Love & Other Carnivorous Plants

by Florence Gonsalves

  “Hell no. If you think I’m going back to that shitty—”

  “Danny, language, please.”

  “Let’s try to use kind words,” Leslie says again.

  “Oh, fuck off,” I say, pulling my smock down and walking past them. “Look, I get that you have to do your parental duties and I’m so glad you decided to have a kid, but I really fucking hate you. All three of you.” Before I leave the room I turn around and add, “No offense.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  “SHIT,” I yell into my dad’s car. “FUCK. SHITFUCKSHITFUCKSHITFUCK.”

  I wish I were a guy, or an animal, or something unfeminine that’s allowed to lose control. I want to break shit and not get labeled crazy for it. I want to punch a wall and leave a Danny-size hole in it. Instead I drive a little too fast and flip people off when I cut them off.

  The way I see it I have two options. Either I march over to St. John’s like a brainwashed soldier or I offer myself up to NASA and prepare for life on Mars. Both options sound terribly lonely, and I don’t know which is more life-threatening. Regardless, I should certainly start drafting my Craigslist ad: a once-bright future, now yours for just $30.

  “FUCK,” I scream again.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t get that,” Siri says, and I jump in my seat then consider throwing her to her death, but really I need her much more than she needs me.

  “At least make yourself useful,” I say, removing her from the console and positioning my mouth close to the phone. “Siri, should I run away?”

  “Calculating the—”

  “Oh, shut up.”

  I open all the windows and try to air out the shit feelings. Then I take the exit for the beach and let the car idle in the parking lot.

  “What would you do, Sara?”

  But I don’t see how that’s going to help me. I’ve spent the majority of my life wondering what Sara might do, and the only thing it left me with was a string of unanswered questions about myself. No, if I’m going to get anywhere, it’s going to be by doing it my way, whatever that means.

  I get out of the car with my journal, which I grabbed from my room before I left, and lean on the hood. The parking lot is scattered with people and there’s the faint smell of sunscreen and salt around me. I start by rereading some of the things I’ve written this summer as part of Cynthia’s exercises, then I flip to the page where I’ve hand-copied “Wild Geese,” which is also where I stashed Bugg’s napkins the last time I read them. Cynthia is always telling us to let poems speak to us.

  Even though nothing I’ve read has developed lips or anything corny like that, I can kind of believe that language goes deeper than mouths, so I lay out the napkins on the hot metal of the car and try to find something in “Wild Geese” that maybe I’ve been missing. I go through the poem line by line—I think about goodness and knees and deserts. I touch my stomach and feel its softness. I think about despair and rain and geese and what it might mean to go home.

  Just as I’m wondering about calls and my place and things, a vengeful gust of wind comes out of nowhere and blows the napkins from the car. Their white tissue is suspended in the air for a second, then they scatter in different directions. At first I try to chase after them, but then it seems right to let the remnants of St. John’s get away from me. Besides, it was never the napkins or even the poem that was important. It was the person who wrote them.

  And that’s when I call Bugg.

  “We have to go someplace new, like we did before Sara died, where I don’t have to feel like myself or suffer all the self-inflicted pressure that generally comes with being Danny. It’s time to stop talking about it and actually become Trappers, because I want to see things and do things and eat things and be alive for once with no preconceived notions about what that should look like. Do you know what I mean? Maybe you have to go someplace entirely unfamiliar to finally get familiar with yourself, or maybe that’s some new-age bullshit, but either way I want to be with you.” I try to think if there’s anything else that simply must be said, but I’m probably almost out of time. “Anyway, sorry to leave this whole long thing on your voicemail—you’re probably at yoga or selling herbal remedies to minors, but will you call me when you’re done? I need to know if you’re in, and it’s kind of time sensitive.”

  My foot taps and then my fingers start up too. The MCAT study book is glaring at me from the passenger’s seat. “What are you looking at?” I ask its glossy cover. I grab it by the throat, get out of the car, and throw it on top of some soggy French fries that are piled on the nearest trash can. I linger guiltily for a moment because it could technically be recycled. Luckily, there are no Harvard students around to attack the size of my carbon footprint so I leave it where it belongs: with the garbage. There’s also no one around to see me house a pulled-pork burrito from a nearby food truck, which turns out to be the best six dollars I’ve ever spent. As I sit on the hood of the car and wipe my mouth with my hand, I notice the time on my cell phone, 2:08 p.m., which means it’s officially too late to register for fall classes. I lie down and feel the heat of the metal against my back. I should feel overwhelmed, I should maybe want to kill myself, but instead I smile like a cat and curl up in my spot of sun.

  Bugg doesn’t get back to me that night, so the next day I decide to show up at poetry class for the first time in weeks. “It’s so good to see you, dear. We’re practicing our final assignment today,” Cynthia says, but I’m busy looking around the room for Bugg. Unless she saw me and hid under the table, she’s not here yet or not coming at all.

  “Cool,” I say and take a seat with a good view of the door.

  At one o’clock we get started even though Bugg isn’t there. Cynthia passes around something by Jack Kerouac, a list of suggestions for writing and life. Irene reads them out loud and afterward Cynthia gives us a minute, “for our bones to settle.” I close my eyes mostly because the last few days have been exhausting, and then Cynthia tells us about the in-class exercise: “Now you’re going to write your own list of suggestions, which will hopefully launch you into your final assignment, the credo,” she says cheerfully. I look up at her and raise my hand.

  “You don’t have to raise your hand here, dear. Go ahead.” She puts the same collection of pencils on the table again.

  “I know I should have asked this earlier, but what is a credo exactly?”

  “It’s what you believe, your guiding principles. ‘Belief and Technique for Modern Prose’ is a great example of someone’s credo, so in this exercise you’re going to write your own list of guidelines for modern poetry or modern life or anything you want, whatever inspired you from Kerouac’s list.” I nod but I don’t know where to begin or what that would look like, despite having done all the exercises and assignments Cynthia suggested this summer. Luckily she’s all about “setting the mood.”

  “Now close your eyes,” she says, and I do. “And picture the last place you were truly happy.” I almost throw up a little bit in my mouth. This is exactly the sort of touchy-feely stuff they tried to pull in treatment. As if reading my thoughts, she adds, “It’s only corny if you believe in corniness. Otherwise it’s a damn good exercise.”

  I dare myself to let go a little bit, and what comes to mind is a whole series of things, most of which make me want to cry: floating in the ocean with Bugg, sleeping next to Sara on the Fourth of July when we were eleven and we could see the fireworks from her room, reading “Wild Geese” a lot of nights when I should have been sleeping, waiting in line at midnight for the last Harry Potter book, the sound of biting into a perfectly golden grilled cheese…

  “Now let go of the memories themselves,” Cynthia instructs. “And write through what’s left—the pure emotion of—”

  But I’ve tuned her out. I’m moving the pencil up and down the page of my journal slowly and steadily. Somehow, without telling myself to write anything, the words are flowing out of me, like when you tip a jar of honey into your mouth and you don’t have t
o will it or anything, it comes out because it has to. I’m sure the phenomenon is due to something scientific, like gravity, but it still tastes good.

  When the timer goes off, Cynthia asks me to read. I look down at my paper but it’s not something I want to share with anyone. I feel the sets of eyes on me—Irene’s thick lashes, Philip’s dark eyeliner, Larry’s wrinkled eyelids.

  “Dandelion Theory.” Looking down at the page, I feel like it’d be a crime against myself to share this with anyone else. “Dandelion Theory,” I say again, hoping that repeating the title will get me to go on. But then I become the only person in the universe again and I hear myself say, “No, I’m sorry. I can’t do this.”

  My heart is pounding. I’ve never denied a teacher in my life, but if I don’t start respecting the little things I know are true, how will I ever be worth my own company?

  “No problem. Are you okay, Danny?” Cynthia asks.

  I reread my poem, feeling the energy gather in my body, then pull my chair back and stand up. “Yes, I’m fine.” Maybe even great.

  As I look out the window, a million tiny black birds land on the lawn then take flight at once. Rosebushes blow in the wind and their thorny stems do too, but I’m not close enough to see them. You have to be very close to see the details that make a rose a rose, and when you can’t get that close you have to trust that they’re there.

  “I have to get going now. Excuse me,” I tell the room of confused faces as I pack my bag and close the door behind me. I can’t wait for Bugg to tell me if she’s in or not. I can’t spend my whole life waiting for people to okay my decisions—not Stephen, not Kate and Liz, not my parents or Leslie or Cynthia. There’s something in me that knows something, and it’s imperative that I listen. Either that, or I’m having very bad indigestion.

  As I cross the lawn to my dad’s car, I pause and crouch down in the garden, pricking my finger as I grab hold of a rose. No, I’m not crazy, there is something there. It’s been waiting to be acted upon.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  I’d like to go home and change into something ceremonious, maybe some all-black stealth-mode attire, but a) I don’t have that sort of attire and b) if my parents see me they’re going to try to talk to me, and since I’m never going to talk to them again, it’s better that they don’t see me. These are the reasons why I show up at Sara’s house in the mustard mom smock, the worst of the whole bunch, prepared to start the execution of Operation Free Bird, which I named after hearing a certain song on the radio on the way home. When I go to open the door it’s locked, which has happened exactly never in the history of the Collins household. I don’t know where Janet could be, but it’s weird taking the spare key from the top of the door and letting myself in. It’s even weirder when I open the door to Sara’s room, which seems like it’s been shut since the last time she was in it. I take a deep breath, not a Three-Part Pause-and-Blah breath, but just an honest stab at getting some air into my lungs.

  Sara’s bed hasn’t been made and the pillows are crumpled, and when I get closer I see there’s a long blond hair on one of the sheets still. Seeing it makes me want to get the hell out of there, stat, but I have to move carefully so I don’t step on the clothes on the floor or knock over the glass of water by her closet. I think the hair is the worst thing she left behind, but it’s hard to top the general feeling that she was just here. The longer I stand there the longer I remember miscellaneous snippets from our childhood: when she sprained her wrist and I tried to concoct an IV of Gatorade to get her through the summer, how she stood before her closet before prom trying to choose between the short dress with the blue ruffles and the long dress with the yellow tulle, and on and on. I’m afraid that if I don’t leave, the memories will continue flooding me like a montage from a movie you can’t turn off. I grab what I need to and go, otherwise I might believe she’s in the bathroom or something—someplace she could come back from. I don’t say bye when I close the door softly behind me, but I feel the significance of leaving.

  I put our house in the passenger seat and buckle it in. Mostly I do this because the seat belt sign will ding if I don’t, but also it feels right to give it a little extra protection. As I drive away, I weigh the pros and cons of a) setting it free in the ocean or b) setting it into the stratosphere via six or so helium balloons. The problem with the ocean is someone might find it and form their own twisted Plan, thinking it’s fate or something. The problem with the stratosphere is the same problem as the ocean. I guess a third option is to bury it, but I’m not in the best shape to be digging holes in eighty-five-degree weather (ninety-five if you count the humidity).

  “Hello, calling on the Spirit of Sara. How do you want me to dispose of this?” I’ve always been soft-spoken, so I’m not surprised when she doesn’t answer me. (It’s not that she’s ignoring me. She’s not mad anymore, trust me.) I decide the option with the least karmic consequences is to burn it—not that I believe in karma but it’s good to take precautions, and luckily my family is like all other suburban families in that we have the possibility of fire in our backyard. Though it’s not ideal to be within a hundred square feet of my parents, really nothing has been ideal in the last ten months.

  I don’t wait for it to be dark out because the golden window of opportunity happens to present itself when my parents go to the gym, which I know because I’ve staked out the house. After my mom’s car pulls out of the driveway, I get a starter log and some newspaper from the garage, then drag the fire bowl to the very edge of the lawn, as far away from my parents, the vampires, as possible, in case they come home. I run into the house and take my cardboard cutout from my nightstand and bring it outside with a box of matches.

  It’s a sweaty affair in the late afternoon sun, trying to get the logs to catch. When they finally do, the smoke from the fire curls into the air and the smell fills my nostrils in a way that reminds me of something I can’t remember. That’s my favorite type of nostalgia, though, when you can’t pinpoint the memory but the feeling swirls in your body and escapes you like smoke.

  As the fire does its fire thing, I hold the cardboard house and try to get a read on my body. I’m not as sad as I thought I’d be, but I do feel nervous. We had a good run, Sara and I, and it was sweet thinking we could plan our whole lives out. It’s also sweet that some people want to get all sweaty and play, like, a marathon of tennis in her name, but this feels like a truer way to release her. Less popular, sure, but I couldn’t give less of a damn about whether Kate and Liz think my coping mechanisms are appropriate or whether my parents think I need to be babysat by six to twenty accredited doctors. I may not have much left, but the one thing I do have is some agency over how I handle my shit.

  I sit in the grass and put the house in my lap. “Aw, look at you!” I say, reuniting our cutouts and holding them against the sky. They’re giddy and hopeful because they’re thirteen and two-dimensional—the right criteria for a rigid plan. It’s harder to apply that same plan to a three-dimensional nineteen-year-old. What felt good at first ends up eating you whole.

  “Well, a plan is pretty stupid, don’t you think?” I ask Cardboard Cutout Sara. She nods with a little help from my finger and I place our house delicately into the fire. It’s a little macabre watching the flames lick the cardboard windows, but it feels right too. It’s definitely harder to throw Sara and me in (again, I hate feeling like a serial killer), and I’m almost tempted to Scotch tape our hands together but that seems cheesy and/or homicidal so finally I do it—no speeches, no apologies, no attempts to fix her poor butchered eulogy. Some friends don’t need to say sorry, and though it would’ve been awfully nice, it doesn’t change the stuff between us, that good old July river flowing between God knows where and God knows what. “You’re going to be fine.” And I’m talking a little bit to Sara, but I’m mostly talking to me.

  Holding a dead girl’s cell phone is like holding her hand, I mean, if I was the sort of person who could read palms. Ironically, I have to plug t
he phone in because it’s also dead, but as I sit in my room waiting for the lights to come on, I wonder if I should do this at all. I don’t know the answers I’m looking for exactly. Besides, anything she texted to Bugg or Ethan or Liz/Kate, any drafts in her e-mail that she was maybe going to send to me, aren’t my business. I can’t violate her privacy because she’s not around to yell at me. Those are the cons. The biggest pro is that I miss her, and if she was right last year when she said a piece of her soul lives in her cell phone, then isn’t this the best way to see her again?

  The bitten apple lights up and panic takes over my chest. I throw the phone on the ground, stare at it like it’s about to blow up, then grab it and turn it off as fast as my clumsy fingers can. I lean against the wall afterward, relieved my moral compass hasn’t entirely shit the bed. The problem now is that I don’t want to keep her phone around. I could throw it away and pretend to have never taken it, but—No. If I don’t stop lying, I’m going to need a nose job before I’m twenty.

  I end up bringing the phone to Sara’s house. The universe does not reward me for doing the right thing because as soon as I pull in on my bicycle (I need at least a little exercise), Janet comes out and chitchat is unavoidable. She ushers me into the kitchen.

  “Want a glass of Pellegrino? It’s the champagne of water, you know,” she says as I sit at the counter among vases and vases of flowers. It smells so fragrant the kitchen could double as a florist, in a nauseating way.

  “Why the hell not?” I take the glass she’s already poured for me and she perks up. Ever since Janet told Sara she feels like the cool mom when we swear around her, I’ve been trying to do my part.