What I Carry

by Jennifer Longo

  “I love baked potatoes,” I said. “I love macaroni. I love salad in my macaroni because it’s a nice crunch in there.”

  “Well, sure,” she said. “Especially if it’s a nice firm romaine with no E. coli.”

  That made me cry more. She understood. Lettuce in pasta is nice.

  She full-on put her arms around me. “Are you not feeling well? Is school okay? Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

  In that moment, more than any other I could remember, I wished I could. None of it would matter soon anyway, no reason to risk screwing everything up so close to the end. But still, I wished.

  This dinner, though. It was the next-best thing. Like she knew I needed comforting. I dried my eyes again.

  “It was a really long day,” I said. True. “But this dinner is turning the whole thing around. Thank you. So much.”

  She put her hand, cool and soft, on my cheek. “Sweetheart, of course. It’s just dinner. You’re welcome.” She moved her chair back to her place and put her napkin on her lap. “Now, give Terry Johnson a little bite of a noodle. He’s worried about you.”

  There he was, brow furrowed, peering up at me from beneath my chair. He took the bite delicately from my fingers and ran back to the sofa.

  Dinner was, as I suspected, delicious.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I meant to ask you how was your day?”

  She smiled and passed me more sour cream for my potato. “It was very productive, thank you.”

  * * *

  —

  We washed and dried the dishes, and then without asking this time, I followed her to the sofa, where she handed me a bag of Newman’s Own chocolate chip cookies, part of the blanket, and the remote.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “You’ve got the plinger.”

  I laughed. “The what?”

  “The thing. The clicker.”

  I scrolled and searched and finally found the perfect, happy, neutral thing.

  Hi, I’m Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa. And I don’t know about you, but nothing says comfort to me better than brioche French toast with hash browns and peppers, cheesy grits, and homemade hot chocolate with whipped cream.

  “She’s going to make real whipped cream,” I whispered.

  “Of course she is.”

  I pulled Terry Johnson’s ears straight up and rubbed them, instead of what I felt like doing, which was reaching over to hug Francine.

  Suddenly she turned to me, took the clicker, and paused Ina.

  “Muiriel,” she said. “I don’t honestly know that I’ve ever met a more grateful person than you.”

  “Oh.” I’d heard that a lot in my life.

  “Let me ask you something. Don’t you ever get angry?”

  I scratched behind Terry Johnson’s ears so vigorously he hid them with his paws. “Yeah,” I said. “I do. A lot.”

  She sat back. “Oh, thank God. Don’t ever not get angry. You’ve got every right. No reason to hold on to it forever of course, just always give anger its due. Let it show sometimes. Respect it.”

  I’d never heard that ever in my life.

  “Understand?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  She unpaused Ina, and we watched the woman pour an entire carton of heavy cream into a mixing bowl. Looked like Elmer’s white school glue.

  I moved closer to Francine on the sofa, to give Terry Johnson room to stretch. And after some discussion and a minor debate over the merits of cinnamon and whether the hens were laying enough eggs to spare, we decided to make brioche French toast in the morning.

  Because Ina was right. There is no comfort better than toast.

  * * *

  —

  At school the next day I searched every class and hall, the cafeteria, but no Sean. Which left me disappointed and relieved at once. Kira found me in the library during break before third period.

  “How are you?” I asked. “You see the hydra today?”

  “Just Katrina in passing. She smiled at me. I flipped her off. You look awful.”

  “Didn’t sleep. Terry Johnson says he’s ready to model anytime for a new artistic rendering of his magnificence.”

  She sat beside me on the study sofa and put her legs over mine. “Thank you,” she said sadly. “Go home, you really don’t look well.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I mean it, are you getting a cold? Just leave.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, you can!”

  “No, I mean I have never ditched or been late. Not ever.”

  “You’re not ditching, you’re sick. Haven’t you ever been sick? Go to the office, get a pass, go home. I’ll come with you; it’s easy.”

  She was so concerned. So nice to me. Something, just then, shifted. An imperceptible movement somewhere in me, and I told her all of it. Natan’s grossness, not calling the police and why. Not telling Francine. She listened and listened, and I knew she understood and would keep it all safely to herself. The third-period bell rang. We were late. I was late.

  “I don’t want to go home,” I said. “I want to go to class, but now I don’t know how to come in late.”

  “Being late is fun,” she said, and stood and pulled me up.

  “No,” I whined.

  “Suck it up,” she said, and marched me to class. “Tell Mr. Murchison you were busy smashing the patriarchy. And a dude’s balls.”

  It felt so good to laugh.

  * * *

  —

  I texted Sean twice and got no response. After an early dinner I took a shower, sat in bed to do homework, texted him again and at last a response:

  I’m okay just sleeping

  Enough.

  I got up and dressed, went downstairs to stand beside Francine and Terry Johnson on the sofa, and took a deep breath.

  “I know it’s late,” I said, “and a school night. But I wondered, could I go to Sean’s house for just a little while to say hi, because he stayed home sick today, and I don’t know if his mom is around, so I thought I’d just make sure he’s okay.”

  She put Terry Johnson on the floor. “Do you want me to drive you?”

  “Yes,” I said, startled. “Thank you.”

  * * *

  —

  She stopped in front of his house.

  I pulled out my phone.

  You home?

  Yes

  Mom awake?

  Where are you

  Outside, Francine drove me.

  The front door opened three seconds later and he stood there, in boxer shorts and a T-shirt. Gorgeous.

  “Looks okay to me,” Francine said. “Healthy, I mean.”

  I nodded.

  “Well. Tell him to put on some pants, and I’ll pick you up or have him drive you home,” Francine said. “No later than eleven.”

  “Eleven. Okay.”

  “Be careful,” she said. “And give him my love.” She waved to Sean as she pulled away, Terry watching out the passenger window.

  I stood on the bottom porch step.

  “I’ve been sick to my stomach worried about you,” he said, “but I didn’t want to freak you out and show up or keep texting or calling….Will you please just tell me you’re okay and what I can do?”

  “What’s going on with Katrina?”

  It began to rain.

  “What? Come up here—I can’t hear you; I don’t have shoes.”

  “Katrina. You left with her after school. What’s going on with that?”

  He looked so confused. “Her parents asked me to tutor her for the SAT retake because I’d helped Tiana. They’re obsessed with college. The parents, I mean. I don’t think either of the girls is—they could give a shit about the SATs, and it shows. But the paren
ts are all, like, university legacy families or something, and they keep paying me kind of a lot, and, honestly, I need the money.”

  “Oh.” Well. What do you know—tone-deaf high-pressure parents guilt-tripping their kids, who then turn around and bully nicer kids into submission with no consequences. Well done, Mom and Dad.

  “I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, but can you just tell me, are you okay? Did he— What did Natan do?”

  “Nothing. The usual creepy. I just got to him first.”

  “You really did. I’m so sorry, but shouldn’t we have called the police?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Yes, we—”

  “No, I can’t. Please.”

  “But—”

  “Sean. I don’t want to think about him anymore. I thrashed the hell out of him, and it’s over. I’m begging you.”

  The rain fell harder.

  “Please, come up here; it’s starting to pour.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why? Wait, you saw me with Katrina at school?”

  “Yes.”

  “So why didn’t you say hello?”

  I looked down at the porch step. It needed paint.

  “Muir?”

  “Please don’t tell Kira you know this. Katrina is awful to Kira. So is Tiana.”

  “They…oh, man. Awful how?”

  Seriously—boys. So clueless. Wasn’t I betraying Kira telling him this? But I wanted them away from her so badly, off her back for good.

  “They’re mean any way they can be, and Kira does not want you to know. But I want to help her. And I didn’t say hello when I saw you and Katrina because it wasn’t my business; I told you I needed space and all that….” My hands were actually shaking. “But then I saw you and I was jealous and that isn’t fair and now I’m humiliated.”

  “Please don’t be. I’m sorry, I would have told you about the tutoring, but the space…”

  Fucking space.

  “Katrina’s mom called me the night before I met with her, and that was the first—and last—time I tutor her.”

  “No, you don’t have to stop because I’m…”

  “I won’t say anything to Kira. I swear. But she’s practically my sister. I believe you. Katrina can screw off.”

  “Tiana, too?”

  “Tiana even more.”

  I felt better. Still embarrassed, but saying it all out loud was…freeing.

  “You didn’t answer my texts,” I said. “Before.”

  “I was asleep, I took a bunch of Advil.”

  “Why?”

  He held up his right hand, bandaged and iced.

  “Oh God. Is it broken?”

  “Just sprained. But only because they pulled me off him too soon.”

  “Sean.”

  “Also it was the first time I’d ever punched a guy, and I’m pretty sure I did it wrong. I swear I’m not violent, but he said your name….”

  A rush of warmth spread from my chest; for his hurt hand, for the thought of his defending me.

  “Muir.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do you want to come in?”

  I tried to see past him into the house. “Your mom awake?”

  “She’s on the mountain still.”

  The rain was cold and insistent.

  “Come inside,” he said.

  “Do you have a car?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you take me home by eleven?”

  He looked at his watch and stepped toward me. “We have an hour and fifty minutes. I’ll get you home early. I promise.” Their porch had no cover, he kissed me and the rain soaked my hair, and we went inside.

  I was back at Francine’s by ten fifty-five. Promise kept.

  SCHOOL LET OUT the day before Thanksgiving, and I spent the afternoon in the kitchen with Francine, peeling eight thousand potatoes, russet and sweet, for the next day’s dinner at Kira’s house. Francine used handwritten recipe cards stored in a little metal file box. Rain beat the windows, and Francine was blasting a James Taylor CD. I felt sixty years old, like Francine and I were two old ladies living in our Golden Girls retirement home for active adults. I loved it.

  Pies baked and cooled on racks, apple and pumpkin. She had cider in a pot on the stove. We ate salad for lunch, in readiness for the eating marathon.

  “I love Thanksgiving,” I said, trimming the crust off yet another pie.

  “This is the quietest one I’ve had in years. Yours, too, I bet.”

  I nodded.

  We cooked and baked all day.

  In the evening I took a shower and lay in the big bed doing homework the best I could manage with Terry Johnson sprawled across my open history book when my phone lit up. Kira.

  Can you come to Blackbird

  Nine-thirty. Blackbird had closed at noon. I put on a sweater and my raincoat and asked Francine if I could go.

  “Home by eleven,” she said.

  “Eleven,” I repeated.

  The rain had stopped but the sky was pitch black. I used Francine’s headlamp and walked fast to town, where Blackbird’s windows were lit up warm and bright, chairs on the tables. I knocked on the glass door and stepped in. Kira, up on a six-foot ladder, turned to me as the bells rang.

  “I am a paid artist.”

  The huge, long chalkboard behind the register was covered, not with a menu but with a mural of the Puget Sound. My mouth hung open.

  It was intricate and beautiful, all color and life and birds and water, ferry boats and whales and, in the center, Mount Rainier’s snowy peak.

  “I don’t even know what to— When did you do this?”

  “Today. I called my boss yesterday and asked if I could, and I came in after we closed and showed her my portfolio and she said do it and I started and couldn’t stop. I’ve had four cups of coffee. Four!”

  I stared and stared. “Kira,” I said. “You’re going to be an artist. You are, I mean—for real. For your life.”

  She was exhausted, which may have explained the tears streaking her rainbow chalk–dusted face, still smiling like a tanked-up caffeine junkie.

  “Hold up. How many patches are you wearing?”

  “None! I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Since you beat the shit out of that guy. Sean sent me all the movies you told him to watch.”

  “What movies?”

  “The ones about aging out?”

  My stomach twisted with embarrassment. “You didn’t need those. I just wanted him to understand—”

  “I didn’t understand. I watched them all, and I think I wasn’t truly listening to you. I am now, I will always, and you have to know you aren’t alone,” she said. “I mean, you don’t have to be. I wish you liked it here; I wish you would stay.”

  “And live where? Do what? Also, aren’t you leaving for college?”

  “Like my parents could afford housing! I’m ferrying in and living at home, no matter who accepts me. Community college, whatever. But I mean, besides my wishing you’d stay for my selfish reasons, you could have us all around. You know? Like, if you went to school…”

  “I can’t. But with a clean record I can work at lots of places. Starbucks. Grocery stores, that’s good money. I can get temp jobs. I’ll live.”

  “Okay, but is that what you want to do?”

  “Kira. I’m aging out. I don’t get to do what I want.”

  “All right, wait, wait, wait—we did this in psych; this is an Oprah thing, hold on….Silence your inner voice, shut off your brain, and then say out loud: ‘If I could do anything and get paid, what would it be?’ ”

  “It doesn’t matter, I don’t even—”

  “No! Don’t think! Just say, ‘I want to be paid to spend all day…’ ”

 
“Walking in the woods.”

  “Good!” she said. “Yes! What else?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Okay, so you’re a park ranger, you and Sean.”

  I shook my head.

  “Why not?”

  “You just said you watched the movies!”

  She climbed down from her ladder and sat on the counter. “Muir. I haven’t painted or touched clay since last year. I feel like a failure and I’m embarrassed; I feel so sorry for myself, being dragged from the only home and friends I knew, and Katiana is my punishment for that self-pity. I gave up the thing I loved most so easily. I’m scared to death of them, I still am—and then you came here. And talked to me and let me be your friend when I didn’t have anyone. I didn’t have myself. You’ve made yourself into this person who can live anywhere; you’ve raised yourself to be a person who can’t stand not making things right, and I think you do believe, deep down secretly, that you deserve to be happy, or else you wouldn’t have bothered defending yourself from that—I can’t even say his name—chad. I imagined you doing that, saving yourself from him, and I thought, I am done dicking around. I am an artist. And here I am.”

  “Kira,” I said. “It’s not—”

  “You are worth having a life with people who love you; you have just as much a right to happiness as anyone. If you want to stay here, if you want to go to school, then do it. There are ways—I watched those movies, and they scared the absolute shit out of me. I get why you’re so careful. And I understand you’re scared of being trapped, but I know about the ways to stay, the ways to do things like school. We’re here. We’ve got you.”

  I blinked fast, unable to say what I was thinking: that no friend had ever said anything so nice to me, ever. That I did believe her; I knew she meant every word, how much I wished it could all be true. And how truthfully scared I was to try to live alone.

  Then the coffeemaker clicked on and started brewing another pot. I walked behind the counter and unplugged it. “I’m cutting you off. You and your ways.”

  “Whatever. I’m done anyhow.”

  I stood beside her sitting on the counter, and we admired her manic, glorious creation, the ink on her arms spattered in dust of every color.