Standing Sideways

by J. Lynn Bailey

  The Have-Nots, I tell myself. Not all of them, but some. Panic sets in my chest.

  Linda turns from the fry station and gives me a toothy grin. She doesn’t come over to hug me because Linda isn’t the warm and fuzzy type. She and Al, her husband, attended the funeral. She hugged me then, tears leaking from her eyes. That was enough.

  I look over at Jasper’s spot, the one in the back corner by the window next to the big stuffed husky that’s suspended from the ceiling. There’s a tiny plaque there. Though I can’t read the writing, the plaque is new, and I see his picture.

  Fuck.

  Linda gives me a wink as Whitney approaches us from behind the counter.

  Fuck again.

  I feel Cao’s hand tighten around mine.

  Don’t run.

  “Hey, Liv, Cao,” she says the way most Haves say. It’s a cross between a singsong voice and a try-to-act-chipper tone. “What can I get you?” She flips to an empty white page on her notepad.

  Her long blonde ponytail rests on her shoulder while her innocent blue eyes stare back at me. I want to tell her I’m sorry and that I can’t control myself.

  “When did you start working here, Whit?” Cao removes her hand from mine, knowing I have nowhere to run now.

  “Linda needed some help with Liv gone.” She’s awkward about it, as if she’s taken my job or something.

  “Well, that’s fantastic,” I blurt out loudly. Clumsily. Like I’m totally comfortable with the situation when I’m not. Like I have something to hide. And this really makes me look like an ass.

  There’s a really loud silence between us, and I know I should follow up with something else because my fantastic comment is the one that created the weirdness.

  Whitney pulls her lips inward and pops them out to say, “Cheese fries?”

  Cao pulls out a ten-dollar bill. “And a large Coke, please.”

  Whitney gives us our Coke, and we go sit while we wait for our order.

  Cao stares at me. Hard.

  “What?”

  She shrugs and puts her lips around the straw, batting her long black eyelashes, her eyes barely visible. “Remember when we were twelve, and we found a half-smoked cigarette in front of the movie theater?”

  Where’s she going with this?

  I pull the Coke to my lips and take a sip while Cao takes the straw’s paper and wraps it around her finger.

  “We bought matches at Hollow’s Grocery and then went to Rohner Park, behind the skating rink, and to the trees to smoke it.”

  I take another long sip of Coke, so I don’t have to answer her question.

  “You told me not to do it. That it was a bad decision. You recited the facts on teen smoking and cancer rates and what cigarettes do to our insides. But I did it anyway. I smoked the entire thing by myself.” Cao’s looking down at the wrapper now. “You’ve always been the good decision-maker, Liv. And, now that the cards are flipped, I don’t know how to help you.” She pauses. “How do I help you come back from this?”

  Cao has never been a crier. Dramatic, yes. But tears? Never.

  Until now.

  I roll my eyes. I’m frustrated with myself because I’ve done this to her. I’ve caused these tears, and I don’t know how to make this right. And I don’t know how she can help.

  “You can stop crying. That would help.”

  “I’m not crying. My eyes are leaking. It’s a condition I have.”

  I try not to laugh. “Yeah? What’s that? And since when?” My voice is softer this time.

  “There’s a name for it. I just don’t remember it.” Cao takes a napkin to her nose and blows. “What if you get pregnant?” Cao’s eyes make their way across the table to me.

  My face turns hot, my hands sweaty.

  Condoms, I think.

  And then I remember the statistics on condoms. In 2010, forty-two percent of unintended pregnancies in California resulted in births, and forty-five percent in abortions. The remainder resulted in miscarriages. The teen pregnancy rate in California was fifty-four per one thousand women, aged fifteen to nineteen in 2011. The national rate was fifty-two per one thousand. This is all according to The Guttmacher Institute. I Googled it soon after Simon and I started our dirty secret.

  Whitney approaches our table with our cheese fries. My gut twists into tiny pieces, littering them all over the chair where I’m sitting. If my guilt doesn’t eat me alive, my conscience will. The floral scent that trails her makes me wonder if Simon likes her scent. I don’t wear a scent—unless you consider Jasper’s AC/DC shirt, and that’s probably not a good one.

  Whitney turns to leave.

  She stops.

  Turns back around.

  Sighs.

  “Liv, can I talk to you in private, please?”

  I stand and follow Whitney toward the pinball machine.

  My stomach is dancing in circles, and I prepare myself for the punch she might throw. I picture the final fight between Apollo Creed and Rocky—Jasper’s favorite Rocky movie.

  I’ve never asked Simon if he and Whit have ever had sex. It didn’t seem like a pertinent question at the time. And, now, it seems like the only question I need answering.

  Please, God, don’t let me ask it.

  I look back at Cao, who looks like death.

  I look back to Whitney. “What is it, Whit?”

  Please don’t let this end badly.

  “I know you’re going through an unimaginable time right now.” She twists her fingers together uncomfortably.

  Please don’t be nice to me.

  She looks down at her heart-shaped ring. Probably one that Simon gave her.

  Dear God.

  Here.

  It.

  Comes.

  I hold my breath.

  “It’s hard to think about anything else. I know that Simon is having a really rough time with it, too.” She eyes me like an eagle now, taking in my every movement. Eye twitch.

  I imagine her sitting across the table from me in a dark room. A bright lamp in my face, and her incessant questioning only worsens in my hypothetical situation.

  Why did you sleep with my boyfriend?

  Are you a whore?

  Did he wear a condom?

  Are you on birth control?

  WTF?

  “Liv?”

  I look at Whitney. My heart is pounding out of my chest. “Sorry. What?”

  “I said, I’d like to talk about Simon.” Her words are clear. Her tone justified.

  I play dumb. “About what?” I hear the gush of blood pumping, pushing through my ears.

  “It’s his birthday. And I was wondering…look, I know it’s the last thing you’re thinking about. But I was wondering if you had any pictures of Simon and Jasper together that you could loan me for the party? I promise, I will get them back to you in perfect condition.”

  Wait.

  What?

  “What?”

  “A party. A surprise party for Simon.”

  I’ve borrowed your boyfriend, and you want to borrow pictures.

  “Yeah, of course. I’ll look.” Abruptly, I turn and walk toward Cao, whose panic has subsided with my steps toward her, as I try my best not to pee my pants. Looking at Whitney was killing me, and I couldn’t do it anymore.

  “I think I almost peed my pants,” Cao says as I sit down.

  “Me, too!”

  I look back toward Whitney, who is walking back toward the counter.

  “She asked for pictures of Jasper and Simon.”

  Cao puts her fingers to her temples, her eyes searching the table. “I thought I was going to have to get all Jackie Chan or something.”

  “Cao—”

  She continues rambling on about a dead conscience, Chan superpowers, and whatever.

  “Cao,” I say louder.

  Rambling still.

  “Cao!” I whisper-yell. “She asked about pictures for a surprise party for Simon.”

  “Party for Simon?” She stops.
>
  We’re both silent as we lean back in our booth, not in the mood for cheese fries anymore.

  “Wow, this is going to be really awkward,” she says.

  “I know.”

  I drop Cao off at home with no sign of Daniel along the way.

  “This thing with Simon is nothing but trouble, Liv,” she says before she shuts the car door. “Teen pregnancy rates are higher than they’ve been. Plus, the girlfriend factor. Plus, STDs—oh my God.” She shakes her head.

  “Bye, Cao.”

  Before I pull away from her drive, my phone chirps.

  It’s a text from Simon.

  Simon: Ran into Old Man Morris. He didn’t know about Jas. I told him.

  I throw my phone into the passenger seat and make my way home to change for work. I have the five to nine p.m. shift tonight.

  My phone chirps again.

  Simon: Hawthorne, right?

  Shit. I forgot I agreed to meet him after school today. Really, what I want to do is just curl up in Jasper’s AC/DC shirt—my shirt now—and listen to his Low and Slow playlist.

  I grab my phone.

  Me: Rain check?

  Simon: 2 late.

  What?

  I pull into our driveway. Our restored Victorian sits on Tenth Street and high enough above town that it overlooks Belle’s Hollow. Everyone knows the one and only palm tree in Belle’s is located just to the right of our house. I imagine my parents know who planted it when they bought the place back before Jas and I were born.

  Why plant a palm tree in Northern California where it rains eighty percent of the time?

  Jasper’s favorite spot was just under the palm at ten p.m. sharp.

  He’d ponder.

  He’d think.

  He’d listen to music.

  I see Simon is sitting in Jasper’s spot—under the palm tree—and my stomach doubles over because, for a second, I think it’s Jasper. That he’s alive, and this has all just been an awful, sick dream—him being dead—and not a twist in fate.

  Too late, Simon said.

  Makes sense now.

  I quietly let my car door pull shut and throw my bag over my shoulder. As I approach him, he doesn’t move. His black sunglasses shield his eyes from the permanent fog layer that seems to drift in and out from the ocean, almost never allowing the sun to make its debut.

  His hands are clasped in front of him, and he’s staring out over Belle’s.

  “Hey,” I say as I walk over and sit beside him.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  Our backs resting against the strong, solid wood of the palm, we sigh together, uniformly, as if the world expects us to.

  Palm trees are a sign of victory and peace. It’s said that a large oak tree trunk can support a huge weight of branches but has limited flexibility. The palm trunk has lots of small roots just under the surface of the soil, which provides stability, and has far more flexibility and can bend forty to fifty degrees without snapping.

  The palm can move, flex, and take whatever is thrown at it. It survives.

  Simon bites his lower lip and takes a breath, as if holding back what he wants to say—or do—right now. “I, uh—” He coughs. I can feel the tears that get caught in his throat, the push of sadness. “I told Jasper before he left that he’d better come back because he owed me twenty dollars.” His voice is brash, hoarse, and is cut off with his own feelings.

  He swallows, and I can hear the groan, the familiar one, the one I feel all the time. I know it so well, I can feel it in my own throat.

  “I didn’t…I didn’t…that was the last thing I said to him—that he owed me money.” He tries to hide a sob by covering his mouth with his clenched fist.

  I rest my head on the tree and don’t say what’s on my mind.

  He takes off his glasses, and his eyes are the color of a deep red rose. Like he’s been at this for a few hours.

  “I go to bed, in my bed, every night. But I always wake up in his.” I try to quiet my heart. “Guess I just need something to hang on to.”

  He pulls my head to his chest, and I smell his shirt. He and Jasper wear the same deodorant, and immediately, all I want to do is listen to the beat of his heart. So, I push my ear closer, grab on to his shirt, and try not to allow my tears to become too loud.

  I feel Simon’s hands tighten around me. I close my eyes and pretend it’s Jasper.

  When we were kids and our mom and dad fought, it would scare me. Jasper would quietly tiptoe into my room and motion me to follow him to his room, and we’d climb onto his bed. He would hold my head to his chest and cover my ears until the shouting stopped. I’d listen to Jasper’s heartbeat instead. That was the place I’d go when life got too hard.

  I pull my head away from Simon’s chest and look at him. Tears stream down his face.

  I put my lips to his because I want him to forget his sadness, like it’s some act of valor, like I’m saving his life. But the truth is, I want to forget my sadness, too.

  Simon’s hands have always stayed where they should. I’ve always been the one to push him further, I hate to admit. Maybe it’s my degrees of grief. Wanting so badly to escape my reality, I trudge further into my dark abyss that has no end in sight.

  But it’s Daniel who enters my mind.

  The question he asked earlier: “What was he like? Jasper, I mean.”

  My answer: “Half of me. And only the good parts.”

  I wonder if Daniel would have liked the old me. The less haunted one, less sad, the better decision-maker. I wonder what he’d think of me if he knew what I did in my spare time to meet the needs of my grief.

  And poor Daniel, the boy who met me as a single, not a double. The boy who met me as Livia, not Livia and Jasper. The boy who met me after the sadness and not a minute before.

  I try to push Daniel and my answer to his question from the tendrils of my hair, the same tendrils that sop up the remnants of my tears, my memories. The same memories I pray that stay with me, yet I yearn for their departure, so the pain won’t be so much.

  Simon pauses before he reaches my breast, as if to ask if this is all right.

  I nod, lean back, and wait for the momentary relief.

  I walk away from Simon. The momentary relief is gone already, and the guilt drags behind me.

  The numbness is fading, and I know I have the cure hiding in a little bottle on my dresser.

  Pulling my bag up closer on my shoulder, I turn and look back to the palm tree where Simon still sits, alone with his own stuff.

  It happens every time. The old feeling returns too quickly, and I wonder why I did it in the first place. I wonder if Simon feels the same.

  Locking the front door behind me, I run upstairs and pull Jasper’s shirt on but not before grabbing two white pills from the bottle on my dresser. Quietly, I go into Jasper’s room and fall into his bed with the day’s dirt wearing on me like a tight sweater made with scratchy yarn. I pull his headphones on and hit play.

  My mind flashes to mere minutes ago with Simon’s hand on my breast, his hardness between my legs.

  Whitney’s face.

  Cao’s face.

  Tracy’s face.

  Poppy’s face.

  Jasper’s face.

  Daniel’s face even.

  Disgusted with myself, I turn on my side and face the wall, waiting for the music and the pills to take me to another dimension.

  It’s four thirty p.m., and the two pills have done their job. I feel more relaxed and less feely. I need to get ready for work. Pushing off Jasper’s bed, I look out the window and down toward the palm to see if Simon has left. He has, to my relief.

  I pile into the adjoining bathroom and wash my face. I stare back into the mirror at someone I cannot recognize. Deep, dark holes where my eyes used to be, a glimmer of blue, recognizable only by an intent stare. My lips, not even a shade of pink, but a shade of sadness. The tiny stud in my nose, I barely notice. My skin’s so white, I try to scrub it away because I don�
�t want to be this person anymore.

  I scrub harder and harder until my face burns, and I look back at her. The twin of the twin. I feel separated by glass, the old me just out of reach.

  Over the cold running water, I hear my phone.

  It’s Tracy with a text.

  Tracy: At the store. Just thought you might need this. :) Thought we could watch Us and eat the entire thing when you get home.

  It’s a picture of a half-gallon of cookies-and-cream ice cream. And Us is a show Tracy and I started watching together. It’s one of the first bonding things we’ve ever done.

  Jasper said he wasn’t into it, but partly, I think he would have sat down and watched it but wanted to give us time together.

  He wouldn’t interrupt us or say, Why do you watch shows that make you cry?

  He wouldn’t flick my head just to annoy me as he stood behind me while I sat on the couch.

  His body doesn’t exist anymore, just remnants of ash that sit on our mantel.

  Me: Yeah.

  Tracy: I love you.

  Me: Me, too.

  I’m tying my apron when Linda comes up behind me and finishes tying it for me.

  “Ain’t the same without him,” she whispers under her breath. “Put somethin’ up to remember him by.” She motions to Jasper’s spot.

  “Saw that,” I say.

  Her lip twitches as she leans up against the counter, staring at the plaque from across the room. She shakes her head. “Ain’t nobody deserve to die like that, Liv. Nobody. But, your brother, he was somethin’ special. Some people are just at the wrong place at the wrong time.” A small tear forms at the corner of her eye, but she wipes it away before I can verify the evidence.

  Some people tiptoe around my heart. Don’t say the stuff that’s blatantly obvious. People are unsure of where to stand, what to do and say to me, the girl who sits at the base of the palm tree, having sex with a boy to ease her pain.

  But, when Linda says this, I connect. I hear her words and the hurt in her tone. She’s affected, too.

  What if Jasper was at the wrong place at the right time?

  My heart drops to my toes.

  “Glad you’re back because Whitney ain’t worth a shit. Think she broke every glass we own.” Linda rolls her eyes, wiping her hands on her soiled apron. She places her hand on her hip and winks. “Get to work.”