The Sweetness of Salt

by Cecilia Galante

  Aiden was already a quarter of the way across the field by the time I caught up to him. His slender legs cut through the tall grass, and I watched in amazement as he jumped up and straddled a haystack. He cleared it with ease, landing neatly on the other side, and then cupped his hands around his mouth. “Your turn!” he shouted. “Give it a big running start!”

  I’m about as athletic as a chess player. And those haystacks were a lot bigger up close than they had appeared from a distance. Still, I ran like hell. And when I soared over the top of that haystack, flying through the air like a sack of arms and elbows, and made it to the other side, I couldn’t help it—I screamed like I had won some kind of Olympic medal.

  “You okay?” Aiden said, standing over me.

  I was flat on the ground, trying to catch my breath. “Yes!” I said, letting him pull me to my feet. “I want to do it again!”

  chapter

  35

  Sophie was upstairs folding laundry when I got back. “Hey!” she said. “How do you feel about a movie?”

  “Sure.” I leaned against the doorway, watching as she rolled up a pair of jeans and then threw them into her drawer. She did the same thing with her shirts and her overalls, even her underwear. Mom would have a heart attack if she saw how Sophie kept her clothes. She’d spent a good deal of time showing us both how to match up our seams and fold things in thirds.

  Sophie pulled a sweatshirt over her head. “We have to drive to Rutland; Poultney doesn’t have a theater. It’ll only take about twenty minutes.” She looked at me strangely. “Were you rolling around in a haystack or something?”

  I brushed off a few loose pieces of hay. I hadn’t told Sophie about Aiden, and for some reason, I didn’t want to yet. “No, I tripped and there was a pile of grass and stuff.”

  Sophie threw me a sweatshirt. “You’ll need one of these. It gets cold here at night. Even in the summer.”

  I drove. It was the first time I’d been back in the Bug since arriving in Poultney. It felt weird. It felt stranger still to have Sophie next to me in the passenger seat.

  “You eat yet?” Sophie asked as we made the turn at Castleton Corners. A sign for Rutland indicated that it was only ten more miles down the road.

  “No. Did you?”

  She shook her head. “Nope. We can stock up on popcorn and candy, though. Eat till we’re sick.”

  “What kind of candy do you like?”

  “Oh, I have a very deliberate strategy when it comes to movie food,” Sophie said. “I never deviate it from it, either. Large popcorn with extra butter and a box of peanut M&M’s, which I sprinkle…”

  “On top of the popcorn?” I finished. “Me too!”

  Sophie looked at me and grinned. “You’re kidding! I’ve never met anyone else who did that.”

  “Oh, it’s so good! All that sugar and salt combined?” I grinned, watching a pair of red taillights in front of me. “Hey, did you talk to Goober? She’s coming home soon, right?”

  Sophie sighed. I felt myself tense, waiting for bad news. “She wants to stay another week, Julia,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

  I wrinkled my forehead. “Did you tell her I’m here? I mean, does she know I’m in Poultney, staying in her room?”

  Sophie nodded. “She knows.”

  “Well…” I struggled for words, at a loss. “I mean, can we go up there? To Greg’s? We can…”

  “She’s not there.” Sophie’s voice was sharp. “I told you, Jules. They’re camping.”

  “They’re still camping?”

  “Yes!” Sophie nodded her head. “They’re still camping. This is what they do. It’s their thing. Especially in the summer, all right? Jesus.”

  “Okay.” My hands were gripping the steering wheel. “God, you don’t have to bite my head off.”

  “I didn’t mean to.” Sophie leaned her head back against the seat rest and she closed her eyes. “I’m sorry. I’m just tired.”

  I glanced over at her. She did look paler than usual. The veins in her neck stood out like thin cords, and her eyelids were the color of a faint bruise. Even her hair looked limp and exhausted. “You’re working too hard,” I said. “You need to take a break, Sophie. Seriously.”

  “Mmmm…” She did not open her eyes. “That’s why we’re going to the movies.”

  “No, a real break,” I said. “Like, a few days off from working so you can sleep and do nothing kind of a break.”

  “Oh God.” Sophie opened her eyes. “I don’t have a few days. I’ve got to get this house in shape and the bakery opened before the summer’s over. I have to start making some money.”

  “Well, you’re not going to get anything up and running if you’re falling down from exhaustion,” I argued. “Why don’t you at least sleep in tomorrow? You don’t have to get up at five every morning. Seriously. You’ll work better and more efficiently if you’re well rested.”

  Sophie was looking at me out of the corner of her eye. “You sound like Dad sometimes. You know that?”

  “Dad?” A green Rutland sign came into view. “Do I turn here?”

  “Yeah,” Sophie said. “The movie theater’s right down the block.” She paused. “Sounding like Dad isn’t a bad thing. It was just an observation.”

  I snorted. “Any observation you make about Dad tends to be a bad thing.”

  Sophie sat up straighter. “That’s not true.”

  “It is true. You never have anything nice to say about him. Mom either, for that matter.”

  Sophie’s face creased in the dark. She looked at me for a moment, as if to say something, and then sat back again. “Well, it’s hard. We have a lot of…history, the three of us.”

  “I know, I know.” I pulled the car impatiently into the parking lot and turned off the engine. A group of kids were outside the theater, huddled in small groups, punching each other and laughing. “Come on,” I said. “Let’s get in there before they do.”

  Sophie was looking at me.

  “What?” I asked.

  She blinked. “Just…don’t make light of it, okay? Don’t say things like ‘I know, I know,’ when I tell you we have a history. It makes it hard for me to say anything when I hear that kind of impatience in your voice.”

  “All right.” I nodded, feeling my face get hot. “I won’t.”

  She stared straight ahead, watching the teenagers. A few of the boys were wearing hoodies, and the girls, in thin T-shirts and jeans, were underdressed for the cool night. Their teeth chattered as they laughed, and they hugged their arms tightly around themselves.

  Sophie’s teeth worked the inside of her lip, and her eyes squinted against the parking lot lights. Suddenly, she put her hand on the door. “Okay, let’s go. I need to pig out and turn my brain off for the next two hours. None of this heavy shit tonight. You ready?”

  “Ready,” I said, getting out on my side of the car.

  We were settled in our seats with extra-large buckets of popcorn, peanut M&M’s, and a liter of soda when I leaned over in Sophie’s direction. “I’m sorry,” I whispered in her ear. “About sounding impatient.”

  She turned and kissed me on the nose.

  chapter

  36

  The movie was full of inane, disgusting bathroom humor that for some reason struck me as horribly funny. I couldn’t remember the last time I had laughed like that. At anything. Sophie laughed too, although she was much more vocal about it, throwing her head back at certain points and whooping. We giggled violently all the way back to Poultney, reliving the funniest parts over and over again. By the time we pulled into Sophie’s driveway, the muscles under my ribs ached and I had a stitch in my side. Laughing like that had done something else to me too; I felt lighter somehow, as if something had emptied itself.

  “Whew!” I wiped my eyes. “God, I feel like I’m going to puke.”

  Sophie laughed and got out of the car. “It’s still early. You want to go over to Perry’s for a cup of coffee or something?”

 
“Sure.”

  Perry’s was empty except for Miriam, who was reading the newspaper horoscopes behind the counter, and the Table of Knowledge. The three men looked over as we walked in, their meaty faces breaking into grins. Even Jimmy smiled and nodded.

  “Well, whaddya know,” Lloyd said. “You girls here for a nightcap?”

  Sophie made a pshaw sound. “We’re just here for coffee, Lloyd. Unless you’ve got anything we can put in it?”

  Lloyd laughed and patted his breast pocket. “Nothing that won’t burn the lining off your delicate little stomachs.”

  Sophie raised an eyebrow. “Try me someday.”

  Walt tapped the space next to him with three fingers. “Pull up a chair, girls. We got the whole joint to ourselves.”

  Sophie and I exchanged a look. I shrugged. “Okay,” Sophie said. She pulled out a chair for me and placed it between Lloyd and Walt. I sat down tentatively, arranging my hands beneath my legs. Sophie pulled up another chair next to Jimmy, turned it around, and straddled the front of it. “We just got back from the movies,” she said. “Best thing I’ve seen in years. I almost wet my pants laughing so hard.” She nodded across the table at me. “Even Julia laughed.”

  The men turned to look at me. “Julia laughed?” Walt repeated. “Well, I’ll be.”

  “Yes, I laugh,” I said. “I laugh at a lot of things.”

  “Well, that’s good to know,” Walt said.

  “I’ve never heard you laugh,” Lloyd said. “Hell, I’m not sure I’ve even seen you smile!”

  I grinned hugely, then relaxed my face again.

  Lloyd nodded approvingly and eyed his tablemates. “Very nice,” he said. “You have good teeth too. You should do that more often.”

  Just then, Miriam came over with coffee cups and saucers. She set them down in front of Sophie and me and filled our cups. “Anything to eat, girls?”

  “Try the lemon meringue pie,” Walt said. “Jimmy and I just had a piece. It’ll knock you out.”

  Sophie looked over at Jimmy. He nodded. “Okay,” Sophie said. “I’ll have a piece of the lemon pie, Miriam. Jules, you want anything?”

  “They have strawberry shortcake,” Walt said. “With real biscuits. Miriam’ll heat it for you too, if you want. I don’t know about you, but I gotta have my biscuit warmed all the way through when I have shortcake.”

  “For crying out loud, Walt.” Miriam put a hand on her hip. “Why don’t you just rewrite the menu?”

  I ordered the shortcake. Miriam brought it over a few minutes later, along with Sophie’s pie and fresh coffee. Walt was right. It was delicious. I dug in, spooning up mouthful after mouthful of strawberries, whipped cream, and biscuit until my plate was clean.

  “You thought at all about what color you’re gonna paint that kitchen?” Lloyd asked. “Or you just gonna leave it bare?”

  Sophie licked the back of her fork and then set it down against her empty pie plate. “Funny you should ask. I was actually hoping we could talk about it together. I’d like to paint three of the walls a very light yellow. And I was hoping that Julia would do something to the last one.”

  I looked up from my plate. “Do something?” I repeated.

  Sophie grinned. “Yeah. Draw something. It doesn’t have to be anything fancy. You know, maybe a little mural. Of anything.”

  “You an artist, Julia?” Lloyd asked. Next to him, Walt stuck his thumbs behind his suspenders and looked at me.

  I sighed. “Sophie likes to think I can draw because I used to doodle when I was younger.”

  Sophie sat forward eagerly. “Oh, you should have seen the little pictures she created. Miniature fruit and vegetable people with tiny hats and striped legs.” She stopped talking, her eyes getting wide. “Oh my God! That’s what I want you to draw! On the wall in the kitchen. You can do a whole scene with the fruit and vegetable people.” She bounced up and down a little in her seat. “Will you do it, Jules? Will you, will you, will you?”

  “You want fruit and vegetable people on your kitchen wall?” Lloyd asked. “You sure about that, Sophie?”

  I stared at my sister, not sure if what I was feeling was embarrassment, anxiety, or pride. She nodded her head eagerly at Lloyd, still looking at me. “I’m one hundred percent sure,” she said. “I’d love it. I would totally, totally love it.”

  The men turned in my direction now. Sophie was still staring expectantly at me, eyebrows high on her forehead, lower lip caught between her teeth.

  “Okay,” I said. “If you want me to.”

  Sophie’s face split open into an enormous grin. “Fantastic! Thank you.”

  “A produce-people mural,” Walt mused, draining his cup of coffee. “Now this I gotta see.”

  chapter

  37

  Alone in my room afterward, I withdrew my phone from under my pillow and dialed Milo. The sound of his voice in my ear made me warm all over.

  “How are you?” I asked.

  “Good. Bored. There’s not much to do around this crappy little town, in case you forgot. I got a summer job at the Pantry Quik, though. Night shift. I’m actually leaving in about five minutes.”

  “The night shift?” I repeated. “Why’d you take those hours?”

  “Didn’t have a choice,” Milo said. “It was that or nothing.”

  “You reading anything good?” I tucked the phone between my shoulder and chin and reached for my sketch pad.

  “The Tommyknockers,” Milo said. “It’s actually better than I thought it would be.”

  “Is that another Steven King?”

  “Yeah. He’s a suspense genius.”

  “Is he another scary truth teller?” I started with his hair, sketching pieces of it this time in a thatched pattern to bring out the thickness of it, ending with a slight curl where the ear would be.

  “A what?” Milo sounded startled. “Um…maybe. I never really thought about it that way. Stephen King, a scary truth teller. I guess he could be, if you can tell the truth while you’re writing fiction. I don’t know.” He paused. “Wow. I can’t believe you remembered that.”

  Of course I remembered that. I remember everything about him. “I’m a nerd,” I said. “I remember everything, remember? It’s my job.”

  He laughed. “So what’re you and Sophie doing? Just hanging out?”

  “Hanging out? Are you kidding? We’re working our butts off. Sophie’s opening a bakery in her house. We’re redoing the whole thing. Top to bottom.”

  “You’re redoing the house?” Milo repeated. “Wow. Is it in bad shape?”

  I laughed softly. “Yeah, you could say that.” I shaded his eyebrows, unruly in the middle where they were the thickest. “But it’s coming along. It really is. We’ve been doing a ton of work.”

  “I did construction one summer back in Portland,” Milo said. “I liked it.”

  “What kind of construction?”

  “Just the roof of a house, really. It wasn’t too hard. But I liked being up there, in the bones of it, you know? Seeing everything all laid out like that. And whaling away with my hammer was pretty cool too.”

  “We have these older guys helping out.” I told him about the Table of Knowledge. “But Sophie doesn’t use them very often. She’s kind of stubborn about it, really, insisting on doing it herself. I think she’s trying to prove something.”

  “Well, maybe you should let her,” Milo said. “Maybe she does have something to prove.”

  I stopped sketching, looking down at the face before me. Milo was right. Maybe Sophie did need to show herself that she could do this. Who was I to stand in her way?

  “You doing anything for fun?” Milo asked. “Or just working all the time?”

  “Well, I take long walks in the afternoon. And I met a really nice guy on one of them. He’s a potter. His name is Aiden. He lives right around…”

  “A guy?” Milo repeated.

  “Yeah.” I felt a twinge. Was that jealousy I heard in his voice? “He’s been teaching me how to
make things. Out of clay. I told you, he’s a potter.”

  “What’s he like, really old?” Milo asked.

  “No. He’s twenty-four.”

  Milo didn’t say anything.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.” There was a pause and then, “Aren’t you coming home at all? Even just to visit? I mean, your parents must be going crazy.”

  “No, no visits,” I said softly. “I need to be here. I’m staying here until I don’t have to anymore. Then I’ll come back.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” I could hear Milo getting up and walking around the room. “I kind of miss seeing you in your window,” he said. “That’s all.”

  My heart began to pound. “What window?”

  “Your window. In your bedroom. The one you sit in every afternoon after school, doing your homework.”

  Oh, Milo.

  “Listen,” he said. “I have to go. My boss at the Pantry Quik docks my pay if I’m even two minutes late.” He paused, hesitating. “Will you call me again, though? Soon?”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll call you this weekend.”

  “Great,” Milo said. “And Julia? If you need anything, anything at all, I’m here. All you have to do is ask.”

  I put my pad and pencil down and stared out the window for a while after he hung up. Why did there have to be so many layers to everything, so many unseen—and unsaid—parts? Why couldn’t everything just be spread out, flat and even, so you could just see it for what it was? It could be like an enormous table, full of food. Over there, next to the mashed potatoes, would be the way Milo felt about me. And on the left, beside the broccoli, would be the way I felt about him. The truth about Maggie would be right in the middle, alongside the centerpiece, and all the reasons for Sophie’s anger would be sitting on the plates, ready and waiting. We could come to the table, all of us, and see what it was we wanted, what we felt hungry for. And because we could see it—and even taste it—we could decide if we wanted to take it or leave it.