The Sweetness of Salt

by Cecilia Galante

  “Oh, it’s nothing.” I took a few steps backward, desperate to get out of the lie. I hated lying. Plus, I wasn’t good at it. “Seriously. Go back to work. It’s nothing.”

  “No, really.” He was in front of me now. “I was gonna take a break anyway. What’d you lose? I’m good at finding things.”

  Damn. “I, um, I think I lost an earring. But seriously, it’s not a big deal. I can totally get another pair.”

  But Aiden was already hunched over, peering through the grass. “Tell me what it looked like,” he said. “Gold? Silver?”

  I closed my eyes, scurried a few feet away from him, and then quickly, furtively, withdrew one of the small rectangular amber studs that Mom and Dad had given me last year for my birthday. “Um…they were amber,” I said. “And sort of…rectangular shaped.” I gasped and made a show of reaching down into the grass. “I found it! Here it is. Oh my God, I can’t believe I found it!”

  Aiden came over toward me. “Cool.” He watched intently as I reinserted the earring. “Amber’s a great stone. I don’t blame you for wanting to find it.”

  I nodded, relieved the scene had ended.

  “Did you just get in?” Aiden asked.

  “In?” I repeated, before I realized what he meant. “Oh no. Actually, I never left. I’ve been here. In Poultney. All week.”

  “Oh yeah?” Aiden shoved his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “What happened?”

  “Nothing, really. My sister and I just decided that I would stay a little longer. We wanted to, you know, extend our visit.”

  Aiden raised one eyebrow.

  “What?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing.”

  I could tell he didn’t believe me. So what? What did I care if he knew what was going on with Sophie and me? In the first place, it was none of his business. And in the second place, well, it was none of his business.

  He motioned briefly with his arm. “Come on up,” he said. “Now that you’re staying a while, I can show you the stuff that I do.” I didn’t move. “If you want to, I mean.” He shrugged. “You did seem interested before.”

  I watched the soles of his Converse sneakers as I followed him up the hill. The laces, tied carelessly in a single knot, drooped on either side in wide loops. It reminded me of the time Dad tried to teach me how to tie my shoes: “bunny ear, bunny ear, criss-cross, loop.” For as intelligent as I was—even back then, at four years old—this simple task had eluded me. I simply could not, no matter how many times I tried, get the bunny ears to cooperate. Finally, I had kicked off my shoe, hurling it across the room in exasperation. Dad had been shocked by my outburst. Speechless even, for a moment. “That’s something I would expect Sophie to do,” he said finally. “Not you, Julia.” The disappointment in his voice—as well as the comparison to Sophie—was something I never forgot. Ever.

  “Holy cow,” I said now, surveying the patio, which seemed more or less to have been transformed into a pottery studio. There was even a partial roof over half of it, shadowing the bricks underneath. A brick wall, no higher than my knees, was flanked at either end with flat, raised pedestals. On top of each pedestal was a design made out of little white stones.

  “Did your dad make these too?” I stared down at one. It was a starfish. Tiny stones, no larger than ladybugs, had been arranged into what looked like swaying pieces of seaweed on either side.

  “Yeah.” Aiden stood next to me, regarding the starfish. “That was the first one he ever did. It took him about a year. The other one”—he stopped and pointed at the other end of the wall—“only took him about six months. He’s gotten pretty good at it now.” I walked down to examine the other design. It was a tree with bare branches. No leaves at all. Just stark limbs, stretching out in all directions, like spindly fingers.

  “They’re so beautiful,” I said, running the pads of my fingers along the pebbly surface. “And so sad.”

  “Sad?” Aiden raised his left eyebrow again. “How do you get sad out of a stone tree? Or a starfish?”

  I shrugged, embarrassed suddenly, and walked over to the large contraption I’d seen the day before. The broken leg had been reattached with duct tape. Several magazines had been wedged under it for leverage, but it still sat at a slight angle. In the middle was a large mound of pale brown clay. “Tell me about this thing. What is it?”

  “This,” Aiden said, squatting down to examine the taped leg, “is my Laguna Pacifica Glyde Torc 400.” He looked up at me. “Or your basic pottery wheel. I was right in the middle of centering a new piece when you came by.”

  “Centering?”

  “Yeah,” Aiden said. “After you prepare the clay, you’ve got to center it on the wheel. It’s actually pretty hard to do. Sometimes it takes me four or five times to get it just right.”

  “Can you show me?”

  “Now?” Aiden asked.

  “Well, yeah. I mean, if you want to.”

  Aiden hesitated, but only for a moment. “Okay.” He straddled the little chair attached to the far end of the wheel and yanked off the mound of clay in the middle. “Centering is pretty much just what it sounds like,” he said. “You’ve got to make sure your clay is directly in the middle of the wheel. Otherwise, you’ll just fight the clay the whole time you’re trying to shape it.” He turned the mound over, looked at it, and then plopped it firmly on the wheel. “Doesn’t look too hard, does it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Okay, now comes the hard part.” He looked up at me expectantly. “You ready?”

  “Yes.”

  Aiden pressed a pedal beneath the wheel with his foot. It began to turn, slowly at first, and then more rapidly. I sat down along the edge of the wall, watching as his hands pressed and pulled and shoved the clay between them. His whole body tilted as he leaned into the wheel, almost as if he was forcing the clay in a direction it didn’t want to go. Suddenly, like a tree trunk growing at superspeed, a column of clay began to rise up from between his fingers. And then in the next moment, even under his flat, steadying palms, it flopped over and sank down into a heap. It looked like a crushed baby elephant’s trunk.

  Aiden sat back. “And that is what happens when your clay has not been centered properly.” He began scraping the mound off the wheel again. “You know, all the glory around this process goes to the shaping and the decorating and even the firing of the clay, but centering is really the most important thing of all. None of your pieces will ever work unless the middle is strong enough.”

  He started again, putting the clay down and kneading it back and forth as the wheel began to turn. Small grunts came out of his mouth as he worked. Overhead, a few yellow leaves from a birch tree fluttered lightly, and somewhere in the distance I could hear a dog barking.

  “I think it’s…,” Aiden said. “Come on, come on!” All at once he sat back, his hunched shoulders releasing themselves, and exhaled. “There she is!” he said. The wheel was still turning and the clay had not been shaped into anything worth mentioning. But it was centered. And even as it sat there, pale and bloblike, I thought it looked almost strong. Maybe proud, even. And ready.

  chapter

  27

  I could smell the Chinese food as soon as I walked into the house. My stomach growled. I’d been so immersed in Aiden’s pottery lesson that I hadn’t even realized how hungry I was—or how long I’d been gone. By the time I walked back, the sun was low in the sky. Not quite dusk, but still. I’d been gone for hours.

  “Jules?” Sophie’s voice came out from one side of the house.

  “Yeah, it’s me. Where are you?”

  “Living room,” she said.

  The living room was completely empty, except for the red and white checked tablecloth Sophie had spread out on the floor. Two stubby-looking candles, their flames soft and flickering, anchored opposite corners, and white cartons of food—some with chopsticks sticking out of the middle—had been placed in the middle.

  “Oh, it’s so nice!” I squatted down, crossin
g my legs in front of me, and reached for a carton. It was filled to the brim with shrimp, snow peas, slivered carrots, and water chestnuts. I pulled a large pink shrimp out with my fingers and stuffed it into my mouth. “Mmmm. Spicy shrimp is my favorite. Thanks!”

  “I never knew you liked Chinese food.” Sophie picked up a carton of brown rice and began eating it with chopsticks. “You should’ve said something. Mom and Dad and I would’ve taken you out to a Chinese place for your graduation.”

  I shook my head, trying to form words around the wad of food in my mouth. “Mom’s allergic to MSG.”

  “She is?” Sophie’s chopsticks paused by her lips. “Since when?”

  I shrugged. “Since forever, I guess. I don’t know. We’ve never eaten Chinese at home.”

  “Where do you eat it then?”

  “Zoe and I get it a lot.”

  Sophie sighed softly. “Thank God for Zoe.”

  I stopped chewing. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I’m just glad you have a friend like that,” Sophie said.

  “Like what?”

  “Like…” I could tell Sophie was backtracking, choosing her words carefully. It made me even angrier.

  “Like what?” I said again.

  “Why are you getting all bent out of shape here?” Sophie put her chopsticks down. “What’d I say?”

  “Nothing. But I can just tell you’re going to say some judgmental thing about how Zoe brings me out of my shell or how pitiful I would be without her.”

  “Pitiful?” Sophie repeated. “Julia, the last word I would ever use with you is pitiful. Pitiful is some helpless little thing. An injured rabbit, maybe. Or a bird with a broken wing. Not you. Ever.”

  I inhaled tightly through my nostrils. The spiciness of the shrimp had cleared them considerably. “Okay then, what were you going to say?”

  “All I meant,” Sophie said, “is that I’m glad you have someone who exposes you to different things.” She leaned forward a little, put her hand on my knee. “I mean, you have to know by now that Mom and Dad have kind of raised you in a bubble all these years. They’ve protected you from a lot of different things.” She shrugged. “I’m just glad Zoe’s there to remind you that life isn’t a bubble. That’s all.”

  I plopped the shrimp carton down. “Just because I didn’t know about Maggie doesn’t mean I was raised in a bubble, Sophie. I’ve had a totally normal childhood, just like every other kid out there.”

  Sophie cocked her head. “I’m not saying your childhood wasn’t normal. I’m just saying it was the one Mom and Dad planned out for you.”

  “Of course they planned it out for me! All parents plan their kids’ lives.” But even as I said it, I could feel something sinking inside.

  “Up to a point,” Sophie finished. “You’re eighteen now, Julia. Or you will be, at the end of the summer. And you’re still going along, step by step, exactly by the rule book Mom and Dad made up for you the day you were born. The one that said we couldn’t talk about Maggie. The one that said I was too messed up to fix. The one that said you—under no uncertain terms—had to be perfect.”

  I stared at her, realizing suddenly that I was crying, which made me more furious. I brushed my tears away impatiently. “They never said that. They never once used the word ‘perfect’ when it came to me, Sophie. Never.”

  Sophie looked at me. Shadows from the candles flickered across her face, illuminating her right eye. It was a light green color, made even paler by the light. “Jules,” she said softly. “After everything that happened with Maggie, and then how screwed up I got…” She shook her head. “I’m not saying it was their fault. But you were all they had left. And they wanted to make damn sure that after the mess with the first two kids, their last kid came out great. Perfect, even.”

  “Why do you keep talking about yourself like you’re some kind of freak?” I was pleading with her now, begging her to take it back. Didn’t she know what it did to me that she saw herself as just a screwup? We came from the same parents, had the same blood. If she was a screwup, then what did that make me? “You’re not screwed up. You’re not too messed up to fix.”

  Sophie shrugged. “I know what I am,” she said. “And I’m working on it. You, though, you need to figure out who you are. For yourself.”

  I shook my head to block out the sound of her voice. This was way too much for me. Figure out who I am? What did that even mean? Was that just some statement to make me feel better? To sidestep the real issues—whatever they were? I couldn’t be sure anymore. I wiped my hands on a napkin and stood up. “You know what? I can’t do this any more. I’m going to bed.”

  Sophie stood up too. “Jules, come on. Don’t.”

  “You need time for your stuff.” I gritted my teeth. “And I need time for mine. So back off, okay?”

  She dropped her eyes.

  I left her there, the candles still burning in the empty room, and went upstairs.

  I lay in bed for a long time, listening to Sophie move around downstairs, trying not to revisit the things she had said to me. But they were there, rolling around inside my head, hitting and clicking off each other like so many marbles in a game. It was like I could actually feel my life, a large, perfectly stitched leather bag, splitting apart at the seams. Rip. Rip. Rip. Any minute now, everything inside was going to come spilling out until it all lay in a pile at my feet. Then what would I do?

  chapter

  28

  Once, when I was ten, I’d come home from fifth grade with all A’s. The only blip on the screen was a B in gym, which I’d gotten because I couldn’t climb the long, dangling rope hanging from the ceiling. Mom’s face lit up when she saw my report card and then dimmed again as she spied the B. “What happened in gym?” she asked. I told her about the rope. Two days later, Dad installed a thick length of rope from the garage ceiling. Every night after dinner he took me out to the garage and helped me work on my climbing skills. He even started me on a push-up and pull-up routine to improve my upper-body strength.

  I rolled over impatiently in bed. Lots of parents did stuff like that, didn’t they?

  There was another incident—this one outside of school. I was in eighth grade and had been invited to the movies by a girl named Rachel Terwilliger. She was shy and quiet like me and I was thrilled that she had asked me to go. Mom insisted on picking up Rachel so that she could meet her mother, and then drove us to the movies. We had explicit instructions to call her as soon as the credits started rolling so she could come back for us.

  But when the movie was over, Rachel wanted to walk home. I hesitated. I wasn’t allowed to walk anywhere alone after eight p.m. I wouldn’t be alone, Rachel argued. And it was only seven thirty. I gave in quickly, afraid that if I didn’t she would never ask me to hang out again. We laughed and talked all the way back. Rachel’s house came first and I waved good-bye and set off for home. Mom cut me off at the end of our street, swerving the car into the curb so sharply I thought she was going to hit it.

  “Get in this car!” she said. “Right now!”

  The lecture I received when I got home has yet to be matched, both in intensity and length. Mom and Dad were beside themselves. Didn’t I know, Dad asked over and over again, the things that could happen to me? Out there? Alone? It went on and on. I wasn’t allowed to speak to Rachel and I was grounded for three weeks. They needn’t have bothered. I never walked anywhere alone again—not that year, or all the ones after. Especially after dark.

  Parents did that sort of thing too, I thought, shifting again in the bed. Besides, even if they didn’t, Mom and Dad deserved a break. They’d lost one daughter and had all but waved good-bye to Sophie. Of course they would be overly protective with me.

  I got up out of bed and walked over to the window. Through the sheer curtain I could make out the lights across the street at Stewart’s. There were still a few trucks parked in front; someone was pumping gas into the back of a pickup. Down a little ways, a boy and girl about my
age were sitting on the small stoop in front of Perry’s.

  This wasn’t about Mom and Dad, I realized suddenly.

  It was about me.

  What kind of person had I become after all these years of coddling and sheltering?

  And more important, what kind of person might I have become without it?

  I walked over to the dresser and took out my phone. My fingers quivered a little as I dialed Milo’s number.

  He picked up on the third ring. “Julia?”

  “Hi.”

  “Are you back?”

  “No. That’s why I’m calling, actually. I just wanted to let you know that I’ll probably be here for a while. Maybe even the rest of the summer.”

  “Oh.” The disappointment in his voice was palpable. “Wow. I didn’t think you’d really stay that long.”

  “I didn’t either,” I said. “I mean, that wasn’t the plan. Everything just sort of changed though, after I got up here. It’s weird, you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Milo? Can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “If you didn’t take me to the prom as a favor, then why did you ask me? I mean, was it just because you and Cheryl broke up and you needed someone to go with?”

  Milo cleared his throat. “Sort of.”

  I bit my lip. “You could’ve gone with anyone. Melissa Binsko, or Carrie James, or even Samantha Evans. Any of them would’ve gone with you.”

  “They’re all idiots,” Milo said. “I wouldn’t have had any fun with them.”

  “Did you have fun with me?”

  “Well, yeah!” He paused. “Did you have fun with me?”

  “Yes,” I said softly. “Until…well, you know, the ride home.”

  There was a brief silence. “I guess it didn’t ruin everything,” Milo said finally. “I mean, we’re still talking.”

  I smiled. “Still?”

  Milo laughed softly. “Okay, so maybe we’ve just started talking.”