Better Than the Best Plan

by Lauren Morrill

  Kristin takes my silence as a prime directive to uphold both ends of the conversation, and she immediately sets about filling the silence.

  “I’m so glad the rain let up. But at least it cooled things off a bit. It’s been so steamy lately. Of course, the rain usually leaves a sweatbox behind, so who knows what it’s going to be like tomorrow morning. But right now, this feels like the perfect porch weather.” She pulls her cardigan around her as she talks. I know I should be saying something, but all I can do is smile and nod. I mean, come on, it’s the weather.

  “Why don’t we go inside?” Tess gently suggests, still standing next to me on the gravel drive.

  “Oh, right, of course,” Kristin says, like it only just occurred to her. Kristin’s—I don’t know what he is, husband? boyfriend? man friend?—is already ahead of us, standing in the entrance with my suitcase at his feet.

  The interior of the house is just like the outside, and a bit like how Kristin seems, sort of in artful disarray. The living room has enormous windows, and any leftover wall space is covered in framed photos of people and landscapes, some black and white and aged, some in screaming color. A pair of overstuffed leather couches and a collection of mismatched armchairs and rugs are scattered around an enormous steamer trunk big enough for me to crawl inside. It’s the polar opposite of our apartment, this home so stuffed with memories. I wouldn’t be surprised to find Kristin has two garlic presses in her kitchen.

  Kristin settles onto one of the couches and sort of gestures around like take your pick. I sit in one of the armchairs, and Mr. Helpful abandons my suitcase in the hall to take the spot next to Kristin. Tess sits on the other side of the steamer trunk and begins rifling through her bag.

  “Okay, well, it’s late, so we should probably get settled. I know this is a”—Tess pauses, her fingers twitching as she grasps for an appropriate descriptor of what is happening to me—“unique situation. I’m here to help in any way I can. As far as the bureaucracy side of things, I don’t have anything official to do tonight. Protocol has me returning for a visit in seven days to check in on things.”

  Seven days. It’s the first time a timeline has been applied to my situation, and it sets my mind spinning. Do I stay here until my eighteenth birthday? Do I stay here until I graduate? What if my mom comes back? Do I go live with her? Do I even get to see her? If I stay here, where will I go to school? Will I get to see Lainey? And (even though I don’t want to be that girl) Ali?

  Tess interrupts my inner breakdown. “Are we all good?”

  No. No, no, no, no, no.

  “Yes, thank you so much, Tess. I appreciate you working late tonight. And we look forward to seeing you in seven days. I think we’ll have no problem getting all settled in in the meantime, right, Maritza?”

  I glance up and try to smile, but my whole face feels sort of numb.

  Kristin follows Tess toward the door. Tess pauses by my chair and puts her hand on my shoulder. “You have my business card. Call me if you think of anything, any questions. Nothing is too small, okay?”

  “Thank you,” I reply. There’s a tightness in my throat as I grasp the slip of cardstock. I only just met her a few hours ago, and then she was a burden, someone to try and shake or escape. But now, as she walks out, I feel like I want to cling to her hand and beg her to stay. She’s walking out with my old life. She’s walking out with the last traces of Ritzy and leaving Maritza here in Helena. Sure, Ritzy’s life had a crappy apartment and a flaky, absent mom, but at least it was familiar. At least I understood it. At least I felt like I fit there.

  But soon she’s gone, the heavy door closing behind her with a thud that sounds altogether too final.

  “Okay, well, um,” Kristin says, clapping her hands in front of her. “How about a cup of tea?”

  I nod, trying to look enthusiastic, even though I’ve never wanted a cup of tea ever, even though I think tea tastes like the ground. But drinking wet yard seems better than sitting here in total silence with two strangers while we all blink and grin at one another.

  I follow her back to a kitchen that looks like the “after” shot on a home makeover show. Every surface is white, save for the ones that are shiny stainless steel. I watch Kristin’s mystery man friend reach for a yellow teakettle and begin filling it at the sink with a familiarity that tells me he lives here. She hasn’t introduced him yet, though, which is annoying, but asking Um, and who are you exactly? seems rude.

  Kristin moves to a cupboard and pulls out three mugs. She reaches for a lavender tin from another cabinet, rising up on her tiptoes to reach over his shoulder, and he ducks slightly to give her space around his six-foot-something athletic frame. They move around each other in an effortless dance, and it makes me think this must be what it’s like to be in the audience of a ballet. Kristin pops the lid off the tin and carefully measures out what I assume is tea, but looks suspiciously like what I clean out of the vacuum filter.

  Then all activity pauses as we wait for the kettle, warming on the stove. And we’re back to the old silent stares again.

  “Oh my gosh!” Kristin exclaims suddenly, her hands flying to her reddened cheeks. “I can’t believe I didn’t—I’m sorry, Maritza. This is my husband, Peter. Peter Carmichael.”

  Finally.

  “Nice to meet you, Mr. Carmichael,” I reply, noting his different last name. So Kristin kept hers when they got married. Of this, my mother would approve.

  “It’s Doctor, actually,” Kristin says, with a note of pride in her voice that keeps it from seeming smug.

  He leans forward and shakes my hand, a firm, reassuring grip with a friendly smile. “That couldn’t be less important. Just call me Pete.”

  “Okay … Pete,” I say, trying it out. “Nice to meet you.”

  “And you can call me Kris.”

  Pete and Kris. Now would be the perfect time to chime in with my own you-can-call-me, but instead I just give them both a smile. I think it’ll be easier to be Maritza here, in this house with these well-dressed, smiling people in their impeccable kitchen. And before I can overthink it, the kettle whistles, like time has run out and the decision’s been made for me. Kris sets about pouring steaming water over our little piles of lint, and I’m Maritza now. Maritza who drinks tea.

  “So I know this is a strange situation,” Kris says as she slides my mug across the counter. “But I just want you to know how welcome you are here, and how glad I am to have you.” She pauses, like she’s swallowing the end of the sentence, and I wonder if it was back, as in It’s good to have you back. “I don’t know how long you’ll be here, but I want you to feel comfortable, like this is a home away from home.”

  “Thanks,” I reply.

  “I think you’ll really like Helena. We’ve got lots to do. There’s the beach, of course, and downtown has some great shops and cafés. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re really close to the square. You could even ride a bike there if you wanted to.”

  “I haven’t ridden a bike in—” I pause, trying to remember when the last time was, but I can’t. I end up just shrugging. “It’s been a while.”

  “Well, they say it’s just like riding a bike,” Pete says, blowing on the rim of his cup, and I laugh in spite of myself. It’s such a dad joke, which is weird for me on so many levels. It’s going to be strange to live in the same house with a guy, much less one who’s supposed to be assuming a role as some kind of father figure for me.

  I mirror Pete’s actions and blow on my teacup, then take a tentative sip. It’s still warm, but the heat isn’t enough to hide the bitter, earthy flavor. Turns out no matter how nice your kitchen is, tea is still gross. I try to hide my grimace, but apparently I fail, because without a word, Pete crosses to the fridge, pulls out a bottle of water, and hands it to me.

  “Don’t worry, it’s an acquired taste,” he says. “One you definitely don’t need to acquire. And if you need caffeine, there’s Coke in the fridge, too.”

  “Oh yes, we’ve got Co
ke, orange juice, cranberry juice, lots of bottled water, and of course water from the tap, if you want, but it has this sort of metallic taste to it? And of course, anything in the pantry is up for grabs. There’s granola bars and tortilla chips, but we can go grocery shopping tomorrow to get you whatever snacks you want. Are you allergic to anything? The granola bars have peanut butter in them, so if—”

  Pete gently places his hand over Kris’s, which is pressing into the marble countertop as she leans toward me, offers and information pouring out of her. It’s enough to halt her in her wild hostess frenzy. She smiles softly.

  “You’re probably so tired. I’m sure you’ve had quite a day,” she says, with a smile at Pete. “Why don’t I show you to your room and you can get settled?”

  I follow Kris back through the house, Pete trailing behind with my suitcase. My mind is on the big thing we haven’t talked about. The biggest thing. That I’ve been here before. That we’re not strangers—well, not Kris and me. She didn’t bring it up and so neither did I. Or maybe she didn’t bring it up because I didn’t bring it up. Either way, neither of us is talking about it.

  Kris starts up the narrow staircase. It leads to a small landing and a long hall with a sloping ceiling. Right at the top of the stairs there’s an open door, and inside I see floor-to-ceiling bookshelves and two desks, one neat and tidy with a short stack of books and files perched next to a closed laptop, another an absolute disaster of papers and pens strewn about, books open, laptop open and askew.

  “The messy one belongs to this guy,” Kris says, nodding over her shoulder. “He’s the dean of students at Mercer College.” I recognize the name of a small, private liberal arts school located over the bridge and just outside Jacksonville. It’s constantly appearing on various “the Harvard of” lists. The Harvard of the South. The Harvard of Small Colleges. The Harvard of Not Harvards. I don’t know what a dean of students does, but I know the man is a doctor and has a big-sounding job at Nearly-Harvard.

  “Kris is always on me to organize, but she should know better than anyone that studies show a disorganized desk can be a sign of genius,” Pete says.

  “I’m a psychology professor,” she adds, and that’s when I realize I’m in the presence of two doctors. Toto, you’re not in Windridge anymore. My mother would have a field day with the pair of them. For all my mom’s interest in reaching a higher power and a deeper understanding, she’s always been deeply scornful of therapy and psychology. Maybe because even a poorly trained therapist would tell her to stop trying on different forms of enlightenment and instead just try to live her life in one spot for a change, and that’s not exactly what she wants to hear.

  It’s this thought of my mother that leads me to joke, “You’re not going to shrink me, are you?”

  “I’m not that kind of psychologist. I’m a researcher. I specialize in the effects on long-term caregivers of Alzheimer’s patients, so unless that’s you, then no,” she says, and turns to side-eye Pete. “But perhaps I should be studying the psychological effects of sharing an office with someone who hasn’t thrown away a piece of paper since 2005.”

  “Always good to be a pioneer in a field,” he quips, and they smile at one another in a way I’ve only seen couples smile at each other in diamond commercials or Hallmark original movies. Good lord, are they always this gooey?

  “Okay, this is your room,” Kris says, breaking the moment to open a door near the end of the hall. She pushes it open and reaches in to flip the switch, then steps back into the hall so I can go in first.

  It’s the kind of room that looks like someone just arranged all their old crap around, but if you tried to do the same thing with all your old crap, you’d just look poor. I should know. It’s what our apartment looks like.

  I give Kris a quick glance, trying to determine if she’s the sort of person who would hire someone to pick all this stuff out or if all of it is actually hers, acquired over a lifetime of travels and discoveries and stuffed full of memories and stories. Did the wrought iron bed with the big dented curlicues once belong to a grandmother? Or did somebody at a Restoration Hardware factory bang it with a hammer? Was the carved wardrobe, yellow paint rubbed and chipping to reveal a coat of white below, found on the side of the road somewhere? Or did it arrive on a truck with free delivery?

  “We’re at the end of the hall, so don’t hesitate to knock if you need anything at all. Make yourself comfortable in here. Use the drawers and the closet. You’ve got a bathroom through there.” She points to a narrow door that’s cracked open. My own bathroom. Never had that before. “We’re early risers, but don’t feel like you have to be. Feel free to sleep in, and like I said, help yourself to anything in the kitchen at any time. Oh, and the laptop on the desk over there is for you to use. There’s no password, and the Wi-Fi should connect automatically, so you’re good to go. If you need it, of course.”

  Pete steps in behind me and lays my suitcase down on a cedar chest at the foot of the bed. It looks out of place in this room, like a booger hanging out of a pretty girl’s nose. It makes me wonder what I look like in here.

  “Okay, well, why don’t we let Maritza get settled,” Pete says, placing his hands on Kris’s shoulders, prepared to steer her away. But before she can move to leave, she practically leaps forward, her arms wrapping around me to pull me into a tight hug. It’s so spontaneous that I don’t have time to react to it, and instead wind up with my arms pinned to my sides, like I’m being restrained instead of hugged.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she says into my hair.

  I have no idea what to say to that. None at all. Because while here is very nice, and so is she, it all means so much more than a simple place to crash. I don’t even know what it means yet.

  And so I say nothing and instead give the widest smile I can muster as they leave me alone in here. In my room.

  * * *

  I glance at the clock on the bedside table, the numbers glowing an angry, red 11:30 P.M. I’ve been looking at it about every ten minutes for the last hour, and it’s really starting to taunt me. I finally reach down below the table and yank the cord from the wall. The red light disappears, but it doesn’t help.

  I lie in bed surrounded by fluffy pillows and blankets, staring up at the ceiling while I watch the fan spin, hoping it will lull me to sleep. I’m exhausted, after all, a deep, heavy exhaustion that feels like it’s radiating out from my soul. Yet despite that, I can’t manage to drift off even a little bit. It’s not the room or the fact that it’s not mine or that everything is different. The sound of the waves could almost mimic the sound of semis rushing up and down I-95 (which never failed to put me to sleep), but there’s a rhythmic thwack, thwack, thwack that’s breaking through, just enough that I have to listen for it and enough that I can’t ignore it.

  I climb out of bed and peek out into the hall, but there’s no light coming out from beneath Kris and Pete’s door. The noise doesn’t seem to be bothering them at all, unless they’re also lying awake in the dark. Maybe discussing the ways their lives have changed today.

  I get back in bed and shut my eyes, but I still hear the thwack, thwack, thwack. Within minutes, I feel like my heartbeat is syncing up to it. I fling the covers off and go to the window, scanning the landscape for the source. The backyard is completely dark, but there’s a glow of yellow light coming from the house behind this one.

  I creep down the hall and out the back door, closing it with the quietest click I can manage so as not to wake anyone. I don’t want them to freak out and think I’m running away, like some bad Lifetime movie cliché.

  I cross the lawn, the cool, damp grass tickling my bare feet, until I reach the trees that separate this property from the next one. I get closer and the clearing widens. The light is coming from a tennis court. I’m torn between two competing thoughts: Who has a private tennis court? and Who plays tennis when it’s almost midnight?

  I pause just at the tree line, carefully hidden by the strip of a shadow
that the tall, narrow pines provide, but close enough to see him. The boy on the court is wearing khaki pants and a white dress shirt, unbuttoned to reveal the undershirt beneath, and his sleeves are rolled up. He’s barefoot, a pair of brown leather shoes lined up perfectly with the white line at the edge of the court. He hits the ball with an emphatic smack, and it sails to the back wall, striking just above the painted net. It bounces back, and he slams it again. And again and again, sweat rolling down his forehead, a look of sheer determination on his face.

  This continues for several rounds, with me watching from the shadows, until he hits a shot that goes wide. He lunges, and his big toe scrapes the asphalt, one of those tiny little indignities that hurts way more than it should. He stumbles, the ball sailing just past the tip of his racket as he goes down on his hands and knees.

  “Dammit!” he spits. He rolls back onto his butt and sends the racket sailing across the court with an incredible amount of force. It slams loudly against the chain-link fence, then clatters to the ground. He stares at it for a long time, his chest heaving, all full of fury. When his breathing slows, I think he’s going to stand up and go after the racket, now laying half a court away, with scratches in the red paint that I can see from here. But instead, he leans over, his elbows on his knees, his head tucked low. His shoulders begin to shake, and when he glances up at the night sky, I see tears rolling down his reddened cheeks. He cries like I wanted to back at Tess’s office. Like I wanted to before she left me here. Like I want to now, when I’m in this strange place with too many questions and no answers, when all I want to do is sleep but can’t.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I wake to the sound of rustling around downstairs. The sun is streaming through the open curtains, and when I roll over to check the time, I remember that I unplugged the clock the night before. I finally fumble for my phone and discover it’s seven thirty, an absolutely absurd time to be awake on a Saturday morning.