by Katie Wismer
“Let’s talk about something else,” I say. “You never told me how it went with Mr. Graham the other day.”
Her face twists into a mischievous smile. “It went well.”
I resist the urge to groan. I was hoping after a while the situation might grow on me—or Jo would drop it—but it isn’t any less weird than when she first suggested it. I glance over my shoulder to make sure Ashley hasn’t returned and lower my voice. “What does that mean? Did something… happen?”
Smile diming, she waves her hand in front of her face like she’s swatting away a fly. “Nothing happened. Yet. But, when he was showing me something in the notes, I was standing all close to him so our legs were touching, and I touched his hand while I was pointing to something, and he didn’t pull away. So that’s a good sign, right?”
I cringe internally.
Jo must see it on my face because she huffs and leans back in her seat. “If you don’t want to hear about it, then you shouldn’t have asked.”
“I’m just worried about you, is all.”
“You always worry, and I love you for it, but it’s not necessary.”
Her words just make the weight in my stomach increase tenfold. No matter how I picture it, this situation can’t end well, and it’s utterly baffling to me that Jo can’t see that. If he rejects her, she’ll get hurt. If something does happen and it gets out, he’ll get in trouble, and who knows how much social backlash she’ll get. And even if it doesn’t get out, there’s no way it’ll turn into anything more than a one-night stand or some short-lived fling, and when it ends, it’ll be torture for her to sit in his class. However this plays out, Jo will be the one to get burned, and I don’t want to see that.
She raises her eyebrows as if daring me to fight her on this again. She must know how this is going to turn out, and she doesn’t care. To her, it’s worth the risk. And even though I don’t understand that, not for a second, I know I can’t stop her.
“Okay.” I raise my palms in surrender. “Okay.”
Johanna reaches over and lays her hand on my arm. Her nails are midnight black, her fingers lost under an assortment of rings. “Even though I hate you for it sometimes, thanks for worrying about me.”
“I wish you’d stop giving me so many things to worry about.”
She rolls her eyes. “No. Then you wouldn’t even want to be friends with me anymore because I’d be boring.”
“Or sane,” I counter.
“Eh.” She hops up from her seat and opens the fridge. “Overrated.” She holds up a bottle of champagne. “Is it too early for this?”
“Not sure our commanding officer would approve.”
She purses her lips and glances in the direction Ashley disappeared. “She’s kind of been gone for a long time, right?”
“Maybe she’s putting bleach in your shampoo bottles,” I say helpfully.
Jo snorts, returns the bottle to the fridge, and pulls out a green juice instead.
When we hear Ashley’s footsteps making their way back down the stairs, Johanna launches herself into her barstool, raises one of the printed sources, and tilts her head to the side as if deep in thought. I yank my laptop closer and squint at the screen, pretending to search for new articles.
“Well.” Ashley reappears and claps her hands, pausing by the refrigerator. Her lips tuck in and press together as if she’s suppressing a grin. “I think we all know what our tasks are. How about we reconvene in a couple of days to see how much progress we’ve made?”
Jo and I exchange a glance.
“You don’t want to get started on it now?” I ask.
“No need.” She shrugs, and I notice she’s already retrieved her purse from the front of the house, the bag slung over her shoulder and secured neatly to her side. “I’ll leave those here.” She waves at the printed sources. “I have copies. You two can get working now if you want. I’m personally just more productive working alone.”
This was more of what I was expecting when Ashley showed up today. Of course she doesn’t want to stay and be forced to hang out with us. She just wanted to boss everyone around and leave as quickly as she came.
“Uh—” I start.
“Great! We can talk about when to meet next in class tomorrow.” And with that, she turns and heads for the door, her heels clicking furiously against the floor.
When we hear the front door close and the vague sound of her car engine starting out front, Jo and I look at each other again.
“So does that mean I can break out that bottle of champagne or what?”
✦✦✦
The first thing I do when I get home is head for Harper’s bedroom. Maman and Papa aren’t home yet, and the house is eerily silent. I pause outside her door, listening. I’m not sure what I’m expecting, but there’s just silence. Maybe she’s not in there, but I have no idea where else she’d be. I rap my knuckles softly against the surface.
“Harp?” I call.
I hear a rustling sound, and then, “I’m busy!”
Her voice sounds weird. Thick. Like she’s been crying. “Harper, can I come in?”
There’s a pause. “Are Maman and Papa home yet?”
“No.”
Another pause. “Okay.”
I nudge the door open and peek inside. All the lights are off, the light from the window cutting a line down the center of the room, and she’s sitting on her bed in the corner, her feet curled beneath her, a mess of discarded tissues surrounding her in a ring.
Usually, her art supplies take up the majority of her room—her easel in the center, newspapers scattered across the ground, her hundreds of paints lined up on the windowsills, bookshelves, and the edge of her desk. But today, everything is cast out of focus—her old paintings carelessly piled atop one another on her desk, her sketchbooks shoved in her closet. The usual pile of sweaty workout clothes that accumulates in the corner for weeks before I have to beg her to do laundry because of the smell is nowhere to be found.
I slowly approach the bed. With Harper, especially when she’s upset, you have to treat her like a wild animal—slow and cautious—or you risk spooking her. Or having her attack you.
But today she just lets me sit next to her. Sniffling, she looks away and wipes her cheeks.
“So, I guess you saw what happened at school,” she mumbles.
“A little,” I admit. “Are you—?” I was about to ask are you okay, but realize how stupid of a question that is and stop myself. “Do you want to talk about it?” I try instead.
“Like you care,” she mumbles. She doesn’t even look at me.
That hurts. I press my lips together, trying to think of the right things to say. Harper and I have never exactly been close, but I always figured we’d be there if we ever really needed each other. She, apparently, doesn’t feel the same way. And I can’t help but feel that’s my fault.
“That’s not true,” I say quietly.
She blows her nose and tosses the tissue into the growing pile before her. “It was just these girls at school. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not stupid if you’re upset about it.”
She shakes her head and clenches her jaw as if trying to fight the tears, but more roll down her cheeks all the same. “It was after gym class in the locker room. We were all getting changed, same as every day, and then all of a sudden Rachel Miller whips around and starts screaming that I was a dyke and I was checking the other girls out while they were changing and filming them. So then everyone in the locker room started freaking out and trying to put clothes on as fast as they could. Then everyone started running away. For the rest of the day, every time one of them saw me, they called me a dyke, and then it started spreading around and…” she trails off and wipes her face again. “I just don’t understand why Rachel did it. I never did anything to her.”
Of course it was Ashley’s younger sister. My hands clench into fists. I don’t understand why they do it either, and I don�
��t have any comforting words for Harper. Because I know all too well that you can wait and wait for a mean girl to get bored of terrorizing you, but sometimes they just never do.
“Did you tell anyone?” I ask.
She sniffles again. “Huh?”
“You know, like a teacher or someone. Tell them what Rachel did.”
Harper scoffs. “Like that’ll help. It won’t change anything. Then everyone will just say I’m a dyke and a snitch.”
“You want me to beat Rachel up? ‘Cause I’ll do it.” I’m only half-joking.
“You couldn’t beat anyone up if you tried,” Harper mumbles.
Unfortunately, she’s right. “It would be pretty embarrassing if I got my ass kicked by a freshman, wouldn’t it?”
I nudge her with my elbow, but she doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t even smile.
A try for a different angle. “You know it’ll blow over. Give it a few days until the next scandal blows up and everyone will forget about it.”
Harper is silent for a long time. At first, I think she’s going to shut down and push me away the way she usually does whenever things get slightly emotional, but then I realize she’s crying again.
“But what if it’s true?” Her voice comes out so quietly, I can barely hear it. “I never did any of that, but—”
That was the last thing I was expecting her to say. And for a minute, I can’t formulate a response. All I know is I’ve never heard her voice sound like that before, and I’d do anything in my power to make sure it never sounds like that again.
When I finally manage to string together a response, the words come out small and breathy. “It doesn’t matter. No, that’s not what I mean. I mean, of course it matters. But it doesn’t change anything, you know?” My neck feels hot as I fumble for words. “It doesn’t change anything for me. Or anyone else who cares about you.”
Her laugh comes out hard. “It’s not that simple.”
“No,” I agree quietly. “It’s not simple.” That didn’t come out the way I wanted it to, either. I wince and silently curse myself, desperately trying to think of the right thing to say.
“I don’t know what the right thing to say is,” I admit. “But I love you.” I put my hand on her shoulder, and to my surprise, she doesn’t pull away. She just closes her eyes and folds her hands in her lap.
“Does God hate me?” she whispers.
I swallow hard, biting back every angry word I want to say right now. “No, Harper,” I say firmly. “He doesn’t.”
She shakes her head again. “Maman and Papa—they’d never be okay with this. They’d never understand.”
I am the last person who should be giving her religious advice, but I don’t think telling her that now is going to help. We’ve never talked about it, but I’ve always gotten the sense that Harper believes a lot more than I do. Instead, I just say, “Harper, listen to me. There is nothing wrong with you, and you have nothing to apologize for.”
Her head whips up, eyes wide. She grabs my arms with a crushing intensity. “You can’t tell Maman and Papa. Promise you won’t tell them. Promise, Mare.”
“Harper—” I try to pull my arms away, but her fingers dig in.
The tears are running down her cheeks again. “Please. I just need more time to figure things out, and I don’t want them to freak out. They’ll be so angry.”
I stare at her pile of tissues on the floor for several moments, my eyebrows pulled together. I want to comfort her. I want to tell her our parents will love her no matter what, that this won’t change anything, that it won’t prompt a frantic overreaction full of Bible verses and whatever else they think will “fix” this. But I think she and I both know the truth, as ugly and unfair and hypocritical as it is.
“I won’t say anything,” I whisper.
7
I show up to the animal shelter that evening in my usual bright red T-shirt, the word volunteer printed in large, white block letters across the back. Jada, the shelter’s manager, greets me as I step through the front door and the bells announce my entrance. She asks about my health, the health of my family, and how school’s going, as she does every time she sees me. She’s a tall, thin woman in her early thirties with some of the darkest, most beautiful skin I’ve ever seen. Her family moved to America from Nigeria when she was ten years old, and when she speaks, you can still pick out distinct hints of her Nigerian accent. It makes everything she says sound warm. Honestly, her letter of recommendation is probably the one thing I have going for me in my college apps.
I look away when she asks about my family today, my stomach still tight with guilt and anger about what happened with Harper. I’d been so nauseous I skipped dinner. Though I still don’t have an appetite, my stomach keeps growling to remind me of the neglect.
“Hey, Jada.” I smile and join her behind the counter, depositing my cell phone and car keys into my little cubby under the desk. It’s not required or anything, but I like to have no distractions when I’m with the dogs. If I can only give them a few hours of my time, I’m going to make sure they have my complete attention.
“Have they already been fed?” I ask.
“No, you can go ahead and do that. Nick picked up some new bags of food—it’s supposed to make their coats shinier or something. He thinks it’ll make people more likely to adopt.” She shrugs like she doesn’t believe it but she’s willing to humor him. Nick is the shelter’s owner; it seems like every day he comes up with The Next Big Idea that’s going to get all of the dogs adopted. I can’t give him too much grief about it, though, because he genuinely does care about the animals and just wants to find them homes. “They’re under those boxes in the back.”
“Okay, I’m on it.” The storage room is the very last door in the back hallway, and you have to pass the kennels to reach it. The sound of my nearing footsteps is enough to send a couple of the dogs into an excited tizzy.
“I’ll be right back, I promise,” I call to them as I pass. The door to the storage room is broken, so I have to prop it open with a loose brick, which Jada’s daughter has painted to look like a ladybug. As I dig through the boxes in the back, my mind starts spiraling. Every inch of my body is very much aware of what day it is, but I’m trying not to think about it. It’s just another Tuesday.
It doesn’t matter if Sam shows up today. I don’t care either way.
Really, I don’t.
Finally, I reach the boxes of dog food at the bottom of the pile. Just as I manage to move the last one, the bells above the front door announce someone’s arrival.
A weird mixture of excitement and anxiety jolts through me. I glance at the clock on the wall. It’s only 5:15. I take a deep breath, forcing myself to remain calm. Count five things you can see, four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can taste, one thing you can smell. That could just as likely be someone coming to look at the dogs as it could be Sam.
I haul the heavy bag into my arms, supporting the weight with a knee until I can get a good grip, and hurry back into the hall. When I reach the lobby, I see Sam standing in front of the counter, chatting with Jada. He’s wearing a pair of shorts that are almost purple, a white T-shirt, and matching Vans, his dark hair rumpled. Judging by the way Jada’s grinning and openly looking him up and down, she approves.
I pause beside the desk, using my knee to nudge the dog food back up into my hands when it starts to slip.
“Hey, Sam,” I say. Somehow, my voice doesn’t shake. I’d really rather not have to do this in front of Jada, though. Being awkward in front of Sam alone is bad enough.
He turns, sees me with the bag that’s half my size, and grins. “Hey. Need some help with that?”
“No, it’s fine, I’ve got it.” At least it gives me something to do with my hands. “Jada, is it okay if he comes to the back with me?”
Jada looks up from her paperwork, a bemused smile curling her lips, and nods. “Mmm-hmm.”
The moment we enter the room with the dogs, my eyes fall on Squirt’s cage, and I am immediately grateful for the distraction. She jumps up at the sight of us, balances on her hind legs, and begins scratching her front paws against the cage. In Squirt language this means, “Take me out and pick me up!”
She’s a small puffball of a dog, her white fur fuzzy and all-consuming. Sometimes it’s hard to believe there’s actually dog under all of that fluff. When I don’t go straight to her cage and instead head to the table in the center of the room to deposit the bag of dog food, she starts scratching harder like she can dig through the bars. She barks once in her eerily human-like way to get my attention.
Sam beelines for her cage. “Is this her? Is this Squirt?”
Squirt falls back onto all fours as Sam approaches, her tail whipping back and forth. She leans back on her haunches, barks again, and does a little playful jump that screams come catch me, even though she has nowhere to run. It’s hilarious to watch her do it on the ground, when she actually does have some place to run, and take off, her itty bitty legs propelling her as fast as she can go. She usually just does figure-eights around the room, occasionally stopping to make sure people are paying attention.
The longer Sam looks at her, the more excited she gets, until she’s wiggling around so much, she looks like she’s going to jump out of her skin.
Sam laughs and pokes his fingers into the cage; Squirt eagerly licks them. “Is this the excited thing she does you were talking about?”
“You should see her do it when she’s out of the cage.”
I grab the food scoop from the table and start filling the little plastic bowls stacked on the corner.
“Need some help?” Sam offers.
I slide him one of the full bowls and nod at the cages. “There’s a little slot at the bottom. You can just slide it in. Watch out for Rooty there on the end. She loves her food so much, she might accidentally take your hand off.”
Sam takes the bowls as I finish filling them and deposits them into the cages one by one. Once we finish, the room is filled with the happy sounds of the dogs inhaling their dinner and licking the bowls clean for good measure.