Stella then. This new friend, a new person who had been on the moon with me, even if it was just for a brief visit. Connor was not the only one. Perhaps there could be others. “This is not nothing,” I said. “So not nothing. It should come with a trigger warning.”

  “I hear you,” Stella said.

  “I can’t go back to that. That feeling. Being sick again.” I tore some paper towels from the dispenser and then wiped my hands and stood up straight and looked in the mirror. It was my actual face now. No steroid hair and freakish round face. My regular Birdy hair. Me. I bent in. I wiped my red eyes with the harsh paper towel. “I’m okay,” I said now, backing up from the mirror and again facing Stella.

  “You’re more than okay. You’re a survivor,” she said. “This is just a little reminder of that fact.”

  I nodded. “Thank you,” I said.

  “No need. A survivor. Don’t you forget that.”

  “Okay.” I threw out the towels.

  “And now, we’re friends.”

  I smiled a pathetic little smile. “Poor Samantha,” I said.

  “Yeah, let’s get out of here.”

  I followed Stella out of the bathroom and toward the door. I looked back with a pang of guilt for not having cleared our table: two hot chocolates still covered in cream, barely sipped at. Two girls whose outsides were so different from their insides. All girls. All kinds of scars. All kinds of ways to keep our secrets safe. My secret was safe. Safe, with Stella B.

  Slayer

  My parents didn’t end up going anywhere with Zoe because Zoe decided she didn’t need to see any more schools in Virginia and that, after she took the new round of SATs, which would surely put her at near to perfect, she was not going to want to stay in Virginia anyway.

  “That is so snotty,” I said. To everyone. I was momentarily panicked. It was 8:30 a.m. and I had a plan to carry out. I needed to get myself to Annapolis. I needed to pack whatever a person takes to this kind of thing. All of a sudden I realized this plan, like the last one Connor had hatched, was fraught with the possibility of mishap.

  My father was the one who spoke. “There are amazing schools here, Zoe. And publicly funded, which is nothing to sneeze at. College is very expensive!”

  Zoe crossed her arms. “I have not worked my ass off for four years to end up staying here. I mean, if I have to go, if I get in nowhere, if you guys won’t send me anywhere else, then I have no choice anyway, and so why even look?”

  “William and Mary and UVA are not here. They are fantastic schools, and I was looking forward to the trip,” my mother said, all dejected.

  I looked hard at Zoe, eyes wide, and even though she didn’t know my plan, she could have seen my cry for help and acted on it. If she saw me, she made no effort.

  “Tim and I have plans.”

  “Oh yeah?” my mother said. “Plans to do what?”

  “Well, to study, for one.”

  “Yes,” my mom said. “And . . .”

  “And he’s making me dinner, okay? He’s been reading up on all this cooking stuff and he’s making paella! He even bought fresh octopus!”

  I tried to stifle my laughter. And then: paella. From Spain. That was supposed to be mine.

  My father exhaled. “My God, Zoe. It’s one day! Fine.” He held his hands up in an I’m unarmed, don’t shoot gesture. “I give up.”

  My mother shook her head and went into the den. “You think you might have told us ahead of time, Zoe?” she screamed out. “I made time to do this.”

  “He just got the octopus yesterday,” Zoe said softly. She looked at my dad. “I really don’t want to go to a local school.”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake, Zoe. Enough’s enough. Your mother is right. Have some consideration for others.”

  “I am,” she said. “I’m not making you go.”

  My dad shook his head. The disappointed head shake.

  My mom came out of the den. “Let me ask you something,” she said. “Where is Tim going to school?”

  “He’s waiting to hear early decision,” she said. Which meant he’d been studying with her for hours upon hours and he didn’t even need to take the SATs again! “Columbia.”

  “And where are you applying? Your first choice,” my mom asked.

  “Yes. There. As I’ve mentioned, it’s important for me to be in a city.”

  “Zoe,” my mother started. “You know what? Forget it. I just really hope you remember: life is long. We’ll just have to see how this all pans out, won’t we?”

  Wasn’t life, in fact, short? This was another Nanaism. Live now, life is short, right? It can’t be both.

  “Well I’m going to Stella’s.” I realized just then that this didn’t have to affect me negatively, per se. “For the nig
ht.”

  Everyone turned to me.

  “That’s wonderful!” my parents said at the same time.

  “Wait a minute.” He ran his hands through his hair. My poor dad. He was trying so hard to keep up. “Who’s Stella?”

  When Stella pulled up in her white Ford Fiesta at 9:30 a.m. I had everything ready to go. Well, what was everything exactly? What would I ever take for an overnight with my . . . boyfriend? It was extra bags and non-itch creams, some bonus clasps because, dear God, I was not going to let that bag come undone again, but if it did, I was going to be ready. And it was also, pajamas. And face cream. Where were we even going to be . . . sleeping? Would we be sleeping? I had no idea what was about to happen. It was like everything before. Wait for the answer. Wait and see.

  “Bye, honey!” My parents stood at the front door waving, like I was bravely going off to war. In a way, it had been a war. There had certainly been carnage.

  I ducked my head like I was blinded by the sun. Or their love. “Bye.” I waved and hopped into Stella’s car.

  Bob, bob, went the dog head. Hula, hula, went the girl’s straw skirt. “You are the most honorable soldier, superhero, pretty as a cat,” another unfamiliar voice in Stella’s phone in its dock sang.

  “Okay.” I put my palms on both knees. “Here we go. Who’s this?”

  “Kate Nash!”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Kate Nash!” she said again.

  “I heard you!” When would the music shaming cease? It was getting tiring.

  She gripped the wheel and pitched herself over it, like an old lady looking for an address in the dark.

  “Are you stressed out?”

  “I don’t know. I feel all this pressure,” I said. We were headed toward the highway.

  “What are you guys even going to do?”

  I giggled. “I have no idea.”

  “Are you, like, prepared?” She was on the ramp now.

  “Stop it. You sound like my mother. Or like my mother would sound if she knew what was happening right now.”

  “I’m just saying. When I first did it with Jared, it was bad. It got better. But the first time was not a lot of fun.”

  “I don’t even know if that is happening!” I said. “Like, I honestly don’t think it will. Remember the thing that keeps me from people? That thing that came undone. That could happen. Can you imagine?”