Standing Sideways

by J. Lynn Bailey

  British accents are stupid on seventeen-year-old boys. They make hormones sway to music that isn’t there. Light unlit candles. And play slow, romantic songs that make American girls rip off their shirts.

  Penis.

  Vagina.

  My face is completely red now.

  “He’s the new surgeon from Hull. I told you about him.” Tracy looks at me, reaching for Daniel’s hand. “Ned, can you flip on the light, please?” she calls to my dad, who’s leaning against the doorway of the kitchen, watching this play out.

  “Wait. Your dad’s a surgeon?” I look to Daniel, crossing my arms. “Why wouldn’t you have your dad look at your hand?”

  I know Daniel is definitely not a liar when this statement pours from his mouth with both of my parents in the room. I see him mull over the words before he says them, “I just wanted to spend time with you.”

  A slight smile tugs on both sides of Tracy’s mouth, though she’s still wearing her professional nursing face. It’s probably the same one she wears when blood spills from a head wound. When a baby is born. When she has to deliver good news. And bad.

  But I haven’t seen her smile since Jasper died. And this makes my guilt double. That I forgot about Jasper. Just for a moment. I forgot him. And, somehow, I convince my mind that forgetting him means he’s one step closer to being forgotten, and my heart can’t handle this thought right now, so I push it out of my head and remember not to smile.

  “Looks all right to me, Daniel. I’d say, just some ointment for infection. What’d you do anyway?”

  “Doors can be finicky,” is all he says.

  Tracy’s eyes drag from Daniel to me. “Liv, can you show Daniel where the ointment is?”

  “This way, Mr. Pearson.” I push my hand through the doorway that I’m standing in.

  The right of the staircase leads up to my bedroom—also another kissing space, also another space where two people can sit in close proximity, on a bed. But, here, in the safe space—the non-kissing, non-sexual space—is a downstairs bathroom where we keep the ointment. It’s a half-bath, so it’s small with a toilet, a sink, and ointment. Lots of ointment and creams. From anti-itch cream to burn cream to healing cream. It’s a one-stop shop for all your minor medical emergencies.

  “What are you thinking about?” Daniel towers over me in the cramped space, ready to take his cream punishment. A slight smile pulls at his mouth.

  “Running the Boston Marathon,” I lie quickly before the truth falls out of my mouth. Two truths in one day to a boy I barely know is just stupid.

  I take his hand in mine, and I’ll be damned to hell if my heart doesn’t stop as his hand drapes over mine. The colorful winged monarchs explode in my stomach.

  “Has anyone told you that you make a horrid liar?” He pronounces liar like lie-uh.

  I carefully let go of his hand and turn to wash mine before I apply the ointment. “Truth?” I don’t look in the mirror because I feel his eyes on the back of my head.

  He doesn’t answer, so I assume there is only one answer.

  “I was thinking how much I don’t want to be in this small space with you.”

  Daniel laughs. “Yeah?”

  I turn back to him and pull his hand to mine, taking the ointment in my hand. “Can I use my fingers?” I look up at him.

  His lips slightly part. Still. Quiet. Taken aback by my words, I think. “Yes,” he whispers.

  I put the ointment on my other finger. His fingertips barely graze my midsection, and I feel an explosion of stars in my head.

  Butterflies have hatched.

  Stars align.

  A new universe is born.

  I’m screwed.

  It’s Saturday. And, somehow, I’ve managed to steer clear of Simon since Daniel came to my house.

  Several texts from Simon, but I haven’t responded. But he’s more concerned about what he doesn’t remember from last Tuesday in my car. How I got him home. And what he knows is just what Whitney’s told him, I’m sure.

  Daniel hasn’t texted me since our lovefest in the half-bath without kissing but with hands and explosions of worlds.

  The rest of the week, I haven’t gone back to Hawthorne Hill for any quick fixes. I also haven’t gone back to Mr. Joe’s class. I dropped it after talking to Ms. Brimm. I used excuses like grief, too much right now. Tears I manipulated.

  And, thankfully, I haven’t had to face Mr. Joe either. Since I dropped the class, I hope he assumes that our agreement, our handshake on his help, has disappeared, too. But a little voice inside me—not Poppy—tells me I am a problem-runner extraordinaire.

  Cao went down to San Francisco to the Chinese Historical Society of America with Beth, and I have the day off of work.

  Jasper’s room is getting smaller and smaller, the longer I lie here, on his bed, waiting for him to deliver an answer to what I should do about Daniel.

  My phone chimes.

  It’s Daniel.

  My heart throws itself into a rhythm that makes me dizzy. A beat. A band. A band full of drums. Bongo. Bass. Cabasa. Loudly orchestrating the solo that will finish as soon as I read Daniel’s text. I need to see you.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  He didn’t say want, or, I’d like, or, It would be nice. He said need. A verb.

  And defined as: require (something) because it is essential or very important.

  Maybe what he needs is to see me to tell me something, and the need to see me justifies the reason. So, maybe it isn’t what I think.

  I overthink. Perhaps he should have typed, I need to talk to you. So, maybe he does need to see me? Maybe he wants to see me?

  The British seem to have a funny way of conveying information, I think. Or maybe it’s the American way of overthinking everything. Complicating something simple. Maybe a play on words. A lost-in-translation sort of thing. I try to downplay my hopes. Maybe it’s not an American versus British thing at all.

  I start to text back. But he starts typing again, as I see the bubble with dots.

  I stop typing.

  And so does he.

  Maybe it’s like an, I need to see you about a matter.

  Me: What’s your address?

  Because I should tell him why I can’t see him. I’ll explain the grief. The issue I have with taking the pills that help the grief. A drug addict, I’ll tell him. That will get his feet going in the opposite direction. The gall has been discovered under my need to give him reasons—or excuses—as to why the world exploding and stars being reborn can never happen again.

  There’s a long pause on his end. And mine.

  Still nothing.

  It’s been thirty seconds. Ten more. Five more. A minute passes.

  He starts to type again. The bubble appears. Then, it disappears.

  He said need, Livia.

  Daniel starts to type again. The bubble moves. I swear, it moves quicker and quicker.

  Light-years have passed.

  Daniel: 4723 Rockwell Lane

  I map the address on my phone. Daniel’s road is just off the Gulch, which I had a feeling it would be.

  Quickly, I stand, ripping off Jasper’s black T-shirt to put on another T-shirt that I grabbed this morning from Jasper’s closet. A clean one. Suddenly, there’s an overwhelming scent of something distinct. It’s the woods and fresh laundry. Jasper was an impeccable dresser. It wasn’t what he wore; it was how he wore it. I feel as though I’m not alone because the scent, his scent, keeps getting stronger.

  I step away from his bed, being beckoned toward his closet. The closet I’ve buried myself in time after time, sitting on his pristine collection of Vans shoes in the dark, begging for him to just let me know he’s there.

  I take a few more steps toward his closet. The door is closed, and I wonder if my father has been in here again. This thought agitates me. But something tells me to breathe, to calm down. Jasper’s scent grows, as if he were here with me right now, something I’ve never felt sin
ce he left.

  Taking two last steps to the closet door, I reach for the doorknob. I don’t pull the door open just yet because, now, I’m afraid of the letdown, my big expectations imploding right in my face.

  What if it’s nothing?

  What if I’ve created this scene all in my head, and what if it’s nothing?

  A sense of urgency comes over me, and I pull open the door.

  It’s dark in the closet, so I flip on the light.

  What I find, my mind cannot quite put the pieces together the way it wants to because what I see…

  There’s a rhyme and reason if Jasper is here, but it’s unexplainable if he isn’t.

  I reach down and hold a sob in my throat, too scared to let myself exhale. Too scared to move because, if I do, maybe it will chase away what I’m witnessing.

  The light begins to sputter, as if the lightbulb is going bad, and Jasper’s scent increases, almost overpowering. All this is happening so fast.

  At the bottom of the closet, lying neatly on top of his shoes, is Jasper’s phone, vibrating, with his name across the screen.

  As if he’s calling his own cell phone.

  Shock: 1.) a disturbance in the equilibrium or permanence of something. 2.) a sudden or violent mental or emotional disturbance.

  Immediately, I am transported back in time to when Jasper was alive.

  “I believe in what I see,” is what Jasper said to Poppy and me one day when we had a long,drawn-out conversation about God.

  Does he still hold true to that on the other side? Should I?

  My body sways between what’s real and what I’m actually witnessing with my own two eyes.

  Breathing picks up pace.

  Real: Apples. Books. Coffee cups. Cats. Clam chowder. The flu.

  Real.

  My whole body lunges for the phone, my heart reaching, too, I answer it. “Jasper!” I gasp. “JASPER!”

  This feeling inside me is real, and I believe every inch of it.

  First lie I tell myself, What if he’s not dead?

  Second lie I tell myself, What if the FBI missed something?

  “Jasper? Please, I’m here.” Tears stream down my face. “Please, I’m here.” Desperation is in my tone.

  But all that’s on the other line is static. Loud static.

  I wait. Believing there’s more to this. I wait, holding the phone to my ear, as tears consume my face, and my insides go numb.

  I fall among his Vans and immerse myself in him.

  His shirts.

  His Vans.

  Everything.

  Just his.

  With an ache so deep—a void that can only be filled by him, the other half of me—my entire body begins to shake.

  Grief makes us do funny things. Our minds, once ours, are now blind by eternal light. Where we wait for our loved ones, in limbo, somewhere between heartbeats.

  Pleading to see Jasper one last time, I tell him what I didn’t get to tell him before he died.

  “I’d do it all different, Jasper,” I whisper, not recognizing my own voice.

  I try to pad my mind with the burden of proof. Physical evidence that what I did see did indeed actually happen.

  When the static finally stops, I wait. I don’t pull the phone from my ear, for fear I’ll miss whatever Jasper is trying to tell me.

  After several minutes, I pull the phone from my ear. The screen is now black with a thick layer of breath fogging the screen.

  I go to his Missed Calls log.

  And there, under last caller, isn’t Jasper calling Jasper. It’s Tracy, and it has the number forty-seven next to it. I know Tracy has called Jasper’s phone forty-seven times—not to reach him, but to listen to his voice on his voice mail.

  “This is Jasper. You know the routine.”

  Beep.

  Bile sneaks into the lower part of my throat, burning on the way up. I make my way back to my room and grab my keys and the bottle of pills before shoving them in my bra. I need to get some air.

  My parents are in the living room.

  Mom: reading—pretend reading because she doesn’t want to worry others with her grief.

  Dad: scanning the Sports section of the Times-Standard newspaper.

  “Not so fast, young lady. We need to talk.” Tracy’s mom tone can be captured usually once a month. “Mrs. Brimm called and said you’d dropped your AP English course.”

  I don’t care anymore. All this caring is ridiculous. It’s overrated and a lot of energy. The not-caring part or the bile, maybe both, slowly moves from my throat to my chest and down to my stomach. Where it belongs.

  “What’s the worst that can happen?” I smirk. The not-caring makes its way to my mouth.

  “Liv, Harvey’s been your dream. Don’t you think they’d like to see your AP scores once you pass the test?” Tracy asks.

  I know she cares. But, for some reason, I can’t stop spewing hateful things from my mouth. “And, all of a sudden, you care?”

  Tracy looks exhausted. Like the songs of love and peace, heaven and earth are over. I watch her turn inside herself. Her mistakes are met with a, Fuck you. My fuck you.

  A piece of me feels bad. But the grieving part of me just wants to make her hurt more than I do, and I hate it that I do this.

  “Livia, don’t speak to your mother like that,” my dad says.

  “Oh! Dad of the Year has returned because it’s convenient. Nice try, Ned. Hey, how long are you staying this time? And where’s the whore you left town with? You know, since you traded your fucking family in for an upgraded model? Is she pregnant yet, Ned?”

  “Livia Stone. What has gotten into you?” Tracy’s eyes are wide as she tries to piece together her family with one huge missing part. “Never—” Her voice quivers, and she stops to gather her thoughts.

  My heart breaks.

  She continues, “Never have you ever talked to me like this. Acted like this…” Her voice follows her once-red heart, now black with tainted trauma.

  “Don’t like it? Not my problem.” And I slam the front door behind me.

  I hear Tracy call after me and hear the deep embers of my dad’s voice trail behind hers, slow and calm for once.

  I text Simon and tell him to meet me on top of Hawthorne Hill because I just need a quick fix, something to forgive me or to relieve me of the guilt that is creeping its way back into my stomach again.

  Shaking, I put the keys into the ignition.

  I feel like I’m spinning out of control.

  Poppy: “Baby, this is no way to lead your life. You’re going to make one wrong decision, and then you won’t be able to go back.”

  But, instead of taking a right onto Main and up the hill to Hawthorne, I turn left toward the Gulch.

  “Go away, Poppy. Go away. Nobody has a dead grandma following them around. You’re not real. And I’m going crazy. Leave me alone.” I pause, pushing the tears down deep inside me. “Wait. Was it Jasper?” I say it out loud to see what it sounds like.

  I shake my head and feel the emotion begin to build again, this time harder.

  I beg Poppy, “Was it him?” Frustration pulls at me. “I don’t need one of your philosophical answers right now, Poppy. I need the truth.”

  Poppy is in the passenger seat. She rolls down the window.

  Why? Does the wind feel different when you’re a ghost? A spirit? A figment of my imagination.

  “Just drive,” she says. “Spirits have a way of manipulating the world around us.”

  My phone directions clang, “Take a right onto Highway 36. In one-point-six miles, take a right onto Rockwell Lane.”

  I forgot I’d programmed the address into my phone earlier.

  I turn to Poppy, but she’s gone.

  I follow the directions that my phone spits out.

  “Take a slight right onto Rockwell.”

  I do, and it takes me down an unpaved road where the tall redwoods provide guidance, as if to say, Don’t veer off the road, or you’ll hit me a
nd die.

  At the end of the lane, I pull into a clearing. “Jesus.”

  A gigantic meadow and up against the trees, a castle awaits made of brick.

  Taking the pills out from my bra, I hide them under my seat but not before I take three. Just three. I need them, right? My brother died. They’re prescribed to me. I justify the importance the pills play on my reality to only myself.

  I text Daniel to let him know I’m here.

  I think I’ve got the wrong house because this isn’t a house. It’s a palace.

  “You have arrived at your destination: 4723 Rockwell Lane,” my phone chirps.

  Where do I park?

  I assume closer to the house, maybe by the water fountain or by the half-naked porcelain sculptures sitting just outside the castle walls.

  My car—my much older car, the one I now feel totally incompetent in, embarrassed by—creeps slowly toward the colossal house, the rocks crunching under my less than capable tires. My entire life now seems less. Just less. But the pills, they sneak into my mind, twisting around and inside my brain. The incompetence fades slightly, and I feel cool. Like I’m supposed to be here.

  Daniel opens one of the massive front doors—there are two—with a T-shirt and jeans that hang loosely on his hips. With no shoes, his hands in his pockets, he comes out to greet me.

  I completely swallow my incompetence and tell it to stay away until I leave.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” he says as I get out of my car, shutting the door behind me.

  “Nice place. How’s the hand?” is all I manage.

  “Fine.” Daniel looks down at his hand and back toward the house, as if it’s an item of insubstantial consequence. Just a thing. “Did you have trouble finding the place?” He stares down at the ground as we make our way to the front doors.

  The grand entryway. The entrance to the palace.

  “No, actually.” My voice seems small and so far away from my heart.

  “Good.”

  I can’t think of anything to say. Good is good, right? I go with, “All right.”

  The comfort of the pills makes my shoulders ease away from my ears. Confidence fills my insides, and I pretend to be someone I’m not. My problems fold themselves into a perfect origami and hitch a ride to the moon.

  Relief fills every dark corner of my heart. My body.