I laugh into my drink. It’s an exciting thing to realize when you’re twenty-three, that one thing leads to another. You may know this to be true earlier, but experiencing it comes with age. I want to poke fun at him but I don’t want to leave a cynical impression on him. “You’re right,” I say. “If not for Per and Thora almost getting hurt the night at the party, I probably wouldn’t have taken you home.”
Patrick suggests a third drink, but I decline.
We hug for a long time on the sidewalk. Cars swoosh through puddles in the road, shooting up soft ferns of water. The humidity lays a black velvet cloak over our shoulders. In a year or two, the Whole Foods across the street—we’re looking at it from the back now, and through the building is Military Park—will be finished, the gentrification of Halsey Street underway. This block used to be where you went to find methadone, Yuejin told me once. Now there’s scaffolding and Coming Soon signs.
“I’m going to miss it here,” I say, wiping tears from my eyes.
“You’ll get over it,” Patrick says. “It’s getting bougie here.”
Our hands meet without meaning to. They entwine. Maybe I’m already a few sips past making a mistake.
I’m leaving next week. What’s one more night?
* * *
During my last lunch with Yuejin, I tell him to let me know if he ever decides to sell the brownstone. If I could scrape together a down payment, I’d snap it up without hesitation.
Yuejin waves the thought away and tells me I don’t want anything to do with the property. “It’s a mess,” he says. “The heater is the original oil heater from the 1920s. There’s no one alive who fixes those types of heaters anymore, so it’s a pain when it breaks, and it costs me eight hundred per month to heat that building.”
“Why didn’t you charge me for utilities?” I ask, incredulous.
Yuejin shrugs. “It was too much, you wouldn’t have stayed.”
“Still,” I say. “I’ll put in a new heater. Natural gas or something.”
“It’s not up to code, the wiring. It needs sprinklers installed if you want to rent it out. Every time I return home I’m surprised to see it hasn’t burned down.”
“I’m glad you didn’t tell me this before,” I say. “I was very at peace in that brownstone.”
“You’ll like living in the thick of things,” Yuejin says, smiling.
“But I’ll miss you,” I say. “And Laura and the kids.”
* * *
My new apartment in Brooklyn doesn’t have the quiet of Newark, but it has a garden where I spend the last nice days of fall, winter about to descend like a cold kiss on the city. There’s no spare bedroom like there was in Newark, and I regret agreeing to store all of Per’s paintings—they’re crowding me out, stacked everywhere, and my cat tried to scratch the paint off one of them the other day. But at least, in a way, they remind me of home.
Though I’ve been here for more than a month, I haven’t finished unpacking yet, so once the pregnancy test delivers the news that a hunch I had was right, that I am in fact pregnant, I sit among the boxes of books, knees tucked to my chest, and worry I’ve already ruined this baby’s chances. For weeks I’ve been pregnant, and also taking blood thinners and an antirejection drug that can cause birth defects. I signed a form at the doctor’s office when I started taking the drug, agreeing to stay on two forms of birth control—except I was lying, I only ever used one. And drinking, too. Drinking less than when I was with Patrick, at dinner when water hits my tongue it’s not the taste I expect, but still, I’ve been drinking. And now I have to make the decision I was always threatening to make—a hard thing to do when you don’t feel at home, because instead of staying in the place I did know, I did love, I had to cross state lines for health insurance, to live in the thick of things.
Tough Beauty
Greta’s always got my back at parties, even last week when I cried about the tuba player in band who doesn’t love me back. She put a breath strip in my mouth before I walked home so my mom wouldn’t find out I was drinking. That’s the difference between us: I’m more likely to fall apart, but Greta’s tough. Sometimes I try to act like Greta but it’s always clear I’m copying, like this one time midparty when Greta took someone’s macaw from its cage and let it sit on her shoulder. Later I coaxed the same parrot onto my arm, but it bit me right next to my eye.
I took it too far that night with the parrot. Earlier Greta had caught me diluting her drink with club soda—I was worried she was getting drunk too fast—and shame burned in my cheeks as I watched her expression darken. After that I took shots, which I hate doing, just to prove I was fun.
What I like more than the parties is just being alone with Greta, taking breaks from acting boy crazy and drinking. Greta and I like to spend time together reading, or Greta will lay down her tarot cards and we’ll decide what our lives are going to look like. This is what it used to be like all the time—the two of us together, not really needing anyone else—but then sophomore year came around and Greta started hanging out with popular kids. I’ve been trying to fit in ever since.
Sometimes I think I’d be happier hanging out with kids from band, but Greta’s my best friend. I can’t just leave her behind, even if the other day, when we were reading the tarot, she said she felt more special than our town, Hollis Hills, would let her be.
For a minute the silence between us was sad, because she didn’t say I was special, too. I like Hollis Hills. I like taking lonely walks around town. But the sadness passed because we still have two years left of high school, two years that seem endless. It’s summer, and school’s out, and next year we’re going to be upperclassmen. We have coveted jobs at the swim club—me in the Snack Shack, Greta as a lifeguard.
One day at work Greta points out this new guy while we’re both on our break, sharing an armchair and a can of Coke. He’s been around the pool this past week, painting the buildings. He looks older, and everyone knows it’s hot to be older.
“His name’s Ian,” Greta says. “He just moved back in with his mom last spring. She’s my neighbor.”
“Have you talked to him?” I ask.
“Barely,” she says.
Ian’s wearing cargo shorts and a holey, paint-stained T-shirt. His muscles flex as he paints the eaves, and his eyes are hidden behind sunglasses. He must feel my gaze because he turns and catches it. I look away but not quickly enough. When I look back, he’s on his way over. My heart pounds because I think he’s coming over for me, but when he’s standing in front of us, he stares at Greta.
He holds out his hand for me to shake, and I shake it even though it’s crusty with dried paint. He keeps his eyes on Greta, though. He says, “I saw you outside your house this morning.”
“Oh,” Greta says. “I didn’t see you.”
The feeling in the air has changed now that he’s here. I avert my eyes to give him and Greta some privacy, unsure of whether or not I should just slink away without saying anything.
The pool spreads gelatinously before us, mostly full of bobbing children. One boy splashes another—a big wave of water right in the face—and Greta blows her whistle. “No horseplay!” she yells.
“No horseplay?” Ian says. “That’s a shame.”
* * *
The pool is closed the next day because of thunderstorms, and I’m grateful for the break, not from work but from drinking. Every night after the pool closes we drink, and I’m starting to feel ill all the time from trying to keep up with Greta.
During a pause in the rain, Greta comes to pick me up, and she takes me back to her house. The sky looks like the skin of a watermelon: green swirls of angry clouds. Once we’re there, Greta showers. I tell her she could get struck by lightning in there, but she says that’s an urban myth.
It’s early afternoon but the gloom outside darkens Greta’s bedroom; shadows accumulate in the corners, cottony and comforting. I curl up on her bed and listen to the shower compete with the rain. We feel at home in each o
ther’s houses. Our moms are gone a lot, so no matter whose house we’re at, we have the run of the place.
Ingrid (Greta’s mom) and Mary-Anne (mine) are both single moms with jobs and Yahoo! Singles profiles. Ingrid’s an attorney, and my mom works as a secretary and is taking night classes to become a paralegal. Sometimes I think the best my mom could do is work for Greta’s mom. When it comes to men, though, they both married duds. Greta and I hardly ever see our dads.
We used to just do homework or lounge in Greta’s room after school, but then Greta got her license and an ancient Honda Civic, and we started going places, just driving and talking. I’m a good listener. Greta says she doesn’t know a better one.
Ian’s been bobbing up in my mind since yesterday. He won’t stay out of it, and trying not to think of him is like trying to keep a plastic bottle submerged in water. It’s not that I’m interested in him; it’s just that I wonder why I can’t captivate attention the way Greta can.
I grab a book from Greta’s nightstand in a feeble attempt to think of something else. When Greta comes in with a towel wrapped around her head she snaps on the overhead light. “You’ll wear out your eyes reading in the dark,” she says.
Greta sits cross-legged on the floor and rubs lotion on her face, her palms pulling her cheeks taut. She has red hair the color of wet bricks, and one crooked incisor that makes her smile lively. Her cutoffs are always just a little bit shorter than mine. As she brushes her hair, she says, “Can I tell you a secret?”
I put the book down to let her know I’m listening.
“Well,” she says. “Ian and I are sort of seeing each other.”
“What? You told me yesterday you hadn’t even met him.”
Greta gives me a look like I’m slow to catch on. “We’re neighbors. We see each other all the time. I just didn’t want it to get out at the pool, you know?”
The book falls shut in my hands. My thoughts dart around, all in turmoil.
Greta sees it, the hurt in my expression. “Don’t get all wounded,” she says.
“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”
“Because I didn’t want you to mother me.” Greta’s voice is like a sharpened pencil. She scowls even as she dabs lavender eye shadow into the creases of her eyelids.
I must look stricken, because Greta softens. “There’s nothing for you to worry about, E.”
“Totally,” I say, trying to recover. “But he’s so old.”
“He’s twenty-one. It’s not that weird.”
I let the idea of it sink in. I’m dying to know more, but I don’t know how to pick up the threads of the conversation.
“Do you want to lay out the cards?” Greta says finally. She traps strands of her hair between her fingers and twists them into a braid. In just a few minutes she’ll have gathered a crown of hair around her head, and she’ll look ready for anything. It takes me an hour at least to interrogate my hair with a straightener until it confesses. I put in so much effort with so little payoff. I hope Greta interprets something good in the cards.
“Yes,” I say. “Outside? The cards are always better when you read them outside.”
Greta shrugs. She doesn’t believe me, that I get better results with the cards outside, but we gather ourselves and leave her bedroom. Her porch is a long slab of concrete with a high, second-story pavilion held up by wooden pillars. It’s raining all around us, but the porch is dry. The raindrops, big as eyes, give us privacy. We sit cross-legged. I get the chills when I lay out the cards in a Celtic cross and flip over the first one, as though there’s real magic in them. Greta won’t touch the cards, because she wants the reading to be about my energy. Sometimes I try to read the cards for Greta, but I need Learning the Tarot open in my lap and it takes too long. Greta gets bored.
“Oh,” Greta says, pointing to a card. “The chariot. This is an interesting one to get for the center card.”
She’s about to explain when Ian steps out onto his porch. Greta’s attention snags, and the cards turn lifeless on the cement. I go where her attention is and watch Ian as he snaps a lighter in the breeze. Of course he smokes, and even though it’s a cliché, I’m sort of into it.
“He looks so melancholy,” Greta says, and I can tell she loves it. She stands and calls his name. A smile lights his face immediately. He runs through the garden with just a few springs and then he soars, he’s actually in the air for a moment, and his boots land hard on the porch. He looks proud, as though he’s just cleared a row of burning cars on a motorcycle. He envelops Greta in a soggy hug.
“Stop, stop!” She folds her arms over her chest, where he’s gotten her tank top wet, but her voice glimmers with laughter.
“Elizabeth!” he says, and he hugs me, too. I’m surprised by the genuine affection in his voice. How can he be happy to see me when I’ve only met him once?
The tarot cards are forgotten. Ian settles into one of Greta’s cushioned rocking chairs.
“So, where did you move here from?” I ask.
“I was in Chicago a few years.”
“How could you stand to leave Chicago for Hollis Hills?” Greta asks. “This place stunts your growth.”
“Hollis Hills isn’t that bad,” I say.
I regret saying it, because Greta rolls her eyes.
“I’m serious,” she says. “They put something in the water that kills brain cells.”
“Chicago kind of chewed me up and spit me out,” Ian says. “Cities are hard.”
Greta nods sympathetically. She seems to like him, and I usually agree with Greta about people. Ian’s been nothing but nice to me, but I still feel outcast, and the feeling pits me against him, and I don’t know why.
“How did Chicago chew you up?” I ask.
“It’s complicated.” Ian waves a hand as though to clear away the conversation.
I think about asking for more information—complicated how?—but he and Greta have sunk into a private conversation, like they did at work yesterday. I go inside for Cokes and chips just so I don’t feel so useless.
* * *
The next day at the pool, it’s like the storm never happened. The sun tractor beams all the puddles from the glass tables and lounge chairs. I wipe away the last of the moisture from the Snack Shack counter, then set out the ketchup and napkin dispensers, the salt and pepper, the cup full of straws. Ian’s back again, and he starts painting the Snack Shack. I retreat from the order window, wash the floor and clean the ice cream cooler. I change the oil in the deep fryer. Ian starts singing “Ruby Tuesday” and I know he’s singing to get my attention. At first I roll my eyes, but there’s something about it, something sweet, and I feel like he knows to give attention when someone wants it. I think the word is charisma. Greta has it. Ingrid has it, smiling and showing some leg in her Yahoo! Singles photo. Sometimes I glimpse it in myself, but as soon as I see it, it dies, like a glow bug caught in a jar.
Ian sticks his head through the order window. “You seem blue,” he says.
The truth is I’ve been agonizing over what Greta said, about how I mother her. I feel the urge to renew my efforts to ignore my worries and be more like her.
“I’m fine,” I say.
He smiles at me. He’s being kind. I think I should reciprocate, so I take out an ice cream bar and hand it to him.
The day becomes so hot and humid that most people choose to stay inside in the air conditioning. A fan in the Snack Shack bears oscillating witness to my boredom. Ian moves his paint buckets and ladder from the Snack Shack to the clubhouse, though he takes frequent breaks to linger under Greta’s lifeguard stand, or to dare me to say something vulgar over the PA system. I pick up the handset once, ready to curse, but I chicken out. As the day goes on, I start to look forward to his visits to my window. It’s not personal, I tell myself. It’s just that getting attention is nice.
Everyone complains and sweats, but this is Michigan in the summer: the rain yesterday brought a chilly gloom, only to be swiped away by heat today. I
love how curious the weather is, how desperate for attention it seems.
Finally, the pool closes. The gates swing shut, the assistant manager roars off in her car, and the party starts. Every night, after hours, we party. Someone puts music over the PA. I’m handed my first drink and I gulp it down. Everyone else is kissing, swimming, laughing. We all have a sun-worn look: hair washed in pool water, late nights, work in the morning, red sunburns. Those of us who drink often have had so many bad hangovers already that the miserable mornings combine to form one big everlasting summer hangover.
Just thinking of alcohol tonight, of the thick liquid sliding down my throat, turns my stomach. I’ve just had a little too much lately, have spent one too many nights this summer clutching the toilet, with the fan on and the water running, trying to throw up quietly so my mom won’t hear. It would be so nice to take a long, lonely walk home, with the chirps of crickets leaping all around me, the sound of a car passing and the brief, second-long thrill I get thinking the car might stop, and I’ll meet a stranger who might change my life. And then the relief I feel when the car passes. Night is full of rushes like this, rushes that renew you—but I only feel these rushes when I’m alone. I’m too nervous around other people to feel anything but anxiety.
I see Greta across the pool. She’s on her lifeguard stand. Ian’s standing beneath her, holding one of her feet in his hand. People are eyeing them. It’s a gossip-worthy sight, but platonic enough to pass as Greta being just plain cool.
I want to stand near her but there’s no room for me when she’s with Ian. That much is clear even though it’s only been a few days since I’ve met him. I have nowhere else to go, though. My body is awkward and gangly and takes up too much space. I realize I’m clutching my left forearm with my right hand, as though the police are questioning me. How is it that no one else here looks like me—no one else’s brain is signaling their bodies to be terrified by all the ways things could go wrong, all the ways you could embarrass yourself for good, the final embarrassment that makes you a social Typhoid Mary.
If the Body Allows It Page 21
