by Jen Larsen
At Lancaster Brandon says, “So is she running away?” He glances over at me and I meet his eyes. He looks miserable and I want to reach out and put my hand on his shoulder, on his knee. I keep my hands folded on top of the suitcase.
“No,” I say. “I don’t think so. She seemed excited.”
“Yeah,” he says. Then, “She didn’t tell me. She didn’t even warn me. I wish she had told me. She tells me everything.” He’s chewing on his bottom lip.
“I know,” I say. “I think she just kind of came up with the plan at the last minute.”
“She’s not a long-term planner,” he says.
“I like that about her,” I say.
He glances over, surprised.
“I mean, it drives me crazy sometimes.” I run my hands over the embossed surface of my broken luggage. “I worry about her,” I say.
“She thinks you’re the only one who does.” He’s drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, his face serious.
“She—I don’t know if she knows exactly what she’s doing. But I think she knows what she wants.” And then, something clicks into place in my brain. “She feels like she has to pretend to be brave. Except she really is. Brave.”
I can’t look at him to see how he’s reacting.
“You’re pretty brave too,” he says.
“I’m really not,” I say. I know that’s not a lie. I know I always thought I was, though.
It is strange to be sitting there in the car with him, so close. Knowing each other our whole lives. Knowing he doesn’t actually know me at all.
“I’m sorry I found out accidentally about—”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I interrupt him.
A long uncomfortable silence as the trees flash past. I flip my phone in my hands.
“So,” he says, bobbing his head like he’s listening to music. “How are you?”
How have I never noticed how twitchy he is? I think of all the things I could tell him. “I think my interview went well,” I say.
“Oh great,” he says, glancing over at me again. “High five!” He lifts his hand up off the steering wheel.
“Don’t high-five, Brandon,” I say, and he laughs.
“How are you?” I ask, and brace myself for anecdotes of dating bliss with—
“I broke up with Morgan,” he says, and that is not what I had been braced for.
“What?” I say. I study the profile I’m so familiar with, the cheekbones and the slope of his nose and the square chin that I’ve so often thought I want to gently bite.
He doesn’t look over at me. “She was pissed I wouldn’t tell her what was going on with you,” he says.
“What’s going on with me?” I say stupidly.
“The note. I, uh, mentioned that I found it, and she wanted to know what was in it, and I wouldn’t tell her, and she told me I was always choosing you over her and blah blah blah, and we broke up.” He pauses. “I wasn’t going to satisfy her curiosity because it wasn’t her business.”
I say, “Okay.”
“Yeah,” he says. He sneaks a peek at my face.
“I’m not going to thank you for doing a basic decent thing,” I say.
“That’s not why I did it!”
“Then why would you tell me?”
He sighs. “Listen, I know you’re going through a lot of—” he says, and pauses. I can see him thinking big and heavy and discarding each of them in turn. He settles on saying, “Stuff, you know? And I thought you could stand to know that you have a friend. Who’s known you forever. And has your back. I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I’m proud of you.”
“Oh,” I say. “Well. Okay.”
He shrugs, the one-shoulder shrug that reminds me so much of Laura I have to look away and stare at the trees racing by until I can talk again.
“I hope you’re okay with the breakup,” I say.
“It was a long time coming,” he said. “She says stuff. You know. Sometimes I think she’s not a great person.”
“Usually I think that,” I blurt without meaning to, and he laughs.
“She’s not as good as you are,” he says with a whole lot of gravity, and I cringe.
I say, “She’s still pissed she’s just salutatorian. And I have better hair.”
He laughs again. “You’re funny,” he says.
“Sometimes,” I say.
“Do you want to stop and get food or something?” he says. “I’m starving.”
I nod, and then say yes when I realize he’s not looking at me. “Sure,” I say. I should eat. And I am wondering what he’ll look like when he looks at me directly.
“Okay, sure. There’s a place right here, actually. This is good.”
We pull off at the next exit and bump along side roads until we find a shack called Burgers, with benches set up in front. No one else is here and the kid behind the counter has his chin in his hand, swiping idly at his phone.
I look around at the rotted wood and the scrub brush and the size of the kitchen.
“We are going to die of E. coli poisoning,” I say, and he laughs at that too.
He’s out the car door and ordering before I have my seat belt off, and then he sits on one of the long benches.
“Why aren’t there any tables?” I ask him.
“I think you’re supposed to eat in your car,” he says.
“Tables are probably also expensive,” I say. He laughs and I say, “No, seriously.”
“Oh,” he says. “Okay.”
The road is empty and we are surrounded by trees and the tick of Brandon’s engine cooling and the sizzling of the burgers in the shack. He reaches over after a few minutes and takes my hand. I look at him, and then his hand is wrapped around mine. My skin is almost as dark as his.
“What?” I say.
“You’re pretty great,” he says, and glances at me. I wish he’d just keep looking at me so I could figure out what he really meant. He says, “I’ve always known that. But lately, like I said, I’ve just been thinking about you. Not just about you—but about you.”
“What?”
“You know. Who you are. How beautiful you really are. How beautiful you can be.”
Oh, I think.
“I thought we didn’t have any chemistry,” I say.
“We have tons. Don’t you think so?”
“That’s not what you said.”
“When?” he says. “I can’t believe I’d say that.” He runs his thumb across the side of my wrist and it feels nice but it should be thrilling me and it isn’t. “It’s so clear.”
“I don’t know anymore,” I say, and he leans over and kisses me. His mouth is soft and he smells like saltwater taffy. He puts his hand on my waist, and I stiffen. He runs it down my side and leaves it on my thigh. I don’t close my eyes. I have both hands clenched around the bench and I hear the sound of a spatula clanking against the fryer inside. I’m waiting for the fireworks.
He pulls back and looks at me with half-closed eyes. His thumb rubs along the side of my thigh. And it’s just a hand on my thigh, not a burning, tingling, maddening sensation like poison ivy of the loins, the way I expected it to be.
I look at him, and it’s not the way I expected it to be at all.
I say, “Do you think my weight has been holding me back?” He looks startled, straightens up like he’s been poked between the shoulder blades. His hand drops from my thigh.
“Uh,” he says. “Well, no. You’re so smart—”
I interrupt him. “Has it been holding you back? From dating me, I mean.”
Now he’s scrambling, his eyes wide. “What? No! I mean, not exactly. Of course not. I mean, you have such a pretty face. Beautiful,” he amends, his voice softening. He leans forward like he’s going to kiss me again.
I start to laugh. I say, “I’m glad you think so.” Suddenly I am giddy.
He jerks back. “What’s funny?” Now he’s confused. He is still so beautiful, perfect round face and olive eyes an
d that mouth that was just on mine. But I’m seeing so much more than that. There’s just a tiny bit of clarity, the sun through the clouds. I know what I want for the first time in a long time.
Not him. Not an imaginary future. Not weight-loss surgery.
“I’m going to check on our burgers,” I say. I can feel myself grinning like a maniac. I pat his knee.
He jumps up. “I’ll check on them,” he says. “I’ll pay.” He is nervous, uncertain. I’ve never seen him so off balance.
I pull a five out of my jeans pocket. “No, here. Take it.” I tuck it into his hand and stand up. “I’m going to go look at—” I gesture over at a pile of rusting farm equipment with hand-lettered signs propped up against it, sitting in the middle of the weeds and scrub grass and gravel. “That.” I can’t stop smiling.
“Okay,” he says. He still looks confused and seems lost and I am sorry, just a little bit sorry, that I can’t take him seriously. That I can’t explain what he’s just given me, because he’d never understand.
Brandon hands me a paper bag a few minutes later. Back in the car, I am warm from the sun on my neck, and a little sleepy. He makes small talk, and I murmur agreement in return. I pull french fries out of my bag one by one slowly. He leaves his bag on the console between us. Finally he stops trying to make any more conversation. He plugs in his phone and tunes in an ambient station and the synthesizers carry us all the way back home.
CHAPTER 20
When I walk through the front door I drop my suitcase on the foyer bench and run upstairs like I am being chased. Jolene’s door is closed and I’m glad. I round the corner and head up the second set of stairs. I can see my grandmother sitting at her desk, a pen in her hand and her calendar open. I stand at the door but she doesn’t look up. I say, “My interviewer said I’m an incredible candidate and deserve all the success in the world.”
She finally glances up from her planner. She’s wearing her reading glasses, which I’ve never liked. They make her look like a stranger. “That reminds me,” she says, “I’ve spoken to the head of the bariatric surgery department at Stanford. They just need your blood work. They’re confident they can get you on the schedule within a few weeks. Though I thought perhaps we should arrange for the holiday break so that you don’t miss quite so much school.” She makes a note on a scrap of paper at her elbow, and she’s smiling. “Good news all around, don’t you think?”
I open my mouth, but I don’t have any air to talk with. It feels like the real world has come crashing back into place. I can’t remember why I was so happy.
She pulls off her glasses and puts her arm out. “Come here, darling. I’m pleased to see you. I’m so glad it went well.”
She stands, putting her arms around me and patting my back, once, twice. She’s warm and she smells like my grandmother. I sag against her, in the circle of her arms and her smile and the cadence of her hands. She squeezes me, and then detaches herself and seats herself again, looking me over. “You don’t look worse for the wear,” she says to me.
“I talked to the interviewer about weight-loss surgery,” I say.
She looks pleased. “Ah, good! I’m sure they were interested to hear that.” She turns back to her desk.
“I decided I’m not going to get it,” I say.
“I’m sorry, darling?” she says, not looking up. She’s gone back to her calendar.
I can’t say it again. Not yet. I have time. I just have to figure out what to say. “I’m going to go unpack,” I say. “And take a shower.”
“We’ll order something tonight,” she says. “Whatever you’d like.”
“I’ll make empanadas,” I say, and she glances back at me sharply.
“If you’d like,” she says, and when she flicks the page sharply I know I’m dismissed.
Instead I say, “Laura stayed,” and she looks up, annoyed.
“Stayed where?” my grandmother says.
“On the East Coast,” I say. “She didn’t fly back with me.”
“Why on earth would she do that?” she says, turning around in her chair.
“She wasn’t ready to come home,” I say.
My grandmother shakes her head. “That girl is going to come to a bad end. She is smart, savvy, and has a great deal of potential. But she just runs wild. She’s lucky she’s attractive.”
“She’s good at being herself,” I say.
She smiles at me. “I’m glad she’s having her adventures rather farther away than will get you in trouble.” She sighs. “She’s a bad example.”
“She’s not—” I start to stay, but Grandmother interrupts.
“Go find Jolene and tell her everything. She could use good news.”
I find Jolene in the backyard, lying in the grass spread-eagle with her hair fanned out around her. She’s floating in a sea of green.
“You look like a mermaid,” I call from the deck, and she cranes her head around.
“I feel like one,” she says. She sits up as I shuffle through the too-long grass and sit next to her. I bump my arm into hers.
“So how was Harvard?” she says.
“I didn’t even go look at it,” I say, plucking a blade of grass and tearing it down the center. “I sat in a Starbucks.”
“That doesn’t seem very logical,” she says.
I shrug. “I didn’t want to look at it. I was afraid I’d—if all this doesn’t work I don’t want to have anything to miss.” I pause and correct myself. “Anything more to miss.” I add, “Also it was really cold.”
Jolene laughs at that. I’ve torn the blades into tiny pieces. I drop them in my lap.
“Laura is going to go stay with her mom,” I say. “And Brandon kissed me.”
“Oh,” she says, startled. She examines my face.
“Why would he do that?” I say.
“Maybe he wishes he were more like you. Or Laura.”
“Laura doesn’t want to kiss me,” I say.
“I mean that he wishes he could do what he wants. Without worrying what other people think. So are you going to—”
“No,” I say. I squeeze my eyes shut.
“I’m glad,” she says.
A sandpiper hoots. “What about you?”
“My parents are coming to get me,” she says. She puts her chin on her knee.
“Do you want them to?”
She shakes her head. “They were screaming on the phone at Clara for ten minutes and finally she hung up on them. And they called me to tell me they were coming to get me before I could make an irretrievable mistake.”
“What mistake?”
She gives me a sidelong glance. “They think that your grandmother is scheduling surgery for everyone in the house.”
“Where did they get that idea?” I say, and I can hear the cords of tension twanging in my voice.
Jolene sighs. “I have no idea.”
“This small fucking town,” I say, and I find myself standing and pacing.
She looks up at me with a small smile on her face, her chin on her knees and her arms wrapped around her legs.
“I’m safe here,” she says. “In a small town where we know how people will react. Where we can handle what anyone says. We’re safe.”
“Except from our parents,” I say.
“Except from them,” she says. She pauses. “I think they could understand. If I could figure out a way to explain it to them.”
“That’s not your job,” I say.
“I would like to be able to do what they want,” she says suddenly. “A part of me wishes that. It would be so easy to just give in.”
“It would be a lie,” I say to her. I ignore the flashback to my grandmother’s office. My hesitation.
“Yes,” she says. “I know.” She reclines back on the grass with her arms above her head. She is glowing pale in the light that’s fading, brighter than everything around her. “I’m not going with them,” she says. “I may be here for a long time.” Her voice is as quiet as ever, that same gentl
e cadence, and her face is calm. She knows such a different Clara than I do—my grandmother has taken her in, smoothed her anxieties away, held her hand, and accepted her wholly. The thought is a stone lodged in my throat.
There’s banging in the house, and voices. “I think they’ve arrived,” I say.
She pulls herself to her feet and squeezes my hand.
“Do you need me to go with you?” I say.
“I’m okay,” she says. “It’ll be fine.”
I believe her when she says that, and watch her pick her way through the grass, back to the house where lights are starting to come on in every room, which means my father is home too. The lights switch on in the kitchen just as Jolene reaches the patio door, and my father opens it for her. I can hear them talking in low voices, and Jolene shakes her head, slips by him. He looks up and spots me standing in the grass.
“Ashley!” he calls. “Ashley, what the hell is going on?” He leaps down the steps with a couple of jumps and is striding through the grass to me. He looks grim and confused all at once, like he is not sure what is happening and he really isn’t digging it.
“Jolene’s parents want her to go home,” I say.
“I got that part,” he says. “Jolene’s parents are saying something about surgery. That you’re getting surgery. What the hell do they mean that you’re getting surgery?” His voice is getting louder with every word. I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this emotional.
“I’m—” I pause. I had never even considered telling my father about any of this. He would have laughed and made a joke about how he’ll be leaving me in stitches and he would go back to his romance novel, his feet propped up on the arm of the couch.
But instead he’s here glaring at me now.
“What are they talking about?” he says. “Are you sick? Are you hurt? Are you doing—Is there something you need to tell me? Why do they know about this and your father is just now finding out, Ashley?” His words make me think, for the briefest moment, of Hector. My father has my shoulders in his hands now and I don’t think he realizes he’s shaking me gently with every word.
I push him off. “They’re talking about weight-loss surgery,” I say, with my arms crossed over my chest. He looks confused. “To lose weight. Gastric bypass. Like celebrities do.”
