Future Perfect

by Jen Larsen

  Morgan glances away when Dr. Ellman claps her hands, and I breathe for the first time in what seems like minutes.

  Behind us Ace is arguing that butts could be an abstract quality instead of a concrete noun.

  “Okay, people,” Dr. Ellman says. “We’re just about done here. We’re going to stop, and we’re going to breathe through the chime, which is—” She pauses for a moment, then glances at her watch. “Well, almost now. In just a second. There it is,” she says as it chimes over her voice.

  Brandon stretches when he stands, and his shirt lifts, showing an expanse of his smooth skin. I’m not staring. Or I shouldn’t be, anyway.

  “No more winks,” he says to me. He slides his arm around Morgan while she’s shuffling her papers into her bag and she is distracted by the way he looks down at her. They’re out the door ahead of me and Ace is at my elbow.

  “Did you enjoy chatting about your future with Morgan?” I ask.

  “Did you know that Morgan thinks she has no ‘best’ qualities because all of her qualities are equally superior?” he says.

  “You’re joking,” I say.

  “You’re exaggerating,” Jolene says, slightly scolding.

  I’m annoyed that something Morgan said actually amuses me.

  “If only I were. But alas, Morgan keeps living up to our expectations.” He sweeps away ahead of us.

  Laura says, “Why is she so awful? I don’t understand why anyone would be so awful for no good reason. It’s like she takes awful pills and washes them down with awful juice and then rolls around in awfulness.”

  “She doesn’t mean to be,” Jolene says. “She just is.”

  “She was trying to scare me, I think,” I say. And I realize that’s exactly it, this feeling like gravity has stopped working inside me—fear. And a tiny flare of dread that I have worked hard to stomp out. That no one else is ever supposed to see.

  “Scare you?” Jolene says. “With what?”

  I don’t answer.

  “There’s nothing she can scare you with,” Laura says. “She’s being ridiculous. She’s being—”

  “Awful,” Jolene says.

  “Right,” I say.

  CHAPTER 4

  When I break my third glass I wish it were magically time to go home, but I’m only thirty minutes into my shift. Usually I am not ready to go home until at least an hour’s worth of Early Bird Special customers have asked me for another basket of sourdough bread and then want to know how school is and tell me how big I’m getting and how they remember when I was just this tall and to say hello to my father and grandmother.

  Cap’n Bill’s is busy after school because our town is full of retired people who enjoy a deal on clam chowder, which I started to loathe after a month of working here and have hated every day for the entire year following.

  I am kneeling in the pass-through, picking up big chunks of glass when Laura bumps up against me with a dustpan.

  “Thank you,” I say, taking it from her. She doesn’t need to work, but she likes it. Her father had the idea initially. Gain a sense of responsibility and structure, he said. Get a feel for the real world outside her head and her grand schemes and something else about her ability to develop practical skills that would stand her in good stead, and maybe also a distraction from the divorce and the fact that he and her stepmom are never home. She claims she doesn’t understand why her father wasn’t happy when she decided to come keep me company instead of taking an internship with his law firm.

  Nancy, the owner for twenty years, decorated this restaurant in “nautical,” which somehow translates to heavy wood tables and wood paneling and anchors draped with nets on the wall and a giant mounted swordfish that looks worried about the state of the world and bumps softly against the wall as the breeze rattles through. I love this place because none of the kids in town, or their parents, ever show up here. Though they would tip better than the regulars we do get. Laura loves this place because she admires a commitment to a theme and our customers’ dedication to routine.

  She is frowning at me and she shakes her head. “Okay. So. What is with you?” she says. “What’s going on? Are you okay? You’re all—” She waves her hands around her like she’s going to catch the words buzzing by her head. She sits down next to me on the rubber mat. “Seriously,” she says.

  “You’re sitting in a puddle,” I point out. “And you’re going to cut your butt on glass. And you’re going to piss Nancy off if she catches you.”

  She waves that away. “Nancy is worried about many things and I can’t do anything about any of them because I am not responsible for her well-being.”

  “You’re responsible for the sourdough,” I say.

  She sighs. “I am responsible for the sourdough.”

  “With great sourdough comes great responsibility,” I say.

  “Don’t make jokes. You make me nervous when you make jokes.”

  “It wasn’t funny?” I say. “I thought it was funny.”

  “You make jokes when you’re upset,” she says. “You try to distract me.” She peers at my face, and I look away, finish sweeping up the wet glass, and drop it into the bin. She’s still sitting on the floor, looking up at me, and I can’t help sitting back down next to her. She smiles at me.

  “I am tired of bringing more sourdough bread to the Monroes,” she says. “They don’t even wait until they’ve finished the last basket. It’s like they’re afraid someone else will order it first and then they’ll be shit out of luck and their entire day will be ruined because a day without sourdough is a day without sunshine.”

  I snort, and she laughs. She reaches out and pats my head, tucks the piece of hair that always flies out of my ponytail back behind my ear. She is always grooming me like she is a mama cat, and I find it strangely soothing. “You sure you’re okay? Everything is well and good and right?”

  I nod. “Do you want me to take the bread to the Monroes?” I haul myself back up and wipe my hands down on my apron. “How does this place get so filthy?” I wash my hands at the bar sink, squirt soap onto Laura’s hands when she holds them out for me.

  “What are you doing after work?” she says. She sniffs her hands and makes a blargh face. “I hate this stuff. It smells like a hospital died.”

  “Food to dad. Dogs. Homework. Another midterm tomorrow and then the party.”

  “Oh yeah, I should study for my history test,” she says. “I haven’t really felt like studying lately.” She digs her hands into her hair and pulls it back from her face. It springs back briskly.

  I open my mouth and she puts her finger on my lips.

  “Yes, I’ve been going to class,” she says.

  “You have to keep your grades up for RISD—”

  “Sure,” she says.

  “I’m glad,” I say.

  “I know.” She leans against the wall and we sigh in tandem. The sounds of the restaurant swell up, all murmurs and chewing and knives on plates, the same it would be anywhere. The floor-to-ceiling windows have been thrown open and they rock in the breeze off the ocean. Gulls are screaming about gull things outside on the deck railings. I have never seen one fly inside, but Nancy has a lot of stories about torn-off hairpieces and knocked-over tables.

  “Mrs. Tam probably needs more bread,” I say finally.

  “The Monroes definitely need more bread,” she says. “It isn’t even worth checking first. I should never walk by their table if I am not ready to produce another basket.”

  We both push off the wall together. She picks up two baskets of bread and I pick up one of the water pitchers that Clarence, Nancy’s nephew and wage-free busboy, fills up with enthusiasm. We don’t go through pitchers as fast as he fills them for us, but he is glad to have a job to do.

  “Omar wants me to come up to the studio tonight so he can work on his portfolio,” Laura says as we slip through the tables.

  “He wants you to drive three hours up to San Francisco tonight so you can work on his portfolio,” I say
flatly.

  “Well, he was all, I’ve got this idea for a series of nature portraits except nature is ugly and cruel.” She frowns. “I’m sure it’ll turn out better than it sounds. He’s basically interested in the intersection between our constructs of beauty and the beauty that doesn’t conform to that ideal but is, nonetheless, beautiful. Like we talked about in Art and Aesthetics. I’ll have to write his artist’s statement for this one.”

  “You do every time anyway,” I say. Laura has been collecting art theory books since she graduated from Crayola crayons, and the things she knows are sometimes breathtaking. I’m smiling at her until she says, “So are you going to come?”

  “Can I get more bread?” Mrs. Tam says, glancing between us. I’m refilling her glass carefully, because she does not like excessive ice.

  “Sure,” I say. “No,” I say to Laura.

  “Just one more basket,” Mrs. Tam says. “I have a lot of soup left.”

  “Of course,” I say to her. “Just as soon as you finish that last piece I’ll have it right out.”

  “Oh I didn’t even notice that there!” she says, blinking like she’s just emerged from a terrible dream.

  “I have to bring dinner home,” I say to Laura, turning to the next table.

  “Just drop by for a minute and then come with me,” Laura says, gathering up empty plates and smiling distractedly at the Smiths as she passes their table. The Smiths are nudists but only on their own property since most business owners on the pier started banning them for hygiene reasons. “Bread? You got it!” Laura says, and gives them a thumbs-up.

  “Laura, that is nuts and I have had a crap day.” I wave my pitcher around and it sloshes. “Shit! I’m sorry, Mrs. Tam.” I lower my voice as Laura passes me, and follow her toward the back. “Morgan was—I am so tired of that class. It’s so pointless. The early deadline is in three weeks and this endless busywork is not helping. I should ditch that class.”

  “You wouldn’t ever possibly even begin to consider potentially even thinking about ditching,” Laura says, dumping her armful of empties into a bus bin. “You couldn’t. You are physically, emotionally, and spiritually incapable of it.”

  She’s right. The idea is hilarious. Just the idea of skipping makes me physically uncomfortable, twitchy, unsettled.

  “The East Coast sounds so far away, doesn’t it?” I say. “Jolene gets into Sarah Lawrence, and you’ll be, like, an hour away. I’ll be at Harvard, and everyone else will be three thousand miles away.”

  “Three thousand miles isn’t that far. I can still come visit,” she says. “Here.” She hands me a stack of fresh baskets, and I start draping them with napkins. She picks up hunks of sourdough and starts tossing them in.

  “Unsanitary,” I say.

  She rolls her eyes at me and stabs the tongs into the platter full of bread and thrusts it at me. “Could you bring this to them?”

  I take it from her, but I don’t move, because “visit”?

  “What?” she says.

  “You’re going to RISD, right?” I ask.

  “Rhode Island,” she says. “Can you imagine spending four years in Rhode Island?” She grabs the basket back out of my hand and kisses my shoulder as she passes by.

  “You’re going to get your MFA,” I say. “You have that whole college fund thing!” I ignore that twist of envy in my stomach that happens every single time I think about how easy it’ll be for her to afford college. She won’t need to default to community college if she doesn’t get a scholarship because her parents have all the dollars. I’m following her back out onto the floor like a baby duck, and I watch her smile at the Smiths, who beam up at her like she’s just produced their first grandchild for them.

  “It’s really not a college fund,” Laura says over her shoulder.

  “Ashley,” Mrs. Tam calls. She holds up her empty basket. She sounds hurt and betrayed. I have always suspected she just dumps the bread in her purse but now I know it.

  “We’re baking fresh right now,” Laura says to her, and Mr. Monroe grunts and shoves his basket back across the table.

  “This isn’t fresh,” he says.

  “You haven’t tried it yet,” Laura says sweetly. “It just came out a second ago.”

  “It’s not hot,” he says.

  “It’s plenty hot,” Mrs. Monroe says. “Look at how soft this butter is.” Mr. Monroe is poking at the loaf and grumbling while Laura makes soothing noises and Mrs. Tam leans over to tell them to be grateful they have any bread at all.

  I try to settle them down and smooth everything over, but I’m doing it even less diplomatically than usual. When I’m back from changing out their bread, I see Laura tucked at the end of the room with her arms crossed, leaning against the giant fiberglass swordfish that takes up most of the wall.

  I lean against the wall next to her, wiping my hands on my apron.

  “San Francisco,” she says quietly, not looking at me.

  “Instead of college,” I say.

  Omar has been telling Laura to come live in San Francisco since they met. It’s where art lives, he says. Unchained, he says. Laura doesn’t even seem to mind when he starts talking like that.

  “Anything instead of college,” she says. “Instead of knocking myself out. Instead of staying up all night and worrying.”

  “You’re just going to work for a few months then? Hang out in the city for a while and then go to RISD after a semester or something?”

  She shakes her head. “I turned them down,” she says. She’s not looking at me. She’s watching everyone eat their bread like she’s going to spring into action the moment a basket is empty. “I don’t know if you’re supposed to do something like that, call them up and say, Oh hey, yeah, thank you and everything but unfortunately your goals and mine do not currently coincide in any meaningful way, but thank you for your attention and support.”

  I stand up straight. “Laura,” I say. She’s still studying the tables, still not meeting my eyes.

  “You didn’t even tell me you had gotten in,” I say.

  She glances at me for the tiniest second and looks away. “I didn’t want to—I wasn’t sure. And you and Jolene are so anxious and I didn’t want to come sugarplum-dancing out the door and rain on your worry parade, you know?”

  “Sugarplum—what?”

  “I’m an artist,” she says. She is the only person in the world who can say that without sounding pretentious. She shrugs. “Why do I need to spend four years being told that I’m not an artist yet but I could be if I listen to them when I can already listen to myself because I know who I am and what I can do, you know?”

  I’m quiet for a moment. We’re both watching Mrs. Tam butter every slice of her loaf slowly and methodically, and then line them up along the edge of the table.

  “Say something,” Laura says in a voice that’s too casual. “You always have something to say.”

  “Okay,” I say. “So you’re just going to drive to San Francisco and hope everything works out and you don’t die starving and poor on the street?”

  “Well, that was something to say.”

  “Am I wrong? Do you have a better plan?”

  “Omar knows people,” she says.

  “Okay,” I say. “So the plan is that you are going to move to San Francisco and hope that knowing people is going to work out while he takes blurry black-and-white photos and you”—I wave my hand around—“and you be an artist. Which is lucrative.”

  She stalks back toward the maze of tables.

  “Laura,” I say, trying to catch up to her.

  She stops at the sagging palm tree festooned with nets and ropes and sad-looking plastic fish, and turns. Her eyes flicker over my face and she reaches out to squeeze my hand.

  “It’s just that it’s not a good idea,” I say.

  She sighs, but she doesn’t drop my hand. “It’s okay,” she says. “Do you not want to come up to Omar’s then?”

  “I just don’t want you to do anyt
hing stupid,” I say.

  “I know,” she says.

  “Have you told Jolene?” I ask.

  “I haven’t told anyone,” she says.

  “So I don’t count, ha ha?”

  She grins at me quick, her lightning-flash smile that illuminates everything. “Maybe Omar can convince you that we’ve got the talent to make it in the big city on our wits, our convictions, and our old-fashioned work ethic.” She bats one of the palm tree leaves out of her way.

  “Maybe,” I say, because anything can happen, and the crash of glass that just came from the kitchen wasn’t my fault this time.

  CHAPTER 5

  The problem is that I name them, and once I name them I never want to give them away.

  But she just looks like an Annabelle Lee. She’s the smallest shih tzu I’ve ever seen, just a fluff of tangled fur on my knees and little worried black eyes that don’t look away from mine, even as I feed her tiny bits of our dinner. She doesn’t even startle when the gulls squawk or flocks of tourists flap by to take pictures of the flaking fiberglass lighthouse at the end of the dock.

  This is my favorite part of the day, after my work shift and before there is anything else to do right away. The sun is starting to set red-gold and the ocean looks bright and strange in the light, like an alien landscape. My father is late as always to come meet me, but I never mind. My feet hurt and my back hurts but no one is talking to me and I can not think for just a couple of minutes.

  I had been considering breaking into the big bag of fried things I’m bringing home for dinner and stealing a couple of fries before they got cold and gross, and then the little dog came slinking close. She crouched down low to the planks of the dock and delicately, deliberately placed her tiny paws down one by one until she was a foot away, stretching out her nose and sniffing at the greasy paper. She stared wide-eyed and intense as I ripped the staple at the top of the bag off and dug around until I found the breaded codfish fillet.

  And now she’s slowly working her way through my meal, licking my fingertips carefully after each crumb. I jump when my father appears in front of me, his hands on his hips. He’s got Toby bouncing around at the end of his leash, ricocheting off Soto’s sides and my father’s knees. Soto bumps her head into my arm and then sits politely. I kiss her face and the top of her big block head and rest my forehead on the side of her neck. Annabelle Lee licks my wrist and settles her chin on top of my hand.