Awake in the World

by Jason Gurley

  Mrs. Harriman insisted on providing a film’s credits each time we watched something. After her setup—“The film was a landmark issues picture, confronting the subject of AIDS unflinchingly”—she rushed on to the part she loved most: “The film was directed by Jonathan Demme, and stars Tom Hanks and Denzel Washington. You might know these actors from their Academy Award–winning movies Forrest Gump and Glo—”

  “Training Day, yo,” someone said. “‘I’m king of the world.’”

  “No, no, man. That’s Titanic. He said he Godzilla.”

  “He said, ‘King Kong ain’t got nothin’ on me.’ You’re both wrong.”

  “‘King Kong ain’t got shit on me,’” someone corrected.

  Mrs. Harriman frowned and took a breath, but her retort was interrupted. The classroom door opened, and Zach entered, carrying a VCR. Mrs. Harriman looked at the VCR, then back at Zach, then said, “Zach…”

  “Boy forgot the damn TV,” someone else complained.

  Zach blinked, then placed the VCR on Mrs. Harriman’s desk and walked right back through the door.

  * * *

  Cece poked at her chicken strips. “Somehow these looked a lot better under the heat lamps,” she said. “Do these look—I don’t know—aged to you?”

  We were parked at a corner table, near the cafeteria windows. I unwrapped the lunch Aaron had packed for me that morning: a BLT on grilled sourdough, with heirloom tomatoes and balsamic mayo. I handed half to Cece, who pushed her lunch tray aside and took a large bite.

  “My god,” she said. Juice from the tomato dribbled down her chin. “Your stepfather is better than—” She paused thoughtfully. “Are there even any good TV chefs I could name? Pick one.”

  “So what did you and Ada talk about?” I asked. “On the bus. Like, did Ada know that was a date? That was practically a date.”

  Cece glared at me. “You shut up. I don’t need my abuela to hear gossip and get ideas.”

  Cece’s family was Catholic through and through. I’d met them; they were all sweet. And I didn’t think anyone would have said so, but there was definitely an expectation Cece would get married someday and manufacture lots of new Catholic babies. Her grandmother was old-school and might not handle a different outcome so well.

  “She’ll like Ada,” I said.

  “She won’t. She’ll hate her for corrupting me.”

  Maybe this was the thing about mothers: They raise you, they tell you you can be anything, but they never tell you they’ve got an idea already of who you’re going to be. You go do your own thing, and they quietly freak out on the inside. In Mom’s case, maybe not so quietly.

  But my father hadn’t been any different. He’d just hidden it well.

  The night before he left us for good, he woke me just after midnight. I was thirteen, and it was a school night. But it had been a few years since he’d woken me up for some celestial event, so I climbed out of bed, drowsy, annoyed. On the deck, he pointed toward the Santa Ynez Mountains, a pale ribbon on the horizon. Beyond them, he said, was Vandenberg Air Force Base, and in a few minutes, they’d put an Atlas rocket in the sky, carrying a satellite into orbit.

  At some point, I realized he was watching me, not the sky. “Cass.”

  His voice was different. I asked what was wrong, but he didn’t answer. The silence mounted, and eventually, the rocket saved him from answering my question. I spotted it first and pointed at the golden thread unraveling skyward.

  “You know,” he said, “they named the rocket after—”

  “The Greek god of astronomy,” I finished. “Forever condemned to hold up the sky.”

  He watched the rocket. “Most people say he’s holding up—”

  “The Earth. They’re wrong.”

  I saw it on his face, clear as the moon: He thought he’d taught me everything he was ever going to. I was only going to move away from him now. Like that rocket, on my own trajectory. I wasn’t the little girl who adored him anymore, and he didn’t like that. He muttered something beneath his breath, and though I couldn’t understand it, it was … petulant.

  In the morning, his Jeep was gone. It was still gone that evening. By the following morning it still hadn’t returned, and I knew. I’d been wrong, though. In my analogy, I wasn’t the rocket at all. The rocket was our family, and my father was the satellite payload we carried with us. He simply detached and drifted away, searching for his own unfamiliar orbit.

  I’d always thought Mom was still in touch with him. Not because she hoped she could coax him home again, but because so many things happened next that couldn’t have happened without his participation: His house was suddenly in Mom’s name, and then there was a FOR SALE sign in the yard, and then Mom moved us into a two-bedroom apartment on Pedregosa. She took me to the bank and opened a savings account and stuffed it with money from the house sale. “Now you don’t have to worry about college,” she said.

  “About Cornell,” I corrected, even then.

  I’d expected things to get harder after that, but they hadn’t. In the years after my father left us, Mom did everything with me. We took a surfing class. (We never found our sea legs.) We took a scuba course. (We nearly drowned.) We took a tourist boat and went whale spotting. (I saw a dead jellyfish.) We got through things.

  Together.

  When I was fifteen, she started dating. Quietly, slowly. She wouldn’t bring any of them home to meet me. Until one day I opened the apartment door, and there was Aaron. Mom and I didn’t grow apart then, but she was more preoccupied than before. I started babysitting, saved some money, and bought OSPERT. I kept a journal, charted all my backyard discoveries. Over dinner each night I told Mom and Aaron about what I’d found: how sharp the moon was, how bright Mars was. Aaron even looked through the viewfinder a few times. He bought a star chart for my bedroom wall.

  We’d tried knitting and yoga, learned how to line dance and make pasta by hand, but Mom never once looked through OSPERT, never once saw the sky through my eyes. By then I knew well enough not to ask.

  Cece touched my wrist. “Where’d you go?”

  I hadn’t heard a word she’d said, I realized. “What?”

  “I said she’s a bruiser.” Cece had polished off the sandwich while I was lost in thought. “She doesn’t look like it, I know. She showed me this scar on her shoulder, from this epic wipeout last season. And there’s a bruise on her thigh shaped like Greenland.”

  “Her thigh?”

  Cece nodded. “Her thigh.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  Exasperatedly, she said, “Roller derby. Jesus.”

  Around us, first lunch period was coming to an end, and the second-period crowd was lined up at the doors. A few students were still collecting their food at the cafeteria windows. Zach was there, holding a ticket and an empty tray. I watched him long enough that Cece turned to look, too. Her annoyance faded into sympathy.

  “I hate that they make it so obvious,” she said. “I was blue-ticket until sixth grade. Kids are cruel enough before they know you’re poor.”

  The bell rang, and the second lunch crowd flooded into the room. As I watched, Zach returned his empty tray to the stack, pocketed his ticket, and walked out of the cafeteria. I hadn’t touched my half sandwich, either. But it didn’t feel like the same thing.

  15

  Zach

  “You know I’d give them to you if I could, Zach.” Maddie brushed back a graying curl and exhaled regretfully. “I just don’t have them to give.”

  “Just a few hours,” I said. “You don’t have to pay me the overtime. Just the normal—”

  “Kiddo, overtime is supposed to pay more. Not less. There are laws.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again. She already knew how things were for us. Saying them aloud wouldn’t change anything.

  “Thanksgiving is getting close,” she added. “And you remember how many turkeys we didn’t sell last year.” She studied my face for a moment, then sighed. “Look.
Maybe I can do an extra day or two a month. I know it doesn’t add up to much, but—”

  “I’ll take it.” I stood and gripped her hand, too enthusiastically. “Thank you, Maddie.” As I turned to leave, something occurred to me, and I stopped. “You’ve got a lawn, right? I mow lawns every weekend. I could do the little islands in the parking l—”

  She stopped me there. “Drought. Remember?”

  “Oh. Right.” She wasn’t wrong. I’d dragged the mower all over town for the last couple of years, and it wasn’t as if I hadn’t seen all the brown yards. Still, even with water rationing, I got a bite now and then. Usually on the other side of the highway, in the hills. Those lawns were always thick and green.

  Back on the floor, I split the stock with Luther, the only other stocker Maddie kept on. He took the dairy cases, and I took the produce pallets. I could hear him chucking jugs of milk onto the cold wire racks from halfway across the store.

  My mind drifted as I arranged sheaves of lettuce in the damp produce case. Today was Derek’s rescheduled certification. He’d ace the physical part of the exam, I was certain, but I knew he worried about the written bits. Those were still rough on him. But he’d pass. I knew he would. Which meant we’d celebrate. There was still a bit of money on the CalFresh card. Maybe enough for a small cake from the store bakery. Or at least a box mix, and I could make one myself.

  Then I remembered using the last two eggs for Derek the night before. We needed more. Butter and milk were low, too. Bread for the girls’ sandwiches. Before long, I’d tallied a whole grocery list in my head. If I got half the things on the list, I’d run through the remainder of the CalFresh card’s monthly allowance.

  So maybe no cake.

  I stocked the rest of the lettuce, then the carrots and russet potatoes. I’d just started in on the corn bin when I heard my name.

  Vanessa stood a few feet away, cradling a plastic bag of artichokes. I saw her look me up and down, and took stock of myself: T-shirt, jeans, old sneakers. Apron streaked with water from the produce sprayers. I wished I had my hoodie; I could tug the hood over my head and vanish. Instead, I felt utterly exposed.

  “I didn’t know you worked at Maddie’s.”

  “I, uh, didn’t know you shopped at Maddie’s,” I replied. And I’d never expected to see her here. Most of the hillside folks shopped at the organic grocery a few exits farther up the 1. And Vanessa definitely seemed like hillside people.

  She held up the bag. “Mom has this whole ‘shop local’ thing.”

  “Artichokes,” I blurted. Oh god, Zach.

  She looked at the bag, then laughed. “Yes.”

  She’d caught me up in her tractor beam. I just stood there, not functioning. If she noticed, she was kind enough to hide it.

  “So this is the after-school job,” she said, nodding and looking around. “Must be nice to contribute to the world, right? Sometimes I think I should get a job. I don’t have any skills, though.” Her face brightened. “Hey, I could work here!”

  I just stared at her.

  I could almost see her mentally replay her words. Her face turned red. “I didn’t mean that only unskilled people work—shit. That makes me sound so…”

  “Elitist?” I offered.

  The color drained out of her face. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “Of course not,” I said.

  “You probably think I’m thoughtless.”

  “I mean, it was totally thoughtless,” I said. “But it’s cool.” I tapped my forehead. “See? Just made a mental note: Vanessa is thoughtless. And elitist. Good to go. I never forget.”

  She laughed—but uncertainly. She couldn’t tell if I was being serious. I didn’t let her swing there too long.

  “I’m kidding,” I said. “Just messing with you.”

  Her color came back. She lowered her head, so subtly I wasn’t even sure she knew she’d done it, and let out a sigh of relief. Then she straightened up, wearing a fresh smile. “Did you get my package?”

  Package?

  “I wasn’t sure I had the right locker…”

  The envelope. “That was you?”

  “I confess, I felt a little like a stalker,” she said. “I had to follow you after health class to see which was yours. Which was good, because I’d thought it was, like, the one next to yours.” She wrinkled her nose. “Your locker is funked-up, though.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “I, um—It’s just—” She faltered, then pressed on: “I saw you stop at that booth at the college fair, and then you left so fast.” When I didn’t reply, she added, “Well. Anyway. I grabbed one for you. Just in case. I mean, you’d be a shoo-in, don’t you think? They’d be lucky to get you.”

  I could feel the CalFresh card in my pocket. I thought about the cake I couldn’t afford. The paycheck I turned over entirely to Derek, and how it was never enough. I didn’t want to go down this road with Vanessa. It would only lead to heavy places.

  “So—artichokes,” I said.

  “Mom likes them. They’re so much work, though. I never know if they’re really worth it.”

  I didn’t tell her I’d never had one. “Your mom’s here?”

  She looked around. “Yeah. Somewhere.” She dropped her voice. “We’re having a fight, so I took half the grocery list and made my escape.” She held up an actual torn list. “I’d even rather be shopping with my stupid dad than with her right now.”

  Jesus. Every single conversational road slammed right into a shitty dead end. “A fight?”

  “Mom would classify it as something significantly less … well, significant,” Vanessa said. “A disagreement. But I prefer fight. It’s more visceral.”

  “Or a brawl,” I suggested.

  “A tussle,” she countered.

  “Spat.”

  “Tiff.”

  I’d quickly run out of synonyms. “Um—hoedown?”

  She laughed out loud. “That. I’m keeping that one.”

  “What’s it about?”

  A cloud passed over her face, and I realized I’d just pushed her down an unpleasant conversational path of her own. “The usual,” she said. She almost left it at that, then added, “I have dreams. She wants me to have different ones.” She changed the subject herself. “You’re going to the game, right?”

  I had no idea what she was talking about. “Game?”

  “We’re playing SLO tonight.”

  “Football?”

  “Yes. Throw ball. Catch ball. Hit people. A regular hoedown.”

  “Probably not,” I said, imagining the cake I wouldn’t be baking.

  “Oh. Well, okay.”

  “I have a family thing,” I said.

  “Maybe after your family thing,” she said hopefully. “The games always go late. If you do come, you should look for me.”

  “Look for you.” Wait. Was she asking me…?

  “I mean, you don’t have to.”

  “Vanessa?” The voice came from the coffee aisle. “Vanessa.”

  Vanessa’s face crumpled. “Sigh,” she said, and waved the bag of artichokes. “Putin calls.”

  That made me laugh, and her face lit up again. With a little wave, she disappeared around the corner, and I turned back to the corn bin. Every time I was near her, I felt like a spaceman on reentry. So warm I practically glowed. I could almost hear the lettuce wilt in the case beside me.

  Football, huh. I imagined the scene: Cool metal bleachers. Crisp air. Brown grass, dusted with chalk. Her, sitting beside me. Had she really…?

  No. I shook it off. Of course she hadn’t.

  Besides: Eggs. Butter. Derek. Dinner. The girls, their homework. Bedtime. Mama.

  With a sigh, I emptied the corn into the bin, then gathered the empty cartons from the pallet and carried them to the baling machine in the back room. I glanced down the coffee aisle as I passed.

  Nobody there.

  16

  Vanessa

  I rode to the game with Aaron and Mom. At a
stoplight, I saw Mom’s hand settle on Aaron’s leg. I couldn’t see her face, but she wore her smile with her whole body. It was in the bounce of her hair, the uptilt of her shoulders. Aaron leaned toward her, and they kissed.

  I couldn’t remember any similar moments of affection between Mom and my father. Had my father stifled her? I didn’t think so. I remembered all the nights after he left us. How I’d climb in bed with her, how she’d hold me close against her neck as I cried. Her fingers cradling my head, reassuring me. No. She was affectionate.

  Just not with assholes.

  Not for the first time, I thought that maybe his leaving was exactly what she needed. Now she was with someone who saw that part of her, who echoed it back. Was it what I needed, too? That I didn’t know. All I knew was how easy it was to hate the man who’d left us.

  At the game, Mom and Aaron sat where all the parents did, on the lower rows of the bleachers. Students claimed the uppermost rows, and that’s where I sat with Cece, watching the game. Well, I watched; Cece was fixated on the marching band, where Ada stood in a blue uniform. She was a drummer, but not just any: She was the bass drummer. She made the toy-soldier suit and feathered hat look good and wore the enormous drum as if it weighed nothing. Her shoulders were square, and she moved lightly from one toe to the other, like a runner staying warm. Cece was a melted pat of butter on the bench beside me.

  “I can kinda see it,” I said. “The roller derby thing.”

  “What?”

  “She looks like she could lay a girl out,” I said. I pointed in Ada’s direction. Cece frantically grabbed my arm and pushed it down again.

  “Nessa,” she accused.

  “I bet she’s ripped under that uniform,” I said. “I bet she could take out the quarterback without trying.”

  “Ripped,” Cece breathed, staring again.

  “Oh, Cece.” I tousled her hair playfully. “It’s cute seeing you this way.”

  “I remember when she was the new girl. Freshman year.” Cece sighed. “It was like she came from outer space. Just landed perfectly. She didn’t do that thing you’re supposed to do, where you find one friend and latch on for survival.” She looked at me. “You know, like how I was that one friend for you.”