The Sweetness of Salt

by Cecilia Galante

  “I gotta go,” I grabbed my speech and shoved the door open. “I’ll just walk the rest of the way.”

  “In the eyes!” Dad yelled, using one of his attorney mantras. “Remember to look ’em right in the eyes! And don’t let ’em see you sweat!”

  I broke into a run as I spotted the line of yellow gowned students ahead.

  There was no turning back now.

  It was showtime.

  chapter

  3

  I led my class out of the auditorium as the last stomachache strains of the orchestra faded behind us. My speech had been flawless. Not a single uh or um. No unnecessary pauses, no word stumbles. It was like I’d gone on autopilot. From start to finish. The crowd had approved too, cheering wildly when I finished. A few people even jumped up and pumped their fists in the air. One of them had probably been Sophie. I sat back down in my chair on stage, folded my hands, and felt my stomach plummet.

  We were graduated. Done with Silver Springs High. Forever.

  It was a slightly amazing feeling. I slowed as the foyer came into view, trying to absorb it.

  “Jules!”

  My heart flopped like a fish as Milo walked up to me. “Hey!”

  For a split second, I wondered what he would do if I buried my nose into the front of his gold gown. “Hi,” I said.

  “I tried to find you before, to wish you luck,” Milo said, “but I didn’t see you.”

  “Oh, I was late. I was kind of hiding from Mrs. Soprano, and then I had to get in line…”

  Wait. How were we talking like this all of a sudden? We hadn’t exchanged this many words since…well, since that horrible night at prom.

  Milo nodded. “You did great,” he said. “Your speech, I mean. It was incredible.”

  “You think so?”

  “The Auden quote was perfect.”

  “That was for you,” I wanted to say. “I researched all the scary truth tellers until I found a quote that you might notice.”

  “Yeah, my dad found that,” I said. “He loves Auden.”

  “It was brilliant,” Milo said. “Especially right at the end like that. It really made it stand out. Gave everyone something to chew on, you know?” There were little specks of gold in the green of his eyes, and his hair had just been cut. A tiny dot of dried blood sat just under his nose, where he had cut himself shaving.

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll make sure to tell my dad.”

  People were pushing past us on all sides, trying to get outside. Off to the right, Melissa Binsko, who had just gotten a boob job and was voted Most Likely to End Up on a Reality Show, was screaming and clutching a gaggle of girls. But at that moment I was all alone, standing in front of Milo. “Please,” I thought to myself. “Please, Milo.”

  He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something else, but then his eyes shifted as the girls in the corner squealed again. “Okay, well, I’ll see you around,” he said. And then, “Hey, Melissa! Melissa! Wait up!”

  I stood there for half a second, just blinking.

  “Julia!” Milo’s vacancy was filled suddenly by Zoe and Sophie and my parents, all of whom draped themselves over me. “Oh, Julia, congratulations! Your speech was perfect. We’re so proud of you. Look who’s here, Julia! Look who it is! It’s Sophie! She came all the way down from Vermont just to see you. We need pictures! Come outside where the light is good. Where’s the camera? Who has the camera?”

  I could hear their voices, see their bright faces bobbing up and down like so many buoyed lights. But the only thing I felt as they dragged me outside onto the front steps and arranged me like a paper doll in their arms was that I was moving farther and farther away from the only person I wanted to be with at that moment; and who, once again, had disappeared right in front of my eyes.

  We split up after pictures, Mom and Dad going to their car, Zoe and I scrambling into Sophie’s old green VW Bug. I got in the passenger seat next to Sophie and rolled down the window. A few of the roses Mom had given me were already wilting, and my armpits were starting to sweat. A pop sounded in the backseat as Zoe cracked open a Dr Pepper. “Woo-hoo!” she yelled, as a little foam spilled out of the top of the can. “Here’s to Julia! The smartest chick in Silver Springs!”

  I turned around and glared at Zoe. “Chill!” I mouthed the word soundlessly, tilting my head in Sophie’s direction.

  Zoe nodded, unfazed, and took a swig of soda. She sat forward a little in between Sophie and me, and yanked at her T-shirt, the front of which said IT’S LONELY AT THE TOP, BUT YOU EAT BETTER. Zoe had a thing for weird T-shirts. “Thanks for giving me a lift, Sophie. My parents are parked all the way in the back. It’s gonna take them over an hour to get out of here. The parking here sucks.”

  “No prob,” Sophie said. She had twisted her usually free-flowing blond hair into a knot and was wearing a pale pink slip dress that displayed both of her upper arm tattoos prominently—something Mom was sure to comment on. Her toenails were painted an electric blue, and she had a thin silver toe ring on her left foot. She waved a package of Camels in the air. “Anyone mind if I smoke?”

  “Yes,” I said emphatically.

  “Actually,” Zoe giggled, “could I have one?”

  I gave her another look, but Zoe just shrugged.

  Sophie laughed and pulled two cigarettes out of the pack. “That was a kick-ass speech you gave.”

  I opened my window as Sophie lit both cigarettes with the button lighter in the car. She handed one to Zoe, who took it, inhaled, and immediately began to cough. Her eyes, already as large as zinnias, grew to planet proportions.

  “Open your window,” I said, glaring at her. “It’s bad enough up here.”

  The car moved forward another foot. Sophie clenched the wheel. The muscles under her arm tattoo were tight. “Seriously, Jules, that speech was fantastic. You were so clear, so concise. And you spoke with such conviction. Everyone in the whole place was just holding their breath.”

  I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. It was hard to know sometimes when Sophie was being sincere. “Thanks,” I said cautiously.

  “And can you even believe Melissa Binsko invited everyone to her party tonight? Including me?” Zoe leaned forward conspiratorially. “I’m just a lowly junior. Un-friggin’-believable.”

  “Who’s Melissa Binsko?” Sophie asked, looking at me.

  “Just a girl in my class.” Melissa Binsko had said all of maybe three words to me in the four years we had gone to school together. The last time I had seen her in the hall, she’d been draped all over Milo. “We’re not even friends, but Zoe is going to have a heart attack if we don’t go.”

  “Dude!” Zoe said. “Who cares if we’re not friends? Do you know how much money that girl’s family has? Come on! It’s gonna be the coolest party of the entire year!”

  “So you’re just interested in going because she has money?”

  “Money, great food, a pool, and a hot tub.” Zoe ticked off the items on one hand. “Um…yeah?”

  “Whatever.” I turned to look at my sister. “So why couldn’t Goober come?”

  “Greg wouldn’t switch weekends. You know how he can get.”

  Actually, I didn’t know how Greg could get. I didn’t know Goober’s father at all. Neither did Mom and Dad. He and Sophie had split up early in her pregnancy and had never gotten back together. “Well, tell her I miss her,” I said. “To Pluto and back and around again to infinity.” That was Goober’s and my pet phrase. Goober had made it up. We said it all the time before we had to say good-bye.

  Sophie made a gesture with her chin. “Will do.”

  “So, Sophie.” Zoe brought her cigarette to her lips and inhaled, a little more confidently this time. “How’s Vermont?”

  “Actually, I just moved,” Sophie said.

  I glanced over at my sister again. This was news.

  Sophie pushed a piece of hair out of her face. “Not very far from where I used to be in Rutland, though. I bought a little place i
n a town called Poultney.”

  “Is that still in Vermont?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh. Right on the New York border.”

  “Do Mom and Dad know?”

  Sophie shrugged. “No. But I just moved a few weeks ago. And I was going to tell everyone tonight at dinner.”

  “Why’d you move?” Zoe asked.

  “Well,” Sophie said, taking another drag from her cigarette, “I’m opening a business.”

  I stared at her. “You are?”

  “Awesome!” Zoe gushed. “What kind of business?”

  “A bakery,” Sophie said. “Just a little one.”

  “A bakery?” I struggled to suppress a wave of annoyance. It was embarrassing that I only knew as much about my older sister as my best friend did.

  “Yeah,” Sophie said. “I’ve always wanted to open a bakery. And I’ve been saving for years. So when things finally started coming together, and I saw this place, I decided the hell with it, I was just gonna do it.” She took a drag on her cigarette. “It’s not in the best of shape right now, but I have the rest of the summer to work on it. I’m planning on opening for business in September.”

  “What does Goober think?” I asked.

  “Oh, she loves it!” Sophie said. “Seriously. She’s so excited.”

  “Do you have to learn how to bake?” Zoe asked. “I mean, you’re the one who has to make everything, right? Or are you going to hire someone to do that for you?”

  Sophie smiled slightly. “No, I can bake,” she said. “Right, Julia?”

  I stared straight ahead, annoyed suddenly by something I couldn’t name. “Yeah.”

  She nudged me with her elbow. “Remember all that stuff I used to make in high school?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “I’ve been working on my muffins for years,” Sophie said. “And I want to sell fresh bread and pies. Maybe some cakes too.”

  “That sounds like a lot of work,” I said.

  “It is,” Sophie replied promptly. “That’s the fun of it.”

  “What’s it called?” Zoe asked.

  “I haven’t decided on a name just yet,” Sophie said. “I’m open to suggestions.”

  “Cool.” Zoe sat forward, holding on to the back of my seat again. “I’m gonna think of something good.”

  “Yeah.” I felt tired all of a sudden, as if the morning’s events had just caught up with me. “That’s great.”

  For a second, like a balloon floating by, I wondered where Milo was, what he was doing. And then, as the car began to move, the balloon disappeared, floating up past the trees until it was just a pinpoint of color against the sky.

  chapter

  4

  When Sophie was sixteen she had a boyfriend named Eddie Waters. We all loved Eddie. He was tall and dark haired, and when he came to dinner he always brought my mother a bouquet of flowers. But Sophie was mean to him. Cruel, even. She spoke down to him as if he were stupid, and often ended their long, drawn-out phone calls by slamming the phone back into the receiver. One night, after a particularly loud argument between them, I tapped softly on Sophie’s bedroom door. She hadn’t come down for dinner, and didn’t touch a thing on the plate Mom brought up. “Soph?”

  No answer. Sophie usually let me in when I knocked. I would sprawl out over her bed, drawing in my doodle pad while she did homework. After tonight’s fight with Eddie, however, maybe she had other ideas.

  I tapped again. “Soph?” I said, a little louder this time.

  “Yeah?” Her voice was stuffy with tears.

  “Can I come in?”

  There was a long pause. Finally, “Okay.”

  I pushed open the door gently. Sophie sat in the middle of her bed, which she had pulled out from against the wall and centered in the middle of the room. She was reading a magazine. Dirty clothes and pieces of paper littered the floor, and her desk was scattered with pens, pencils, and empty coffee mugs. I climbed up amid the perpetual tangle of rumpled sheets and blankets and crossed my legs. “Are you okay?”

  She nodded and turned a page of her magazine without looking up. “Why aren’t you in bed yet? Isn’t it past nine?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Listen, if you’re here about me and Eddie fighting, then you can leave,” she said. “Because it’s none of your business.”

  I stared at her for a minute. It felt as though she had just slapped me. “You’re mean to him,” I said, before I could stop myself.

  Sophie looked up from her magazine. “What did I just say?”

  I held my ground. This was for Eddie, not her. “He’s so nice to you all the time, and you’re just mean.” My lower lip began to wobble. “You’re mean and nasty and everyone…”

  “Out.” Sophie cut me off abruptly, and then looked down at her magazine. “Out,” she said again when I didn’t move. “Now.”

  My eyes began to fill with tears. “You’re mean to everyone!” I shouted.

  “Whose side are you on?” Sophie asked. “You’re tired, Julia. Go to bed.”

  It might have helped things if she had gotten worked up. Maybe if she had yelled back at me or shed a few tears, the big block inside my chest might have split open. But the boredom in her voice made me furious. “I won’t go to bed.” I was speaking through gritted teeth. “Not until you call Eddie and apologize for being so mean to him.”

  “Oh. My. God.” Sophie tossed her magazine to one side and rolled off her bed, all in one fluid motion. She caught me around the top of the arm, dragged me from her room, and while I stood there yelling at the top of my lungs, she slammed and locked her door.

  Mom came running upstairs, “What in the world is going on here?”

  I was sobbing by then, incomprehensible as I tried to explain what had happened.

  “Sophie?” Mom knocked on her door. “What’s going on?”

  “Leave me alone.” The words were heavy and solid, spoken with finality.

  “Come on, sweetie,” Mom said, taking my hand. “Come with me.”

  Mom sat with me while I took a warm bath and then she dried me off, helped me into clean pajamas, and tucked me into bed. My breath was still coming in little hiccups.

  “Don’t let Sophie get to you,” Mom said, sitting on the edge of my mattress. “She’s going through a lot right now.”

  “What’s the matter with her?” I asked.

  “She’s a teenager,” Mom said. “And she has a boyfriend. You’ll see when you get there. There are a lot of emotions involved.”

  “She’s mean,” I said stubbornly. “I hate her guts.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  I ignored her. “And she’s not even nice to Eddie.”

  Mom tucked her hearing aid wire behind her ear. “Well, Eddie and Sophie’s business is for them to worry about.”

  I pouted for a few seconds, and then reached up to finger the tiny springy cord attached to her hearing aid. When I was really little, still drinking out of a bottle, I used to drift off to sleep with one hand attached to the delicate rubber tubing. As I got older, I pretended that the wire was a pet baby caterpillar. Now, I just touched it because it was there.

  I reached up with my arms. “I love you, Mom.”

  She bent down and kissed me. She smelled like Ivory soap and charcoal smoke from the grill. “I love you too, sweetie. Good night.”

  Later that night, I felt someone crawling into bed with me. I turned, half asleep, to see Sophie’s tear-streaked face staring at me from across the pillow. Her big blue eyes were lined with little veins of red, and her nose was running.

  “I’m sorry I’m so awful,” she whispered. “I don’t mean to be.” Her voice broke on the last word and a new sob worked its way out of her mouth. I snuggled in under her neck as she wrapped her arms around me. She cried softly for a few more moments. After a while, I could feel her settle her chin on top of my head. She breathed in deeply and then exhaled with a soft shudder. “I love you, Jules,” she murmured.

  “I love
you too,” I whispered.

  We fell asleep like that, until morning.

  chapter

  5

  I went upstairs to change when Sophie and I finally got home. Zoe had rushed across the street into her house, but there still wasn’t any sign of Milo. Mom and Dad were busying themselves in the kitchen: Mom setting out a platter of cheese and fruit, while Dad struggled to open a bottle of sparkling water. The radio was on in the background, tuned to the soft-rock station Mom always listened to.

  I had just kicked off my shoes when a light knock sounded on my door. Before I had a chance to say anything, Sophie opened it and walked into the room. “Hey.” She had already changed out of her slip dress into a Tweety Bird T-shirt and a pair of soft, worn-out jeans that hung low on her hips “Mind if I hang out for a minute?”

  “Sure.” My heart pounded as she meandered around, studying the room the way she always did when she came back home. This had been her bedroom before she left and sometimes as I watched her inspect it, I felt nervous, as if I wasn’t holding up my end of some unstated bargain. Now she paused in front of my dresser, staring down at Milo’s little cardboard card taped to the top of it.

  “Unhook me?” I turned around so I could back my way to Sophie.

  Sophie unhooked the tiny clasp and then turned back to my dresser. She leaned in, moving her lips soundlessly as she recited the words that Milo had written. “Is this your handwriting?” she asked, pointing. “It’s so tiny.”

  “No. Milo gave it to me. For Christmas.”

  “Milo?” she repeated. “Zoe’s brother?”

  I nodded.

  Her face lit up. “The one you were talking to after graduation? Oh my God! He’s so cute! Are you guys dating?”

  I stepped out of my robe and arranged it on a hanger. “No, we’re not dating. We’re just friends.”