The Truth about Us

by Janet Gurtler

  “I love it,” I tell her. “You look beautiful.”

  She hides her toothless grin with her hand as she sits back down. “Did I ever tell you that you remind me of my daughter?” she asks, placing her napkin on her lap with shaky hands. I pat her arm.

  “Thank you,” I say. “I’ll get you your tea before you eat.”

  I’m greeted by other regulars who seem happy to see me, and as I’m running to get salad and sandwiches to them, my heart slowly begins to fill up again. When I go to clock out, Stella is in her office on the phone. I overhear her telling someone she’ll be staying late to help with the dinner service because a few volunteers can’t show up.

  “I’ll help,” I say.

  She looks up from her phone.

  “I can stay,” I repeat.

  Her expression changes. Her eyebrows go up.

  I nod. “I have nothing going on.”

  She sits up straighter, watching me. “Never mind, sweetie,” she says on the phone. “I’ll be home after all.”

  She hangs up and pauses, letting out a breath. “Thank you,” she says softly. “I appreciate it.” She watches me for a moment and then points at her phone. “You need to check in at home?”

  “I’ll call.”

  After I leave a message, Stella stands. “Why don’t you get something to eat and you can help out in the sorting area or in the greenhouse before the dinner service? It’s going to be a faster pace. You’re sure you’re okay with it?”

  I assure her I can handle it and go to the kitchen and, for the first time, grab a sandwich and soup and sit with a couple of volunteers at the staff table and eat. They’re older women, but they welcome me and treat me like a cute grandchild. I even have a slice of day-old Black Forest cake with them. I’m not even surprised that it’s delicious.

  Later, after the dinner service, I’m exhausted but walk alone to the bus stop. I’m not afraid, even though it’s much later than usual. The bus still drops me at the same spot, a block away from home. I walk along, not even noticing the familiar sights, thinking about Flynn and smiling to myself.

  A car horn honks and startles me. My face burns bright when I spot the car.

  “Hi, Jess,” Braxton calls.

  I peer inside his car and try not to show my disappointment that Flynn isn’t with him.

  “Hey!” he says and pulls his crappy car up beside me. It’s noisy and smells like exhaust. “We keep meeting this way.”

  “Only once,” I say. “It’s been a while.”

  “I’ve wanted to text you. Or call, but I don’t have your number,” he says.

  “Yeah.” I shift from one foot to the other and glance around at my neighbor’s houses. His car sticks out like a dead flower in a fresh rose bouquet. “My phone privileges are gone for the whole summer.”

  He turns his car off and opens his door.

  “Whoa. That sucks. What’d you do?”

  “I, uh, you know, pissed off my dad.” Even I can hear the deflection. Not taking credit for my actions. My dad’s voice is in my head again.

  Braxton leans against his car, smiling at me. “That sucks. You grounded?”

  “Not really. I mean. No.” Not after my shifts are over anyhow. He never told me not to go out. Not that I’ve had any invitations.

  “Cool.”

  I fake a smile and look around, ready to move along.

  “So. There’s a party not far from here. I don’t want to seem like a stalker or anything, but I was about to pop by your house and see if you wanted to go. And here you are.”

  “Here I am.”

  He takes a breath. “I was kind of stressing about having to show up at your door, like a kid in first grade, you know, ding dong, can you come out and play?” He grins and babbles on, because apparently the boy has no filter.

  “So the party,” he finally says after a few topic changes. He glances at his car. “Do you want to come?” He looks back at me. “It’ll be fun. Sounds like you could use some fun.”

  He reminds me of one of the boys from the Nickelodeon shows I used to watch with Penny. Wholesome and mischievous but trustworthy. I almost expect him to add an “aw-shucks.”

  “It’s a few blocks over. On Setter Street,” he tells me, nodding his head in the direction.

  Our neighborhood. Actually the extremely executive end of the neighborhood. Brittney Mendes lives there. It has to be at her place. She’s had a few wild parties this summer because her parents are out of town.

  “I left a friend there,” Braxton says. “The place was already hopping.”

  Flynn? Was he the friend? I stand straighter. I can’t really imagine Flynn at a party at Brittney’s, but I wouldn’t put Braxton there either, and here he is.

  I glance around, trying to play it cool, as if my stomach isn’t doing a rain dance at the thought of seeing Flynn outside the shelter. “I should change,” I tell him.

  “You look fine to me.” Braxton smiles. “Better than fine actually.” His enthusiasm reminds me of a wagging tail on a dog again and makes me a little uncomfortable, but I choose to ignore it.

  “Okay,” I say and decide the chance of seeing Flynn is worth not putting on cooler clothes or touching up my long-gone makeup. Dad’s out of town, but there’s a chance Mom is up. She’ll have gotten the message I was working an extra shift and won’t be expecting me. If I go home, she might want me to stay in.

  If Flynn happens to be at the party, well, he already knows what I look like. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who cares if a girl spends a ton of time getting ready. He’s more of the jeans and tank top type. And I’m wearing my version of “dress up for work” clothes. Not jeans and a tank. Shoot.

  A woman walking her little black dog steps around us so she can pass.

  “I wonder if Nance is at the party,” I say out loud and walk to the passenger side of his car. Braxton hurries over to open the door, surprising me. “I’m not sure how I feel about seeing her since she’s totally abandoned me,” I add under my breath. Braxton moves some fast food wrappers from the seat to the floor so I can sit.

  “Nance?” Braxton asks, and then he goes to the driver side and climbs in.

  “A friend,” I tell him. “Or she was. I haven’t heard from her since my phone was taken away.” We talked once on my landline the day after the boob baring but not since.

  Braxton’s car smells like Christmas trees instead of hamburgers, and sure enough, there’s a tree-shaped air freshener hanging from his rearview mirror. Music blasts from his speakers when he starts the car, but he reaches for the volume and turns it down. He revs his engine. I tug on my seat belt as Braxton throws the car into drive and squeals off.

  “Confession,” he blurts out with a guilty puppy-dog expression. “I saw the party posted on Twitter and drove to your hood, hoping to see you there. When you weren’t, I left and headed over to see if you were at home.”

  “Oh,” I manage and twirl my earring. I don’t want to flirt with him, but I don’t want to blurt out that we’re only going to be friends right away. He might dump me on the street.

  “These houses are fricking huge,” he says as we pass the homes of people I’ve known since elementary school and drive toward Brittney’s.

  “Size matters in this neighborhood,” I tell him.

  He laughs out loud.

  “Where do you live?” I turn to his profile.

  He rolls up to a stop sign. “Clover Lawn,” he says and narrows his eyes.

  I nod noncommittally as if I don’t know it’s the seediest part of town. It does have beautiful trees though. Big trees.

  “My whole house is probably smaller than your bedroom.” He pulls out from the stop sign and takes the first right.

  “Wasn’t passing judgment,” I tell him.

  “No?” He whistles again as we get closer t
o Brittney’s house.

  I shrug. “Do you think it matters?”

  “Shit, yeah,” Braxton says as he pulls into the next street. “Whoa. It’s gotten busier.” Cars are lined up and down both sides of the street. He pulls his car into an empty spot, in front of a driveway.

  “You’re blocking them in,” I can’t help pointing out.

  He laughs, so I shrug it off and climb out. Braxton’s already on the street, jumping up and down, like a kid in a LEGO store. “This is going to rock,” he yells with his “golden retriever fetching a stick” enthusiasm.

  “You don’t have a lot of inhibitions, do you, Braxton?” I ask.

  He grins widely. “Not really.”

  “I only get remotely close to that when I drink,” I admit as we walk side by side on the sidewalk.

  “Well, let’s go get you a drink!” he says and whoops again.

  “That’s not always very pretty,” I say, trying to be honest and wondering if I’m giving him the wrong impression.

  “Let me be the judge of that,” he says.

  This can’t be a good idea.

  chapter twelve

  From the outside, the house is stupidly huge with a flawless yard. Not a weed in sight. There are no kids puking in bushes or throwing beer bottles at each other on the front lawn, which is a good sign, but a buzz of voices and laughter rise up from the back. There’s a fence high enough to keep an illusion of privacy around the side and back, and there’s enough distance between houses on the street that the neighbors probably won’t complain unless things get really out of hand. It’s summer, after all. Most of the neighbors are probably gone too.

  “Her parents are in Europe on ‘holiday.’” He says holiday with a fake accent.

  “You know Brittney?” I ask.

  “Saw the party on Twitter,” he reminds me.

  I do know Brittney, but he doesn’t ask so I don’t tell. Braxton walks ahead of me, bouncing up to the front door about to ring the bell, but I reach across him and turn the knob.

  The front hallway is packed with bodies.

  He grins. “Now it’s a party.” He goes off on another riff about great parties of the past, and I kind of want him to be quiet. While nonstop chatter is endearing in some ways, it’s also exhausting in others.

  The air in the house is stale. Fresh oxygen is being consumed and used up by the kids jammed into the main floor. I look around, contemplating the fake plants in expensive pots in the entranceway. Beauty without commitment.

  “Where’s your friend?” I ask.

  Braxton puts a hand on his ear. “I can’t hear you.”

  I point ahead, and we walk past couples in an office off the entrance, pawing at each other on cream-colored couches. I make a face on the furniture’s behalf. They’ll need a good cleaning after the party or maybe a note for Brittney’s parents to burn them. We keep walking into the living room, but instead of giving me energy, the lively atmosphere sucks it out of me. My trying to muster up some enthusiasm fails as we press deeper into the hub of the party, and my heart sinks. I should have gone home. Pulling out the fake bubbly party personality is too tiring. Too contrived. Almost everyone is fueled by mind-altering substances, but I’m as sober as a funeral floral arrangement.

  “JESS!” a voice screeches, and suddenly Nance is throwing herself at my side, hugging me tight, almost knocking me over. She stumbles and giggles as we both lose our footing in the attack.

  “Whoo-hoo! You got a ‘Get out of jail for free card’!” she yells right in my ear, and the vibration hurts.

  I force a smile and step back to give my ear some distance. Nance throws her head back and laughs and then spots Braxton. “Who is this boy?” She emphasizes the word boy and squints to look closer at him.

  “Braxton, Nance; Nance, Braxton,” I say. Ugh. I want to be mad at her, but she’s in no condition to even notice.

  She grabs Braxton by the shoulder and spins him around.

  “A little young. But nice butt,” she tells him.

  He grabs her by the hand and spins her around. “You too.”

  Nance giggles. “Sassy,” she shouts. “Is this your summer fling?” she yells at me.

  I frown and shake my head, but she’s grinding up against me. I try to laugh and dance with her, but my body’s as flexible and fun as a corpse. I want to ask why she hasn’t called or tried to get hold of me some other way, but there’s no use in her state.

  Jennifer Deering slinks up to us then. She fake-smiles at me and I fake-smile back. “Hey, Jess,” she says, but it sounds like “Get lost, loser. This is my best friend.” We’ve known each other for years, but every time I see her, it feels like we’re meeting for the first time. She makes me feel like that annoying friend no one really wants to talk to, but really, right about now, Jennifer should thank me because she’s inherited the role of Nance’s best friend. Which she’s made no secret of wanting to be.

  Jennifer throws an arm around Nance’s shoulder and laughs at something Braxton said. She doesn’t take her eyes off me though, silently judging me as she does so well.

  I should have gone home to change. My outfit is lame and smells like leftover Taco Bell. “I just got off work,” I tell her.

  “You’re working?” Jennifer arches a thin eyebrow.

  I swallow an urge to physically push her away from me. “Kind of.” I don’t say more, because we both know she knows about New Beginnings. Nance talks, and Jennifer definitely heard.

  “Oh. That’s right. You’re doing that charity thing.” She makes a face and takes a sip of her cooler and spins away, cutting me off.

  I glance to see if Braxton heard her, but he’s too busy staring at her chest to register words.

  “Who’s this?” Jennifer smiles at Braxton, who is grinning at her, totally suckered in. There’s a definite gleam in her eye too, like she wants to steal him away to show me she can.

  “I’m Jennifer,” she tells him and kind of wiggles around to give him a better eyeful of her low-cut top and boobs, which are almost as big as Nance’s and I suspect one of the reasons Nance chose me as her number one. My smaller cup size.

  “I’m Braxton.” He grins at Jennifer, clearly charmed by her packaging. Then he keeps talking.

  I shuffle my feet, wanting to escape the three of them and all the flirting and giggling. My party persona fails me as I glance around at the drinking and drugging.

  “What’s wrong with your face?” Nance says and pinches my cheek. “We don’t do grouchy face at parties.” She lifts her hands in the air to “raise the roof.”

  I paw my hand through my hair and bump Nance’s hip with mine, trying to shake off my mood. “So what’s new?” I ask, glancing at Jennifer, pretending to include her in the question. I know how to do this, I remind myself. This is my world.

  “Whoa,” Nance says. “You’re way too sober and boring. Where is your alcohol, girl?”

  My cheeks burn. Nance sees through me. She sees how self-conscious and ridiculous I am without alcohol. I always have a few drinks before we go out. To get me in the mood. I snatch her bottle from her hand and guzzle from it.

  “We forgot to pick up booze,” Braxton says to Nance.

  I glance over. More like he couldn’t afford to pick some up. Nance grabs Braxton’s chin and smooshes up his face. “Well, Jess needs a drink! Brittney has plenty of booze. Go.” She points to the deck. “Find this girl a drink. There’s beer and stuff in the coolers on the deck.” She looks him up and down. “Help yourself.” She pushes on his back. “Get Jess a vodka cooler,” she calls as he stumbles off. “Those are her favorite.”

  Braxton grins over his shoulder as he heads toward the deck.

  Nance grabs her drink back from me. “So, where’d you find him? The bargain basement?”

  “Nance!”

  She boogies to the music pounding
out from speakers in the ceiling. “What? He’s cute. I’m just guessing he’s financially challenged.”

  “Based on what?”

  Nance stops dancing. “Um. His shoes. His jeans. The way he talks.” She laughs like it’s hysterical.

  Jennifer laughs with her. “His style is kind of Grandpa’s hand-me-downs. But he is yummy. Definite summer fling material.”

  Great. Jennifer is in on that too. So stupid. They giggle together, and I shake my head, trying not to show how pissed off they’re making me. “No. It’s not like that.”

  “Did you meet him at that place?” Nance squishes up her nose. “I mean, don’t get me wrong; he’s kind of adorable with his…” She makes a talking motion with her hand. “And he’s nice to look at, but I’m guessing you’ll be paying for your own liquor.”

  “Is he your new ‘boyfriend’?” Jennifer makes air quotes around the word boyfriend. I have an urge to push her hard so she splats on the ground.

  “Friend,” I yell. “And I didn’t meet him there.” My face smolders, thinking of Flynn. What are they going to say about Flynn?

  “He lives on the other side of town,” I add with an eye roll and instantly hate myself. Like I’m admitting he isn’t one of us. What does it matter where he lives?

  “The bad side?” Nance asks.

  “Clover Lawn?” Jennifer asks and flicks her hair back.

  I press my lips tight together and pretend to look for someone across the room.

  “Forget boyfriend, summer fling!” Nance yells.

  “Friend,” I say again but think of Flynn.

  Nance rolls her eyes. “So where did you find him?” She drinks her cooler and eyeballs me.

  “I met him through someone.” I shrug and glance over her shoulder, hoping she won’t ask who. We know the same people.

  “Penny?” Nance asks and wrinkles up her nose. “She’s here, you know. At an actual party. Did you see her yet?”